Time Schedule:
Gillian H Harkins
ENGL 302
Seattle Campus
Intensive study of, and exercise in, applying important or influential interpretive practices for studying language, literature, and culture, along with consideration of their powers/limits. Focuses on developing critical writing abilities. Topics vary and may include critical and interpretive practice from scripture and myth to more contemporary approaches, including newer interdisciplinary practices. Prerequisite: minimum grade of 2.0 in ENGL 197 or ENGL 297; a minimum grade of 2.0 in ENGL 202 or ENGL 301; may not be repeated if received a grade of 2.0 or higher.
Class description
Cultural Studies of the Novel. This course provides a follow-up to ENGL 202, the Introduction to the English major. It is a practicum of critical methods. This particular section of 302 will provide in-depth practice in cultural studies approaches to the novel. Our focus on cultural studies will include attention to the following methodological questions: what is the form in formalist approaches to the novel? What is historicism and why would you use it to read novels? What kinds of critical practices - close reading, archive development, historical research - are important to cultural studies methodologies? Does narratology (the study of narrative form) have a role? What about ethnography or other research methods from anthropology, sociology, or the empirical human sciences? By the end of the course, students should have a grasp of various approaches to the study of culture and narrative forms. Students will also have been exposed to a range of social and political questions related to cultural studies methodologies, including theories of race, gender, sexuality, and class. We will read literary theory alongside Henry James, Daisy Miller; Jeanette Winterson, The Passion; and Caryl Philips, Crossing the River.
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