Anne H. Stevens

Satire and Society

Tuesday/Thursday 3:00-4:30                         

Professor Anne H. Stevens

e-mail: [email protected]

office phone: 920-424-1302

Office Hours: by appointment

Room 128, Swart Hall

This course will examine the role of satire in commenting upon social and political issues. From antiquity to the present day, satirists have used humor, irony, parody, and other tools to call attention to political corruption, injustice, and hypocrisy. In this class we will study some memorable works of verbal and visual satire while also drawing upon a range of contemporary examples.

 Having completed HNRS 175, students will be able to:  

Access the resources and facilities available to them within the university community in general and the Honors College in particular, as a means of promoting success in their scholarly and extracurricular pursuits

Understand the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to both a university education and engaged citizenship 

Think critically about central issues related to the course theme from an interdisciplinary perspective, recognizing the unique contributions afforded by the course instructors’ diverse disciplinary purviews

Elaborate their interdisciplinary insights in writing that is clear, correct, ethical, and purposeful.

 In this particular section of HNRS 175, you will

read a variety of satirical works and criticism related to satire from antiquity to the present day.

learn some key terms for discussing the techniques and genres of satire.

develop skills needed to understand and analyze literary texts and to make connections among different authors, genres, and literary movements

practice writing about satirical texts through informal response papers and a longer paper

lead a class discussion, presenting a summary of an outside text and getting others involved in the conversation.

Quest: The University Studies Program (USP):

This course satisfies your Quest 1 requirement. (Honors 275 will satisfy your Quest 2 and Quest 3 requirements.) As you take these Quest courses, you will encounter Signature Questions:

How do people understand and engage in community life?

How do people understand and create a more sustainable world?

How do people understand and bridge cultural differences?

We will focus on the first signature question in this course.

Required Texts (available at bookstore):

            Jonathan Swift, Major Works

            Alissa Nutting, Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls

            Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One           

Additional readings posted on Canvas          

Disclaimer about readings: Many of the readings this semester will depict sexual situations, bodily functions, grotesque scenarios, and offensive language. It comes with the satirical territory. If you have any concerns about any of the readings please let me know.

Course requirements:  Presentation, 10 short response papers, 2-3 page film paper, 4-6 page longer paper, and in-class participation. Grading will be weighted as follows: presentation = 20%, responses = 20%, film paper = 20%, longer paper = 25%, participation = 15%.

Response papers: You are required to turn in ten response papers over the course of the semester. Response papers are brief but thoughtful reactions to the day’s materials. You shouldn’t summarize the reading or provide background information; rather, you should focus on a particular passage you found interesting, a question that the reading raised, a way to connect one or more of the readings, or some other narrowly focused question or problem that you think will help to generate class discussion. These should be a paragraph or so in length. I will comment on these responses but will not assign them a letter grade. I will only accept response papers on the day’s reading if you are present in class that day. No late responses and no turning in a response if you didn’t come to class – that’s why you only have to do ten of them.

Presentation: Each of you will be expected to present to the class on a work of satire outside of the syllabus. You can choose whatever you want, provided you can make a good case that the work you’re presenting is satirical. You could pick a text from any period of history and any national tradition or another work by one of the authors we’re reading. You could also pick a nonliterary work, something from contemporary culture, such as a film, a work of journalism, a work of visual art, a website, or an episode of a TV show. Because this is an election year, you shouldn’t have trouble finding examples. If appropriate you should use visual aids including video clips. In your presentation, you should briefly describe the work you have chosen and why you have chosen it. You should explain why you consider it to be satire, what the objects of its satire are, what sort of effects it is trying to produce, how it attempts to achieve those effects, and whether or not you think the work is successful. Talk about the work in relation to the critical readings, if appropriate.

Film paper: You must view one satiric film (I have provided links to a variety of trailers on Canvas, or you can pick something else) and write a 2-3 page review. Your review should address the ways in which the film uses satiric techniques and whether or not they are successful.

Final paper: At the end of the semester you must complete an 4-6 page paper on a topic of your choosing but related to the course topic. You must submit a paragraph describing your topic in class by November 26. I will hand out more information about this assignment later in the semester.

Other class policies:

Class attendance is mandatory. You are allowed three unexcused absences; more than that will result in a reduced grade. If you know you will miss class because of travel, illness, or another reason you must let me know ahead of the class time (via email is fine) for it to count as excused.

Over the course of the semester, there may be extra credit opportunities for attending and writing a short response to university events such as lectures and readings.

The Importance of Academic Integrity

Academic integrity is essential to the mission of The Honors College.  It requires that Honors students maintain high standards and conduct their work with honesty.  It is only within a framework of academic honesty that students can fulfill their intellectual promise and develop a range of abilities and talents needed to become critical thinkers, problem solvers, and community leaders. 

The Honor Pledge

As a reminder of the importance of academic integrity, Honors students are required to write and sign the following pledge on all assignments:

“On my Honor, I have neither given nor received any unauthorized aid on this [exam/paper/etc.]”

The pledge serves as a reminder that the assignment is covered under the Honors Integrity Policy and that the work put forward is expected to be representative of one’s own ideas and efforts.

Sanctions

In cases in which it is clear that an Honors student has violated the Honors Integrity Policy, the student may be removed from The Honors College.

In cases in which an Honors student accused of violating the Honors Integrity Policy wishes to appeal, the matter will be subject the University’s academic misconduct process as detailed in Chapter UWS 14: Student Academic Disciplinary Procedures.

Based on the outcome of a student appeal, The Honors College may institute additional sanctions up to and including removal from The Honors College.

Schedule of readings and assignments:

September 5: introduction to course

September 10: Gilbert Highet, introduction to The Anatomy of Satire; Horace, satires 1.1, 1.10, 2.1

September 12: Northrop Frye, “The Nature of Satire”; Juvenal, satires 1, 10

September 17: Lucian, A True Story

September 19: no class

September 24: Swift, The Battle of the Books; Wayne C. Booth, “Is It Ironic?” from A Rhetoric of Irony

September 26: Swift, “A Modest Proposal,” Wayne C. Booth, “Essays, Satires, Parody” from A Rhetoric of Irony

October 1: Swift, “A Description of a City Shower,” “Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift,” “A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed”; Rochester, “A Satyr Against Reason and Mankind”; Dorothy Parker, selections

October 3: Waugh, The Loved One

October 8: Waugh, The Loved One

October 10: Waugh, The Loved One (watch movie)

October 15: Gray, Jones, and Thompson, introduction to Satire TV; Stephen Colbert White House Correspondents Dinner

October 17: Satiric TV (Veep, Ziwe)

October 22, 24: Alissa Nutting, Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls

October 29: Day on visual art (Hogarth, Komar & Melamid, political cartoons)

October 31: Day on other media (music, internet, etc). Listen to Malcolm Gladwell, "The Satire Paradox".

November 5: Election Day; film paper due

November 7: no class

November 12: Day on activism: watch some of The Yes Men

November 14: no class, reading day

November 19, 21: George Saunders, “Sea Oak,” “In Persuasion Nation,” “The Tenth of December”

November 26: Percival Everett, “The Appropriation of Cultures”; submit paper topics

November 28: Thanksgiving holiday

December 3, 5: Simon Rich, “Sell Out”

December 10: Study week

ENG 427B/627B/WMST 427B Gender and Literature: Queer Literature and Theory

Spring 2019

Tuesday/Thursday 4:00-5:15 pm, CBC C227

Professor Anne H. Stevens

Course description: This course will explore the history of sexuality through the study of literary, theoretical, and cinematic works. Because of the nature of the topic you will be reading and viewing some sexually explicit material. If this will cause you discomfort this is probably not the course for you.

Course goals: In this course, you will

·     Read a range of literary texts drawn from the genres of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry

·     View two cinematic works, analyzing them as cultural and aesthetic objects

·     Sample works by key figures in the field of queer theory

·     Write about literary, cinematic, and theoretical texts both formally informally, responding to the day’s reading in a more informal manner and constructing longer papers that present arguments with clear thesis statements

·     Conduct an oral presentation on an area of your choice related to queer representation

Required texts: (available at bookstore, other editions including electronic permitted)

           E. M. Forster, Maurice: A Novel(written 1914, published 1971)

           Patricia Highsmith, The Price of Salt(1952)

           James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room(1956)

           Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant(1968)

           Jeanette Winterson, The Daylight Gate(2012)

           Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts(2015)

           Danez Smith, Don’t Call Us Dead(2017)

Theoretical readings available on Web Campus.

Course requirements: This is an upper-division, reading and writing intensive course. There are no exams. Instead, you will be expected to do a lot of reading, produce shorter and longer pieces of writing, do a presentation, and participate in class discussions.

Response papers:Over the course of the semester you should submit ten response papers. Response papers are brief but thoughtful reactions to the day’s reading. In them you should not summarize or provide background material; rather, you should focus on a particular passage that interested you, raise a question derived from the reading, make connections between the creative and the theoretical works we’re reading, or in some other way say something intelligent and interesting that will help to generate class discussion. These should be about a page in length and can be printed, hand-written, or submitted via Web Campus. I will comment on your responses but not assign them a letter grade.

Presentations:Each of you will be expected to present to the class on a queer work from outside the syllabus. You can choose whatever you would like, as long as you can make a good case that the work you’re presenting engages with issues of queer representation. You can present on another theorist we’re not reading, another work by a theorist we are reading, a film, work of visual art, TV series, or anything else. In your presentation, you should briefly describe the work you have chosen and why you have chosen it. If applicable you should connect the work to the other works we’re reading for the class. You don’t need to produce a Powerpoint but should feel free to show images and clips if applicable.

Longer papers: You will be expected to do two longer papers of around five to seven pages each, each on a different text. Your longer papers can, but do not have to, grow out of your shorter response papers and/or presentation. Deadlines for each paper are given in the weekly schedule below. Your papers should have a clear and debatable thesis statement, paragraphs that begin with topic sentences that relate back to your thesis, clear transitions from one topic to the next, and an emphasis on critical analysis rather than summary. For the first paper you will have the option to rewrite if you choose, and the grade of the rewrite will be averaged with the original grade. Consult with me or use your response papers as a way to develop topics. Possible types of papers include close reading of a single text, comparison of two or more texts, analysis of a work of adaptation, application of a theoretical lens to one or more texts, exploring the historical and cultural context surrounding a text, and other possibilities.

Capstone/grad student option:Graduate students will write one 12-15 page paper in place of the two 5-7 page papers. Any other student wishing to produce a longer piece of researched writing may also choose to write one longer paper instead of the two. Longer papers must incorporate secondary reading outside the syllabus (at least 3 books/articles). Undergraduates wishing to write the longer paper should let me know by the third week of the semester.

Grading:Class attendance is mandatory, and more than three unexcused absences will result in a reduced grade. Grading will be weighted as follows: class participation (including attendance) 10%, presentation 20%, response papers 20%, two longer papers 25% each or capstone paper 50%. Late papers will automatically be reduced by a full letter grade. Please note that to succeed in this class you must be self-motivated and keep up with the reading.

Provost policies regarding transparency, religious holidays, disabilities, etc. can be found on Web Campus.

Course schedule (all readings other than 7 course books found on Web Campus):

January 22: introduction to course

January 24: selections from Plato, Republic; John Cleland,Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure; and Marcel Proust, Sodom and Gomorrah

January 29: Michel Foucault, interviews; Alan Sinfield, from The Wilde Century

January 31: E. M. Forster, Maurice, chap. 1-10

February 5: Forster, Maurice, chap. 11-34

February 7: Forster, Maurice, chap. 35-end

February 12: Patricia Highsmith, The Price of Salt, chap. 1-7

February 14: Field trip to Barrick Museum to tour the Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A. exhibit

February 19: Highsmith, The Price of Salt, chap. 8-16

February 21: Highsmith, The Price of Salt, chap. 17-end + begin viewing Carol

February 26: Finish viewing Carol

February 28: James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room, part 1

March 5: Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room, part 2; paper one due (on or before this date)

March 7: Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant, chap. 1-10

March 12: Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant, chap. 11-19

March 14: Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant, chap. 20-end

SPRING BREAK

March 26: selections by Adrienne Rich and Audre Lorde

March 28: selection by Gloria Anzadúa

April 2: selections by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

April 4: selection by Judith Butler

April 9: Jeanette Winterson, The Daylight Gate, first half

April 11: Winterson, The Daylight Gate, second half

April 16: Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts, first half

April 18: Nelson, The Argonauts, second half

April 23: selections from Jack Halberstam and Trans Bodies, Trans Selves

April 25: Danez Smith, Don’t Call Us Dead, first half

April 30: Smith, Don’t Call Us Dead, second half

May 2: begin watching Moonlight

May 7: finish Moonlight, class wrap-up

Tuesdays 4:00-6:45 pm                                

Professor Anne H. Stevens, Department of English

This course is designed to introduce graduate students to some of the major texts within the long and complex tradition of literary theory and criticism. In a semester, the task is nearly impossible. The best I can hope to do is to introduce you to a wide range of approaches so that you can explore further on your own. The course is divided into four units of unequal length: 1) Foundations 2) Formalism, structuralism, poststructuralism 3) Race, class, gender, sexuality, and 4) Books, readers, history. Within these units we will be reading a mixture of entire books, journal articles, and extracts from books. Some of these readings you have almost certainly encountered before while others will likely be new to you. I have also ordered from the bookstore but am not requiring my companion book, for students who want a broad historical overview (from antiquity to the present). We will cover some historical context in class but our main focus will be on reading and understanding the primary texts.

Required Texts: (available at the bookstore or elsewhere)

G. W. F. Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of History

Karl Marx, The Portable Karl Marx

Roland Barthes, S/Z

Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks

Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Part 1

Rita Felski, The Limits of Critique

Other readings available through Web Campus or via email for auditors.

 Optional Text: Anne H. Stevens, Literary Theory and Criticism: An Introduction

Course requirements for enrolled students: At least three 100-200 word blog posts, three initial responses to another student’s post, and a 2000-4000 word final reflection paper. Active participation in class discussion both in class and online.

Course requirements for auditors and passers-by: All are welcome to sit in on the class; you can choose your own level of engagement. Any auditors or others who wish to are encouraged to post and comment on the course blog and to participate in class discussion. I will make the Web Campus readings available via email for those who are interested.

The course blog: I have set up a WordPress blog for this course at eng703.wordpress.com. I will enable all registered students and auditors access as blog “authors.” This means you will be able to create posts, upload files, and moderate comments on your own posts. You will not be able to delete other people’s posts or the site itself. Each registered student must commit to writing three 100-200 word posts over the course of the semester and three initial responses to someone else’s post (I will pass around a sign-up sheet on the first day). Auditors are encouraged but not required to post and to respond to others’ posts.

Your posts should relate to the week’s reading and should be posted by 5:00pm on the Sunday before class, thus allowing enough time for the respondent to post and for others to comment prior to class. These posts will serve to begin our course discussion each week, and the discussion can continue online after class is over. Your posts can take a range of forms but should not be mere summary of the reading. Instead, they should focus on a particular passage, term, or question; connect the reading to something else either within or outside the class; use examples to clarify a theoretical point; etc. The designated first respondent should engage with the post and continue the conversation while remaining civil. Keep the genre of the blog post in mind as you write: images and links are encouraged, as are pithy provocations; detailed textual analysis is better reserved for classroom discussion.

Reflection paper: At the end of the semester, all registered students must write a 2000-4000 word essay that reflects upon the readings for the course and your own identity as a literary theorist. We’ll talk more as the semester goes on about the kinds of things you should and shouldn’t include in this paper. Your first task is to try to understand the sometimes quite difficult texts we’ll be reading. Your next task is to synthesize the readings, to find points of agreement and disagreement, to understand the range of approaches to a single topic. The first two tasks will constitute our main focus in the class discussion and course blog. Your third task, and the one that will form the substance of this final piece of writing, is to begin to internalize the theoretical approaches you have read, adopting and transforming concepts and methodologies that best suit your identity as a critic.

Schedule:

January 16: first day of class. Introduction, sign up for blog postings.

1 Foundations

January 23: G. W. F. Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of History

January 30: Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach, from A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, and from The German Ideology, pp. 155-83; from The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte pp. 287-323; from Capital pp. 432-503.

February 6: Sigmund Freud, “Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming”; “Remembering, Repeating, and Working-Through”; “The ‘Uncanny’”; “A Note Upon the ‘Mystic Writing-Pad”

2 Formalism, structuralism, poststructuralism

February 13: Ferdinand de Saussure, from Course in General Linguistics; Friedrich Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense”; Claude Lévi-Strauss, “The Structural Study of Myth”; Tzvetan Todorov, “Some Approaches to Russian Formalism”

February 20: W. K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley, “The Intentional Fallacy”’; W. K. Wimsatt, “The Chicago Critics”; R. S. Crane, introduction to Critics and Criticism; Jacques Derrida, “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences”

February 27: Roland Barthes, S/Z

3 Race, class, gender, sexuality

March 6: Simone de Beauvoir, from The Second Sex; Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History”; Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”; Raymond Williams, “Dominant, Emergent, and Residual”

March 13: Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks

March 20: Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality

April 3: Adrienne Rich, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence”; Hélène Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa”; Julia Kristeva, “Approaching Abjection”  

April 10: Gloria Anzaldúa, from Borderlands/La Frontera; Judith Butler, from Gender Trouble; Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, from Epistemology of the Closet; bell hooks, from Ain’t I a Woman

4 Books, readers, history

April 17: Stanley Fish, “Interpreting the Variorum”; Hans Robert Jauss, “Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory”; Pierre Bourdieu, from Rules of Art; Bruno Latour, “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam?”

April 24: Clifford Geertz, “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture” and “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight”; Hayden White, “The Historical Text as Literary Artifact’; Stephen Greenblatt, from Shakespearean Negotiations; Howard Becker, from Art Worlds

May 1: Rita Felski, The Limits of Critique

Finals week: wrap-up and celebration.

Course Goals: In this course, you will

read a range of major texts by major figures in British literature.

study these texts in a chronological sequence, from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century, looking at the ways that writers build upon and respond to previous writers.

survey some of the genres that were central to various periods of literary history, such as the epic poem, the romance, lyric poetry, dramatic tragedy, and verse satire.

study literary texts from both a “formalist” and a “historicist” perspective; that is, we will study these texts both as carefully constructed works of art and as products of a particular historical context.

write about literary texts, structuring arguments with clear thesis statements and supporting your thesis with textual evidence.

 Required Text: (available at bookstore)

The Norton Anthology of English Literature vols. A-C, 9th edition

Course requirements: Three in-class exams, one five-page paper (including mandatory rewrite), and class participation. Grading will be weighted as follows: paper 25%, three exams 20% each, participation (including attendance) 15%. The best way to succeed in this class is to do the readings each day and actively participate in class discussion. Exam materials will largely draw upon issues and passages we discuss in class.

Schedule (all readings in the Norton Anthology; please read the introduction to each author/text along with the text itself):

August 29: Introduction to course

August 31, September 5: Beowulf (A:36-108)

September 7: Marie de France, Lanval (A:142-43, 154-67)

September 12, 14: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (A:183-238)

September 19: Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales General Prologue (A:238-63)

September 21: Chaucer, Miller’s Prologue & Tale, Nun’s Priest’s Tale (A:264-80, 326-40)

September 26: Chaucer, Wife of Bath’s Prologue & Tale (A:282-310)

September 28: Everyman (A:507-29)

October 3: Exam One on medieval literature

October 5: Wyatt, selections in anthology (B: 646-60); “Faith in Conflict” (B:671-98)

October 10, 12: Sonnets by Shakespeare, Sidney, Donne, Milton in anthology (B:1037-38, 1084-1101, 1166-1186, 1410-15, 1939-43)

October 17, 19: Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (B:1106-07, 1127-63)

October 24: Donne, poems (B:1370-99); Herbert, selections (B:1705-26)

October 26: Selections from Herrick, Philips, Marvell (B:1756-68, 1783-1811)

October 31: Milton, Paradise Lost books 1-2 (B:1897-1901, 1943-86), five-page paper due

November 2: Milton, Paradise Lost books 3-4 (B:1987-1015)

November 7: Milton, Paradise Lost books 8-9, lines 552-649 of 12 (B:2077-2116, 2173-75)

November 9: Exam Two on the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries

November 14: Dryden, “Mac Flecknoe” (C:2208-09, 2236-42); Rochester, selections (C:2296-2307) plus “Signior Dildo” (handout);  Behn, poems (handout)

November 16: Swift, “A Description of a City Shower,” “Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift,” “A Modest Proposal,” “The Lady’s Dressing Room” (C:2464-79, 2633-39, 2767-70), “A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed” (handout)  

November 21: Pope, “An Essay on Criticism,” “Eloisa to Abelard,” “An Essay on Man” (C:2665-85, 2705-21)

November 23: Thanksgiving, no class

November 28: Haywood, Fantomina (C:2739-58)

November 30: Stevens away at conference, no class

December 5: “Liberty” (C:3012-43); Smart, “My Cat Jeoffrey” (C:3058-61)

December 7: Optional review for the final exam

Course description:

This course will investigate the novel during a key stage of its developing using the lens of the “female outsider.” The readings all feature female characters who are outside the mainstream in one way or another, from libertines to madwomen. The texts also showcase a range of novelistic subgenres, including amatory, sentimental, epistolary, picaresque, and gothic.

 Course Goals: In this course, you will

read a range of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century novels

study literary texts from both a “formalist” and a “historicist” perspective; that is, we will study these texts both as carefully constructed works of art and as products of particular historical contexts.

write about literary texts both informally and formally, responding to the day’s reading in a more informal manner and constructing longer papers that present arguments with clear thesis statements.

Required Texts: (available at bookstore, other editions including electronic permitted)

Eliza Haywood, Love in Excess (1719)

Daniel Defoe, Roxana (1724)

John Cleland, Fanny Hill (1749)

Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote (1752)

Choderlos de Laclos, Dangerous Liaisons (1782)

Matthew Lewis, The Monk (1796)

Mary Wollstonecraft, Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman (1798)

Charlotte Dacre, Zofloya (1806)

Anonymous, The Woman of Colour (1808)

Course requirements: This is an upper-division, reading and writing intensive course. There are no exams. Instead, you will be expected to do A LOT of reading, produce shorter and longer pieces of writing, do a presentation, and participate in class discussions.

Response papers: There are approximately fifteen weeks in a semester. You are required to turn in fifteen response papers, or one a week. Response papers are brief but thoughtful reactions to the day’s reading. You shouldn’t summarize the reading or provide background information; rather, you should focus on a particular passage you found interesting, a question that the reading raised, a way to connect one or more of the readings, or some other narrowly focused question or problem that you think will help to generate class discussion. These should be a paragraph or so in length and can be either typed or neatly handwritten. I will comment on these papers but will not assign them a letter grade. I will only accept response papers on the day’s reading if you are present in class that day. No late responses and no turning in a response if you didn’t come to class – that’s why you only have to do fifteen of them.

 Presentations: Once over the course of the semester you will do a longer and more formal response paper and present it to the class. Your presentation can either be an explication or an annotation. For an explication, choose a short passage from the day’s reading and explicate it: provide a close reading of the passage focusing on the language, the characters, and the larger themes it develops or issues it raises. For an annotation, you should pick a small detail from the day’s reading and annotate it by doing some background research that helps the class better understand the passage and the novel as a whole. You could look into, for example, a reference within the text, some small bit of historical context, geographical information, or anything else you feel helps to illuminate the reading. You can either read your paper or just summarize it, and it should be around two to three pages (5-10 minutes presentation, followed by questions and discussion). You will turn in the paper at the end of class and will be graded on both the presentation and subsequent discussion and the content of the paper itself.

 Longer papers: You must do three longer papers of around five to seven pages each, each on a different novel. Your longer papers can, but do not have to, grow out of your shorter response papers and/or presentation. Deadlines for each paper are given in the weekly schedule below, but which type of paper you choose to do for each assignment is up to you. Regardless of the topic, your paper should have a clear and debatable thesis statement, paragraphs that begin with topic sentences that relate back to your thesis, clear transitions from one topic to the next, and an emphasis on critical analysis rather than summary. For the first two papers you will have the option to rewrite if you so choose, and the grade of the rewrite will be averaged with the original grade. You should do three different types of papers, as chosen from the following list of options:

Close reading project: Look closely at some portion of one of the novels     we’ve read and make an argument about the language of that text. You could focus on a single passage of the text, a character, or a larger theme or motif. The point of close reading is to use something very small (a single paragraph, a very minor character or detail) to get at a larger insight about a text.

Comparison project: Pick either two texts we’ve read for this class or     one text for this class and an outside text, and compare the texts on an   issue of your choice).

Adaptation project: Look at one or more adaptations (film, TV, comic     book…) of one of the novels we’ve read in order to make an argument about the adaptation in comparison to its source material. You could pick a very faithful adaptation (Frears’s Dangerous Liaisons) or a much looser one (Cruel Intentions).

Contemporary responses project: Do some research into     responses to one of the novels during its own time. These responses could be reviews, parodies, dramatic adaptations, unauthorized continuations, or anything else you can find. The resources available on Early English Books Online and Eighteenth-Century Collections Online, available through the library website, will be very useful for this option.

Theoretical project: Make an argument about one or more of the novels we’ve read using a concept or approach from literary theory.

Contextual project: Make an argument about one or more of the texts  we’ve read by using some larger geographical, historical, cultural, or     political context in order to better understand the text. You may want to     consult texts available on Eighteenth-Century Collections Online in order to find some context.

Open topic: One of your papers can be on any topic of your     choosing. This is your opportunity to write about whatever inspires you in whatever fashion you choose.  

“Capstone” option: Students who wish to have the chance to do a longer piece of writing can do one 15-20 page research paper instead of the three 5-7 page papers, due at the end of the semester. Please see me if you are interested in this option.

Grading: Class attendance is mandatory, and more than three unexcused absences will result in a reduced grade. Grading will be weighted as follows: class participation (including attendance) 10%, presentation 15%, daily response papers 15%, three longer papers 20% each. Late papers will automatically be reduced by a full letter grade. Please note that to succeed in this class you must be self-motivated and keep up with the reading.

Schedule of Readings:

August 29: introduction to course

August 31: Love in Excess, Part the First

September 5: Love in Excess, Part the Second

September 7: Love in Excess, The Third and Last Part

September 12: Roxana [text has no chapter divisions]

September 14: Roxana

September 19: Roxana

September 21: Roxana

September 26: Fanny Hill, volume 1

September 28: Fanny Hill, volume 2

October 3: The Female Quixote, books 1-2, paper one due (on or before this date)

October 5: The Female Quixote, books 3-4

October 10: The Female Quixote, books 5-6

October 12: The Female Quixote, books 7-9

October 17: Dangerous Liaisons, letters 1-44

October 19: Dangerous Liaisons, letters 45-89

October 24: Dangerous Liaisons, letters 90-134

October 26: Dangerous Liaisons, letters 135-175

October 31: The Monk, volume 1

November 2: The Monk, volume 2

November 7: The Monk, volume 3

November 9: The Monk, volume 3, paper two due (on or before this date)

November 14: Zofloya, chapters 1-11

November 16: Zofloya, chapters 12-22

November 21: Zofloya, chapters 23-33

November 23: Thanksgiving, no class

November 28: The Wrongs of Woman

November 30: Stevens away at conference, no class

December 5: The Woman of Colour, volume 1

December 7: The Woman of Colour, volume 2

As a course on the theories of literary study, English 303 will introduce you to terminology and techniques you can use to make your own reading experiences productive. But it will also examine the grounds upon which those terms and techniques have been established in the first place. The survey will proceed historically, aiming to recognize the broad continuities as well as the disputes among critics regarding the nature of “literature,” “language,” “interpretation,” and other related concepts whose meaning we often take for granted. In other words, this course is devoted to probing the assumptions and delineating the history behind the most basic practices of literary study, as they have been established by a rich field of discourse stretching from the fifth century BCE to the present.

Required Text: The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism

Course requirements: Presentation, three take-home exams, and in-class participation. Grading will be weighted as follows: presentation 15%, three exams 25% each, and participation (including attendance) 10%

Take-home exams: These exams will vary in format but will ask you to produce different types of writing about the readings. You will be asked to demonstrate your understanding of the texts we’ve read, to make connections among readings, and to apply the concepts of various theorists to literary and other types of texts. The emphasis in these exams is on your writing and critical thinking skills rather than on memorization or a single, “correct” interpretation of the texts.

Presentation instructions: Presentations should be around five to ten minutes, to begin the day’s discussion of a given theoretical or critical text. You should not present biographical information about the author, a summary of the entire work, or any sort of outside material. Instead, your presentation should focus very narrowly on some aspect of the text. You could pick a passage that you find particularly complex or dense and present a reading of it. You could explicate a single concept, term, or image in the reading that you feel opens up larger questions about the text. Or you could talk about the applications or implications of a specific idea in the reading. After presenting your analysis, you should end with a couple of questions for discussion. You will be graded on the material you present, not your oratorical skills, so relax and have fun.

Schedule of readings and assignments:

January 17: introduction to course

Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Criticism

January 19: Plato, Republic books 2 and 3 (41-60)

January 24: Plato, Republic books 7 and 10 (60-77)

January 26: Aristotle, Poetics sections 1-16 (83-102)

January 31: Aristotle, Poetics sections 17-26 (102-15)

February 2: Longinus, On Sublimity (133-54)

February 7: Augustine, On Christian Teaching (154-62); Aquinas, Summa Theologica (177-84); Dante, Il Convivio and Letter to Can Grande (184-90)

February 9: Giovanni Boccaccio, Genealogy of the Gentile Gods (190-200); Christine de Pizan, Treatise on the Roman de la Rose (200-10); Joachim du Bellay, The Defense and Enrichment of the French Language (216-27); exam one handed out

Eighteenth-, Nineteenth-, and Early Twentieth-Century Criticism

February 14: Samuel Johnson, Preface to Shakespeare and “Cowley” (362-64, 373-88); David Hume, “Of the Standard of Taste” (388-405)

February 16: Germaine Necker de Staël, selections (504-20); Edgar Allan Poe, “The Philosophy of Composition” (636-47)

February 21: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, selections (647-63);

February 23: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, selections (663-76); exam one due

February 28: Friedrich Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense” (759-74); Oscar Wilde, Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray (785-90)

March 2: Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics (845-66)

March 7: Sigmund Freud, selections (807-24)

March 9: Sigmund Freud, selections (824-45)

March 14: W. E. B. Du Bois, “Criteria of Negro Art” (867-77); Zora Neale Hurston, selections (1008-27)

March 16: John Crowe Ransom, “Criticism, Inc.” (969-82); William Wimsatt Jr. and Monroe Beardsley, “The Intentional Fallacy” (1230-46); exam two handed out

Later Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century Criticism

March 21: Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1261-73)

March 23: Roland Barthes, selections (1316-31)

March 28: Michel Foucault, “What Is an Author?” (1469-90); exam two due

March 30: Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality (1502-21)

April 4: Eve Sedgwick, selections (2464-77); Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (2081-95)

April 6: Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1437-46); Chinua Achebe, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” (1610-23)

April 11, 13: Spring break!

April 18: Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera (2095-2109); Henry Louis Gates, Jr., “Talking Black” (2427-38)

April 20: Hans Robert Jauss, “Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory” (1403-20)

April 25: Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction (1660-70), Richard Ohmann, “The Shaping of a Canon” (1761-78)

April 27: Franco Moretti, Graphs, Maps, Trees (2438-64)

May 2: Last class; exam three handed out

May 4: Study week, no class

This course will examine the role of satire in commenting upon social and political issues. From antiquity to the present day, satirists have used humor, irony, parody, and other tools to call attention to political corruption, injustice, and hypocrisy. In this class we will study some memorable works of verbal and visual satire while also drawing upon a range of contemporary examples, particularly during the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Course Goals: By the end of the semester, you will

read a variety of satirical works and criticism related to satire from antiquity to the present day.

learn some key terms for discussing the techniques and genres of satire.

develop skills needed to understand and analyze literary texts and to make connections among different authors, genres, and literary movements

practice writing about satirical texts through informal response papers and a longer research paper

lead a class discussion, presenting a summary of an outside text and getting others involved in the conversation.

 Required Texts (available at bookstore): Petronius, Satyricon; Jonathan Swift, Major Works; Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man; Alissa Nutting, Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls; George Saunders, Tenth of December; Paul Beatty, The Sellout; additional readings posted on Web Campus       

Disclaimer about readings: Many of the readings this semester will depict sexual situations, bodily functions, grotesque scenarios, and offensive language. It comes with the satirical territory. If you have any concerns about any of the readings please let me know.

Course requirements: Presentation, 10 short response papers, 3-4 page debate paper, 8-10 page research paper, and in-class participation. Grading will be weighted as follows: presentation = 10%, responses = 10%, short paper = 20%, long paper = 40%, participation = 10%.

Response papers: You are required to turn in ten response papers over the course of the semester. Response papers are brief but thoughtful reactions to the day’s reading. You shouldn’t summarize the reading or provide background information; rather, you should focus on a particular passage you found interesting, a question that the reading raised, a way to connect one or more of the readings, or some other narrowly focused question or problem that you think will help to generate class discussion. These should be a paragraph or so in length. I will comment on these responses but will not assign them a letter grade. I will only accept response papers on the day’s reading if you are present in class that day. No late responses and no turning in a response if you didn’t come to class – that’s why you only have to do ten of them.

Debate paper: Because UNLV will be hosting the final Presidential debate on October 19th and we won’t meet on 10/18. Instead, you must watch the debate and locate satiric responses to it (SNL parodies, segments on late-night talk shows, memes, etc.). In a paper of 3-4 pages, select one or more of these responses to discuss in the context of our class discussion. How are these satirists using parody, exaggeration, mimicry, irony, incongruity, or other techniques? Which moments or issues do they focus on? What are the aims of the satiric response (humor, social commentary, attack, etc.)?

Presentation: Each of you will be expected to present to the class on a work of satire outside of the syllabus. You can choose whatever you want, as long as you can make a good case that the work you’re presenting is satirical. You could pick a text from any period of literary history and any national tradition or another work by one of the authors we’re reading. You could also pick a nonliterary work, something from contemporary culture, such as a film, a work of journalism, a work of visual art, a website, or an episode of a TV show. Because this is an election year, you shouldn’t have trouble finding examples. If appropriate you should use visual aids like film clips. In your presentation, you should briefly describe the work you have chosen and why you have chosen it. You should explain why you consider it to be satire, what the objects of its satire are, what sort of effects it is trying to produce, how it attempts to achieve those effects, and whether or not you think the work is successful. Talk about the work in relation to the critical readings, if appropriate.

Final paper: At the end of the semester you must complete an 8-10 page research paper on a topic of your choosing but related to the course topic. You must submit a paragraph describing your topic in class by November 22nd. I will hand out more information about this assignment later in the semester. 

Schedule of readings and assignments:

August 30: introduction to course

Satiric origins and preliminaries

September 1: Horace, satires 1.1, 1.10, 2.1; Juvenal, satires 1, 10; Gilbert Highet, introduction to The Anatomy of Satire; Northrop Frye, “The Nature of Satire”

September 6: Lucian, A True Story

September 8: Petronius, The Satyricon pp. 1-70

September 13: Petronius pp. 71-148

September 15: François Rabelais, selections from Gargantua and Pantagruel; Mikhail Bakhtin, introduction to Rabelais and His World

Jonathan Swift, master satirist

September 20: Swift, The Battle of the Books; Wayne C. Booth, “Is It Ironic?” from A Rhetoric of Irony

September 22: Swift, “A Modest Proposal,” Bickerstaff Papers; Wayne C. Booth, “Essays, Satires, Parody” from A Rhetoric of Irony

September 27: Swift, A Tale of a Tub through section 5

September 29: A Tale of a Tub section 6 to the end

October 4: Swift, “A Description of a City Shower,” “Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift,” “A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed”; Rochester, “A Satyr Against Reason and Mankind”; Dorothy Parker, selections

Film and television satire

October 6: Gray, Jones, and Thompson, introduction to Satire TV; clips from Armando Iannucci shows (Veep, Time Trumpet)

October 11: Screening: The Lobster (2015; dir. Yorgos Lanthimos, 1 hr 59 min)

October 13: The Lobster continued

October 18: No class in anticipation of heightened campus security because of the presidential debate on 10/19

Satiric fiction in the twentieth and twenty-first century

October 20: Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man through chap. 4

October 25: Ellison chap. 5-9

October 27: Ellison chap. 10-14; 3-4 page debate paper due

November 1: Ellison chap. 15-19

November 3: Ellison chap. 20-end

November 8: Alissa Nutting, Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls pp. 11-104

November 10: Nutting, pp. 105-81

November 15: George Saunders, Tenth of December pp. 1-81

November 17: Saunders pp. 83-167

November 22: Saunders pp. 169-251; paper prospectus due

November 29: Paul Beatty, The Sellout pp. 1-89

December 1: Beatty pp. 93-197

December 6: Beatty pp. 201-89

December 8: Study week, no class

As a course on the theories of literary study, English 303 will introduce you to terminology and techniques you can use to make your own reading experiences productive. But it will also examine the grounds upon which those terms and techniques have been established in the first place. The survey will proceed historically, aiming to recognize the broad continuities as well as the disputes among critics regarding the nature of “literature,” “language,” “interpretation,” and other related concepts whose meaning we often take for granted. In other words, this course is devoted to probing the assumptions and delineating the history behind the most basic practices of literary study, as they have been established by a rich field of discourse stretching from the fifth century BCE to the present.

Course Goals: By the end of the semester, you will

read selections from a range of major texts by major figures in the history of literary criticism and theory, from Plato to the present day.

learn some key terms for critical movements, concepts in literary theory, and related areas.

develop skills needed to understand and analyze difficult critical texts and to respond to the ideas in these texts, placing your own ideas about language, literature, interpretation, and representation in relation to larger debates.

practice writing about critical texts, making connections among diverse points of view and applying literary theories to primary texts.

lead a class discussion, formulating opinions about the readings and getting others involved in the conversation.

 Required Text (available at bookstore): The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 2nd ed.               

Course requirements: Presentation, three take-home exams, and in-class participation. Grading will be weighted as follows: presentation 15%, three exams 25% each, and participation (including attendance) 10%.

Take-home exams: These exams will vary in format but will ask you to produce different types of writing about the readings. You will be asked to demonstrate your understanding of the texts we’ve read, to make connections among readings, and to apply the concepts of various theorists to literary and other types of texts. The emphasis in these exams is on your writing and critical thinking skills rather than on memorization or a single, “correct” interpretation of the texts.

Presentation instructions: Presentations should be around five to ten minutes, to begin the day’s discussion of a given theoretical or critical text. You should not present biographical information about the author, a summary of the entire work, or any sort of outside material. Instead, your presentation should focus very narrowly on some aspect of the text. You could pick a passage that you find particularly complex or dense and present a reading of it. You could explicate a single concept, term, or image in the reading that you feel opens up larger questions about the text. Or you could talk about the applications or implications of a specific idea in the reading. After presenting your analysis, you should end with a couple of questions for discussion. You will be graded on the material you present, not your oratorical skills, so relax and have fun.

Schedule of readings and assignments:

August 30: introduction to course

Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Criticism

September 1: Plato, Republic books 2 and 3 (41-60)

September 6: Plato, Republic books 7 and 10 (60-77)

September 8: Aristotle, Poetics sections 1-16 (83-102)

September 13: Aristotle, Poetics sections 17-26 (102-15)

September 15: Longinus, On Sublimity (133-54)

September 20: Augustine, On Christian Teaching (154-62); Aquinas, Summa Theologica (177-84); Dante, Il Convivio and Letter to Can Grande (184-90)

September 22: Giovanni Boccaccio, Genealogy of the Gentile Gods (190-200); Christine de Pizan, Treatise on the Roman de la Rose (200-10); Joachim du Bellay, The Defense and Enrichment of the French Language (216-27); exam one handed out

Eighteenth-, Nineteenth-, and Early Twentieth-Century Criticism

September 27: Samuel Johnson, Preface to Shakespeare and “Cowley” (362-64, 373-88); David Hume, “Of the Standard of Taste” (388-405)

September 29: Germaine Necker de Staël, selections (504-20); Edgar Allan Poe, “The Philosophy of Composition” (636-47)

October 4: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, selections (647-63);

October 6: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, selections (663-76); exam one due

October 11: Friedrich Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense” (759-74); Oscar Wilde, Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray (785-90)

October 13: Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics (845-66)

October 18: Sigmund Freud, selections (807-24)

[October 19: Presidential debate at UNLV. Class on 10/18 may be canceled if security measures make campus difficult to access.]

October 20: Sigmund Freud, selections (824-45)

October 25: W. E. B. Du Bois, “Criteria of Negro Art” (867-77); Zora Neale Hurston, selections (1008-27)

October 27: John Crowe Ransom, “Criticism, Inc.” (969-82); William Wimsatt Jr. and Monroe Beardsley, “The Intentional Fallacy” (1230-46); exam two handed out

Later Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century Criticism

November 1: Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1261-73)

November 3: Roland Barthes, selections (1316-31)

November 8: Michel Foucault, “What Is an Author?” (1469-90); exam two due

November 10: Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality (1502-21)

November 15: Eve Sedgwick, selections (2464-77); Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (2081-95)

November 17: Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1437-46); Chinua Achebe, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” (1610-23)

November 22: Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera (2095-2109); Henry Louis Gates, Jr., “Talking Black” (2427-38)

November 29: Hans Robert Jauss, “Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory” (1403-20)

December 1: Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction (1660-70), Richard Ohmann, “The Shaping of a Canon” (1761-78)

December 6: Franco Moretti, Graphs, Maps, Trees (2438-64); exam three handed out

December 8: Study week, no class