Course Schedule, Spring 2025 (16 weeks)
Week 1
Tuesday, January 21: Syllabus review and class introductions.
Course introduction: What is the purpose of literary studies? Why does it matter?
Thursday, January 23: Jonathan Culler, Ch 1 “What is Theory?,” from Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (2011) pp. 1-18, and “Appendix: Theoretical Schools and Movements,” 135-146.
Start brainstorming areas of critical interest! We’ll use these to select readings for class, some from the Rivkin & Ryan pdfs, others from contemporary Shakespeare scholarship.
Week 2
Tuesday, January 28: Twelfth Night, act 1; also read the Arden introduction, pages 1-32.
Thursday, January 30: Jonathan Culler, Ch 2 “What is literature and why does it matter?,” from Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (2011) pp. 19-42; William Empson’s English Pastoral Poetry / Some Versions of Pastoral, ch 1, “Proletarian Literature”, pp. 3-26.
Week 3
Tuesday, February 4: Twelfth Night, act 2; also read the Arden introduction, pages 32-64.
Thursday, February 6: Jonathan Culler, Ch 3 “Literature and cultural studies,” from Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (2011) pp. 43-55; read also Greenblatt’s “Fiction and Friction”, pp. 66-93 (pdf on Canvas).
Week 4
Tuesday, February 11: Twelfth Night, act 3; also read the Arden introduction, pages 64-96 (approximate).
Thursday, February 13: Jonathan Culler, Ch 4 “Language, meaning, and interpretation,” from Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (2011) pp. 56-69; read Northrop Frye’s An Anatomy of Criticism, pp. 131-162.
Week 5
Tuesday, February 18: Twelfth Night, act 4; also read the Arden introduction, pages 96-128 (approximate).
Thursday, February 20: Jonathan Culler, Ch 5 “Rhetoric, poetics, and poetry,” from Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (2011) pp. 70-82; read Marks’ and Irish’s “Shakespeare, Neurological Identity, and Early Modern
Neurodiversity Studies: A Neurological Approach to
‘Character’” (https://doi.org/10.1080/17450918.2024.2444937)
Week 6
Tuesday, February 25: Twelfth Night, act 5; also read the Arden introduction, pages 128-end (approximate).
Thursday, Feb 27: Jonathan Culler, Ch 6 “Narrative,” from Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (2011) pp. 83-94; find and read three separate show reviews of any production of Twelfth Night from Shakespeare Bulletin (and come to class prepared to summarize what you learned about production history).
Attend PSU’s production of Twelfth Night, which runs from Feb 27 to Mar 1. Details here: https://www.plymouth.edu/silvercenter/event/twelfth-night/2025-02-27/ (tickets available free to PSU students within one hour of performance)
Week 7
Tuesday, March 4: Discuss PSU’s production of Twelfth Night; brainstorming and workshopping First Projects; additional readings TBD (likely performance reviews from Shakespeare Bulletin.
Thursday, March 6: Peer-Reviewing First Projects
First Unessay Projects due by the end of the day on Friday, March 7.
Week 8
Tuesday, March 11: Jonathan Culler, Ch 7 “Performative Language,” from Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (2011) pp. 95-108; additional readings TBD.
Thursday, March 13: Reading TBD.
Week 9
Spring Break!
Week 10
Tuesday, March 25: Jonathan Culler, Ch 8 “Identity, identification, and the subject” from Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (2011) pp. 109-120; additional readings TBD.
Thursday, March 27: Reading TBD.
Week 11
Tuesday, April 1: Jonathan Culler, Ch 9 “Ethics and aesthetics” from Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (2011) pp. 121-134; additional readings TBD.
Thursday, April 3: Reading TBD.
Week 12
Tuesday, April 8: Reading TBD.
Thursday, April 10: Reading TBD.
Week 13
Tuesday, April 15: Reading TBD.
Tuesday, April 17: Reading TBD.
Save the date for Ecocriticism! Friday 4/18 from 10-3
Week 14
Tuesday, April 22: Reading TBD.
Thursday, April 24: Reading TBD.
Week 15
Tuesday, April 29: Workshopping Second Projects.
Thursday, May 1: Peer-Reviewing Second Projects.
Second Unessay Projects due by the end of the day on Tuesday, May 6.
Final Meetings, Week 16
Our final meeting period will be Thursday, May 8, 11:00 – 12:30 PM in the Museum of the White Mountains OL.
We’ll be sharing our favorite projects from the semester and reflecting on the arc of the course. Individual reflections will be posted to Canvas as a Daily Post, and I’ll ask you to talk through your Reflection during the Final Class Meeting. This is our final class conversation reflecting on the semester. (Treat each of the options below as Reflections posts; you may complete up to all three of these Reflections posts this week if you so choose. If you’d prefer not to talk during our Final Class Meeting, you can prepare an audio or video recording beforehand and put it in your post (60-90 seconds), or contact me for other presentation options.)
Before class, select one of the below. Your post should include either 150-200 words of text or 1-2 minutes of audio, and should link back to the project being discussed or the PSU Habits of Mind page.
#1: Present via a new Weekly Post (can involve audio) your favorite project from the semester that you completed.
#2: Present via a new Weekly Post (can involve audio) your fav project someone ELSE completed this semester
#3: In a new weekly Post, Reflect on the PSU Habit of Mind “Integrated Perspective” and what you’ve learned on that front this semester: what have you learned from class readings, discussions, and assignments about “the recognition that individual beliefs, ideas, and values are influenced by personal experience as well as multiple contextual factors—cultural, historical political, etc.”?
During our Final Class Meeting, we’ll go around and bring up each person’s post in turn. You can choose to either talk through your post live or to play your prerecorded video.
The deadline for all work and revisions is the end of the day on Thursday, May 8 (11:59 PM).
Sprockets and Springes 