Winter 2005
English 863:  Consciousness, Intelligent Activity, Interiority, and Emotion in 20th-Century British Fiction
MW 9:30 - 11:18
Denney Hall 213
Instructor:  David Herman
Office:  409 Denney (office hours MW 11:30 - 12:00 and 2:30 - 3:30; also, by appointment)
Phone: 292-6123; email: herman.145@osu.edu

URL for course website:  http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/herman145/ENG863.html
 
Course Description:

Welcome! This seminar will focus on narrative strategies for representing consciousness, intelligent activity, interiority, and emotion in key works of 20th-century British fiction. We will draw on recent scholarship in a variety of fields—including narrative theory, the philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology, discursive psychology, and other research—to contextualize fictional techniques designed to capture what Virginia Woolf described as “the flickerings of that innermost flame which flashes its messages through the brain.” Guiding questions include: How can we work toward building an interdisciplinary framework for studying fictional minds? How might that framework help illuminate the specific techniques used by 20th-century British writers to represent consciousness, intelligent activity, interiority, and emotion? In what ways have those techniques in turn helped constitute our own sense of what a mind is? What is the relation between the mental/individual and material/social realms, as figured by the texts under discussion?

Fictional Works:
Theoretical Sources:

The following theoretical sources are available on electronic reserve at OSU's library. These sources are listed in brackets--[1], [2], etc.--at the appropriate places in the course schedule below:
  1. Mark Addis, introduction and ch. 6 of Wittgenstein: Making Sense of Other Minds
  2. Lynne Rudder Baker, "Folk Psychology"
  3. George Butte, ch. 1 of I Know that You Know that I Know
  4. Andy Clark, "Embodied, Situated, and Distributed Cognition"
  5. Dorrit Cohn, ch. 4 of Transparent Minds
  6. Martin Davies, "Consciousness"
  7. Derek Edwards, ch. 7 of Discourse and Cognition
  8. Owen Flanagan, "Consciousness"
  9. Anthony Freeman, sections 1, 7, and 12 of Consciousness: A Guide to the Debates (online resource--requires login via OhioLINK); these sections are listed on the course schedule below as [9a], [9b], and [9c], respectively
  10. Alison Gopnik, "Theory of Mind"
  11. Rom Harré and Grant Gillett, ch. 9 of The Discursive Mind
  12. Rom Harré, "The Discursive Turn in Social Psychology"
  13. David Herman, "Regrounding Narratology"
  14. Patrick Colm Hogan, introduction and chapter 3 of The Mind and Its Stories
  15. Manfred Jahn, "Narrative Situations"
  16. P. N. Johnson-Laird and Keith Oatley, "Cognitive and Social Construction of Emotions"
  17. Iris Murdoch, excerpts from Sartre: Romantic Rationalist
  18. Keith Oatley, "Emotions"
  19. Keith Oatley, ch. 5 of Emotions: A Brief History
  20. Keith Oatley and Jennifer M. Jenkins, chs. 4 and 9 of Understanding Emotions
  21. Alan Palmer, excerpts from Fictional Minds
  22. Alan Palmer, "Thought and Consciousness Representation"
  23. David M. Rosenthal, "Introspection"
  24. Ralf Schneider, "Emotion and Narrative"
  25. Ed S. Tan, "Emotion, Art, and the Humanities"
  26. Lisa Zunshine, "Theory of Mind and Experimental Representations of Fictional Consciousness"
Click here for bibliographic information about each item in the above list.

Course Requirements:

1.  Active class participation.
2.  Leading a class-discussion. For each class meeting, there will be a designated "leader" of the discussion that day. The leader will be charged with putting the theoretical sources assigned that day into dialogue with the literary work or "tutor-text" also assigned. You should be prepared to speak for about 15 or 20 minutes on ways in which dialogue of this sort might be promoted; leaders will also field questions and comments from the audience after their opening presentation. The primary goal is to give students practice at orchestrating class-discussions for the portion of the session that they lead.
    While preparing your remarks, think about ways in which the theoretical framework(s) for inquiry into consciousness, intelligent activity, interiority, and emotion can be used to generate productive interpretations of the work on which you are focusing. Reciprocally, consider how the fictional work 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.
    You may very well wish to focus on the same tutor-text in the discussion you lead, in your midterm paper (see item 3 below), and in your final research project (items 5 and 6).
3.  A short (3-5 page) midterm paper, due Monday, February 7. In parallel with your presentation as class-discussion leader, your midterm paper should focus on the possibilities as well as the limits of the theoretical framework you are using as your investigative lens. What aspects of the tutor-text does the theory help illuminate? Conversely, how did analyzing the text impact your understanding of the theory you used? 
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 Wednesday, February 16.
5.  A 15-minute (= approximately 8-page) conference paper for oral delivery at the inaugural OSU Colloquium on Consciousness, Intelligent Activity, Interiority, and Emotion in 20th-century British Fiction (all submissions guaranteed acceptance). The Colloquium will be held at the end of the term. Two "waves" of presenters will give their colloquium talks on the last two class meetings, i.e., Monday, March 7, and Wednesday, March 9.  The final wave will give their talks during the time-slot scheduled for our final exam, i.e., Wednesday, March 16, 9:30 - 11:18.
6.  A longer, written version of item 5, around 15-20 pages.  The paper is to be turned in by Friday, March 11, at the latest; earlier submissions greatly appreciated.  You need not hand in the shorter version of the paper that you present at the colloquium.

Grade:

Your grade will be based on the following components (percentages are approximate!):

Leading a class-discussion = 20%
Midterm paper = 15%
Abstract = 10%
Oral presentation at colloquium = 20%
Long paper = 25%
Overall class participation throughout the term = 10%

Course Schedule:

January

M 3  Introduction

W 5  Joyce, Portrait; also read [6], [9a]

M 10  Joyce, Portrait; also read [8], [15], [18]

W 12  Woolf, Mrs Dalloway; also read [2], [10], [22]

M 17  Martin Luther King Day: No class

W 19  Woolf, Mrs Dalloway; also read [3], [21]

M 24  Beckett, Murphy; also read [16], [20]

W 26  Beckett, Murphy; also read [24], [25]

M 31   Murdoch, Under the Net; also read [1], [5]

February

W 2  Murdoch, Under the Net; also read [17]

M 7  Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea; also read [19]; midterm paper due (3-5 pages)

W 9  Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea; Amis, Time's Arrow; also read [9b], [14]

M 14  Amis, Time's Arrow; also read [9c], [23]

W 16  Byatt, Morpho Eugenia; also read [4]; abstracts due

M 21  Byatt, Morpho Eugenia; also read [7]

W 23  McEwan, Atonement; also read [11], [13]

M 28  McEwan, Atonement; also read [12]

March

W 2  No class: Instructor out of town

M 7  Colloquium presentations

W 9  Colloquium presentations

M 14 Final papers due by 12:00 noon