Course Description English 387

387-001
History of Literary Criticism and Theory
Joyce HollingsworthTR 2:00-3:15MO 205

Starting with 21st century theorists Lyotard, Butler, and Lennard Davis and his critique of critics blind to the Venus de Milo’s scars and to Medusa’s power, then flashing back to Plato, Aristophanes, and Aristotle, we begin interrogating mimesis and ideals, Plato's perfect forms to which the concrete objects of our world are imitations and art an imitation of an imitation. We’ll explore issues of power, identity, the human body, art, language, and other questions as we progress through a history of ideas about literature, with forays back to the future, reading Wollstonecraft, Keats, Marx, Woolf, Derrida, et al. Relying on analytical discussion of theoretical and literary texts in class, online, in papers and exams, we’ll develop lists of binaries, questions, intertextual connections, etc. See: http://www.joycecthollingsworth.blogspot.com. Many links on the blog where you find yourself now will be important to the course. You will find other important information on the Sea Port web page for your class, as well, as the course proceeds. Book for ENG 387 is David Richter's The Critical Tradition, 3rd Edition, published by Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007 (ISBN 0-312-41520-6).