Semester	Spring Semester, 2018
Department	Junior Class A, Department of English Junior Class B, Department of English Senior Class A, Department of English Senior Class B, Department of English
Course Name	Literary Theory and Criticism
Instructor	WU MIN-HUA
Credit	3.0
Course Type	Elective
Prerequisite

Course Objective

Course Description

Course Schedule

週次 Week	日期 Date	課程主題 Topic	課程內容與指定閱讀 Content and Reading Assignment	學習投入時間 Student workload expectation
週次 Week	日期 Date	課程主題 Topic	課程內容與指定閱讀 Content and Reading Assignment	課堂	前後
1	3/1	Introduction	Introduction to Literary Theory and Criticism (pp.1-33)	3	6
2	3/8	Before Literary Theory	Plato, Republic, Book X Aristotle, Poetics	3	6
3	3/15	Classical Theory and Criticism	Horace, Ars Poetics Longinus, On Sublimity	3	6
4	3/22	Renaissance and Enlightenment Theory and Criticism	Du Bellay, The Defense and Enrichment of the French Language Johnson, Preface to Shakespeare Lives of the English Poets	3	6
5	3/29	Romantic Theory and Criticism	Wordsworth, “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” Baudelaire, “The Salon of 1846” (handout)	3	6
6	4/5	Victorian Theory and Criticism	James, “The Art of Fiction” Arnold, “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time” Wilde, Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray The Decay of Lying The Critic as Artist	3	6
7	4/12	The Canon / Tradition	Eliot, Tradition and Individual Talent The Metaphysical Poets Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence	3	6
8	4/19	Structuralism and Semiotics	De Saussure, Course in General Linguistics Jakobson, “Two Aspects of Language”	3	6
9	4/26	Post-structuralism	Barthes, “The Death of the Author” “From Work to Text” Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language	3	6
10	5/3	Mid-term Exam	Mid-term Exam	3	6
11	5/10	Psychoanalysis	Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams “The Dream Work,” “The Uncanny” Lacan, “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I” “The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious”	3	6
12	5/17	Post-structuralism and New historicism	Foucault, “What Is an Author?” Discipline and Punish The History of Sexuality	3	6
13	5/24	Marxism	Marx and Engels, “Economic and Philosophic Manuscript of 1844” Capital Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”	3	6
14	5/31	Post-modernism	Jameson, The Political Unconscious “Postmodernism and Consumer Society” Bakhtin, Discourse in the Novel	3	6
15	6/7	Feminism	Woolf, A Room of One’s Own De Beauvoir, The Second Sex Gilbert and Gubar, The Mad Woman in the Attic	3	6
16	6/14	Postcolonialism	Said, Orientalism Hall, “Cultural Studies and Its Theoretical Legacies”	3	6
17	6/21	Final Exam	Final Exam	3	6
18	6/28	Office Hours	Office Hours	3	6

The schedule above is tentative and subject to change based on the students’ particular needs during the semester. I reserve the right to modify the class requirements and/or responsibilities if needed. All changes made will be further announced in the class.

Teaching Methods

Teaching Assistant

Requirement/Grading

Grading Policy

1. Attendance and Class participation 20%

2. Two oral presentations 30%

3. Mid-term Exam 25%

4. Final Exam 25%

Requirements and Policies

1. One final project presentation. A team of two members is required to create a PPT presentation of a final research project on the application of a theory or theories to a text or texts at the end of the semester.

2. One or two oral presentation(s). A team of two members is required to choose an author/theorist from the reading assignments and create a PPT presentation. (depending on the size of the class)

3. Class participation. For the student’s own intellectual growth and the success of the class as a whole, all is required to be well prepared for each week’s assigned readings.

Textbook & Reference

Course Materials

Required:

William E. Cain, et al. ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York and London: Norton, 2010.

Recommended:

Peter Barry. Beginning Theory. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2009.

Terry Eagleton. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008.

Raman Selden, et al. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. London: Longman, 2005.

Urls about Course

The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism: http://litguide.press.jhu.edu/ (login through the NCCU Library’s databases)

Attachment

Literary Theory and Criticism__Course Schedule _Min_Hua Wu_ 2018.02.pdf
PPT Presentation Guidelines.pdf
Barry__Theory before Theory_ Plato__Republic Book X_ Aristotle__Poetics.pdf