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Literary Theory and Criticism

Spring Semester 25/26

Friday 9am to 12pm

Room 425

Course Leader: Tatiana Kontou                                                                

Email: tkontou@enl.uoa.gr

Office: HUB 802

Tel. 210 727 7902

Office Hours: Monday 12:00pm-1:00pm & by appointment via email

Course description:

How do we go about reading and interpreting a literary text? What are we trying to do when we analyse a work of literature: are we trying to establish one correct interpretation? How do we decide that some interpretations are more valuable than others? Do we need to understand the original intentions of the author to understand what something means? Is it necessary to understand the historical or political situation from which a work emerged? Do readers interpret texts differently at different historical moments? Could our interpretations of texts be affected by forces beyond our control, forces such as the workings of language, unconscious desires, class, race, gender, sexuality or nationality? How is it that some texts, Shakespeare’s plays, for instance, are highly valued by our culture, while others have been lost or devalued? Who or what decides which literature will survive to be read and studied on literature degrees?

This course will suggest some ways of answering these large and difficult questions about interpretation, and aims to make you think in new ways about the work you do for your English degree. Throughout the course you will read critical and theoretical essays and literary works that contribute to your understanding of the dynamic relationship between literature, theory and criticism. The course will examine many different aspects of literary theory including new criticism, feminism, post-colonial theory, psychoanalysis and queer theory. We will reflect on the relationship between the theoretical reading and literature through our weekly readings of several literary texts.

Aims and Objectives:

• Become familiar with different yet inteconnected strands of theoretical and critical thinking.
• Use theoretical and critical writing as an apperture or a lens through which to think critically, creatively and imaginatively about texts and your own interpretative skills.
• Reflect self-critically on your role as a reader within specific interpretative communities.
• Become more conscious and inquisitive of the dialogic nature of reading and of the wider forces that condition us as vehicles for the transmission of literary values.

Please note: In the event that changes to the syllabus need to take place, these will be announced in advance as much as possible. Please remain updated by regularly checking the announcements on e-Class and your university email account for messages from the course tutor.

Class Policies:

Each student is expected to prepare for and attend: 1  3 hour lecture|seminar/week

Participation and Attendance:

As a seminar, this course is largely based on active participation, the quality of which depends on your preparedness and willingness to engage in class discussion (the golden rules: come to class with at least two comments to make about the subject at hand, be an active listener and respond thoughtfully and respectfully to the comments of your peers). It is necessary to be punctual, to be present, and to participate in class. It is essential that you bring a copy of the required reading assigned for each week either in digital or print form to facilitate attentive and detailed textual analysis.

Communication:

I will be communicating with you via e-class announcements and messages and through UoA email to alert you of any changes to the schedule, or other announcements. Be sure to check your UoA email regularly. Email me with any concerns, emergencies, questions, or to set up a meeting outside of office hours. I will answer emails within 2 working days.

Students with Documented Disabilities:

Students who may need an academic accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate the request with the Accessibility Unit. Professional staff will evaluate the request with required official documentation, recommend reasonable accommodations, and prepare an Accommodation Letter for staff. Students should contact the Accessibility Unit as soon as possible since timely notice is needed to coordinate accommodations. Accessibility Unit webpage and useful links are here:  https://access.uoa.gr/en/home-2/

Academic Integrity:

Plagiarism will result in an automatic failure of this course. Academic integrity is the cornerstone of a university education. Academic dishonesty diminishes the university as an institution and all members of the university community. It tarnishes the value of a UoA degree. All members of the UoA community have an explicit responsibility to foster an environment of trust, honesty, fairness, respect, and responsibility. All members of the university community are expected to present as their original work only that which is truly their own. The use of Generative AI for coursework is prohibited and will result in an automatic failure. Please, note the huge environmental impact of AI technology in terms of carbon emissions, electronic waste and detrimental impact on ecosystems. The training of AI algorithms is undertaken using the work of individuals (writers, artists, academics, etc.) who have not been consulted on nor compensated for the infringement of their copyright or intellectual ownership of the material used. The training of AI algorithms is also implicated in the extractive and exploitative use of Global South labour. Every use of AI contributes to this environmental damage and exploitation.  AI is of course not ‘intelligence’ but computer algorithms, either LLMs (large language models) or generative AI (deep learning models) trained on existing data.

Please bring a notebook and pen or laptop to each seminar. Each week we will spend a dedicated amount of time on reflecting and responding to the weekly reading. 

Reader responses can include close readings of a theme, idea, or line from a text, the interrogation of a particular term in the reading, a discussion of the wider context of the reading, or a bid to untangle a particularly perplexing concept. You do not have to be an expert, but you do need to spend some time putting together a considered response of between 200 and 300 words to the assigned material. Discussion of the primary literature or films, videos, documentaries is welcome.  Each week you will discuss your reader response in class with your peers in small groups of six; you can either read it directly to  your assigned group or discuss it informally, but you must come to class having done the primary reading and been willing to reflect in writing.

Assessment:

OPTION A

• Midterm Exam (40%) & Summer Exam (60%)
• Students may also submit a portfolio of 3 in-class-responses from their weekly writing for extra credit.

OPTION B

• Summer Exam (100%)

Primary Reading:

• Required reading will be uploaded on e-class.

The best preparation for the course is reading widely in the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, but you may also want to make yourself familiar with a few of these useful overviews.

Bennett, Andrew. The Author. Oxford: Routledge, 2005.
Culler, Jonathan. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 1997.
Eagleton,Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota 
Press, 1983.
An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory, 4th ed. Ed. Andrew Bennett and 
Nicholas Royle. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2009. (particularly the following
chapters: “The author,” “The reader and reading,” “The text and the world,” “Desire” 
and “Pleasure”)
Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Oxford: Blackwell, 
1998.
Twentieth Century Literary Criticism: A Reader. Ed. David Lodge. London: Longman, 1972.

• Week 1: Introductions

Primary Reading:

Jonathan Culler, "What is Literature and Does It matter?" [pdf on eclass]

& Terry Eagleton, "Introduction: What is Literature?" from Literary Theory: An Introduction

Watch Astra Taylor's "The Examined Life" [2008] 

Christina Rossetti, "Winter: My Secret"

Robin Ekiss, "Preface" from The Mansion of Happiness [2009]

• Week 2: New Criticism and the Author’s Intentions

Primary Reading:

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray [we shall focus on the “Preface” but please read as much of the text as possible]

Roland Barthes, "The Death of the Author" [1967] [pdf on eclass]

Michel Foucault, "What is an Author?" [1969] [pdf on eclass]

Secondary Reading:

Nicholas Royle and Andrew Bennett, “Readers and Reading” [pdf on eclass]

• Weeks 3-4: Ideology, Marxism & Cultural Materialism

Primary Reading:

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Terry Eagleton, “Marxism and Literary Criticism” [pdf on eclass]

Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses"focus on the following if you

cannot get through the whole extract: "On the Reproduction of the Conditions of Production", "The State Ideological Apparatuses"

John Brannigan, “Conflict and Contradiction: Cultural Materialism” [pdf on eclass]

Karl Marx, Section 4 "The Fetisism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof" from Capital (1867)

Secondary Reading:

Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield eds, Foreword to Political Shakespeare: Essays on Cultural Materialism (2nd edn), Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1994 [on eclass]

Hayden White, “The Historical Text as Literary Artefact” [pdf on eclass]

Mark Fisher, “The Privatisation of Stress’” [pdf on eclass]

Watch “Bloodsuckers: A Marxist Vampire Comedy” [2021] dir. Julian Radlmaier

• Weeks 5-6: Feminism, Sexuality & Gender

Primary Reading:

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Monique Wittig, One is Not Born a Woman

Judith Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Theatre Journal, vol. 40, no. 4, 1988, pp. 519–31. [pdf on eclass]

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet [1990] [extracts on eclass]

Sarah Ahmed, “Unhappy Queers” [pdf on eclass]

Secondary Reading:

Sarah Ahmed, “Conclusion 2: A Killjoy Manifesto.” Living a Feminist Life, Duke University Press, 2017, pp. 251–68. [pdf on eclass]

Hélène Cixous, et al. “The Laugh of the Medusa.” Signs, vol. 1, no. 4, 1976, pp. 875–93. [pdf on eclass]

Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality Vol. 1 , read Part 1 and Part 2 ‘The Repressive Hypothesis’

Sinfield, Alan. “Out of the 1950s: Cultural History, Queer Thought.” History Workshop Journal, no. 77, 2014, pp. 263–73.

• Week 7: Mid-term Exam and in-class portfolio for extra credit

• Week 8: Mayday-NO CLASSES

• Weeks 9: Psychoanalysis & Visual Pleasure

Primary Reading:

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Pam Thurschwell, 'Interpretation' [pdf on eclass]

Extracts from Sigmund Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, “They Uncanny”

Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" [essential]
https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Mulvey_%20Visual%20Pleasure.pdf

Watch Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo [1958]

Secondary Reading:

Jacques Lacan, "The Mirror Stage" 
https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Lacan%20Mirror%20Stage.pdf

• Weeks 10-11: Race & Colonial Discourse

Primary Reading:

Edward Said, extracts from Orientalism

Franz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks “Introduction” [pdf on eclass]

Aimé Césaire, from “Discourse on Colonialism” [pdf on e-class]

Wright, Michelle M. “Feminism.” Keywords for African American Studies, edited by Erica R. Edwards et al., vol. 8, NYU Press, 2018, pp. 86–89. [pdf on eclass]

Extracts from Nella Larsen, Passing [1929]

Secondary Reading:

Claudia Rankine, “The Condition of Black Life Is One of Mourning” [pdf on eclass]

• Week 12: Case Study

Primary Reading:

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray: A Theoretial Reading

This week you need to close read and think critically about Wilde’s novella. Rather than apply theory to the text you could think through and with the theoretical writings you have encountered on the module so far to come up with your own close reading of a particular theme, passage or concept in Wilde’s text.

Secondary Reading:

andrew-elfenbein-on-the-trials-of-oscar-wilde-myths-and-realities

• Week 13: Case Study Continued & Revision-tying loose ends

Primary Reading:

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray: A Theoretial Reading

This week you need to close read and think critically about Wilde’s novella. Rather than apply theory to the text you could think through and with the theoretical writings you have encountered on the module so far to come up with your own close reading of a particular theme, passage or concept in Wilde’s text.