ENG 390-01 - Literary Theory (Spring)

4 credits (Spring)

Literature in Crisis, Writers on Trial. This seminar deals with various aspects of late 20th and early 21st century literary theory arranged around five crisis points: the first deals with the trials of Oscar Wilde in view of Michel Foucault’s “history of sexuality”; the second deals with the crisis of authority, identity, and historical recovery provoked by the publication of William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner; Toni Morrison’s neo-slave narrative, Beloved, will serve as a bridge to the third crisis involving Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida and the “scandal” of post-Holocaust memory; the fourth section deals with the crisis of censorship and sensibility engendered by publication of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses; and the fifth and concluding section will focus on issues of autobiography, authenticity and gender/sex as they relate to J.T. Leroy (nom de plume of Laura Albert) and “his” novel, Sarah. Whether the result of juridical processes that pronounce sentence or of publication procedures that provoke outrage, these crises not only remind us of the inextricability of politics, ethics, and aesthetics but also recall to us the humanity of those involved, whether they be victims, defendants, prosecutors or theorists. In addition to the texts and writers noted above, readings are likely to include selections from Butler, Greenblatt, Said, and Spivak, as well as a play, Moises Kaufman’s Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde (1997).

Prerequisite: Third-year or senior standing and at least one 300-level literature seminar in the English department.
Instructor: Andrews