English 203

Book List

Amis, Kingsley: Lucky Jim; Barnes, Julian: The Sense of an Ending; Barthes, Roland: A Lover's Discourse; Cole, Teju: Open City; DeLillo, Don: White Noise; Eugenides, Jeffrey: The Marriage Plot; Forster, E.M.: Aspects of the Novel; Kermode, Frank: The Sense of an Ending; Lodge, David: The Campus Trilogy; Lukacs, Gyorgy: The Theory of the Novel; McGurl, Mark: The Program Era; Nabokov, Vladimir: Pale Fire; Scarry, Elaine: On Beauty and Being Just; Smith, Zadie: On Beauty;

Recommended: Hale, Dorothy: The Novel 1900-2000; Richardson, Brian: Narrative Dynamics

Description

This course considers the relationship between the campus, the novel, and literary theory in the West. Accordingly, we will discuss theories of the novel, read some post-war British and American “campus novels,” consider the campus as a locus for academic and creative work, and analyze a set of contemporary British and American novels that directly address literary criticism or theory (“theory novels”). The seminar thus overlays a theoretical lens, a historical lens, and an aesthetic lens to refract our understanding of a dynamic period of engagement between campus life, creative writing, and literary analysis.

This course satisfies the Group 5 (20th Century) requirement.