Hannah C Wojciehowski

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Spring, 2019

C L 385 (34015): Foundation of Literary Theory and Criticism

Course Title (ALT):  Building Comparative Literature in Theory: From Eden to Arcadia

Comparative Literature (CL) has, from its modern origins as a field in the 20th century, defined itself vis-à-vis its visions of various "theory projects": models of how literature, texts, writers and readers exist, work, circulate, and intervene in their environments.  To study CL's canon of theory, then, means to study the ideological interventions by means of which the discipline has defined itself and to recover its strategies for constructing and legitimating its core ideologies through canonical discussions and textual sources. 

This course will trace the projects that CL has used to define itself and its work with literature and culture; it will take up the "epochs" of theory as historical reconstructions that must be understood in terms of their original historical contexts, not just and the contemporary uses to which they have been put.  Literary scholars in general and CL ones in particular have expropriated  "theory texts" from historical disciplinary forms, including rhetoric, philosophical exegesis/hermeneutics, poetics, ethics, and philosophical ontology/epistemology, then repurposed them as canonical texts supporting their own activities in the service of various ideologies of art, nation, identity, culture, and society. The source eras to be studied include, in rough outline:

• The Classical Era (Plato, Aristotle, Greek and Roman discussions of rhetorical and dramatic literature):  literature, modalities of communication as performatives;  its function as public understandingfor the audience and the polis
• Medieval Era (including Middle Eastern commentary traditions):  the question of textual authority, exegesis, the "arts of reading," and the status of texts as revelation
• Renaissance:  the historicity of texts and the science of reading; art and taste
• Early Modern era (late 18th to late 19th centuries):  the correlations of textuality with aesthetics, and the philosophy of art and the genius (focus on the reader and on education of the mind)
• The Dawn of Modern Theory (late 19th century to end of WW I):  From Philology to the Science of Literature (a study of the ethics of scholarship). 

Post-World War II CL theory emerged out of a brew of these sources, whose urgency often gets lost as the background to today's debates about culture, literature, and the privileges that had grown up around them.  As acts of reading and interpretation were embedded by CL scholars into the universities as a master theory discipline, and as CL now moves into its third or fourth generation, it is time to recover these models for cultural and literary knowledge production that often refute the naturalizing claims made about them.  Class discussion will focus on the disciplinary frameworks that CL codified as its historical canon and legitimation, and on what assumptions about texts, writers, readers, and cultural processed have to be recovered.

By the end of the semester, students will be able to:

• identify, define, and exemplify major arguments / issues / debates that have been hallmarks of CL theory, both as used in the modern discipline and at their origins
• use particular theories to construct interpretations of texts (both as a précis and in essay form)
• understand and exemplify how the theory project is used in their own area(s) of specialization (and in terms of language use in that specialization)-- how an essentially Eurocentric reconstruction of aesthetic-critical thought could itself be coopted for new ideologies of understanding texts and cultures.

 READINGS (all available on CANVAS):

• Wellek and Warren, A Theory of Literature (various)
• Hazard Adams' Critical Theory Since Plato (3rd ed), and small parts of Critical Theory since 1965
• Supplemental materials:
• Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction,  Susan Bassnett (1993)
• First edition of Critical Theory since Plato

 ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING:

• 2 (depending on size of class, might end up being group projects) 5-minute introductions to assigned theory readings (oral presentation and 1-page summative handout); strict time limits will be imposed, because these are intended to start class discussions (5% each)
• 3 analytic précis (1 page / 5 % each), aimed at uncovering the epistemological premises of chosen theory texts
• 2 short (5 page) systematic interpretations of a short story or poem guided by a particular interpretive optic (parallel to those required in the CL QE; 15% each)
• Final class project, done in stages (total 45% of the grade, allowing individual students to track how the CL canon has affected, is or is not parallel to the theory use and issues foregrounded within their own disciplinary/national contexts: annotated bibliography with prose commentaries as reflecting the ideologies of the US university literature-culture projects. The final section will be a short essay (ca. 1000 words) on how these texts cause or relieve problems of Eurocentrism or the evaluation of other regional cultural interpretive projects, marginalization, essentialization, reification, (dis)empowerment of interpretive communities, and manipulations of cultural power reified in institutions -- an individual stock-taking of the relevance of the CL history project for today's literary and cultural studies.

Comparative study of major modern critical schools and figures in literary and cultural theory and criticism.

Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor and the graduate adviser.

Course number may be repeated for credit when the topics vary.

Instructor:  Wojciehowsk, H

Unique #:  35500

Semester:  Spring 2019

Cross-lists:  n/a

Restrictions:  n/a

Computer Instruction: No

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: Old stuff.  For some, the ancient writings have as much appeal as something left in the back of the refrigerator for an indeterminate length of time.  Instead you are invited to think of these works as rare elixirs.  The bottles may be dusty and mysterious, their labels hand-written in strange, faded characters, but the contents are strong, delicious, and potentially transformative.  How transformative?  Take the class and find out.  You are not likely to be disappointed.

The authors/texts to be studied in this course will include:  Beowulf; Anglo-Saxon and Celtic verse; Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls; Sir Gawain & the Green Knight; Julian of Norwich’s A Book of Showings;The Book of Margery Kempe; Marlory’s Le Morte d’Arthur; Shakespeare’s Hamlet and sonnets, and additional works by Skelton, Wyatt, Surrey, Marlowe, Raleigh, Herrick, Donne, Marvell, Lanyer and Queen Elizabeth I.

Texts: Longman’s Anthology of British Literature; Shakespeare’sHamlet.

Requirements & Grading: First essay (3 pages), 15%; second essay (5 pages), 20%; creative writing project 20%; first exam 15%; second exam 20%; quizzes and participation 10%.  On-time attendance (every absence after the third will reduce grade; NC at the sixth); on-time completion of all assignments required.

Instructor:  Wojciehowski, H

Unique #:  35555

Semester:  Spring 2019

Cross-lists:  n/a

Restrictions:  n/a

Computer Instruction: No

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: In this course, we will be studying a wide variety of short stories written by authors from around the world (composed in English or translated from their original languages into English).  Simultaneously we will study basic principles of storytelling and writing, focusing on questions of narrative technique, point-of-view, figurative language, emplotment and genre, and other formal considerations of this particular literary format.  We will also study the philosophical questions raised by these stories, as well as the cultural specificities of individual work.  Students are invited to join this highly enjoyable yet challenging course, which will feature some of the very best of twentieth- and twenty-first century short stories.

Class members will be expected to do the readings conscientiously, to master the content of the syllabus, and to participate in group discussions and exercises.  Students will also work on their own writing, honing their skills of verbal self-expression and critical thinking.  The final assignment will be to write a short story of one’s own.

Texts:  The Art of the Story: An International Anthology of Contemporary Short Stories, ed. Daniel Halpern (Penguin: 2000); Course packet with additional readings.

Requirements & Grading: two exams, 10% each; 2 interpretive essays, 4-5 pages, 20% each; 1 short story, 5-10 pages, 20%; writing exercises, 10%; quizzes, 10%.

Attendance is essential.  Students must come to class prepared to discuss the day’s readings.  More than three absences will substantially affect a student’s grade for the semester; more than six absences will result in a failing grade for the course.

Instructor:  Wojciehowski, H

Unique #:  35903

Semester:  Fall 2018

Cross-lists:  n/a

Restrictions:  n/a

Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites:  Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Objectives:  This course will focus on the recent phenomenon of binge watching:  what it is, and why do we like it?  Binge-watching is generally defined as watching multiple episodes of a single television series in rapid succession—on average, 2-6 episodes at a time.  What are the factors that contribute to the watchability of a successful television series such as Breaking Bad, The Wire, Mad Men, or House of Cards, and the desire to sit through hours of such shows in one sitting?  Some writers point to new kinds of stories with different types of protagonists and formal structures that fuel our desire to binge-watch.  In addition, new technologies such as streaming video and hand-held devices have altered our relation to the screen and its content, making it more convenient to binge-watch.  In this course, we will compare recent serial programs that lend themselves to binge-watching to 1) movies, 2) standard television series, past and present, and 3) novels, with the aim of understanding immersive narrative experience.

Is binge-watching bad for us, as many claim?  Certainly, the word “binge” has negative connotations of over-indulgence, and there are a growing number of studies asserting that the habit poses risks to our mental and physical health.  In this course, we will read and discuss these studies.  We will also consider a counter-argument that binge-watching can be a productive and creative experience, capable of changing our lives in positive ways.

Series:  Game of Thrones; The Sopranos; The Wire; Breaking Bad; Mad Men; Orange is the New Black; House of Cards (British and American series) Subject to change for Fall 2018.

Books:  McKee, Story; Martin, Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution; Kubey and Czikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Subject to change for Fall 2018.

Plus a packet of secondary readings.

Requirements & Grading:  Critical response paper, 10%; Class presentation, 10%; Research paper in two drafts, 20%; Logbook of viewing practices & reactions, 10%; Weekly discussion board postings, 30%; Weekly quizzes, 20%.

NB:  We will not be watching the series in class.  They are to be binge-watched outside of class.

This course will explore the early history of British colonialism in North America through representations of English expeditions to Roanoke, Plymouth, and Jamestown that were penned by leading playwrights, poets, intellectuals, soldiers-of-fortune, and first-hand witnesses.  Students in this course will study a wide array of texts that provide multiple, often conflicting accounts of the Virginia Company, its various investors, and the participants in the highly risky voyages to the new colonies, as well as the British colonial project itself.  We will focus on the myth and reality of Pocahontas and John Smith, the lethal conflict between the British and the Algonquian natives of Virginia, the so-called First Starving Time at Jamestown, and the establishment of slavery in British America.

This course is designed for students wishing to acquire a deeper understanding of British and U.S. history and culture, together with new perspectives on the foundation myths of both empires, which are still very much in circulation; and an awareness of the continuing impact of events during this period of history (ca. 1585-1625) on our world today.  The course is also designed to teach graduate students to think historically and to conduct historical/literary historical research at an advanced level.  Finally, the course aims to develop students’ writing skills.

The texts we will read are riveting, often mind-bending, and truly rewarding to study in depth.  The payoff will be high, but only with a significant commitment of time and interest from students who take the course.

List of Primary Sources:

• Harriot, A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia
• Chapman, Johnson, Marston, Eastward Ho
• Shakespeare, The Tempest
• Drayton, “Ode to the Virginian Voyage”
• Chapman, The Memorable Masque
• Ben Jonson, Vision of Delight
• Francis Bacon, Masque of Flowers
• William Crashawe, “Dedication”
• Haile, ed., The Jamestown Narratives
• Strachey, True Reportory of the Wrack
• Jourdain, A Discovery of the Bermudas
• James I, A Counterblaste to Tobacco
• Pocahontas [1995 Disney film]

In addition to these primary sources, students will be assigned secondary readings, which will be gathered in two course packets.

Description:
The History of Curiosity, Parts 1 and 2 Curiosity n.   Etymology:  < Old French curioseté (Anglo-Norman curiouseté), < Latin c?ri?sit?t-em , < c?ri?sus. 5. Desire to know or learn: a. In a blamable sense: The disposition to inquire too minutely into anything; undue or inquisitive desire to know or learn. Obs. b. In a neutral or good sense: The desire or inclination to know or learn about anything, esp. what is novel or strange; a feeling of interest leading one to inquire about anything.         
--The Oxford English Dictionary

What are the forms of curiosity, and what are the conditions that foster curiosity in persons or in groups?  More to the point of this course, how does curiosity function as a structural principle of certain literary works?  How does it motivate the characters within those works?  What effects does curiosity as represented in literature have on readers, as well as writers?  These are just a few of the questions that students in this course will consider over the course of our two-semester investigation.  The reading list for this course has been selected for its historical range, disciplinary variety and intellectual challenges.

Texts/Readings (subject to revision):

Assignments:
Each semester students will be asked to write 2 interpretive essays, one group paper, and one research paper.  They will also be asked to deliver one PowerPoint presentation. 

About the Professor:
Hannah Chapelle Wojciehowski is Professor of English and a Comparative Literature Affiliate at the University of Texas at Austin.  With a background in fine arts and literary studies, Wojciehowski completed her Ph.D. in the interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies program at Yale University in 1984.  A cultural theorist specializing in the history of subjectivity and “group subjectivity,” Wojciehowski is the author of Group Identity in the Renaissance World (Cambridge UP, 2011).  She has recently edited Shakespeare’s Cymbeline for the New Kittredge Shakespeare Series (Hackett, 2015), and she has authored numerous book chapters, articles and creative works.  Dr. Wojciehowski describes herself as a curious person.  She finds the world and the people in it exceptionally interesting.  She is very curious about who will sign up for this course.

Instructor:  Hannah Wojciehowski, Professor

Unique #:  35025

Semester:  Spring 2018

Cross-lists:  n/a

Restrictions:  English Honors, Plan I Honors

Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites:  Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description:  This upper-division Honors course will explore the early history of British colonialism in North America through representations of English expeditions to Roanoke, Plymouth, and Jamestown that were penned by leading playwrights, poets, intellectuals, soldiers-of-fortune, and first-hand witnesses.  Students in this course will study a wide array of texts that provide multiple, often conflicting accounts of the Virginia Company, its various investors, and the participants in the highly risky voyages to the new colonies, as well as the British colonial project itself.  We will focus on the myth and reality of Pocahontas and John Smith, the lethal conflict between the British and the Algonquian natives of Virginia, the so-called First Starving Time at Jamestown, and the establishment of slavery in British America.

This course is designed for students wishing to acquire a deeper understanding of British and U.S. history and culture, together with new perspectives on the foundation myths of both empires, which are still very much in circulation; and an awareness of the continuing impact of events during this period of history (ca. 1588-1619) on our world today.  It is also designed to analyze the history and culture of the Virginian Powhatans, both before and after contact with the English at Jamestown; to understand how the conflicts between the Natives and the Europeans unfolded during the earliest years of the colony; and to discover the sequence of events leading up to the 1619 establishment of African chattel slavery in the colony.  The course aims to teach students to think historically and to conduct historical/literary historical research at an advanced level.  Finally, the course aims to develop students’ writing skills in preparation for the completion of the senior honors thesis.

The texts we will read are riveting, often mind-bending, and truly rewarding to study in depth.  The payoff will be high, but only with a significant commitment of time and interest from students who take the course.

List of Primary Sources:  Harriot, A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia; Chapman, Johnson, Marston, Eastward Ho; Shakespeare, The Tempest; Drayton, “Ode to the Virginian Voyage”; Chapman, The Memorable Masque; Ben Jonson, Vision of Delight; Francis Bacon, Masque of Flowers; William Crashawe, “Dedication”; Haile, ed., The Jamestown Narratives; Strachey, True Reportory of the Wrack; Jourdain, A Discovery of the Bermudas; James I, A Counterblaste to Tobacco; Pocahontas [1995 Disney film].

List of Secondary Sources:  Gunn Allen, Pocahontas: Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur, Diplomat; Kupperman, The Jamestown Project; Rountree and Turner, Before and After Jamestown: Virginia’s Powhatans and their Predecessors; Gallivan, James River Chiefdoms: The Rise of Social Inequality in the Chesapeake; Hashaw, The Birth of Black America: The First African Americans and the Pursuit of Freedom at Jamestown.

In addition to these primary and secondary sources, students will be assigned additional secondary readings, which will be gathered into two course packets.

Requirements & Grading:  50% of each student’s grade will be related to a final research project, written in the following stages:  prospectus and preliminary annotated bibliography:  10%; first draft (10 pages): 15%; final draft (15-20 pages): 25%.

Additional assignment will include an oral report and PPT presentation on one of the readings (10%), two exams (15%) each, and quizzes (10%).

Instructor:  Wojciehowski, H

Unique #:  35745

Semester:  Fall 2017

Cross-lists:  n/a

Restrictions:  n/a

Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites:  Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Objectives:  This course will focus on the recent phenomenon of binge watching:  what it is, and why do we like it?  Binge-watching is generally defined as watching multiple episodes of a single television series in rapid succession—on average, 2-6 episodes at a time.  What are the factors that contribute to the watchability of a successful television series such as Breaking Bad, The Wire, Mad Men, or House of Cards, and the desire to sit through hours of such shows in one sitting?  Some writers point to new kinds of stories with different types of protagonists and formal structures that fuel our desire to binge-watch.  In addition, new technologies such as streaming video and hand-held devices have altered our relation to the screen and its content, making it more convenient to binge-watch.  In this course, we will compare recent serial programs that lend themselves to binge-watching to 1) movies, 2) standard television series, past and present, and 3) novels, with the aim of understanding immersive narrative experience.

Is binge-watching bad for us, as many claim?  Certainly, the word “binge” has negative connotations of over-indulgence, and there are a growing number of studies asserting that the habit poses risks to our mental and physical health.  In this course, we will read and discuss these studies.  We will also consider a counter-argument that binge-watching can be a productive and creative experience, capable of changing our lives in positive ways.

Series:  Game of Thrones; The Sopranos; The Wire; Breaking Bad; Mad Men; Orange is the New Black; House of Cards (British and American series)

Books:  McKee, Story; Martin, Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution; Kubey and Czikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Plus a packet of secondary readings.

Requirements & Grading:  Critical response paper, 10%; Class presentation, 10%; Research paper in two drafts, 20%; Logbook of viewing practices & reactions, 10%; Weekly discussion board postings, 30%; Weekly quizzes, 20%.

NB:  We will not be watching the series in class.  They are to be binge-watched outside of class.

Instructor:  Wojciehowsk, H

Unique #:  35370

Semester:  Spring 2017

Cross-lists:  n/a

Restrictions:  n/a

Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites:  Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description:  Old stuff.  For some, the ancient writings have as much appeal as something left in the back of the refrigerator for an indeterminate length of time.  Instead you are invited to think of these works as rare elixirs.  The bottles may be dusty and mysterious, their labels hand-written in strange, faded characters, but the contents are strong, delicious, and potentially transformative.  How transformative?  Take the class and find out.  You are not likely to be disappointed.

The authors/texts to be studied in this course will include:  Beowulf; Anglo-Saxon and Celtic verse; Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls; Sir Gawain & the Green Knight; Julian of Norwich’s A Book of Showings; The Book of Margery Kempe; Marlory’s Le Morte d’Arthur; Shakespeare’s Hamlet and sonnets, and additional works by Skelton, Wyatt, Surrey, Marlowe, Raleigh, Herrick, Donne, Marvell, Lanyer and Queen Elizabeth I.

Texts:  Anthology t.b.a.; Shakespeare’s Hamlet; Supplemental Course Packet.

Requirements & Grading:  First essay (3 pages), 15%; second essay (5 pages), 20%; third essay (research paper, 8-10 pages) 25%; first exam 20%; final exam 20%.  On-time attendance (every absence after the third will reduce grade; NC at the ninth); on-time completion of all assignments required.

Description:
The History of Curiosity, Parts 1 and 2 Curiosity n.   Etymology:  < Old French curioseté (Anglo-Norman curiouseté), < Latin c?ri?sit?t-em , < c?ri?sus. 5. Desire to know or learn: a. In a blamable sense: The disposition to inquire too minutely into anything; undue or inquisitive desire to know or learn. Obs. b. In a neutral or good sense: The desire or inclination to know or learn about anything, esp. what is novel or strange; a feeling of interest leading one to inquire about anything.         
--The Oxford English Dictionary

What are the forms of curiosity, and what are the conditions that foster curiosity in persons or in groups?  More to the point of this course, how does curiosity function as a structural principle of certain literary works?  How does it motivate the characters within those works?  What effects does curiosity as represented in literature have on readers, as well as writers?  These are just a few of the questions that students in this course will consider over the course of our two-semester investigation.  The reading list for this course has been selected for its historical range, disciplinary variety and intellectual challenges.

Texts (subject to revision):
Fall:

Homer, The Odyssey
Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound   

Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

Virgil, The Aeneid
Murasaki, The Tale of Genji
Marie de France, Lais
Dante, The Divine Comedy
The Pearl Poet, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Chaucer, Book of the Duchess and Parliament of Fowls

Spring:

Léry, History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil

Godwin, The Man in the Moon

Cavendish, The Blazing World

LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness

Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Morrison, A Mercy

Feynman, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman

Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

Selected short stories and selected poems

Assignments:
Each semester students will be asked to write 2 interpretive essays, one group paper, and one research paper.  They will also be asked to deliver one PowerPoint presentation. 

About the Professor:
Hannah Chapelle Wojciehowski is Professor of English and a Comparative Literature Affiliate at the University of Texas at Austin.  With a background in fine arts and literary studies, Wojciehowski completed her Ph.D. in the interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies program at Yale University in 1984.  A cultural theorist specializing in the history of subjectivity and “group subjectivity,” Wojciehowski is the author of Group Identity in the Renaissance World (Cambridge UP, 2011).  She has recently edited Shakespeare’s Cymbeline for the New Kittredge Shakespeare Series (Hackett, 2015), and she has authored numerous book chapters, articles and creative works.  Dr. Wojciehowski describes herself as a curious person.  She finds the world and the people in it exceptionally interesting.  She is very curious about who will sign up for this course.

E 379R  l  Renaissance Travel Narratives

Instructor:  Wojciehowski, H

Unique #:  35585

Semester:  Fall 2016

Cross-lists:  n/a

Restrictions:  n/a

Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites:  Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description:  Early modern travel narratives are fascinating historical documents.  They offer a wide array of perspectives on early modern colonialism; on national, ethnic, religious, and cultural differences; and on the global economy that developed during that era.  Together they help the contemporary reader understand how the creative phenomenon called the Renaissance was partly the effect of a global redistribution of wealth produced by early modern colonialism.  The increased circulation of material goods, knowledge and ideas, together with conflicting beliefs about the world and its diverse peoples, also had a profound impact on European cultures, as well as cultures around the world.

In this senior seminar we will study a broad sampling of European travel narratives written between the 15th and 17th centuries.  These travel narratives tell remarkable stories, sometimes in highly crafted and rhetorically polished ways. Members of this course will be encouraged to study these intriguing texts as literary works, as well as historical documents and/or ethnographies.  In this course, we will explore the impact of these early modern works on literary history—specifically their relation to the Renaissance genre of romance and to various modern genres, as well—both fictional and non-fictional.

Students in this course will also be asked to write a 4-5-page interpretive essay and a 10-12-page research paper in two drafts.  They will also be encouraged to make use of the extensive collections of early modern books at the HRC and Benson libraries.

Texts:  Columbus, Diary of the First Voyage; Vespucci, The New World; Four Voyages; More, Utopia; Las Casas, History of the Destruction of the Indies; Cabeza de Vaca, Relation; Léry, History of a Voyage to the Land of Brasil; Staden, True History; Raleigh, Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana; Hakluyt, Voyages (excerpts); Harriott, A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia; Shakespeare, The Tempest; Haile, ed., Jamestown Narratives: Eyewitness Accounts of the Virginia Colony; plus a packet of literary critical and historical companion readings.

Requirements & Grading:  Weekly blog postings 20%; Oral report 10%; 4-5-page essay 10%; Research paper, first draft 10%; Research paper, second draft 20%; 1st exam, 15%; 2nd exam, 15%.

E s314L  l  3-Banned Books and Novel Ideas

Instructor:  Wojciehowski, H

Unique #:  82060

Semester:  Summer 2016, second session

Cross-lists:  n/a

Restrictions:  n/a

Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites:  One of the following: E 603A, RHE 306, 306Q, or T C 603A.

Description:  Members of this class will read a variety of literary and philosophical works that have either been banned or censored, or that discuss and analyze some form of censorship.  The goals of this course are several.  Students will explore the controversies around these works:  Why have some critics considered them dangerous or dreadful? Why have others judged them to be important or even great books? How is the value of these works bound up with problems that they once posed and perhaps continue to pose with certain audiences? More generally, how does the very act of reading, when accomplished individually or collectively, involve a set of value negotiations between writers, audiences, and authorities?

Students will address specific forms of censorship controversies, past and present, by reading pairs or groups of works that together help bring an issue into focus—e.g., religion and censorship, or censorship and the selection of high school textbooks.  Students will also be asked to write two papers.  In addition, there will be two exams and occasional reading quizzes.

Texts (subject to change):  Plato, selected dialogues; Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (selections); Boccaccio, The Decameron (selections); Salinger, Catcher in the Rye; Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter; Richardson, And Tango Makes Three.

Requirements & Grading:  First 5-page paper, 15%; Second 5-page paper, 15%; First exam, 20%; Second exam, 20%; Oral Report, 10%; Quizzes, 20%.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

Description:  The History of Curiosity, Parts 1 and 2?

Curiosity n.   Etymology:  < Old French curioseté (Anglo-Norman curiouseté), < Latin c?ri?sit?t-em , < c?ri?sus. ?

5. Desire to know or learn:?

a. In a blamable sense: The disposition to inquire too minutely into anything; undue or inquisitive desire to know or learn. Obs.

?b. In a neutral or good sense: The desire or inclination to know or learn about anything, esp. what is novel or strange; a feeling of interest leading one to inquire about anything.         ?

--The Oxford English Dictionary

What are the forms of curiosity, and what are the conditions that foster curiosity in persons or in groups?  More to the point of this course, how does curiosity function as a structural principle of certain literary works?  How does it motivate the characters within those works?  What effects does curiosity as represented in literature have on readers, as well as writers?  These are just a few of the questions that students in this course will consider over the course of our two-semester investigation.  The reading list for this course has been selected for its historical range, disciplinary variety and intellectual challenges. 

Texts/Readings (subject to revision):?

Fall:                                                                         Spring:

Homer, The Odyssey                                                Léry, History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil

Sophocles, Oepidus Rex                                           Cavendish, The Blazing World

Augustine, Confessions                                            Sor Juana de la Cruz, selected poems

Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias                                     Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Marlowe, Dr. Faustus                                               Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, selected stories

Anon., Mary of Nijmegen                                         Feynman, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman

The Pearl Poet, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight       Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams

Montaigne, selected essays                                      Byatt, Possession

Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio ?                     

(excerpts)

Assignments:

Each semester students will be asked to write 2 interpretive essays, one group paper, and one research paper.  They will also be asked to deliver one PowerPoint presentation. 

About the Professor:?

Hannah Chapelle Wojciehowski is Professor of English and a Comparative Literature Affiliate at the University of Texas at Austin.  With a background in fine arts and literary studies, Wojciehowski completed her Ph.D. in the interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies program at Yale University in 1984.  A cultural theorist specializing in the history of subjectivity and “group subjectivity,” Wojciehowski is the author of Group Identity in the Renaissance World (Cambridge UP, 2011).  She has recently edited Shakespeare’s Cymbeline for the New Kittredge Shakespeare Series (Hackett, 2015), and she has authored numerous book chapters, articles and creative works.  ?

E 348  l  The Short Story

Instructor:  Wojciehowski, H

Unique #:  34745

Semester:  Spring 2015

Cross-lists:  n/a

Restrictions:  n/a

Computer Instruction:  No

Flags:  Writing

Prerequisites: C L 315, E 603B, 316L (or 316K), 316M (or 316K), 316N (or 316K), 316P (or 316K), or T C 603B.

Description: In this course, we will be studying a wide variety of short stories written by authors from around the world (composed in English or translated from their original languages into English). Simultaneously we will study basic principles of storytelling and writing, focusing on questions of narrative technique, point-of-view, figurative language, emplotment and genre, and other formal considerations of this particular literary format. We will also study the philosophical questions raised by these stories, as well as the cultural specificities of individual work. Students are invited to join this highly enjoyable yet challenging course, which will feature some of the very best of twentieth- and twenty-first century short stories.

Class members will be expected to do the readings conscientiously, to master the content of the syllabus, and to participate in group discussions and exercises. Students will also work on their own writing, honing their skills of verbal self-expression and critical thinking. The final assignment will be to write a short story of one’s own.

Texts: The Art of the Story: An International Anthology of Contemporary Short Stories, ed. Daniel Halpern (Penguin: 2000); Course packet with additional readings.

Requirements & Grading: three exams, 10% each; 2 interpretive essays, 4-5 pages, 20% each; 1 short story, 5-10 pages, 20%; writing exercises, 10%.

Attendance is essential. Students must come to class prepared to discuss the day’s readings. More than three absences will substantially affect a student’s grade for the semester; more than five absences will result in a failing grade for the course.

Description:

In his 1959 book The Two Cultures, C. P. Snow argued that the sciences and the humanities were divided by a deep schism, resulting in the erosion of collective intellectual life.  Today the question of this cultural divide and its implications for the future remain as pressing as ever.  Many branches of the sciences experience breakthroughs at an exponential rate and have a massive impact on every aspect of knowledge production.  Meanwhile humanists struggle to keep pace with these changes, to advance a set of approaches to culture that remain valuable, and to continue asking vexing questions about human experience and identity, aesthetic perception, social justice and the meanings of rapid change—questions that scientific culture is not necessarily poised to answer. The purpose of this course is to analyze certain ongoing conversations between various fields of the arts and humanities—e.g., literature, history, art history and music—and the sciences of mind—especially cognitive neuroscience and psychology.  The result is a snow bridge—a metaphor for a bridge built in winter that is useful for traversing a slippery landscape on which it is otherwise difficult to gain a foothold.  This metaphor highlights the difficulty of crossing between the two cultures, as well as the risks of writing at a moment of extraordinarily rapid change. The goal of the course is to encourage creative thinking across disciplines and to understand the ways in which interdisciplinary thinking can give us purchase on one or more disciplines or fail to do so in various ways.  Students in this course will read a selection of texts that will introduce them to current debates regarding empathy, theory of mind, and the nature of consciousness.  

Texts:

(note: list subject to revision; some books will be excerpted):

C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures

M. Proust, Swann’s Way

V. Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

W. Shakespeare, Cymbeline

M. Haddon, A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

M. Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist 

Antonio Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens

Suzanne Keen, Empathy and the Novel

J. Decety and W. Ickes, ed., The Social Neuroscience of Empathy

S. Dehaene, Reading in the Brain and Consciousness and the Brain

Packet of articles and essays 

Assignments:

Oral presentation on reading: 10%

Three written exercises, 4-5 pages each:  30%

Research paper, first draft (8-10 pages): 15%

Research paper, final draft (15-20 pages): 25%

Oral report on research: 10%

Peer evaluations: 10%

"There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism."

                                                      --Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History"

Early modern European narratives reporting on the so-called New World and its inhabitants provide strange and fascinating glimpses of cross-cultural encounters. Represented in these writings are conflicting beliefs and fantasies about the world and its diverse peoples; these would have a profound impact on virtually every culture around the globe, as the modern world came into being.  In this course we will study several important 15th- and 16th-century accounts of travel, encounter and conquest, in order to understand how the creative phenomenon called the Renaissance was closely tied to the global circulation and redistribution of material goods, knowledge and ideas; the enforced labor or enslavement of large groups of people; and genocide.

In this course will focus on one particular fantasy and reality that runs through numerous European travel narratives of this time period:  namely, the cannibal.  How did tales of New World cannibalism shape Europeans’ views of the terra incognita to the west, and how were such tales used to justify colonialism?  How did American natives receive and react to the fantasies that were projected onto them during the early colonial era?  How did imagined and real acts cannibalism, some performed by Europeans, shape their views of themselves? What was the phenomenon that I call “the cannibal imagination,” and why does it persist even day?  These are some of the primary questions to be considered in this course.

Our reading selections include a remarkable early piece of North American (and, loosely speaking, Texan) literature: Cabeza de Vaca’s Relation; Léry’s ambivalent account of his visits with cannibal tribes of Brazil; Staden’s hair-raising story of being held in captivity and his near-cannibalization; the De Bry family’s visual narratives of New World natives, including cannibal tribes (a precursor to graphic novels—and I do mean graphic); and Shakespeare’s The Tempest, anearly 17th-century homage to the cannibal on the eve of his disappearance.

Students in this course will be asked to write a 5-6 page interpretive essay, a 15-25 page research paper, and one oral report.  They will also be asked to make use of the extensive collections of early modern books at the HRC and Benson libraries.  Two class visits will be held in those collections.

About languages:  Many of the texts in this course were not originally written in English.  Students who know other European languages will be encouraged to read these works in the original, though I will order top English translations.

Primary Texts:

Columbus, Diary of the First Voyage

Chanca, Letter from the Second Voyage.

Vespucci, The New World; Four Voyages

Las Casas, Brief History of the Destruction of the Indies

Cabeza de Vaca, Relation

Léry, History of a Voyage to the Land of Brasil

Staden, True History of his Captivity

Montaigne, “Of Cannibals”

De Bry, Grands Voyages

Raleigh, Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana

Hakluyt, Voyages (excerpts)

Shakespeare, The Tempest

Plus a packet of historical and analytical companion readings on the history and literature of cannibalism, including excerpts from the following:

• C. Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind
• W. Arens, The Man-Eating Myth
• F. Lestringant, Cannibal Encounters
• S. Greenblatt, Learning to Curse
• S. Greenblatt, ed., New World Encounters
• S. Wilson, Archaeology of the Caribbean
• M. Kilgore, From Communion to Cannibalism
• H. Wojciehowski, Group Identity in the Renaissance World

Filmic component: 

“Cabeza de Vaca” (1991) dir. Nicolás Echevarría

“Even the Rain” (2010) dir. Icíar Bollaín

“How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman” (1971), dir. Nelson Pereira dos Santos

“Quilombo” (1974), dir. Carlos Diegues

“The Tempest” (2010), dir. Julie Taymor

“Avatar” (2009), dir. James Cameron

Instructor:  Wojciehowski, H

Unique #:  35830

Semester:  Fall 2014

Cross-lists:  LAH 350

Flags:  Writing

Restrictions:  English Honors

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: Early modern European narratives reporting on the so-called New World and its inhabitants provide strange and fascinating glimpses of cross-cultural encounters. Represented in these writings are conflicting beliefs and fantasies about the world and its diverse peoples; these would have a profound impact on virtually every culture around the globe, as our own modern world came into being.  In this course we will study several important 15th- and 16th-century accounts of travel, encounter, conquest, in order to understand how the creative phenomenon called the Renaissance was closely tied to the global circulation and redistribution of material goods, knowledge and ideas; the enforced labor or enslavement of large groups of people; and genocide.

In this course will focus on one particular fantasy and reality that runs through numerous European travel narratives of this time period:  namely, the cannibal.  How did tales of New World cannibalism shape Europeans’ views of the terra incognita to the west, and how were such tales used to justify colonialism?  How did American natives receive and react to the fantasies that were projected onto them during the early colonial era?  How did imagined and real acts cannibalism, some performed by Europeans, shape their views of themselves? What was the phenomenon that I call “the cannibal imagination,” and why does it persist even day?  These are some of the primary questions to be considered in this Honors Seminar.

Our reading selections include a remarkable early piece of North American (and, loosely speaking, Texan) literature: Cabeza de Vaca’s Relation; Léry’s ambivalent account of his visits with cannibal tribes of Brazil; Staden’s hair-raising story of being held in captivity and his near-cannibalization; the De Bry family’s visual narratives of New World natives, including cannibal tribes (a precursor to graphic novels—and I do mean graphic); and Shakespeare’s The Tempest, anearly 17th-century homage to the cannibal on the eve of his disappearance.

Students in this course will be asked to contribute a paragraph responding to the readings for each class on the group’s discussion board, a 5-6 page interpretive essay, a 10-12 page research paper, and two oral reports.  They will also be asked to make use of the extensive collections of early modern books at the HRC and Benson libraries.  Two class visits will be held in those collections.

About languages:  Many of the texts in this course were not originally written in English.  Students who know other European languages will be encouraged to read these works in the original, though I will order top English translations.

About the workload:  There is one.

Primary Texts: Columbus, Diary of the First Voyage; Chanca, Letter from the Second Voyage; Vespucci, The New World; Four Voyages; Las Casas, Brief History of the Destruction of the Indies; Cabeza de Vaca, Relation; Léry, History of a Voyage to the Land of Brasil; Staden, True History of his Captivity; Montaigne, “Of Cannibals”; De Bry, Grands Voyages; Raleigh, Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana; Hakluyt, Voyages (excerpts); Shakespeare, The Tempest.

Plus a packet of historical and analytical companion readings on the history and literature of cannibalism, including excerpts from the following: C. Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind; W. Arens, The Man-Eating Myth; F. Lestringant, Cannibals; S. Greenblatt, Learning to Curse; S. Greenblatt, ed., New World Encounters; S. Wilson, Archaeology of the Caribbean; M. Kilgore, From Communion to Cannibalism; H. Wojciehowski, Group Identity in the Renaissance World.

Filmic component: “Cabeza de Vaca” (1991) dir. Nicolás Echevarría; “Even the Rain” (2010) dir. Icíar Bollaín; “How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman” (1971), dir. Nelson Pereira dos Santos; “Quilombo” (1974), dir. Carlos Diegues; “The Tempest” (2010), dir. Julie Taymor; plus the added bonus film “Avatar” (2009), dir. James Cameron.

Assignments & Grading Structure: Daily discussion board, 25%; 5-6 page essay, 15%; First oral report, 10%; Second oral report, 10%; Research paper, 25%; Quizzes and participation, 15%.

This course is designed as an introduction to cognitive/affective cultural studies, a recent body of theory that has arisen at the intersection(s) between literary narratology, neuroscience, phenomenology, cognitive psychology, and many other fields.  These remarkable conversations have opened up new perspectives on classic questions of subjectivity and intersubjectivity, including the following:

• What is empathy, and what are its underlying neural mechanisms?

• How are empathy and social identification related?

• Under what conditions does empathy fail?

• What is embodied Theory of Mind, and how does it differ from earlier models of human consciousness, especially psychoanalysis?

• What do literature and other art forms reveal about the human mind and its workings?

• What are the possible relations between narrative art and “real life”?

• Does art save lives, ‘humanize’ us, or make us better people, however we might define ‘better’?

In this course we will explore this rich terrain, reading some of the most influential and speculative of recent theorists of embodied mind, including Antonio Damasio, V. S. Ramachandran, Shaun Gallagher, Vittorio Gallese and Marco Iacoboni. We will also read philosophers, scientists and literary scholars who are theorizing empathy.  And, most importantly for our purposes, we will read and study works by literary theorists who have taken the ‘cognitive turn’ (or cognitive-affective turn) in order to understand how this emergent critical paradigm is transforming our field. These include Suzanne Keen, Patrick Colm Hogan, Elizabeth Grosz, Alan Palmer, Alan Richardson, Elaine Scarry, Ellen Spolsky, Blakey Vermeule, Robin Warhol, and Lisa Zunshine.

In addition to studying a cross-disciplinary dialogue with huge stakes for basically everybody, we will also consider the relation of this very recent body of scholarship to precursor theories of empathy and identification.  Hence, in our class discussions, we will think of ways to relate these recent works to other literary theories that have explored the problems of intersubjectivity, identification and dis-identification--including Girardian narratology, feminisms, queer and gender theory; trauma theory; post-colonialisms; performance theory, and psychoanalyses.

This course will provide students with a number of useful tools for thinking about literary texts, cultural history, and interdisciplinarity.  It is designed to explore the right now of theory—something which literary criticism and theory anthologies generally neglect to do.  It is also designed to explore each student’s disparate exposures to literary theory and to bring them into synthesis.  It is both a focused exploration and a broad survey; there is much that we will, of necessity, leave out.

Literary texts and films to be studied:

Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

Wm. Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale

Van Jordan, M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A

Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way

Alfred Hitchcock, “Notorious”

Description:

In his 1959 book The Two Cultures, C. P. Snow argued that the sciences and the humanities were divided by a deep schism, resulting in the erosion of collective intellectual life.  Today the question of this cultural divide and its implications for the future remain as pressing as ever.  Many branches of the sciences experience breakthroughs at an exponential rate and have a massive impact on every aspect of knowledge production.  Meanwhile humanists struggle to keep pace with these changes, to advance a set of approaches to culture that remain valuable, and to continue asking vexing questions about human experience and identity, aesthetic perception, social justice and the meanings of rapid change—questions that scientific culture is not necessarily poised to answer. 

The purpose of this course is to analyze certain ongoing conversations between various fields of the arts and humanities—e.g., literature, history, art history and music—and the sciences of mind—especially cognitive neuroscience and psychology.  The result is a snow bridge—a metaphor for a bridge built in winter that is useful for traversing a slippery landscape on which it is otherwise difficult to gain a foothold.  This metaphor highlights the difficulty of crossing between the two cultures, as well as the risks of writing at a moment of extraordinarily rapid change. 

The goal of the course is to encourage creative thinking across disciplines and to understand the ways in which interdisciplinary thinking can give us purchase on one or more disciplines or fail to do so in various ways.  Students in this course will read a selection of texts that will introduce them to current debates regarding empathy, theory of mind, and the nature of consciousness. 

Texts:

(note: list subject to revision; some books will be excerpted):

C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures

M. Proust, Swann’s Way

V. Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

M. Haddon, A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

M. Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist

M. Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception

A. Damasio, Descartes’ Error

G. Lakoff and M. Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh

G. Rizzolatti, Mirrors in the Brain

J. Decety and W. Ickes, ed., The Social Neuroscience of Empathy

B. Vermeule, Why Do We Care About Literary Characters?

S. Keen, Empathy and the Novel

Packet of readings including these articles: 

G. Rizzolatti and M. Arbib, “Language Within Our Grasp”

Umiltà et al., “I Know What You Are Doing: A Neurophysiological Study”

V. Gallese, “The Roots of Empathy: The Shared Manifold Hypothesis and the Neural Basis of Intersujectivity”

Singer, et al., “Empathy for Pain Involves the Affective but not Sensory Components of Pain”

Mukamel, et al., “Single-Neuron Responses in Humans During Execution and Observation of Actions”

Uddin et al., “The Self and Social Cognition: The Role of Cortical Midline Structures and Mirror Neurons”

D. Amodio and C. Frith, “Meeting of Minds: The Medial Frontal Cortex and Social Cognition”

J. Mitchell et al., “Dissociable Medial Prefrontal Contributions to Judgments of Similar and Dissimilar Others”

Sobhani, et al., “Interpersonal Liking Modulates Motor-Related Neural Regions”

Assignments:

Four written exercises, 2-4 pages each:  10%

Research paper (10-20 pages): 40%

Oral report on research: 10%

Class participation: 10%

Instructor:  Wojciehowski, H            Areas:  III / U

Unique #:  35475            Flags:  Writing

Semester:  Spring 2013            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  n/a            Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: C L 315, E 603B, 316K, or T C 603B.

Description: In this course, specially designed for the needs and constraints of summer school, we will be doing what most of us would like to be doing anyway—i.e., reading great works of literary fiction. We will be studying a wide variety of short stories written by authors from around the world (composed in English or translated from their original languages into English). Simultaneously we will study basic principles of storytelling and writing, focusing on questions of narrative technique, point-of-view, figurative language, emplotment and genre, and other formal considerations of this particular literary format. We will also study the philosophical questions raised by these stories, as well as the cultural specificities of individual work. Students are invited to join this highly enjoyable yet challenging course, which will feature some of the very best of twentieth- and twenty-first century short stories.

Texts: The Art of the Story: An International Anthology of Contemporary Short Stories, ed. Daniel Halpern (Penguin: 2000); Course packet with additional readings.

Requirements & Grading: periodic pop quizzes, 10%; 3 interpretive essays, 3-4 pages, 20% each; 1 short story by each of you, 5-6 pages, 20%; class participation, 10%.

Attendance is essential. Students must come to class prepared to discuss the day’s readings. More than three absences will substantially affect a student’s grade for the semester; more than five absences will result in a failing grade for the course.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

Instructor:  Wojciehowski, H            Areas:  IV / U

Unique #:  35695            Flags:  n/a

Semester:  Fall 2012            Restrictions:  English Honors

Cross-lists:  n/a            Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: Enrollment in or completion of at least one Honors section of an English course, admission to the English Honors Program, and consent of the honors adviser. Enrollment restricted by department.

Description: According to the Honors Thesis Manual, a thesis is “a sustained examination of a central idea or question, developed in a professional and mature manner under the guidance of a faculty supervisor and a second reader.” That sounds easy enough, but how does one get there from here? This course offers something of a roadmap. Over the course of the term we will examine literary criticism from the “inside out” and hone skills essential to a successful honors thesis.

Along the way, we will address a number of questions, both practical—How do I use the MLA Bibliography? What’s the difference between a footnote and an endnote?—and theoretical—What counts as a valid argument about a literary work? What is the relation between literature and theory? Theory and practice? This course will: first and foremost prepare students to write an honors thesis. Members of this course will explore various methods of literary and cultural interpretation, consider what it means to conduct literary research, and learn how to take their research and writing to new levels of expertise.

Texts: Required Core Texts:  Tom Stoppard, Arcadia (Faber and Faber, 1994).  0571169341A. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed. and trans. Burton Raffel (Signet, 2009).  0451531191. Required Secondary Texts: Wayne Booth, et al, The Craft of Research (Third Edition) (University Of Chicago Press, 2008). #978-0226065663; Marjorie Garber, A Manifesto for Literary Studies (University of Washington Press, 2003). #978-0295983448; Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing (Norton, 2005). # 978-0393924091.

Optional Supplementary Text: Eviatar Zerubavel, The Clockwork Muse: A Practical Guide to Writing Theses, Dissertations, & Books (Harvard, 1999) #0-674-13586-5; Richard Bullock and Francine Weinberg, The Little Seagull (Norton, 2011). 039311519.

Requirements & Grading: (assignment logistics, rationales, and approaches will be discussed at length during class)

Final Thesis Prospectus (4-6 pp.) & Annotated Bibliography (20-25+ items)            30%

Writing Sample (15-20 pp. section or sections of your actual thesis)            30%

In-Class Performance (quality & consistency of discussion; preparation; engagement;

informal writing; writing-process & bibliography tasks; peer feedback; Symposium)            30%

On-time Completion of Reading, Writing-Process, Research, & Peer Feedback Assignments            10%

On-time Attendance (note: every absence beginning with #4 will reduce grade; NC at #9)            Required

Plus/minus grades will be assigned for the final grade of the course. The university does not recognize the grade of A+. Evaluation percentages approximate & subject to minor change.

This course will allow students to gain a fuller sense for the complexity and variety of research methods available to literary scholars. We will spend the semester thinking about literary and cultural criticism from the inside out—that is, we will be reading and discussing the methodological and argumentative moves that scholars make. Along the way we will ask a number of urgent questions: How do scholars read now—and how did they read then? What is the status of theory in twenty-first century literary studies? How does the fall out from the so-called “culture wars” inform and inflect current practices? What do we talk about when we talk about archival research? What would it mean to “always historicize”? Finally, what are the relations between our roles as writers and professionals? The conversation engendered by such questions will better position students to embark on Master’s Report and dissertation research. The course will also: introduce the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center and other collections-based resources; offer a shared, “cohort” experience for all second-year graduate students; help said students further orient themselves to both the department and the profession.

Instructor:  Wojciehowski, H            Areas:  n/a

Unique #:  83585            Flags:  Writing

Semester:  Summer 2012, first session            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  n/a            Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: E 603A, RHE 306, 306Q, or T C 603A.

Description: Members of this class will read a variety of literary and philosophical works that have either been banned or censored, or that discuss and analyze some form of censorship. The goals of this course are several. Students will explore the controversies around these works: Why have some critics considered them dangerous or dreadful? Why have others judged them to be important or even great books? How is the value of these works bound up with problems that they once posed and perhaps continue to pose with certain audiences? More generally, how does the very act of reading, when accomplished individually or collectively, involve a set of value negotiations between writers, audiences, and authorities?

Students will address specific forms of censorship controversies, past and present, by reading pairs or groups of works that together help bring an issue into focus—e.g., religion and censorship, or censorship and the selection of high school textbooks. Students will also be asked to write two papers. In addition there will be two exams and occasional reading quizzes.

Texts (subject to change): Plato: selected dialogues; Galileo Galilei, Letter to the Grand Duchess Cristina; Bertolt Brecht, Galileo; Salinger, Catcher in the Rye; Lillian Hellman, The Children’s Hour and Scoundrel Time; Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; Nuruddin Farah, Maps.

Requirements & Grading: First 5-page paper, 20%; Second 5-page paper, 20%; First exam, 20%; Second exam, 20%; Oral Report, 10%; Quizzes, 10%.

Medieval-Renaissance Women Writers

In this course we will survey a wide range of pre-modern women writers who composed in English or who influenced the English and American literary canons.  Beginning with the romances of the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman poet Marie de France, and ending with the poetry of African-American poet Phyllis Wheatley, this course traces the broad arc of women’s literary and cultural contributions across six centuries and two continents.  In addition to encountering some of the principal figures in this tradition, we will study a sizeable number of literary genres, including narrative poetry, autobiography or personal memoir, oratory, drama, lyric poetry and poetic translation, polemic and satire, and religious meditation.

A further goal of the course will be to contextualize these authors and their works by understanding how their writings have been received over the centuries, when their works entered the canon of British and American literature, and why scholarly and not-so-scholarly debates surrounded many of these women and their creations. Several of the texts that we will read together were considered influential defenses of women’s intellects, creativity, morality, and rights at the time they were written, and retroactively they have been perceived as noteworthy feminist or proto-feminist statements.  Hence a further topic of our study will be to consider the influence of these works on later feminist history, theory, and social activism.  Finally we will study the rise of the academic field of medieval and early modern women’s cultural history, in order to understand its relation to the larger field of Women’s Studies and, more broadly, to the history of feminist thought.

Students will be asked to do one oral presentation, one five-to-seven page essay, a one-page response paper each week, and one 15-25-page research paper (which can be a longer version of shorter essays written for the course).

Writers and texts to be studied in this course:

Marie de France, Lais

Julian of Norwich, Book of Showings

Margery Kempe, Book of Margery Kempe

Christine de Pisan, Book of the City of Ladies

Louise Labé, sonnets

Elizabeth I, selected writings

Isabella Whitney, A Sweet Nosgay

Amelia Lanyer, Salve Deus, Rex Judaeorum

Elizabeth Cary, Tragedy of Miriam

Mary Sidney, The Sidney Psalter

Mary Wroth, Urania

Jane Anger, Ester Sowernam, Rachel Specht, pamphlet wars

Elizabeth Jocelin, A Mother’s Legacy to her Unborn Child

Anna Trapnel, The Cry of a Stone

Alice Thorton, Autobiography

Margaret Cavendish, The Blazing World

Ann Bradstreet, selected works

Phyllis Wheatley, poems

Note to prospective students:  we will be reading abridged or excerpted versions of most of these works/collections.  This list may change a little bit by next spring.  We will be using the Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, Vol. I, and, in some cases, individual editions of some writers whom we will study in greater detail.  In addition, we will read selected critical and historical works each week that shed light on the primary texts for the course and on the field of medieval and early modern women’s studies.

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

 Description: Old stuff. For some, the ancient writings have as much appeal as something left in the back of the refrigerator for an indeterminate length of time. Instead you are invited to think of these works as rare elixirs. The bottles may be dusty and mysterious, their labels hand-written in strange, faded characters, but the contents are strong, delicious, and potentially transformative. How transformative? Take the class and find out. You are not likely to be disappointed.

The authors/texts to be studied in this course will include Beowulf; Anglo-Saxon and Celtic verse; Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls; Sir Gawain & the Green Knight; Julian of Norwich’s A Book of Showings; The Book of Margery Kempe; Marlory’s Le Morte d’Arthur; Shakespeare’s Hamlet and sonnets, and additional works by Skelton, Wyatt, Surrey, Marlowe, Raleigh, Herrick, Donne, Marvell, Lanyer and Queen Elizabeth I.

Requirements & Grading: First essay (3 pages), 15%; second essay (5 pages), 20%; third essay (research paper, 8-10 pages) 25%; first exam 20%; second exam 20%. On-time attendance (every absence after the third will reduce grade; NC at the ninth); on-time completion of all assignments required.

Texts: The Longman Anthology of British Literature, 1A and 1B (4th edition); Shakespeare’s Hamlet; Supplemental Course Packet.

E 379R (Topic: Renaissance Travel Narratives) and 379S (embedded topic: Renaissance Travel Narratives) may not both be counted.

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: Early modern travel narratives are fascinating historical documents. They offer a wide array of perspectives on early modern colonialism; on national, ethnic, religious, and cultural differences; and on the global economy that developed during that era. Together they help the contemporary reader understand how the creative phenomenon called the Renaissance was partly the effect of a global redistribution of wealth produced by early modern colonialism. The increased circulation of material goods, knowledge and ideas, together with conflicting beliefs about the world and its diverse peoples, also had a profound impact on European cultures, as well as cultures around the world.

In this senior seminar we will study a broad sampling of European travel narratives written between the 15th and 17th centuries. These travel narratives tell remarkable stories, sometimes in highly crafted and rhetorically polished ways. Members of this course will be encouraged to study these intriguing texts as literary works, as well as historical documents and/or ethnographies. In this course, we will explore the impact of these early modern works on literary history—specifically their relation to the Renaissance genre of romance and to various modern genres, as well—both fictional and non-fictional.

Students in this course will also be asked to write a 1-2 page response paper, a 5-6 page interpretive essay and a 10-12-page research paper. They will also be encouraged to make use of the extensive collections of early modern books at the HRC and Benson libraries. 

Texts: Columbus, Diary of the First Voyage; Vespucci, The New World; Four Voyages; Leo Africanus, A Geographical History of Africa; More, Utopia; Cabeza de Vaca, Relation; Léry, History of a Voyage to the Land of Brasil; Mendes Pinto, Voyages; Raleigh, Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana; Hakluyt, Voyages (excerpts); Della Valle, The Travels of Pietro della Valle; Shakespeare, The Tempest; Plus a packet of literary critical and historical companion readings.

Requirements & Grading: 1-2 page response paper, 5%; 4-5 page essay, 15%; 1st peer review, 10%; Research paper, 30%; 2nd peer review, 10%; 1st exam, 15%; 2nd exam, 15%.

Prerequisites: E 603A, RHE 306, 306Q, or T C 603A.

Description: Members of this class will read a variety of literary and philosophical works that have either been banned or censored, or that discuss and analyze some form of censorship. The goals of this course are several. Students will explore the controversies around these works: Why have some critics considered them dangerous or dreadful? Why have others judged them to be important or even great books? How is the value of these works bound up with problems that they once posed and perhaps continue to pose with certain audiences? More generally, how does the very act of reading, when accomplished individually or collectively, involve a set of value negotiations between writers, audiences, and authorities?

Students will address specific forms of censorship controversies, past and present, by reading pairs or groups of works that together help bring an issue into focus—e.g., religion and censorship, or censorship and the selection of high school textbooks. Students will also be asked to write and revise two papers. In addition there will be two exams and reading quizzes.

Texts (subject to change): Plato: selected dialogues; Galileo Galilei, Letter to the Grand Duchess Cristina; Bertolt Brecht, Galileo; Lillian Hellman, Scoundrel Time; Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories; Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; Zhang Xianliang, Grass Soup; Nuruddin Farah, Maps.

Requirements & Grading: First 5-page paper, 20%; Second 5-page paper, 20%; First exam, 20%; Second exam, 20%; Participation, 10%; Quizzes, 10%.

How Stories Make Us Feel:  The Cognitive Turn in Literary Studies
Hannah Chapelle Wojciehowski

Description:  This course is designed as an introduction to neurocriticism, a recent body of theory that has arisen at the intersection(s) between literary narratology, neuroscience, phenomenology, cognitive psychology, and many other fields.  This remarkable conversation has opened up new perspectives on classic questions of subjectivity and intersubjectivity, including the following:

• What is empathy, and what are its underlying neural mechanisms?
• How are empathy and social identification related?
• What is embodied Theory of Mind, and how does it differ from earlier models of human consciousness?
• What do literature and other art forms reveal about the human mind and its workings? 
• What are the possible relations between narrative art and “real life”? 
• Does art save lives, ‘humanize’ us, or make us better people, however we might define ‘better’?
• How does neurocriticism allow us to reconceptualize the traditional discourses of aesthetics?

In this course we will explore this rich terrain, reading some of the most influential and speculative of recent theorists of mind, including Antonio Damasio, V. S. Ramachandran, Andy Clark, George Lakoff, Mark Turner, and Mark Johnson, Giacomo Rizzolatti, Vittorio Gallese, Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch.  We will also read philosophers, scientists and literary scholars who are theorizing empathy, including Stephen Pinker, Shaun Gallagher, and Suzanne Keen.  And, most importantly for our purposes, we will read and study works by literary theorists who have taken the ‘cognitive turn’—among them Patrick Colm Hogan, Lisa Zunshine, Ellen Spolsky, Frederick Luis Aldama, Mary Thomas Crane, Alan Richardson, Elaine Scarry, and Robyn Warhol, and Alan Palmer, in order to understand how this emergent critical paradigm is transforming our field.

In addition to studying neurocriticism as an exciting cross-disciplinary dialogue with huge stakes for basically everybody, we will also consider the relation of this very recent body of scholarship to precursor theories of empathy and identification.  Hence, in our class discussions, we will think of ways to relate these recent works to other literary theories that have explored the problems of intersubjectivity, identification and dis-identification--including Bakhtinian and Girardian narratology, feminisms, queer and gender theory; trauma theory; post-colonialisms; performance theory, and psychoanalyses.

This course will provide students with a number of useful tools for thinking about literary texts, cultural history, and interdisciplinarity.  It is designed to explore the right now of theory—something which literary criticism and theory anthologies generally neglect to do.  It is also designed to explore each student’s disparate exposures to literary theory and to bring them into synthesis.  It is both a focused exploration and a broad survey; there is much that we will, of necessity, leave out.  

Partial reading list (most of these readings will be excerpted)
Alan Richardson and Ellen Spolsky, The Work of Fiction: Cognition, Culture, and Complexity
Lisa Zunshine, Strange Concepts and the Stories They Make Possible: Cognition, Culture, Narrative
Suzanne Keen, Empathy and the Novel
Shaun Gallagher, How the Body Shapes the Mind
Patrick Colm Hogan, The Mind and its Stories: Narrative Universals and Human Emotion
Robyn Warhol, Having a Good Cry: Effeminate Feelings and Pop-Culture Forms
Antonio Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness
Vittorio Gallese, selected articles
V. F. Ramachandran, A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness: From Imposter Poodles to Purple Numbers. 
Giacomo Rizzolati and Corrado Sinigaglia, Mirrors in the Brain: How Our Minds Share Actions and Emotions

Virginia Woolf, The Waves
Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past (selections)
William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale
A. Van Jordan, M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A
Vikas Swarup, Q. & A.
Danny Boyle, dir., Slumdog Millionaire

Assignments and grading:
Meditations (one per class; one page each):  30%
1st paper (5 pages): 20%
2nd research paper (15-20 pages) 50%

E 379R (Topic: Doctor Faust Legend in Theater, Fiction, and Film) and 379S (embedded topic: The Faust Legend in Theater, Fiction, and Film) may not both be counted.

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: Once upon a time, there was this guy who wanted something bad. What he wanted he wanted so much that he would do anything to get it. Opportunity arose in the form of the devil, who tempted the man to make a deal. They drew up a contract, which the guy signed with his own blood. Wish granted, soul exchanged--the devil’s bargain. Short-term gain, long-term payback, second-guessing, counter-bargaining, teeth gnashing, wheels turning. Could anyone, including Dr. Faustus, outwit the devil, and outwit death in the bargain? Find out the answers, or at least the questions, from these famous and not-so-famous writers and filmmakers.

Texts: (subject to revision): Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound; Anonymous, Historia von D. Johann Fausten; Anna Bijns, Mary of Nijmeghen; Christopher Marlowe, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust; Dorothy Sayers, The Devil to Pay; Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita; Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Devil on the Cross.

Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan; Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect.

Films: Bedazzled, dir. Stanley Donen (1967); Mephisto, dir. István Szabó (1981); I Was a Teenage Faust, dir. Thom Eberhardt (2002); Fausto 5.0, dir. Isidro Ortiz, Alex Olle, Carlos Padrissa (2004).

Requirements & Grading: Participation, 10%; One short paper--5 pages (submitted in two drafts), 10%; Two peer critiques--1 to 2 pages, 10%; One research paper--10 pages (submitted in two drafts), 30%; Two exams, 40%.

Course Description: Students in this course will learn about the history and practice of literary studies: what do critics do, why do they do what they do, how do they justify the positions they take? How has is literature usually taught in American universities today? How has this discipline been conceived of and taught in the past, and what kinds of changes might we predict for the future? A further goal of this course is to make explicit the kinds of interpretive activities that students and teachers have been doing all along. Whenever we read a book, poem, or essay; whenever we see a film or a visual work of art; whenever we venture an interpretation of any sort, then we are using some form of literary theory in order to make a judgment. Prospective students may think of this course as a way of understanding and clarifying what they already know, or what they might like to know in more detail. This course offers many ways to read, interpret, and evaluate literature; there will be some surprises. We will learn how different critical theories can be applied to virtually any cultural artifact. This course will concentrate on twentieth-century developments in literary theory, including formalisms, structuralism, deconstruction, feminist and gender theory, critical race studies, post-colonial theory, psychoanalysis, and narratology. In addition to providing an overview of the field, this course is designed to help students to write better and to develop their skills in critical reasoning and argumentation. And finally it is designed to help prepare students for graduate study.

Texts (tentative): Leitch, ed.  The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism; Barthes, Mythologies; Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness; Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

Grading: One 3-page paper (3 drafts); One 3-page paper (2 drafts); One 6-8-page paper (2 drafts); Three 1-page peer critiques; Two exams.

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Course Description: In this course, specially designed for the needs and constraints of summer school, we will be doing what most of us would like to be doing anyway—i.e., reading great works of literary fiction. We will be studying a wide variety of short stories written by authors from around the world (composed in English or translated from their original languages into English). Simultaneously we will study basic principles of storytelling and writing, focusing on questions of narrative technique, point-of-view, figurative language, emplotment and genre, and other formal considerations of this particular literary format. We will also study the philosophical questions raised by these stories, as well as the cultural specificities of individual work. Students are invited to join this highly enjoyable yet challenging course, which will feature some of the very best of twentieth- and twenty-first century short stories.

Texts: The Art of the Story: An International Anthology of Contemporary Short Stories, ed. Daniel Halpern (Penguin: 2000); Course packet with additional readings.

Grading:

• 8-10 pop quizzes, 15%
• 2 interpretive essays, 3-4 pages, 20% ea.
• 1 final essay 5-6 pages, 30%
• class participation, 15%

Attendance is essential. Students must come to class prepared to discuss the day’s readings. More than three absences will substantially affect a student’s grade for the semester; more than five absences will result in a failing grade for the course.

Prerequisites: Rhetoric and Writing 306 and English 316K or their equivalents (e.g., TC 603A & 603B), and three additional semester hours of lower-division coursework in either English or rhetoric and writing.

Renaissance Travel Narratives

E 379S   35165
Dr. Hannah Wojciehowski
Mezes 2.210  MW 3:30-5:00                 
Office:  Parlin 227  ph. 1-8765
Office Hours:  MW 12:30-2:00   

Course Description:

Early modern travel narratives are fascinating historical documents.  They offer a wide array of perspectives on colonialism; on national, ethnic, religious, and cultural differences; and on the global economy that developed during that era.  Together they help the contemporary reader understand how the creative phenomenon called the Renaissance was partly the effect of a global circulation and redistribution of material goods, knowledge and ideas.  Conflicting beliefs about the world and its diverse peoples also had a profound impact on the evolution and transformation of European cultures, and of many other cultures around the world, as the modern world-system came into being. 

In this senior seminar we will study a broad sampling of European travel narratives written between the 15^th and 17^th centuries, as well as some non-European narratives from the same era.  These travel narratives tell remarkable stories, sometimes in highly crafted and rhetorically polished ways.  Members of this course will be encouraged to study these intriguing texts as literary works, as well as historical documents and/or ethnographies. In this course, we will explore the impact of these early modern works on literary history—specifically their relation to the Renaissance genre of romance and to various modern genres, as well—both fictional and non-fictional.  

Students in this course will write a 1-2 page response paper, a 4-5 page interpretive essay and a 10-12 page research paper.  They will also be encouraged to make use of the extensive collections of early modern books at the HRC and Benson libraries. 

Texts for this Course:

1. J. M. Cohen, ed., Christopher Columbus: The Four Voyages (Penguin, 1969).*  Reserves.
2. Luciano Formisano, ed., Vespucci: Letters from a New World(Marsilio, 1992).  Course packet/E Reserves/ Reserves.
3. George Logan and Robert Adams, More: Utopia(Cambridge: 1989).*  Reserves.
4. Leo Africanus, A Geographical Historie of Africa(1600; EEBO [free to UT students]).
5. Rolena Adorno and Patrick Charles Pautz, ed., The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca(Nebraska, 2003). *Reserves.
6. Franklin Knight, ed., Bartolomé de las Casas: An Account, Much Abbreviated, of the Destruction of the Indies, with Related Texts(Hackett: 2003).*  Reserves.
7. Janet Whatley, ed., Jean de Léry: History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil (California: 1992). *Electronic (UTNetCat)/Reserves.
8. Arthur Coke Burnell, ed., The Voyage of John Huyghen van Linschoten to the East Indies, Vol. I (Google Books—access through UTNetCat [free to UT students]).   Reserves.
9. Jack Beeching, ed., Hakluyt: Voyages and Discoveries. The Principal Voyages, Navigations, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation(Penguin, 1972).*  Reserves.
10. Robert Langbaum, ed., William Shakespeare: The Tempest(Signet, 1964).*
11. Rebecca Catz, ed., The Travels of Mendes Pinto(Chicago, 1989).*  Course packet/E-Reserves/Reserves.
12. Nabil Matar, In the Lands of the Christians: Arabic Travel Writing in the Seventeenth Century (Routledge, 2003).*  Course packet/E-Reserves/Reserves.

There are a large number of textbooks for this course.  In order to keep the costs down, I have made these texts available in several forms.  Most can be purchased at the University Co-op as indicated by a star (*) after the entry.  Three of our titles are available online to UT students (#s 4, 7 and 8), while three others (#s 2, 11 and 12) will be made available as course packets and as electronic reserves.

Requirements and Grading Policies:

• Attendance is required for this course.  You may, however, have two unexcused absences.  Any absences thereafter will adversely affect your final grade, and more than five absences will result in a failing grade for the course.  Exceptions may be made, however, for health problems, family difficulties, etc.   Absences resulting from the observance of religious holidays will also be respected.  Please come to class on time, and don’t forget to turn off your cellphones. 
• Papers: Written assignments for this course will be the following:  a 1-2-page response paper; a 4-5-page interpretive essay, a final paper prospectus, and a 10-12 page research paper to be submitted in two drafts. 
• Quizzes: There will be as many as 8 pop quizzes during the semester, which will consist of short-answer questions over the days’ reading. 

Grading for this course:

Grades will be assessed according to the following percentages:

The assignments for this course have been designed to create optimal breathing room in the busy schedules of graduating seniors.  Assignments are progressive, however, in that each one builds on the previous.  Hence, it is crucial to stay on track with the course readings and the written work. 

This is an advanced undergraduate course that is meant to be a capstone experience for the undergraduate English major at UT.   High-level critical thinking, research, and writing are expected of the participants in this seminar. 

Note on the University’s new grading system:  Last fall, a plus- and minus-grading system was created at the University of Texas.  This course will use the new grading system, which includes plusses and minuses both for assignments and for the final course grades. 

Special accommodations:  Students with disabilities may request appropriate academic accommodations from the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, Services for Students with Disabilities, 471-6259.

For more information, please download the full syllabus.

TBD