Literary Theory: An Introduction

Catalog description

Introduction to the major theoretical approaches to the contemporary study of culture (literature, film, art and politics). GER 510 Literary Theory: An Introduction (3) This seminar will introduce students to contemporary literary and cultural theory in an effort to provide them with the methodological tools they need to undertake cutting-edge literary and cultural analysis themselves. German Studies in the U.S. has at least two defining characteristics. First, though, at least for those of us in German Departments, its emphasis is mainly on culture, it is genuinely interdisciplinary, attempting to explore how cultural products and practices (defined as extending far beyond the traditional canon of German literature) are constituted by and help to constitute history and politics. And, secondly, it advances its interdisciplinary analyses by drawing increasingly on new methodologies elaborated by Anglo-American and foreign cultural theorists. Among the theoretical approaches we may focus on will be formalism and structuralism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, cultural studies, feminism, gender studies, and queer theory, and post-colonial theory. These new theories have profoundly transformed disciplines such as Anglo-American literary studies, comparative literature, women's studies, history, and anthropology, since the Seventies. In this course we shall find out if/how such theories could transform German Studies, too. The course is reading-intensive and students are expected to invest most of their time in reading and preparing for class discussions. Regular attendance and informed participation in class discussion will be required. This involves reading all assigned articles on a regular basis (20%); oral presentation of one weekly section (30%); second oral presentation that includes a sample analysis of the assigned texts (20%); and one 12-15 page paper due at the end of the semester (30%). German 51 0 will be the second unit in a three-course package intended to provide beginning graduate students with a set of correlated introductory courses. German 510 is the only wide-ranging course in theory offered by the Department for incoming students. This course will be offered once a year with 5 to 1 0 students (1 5 max) per offering.