Dates

Discussions, Readings, & Exercises

Jan. 8 

Assumptions and Literary Theory
Introduction: Syllabus & Calendar

Readings due before class:

Assignments due before class:
1. Be a committed student and adventurous theoretical reader.

Lee's Lecture Notes:
1. Write-up: assumptions/ideologies (identity laundry lists)--what colors everything we do and think?
2. Look at "The Colonel" (read more about Forche's experiences ; an analysis of the "poem"), and poem 520.
3. Write-up: Interpret "The Colonel"; Critique "The Colonel".
4. Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons and postmodernist writing.
5. My theoretical lenses (queer, feminist, deconstructive, formalistic).

Jan. 13

Psychoanalysis
Readings due before class:
--Read The Great Gatsby half way through (or more)
--Tyson ch. 1 and 2 through p. 34

Assignments due before class:
1. Reading Reaction #1: 600 words--on page one, write a self-reflection about your "natural" reading lenses (identity/ideological laundry lists); on page two, you will likely use one of these lenses to make "natural" comments on some very focused part of The Great Gatsby (but what does "natural" mean?).
2. I advise you to use the vocabulary list to write down the definitions of the words in Tyson ch. 2: Vocabulary list for ch. 2

Lee's Lecture Notes:
1. With and against the grain reading. 
2. Write-up: share, and discuss.
3. Psychoanalytic practice with texts.
4. Vocabulary list for ch. 2
5. Lee'sFreudian and Lacanian Lecture

Psychoanalysis
Readings due before class:
--Finish The Great Gatsby
--Finish Tyson ch. 2
--Packet 1: Dickenson (in class)

Assignments due before class:
1. Reading Reaction #2: 300 words--write summary of your understanding (and non-understanding) of psychoanalytic theory, and or your questions about it.
2. Do an informal freewrite/recording of your dreams for a few days.

Lee's Lecture Notes:
1. With and against the grain reading. 
2. Write-up, share, and discuss.
3. Quiz #1 (take home)--see Jan. 22
4. Psychoanalytic practice with texts and dream symbols.
5. Discuss Lacan and lack (everyone is castrated by the symbolic).
6. Pop culture examples: in Pretty Woman when he snaps the box
6. Some linguistics: slippery connection of signifiers and signifieds.

Jan. 20

Marxist Theory
Readings due before class:
--Tyson ch. 3 through p. 67
--Packet 1: Olsen (can you see it through psychoanalytic lenses AND Marxist lenses?)

Assignments due before class:
1. Reading Reaction #3: write a one page summary of your understanding (and non-understanding) of Marxist theory.
2. Do an informal freewrite about your socioeconomic status and the effect it might have on you--how are you oppressed?  Classist?
3. I highly recommend filling in the ch. 3 vocabulary sheet as you read or right after (look for italicized words).

Lee's Lecture Notes:
1. Write-up, share, and discuss.
2. MLA Documentation from Dianna Hacker (you can also go to the writing lab in LI 208, or visit www.uvu.edu/owl for documentation help and other writing advice and commentary).
2. Marxist practice with texts.
3. Watch clips from The Great Gatsby.
4. Finish psychoanalytical theory--make links with Marxism
5. Consumerism and The Persuaders
5. Environmental impacts and socioeconomics: DDT, Typhus vs. Murder, The Precautionary Principle
6. Popular culture--Sex in the City and consumerism (product placements)
5. Vocabulary list for ch. 3

Jan. 22

Marxist Theory
Readings due before class:
--Finish Tyson ch. 3
--Packet 1: Faulkner, Chopin, Bambara

Assignments due before class:
1. Quiz #1 due (on Psychoanalytic Theory)

Lee's Lecture Notes:
1. Write-up, share, and discuss.
2. Quiz #2
3. Marxist practice with texts.
4. Watching the beginning of The Great Gatsby movie (how does it collude or critique class issues?  how does it differ from the book?)
5. Consumerism, product placements, commodification and The Persuaders ; the city with a second skin of advertising--the superstructure that blinds us; product placements and the commodification of emotions (emotional branding; pseudo-spiritual marketing as superstructure;)
6. Marx's "Alienation of Labor".

Jan. 27

Feminist Theory
Readings due before class:
--Tyson ch. 4 through p. 98
--Packet 1: re-think Chopin?

Assignments due before class:
1. Reading Reaction #4: write a one page summary of your understanding (and non-understanding) of Feminist theory.
2. Quiz #2 (Marxist Theory).
3. I highly recommend filling in the ch. 4 vocabulary sheet as you read or right after (look for italicized words).

Lee's Lecture Notes:
1. Write-up, share, and discuss.
2. Feminist practice with texts.
3. Vocabulary list for ch. 4
4. Discuss good literary analyses (Tyson's structures; close reading).
5. MLA Documentation from Dianna Hacker (you can also go to the writing lab in LI 208, or visit www.uvsc.edu/owl for documentation help and other writing advice and commentary).
6.Deconstruction and language
7.Feminism (my lecture notes) and Marxism; and Psychoanalytic theory; and French Feminism; and gender studies
8. Pop culture and feminism and patriarchy: Killborn and advertising; Big Love--patriarchy on drugs!; Hillary Clinton bashing; Legally Blonde; Star Trek "Mudd's Women"
6. Lee's gyno(centric) lecture style.
7. Close reading and reading reactions

Feb. 3

Feminist Theory
Readings due before class:
--Finish Tyson ch. 4
--Packet 1: Hughes "Thank You Ma'am"

Assignments due before class:
1. 

Lee's Lecture Notes:
1. Write-up, share, and discuss.
2. Quiz #3
3. Feminist practice with texts--the big black mama persona flips some hierarchies.
4. Third Wave Feminism--Lacan, Judith Butler, deconstruction of gender binaries/hierarchies.
4. History of the women's movment; another timeline; 1968 Miss America protest; Is Fashion a Woman's Right?;
5. Some more linguistics: slippery connection of signifiers and signifieds.
6. Intersexed individuals--a "symbol" of ideology being present even in the world of medicine, of sex, which is supposed to be absolute (Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body as literary example)

Feb. 5

New Criticism
Readings due before class:
--Tyson ch. 5 through p. 133
--Packet 1: re-think Bambara, Chopin.

Assignments due before class:
1. Reading Reaction #5: write a one page summary of your understanding (and non-understanding) of New Critical theory.
2. Quiz 3
3. I recommend filling in the Ch. 5 vocabulary sheet as you read or after you read.

Lee's Lecture Notes:
1. Write-up, share, and discuss.
2. New Critical practice with texts
3. Lee's New Critical Lecture Notes.
3. Finish discussing feminist theory; Lady Godiva using sex to get what she wants?.
4. Vocabulary list for ch. 5.
5. How are you a walking deconstruction of gender roles (how do you foreground the constructedness, the normative vs natural stereotypes associated with the signifier of your gender?).
6. Chopin's "new" woman (critique of Victorian chastity and marriage, yet her lover sees her within this framework, maddonna/whore)
6. Drag queens, metrosexuals, and hairy legs...for later.

New Criticism, Reader Response
Readings due before class:
--Finish Tyson ch. 5, Ch. 6 through p. 187
--Packet 2: Hughes "River", Gilman

Assignments due before class:
1.

In-Class Activities TODAY:
1. Write-up, share, and discuss.
2. Langston Hughes and negotiated interpretations; and authority; Lucille Clifton.
3. New Critical analysis of the universal theme of A Rose for Emily.
4. Close reading skills; film analysis
5. Why New Criticism can't claim universal, timeless meanings.
6. Reader Response theories

Feb. 12 

Reader Response
Readings due before class:
--Tyson ch. 6 finish

Assignments due before class:
1.
2. I recommend filling in the Ch. 6 vocabulary sheet as you read or after you read.

In-Class Activities TODAY:
1. Write-up, share, and discuss.
2. Reader Response practice with texts.
3. Watch additional clips from The Great Gatsby.
4. Vocabulary list for ch. 6.
5. Quiz #4&5 (take home)
3. Some subjective/group, and transactional RR and Hayden.
4. Duchamp and the questioning of conventions (shared assumptions)
4. The literary reading community codes of haiku (Social RR).
5. More close reading examples and critiques.
6. The meta qualities of Reader Response (the act of foregrounding how we read and interpret).
7. First impressions.
8. Subjects.Handing back the first mini-analysis--doing more close reading of diction.

Feb.17

Feb. 19 

Feb. 24 

Structuralism
Readings due before class:
--Tyson ch. 7 finish
--Handout: Barthes on Garbo and Wrestling (only read the first number of paragraphs)
--Handout: Scholes on linguistics

Assignments due before class:
1. Reading Reaction #6: 300 words of your understanding or non-understanding of these reader response theories
2. Quiz 4/5 due!
3. I recommend filling out the ch. 7 vocabulary sheet...

In-Class Activities TODAY:
1.Structuralism overviews
2. Pop culture samples and analyses--semiotics and Barthes.
2. Narrative mapping with Genette.
3. Frye's Mythoi and his literary archetypes; and other collective/archetypal Jungian perspectives ; Joseph Campbell's monomyth; hero's journey; Star Wars;
4. Ch. 7 vocabulary.
5. More on Saussure's linguistics.
6. Analyzing films (semiotics).
7. Structures you see in your lives...

Structuralism
Readings due before class:
--Tyson ch. 7 finish
--Packet 2: Porter
--Packet 1: re-think Faulkner and Olsen
--in class? Handout: Gass's "And" essay demonstrating very close reading (what are his ideological or theoretical perspectives?).

Assignments due before class:
1.

In-Class Activities TODAY:
1. Structuralist practice with texts.
2. Analyzing films.
3. Greimas.
4. Culler and S. Fish.
5. Genette and narratology--analyze the beginning of Gatsby based on Order.

Mar. 3

Structuralism
Readings due before class:
--You need to have critically watched your film or read your book by today and decided what theoretical lenses you want to use to write a focused essay about either.  See the syllabus for film and book choices.

Assignments due before class:

In-Class Activities TODAY:
1. Structuralist practice with texts.
2. Analyzing films.
3. Narratology

Mar. 5

Deconstructive Criticism
Readings due before class:
--Tyson ch. 8 through p. 251

Assignments due before class:
1. Reading Reaction 7: write a two-three page Structuralist summary covering all Tyson's mentioned  major areas of structuralism.
2. Of course I recommend filling in the Deconstruction vocab. sheet (but where is it??)

In-Class Activities TODAY:
1. Write-up, share, and discuss.
2. Deconstruction practice with texts.
3. Deconstructive vocabulary ch. 8 (see handout).

Deconstructive Criticism
Readings due before class:
--Tyson ch. 8 finish
--Packet 3: Frost and Blake
--Packet 1: re-think Chopin

Assignments due before class:
1. Essay 1: 900-1500 word (double-spaced) critical essay analyzing/interpreting something focused from your chosen film or book (see the syllabus)--you will choose one of the theories we've discussed thus far to further focus your analysis. Proper use of vocabular and close reading textual evidence will be key. Please use MLA format and citation system.

In-Class Activities TODAY:
1. Write-up, share, and discuss.
2. Quiz #7 (take home)
3. Deconstruction practice with texts.
4. Kilborne as structuralist, feminist, semiotic theorist who does some levels of deconstruction

Mar. 12

Deconstruction
Readings due before class:
--bring packets

Assignments due before class:
1.  Reading Reaction 8: 300 words about Deconstruction theory
2.

In-Class Activities TODAY:
1. New Historicist and Cultural Criticism practice with texts.
2. Ch. 9 Vocabulary.

New Historicism, Cultural Criticism and Deconstruction
Readings due before class:
--Tyson ch. 9 finish

Assignments due before class:
1.  Quiz 6/7...
2. I highly recommend you fill in the ch. 9 vocabulary sheet as you read.

In-Class Activities TODAY:
1. Write-up, share, and discuss.
2. Quiz #8 take home?????????
3. New Historicist and Cultural Criticism practice with texts.

Mar.24

New Historicism and Cultural Criticism
Readings due before class:
--Tyson

Assignments due before class:
1.

In-Class Activities TODAY:
1. Write-up, share, and discuss.
2. New Historicist and Cultural Criticism practice with texts.

Mar. 26

New Historicism and Cultural Criticism
Readings due before class:
--Tyson

Assignments due before class:
1.

In-Class Activities TODAY:
1. Write-up, share, and discuss.
2. Quiz #8 --find it!
3. New Historicist and Cultural Criticism practice with texts.
3. Foucault, power, and culture, history, and discourse
4. Foucault, power, and the Panopticon

Apr. 2

Lesbian, Gay, and Queer Criticism
Readings due before class:
--Tyson ch. 10 finish
--Packet 3: Blake, Cather

Assignments due before class:
1. Reading Reaction 9: write a 600 word New Historical and Cultural Criticism summary based on Tyson, handouts, and lectures (use vocabulary and textual evidence/examples)
2. I strongly recommend you fill in the ch. 10 vocabulary sheet as you read (or create your own).

In-Class Activities TODAY:
1. Write-up, share, and discuss.
2. Quiz #9??
1. Lesbian and Gay theory practice with texts (and the problem of monolithic definitions or lables; 2nd waver's putting sexuality under erasure vs.3rd waver's embracing of sexuality).
2. Ch. 10 vocabulary.
2. "Gender Bending" on reality TV (J. Alexander); Ru Paul's TV show "Drag Race"
3. Hedwig's angry inch (and transitions, borders,, gay, queer); Yitzak's transformation ("Midnight Radio")
4. Grace Jones Slave to the Rhythm (gender, race issues)

Apr. 7-9

Lee at Pop Culture

Lee at Pop Culture, but...
Readings due before class:

Assignments due before class:
1.
2. Use this time to get ahead on ch. 11 and 12, and read your essay 2 book...

Apr. 14 

Queer and African American Criticism
Readings due before class:
--Tyson ch. 11 through p. 380
--Read Judith Bulter handout
--Read the Lilly Tomlin cultural criticism/feminism sample.
--Read the packet of 4 queer writers.
--Have you read your selected book for essay 2?

Assignments due before class:
1. I strongly recommend that you fill in ch. 11/12 vocabulary sheets as you read (or add to them as you see fit).

In-Class Activities TODAY:
1. Queer theory practice with texts.
2. African American criticism practice with texts.
3. Ch. 11/12vocabulary.

Apr. 16 

African American Criticism
Readings due before class:
--Tyson ch. 11 finish
--Packet 3: Faulkner
--Packet 4: O'Connor

Assignments due before class:
1.

In-Class Activities TODAY:
1. Write-up, share, and discuss.
2. Postcolonial and African American criticism practice with texts.

Apr. 21

Postcolonial Criticism
Readings due before class:
--Tyson ch. 12

Assignments due before class:
1.   Reading Reaction 10: 600 words on Lesbian, Gay, and Queer theory (with vocabulary and some quick examples).
2. Sign up for a grade/essay consultation!
3. Complete the course evaluation on UV Link!

In-Class Activities TODAY:
1. Black Arts Movement--Amiri Baraka's 9/11 poem
2. Discuss essay ideas?
2. Answering questions
4. Ugly Betty--a latina star!?

Postcolonial Criticism, and Course Overview, and Essay 2
Readings due before class:
--Tyson ch. 13

Assignments due before class:

1.Come with Questions!!
3. Sign up for a grade/essay consultation!
4. Complete the course evaluation on UV Link!

In-Class Activities TODAY:
1.  Quiz 8-11 discussed in class...

Student Study Day--No Class

1. Reading Reaction 11: 300 words (with vocabulary) about Postcolonial and African American theory.

May 1 

Final Essay Due (900-1500 words on your chosen book from syllabus + specific theoretical position/thesis, vocabulary, and close reading textual evidence)