What You Will Learn in this Course?

All major approaches to English literary theory and analysis.

How to read texts critically and how to understand literature from various theoretical perspective.

How to talk about literature in an informed and sophisticated way.

Literary Theory: An Introduction

• Dates: June 1 to July 31.
• Timings: The class will meet every Saturday from 8:00 am to 10:00 am US Eastern Standard Time.
• Mode: I will teach this class through Google Classroom.
• Bonus: FREE access to my Recorded Udemy Course on Literary Theory.
• Fees: $300 (Discounts available for soft currency countries)

Introduction

This course aims to introduce you to the major critical approaches available for analysis and appreciation of literary works. The terms theory and literature themselves are not free of controversy and have been defined in numerous, often conflicting, ways. This course will apprise you of the major debates in the field of literary theory and their impact on the critical reading of literature in particular and the real-life culture in general.
We will also discuss the politics and poetics that constitute what we perceive as literary and the role of the academy and popular culture in defining and refuting any hard boundaries. In today’s world, literary theory is increasingly in constant embrace with the culture, and this course will take into account the overlaps and the disjunctures between the critical and the cultural theory.
Discussed also will be the role of literature in defining or articulating the world around us, and, in certain cases, the role of literature in normalizing the hegemonic drive of the powerful. Such an approach to literary theory will make us question our own privileged place in the university setting and in  the world and help us articulate personal goals of becoming politically aware and culturally diverse world citizens. Throughout this course, we will attempt to relate our in-class activities to the world of the lived experience beyond the university campus.

Required Texts:
Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. (Provided by the Instructor)
Handouts (Provided by the Instructor)

Weekly Schedule

Week One

Introduction to the course

Class Discussion:

Eagleton: Intro and Chapter 1; Arnold “Functions of ” (695), Ransom (961), Brooks (1213), Wimsatt (1217),  Frye (1301)

Reading for Next Week:

Eagleton: Chapter 2

Brooks (1213), Wimsatt (1217), Ransom (961), Frye (1301); Arnold

Week Two

Class Discussion:

Eagleton: Chapter 2

Brooks (1213), Wimsatt (1217), Ransom (961), Frye (1301); Arnold

Reading for Next Week:

Eagleton Chapter 3

Saussure (Whole selection 845); Jakobson (Whole Selection 1141)

Week Three

Class Discussion:

Eagleton Chapter 3

Saussure (Whole selection 845); Jakobson (Whole Selection 1141)

Reading for Next Week:

Eagleton, Chapter 4

Althusser (1332); Barthes (1316);Foucault (1469)  Derrida (1680)

Week Four

Class Discussion:

Eagleton, Chapter 4

Althusser (1332); Barthes (1316);Foucault (1469)  Derrida (1680)

Reading for Next Week:

Eagleton, Chapter 5

Freud (807); Lacan (1156); Butler (2536); Kristeva (2067); Cixous (1938); Zizek (2402)

Week Five

Class Discussion:

Eagleton, Chapter 5

Freud (807); Lacan (1156); Butler (2536); Kristeva (2067); Cixous (1938); Zizek (2402)

Reading for Next Week:

Eagleton, Conclusion and Afterword

Marx (647); Derrida “Specters of Marx (1734); Horkheimer and Adorno (1107)

Week Six

Class Discussion:

Eagleton, Conclusion and Afterword

Marx (647); Derrida “Specters of Marx (1734); Horkheimer and Adorno (1107)

Reading for Next Week:

Said (1861); Spivak (2110); Bhabha (2351); Gates Jr (2427); Hooks (2507)

Week Seven

Class Discussion:

Said (1861); Spivak (2110); Bhabha (2351); Gates Jr (2427); Hooks (2507)

Reading for Next Week:

Achebe (1610); Anderson (1913); Fanon (1437); Hardt and Negri (2615)

Anzaldua (2096);  Rich (1588); Rubin (2373); Sedgwick (2464)

Week Eight

Class Discussion:

Achebe (1610); Anderson (1913); Fanon (1437); Hardt and Negri (2615)

Anzaldua (2096);  Rich (1588); Rubin (2373); Sedgwick (2464)

Course Conclusion!

What you will Learn in this Course?

A clear discussion of postcolonialism as a concept and as a field of study.

Introduction to some major postcolonial authors.

Introduction to some major postcolonial theorists.

Application of these ideas and this knowledge to the real-life situations.

Introduction

This course introduces you to some of the major world/postcolonial authors. The postcolonial cultural production can be roughly divided into three overlapping phases: the works produced during the contact phase, the native responses to colonialism, and the postcolonial cultural production both from the global periphery and the diasporic authors. Postcolonialism is a dynamic, expansive, and contested field of literary study involving a high degree of multidisciplinarity and theoretical innovation. This course will also introduce you to the early and current debates of the field and possibilities of the field in the future. We will pay special attention to the current state of high capital and neoliberal globalization and the artistic and critical responses being offered in resistance. We will read these texts of the global periphery not simply as crystallized versions of the cultures that they attempt to represent, but also use them as points of departure into a study of the larger power structures within which these texts are produced. In doing so we will also question our own place and privileged location within the academy and imagine the possibilities of making our work commensurate with the acts of semiotic and material resistance being offered to the reigning power structures by the cultures of the global south in the spirit of what Gramsci describes as the organic intellectuals. 

Using printed texts and film, this course will introduce you to the current global negotiation of power, the articulation of native resistance to the imperatives of globalization, and the native attempts at achieving social justice. In doing so we will also touch upon the role of the nation-state within the current climate of neoliberal globalization and the global war on terror, the politics of the diasporic cultural production, and the possibilities of rhizomatic global popular alliances.

Required Texts:

Class Reader (To be provided by the Instructor)

Handouts (Provided by the Instructor)

Weekly Schedule 

Week One

Introduction to the course and Class Discussion on the following:

• Young: Intro to Postcolonialism
• Video: Postcolonialism

New Terms: Center/periphery, Colonialism, Imperialism, Third World

Readings for Next Week (Available under the Digital Library)

McClintock, Shohat, Dirlik

Week Two

New Terms: Binarism, Othering, Going native

Class Discussion: McClintock, Shohat, Dirlik

Readings for the Next Week:

Achebe, “An Image of Africa,” (101-107), Frantz Fanon, “ Black Skin White Masks,” (138-140) “From Wretched of the Earth” (107-110).

Aime Cesaire, “A Tempest,” (111), Chinweizu, “Decolonizing the . . .” (114), Ngugi “Creating space . . .” (117-121)

Week Three

Class Discussion:

Achebe, “An Image of Africa,” (101-107), Frantz Fanon, “ Black Skin White Masks,” (138-140) “From Wretched of the Earth” (107-110).

Aime Cesaire, “A Tempest,” (111), Chinweizu, “Decolonizing the . . .” (114), Ngugi “Creating space . . .” (117-121)

New Terms: Diaspora, Discourse

Readings for the Next Week:

P’bitek (167), Head, “The Deep River,” (286)

Mahfouz, “Zaabalawi,” (803), Rifaat, “My World of the Unknown,” (247), Darwish, “Identity Card (136)

Week Four

Class Discussion:

P’bitek (167), Head, “The Deep River,” (286)

Mahfouz, “Zaabalawi,” (803), Rifaat, “My World of the Unknown,” (247), Darwish, “Identity Card (136)

New Terms: Native, Nativism, Authenticity, Social Darwinism

New Terms: Authenticity, Social Darwinism, Subaltern, Appropriation, Abrogation

Readings for Next Week:

Mukherjee, “A Wife’s Story,” (306), Hossain, “Sultana’s Dream,” (122).

Narayan, “A Horse and Two Goats,” (143), Naipaul, “Our Universal Civilization,” (304).

Week Five

Class Discussion:

Mukherjee, “A Wife’s Story,” (306), Hossain, “Sultana’s Dream,” (122).

Narayan, “A Horse and Two Goats,” (143), Naipaul, “Our Universal Civilization,” (304).

New terms: Agency, Mimicry, Magic Realism

Readings for the Next Week:

Marquez, “ A Very Old Man . . .” (174), Fuentes, “The Prisoner of . . .” (178).

Rushdie “The Courter” (289), Desai “The Farewell Party” (278), Cisneros “Never Marry a Mexican” (312)

Week Six

Class Discussion:

Marquez, “ A Very Old Man . . .” (174), Fuentes, “The Prisoner of . . .” (178).

Rushdie “The Courter” (289), Desai “The Farewell Party” (278), Cisneros “Never Marry a Mexican” (312)

New Terms: Neoimperialism, Militarization, Corporatization.

Readings for the Next Week: Things Fall Apart

Week Seven

Class Discussion

Things Fall Apart

Week Eight
Class discussion:

Things Fall Apart

Course Wrap up!