ENG 450/650: Marxist/Feminist Criticism

English 450/650 Professor Carol Loranger Marxist/Feminist Literary Theory carol.loranger@wright.edu 072 Rike 414 Millett; 775-2961 MW 2:00-3:15pm Hours: MW 4-5pm, F 1-3 and by appointment REQUIRED TEXTS:

Eagleton, ed. Marxist Literary Theory Warhol and Herndl, eds. Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables Baym, Feminism and American Literary History About the Course:

According to the 1999-2001 WSU undergraduate catalogue, English 450/650 focuses on the "intensive study of literary theory in order to develop an understanding of critical questions and approaches." In this edition of the course students are expected to develop an understanding of the historical relationship of literary production and scholarship to the maintenance of power and the variety of means by which political literary criticism and theory can illuminate and alter that relationship. We will be reading founding and contemporary documents in what are arguably the most influential and wide-spread schools of political criticism: Marxist and feminist literary theory. We will sharpen our understanding of these theories by applying them to one literary text: Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1851 romance The House of the Seven Gables. While students are expected to debate the validity and/or utility of individual reading materials on the class newsgroup, and to ask questions about difficult concepts in class, it should be understood that students enrolled in English 450/650 must be prepared to demonstrate their "understanding" by adopting and practicing some combination or version of Marxist and/or feminist approaches to literature in their course essay to earn a passing grade in this course. WARNING: A willingness to accept one of the following constitutive assumptions is essential to your success in this course: 1. there is an organic relationship between humans' material conditions and their understanding of their world / relations with each other; 2. the historically patriarchal orientation of western culture imposes on biological sex the material conditions of class.

If you do not believe you can swallow one or more of the 
above propositions, but lean more toward the pretty fantasy 
described below, you should probably drop this course. I 
will be happy to help you find other open English courses 
that satisfy the core.

A Pretty Fantasy (courtesy of Louis Lapham):
"Once upon a time, before the awful misfortunes of the 
1960s, America was a theme park constructed by nonunion 
labor along the lines of the Garden of Eden. But then 
something terrible happened, and a plague of guitarists 
descended upon the land. Spawned by the sexual confusions 
of the amoral news media, spores of Marxist ideology blew 
around in the wind, multiplied the powers of government, 
and impregnated the English departments at the Ivy League 
universities, which then gave birth to the monster of 
deconstruction that devoured the arts of learning. Pretty 
soon the trout began to die in Wyoming, and the next thing 
that anybody knew the nation's elementary schools had been 
debased, too many favors were being granted to women and 
blacks, federal bureaucrats were smothering capitalist 
entrepreneurs with the pillows of government regulation, 
prime-time television was broadcasting continuous footage 
from Sodom and Gomorrah, and the noble edifice of Western 
civilization had collapsed into the rubble of feminist 
prose."

Calendar Note: All reading and writing assignments must be completed by the day indicated on the calendar.) Sept 15 Introductory matters. Course coverage, expectations, policy. Sept 20 Reading and discussion: Eagleton, pp. 30-41. Sept 22 Reading and discussion: Eagleton, pp. 42-68. Sept 27 Reading and discussion: Warhol and Herndl, pp. 69-116. Sept 29 Reading and discussion: Warhol and Herndl, pp. 117-153. Notes due. Oct 4 Reading and discussion: Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables. Oct 6 Reading and discussion: Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables. (After today, continue bringing H7G to class.) Oct 11 Reading and discussion: Baym, pp.36-70. Oct 13 Reading and discussion: Baym, pp. 3-18, 71- 80. Notes due. Oct 18 Reading and discussion: Eagleton, pp.103- 106, 141-162. Oct 20 Reading and discussion: Eagleton, pp.204-241 Oct 25 Reading and discussion: Warhol and Herndl, pp. 189-211, 227-248. Oct 27 Reading and discussion: Warhol and Herndl, pp. 487-524. Notes due. Nov 1 Reading and discussion: Eagleton, pp. 260- 268, 275-295. Nov 3 Reading and discussion: Eagleton, pp. 296- 327. Nov 8 Reading and discussion: Warhol and Herndl, pp. 644-670. Graduate bibliography due. Nov 10 Reading and discussion: Warhol and Herndl, pp. 857-878. Notes due. Nov 15 Reading and discussion: Baym, pp.199-231. Thesis statement and plan for course essay due. No exceptions. Nov 17 Reading and discussion: Eagleton, pp. 328- 350. Nov 22 Reading and discussion: Warhol and Herndl, pp. 525-550. Notes due. Dec 2 Course Essay due at 3:15 pm. Workload: 1. Reading and attendance: The reading material for this course is difficult and not always entertaining. Unfortunately the international character of Marxist literary criticism (particularly and specifically in this anthology) means that literary references in the essays are not always to familiar American and British texts. Slog along anyway. I've decided to limit the readings from Feminisms largely to Anglo-American feminism--and to pretty mainstream currents at that. Sorry. I simply wanted to use material which seemed to me most applicable to the literary text in question. My choices are not intended to signify rejection of the positions taken in the omitted essays. I hope you develop enough interest to read widely in both anthologies as your time permits. Still, there's lots of reading. Do your darnedest to keep up. Forming study and reading groups is often helpful--and since we don't meet on Fridays, you might want to organize independent sessions during class time on Friday. Don't skip class because you're confused; much will become clear during the lecture discussions. In fact, if you're the sort of person who habitually skips class, better drop now. More than three absences can have a significant negative impact on your course grade.

2. Notes: Nothing encourages people to read difficult stuff better than having to be formally responsible for it; on the other hand, quizzes don't usually reveal student understanding, and are their penal / authoritative nature goes against the grain of the course material. As a substitute, I ask that you write detailed one-page notes on each essay you read. For each essay write a bibliographic citation in correct MLA format. Follow the citation with 1. A brief paragraph (75-150 words), clearly labeled, stating what you take to be the essay's Main Argument. You should quote briefly, and accurately and carefully from the essay to justify your statement.2. Short Outline of the essay's main points. 3. Personal Statement: what aspect of the essay might be useful to you? On each of the five Notes due dates, type up the two Notes you feel show your best understanding of the assigned reading from the previous two weeks and turn them in together with xerox copies of your other notes. Only the two typed Notes will be evaluated. ( +, /, - 20%)

3. Fourth-Hour Project: I have set up a computer newsgroup for this course, which you can access with your student computing account. This newsgroup takes the place of a conventional reading journal and counts heavily as your participation grade. If you don't already have your account, you will want to pick it up from the CATS help desk the first week. The folks at the help desk in the library basement will help you log on the first time. Basically you will want to use the newsgroup to converse with your classmates about the course material, to note questions, confusions or concerns, to argue points we can't always get around to in class. Sometimes I will suggest a topic. Mostly, though, the newsgroup is YOUR forum. You will want to read the postings regularly, once or twice a week. In order to receive a participation grade of C for the class, you will need to make 5 substantive postings, either raising an issue for discussion or responding in depth to an on-going discussion. A grade of B requires 7 substantive postings, while a grade of A requires 10 (roughly one per week). Please do not wait until the last part of the term to do your postings. As an incentive to begin, the first two students to post September 24 will only need 9 postings to receive an A. (25%/ graduate students 15%)

4. Course Essay: This more or less traditional essay will draw on at least five relevant critical sources, address some aspect of (your choice) Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables, Hawthorne criticism and scholarship (with reference to H7G), or 19th century American Literary History (with some reference to Hawthorne and or H7G). You are required to adopt some recognizable form of a Marxist or feminist stance. In this essay you will demonstrate your knowledge of the material and facility with literary discourse, as well as your senior-level skills with the English language and the rules of composition. Feel free to draw on your and others' contributions to the newsgroup--carefully documented, of course--as well as any other useful materials. Paper will conform to MLA guidelines. (65%)

5. Graduate Students Only: Create a 20-25 item bibliography featuring recent Marxist and/or feminist literary criticism useful for future reading/study in your area of academic interest (i.e., Milton studies, lesbian theory, popular fiction, 19th century British fiction, etc. Preface the bibliography with a one page statement on the relationship of the bibliography to your interests. (10%) Some Internet starting points: Here are some Internet clearinghouses: good places to see what's available on-line (Use caution and careful critical judgment when reading any Internet material.).

Hawthorne page: http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/nh/hawthorne.html English 440/640 COURSE ESSAY Write a paper of middling length (1000-1250 words) exploring a topic of your choice arising from in-class or newsgroup discussion of one or more of our class texts or themes. In order to explore a topic successfully you will probably have to propose a specific reading of one or more texts or of related passages. Close readings generally take into account how the structure, language and imagery of a passage resonate with or undermine its ostensible content, or how the content of specific passages plays against the "message" of the work as a whole. You may bring to bear any relevant information or approach you have encountered in other university-level literary (or other) study or related literary works with which you are familiar. You may certainly use any course materials, including the group genre analyses, newsgroup postings, position papers or your fourth-hour project researches. Whatever you choose to write about, your paper must acknowledge that literary criticism is an ongoing discourse by containing relevant reference to at least 3 recent (post 1980) critical essays on the texts or topic from scholarly resources. All research materials must be carefully presented in your text and documented with parenthetical notation and a works cited page. Plagiarism will result in a failing mark for the paper (at least) and for the course (if warranted). The shape and topic of your essay are up to you, so long as you somehow come to grips with the text(s) as Western writing. It may take the form of close analysis of a passage in relation to some other material; exploration of the treatment of the West or creative application of a convention in a given text; illustration of some ideological characteristic of the text(s), development of an idea raised by you in class discussion or in a related newsgroup posting; or comparison/contrast of a specific textual element (structure, character, mood, etc.) in two or more texts. There are other possibilities. Feel free to discuss your essay with me before writing it. In this paper you will demonstrate senior-level competence with the English language and composition and a good grasp of the MLA conventions for citation of sources and formatting of scholarly essays. Paper will be typed, double-spaced, proofread and corrected for errors. It will have an original title that indicates its contents, a works cited page, parenthetical documentation of sources used, an intriguing opening paragraph with thesis statement, and a satisfying concluding paragraph.