English 250: Critical Practices

Week I:

M: Introductions

Focus on the Text: New Criticism/Formalism

T: Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily” (xerox); 1p. essay before reading criticism: due at class (keep a copy)
Staton, Introduction (1-11); Intro to “New Criticism” (12); Brooks and Warren, (Staton, 53); GL: “Formalism”, “Genre”, “Symbol”.
Problematizing formalism: “Representation” (x)

W: Dickinson, “My Life Had Stood”: Anderson (Staton, 13).
Yeats, “Sailing to Byzantium”: Brooks (Staton, 17), Perloff (Staton, 21);
“Figurative Language” (x); GL: “Metaphor”; Provocateurs (Staton, 60)

“External” Codes: History/Class/Ethnicity

Th: “What is the New Historicism?” (HD, 221-32); McGann, “The Problem of Historical Method” (Staton, 202); Yeats historical criticism: Staton, 197, 199; “Culture” (x)

F: Knight, “The Idea of Ancestry” (x); Gates, “The Education of Little Tree” (x); Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” (x); Muller (Staton, 123); GL: “Authorial Intention”

Week II:

M: Due at 11 am: 4 pp. paper (1000 words) on O’Connor and New Critical vs. historical criticism
Paper topic: Four parts to the assignment: Discuss "A Good Man is Hard to Find":
Part I: Headnote: cite a few words or sentences as your focus on a key problem, idea.
Part II: Use the historical approach of Muller; and then
Part III: become the a-historical New Critic to analyze your text.
Part IV: Then compare these approaches, their enabling assumptions, and evaluate them: what, for example, did you find useful, what was limiting? What kinds of readings do these assumptions lead to?

Politics of Value

T: “Canon” (x); Barthes, “Striptease” (Staton, 179); “Interpretation” (x); GL: “canon”, “cultural criticism,” “hegemony”.
Identify one “canonical” text that you think shouldn’t be, and one that isn’t that should (and be ready to explain why).

Feminisms

W: “Gender” (x); Fetterley (Staton, 270); Rich on Emily Dickinson (Staton, 247).
Dinesen, “The Blank Page” (x), and Gubar essay on women's writing and Dinesen (x)

Psychoanalysis

Th: Staton, 279; “What is Psychoanalytic Criticism?” (TS, 207)
Freud: “The Uncanny” (x); Bloom on Yeats (Staton, 312).
Jung: Gelpi on Dickinson (Staton, 98)
Lacan: Staton, 320-24; GL: “Phallus” / Provocateurs: Staton, 386

Reader Response

F: Tefs and Crosman (Staton, 352, 357); “What is Reader Response Criticism?” (TS, 152); GL: “Affective Fallacy” / Provocateurs (Staton, 386)

Week III:

Film

M: Hitchcock, Rear Window (1954, 113m); show times to be arranged on the weekend
Wood, ch. 1 of America at the Movies (x); Modleski on Rear Window (x)

T: 1000 word essay: Feminist, Psychoanalytic, or Reader Reponse approach to Rear Window: Due 12 noon.
As before, include at the end of the essay a definition, discussion, and evaluation of your method, citing course sources (no credit without meaningful use of these sources)

W: Off to read James, begin to prepare oral reports

Structuralism and Post-Structuralism

Th: GL: “Structuralism”; Staton notes, 133, 388, 390; Hebdige (Staton, 182); Derrida (Staton, 390); “What is Deconstruction?” (TS, 179)

Deconstruction and its Critics

F: Johnson, “Writing” (x); “Ideology” (x). Provocateurs (Staton, 423)
Discuss James / pm: group conferences?

Week IV:

M: Theory in Practice: Approaches to James: Class Groups:
1. New (and Old?) Historical Approaches
2. Psychoanalytic
3. Reader Response
4. Feminist and Gender Studies
5. Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction

Groups will meet on their own to prepare a class presentation of a reading of James through their approach. The goal: to make clear the strengths, weaknesses, and basic assumptions of each interpretative approach.

Presentations may be as inventive as the group wishes, as long as the content remains helpful to the class. Length: 30-45 minutes: be focussed; then there will be time for questions and follow-up discussion. One criterion for evaluation will be participation by all group members.

T: Review for final exam

W: Final Exam. Note: One part of your exam will be an evaluation of the “method” of your first-day essay (so keep a copy)

1. Oral Grades: a) You will receive an individual grade for your final group presentation. It is important that each member of your group contributes fairly to their group, both before and during the class presentation. b) Helpful class participation can bring your course grade up by as much as half a grade.

2. Grading: I expect clear, subtle writing, with sound argumentation. Correct writing--spelling, grammar--matter too. You may rewrite the first paper. Hand in the original with the rewrite; your new grade takes the first one into account. Papers will be lowered one half grade for each day they are late (unless you have an acceptable excuse).
Note: You must do all the assignments in order to receive credit for the class.
Grade weights: First essay: 1/4
Second essay: 1/4
Final exam: 3/8
Group presentation grade: 1/8 (guidelines to come)
Lest you think grading is a science, these percentages are approximate. Also, trends upward can really help.

3. Attendance: I expect you to be in class, unless you have a bona fide reason to be absent (death in the family, your death, nuclear war). Unexplained absences will lower your grade. If you are absent, you owe me a 1-page discussion paper on the day’s work.

4. Office Hours: M: 3:00-4:30 pm; W: 12-1:30 pm Armstrong 253, x 6508. Other times by arrangement. Call me at home, 634-5136, before 9 pm.

Paper topics: Each paper and presentation is an exercise in applying theories we survey. Pay careful attention to the vocabulary associated with each approac h, its particular concerns and assumptions, the knowledge it makes possible. Also, notice the blind-spots of each theory: each one has gaps, insufficiencies, difficulties in application. Try to see the problems and the potential of each of these sometimes new and strange approaches.

Read Flannery O’Connor’s story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”

Also, read the essay in Staton by Gilbert Muller, “Flannery O’Connor and the Catholic Grotesque” (S, 123).

Then, write an essay about one of the questions/problems below, focussing on a small piece of O’Connor’s story (a paragraph, a scene, key images). Your essay should have four parts: I would prefer that you number each one (this strategy also minimizes transition problems).

I. Headnote: the piece of text (sentence, key images) from O’Connor that you will read closely as the foundation of your essay. Keep this sample quite small.

II. Interpret the question/problem based upon your historical essay (Muller). Note: You must use Muller’s historical information (or what he claims to be such) to interpret the text.

III. Approach the question as a New Critic would.

IV. Finally, compare these two approaches (historical and New Critical), with their enabling assumptions, and evaluate them. I recommend two phases: one, how do the New Critic and historical critic each critique the other approach? Two, what points to do you agree with, or disagree with? Why?

Some key questions about Flannery O’Connor:

1. O’Connor’s irony is very controversial. How do you decide how you’re supposed to view the grandmother and the Misfit? I’ve had students argue the grandmother is a saint, or that she is pathetically deluded. Argue a case for interpreting either character.

2. O’Connor’s treatment of religious faith is also controversial. How do you decide on the story’s approach to Christianity or faith and redemption? Argue a case for the story’s treatment of guilt, or “fallen” human nature. Is there any grace in this story, especially in the Christian sense? If the Misfit is the agent of enlightenment, how do we read his apparently anti-Christian role?

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