Approaches to Literature, spring 2021

 TF 11:00-12:20

 Dr. Jean E. Graham

 Email address: graham@tcnj.edu

The Course: As the course title indicates, Approaches to Literature serves to introduce you to different modes of literary analysis.  It is the second in the sequence of foundation courses for English majors and builds on the theoretical approaches you have learned in LIT 202 (now 101) Cultures and Canons. The department requires that each section of LIT 102 Approaches to Literature include a minimum of five approaches, including formalist, psychoanalytical, Marxist, and gender.  In this course we will learn to perform those types of readings as well as introducing you to postcolonial and ecocritical approaches for a total of six approaches. Throughout the course, there will be a constant emphasis on incorporating close reading skills in the application of these multiple modes of analysis. Our readings will include works of literature, literary theory, and literary criticism. Finally, Approaches to Literature seeks to prepare you for the English Department’s curriculum by placing a premium on your writing.  Students who complete the course successfully will know how to effectively research and integrate scholarly sources into their own written arguments and analyses

In short, primary goals for the course are that you will:

  • become increasingly conversant with essential terms of literary analysis;
  • refine close-reading skills and investigate current critical theory and methodology;
  • engage writing as a process and as a mode of analysis, with attention to precision, clarity, craft, and appropriate research.

Additionally, the course shares with many other English courses these broader goals:

  • to enhance your ability to closely read and independently analyze complex literary texts, develop your own understanding of those texts and apply that understanding to construct well-reasoned arguments in writing and speech.
  • to better find and evaluate appropriate prior scholarship as context for your own thinking and to master conventions of honestly and constructively integrating the ideas of others into your own analyses.
  • to understand literature as both a reflection of and a site for the construction of culture.

Prerequisites: LIT 101 and English major or minor status.

Course units: 1 (4 semester hours).  Some years ago, the majority of undergraduate courses at TCNJ were “transformed” from 3-credit to 4-credit learning experiences, without necessarily adding an additional hour of class interaction per week.  As the equivalent of the fourth hour in this course:

f) the students are assigned additional learning tasks that make the semester’s learning experience more deeply engaged and rigorous, and no additional classroom space is needed.

You should plan for an average of 10 hours a week of work for this course, including class meetings. (That is, 4 courses at TCNJ is the equivalent of a full-time job.)

Place in the Curriculum: This course counts toward:

1) the English major, as the second critical content course (and thus the minimum grade for this course to count toward the major is a C); or

2) the English minor, as one of the critical content courses that may be selected.  (Minors should contact the Associate Chair, Professor Diane Steinberg, for help in registering.)

The required texts are available at the college bookstore (no substitutions):

Austen, Jane. Emma. Norton.

Euripedes. Medea. Norton.

Parker, Robert.  How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies. 3rd edition, Oxford UP, 2014.

Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. Norton.

Recommended text:

MLA Handbook. 8th edition, MLA, 2016.

Summary of Work:  There are five formal essays in the course, scaffolded with other assignments.  For this virtual course, the midterm and final exams are replaced by quizzes in Canvas, including a final quiz reviewing some of what you have learned. Additionally, I will expect consistently thorough preparation and avid participation in class activities.

Spring 2021: This course will be virtual, with a mix of synchronous and asynchronous experiences. TCNJ is closed on Tuesday March 30, and we will not meet or have any assignment due. On Friday April 2, we will observe TCNJ Recharge Week by meeting synchronously, with no class preparation expected. There will be no final exam.

Syllabus: in Canvas