Theories of New Historicism

Semester 3
Module II: 

Theories of New Historicism 
 

History is not linearly progressive and is not reducible to the activities of prominent individuals. The mundane activities and conditions of everyday life can tell us much about the belief systems of a time period.  Literary texts are connected in complex ways to the time period in which they were created and systems of social power are both reflected in and reinforced by such texts. 

Prescribed Essay

• Michel Foucault. “What is an Author?” Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader. Ed. David

                             Lodge. UK: Longman, 2000. Pp. 174-187. 

New Historicism

New Historicism focusses on the historicity of literary texts and the textuality of history. The New Historicists believe in the impossibility of objective analysis of history. New Historicism is thus a critique of apriori systems of knowledge. The reading of a literary text or culture is not definitive.

I. Schools of New Historicist Thought

·         Foucauldian Studies

·         Subaltern Studies

·         Feminist New Historicist Studies

II. MajorConcepts

·         Critiques of historical reason

·         Discipline

·         Discourse

·         Discursive formations

·         Episteme

·         Textuality

·         Intertextuality

·         Historicity

·         Historiogrphy

·         Archaelogy

·         Discursive Practise

·         Episteme

·         Geneology

·         Gaze

·         Historical Apriori

·         Heterotopia

·         Panopticon

·         Surveillance

·         Power

·         Knowledge

·         Phenemenology

·         Repressive Hypothesis

·         Subjectivity

III. Major Figures

·         Nietzsche

·         Michel Foucault

·         Stephen Greenblatt

·         Clifford Geertz

·         Hayden White

·         Pierre Bourdieu

IV. Major Works

·          Michel Foucault-  
   The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences, Language, Counter-   memory, Practice

    Madness and Civilization
    Death and the Labyrinth: The World of Raymond Roussel
    Birth of the Clinic
    The Order of Things
    The Archaeology of Knowledge
    Discipline and Punish
    The History of Sexuality, Vol. I: An Introduction
    The History of Sexuality, Vol. II: The Use of Pleasure
    The History of Sexuality, Vol. III: The Care of the Self

·         
 Stephen Greenblatt- Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare, Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England

·         Clifford Geertz- The Interpretation of Cultures

·         Hayden White- Metahistory

·         Pierre Bourdieu – Outline of a Theory of Practice, The Field of Cultural Production

    
 V. Sample Reading

prezi.com/xhh1jf-_d-qr/great-gatsby-new-historicism