EN6102: Advanced Critical Reading

This module aims to train students to engage critically with texts at a postgraduate level, with particular reference to the application of critical theory to the problems of reading, interpretation and evaluation. Special provision is made for a project in which reading strategies or methods may be applied to a text or set of texts. The module places emphasis on the problems and resources of reading and interpretation. It is recommended that you read at least one introductory text at the beginning of the course. The main aim of the module is to provide depth in citical reading and to this end we spend a considerable amount of time on two or three short texts with other supplementary texts added along the way. It is not a survey course but rather a guided exercise in critical reading.

PRIMARY TEXTS

Main Texts

Jacques Derrida. “My Chances/Mes Chances: A rendezvous with some Epicurean Stereophonies,” in Taking Chances: Derrida, Psychoanalysis and Literature, ed. Smith and Kerrigan.

Edgar Allan Poe. “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Tales and Sketches Volume 1: 1831-1842. Ed. Ollive Mabbott. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000 (first published in1841).

Supplements might include:

Helen Cixous. Selections from Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing.

Franz Kafka. “The Judgement.” Collected Stories.

Marcel Duchamp. The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass).

Shakespeare. King Lear.

Gilles Deleuze. “Of the Event.” The Logic of Sense. New York: Columbia, 1990.

Sigmund Freud. Excerpts.

Martin Heidegger.Excerpts

Derrida. The Postcard. Excerpts

---. “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences.” Writing and Difference. Trans. Alan Bass. London : Routledge, 1978 (first published in 1966).

---. "Differance."

Would you like to add any?

Texts will be made available during the course, which draws on a range of materials. These will generally be written but they may include visual culture and music. But the most important texts for the course are critical. You should familiarize yourself with introductions as well as seminal articles in the field of literary and critical theory, like those found in the Wolfreys volume (see below). More of them can be found in several other available “readers” in the field, the best of which are listed below. The more you access and the earlier, the better you will be able to work with the material. Careful and patient study of these texts will help you appreciate and understand the wide ranging and exciting possibilities of critical reading.

Although most of the essential course materials will be made available during the course I will refer to articles from the following textbook (which you therefore may want to own): Julian Wolfreys, ed. Literary Theories: A Reader and Guide. New York: New York Universities Press, 1999. This remains a good introduction to the field but the others listed below each do it differently, and this is significant, of course.

Literary Theory is a fascinating and enjoyable topic in its own right. For the purposes of this course you should consider it as your primary focus. If you consider it merely as a tool for approaching literary (or other kinds of) texts you will fail to do it justice.

SECONDARY TEXTS

Introductions

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996.

Bennington, Geoff and Jacques Derrida. Jacques Derrida. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992.

Derrida, Jacques. The Derrida Reader: Writing Performances. Ed. Julian Wolfreys. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 1998.

Derrida, Jacques. Acts of Literature. Ed. Derek Attridge. London: Routledge, 1992.

Ellman, Maud, ed. Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism. London: Longman, 1994.

Featherston, Mike, Couze Venn, Ryan Bishop and John Phillips, eds. Problematizing Global Knowledge. London: Sage, 2006.

Hamilton, Paul. Historicism. London: Routledge, 1996.

Hawkes, David. Ideology. London: Routledge, 1996.

Payne, Michael. Reading Theory. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.

Phillips, John. Contested Knowledge: A Guide to Critical theory. London: Zed, 2000.

Royle, Nicholas. Jacques Derrida. London: Routledge, 2003.

Vice, Sue, ed. Psychoanalytic Criticism: A Reader. Cambridge: Polity, 1994.

Wolfreys, Julian. Deconstruction•Derrida. London: Macmillan, 1998.

Recommended Readers

General

Cahoone, Lawrence, ed. From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.

Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York & London: Norton, 2001. This is by far the most ambitious attempt at a definitive anthology of theory and criticism. It provides articles from the Ancient Greeks to some very recent ones (e.g., on hypertext). Remember, though, there’s no such thing as completion—already the critics have been savage about its omissions.

Literary Theory

Rice, Philip and Patricia Waugh, eds. Modern Literary Theory: A Reader. 4^th Edition. London: Arnold, 2001. Publishes some of the “seminal texts” alongside some of the contemporary developments and debates that the seminal texts have engendered.

Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan, eds. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Revised Edition. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. Thorough and sensibly ordered, this contains most of what you would need to know for a good overview of the history of modern literary theory.

Julian Wolfreys, ed. Literary Theories: A Reader and Guide. New York: New York Universities Press, 1999. This is an intelligent and coherent collection of key essays in literary theory with a thoroughly contemporary understanding of their significance: recommended not only for its texts but also for its introductions and editorial material.

Cultural Theories

Storey, John. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester, 1994. This contains much of what you need to know to make an intellectual engagement with popular culture.

Eagleton, Terry and Drew Milne, eds. Marxist Literary Theory. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.

ASSESSMENT

The CA component (60%) is assessed as follows:

1. Class Participation, which includes one 5 or 10 minute Presentation to be signed up for, prepared according to my instructions for the week, and presented to the class during the seminar, together with a short (one-page) handout.

2. One 3000 word essay on the course texts or topics, negotiated with me, for submission on the last week of the course.

For details of the assignments with marking Criteria and guides follow this link:

Assignments

ESSAY TOPICS AND SUGGESTIONS

The Open Book Examination comprises 40% of the overall mark.

WEBSITE LINKS

Oxford English Dictionary: Your most important resource (Access restricted to NUS Students)

Voice of the Shuttle: An invaluable website for all students of literature

General Literary Theory and Criticism guides:

This link will take you to the first of five pages of general literary theory and criticism guides, listed in rough alphabetical order of page titles. The links are constantly being updated. Please feel free to alert me to dead links as well as to relevant and interesting websites and I will, naturally, acknowledge your input.

JWP’s Web Links:

Here you will find the links page attached to my personal website. The links could be of use to anyone interested in critical and cultural theory, modernism and postmodernism, continental philosophy and other related topics. You will also find links to web dictionaries, encyclopedias and glossaries.

Return to the Main Course Website of JWP