张在新开设的课程简介 - 研究生
1. 二十世纪西方文论
2. 乔叟与《坎特伯雷故事集》
Graduate Courses
1. 20th-Century Literary Theory
This course aims to help students understand 20th-century literary theory concerning some of the key issues explored and debated in the West. We will focus on such theories as psychoanalysis, Marxism, feminism, deconstruction, new historicism, queer theory, post-colonialism, postmodernism, and age as performance. Related issues include self and other, man and woman, history and ideology, knowledge and power, speech and writing, nature and culture, experience and identity, postmodern space, age and aging, etc.
Textbook
Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User-friendly Guide. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2006.
Optional Texts
Barzilai, Shuli. “Borders of Language: Kristeva’s Critique of Lacan.” PMLA 106.2 (1991): 294-305.
Berg, Maggie. “Luce Irigaray’s ‘Contradictions’: Poststructuralism and Feminism.” Signs 17.1 (1991): 50-70.
Greenblatt, Stephen. “Toward a Poetics of Culture.” The New Historicism. New York: Routledge, 1989.1-14.
Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke UP, 1991. (Chapter 1: “The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism”)
Laz, Cheryl. “Act Your Age.” Sociological Forum 13.1 (1998): 85-113.
McLellan, David. Ideology. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995. (Chapters 2 &3: “Marx” “The Marxist Tradition”).
Nealon, Jeffrey T. “The Discipline of Deconstruction.” PMLA 107.5 (1992): 1266-79.
Shiner, Larry. “Reading Foucault: Anti-Method and the Genealogy of Power-Knowledge.” History and Theory 21.3 (1982): 382-398.
Tiffin, Helen. “Post-colonial Literatures and Counter-Discourse.” Kunapipi 9.3 (1987):17-34.
Wilkerson, William S. “Is There Something You Need to Tell Me?: Coming out and the Ambiguity of Experience.” Reclaiming Identity: Realist Theory and the Predicament of Postmodernism. Paula M. L. Moya and Michael R. Hames-Garcia, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. 251-78.
Zerilli, Linda M. G. “A Process without a Subject: Simone de Beauvoir and Julia Kristeva on Maternity.” Signs 18.1 (1982): 111-35.
Requirements and Grades
1. Term paper, 60%.
2. Fifteen-minute presentation on a concept of a theory scheduled for discussion, 15%.
3. Ten-minute presentation on the term paper, 10%.
4. Active class participation, 15%.
Tentative Schedule
Week 1 Introduction
Week 2 Psychoanalytic Criticism (Tyson, 11-52)
Week 3 Marxism (Tyson, 53-82)
Weeks 4-5 Feminism (Tyson, 83-134)
Weeks 6-7 Deconstruction (Tyson, 249-80)
Week 8 Knowledge and Power (Tyson, 281-316)
Week 9 New Historicism (Tyson, 281-316)
Week 10 Queer Theory (Tyson, 317-58)
Week 11 May Day
Week 12 Postcolonialism (Tyson, 359-450)
Week 13 Postmodernism and Special Topics: Space, Age as Performance
Week 14 Conference on term paper topics.
Weeks 15-16 Presentations on term papers.
Academic Honesty
To plagiarize is to use someone else’s work (words, ideas, etc, published or unpublished) as if it was on
2. The Canterbury Tales: Truth and Constructions of Truths
“Reading Chaucer in the 21st century? Are you kidding me?” This must be your first reaction to a course titled “The Canterbury Tales.” True, Chaucer wrote the Tales over 600 years ago, but it can be closer to us than modern or even contemporary fiction is. At least the A on the Prioress’ cloak has a stable meaning (“Amor vincit omnia” – “Love conquers all”), although some of the other tales can be deconstructed. Besides, Chaucer’s keen interest in humanity, good or bad, helps to shorten the historical distance between the Middle Ages and the 21st century. But it doesn’t have to be this serious. Remember, Chaucer is also a witty poet. Don’t take my word for it—find out for yourself.
This course aims to study The Canterbury Tales from different perspectives, using history and theory to make sense of the tales we are going to read. These tales uncover the “truth” about man and woman, soul and body, time and space, Christianity and Judaism, Word of God and language, Providence and human agency, truth and rhetoric, nature and art, youth and old age, truth and belief, metaphor and metonymy, etc. But the ultimate truth about these binary oppositions turns out to be truths constructed by ideology and culture.
Textbook: Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Trans. David Wright. Oxford UP, 1985. Beijing: FLTRP, 1996.
Requirements and Grades
1. Class participation, 10%.
2. Fifteen-minute presentation on an assigned topic, 15%.
3. Ten-page term paper, 60%.
4. Ten-minute presentation on the term paper, 15%.
Tentative Schedule
Week 1 Introduction and the “General Prologue” (pp. 1-22)
Weeks 2-3 The “Miller’s Tale” (pp. 79-98): Body/Space vs. History/Time
Presentation 1 (Week 2): Medieval Astrology
Week 4 National Day Holiday
Week 5 The “Prioress’s Tale” (pp. 159-166): Power and Truth
Presentation 2: Hatred toward Jews in the Middle Ages
Week 6 The “Nun’s Priest’s Tale” (pp. 201-218): Personal Time vs. Public Time
Presentation 3: Medieval Notion of Dreams
Weeks 7-8 The “Wife of Bath’s Tale” (pp. 219-250): History vs. Herstory
Presentation 4 (Week 7): Hatred of Women in the Middle Ages
Week 9 The “Summoner’s Tale” (pp. 261-277): Speech Acts and Hermeneutics
Presentation 5: Interpretation of the Scriptures
Week 10 The “Merchant’s Tale” (pp. 313-343): Age and Agency
Presentation 6: Marriage in the Middle Ages
Week 11 The “Squire’s Tale” (pp. 344-362): Truth and Rhetoric
Presentation 7: Magic in the Middle Ages
Week 12 The “Franklin’s Tale” (pp. 362-385): Honor and Commodity
Presentation 8: Medieval Chivalry
Week 13 The “Second Nun’s Tale” (pp. 411-427): Truth and Metaphor
Presentation 9: Martyrdom in the Middle Ages
Week 14 Conference on term paper topics
Weeks 15-6 Presentations on term papers
Term paper due: Last day of class for the semester
Optional Texts
Besserman, Lawrence. “Ideology, Antisemitism, and Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale. The Chaucer Review 36.1 (2001): 48-72.
Bishop, Louise M. “‘Of Goddes pryvetee nor of his wyf’: Confusion of Orifices in Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 44.3 (2002): 31-46.
Bradbury, Nancy Mason and Carolyn P. Collette. “Changing Times: The Mechanical Clock in Late Medieval Literature.” The Chaucer Review 43.4 (2009): 351-75.
Carter, Susan. “Coupling the Beastly Bride and the Hunter Hunted: What Lies Behind Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale.” The Chaucer Review 34.4 (2003): 329-45.
Crocker, Holly A. “Performative Passivity and Fantasies of Masculinity in the Merchant’s Tale. The Chaucer Review 38.2 (2003): 178-98.
Hayes, Mary. “Privy Speech: Sacred Silence, Dirty Secrets in the Summoner’s Tale.” The Chaucer Review 40.3 (2006): 263-88.
Lynch, Kathryn L. “East Meets West in Chaucer’s Squire’s and Franklin’s Tales.” Speculum 70.3 (1995): 530-51.
McGregor, Francine. “What of Dorigen? Agency and Ambivalence in the ‘Franklin’s Tale.’” The Chaucer Review 31.4 (1997): 365-78.
McKinley, Kathryn L. “The Silenced Knight: Questions of Power and Reciprocity in the ‘Wife of Bath’s Tale.’” The Chaucer Review 30.4 (1996): 359-78.
Robertson, Elizabeth. “Apprehending the Divine and Choosing to Believe: Voluntarist Free Will in Chaucer’s Second Nun’s Tale.” The Chaucer Review 46.1 (2011): 111-30.
Walts, Dawn Simmons. “Tricks of Time in the Miller’s Tale.” The Chaucer Review 43.4 (2009): 400-13.
Academic Honesty
To plagiarize means “to take (words, ideas etc) from (someone else’s work) and use them in on
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