Literary Theory Workshop - Schedule

Date: 31-08-2013, Saturday
Venue: Institute of English, University of Kerala

 

Inaugural Address (10- 10.10 am)                      : Dr. Maya Dutt

Addressing the Gathering 

(10.10-10.20am)                                                             : Dr. P.J. Jacob (Chairman, Board of Studies in English (Pass))

             

          (10.20-10.30am)                                            : Dr. Anitha Dhamayanthi(Associate Professor. Govt College for women, Thiruvananthapuram)

Introductory Remark (10.10- 10.45 am)          : Dr. G.S. Jayasree                 (Director, Center for Women's Studies. member P.G Board of Studies

Tea Break (10.45 am)


First Session (11 am- 1 pm)                                   : Discussion on the First Module 
11-11.30am                                                                    : Theories of Structuralism 
11.30-12pm                                                                    :Theories of Deconstruction
12-12.30pm                                                                    : Psychoanalytic Theories
12.30- 1.00pm                                                               : Feminist Theories

Lunch Break (1- 1.45 pm)
 
Second Session (1.45- 3.45 pm)                          : Discussion on the second Module
1.45-2.15                                                                       : Marxist Theories
2.15-2.45                                                                       : Theories of New Historicism    
2.45-3.15                                                                       : Postcolonial Theories
3.15- 3.45                                                                      : Theories of New Media

Concluding Remark                                                 : 3.45- 4.30

Syllabus - Semester 3

Semester 3

Paper X – Literary Theory II [6 hours/week]

Course description - Topics to be covered

The course will help the student to understand that:

1. Human societies are structured by the economic system.
2. All social and political activities aim at gaining and sustaining economic power.
3. History is not linear and progressive.
4. It is impossible to analyze history objectively.
5. The mundane activities and conditions of everyday life can tell us much about the belief systems of a time period.
6. Discourses wield power for those in charge and they do not remain permanent.
7. Colonization is a process of political domination mainly based on race, ethnicity, economic greed and expansionism.
8. A literary text represents various aspects of colonial oppression.
9. Media has its effects on society and culture.
10. Media’s relationship with other forms of arts and society is informed by ideology.

Module I: Marxist Theories

Literary and other cultural texts are ideological in background, form and function and the production and consumption of texts reflects class ideologies. An attention to the material conditions of life and a critical engagement with our attitudes about those conditions are essential for achieving positive social change.

• Raymond Williams. “Literature.” Marxism and Literature. USA: Oxford UP, 1978. Pp. 45-54.

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.

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

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

Module III: Postcolonial Theories

The analysis of racism and ethnocentrism in texts from the past may have relevance to the ways we live our lives today.  Textual analysis of race, ethnicity, and postcoloniality can serve as a starting point for positive forms of social change in the future. 

• Edward W. Said. “Introduction”. Orientalism. UK: Penguin. 1900. Pp.1-28.

Module IV: Theories of New Media

Media theories examine the reciprocal relationship between media and its audience. The development of print media and digital media is associated with the development of consumerism and commercialism. Media theory emphasizes the fact that media cannot exist outside the ideological constraints and become constitutive of the very ideology it re-presents.

• Manuel Castells. “The Network Society: from Knowledge to Policy”. The Network Society: from

        Knowledge to Policy. Eds. Manuel Castells and Gustavo Cardoso. Washington, DC: Johns  

        Hopkins Center for Transatlantic Relations, 2005. Pp. 3-21.Web.

Recommended Reading:

1. Marx. “The German Ideology: Wage, Labour and Capital.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed.

    Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. USA: Blackwell, 1998. Pp. 653-658.

2. Althusser. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie

    Rivkin and Michael Ryan. USA: Blackwell, 1998. Pp. 693-702.

3. Terry Eagleton. Marxism and Literary Criticism. London: Routledge, 1976.
4. Stephen Greenblatt. “Towards a Poetics of Culture.” The New Historicism. Ed. H. Aram Veeser.

    London: Routledge, 1989. Pp. 1-14.

5. Dipesh Chakrabarty. “Post Coloniality and the Artifice of History.” Representations 37, Special

    Issue: Imperial Fantasies and Postcolonial Histories (Winter, 1992). Pp. 1-26.

6. Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield. Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural

    Materialism. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1994.

7. Franz Fanon. “On National Culture.” The Wretched of the Earth. Trans. Constance Farrington.

    Penguin, 1967. Pp. 168-78.

8. Partha Chatterjee. “Nationalism as a Problem in the History of Political Ideas.” Nationalist

Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? The Partha Chatterjee Omnibus.  New Delhi: Oxford UP, 1994. Pp. 1-35.

9. Ania Loomba. Colonialism/Post-Colonialism. London: Routledge, 2005.
10. Nancy Fraser. “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing

Democracy.” The Cultural Studies Reader. 2nd ed. Ed. Simon During. London: Routledge, 2007. Pp. 518-536.

11. M. Madhava Prasad. “The Absolutist Gaze: Political Structure and Cultural Form.” Ideology of

    the Hindi Film: A Historical Construction. Pp. 52-87.

12 Dan Laughy. Key Themes in Media Theory. London: McGraw-Hill, 2007.

Syllabus - Semester 2

 Semester 2

 Paper VIII – Literary Theory 1 [6 hours/week]

 Course description - Topics to be covered

This course will enable the students to understand that:

1. Language is a system of signs.
2. There are certain fundamental structures underlying all human behaviour and production.
3. Meaning is not fixed; rather it is a fluid, ambiguous domain of human experience.
4. Human beings are motivated by desires, fears, conflicts and needs of which they are unaware.
5. Unconscious is the storehouse of painful and repressed emotions.
6. Unconscious is structured like language.
7. Cultural productions reinforce the economic, political, social and psychological oppression.
8. Reader’s response is pivotal in the analysis of literary texts.
9. Reader actively participates in creating the meaning of the text.

Module I: Theories of Structuralism

The basic principle of Structuralism is that language structures our perception of the world around us.  Literature and other cultural representations are manifestations of systems of signs that can be studied both synchronically and diachronically.

• Ferdinand de Saussure. Sections from Course in General Linguistics. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. USA: Blackwell, 1998. Pp. 76-90.

Module II: Theories of Deconstruction

Theories of Deconstruction rest on the belief that there is no transcendental signified and that there is nothing outside of the text. However, texts betray traces of their own instability, making the possibility of determinate meaning suspect.

• Jacques Derrida. “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences.” Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader. Ed. David Lodge. UK: Longman, 2000. Pp. 89-103.

Module III: Psychoanalytic Theories

The existence of the unconscious is central to all psychoanalytic theories. Individuals move through developmental stages early in life, and traumas or experiences during that process may have a lasting effect on personality. Literary and other cultural texts may have a psychological impact on readers or meet a psychological need in them. 

• Jacques Lacan. “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Foundation of I as Revealed in Psychoanalysis Experience.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. USA: Blackwell, 1998. Pp. 178-183.

Module IV: Feminist Theories

Language, institutions, and social power structures have reflected patriarchal interests throughout history; and this has had a profound impact on women’s ability to express themselves and the quality of their daily lives.  This combination of patriarchal oppression and women’s resistance to it is apparent in many literary and other cultural texts. 

• Elaine Showalter. “Towards a Feminist Poetics.”Women Writing and Writing about Women.  London: Croom Helm, 1979. Pp.10-22

Literary Theory 1 – Recommended reading:

1. Roman Jakobson. “Linguistics and Poetics”. Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader. Ed. David

Lodge and Nigel Wood. England: Pearson, 2007. Pp. 141-164.

2. Claude Levi-Strauss. “The Structural Study of Myth.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie

    Rivkin and Michael Ryan. USA: Blackwell, 1998.

3. Jonathan Culler. Structuralist Poetics. Routledge, 1975.
4. Roland Barthes. “The Death of the Author.” Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader”. Ed. David

    Lodge and Nigel Wood. England: Pearson, 2007. Pp. 313-316.

5. Jean-Francois Lyotard. “The Postmodern Condition.”  Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie

Rivkin and Michael Ryan. USA: Blackwell, 1998.

6. Madan Sarup. An Introductory Guide to Post-Structuralism and Post-modernism. Longman, 1993.
7. Sigmund Freud. “The Interpretation of Dreams.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and

Michael Ryan. USA: Blackwell, 1998.

8. Gillez Deleuze and Felix Guttari. “The Anti-Oedipus.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie

    Rivkin and Michael Ryan. USA: Blackwell, 1998.

9. Maud Ellman. Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism. Longman, 1994.
10. Luce Irigaray. “The Power of discourse and the Subordination of the Feminine.” Literary Theory: An

    Anthology.Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. USA: Blackwell, 1998.

11. Simone de Beauvoir. “Myth and Reality.” Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader” Ed. David

    Lodge and Nigel Wood. England: Pearson, 2007. Pp. 95- 102.

12. Mary Eagleton, ed. Feminist Literary Criticism. London: Longman, 1991.