Message, Method, Medium: Theories of Interpretation

Unit 3: Medium

Week 10

Tuesday, October 23

  • Gates.  “Introduction to The Signifying Monkey: A theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism”
  • Hayles. “Speech, Writing, Code: Three Worldviews”
  • hooks. “Essentialism and Experience”
  • Christian, Barbara. "The Race for Theory" 
  • Reflect on the class so far

Thursday, October 25

  • Stevens. Chapter 7
  • Foucault. “Panopticism” and “Introduction to Discipline and Punish
  • Hughes."Note on Commerical Theatre"

Mini Essay 5 of 5 

Due Saturday, October 27

Prompts TBA

Week 11

Tuesday, October 30

  • Continue discussion from last week
  • In-Class: some discussion of Digital Humanities, Book History, and Material Culture

Thursday, November 1

  • Stevens Chapter 8: Twentieth and Twenty-first Century political approaches; Focus on Karl Marx 181-185
  • Marx and Engels “from Manifesto of the Communist Party”
  • Marx “From the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts” and “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof”

Essay 3 of 3 

Due Saturday, November 3

Prompts TBA

Week 12

Tuesday, November 6

  • Kafka. “The Metamorphosis”
  • In Class Exercise (not required reading beforehand): Williams. “Keywords”
  • Veblen. Excerpt from The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions

Thursday, November 8

  • Stevens Chapter 8: Review Early Marxist Theory and Criticism 186-93
  • Required Viewing: Lang. Metropolis (1927)

Week 13

Tuesday, November 13

  • Stevens Chapter 8 Review Postcolonial and Ethnic Studies 194-202
  • Excerpts from:
    • Anzaldua. “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.
    • Bhabha. “ On Mimicry and Man”
    • DuBois. Souls of Black Folk
    • Fee, “Writing Orality: Interpreting Literature in English by Aboriginal Writers in North America, Australia  and  New Zealand"
    • McKenzie. Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts
    • Ngugi. “The Language of African Literature”
    • Said. Orientalism

Thursday, November 15

  • Stevens Chapter 8: Review Feminist Theory and Criticism. Sexuality, and Queer Theory as well as Disability and Environmental Studies 203-201
  • Crenshaw. "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color"
  • Puar. “‘I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess’ Intersectionality, Assemblage, and Affective Politics”
  • Sedgwick. “Introduction to Between Men”
  • Walker. “In Search of our Mothers Gardens”

Week 14

Tuesday, November 20

  • Stevens Chapter 9: Twentieth and Twenty-first Century Psychoanalytic Approaches
  • Freud. “From Ego and Id” and “from On the Interpretation of Dreams”
  • Cixous. “The Laugh of the Medusa.”
  • Lacan. “Seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter’” and “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience”
  • Required Viewing: Hulme. Forbbidden Planet (1956)

Thursday, November 22

No Class Today. We are on break.

Week 15

Tuesday, November 27

  • Required Viewing:
    • Peele. Get Out (2017)
    • Pontecorvo. Battle for Algiers. (1967)
      • Optional: Review earlier Fanon texts and “Algeria Unveiled”

Thursday, November 29

  • Closing Discussion.
  • Unessay workshop; bring in the work in progress

Unessay

This is bascially your final. Your project with its analytical reflective piece is due on:

Tuesday, December 11

This is the original date scheduled by Howard for our class. This is not an in-person assignment. Submission instructions will be provided.
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