Autumn 2006
ENG 700: Introduction to Graduate Study in English
Denney Hall 207
TR 11:30 – 1:18
Instructor:  David Herman
Office: 409 Denney (office hours T-Th 2:15 - 3:30 and by appointment)
Phone: 292-6123; e-mail: herman.145

Recitation F 11:30 - 1:18
Recitation Leader: Aaron McKain
Office: 407 Denney (office hours TBA)
Phone: 292-3754; e-mail: mckain.3

Web address for this syllabus: http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/herman145/ENG700.html

Welcome! This course has two main objectives. First, it will introduce you to major theoretical debates that inform current practices within the field of English Studies. Second, it will offer instruction in practical elements of graduate study, including protocols for student writing and research and the development of a student’s scholarly focus. We will be using Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement as our “tutor text” throughout the course, and students are encouraged to read the novel in advance—to facilitate our work in class once the quarter begins.

Our readings and discussions will range over a variety of theoretical frameworks (formalist, structuralist, feminist, psychoanalytic, deconstructive, historicist, etc.), exploring what sorts of insights into McEwan’s text each of these frameworks can help generate. Further, part of the class will focus on recent developments in the area of narrative theory in particular. This area is one in which the instructor specializes, and for our purposes it will function as a case study in how to identify and pursue topics for research, as well as how to engage with methods of argumentation used in a specific domain of inquiry within the field. Meanwhile, during the recitation sections led by Aaron McKain, you can expect to follow up on class discussions and to talk about strategies for success in OSU’s graduate program.

REQUIRED TEXTS:
    + Some further items on electronic reserve. All items on e-reserve are marked "ER" on the course schedule below; click here to see a list of all these items.

ASSIGNMENTS:

1.  Active class participation. I conceive of this class as a collective endeavor, so your attendance and participation are crucial for the success of the course. Indeed, keeping up with the readings and coming to class prepared to discuss them are among the most important requirements for English 700.

2. To enrich your reading and responses, you will be required to write seven short (500-word) position papers on seven different days of your choice. The papers are due in class and there will be no extensions, so plan ahead. In composing your position papers, you can follow one of several routes: (a) paraphrasing and explicating the argument of one of the readings assigned for the day you in turn in your paper, and indicating what in your view constitute the limitations as well as the possibilities of that argument; (b) engaging in the same exploration of an argument's possibilities and limitations by comparing and contrasting one of the assigned readings with a previous reading (one that you have not already written a position paper about); or (c) putting the assigned reading into dialogue with McEwan's text, exploring aspects of the novel the theoretical approach can help illuminate as well as aspects that it is less able to account for. Note also that in the course schedule below each day’s reading is followed by a focus question that you may feel free to use to jumpstart these papers.
   Please use a "+/- 10%" rule for all your papers: they should be between 450 and 550 words. Use the word-count tool in your word-processing program and type in the number of words at the end of each paper. Save these papers, and at the end of the quarter you should turn in the papers arranged in chronological order in a folder so that I can review your work.

3.  Leading part of a class-discussion (a sign-up sheet will be distributed so that you can choose a particular class meeting). To fulfill this requirement, you will need to consider (and share with the class) strategies for putting one or more of the theoretical sources assigned that day into dialogue with Atonement. You should be prepared to speak for about 15-20 minutes on ways in which dialogue of this sort might be promoted; discussion leaders will also field questions and comments from the class during/after their presentation. The primary goal is to give you practice at orchestrating class-discussions--and to make you more comfortable with sharing your ideas publicly--for the portion of the session that you lead.
    While preparing your remarks, think about ways in which the theoretical framework(s) can be used to generate productive interpretations of McEwan's text. Conversely, consider how the text can throw light on both the possibilities and the limitations of the theoretical model(s). Short handouts outlining the main points of your presentation and/or listing key quotations can be effective communicative tools. 

4.  An abstract (250-500 words and double-spaced, please) corresponding to items 5 and 6 below. Abstracts should (a) state and describe the research problem you are addressing; (b) situate that problem in the context of previous scholarship devoted to the issue you intend to explore; and (c) indicate how your own approach to this problem will advance or enrich or refine prior scholarship in this connection. Please include a title and a tentative bibliography. Abstracts are due Thursday, November 16. For webpages containing abstracts written by OSU students for colloquia held in previous courses, use the following two URLs:
5.  A 15-minute (= approximately 8-page) conference paper for oral delivery at the inaugural English 700 Graduate Colloquium (all submissions guaranteed acceptance). The Colloquium will be held in two "waves," on the last day of class and also during the final recitation.

6.  A paper corresponding to items 4 and 5, about 15-20 pages. Note that your final research project may be dovetailed with work you are doing in another course, but it will need to engage in a sustained way with the theoretical approaches we discuss in 700. The paper is to be turned in (along with the folder containing your position papers) by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, December 4. You need not hand in the shorter version of the paper that you present at the colloquium, if you use a written script for that purpose.
  
(Rationale for these assignments: Items 4, 5, and 6 are designed to give students hands-on experience with the process of incubating, developing, and presenting to their peers a research project of the kind they will be expected to produce throughout their graduate careers and beyond. Meanwhile, items 1, 2, and 3 are designed to promote dialogue and exchange in the classroom, as well as a more in-depth engagement with the ideas we cover in class.)

GRADES:

One of the most noticeable changes from undergraduate education to graduate school is that your grade in a graduate course is not always decided by percentages on individual assignments. In many cases, it will be decided by a holistic assessment at the end of the quarter. In 700, I will be using a "mixed method" of grading. Your response papers and abstracts, for example, will receive comments and checks, but your final project will receive a letter grade. Further, to aid with my holistic assessment of your overall performance in the class, I will use as a heuristic guide for grading the following breakdown of the course components (note that the percentages are only approximate!):

Leading a class-discussion = 15%
Position papers = 35%
Abstract = 15%
Oral presentation at colloquium + final project = 25%
Overall class participation throughout the term = 10%

In general, you will do well in the class if you are an active participant in our classes and if you read, analyze, write about, and discuss the course material with intellectual curiosity and vigor. Please note, too, that you will receive both a letter grade and a discursive evaluation of your performance in this and other courses in the form of a Graduate Report, which will go into your academic file as a more extended comment on your work. Since graduate students are required to maintain a 3.0 average to remain in good standing, a “C” is considered a failing grade.

SPECIAL NEEDS:

Anyone who feels s/he may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact me privately to discuss your specific needs. Anyone with such needs should also be aware of the the Office for Disability Services in room 150 Pomerene Hall (614-292-3307) which provides services for students with documented disabilities.

COURSE SCHEDULE:

The following is tentative course schedule. Depending on the actual pace at which we proceed during the quarter, we may have to make adjustments to the syllabus as we go.

September

TH 21  Introductions

Required reading:
 F 22  Recitation: For this Friday’s discussion session, we will meet with the English Department Bibliographer, Kathy Webb. This will be an introduction to the OSU library with specific reference to research in English studies.  Meet at 11:30 a.m. at Sullivant Hall, Room 244A

T 26  Semiotics, Russian Formalism, and Structuralism (Part I)

Required reading:
 Suggested reading:
 Focus Questions: What does someone like Jakobson mean by “poetics”? What is the relationship imagined here between linguistics and literary study? What is the relationship between semiotics and linguistics?

Presentation: Putting Semiotics, Russian Formalism, and Structuralism (Part I) into dialogue with Atonement

Th 28  The New Criticism

Required reading:
 Suggested reading:
Focus Question: Although “pure” formalism (especially New Criticism) has fallen out of fashion since the 1960s, many aspects of it
remain central to the discipline. Think about why formalism has become unfashionable but also what you would “save” of New Criticism and why

Presentation: Putting New Criticism into dialogue with Atonement

F 29  Recitation

October

T 3  Structuralism (II); Narratology (I)

Required reading:
 Suggested reading:
 Focus Questions:  Mythic narrative is sometimes associated with a primitive mind, in contrast to the sophistication and modernity of the literary. What does “myth” mean to these structuralists, and why is it an important model for them? More generally, what are some of the possibilities and limitations of early narratological models?

Presentation: Putting Structuralism (II) and/or Narratology (I) into dialogue with Atonement

Th 5  Poststructuralism/Deconstruction

Required reading:
 Suggested reading:
Focus Questions: (1) Is Deconstruction better viewed as an extension of the insights of Structuralism or as an overturning and reversal of that method?  I.e., what does Derrida take from the Structuralists, and what does he reject? (2) Should we read Derrida as philosophy? I.e., what boundaries should we observe between literary and philosophical discourse?

Presentation: Putting Poststructuralism/Deconstruction into dialogue with Atonement

F 6  No recitation: Aaron McKain away at conference

T 10  Poststructuralism/Deconstruction (continued)

Required reading:
 Focus Questions: What differences do you notice among practitioners of deconstruction? When deconstruction migrated from France to the North American context, for example, how did it extend the concerns of traditional humanism and formalist criticism and how did it challenge them?

Presentation: Putting Poststructuralism and (Post-)Deconstruction into dialogue with Atonement (again)

Th 12  No class: instructor away at conference

F 13  Recitation

T 17  Theories of Reader Response and Reception

Required reading:
 Suggested reading:
 Focus Questions: In the different approaches to reader response, how much agency is allocated to the text and how much is allocated to the reader? What is the relationship between synchronic versus diachronic approaches to reader response--that is, approaches that examine the interactions between texts and readers at a given time versus approaches that examine how those interactions change over time?

Presentation: Putting theories of reader response and reception into dialogue with Atonement

Th 19  Marxist Theory and Cultural Materialism

Required reading:
 Suggested reading:
Focus Question: How might Trotsky read Atonement? What about Lukács? What would a Marxist reading of this text illuminate, and what might it potentially obscure?

Presentation: Putting Marxist theory and Cultural Materialism into dialogue with Atonement

F 20  Recitation

T 24  Neo-Marxism: Ideology, Class, and the Culture Industry

Required reading:
 Focus Question/Response Paper: Sketch out a brief Neo-Marxist reading of Atonement. How would it differ (or would it) from a more traditional Marxist reading?

Presentation: Putting Neo-Marxism into dialogue with Atonement

Th 26  New Historicism/Cultural Poetics/Cultural Studies

Required reading:
 Suggested reading:
Focus Question: New Historicism is often quickly glossed as a change in the perceived relationship between literary text and historical context. How would you explain New Historicism’s understanding of this relationship? Can Cultural Studies, too, be construed as an outgrowth of this changed understanding of the text-context relationship?

Presentation: Putting New Historicism/Cultural Poetics/Cultural Studies into dialogue with Atonement

F 27  Recitation

T 31  Psychoanalysis: Freudian Foundations

Required reading:
 Focus Question:  Freud said that the poets had long ago discovered some of his key concepts, but he also insisted that he was practicing a clinical and therapeutic science, not an art. Why should literary critics be interested in this science?

Presentation: Putting Freud's ideas into dialogue with Atonement

November

Th 2  Psychoanalysis: Freud and Lacan (and More)

Required reading:
 Suggested reading:
Focus Questions: Lacan presents us with a mix of structuralist, psychoanalytic, and linguistic ideas. How would you sort out the threads? And, looking ahead to next week, why do you think his work would be of interest to feminist scholars? How does Kristeva's work form a connecting link between these traditions? Further, in what ways do Deleuze and Guattari engage with Lacan's ideas?

Presentation: Putting (post-)psychoanalytic theory into dialogue with Atonement

F 3  Recitation

T 7  Feminisms

Required reading:
 Focus Questions:  How have debates about essentialism shaped Feminist theory and criticism? What are some of the commonalities and contrasts between French Feminist theory and e.g. North American varieties of Feminism?

Presentation: Putting Feminism(s) into dialogue with Atonement

Th 9  Building on Feminism: Gender Theory/Queer Theory

Required reading:
 Suggested reading:
Focus Questions: To what extent do these theorists engage with but also extend the tradition of Feminist criticism? Would you emphasize common ground between Feminism and Gender/Queer Theory or differences in their methodology and aims?

Presentation: Putting Gender Theory/Queer Theory into dialogue with Atonement

F 10  No recitation: Veteran's Day holiday

T 14  Ethnicity and Critical Race Theory

Required reading:
 Focus Questions: What different understandings of race and ethnicity underlie these essays?  (And do these different understandings influence the role played by literature in the cultural theories implied by each?)  What elements of  “theory” seem most attractive for achieving an effective understanding of the history of racial and ethnic categories and which seem less so?

N.B. No presentation scheduled for this date; however, if you feel that perspectives on ethnicity and critical race theory can be brought into productive dialogue with McEwan's text and would like to present on that topic, please let me know

Th 16  Postcolonial Theory; ABSTRACTS DUE

Required reading:
Suggested reading:
Focus Questions:  Postcolonial theory arose during a period of intense reflection on the category of identity, on questions of how the formation of a subject in a particular social formation shapes his or her sense of the world. What would you suggest are the most important understandings of identity in Postcolonial theory? Can those understandings be mapped onto Atonement, despite the absence of any overt thematization of the colonizer/colonized dialectic?

Presentation: See final Focus Question above

F 17  Recitation

T 21  Narratology (II) and Narrative Theory

Required reading:
 Suggested reading:
 Focus Questions: How might we account for the resurgence of narrative theory over the past several decades? How do "postclassical" narratologies differ from "classical" narratology?

Presentation: Putting Narratology (II)/Narrative Theory into dialogue with Atonement

Th 23  No class: Thanksgiving holiday

F 24  No recitation: Thanksgiving holiday

T 28  Narratology (II) and Narrative Theory (continued)

Required reading:
 Focus Questions: How do postclassical approaches to narrative inquiry, including cognitive, rhetorical/ethical, and feminist approaches, engage with and extend earlier approaches to narrative study?

Presentation: Putting Narratology (II)/Narrative Theory into dialogue with Atonement (again)

Th 30  First Wave of Colloquium Presentations 

December

F 1  In Lieu of Recitation: Second Wave of Colloquium Presentations

M 4  Folders containing position papers and final research projects due in my departmental mailbox, Denney 421, by 5:00 p.m.