Welcome to the home page for English 826. Look for additions and updates to this page to be made throughout the semester, so set a bookmark for this page, and check it often.

Textbooks:
	Davis, Robert Con, and Ronald Schleifer eds. Contemporary Literary Criticism: Literary and Cultural Studies. 4th ed. New York: Longman, 1998. ISBN 0-8013-3002-5 Murfin, Ross C., ed. The Scarlet Letter. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism. Boston: Bedford-St. Martin's, 1991. ISBN 0-312-03546-2 (You will need this specific edition of The Scarlet Letter as we will discuss the critical essays included in the book.)
Recommended Text:
	Harmon, William and C. Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999. ISBN 0-13-012731-0
Course Objectives:
	As the title of the course suggests, we will examine the theories and methodologies behind several different approaches to literature, so that you will have a broader range of critical techniques to call upon as readers, students, scholars and teachers. One of the most important criticisms that arises from courses like Approaches to Literature is that it lacks a thorough examination of the practical applications of the various approaches discussed. The texts we are reading, though they are often the best articulation of the theoretical basis of the critical practice they espouse, usually deal in abstraction, referring to specific literary texts only occasionally and elliptically. To counter this problem, I have scheduled a practically-applied text from each of the six approaches we will examine. Thus, after discussing two theoretical texts on "Structuralism and Semiotics," we will look at Louis Marin's "Disneyland: A Degenerate Utopia"--a semiotic reading of the structure of Disneyland. Because it is a text that many English majors have read, I have chosen Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter as the literary touchstone for the class. Thus, everyone will be expected to read this novel prior to the four-week classroom session. You will need to have the edition specified below, since it contains the critical texts we will discuss.
On Reading Literary Theory:
	The actual number of pages that you are required to read for this course may be less than those required by your other graduate courses. However, I urge you to read the texts for this course before we begin the four-week classroom session as these texts are among the most difficult in our field. You may find some to be virtually unintelligible. Even so, do yourself the favor of slogging through them ahead of time, taking copious notes. When you understand an author's point, make a note in the margin. When you can't grasp the author's point, write a question in the margin. The majority of our classroom time will be spent addressing students' confusions and concerns with the texts. In his essay "On Difficulty" George Steiner identifies four forms of difficulty apparent in contemporary literary criticism. The first--contingent difficulty--stems from readers' unfamiliarity with the terms and references. You can overcome this difficulty rather easily by consulting the optional text for this course--A Handbook to Literature. The Handbook is like the ultimate footnote. Most of the unfamiliar words, terms, and names you will encounter are explained in the Handbook. The second form of difficulty--modal difficulty--comes from readers' lack of experience with abstract literary theory. Modal difficulty fades with time. The more of these texts you read and the more we discuss in class, the less modal difficulty you will encounter. The other two forms--tactical and ontological difficulty--are an inevitable effect of the ambitious and admirable effort to examine news ways of looking at literature and culture. Tactical difficulty refers to the authors' efforts to disrupt the readers' accepted world view, whereas ontological difficulty refers to the cultural gap between authors and readers--as Schleifer and Davis write in the "General Introduction" to Contemporary Literary Criticism: "[T]rying to see and feel the world from a perspective other than one's own--perhaps through the eyes of women, or members of ethnic minorities, or people subject to colonialism" (15). The best way to deal with these difficulties is to read the introductory sections of both Contemporary Literary Criticism and the critical section of The Scarlet Letter. If, for instance, you have difficulty with Stanley Fish's "Interpreting the Variorum," look at the introduction to "Rhetoric and Reader Response" in CLC and "What is Reader-Response Criticism?" in SL. (For a more detailed discussion of Steiner and "On Difficulty" see pp. 13-16 of CLC.) The emphasis in this class will be quality over quantity. If we need to skip some texts to ensure that we have enough time in the classroom to discuss other texts to your satisfaction, so be it. Nevertheless, the best favor you can do for yourself is to begin the reading early, working through these texts as best you can, obtuse and annoying though they may be.
Grading:
	Your grade for this course will be based on a final essay of twenty-five to thirty pages. In this essay you will examine a single literary work from the perspectives of three of the approaches discussed in class (the bold headings on the schedule below).
		The Syllabus. The tentative schedule of the course, detailing readings, assignments, exams and any other class activities.
		The Files. A collection of required and recommended files and documents to download for this course. Currently, the only file here is a printable version of the syllabus and course description.
		E-Mail Me. Send me an e-mail.
		English Department. Back to the English Home Page.
		Fort Hays State University. Back to the FHSU Home Page.

All images on these pages were provided by or adapted from Jelane's Families of Graphics.
This page is created and maintained by Dr. Bradley Will
Last updated: February 2, 2001