English H195A

Other Readings and Media

Rivkin, Julie and Ryan, Michael, eds.: Literary Theory: An Anthology; Morrison, Toni: The Bluest Eye

Description

The fall semester of this section of the honors course will be devoted to a rigorous examination of the theoretical paradigms that cast strong influences on contemporary critical practices. (Students averse to theory might not be happy in this section.) While the course will try to do justice to diverse theoretical approaches, my own theoretical preoccupation lies in the areas dealing with Minority Discourse, Postcolonialism, socio-political and psychoanalytic approaches to literature and culture. We will use Toni Morrison�s Bluest Eye as the single literary text on which to test various theoretical paradigms. During the fall each student will be expected to present a series of oral reports on the theoretical readings and to write three short papers designed to define his/her thesis topic with progressive clarity and precision. In this course students are entirely free to devise and complete a thesis of their own choosing . With the help of the instructor, students will be asked to define and frame their thesis topic by the end of the fall semester. The spring semester will then be conducted like a tutorial, in the course of which the students will complete their research and write their thesis.