English 10C-3 - Fall, 2017

Literatures in English III: 1900-Present

Class Information

Instructor: Kitses, Jasmine
CRN: 62577
Time: TR 4:40-6:00
Location: 207 Olson

Description

The final course in a three-part series, English 10C prepares students majoring in English for advanced work in upper-division literary studies. In this reading- and writing-intensive class, we will read texts in a number of ways, recognize and apply concepts that pertain to literary analysis, and work on articulating your ideas in a precise, informed, and complex manner. We will read closely, paying attention to presentation, form, genre, style, and subject matter, while more broadly situating texts within their particular historical and literary contexts. We will also trace a broad literary history of the 20th/21st century with the help of two key terms: innovation and degradation. The desire to make something new can often be a form of breaking something down, and this breaking down can in turn lead to new forms. The entanglement of these terms will thus allow us to question the stability and function of literary and historical frameworks in relation to modernist and contemporary literary works.

Grading

Two 500-word dissections 10%
Short paper 20%
Long paper 25%
Participation (including theses, discussion questions) 20%
Quizzes (5 unannounced at 2%) 10%
Final Exam 15%

Texts

Albee, Edward, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Bechdel, Allison, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomi
Roy, Arundhati, The God of Small Things
Toomer, Jean, Cane
Woolf, Virginia, To the Lighthouse
Course Reader