Carleton University Department of English Winter 2012 ENGL 2005A Theory and Criticism Critical Approaches to Horror and the Fantastic [Prerequisite: 1.0 credit in ENGL at the 1000 level] Time: Monday and Wednesday 11:35-12:55 Location: 517 Southam Hall Professor: B. Johnson Office: 1917DT Telephone: (613) 520-2600 ext. 2331 Office Hours: Tuesdays 2:00-4:00 Email: brian_johnson@carleton.ca Teaching Assistant: Andrew Connolly Email: aconnol1@connect.carleton.ca An introduction to theories and methods of literary analysis through the study of ghost stories, horror fiction, and fantasy. Students will explore some of the major approaches to literary and cultural analysis, including: genre criticism, reader-response criticism, psychoanalysis, feminist and gender criticism, queer theory, Marxism, cultural studies, critical race theory, and postcolonial criticism. As we examine the kinds of questions that each of these approaches helps us to pose about literary texts, we will focus particularly on how such theorizing helps to illuminate the complex relationship between subjectivity, identity, empire, and modernity in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century texts that emphasize fantastic or supernatural elements. Our engagement with literary theory and criticism will also involve an exploration of the disciplinary history of English studies and a look at the debates around the function and value of studying English. Recommended for English Majors.
2 TEXTS (Available at the Campus Bookstore) Note: It is crucial that you purchase the correct editions of Turn of the Screw, Heart of Darkness, and Death and the King s Horseman. These are special casebook editions that contain a wealth of background material and critical essays that form the backbone of the course s reading list. David H. Richter, Falling Into Theory (Bedford/St. Martin s) John Grafton (ed.), Great Ghost Stories (Dover) John Grafton (ed.), Great Horror Stories: Tales by Stoker, Poe, Lovecraft, and Others (Dover) Peter G. Beidler (ed.), The Turn of the Screw by Henry James 3/E (Bedford/St. Martin s) Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber (Penguin) Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (Bedford/St. Martin s) Wole Soyinka, Death and the King s Horseman (Norton Critical Edition) METHOD OF EVALUATION Assignment Description Length Value Due Date Essay #1 A formalist reading of a selected 1500 words 30% Jan. 25 ghost story that demonstrates awareness of the links between structure, theme, motifs, and effect. Topics TBA. Essay #2 A theoretically-informed reading of a selected story. Topics TBA. 1500 words 30% Apr. 4 Final Exam* In two parts: (i) short answer questions based on passages from primary and secondary texts; (ii) essay on theoretical debates. 3 hrs. 40% TBA *The final exam and airplane ticket bookings: The final exam period is from April 11-24, 2012. Since the Registrar s Office does not set exam dates until well into the Winter term, you must plan to be available throughout the entire examination period. Do not purchase plane tickets with departure dates prior to April 24, 2012. Exams will not be rescheduled for students who take on other commitments. COURSE PROCEDURES, GRADES, AND GRADING Basic Preparation: As a matter of course you are expected to: (1) attend the lectures, (2) complete the scheduled readings beforehand, (3) arrive prepared to discuss what you have read, (4) bring the relevant text(s) to class. It is strongly recommended that you take detailed notes on the lectures and keep a record of the passages we discuss in class. Writing in the margins of your books and marking off key passages as you read is also a good idea.
3 Handing In Assignments: Assignments are due in class on the dates indicated. However, they can be handed in without penalty until 8:00 a.m. the morning after the due date, via the English Department s drop box, located on the 18 th floor of Dunton Tower. Please do not slip the assignment under my office door. Emailed or faxed assignments are not acceptable and will not be marked. Keep a back-up copy of every assignment you hand in as an insurance policy in the highly unlikely event that I misplace your work. Confirming Receipt of Assignment: Upon receipt of your assignment, I will enter a note ( R ) in the WebCT gradebook for this class ( My Grades on our WebCT homepage), confirming that I have it. It is your responsibility to check the gradebook the following afternoon to make sure your assignment has been received. In the unlikely event that it has gone astray, email me the completed assignment immediately and bring a hard copy to the next class. Late Penalty: Except in rare cases for which corroborating documentation can be provided (such as a medical emergency or the death of an immediate family member), assignments handed in after the due date will be penalized by 1/3 of a letter grade per day. For example, a B+ essay due on Monday but handed in on Tuesday afternoon would drop to a B. If it wasn t handed in until Wednesday it would receive a B-, etc. Saturday and Sunday count as 1 day each, so if you find yourself in the position of finishing up your late essay on Saturday afternoon and don t want to lose 1/3 of a grade for Sunday too, email me the completed assignment immediately and submit an identical hard copy to the drop box on Monday. Late essays will be graded, but will not receive comments. Extensions: Requests for extension may be granted in some instances, but only for compelling reasons. Any such request must be made in writing or in person to the professor (not one of the TAs) no later than 48 hours prior to the due date of the assignment. Requests for retroactive extensions (i.e. requests made on or after the due date of the essay) will not be considered. Grading Criteria: Grades for term work will be based on insightfulness, originality, focus, organization of ideas, clarity of expression, scholarly rigor, correct use of MLA style, spelling, and grammar. Grade Scale: Letter % GPA A+ 90-100 12 A 85-89 11 A- 80-84 10 B+ 77-79 9 B 73-76 8 B- 70-72 7 C+ 67-69 6 C 63-66 5 C- 60-62 4
4 D+ 57-59 3 D 53-56 2 D- 50-52 1 F 0-49 0 Plagiarism: Plagiarism means passing off someone else s words or ideas as your own or submitting the same work in two different academic contexts (self-plagiarism). The consequences of plagiarism are severe and are issued by the Dean and the University Senate. In order to avoid plagiarism, you must correctly attribute the sources of the ideas you pick up from books, the internet, and other people. For additional information, consult the section on Instructional Offenses in the Undergraduate Calendar. ACCOMMODATION Students with Disabilities: Students with disabilities requiring academic accommodations in this course must register with the Paul Menton Centre for Students with Disabilities for a formal evaluation of disability-related needs. Registered PMC students are required to contact the centre, 613-520-6608, every term to ensure that I receive your letter of accommodation, no later than two weeks before the first assignment is due or the first in-class test/midterm requiring accommodations. If you require accommodation for your formally scheduled exam(s) in this course, please submit your request for accommodation to PMC by March 7, 2012. Religious Observance: To be worked out on individual basis with instructor. Consult Equity Services Website or an Equity Advisor (ext. 5622) for Policy and list of Holy Days (www.carleton.ca/equity). Pregnancy: Contact Equity Services (ext. 5622) to obtain letters of accommodation. SCHEDULE OF TOPICS AND READINGS Note: Any changes to the schedule of readings announced in class and/or posted on WebCT is considered official. Anything in the schedule designated handout will be a short excerpt distributed in class the day we study it. Wed. Jan. 4 Mon. Jan. 9 Introduction to the Course: Asking Questions About Literature Yeats, Leda and the Swan (handout). The Study of English: A Brief, Tumultuous History Richter, Falling Into Theory (FIT 1-13); Eagleton, The Rise of English (FIT 48-59); Margolis, Yeats Leda and the Swan (handout); Cullingford, Yeats and Gender (handout).
5 Wed. Jan. 11 Mon. Jan. 16 Wed. Jan. 18 Mon. Jan. 23 Wed. Jan. 25 Mon. Jan. 30 Wed. Feb. 1 Mon. Feb. 6 Wed. Feb. 8 Genre as Structure: The English Ghost Story M. R. James, The Rose Garden (GGS 71-80); Le Fanu, Dickon the Devil (GGS 23-31); Stoker, The Judge s House (GGS 32-46). Come to class with a list of things these three stories have in common. What are the generic features of the English Ghost Story? Genre as System: The Uncanny, the Fantastic, and the Marvelous Edwards, The Phantom Coach (GGS 1-12); M. R. James, Oh, Whistle, and I ll Come to You, My Lad (GHS 12-27); Todorov, from The Fantastic (handout). On Interpretation: The Phenomenology of Reading Bierce, The Moonlit Road (GGS 53-60); Swain, Bone to His Bone (GGS 81-87); Iser, from The Reading Process (handout). On Interpretation: The Death of the Author? Barthes, The Death of the Author (FIT 253-57); Rabinowitz, Actual Reader and Authorial Reader (FIT 258-67); Dasenbrock, Do We Write the Text We Read? (FIT 278-89). Introduction to Psychoanalytic Criticism Murfin, What is Psychoanalytic Criticism? (ToS 302-19); Freud, from The Uncanny (handout); Frost, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening and Mending Wall (handout). Essay #1 Due The Uncanny Hoffmann, The Sand-Man (online); Poe, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (GHS 165-72); Bennet and Royle, The Uncanny (handout). The Genre(s) of The Turn of the Screw James, The Turn of the Screw. Come prepared to discuss your response to the whole text. What challenges does the story pose to the reader? How do you interpret the ending? Psychoanalysis, Lacan, and Henry James Murfin, A Critical History of Turn of the Screw (ToS 235-70); Zacharias, A Psychoanalytic Perspective (ToS 320-32). Madwomen in the Attic Poetry and Women s Writing (handout); Gilbert and Gubar, The Female Swerve (FIT 290-95); Moi, From Sexual/Textual Politics (FIT 295-301); Cixous, Laugh of the Medusa (handout).
6 Mon. Feb. 13 Wed. Feb. 15 Re-Writing Fairytales: The Sexual Politics of Angela Carter Carter, The Snow Child (91-92); The Bloody Chamber (7-41); The Tiger s Bride (51-67). Gender Studies and Masculinity Seltzer, The Love Master (handout); M. R. James, An Episode of Cathedral History (online); Nesbitt, Man-Size in Marble (online); Carter, The Courtship of Mr. Lyon (41-51). [WINTER BREAK: Feb 20-24] Mon. Feb. 27 Wed. Feb. 29 Mon. Mar. 5 Wed. Mar. 7 Mon. Mar. 12 Wed. Mar. 14 Gender Criticism and Queer Theory Murfin, Gender Criticism and Turn of the Screw (ToS 333-48); Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (FIT 183-88); Walton, A Gender Criticism Perspective (ToS 348-59); M. R. James, Oh, Whistle, and I ll Come to You, My Lad (GHS 12-27) Literary Value: Dispatches from the Canon Wars Smith, Contingencies of Value (FIT 147-52); Bloom, Elegiac Conclusion (FIT 225-33); Gates, Canon-Formation, Literary History, and the Afro-American Tradition (FIT 175-82); Said, The Politics of Knowledge (FIT 188-98). Critical Race Theory Morrison, Black Matters (FIT 309-22); Poe, The Black Cat (online). Marxist Criticism Murfin, What is Marxist Criticism? (ToS 360-75); Robbins, A Marxist Perspective (ToS 376-89); Jacobs, The Monkey s Paw (GHS 54-63). Postcolonial Criticism and Imperial Gothic: Heart of Darkness as Horror Story Conrad, Heart of Darkness. Come prepared to discuss the novel and the problems it poses for reading and interpretation. How would you classify the novel in terms of Todorov s categories (uncanny, fantastic, marvelous)? How does HoD compare to The Monkey s Paw? Interpreting Heart of Darkness: Race, Poetics, Politics Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Achebe, An Image of Africa (FIT 323-33); Harris, The Frontier on Which Heart of Darkness Stands (FIT 334-39).
7 Mon. Mar. 19 Wed. Mar. 21 Mon. Mar. 26 Wed. Mar. 28 Mon. Apr. 2 Wed. Apr. 4 Interpreting Heart of Darkness: Race, Poetics, Politics (cont d) Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Murfin, What is Cultural Criticism? (HoD 258-77); Brantlinger, Heart of Darkness: Anti-Imperialism, Racism, or Impressionism? (HoD 277-98); Rabinowitz, Reader Response, Reader Responsibility: Heart of Darkness and the Politics of Displacement (HoD 131-47). Orientalism, the Stereotype, and Postcolonial Criticism Said, from Orientalism (handout); Porter, from Orientalism and its Problems (handout); Bhabha, from The Other Question (handout); Kipling, The Mark of the Beast (GHS 1-11); Edwards, The Story of Salome (online). Postcolonial Reading: The Poetics and Politics of Cultural Translation Soyinka, Death and the King s Horseman; selected essays from Norton Critical Edition (TBA). Postcolonial Reading: The Poetics and Politics of Cultural Translation Soyinka, Death and the King s Horseman; selected essays from Norton Critical Edition (TBA). Debates and Directions: Between Politics and Aesthetics Nussbaum, The Literary Imagination (FIT 356-65); Levine, Reclaiming the Aesthetic (FIT 378-90). Exam Review Essay #2 Due