ENGL606/485 (Section 901, Schedule #34029/42352)
Virginia Commonwealth University
Spring 2021
M 7-9:40pm :: Hibbs 308 (in Blackboard & on Zoom until further notice)
Prof. David Golumbia
Office: 333 Hibbs Hall
Spring 2021 Office Hours: by appointment
Literary Theory: Poststructuralism
A study of critical approaches to literary texts, with special attention to poststructuralist methods and figures. Some attention is given to the historical development of criticism, but the primary focus is on its theoretical claims, methodologies and aims. Readings will largely be chosen from work from the high water mark of literary theory in the US in the 1980s and 1990s, including figures like Derrida, Foucault, Gates, Sedgwick, Gilroy, Spivak and Cixous, but some attention will be paid to more recent work by writers such as Christina Sharpe, Fred Moten, Achille Mbembe, and Sianne Ngai. The class is taught entirely by discussion. Evaluation is based on participation and on a seminar paper.
Modality: synchronous Zoom-based discussion with text-based discussion.
Texts
PDFs of the selections are in blackboard, so you do not need to purchase them, but are welcome to do so if you choose. We will be reading selections only from the Gates and Gilroy volumes; the others we'll read in their entirety.
- Jonathan Culler, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (second edition, Oxford University Press, 2011)
- Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism (25th anniversary edition, Oxford University Press, 2014)
- Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (Duke UP, 2016)
- Paul Gilroy, Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Color Line (Harvard UP, 2002)
- Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (Random House, 2019)
Assignments and
Evaluation
- Paper: 50%. Students will write a seminar paper on a topic to be developed over the course of the term with the instructor.
- Course Participation: 50%. This portion of the grade will be assigned based on the frequency and quality of each student's participation in Blackboard discussion (and, where applicable, Zoom discussions). Participation grades focus primarily on how often the student contributes to discussion, and whether those contributions reflect having read the material and other students' comments. Unlike papers, participation grades are largely not focused on how smart or incisive your comments are. The point is to participate often and show that you've read the material and your classmates' comments: it is meant to be easy to get full credit or nearly full credit for the term for participation.
Official VCU Policy Statements
Week-by-Week Syllabus
Week One.
Week Two.
- Mon Feb 1. Culler, Literary Theory
Week Three.
- Mon Feb 8. Hortense Spillers, "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book"; "'Long Time': Last Daughters and the New 'New South'"
Week Four.
- Mon Feb 15. Gates, The Signifying Monkey: Chapter 2, "The Signifying Monkey and the Language of Signifyin(g): Rhetorical Difference and the Orders of Meaning"; Chapter 4, "The Trope of the Talking Book"; Katherine Clay Bassard, "The Significance of Signifying: Vernacular Theory and the Creation of Early African American Literary Study"
Week Five.
Week Six.
- Mon Mar 1. Achille Mbembe, "Necropolitics," "On The Postcolony: A Brief Response to Critics"
Week Seven.
- Mon Mar 8. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" and "Righting Wrongs"
Week Eight.
- Mon Mar 15. Christina Sharpe, In the Wake, Chapters 1-2, "The Wake," "The Ship"; recommended: remainder of book
Week Nine.
Week Ten.
- Mon Mar 29. Jacques Derrida, "Signature Event Context" (Limited Inc, 1-23) & editor's introduction; "Exergue," "The End of the Book and the Beginning of Writing" (Of Grammatology, 3-26); recommended: summary of "Reiterating the Differences" & "Limited Inc a b c ..." in Limited Inc; rest of Part I of Of Grammatology
Week Eleven.
- Mon Apr 5. Paul Gilroy, Against Race, Chapter 1, "The Crisis of 'Race' and Raciology," Chapter 8, "'Race,' Cosmopolitanism, and Catastrophe," Chapter 9, "'Third Stone from the Sun': Planetary Humanism and Strategic Universalism"
Week Twelve.
- Mon Apr 12. Charles Mills, Black Rights/White Wrongs, Introduction, Chapter 1, "New Left Project Interview with Charles Mills," Chapter 3, "Racial Liberalism," Chapter 6, "Kant's Untermenschen"
Week Thirteen.
- Mon Apr 19. Stanley, How Fascism Works (complete text)
Week Fourteen.
Week Fifteen.
- Mon May 3. No reading. Final essay due by the final exam period for the course. There is no final exam.
Last updated
March 30, 2021.