Ways of Reading: Strange Inheritance
ENGL 201R
Spring 2023
| Section:
01
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| Course Cluster and Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory Certificate |
Language precedes us. Nay, writing does. What do "we" do, then, with what we inherit? (For that matter, who is this "we"?) How do we think about what literary forms bequeath, force, and upend? About representations of democracy? About "the after-life of slavery" on the level of representation? This foray into the English major will teach you some theories and modes of reading rhetorical configurations of the self and the other, (in)hospitality, racialization, gendering, colonialism, history, and so on. Weaving together works of literature with literary and critical theory that meditate sometimes literally on each other, and always on the shared linguistic and colonial heritages, we will consider the ethics and politics of reading in (and against) a strange inheritance--one made strange (as it is made familiar) by the violent, imperial, colonial, enslaving forces at its inception(s). We will trace what is sometimes unwanted but must be reckoned with, and what is sometimes inextinguishably desired, across some of a matrix of these possible lineages: {Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre; Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea; Gayatri Spivak's Towards A Critique of Postcolonial Reason; and Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy}; {select works of Négritude poetry (especially by Aimé Césaire); Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks; Shola von Reinhold's Lote; select works of Frank Wilderson III; and select works of David Marriott}; and/or {Homer, Derek Walcott, and Ocean Vuong}. We will read key works of structural linguistics, the New Criticism, and deconstruction, with emphasis on the thinking of Jacques Derrida regarding inheritance. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ENGL |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (CSCT)(ENGL) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 50% - 74% |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
TBD, some variation on what is noted in the course description. Books will be ordered at RJ Julia bookstore and the theoretical essays for the course will be bound in a Course Pack.
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Examinations and Assignments:
Short essay (close-reading assignment), sound/multi-media project, annotated bibliography. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
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| Instructor(s): Ellis Neyra,Ren Times: .M.W... 01:20PM-02:40PM; Location: DWNY100; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 15 | | SR major: X | JR major: X | | |
| Seats Available: 1 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: X | JR non-major: 1 | SO: 13 | FR: 1 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 4 | 1st Ranked: 1 | 2nd Ranked: 2 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 1 |
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