schedule

Course Schedule

  • texts with [C] are available via our Commons Group in the LIBRARY; for other texts, either follow the link or read the book
  • important: dates, readings, and assignments are subject to change. The schedule on this website is our schedule: please don't rely on the original printout from the first week!
  • as of 3/3/2025, our course site remains down: I've asked for tech support and hope to resolve soon. Stay tuned on email for instructions about any blog posts or other assignments that require our main site, and follow this schedule in the meantime.

W1: 1/27: Introduction, requirements, assignments

  • introductions: feel free to introduce yourself virtually as well via the nifty padlet!
  • syllabus review, including discussion/devising of AI policy.
  • mini-discussion on theme of "What is Theory" The handy introduction from Culler, accessible here, is recommended to read prior to class but not required.

1: Language/Structure/Signs

W2: 2/3

  • readings (all readings due on the day they're listed)
    • Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lying…” (752-62)
    • Saussure, from Course in General Linguistics (824-40)
    • Optional: Jonathan Culler on Saussure [C]
  • annoucements/work due:
    • Blog post #1 due: submit to course site and follow guidelines in my Blogging 101 post

W3: 2/10

  • readings (all readings due on the day they're listed)

    • Roland Barthes, "The World of Wrestling" and “The Eiffel Tower” [C]
    • Barthes, “The Reality Effect”(1272-77) and "From 'Work' to 'Text'" (1277-81)
  • annoucements/work due:
    • come to class with an idea, however half-baked, of a cultural space or practice that you might "mythologize" like Barthes does...

W4: 2/18 (async day: prof travelling) REVISED PLAN: MEET AS USUAL IN 509B

  • readings (all readings due on the day they're listed)

    • Jacques Derrida, "Structure, Sign, and Play ..." [C]
    • Barbara Johnson "Melville's Fist" [C]
      • although the text gives something of a synopsis of Melville's novella Billy Budd, for those who haven't read that text, good ol' Wikipedia does a decent job with the basics. Reading the plot synopsis at least will help you to grasp Johnson's article.
  • annoucements/work due:
    • Blog post #2 due
    • async assignment TBA: we'll do some kind of annotation exercise with the above readings.

W5: 2/24 (canceled due to sickness)

W6: 3/3

  • readings (all readings due on the day they're listed)

    • Moretti (2255-77)
    • Genette, from Paratexts [C]
  • annoucements/work due:
    • show and tell: bring a book of some kind and be ready to tell us about some of its "paratexts" in Genette's sense.

2: Ideology/Hegemony/Power

W7: 3/10

  • readings (all readings due on the day they're listed)
    • Marx/Engels:
      • from Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (655-9);
      • from The German Ideology (659-61);
      • from Capital (667-75). The excerpt from "The Working Day" is optional.
      • Recommended: Raymond Williams, “Ideology” from Keywords [C]
  • annoucements/work due:
    • Blog Post #3 due

W8: 3/17

  • readings:
    • Antonio Gramsci, “Formation of the Intellectuals” (1002-08)
    • Raymond Williams, “Hegemony” from Marxism and Literature [C]
    • Louis Althusser, “Ideology and ISAs” (1285-1311)
  • annoucements/work due:
    • Blog Post #3 due

W9: 3/24

  • readings:
    • W.E.B. Du Bois, from Souls of Black Folk (845-7)
    • Franz Fanon, from “The Fact of Blackness” [C: please read the .pdf and not the butchered version in the Norton!!] and "On National Culture" (1353-67)
    • Chinua Achebe, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness" [1536-46]
    • optional: Claudia Rankine, from Citizen [C]

W10: 3/31 NO CLASS--EID (NOTE CHANGE)

W11: 4/7

  • readings:
    • Michel Foucault, from The History of Sexuality (1421-35)
    • Michel Foucault, "Society Must be Defended" (1440-50)
    • Spivak, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" (2001-12)
  • work due:
    • Blog Post #4 due

3: Psyche/The Subject/Affect

W12: 4/21

  • readings (all readings due on the day they're listed)
    • Meltzer, “Unconscious”[C]
    • Freud, from The Interpretation of Dreams (789-99)
    • Freud, "Fetishism" (816-19)
    • Lacan, “The Mirror Stage” (1111-17)

W13: 4/28

  • readings:
    • Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (1954-66)
    • Kaja Silverman, from Threshold of the Visual World: Ch 4 required, Ch 5 OPTIONAL [C]
    • OPTIONAL: NOTE CHANGE!! Slavoj Zizek, from Looking Awry (2225-2242)
  • work due:
    • proposals due for any students doing the second option for the final

W14: 5/5

  • readings:

    • Sianne Ngai, from Ugly Feelings (2641-50)
    • Lauren Berlant, from Cruel Optimism [C]
      • Intro REQUIRED; Ch 1 OPTIONAL
  • work due:
    • Blog Post #5 due

W15: 5/12 Special Topic: Surveillance Capitalism (C)

  • readings:

    • Zuboff, from The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (Ch 1 required: Ch 10 is in OPTIONAL READINGS if you have time)
    • other optional reading: Wark, from Is Capital Dead? (also in OPTIONAL folder)
  • final project due Friday, May 16th
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