Methodology of literary research 15-MBLIT-11

The purpose of the lecture is to introduce MA students to contemporary critical and theoretical approaches to literature and to show how they work in practice. The questions to be considered include the relatedness of criticism and literature, expressive, pragmatic and mimetic concerns of a literary text, the influence of historical, social and cultural contexts on our understanding of literature, the ethical stance in literary studies, intertextuality and discursive nature of language and interpretation, the role of the reader in the meaning-making process. To explore those concerns, the lecture covers major critical modes such as New Criticism, intertextual studies, structuralism, psychoanalysis, feminist criticism, reader-response criticism, intermedial studies, and postcolonial approaches. The examples chosen to illustrate each approach will be taken from various literary genres, with a view of exposing students to a wide range of formal and interpretative aspects of literature.

The topics to be discussed during our meetings:

1.Introduction: What is methodology? Major concerns of literary studies: mimetic, expressive, objective, pragmatic. How to do research? Common problems, research bibliography, review of literature, conceptual framework, research niche.
2.The Text and the Mind: Psychoanalytical Criticism: Freudian, Lacanian, Jungian approaches, Affect Studies
3.The text and the power of close-reading: New Criticism
4.Genre: Structuralism and Genre criticism: The Fantastic
5.Space and time in literature: Narratology, Cognitive Approaches and Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope.
6. Intertextual studies: Structuralist and Poststructuralist approaches
7. Text and the Reader: Reception and Reader-response criticism
8. Text and Society I: Sociological Criticism: Gender and Queer Studies
9: Text and Society II: Feminist Criticism
10. Text and Society II: Rereading the canon: Postcolonial Criticism.
11.Literature and technology: Posthuman Studies
12.Text and Environment: Ecocriticism
13. Literature and the New Media: Reading Digital Literature
14. Critical Race Theory

Module learning aims

Learning objectives: Course objectives include the following: 1.Conveying the essential knowledge related methodologies of literary research 2. Conveying the essential knowledge about main critical schools and terminologies used by them 3. Developing skills for a critical and theoretical analysis of literary texts 4. Developing skills for the application and interdisciplinary use of literary methodologies in analysis of texts 5. Preparing the essential methodological tools for a theoretically-informed discussion of literature and critical thinking about literary and cultural texts 7. Shaping attitudes of openness, sensitivity and curiosity towards diverse literary and cultural phenomena

Information on where to find course materials

Lecture materials are availbe on Moodle platform (syllabus, handouts, sample test questions), secondary literature can be found in electronic databases or at the UAM Library (Faculty of Modern Languages and Main Library)

Major

English philology

Methods of teaching for learning outcomes achievement

Lecture with the use of multimedia

Student workload (ECTS credits)

Details related to the ECTS points: Number of points: 3 Number of hours with the teacher (according to the programme): 30 hours of the lecture Students' own work (reading and class prepration): 10 hours Students' own work (exam/test preparation): 20 hours Sum: 60 hours ECTS points for the course: 3

Cycle of studies

2nd cycle

Year of studies (where relevant)

Year 1

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences

The most fundamental requirement is linguistic competence in English at advanced level.

Course coordinators

Magdalena Perdek

Learning outcomes

After successful completion of the course, student has the following knowledge, skills and competences:

1.Student is equipped with the essential knowledge about basic methodologies of literary research
2. Student is able to analyse and interpret literary texts using critical and theoretical terms
3. Student can read with comprehension texts of literary criticism
4. Student is able to use critical terminology in an analysis of literature and culture
5. Student is capable of evaluating methodological tools and proposing his own interpretation of texts
6. Student can properly use literary criticism in English
7. Student recognizes basic theoretical terms and uses them properly
8. Student is able to develop his research skills related to literary studies
9. Student is curious of the world and open towards other literatures and cultures.

Assessment criteria

Evaluation methods:
Summative: one end-of-term test based on the course material consisting of open and closed questions.
Grading criteria:
excellent (5.0): excellent knowledge and analytical, as well as critical skills
very good (4,5): very good knowledge and analytical as well as critical skills
good (4.0): good knowledge and analytical as well as critical skills
satisfactory (3.5): satisfactory knowledge and analytical as well as critical skills
poor (3.0): poor knowledge and analytical as well as critical skills
Unsatisfactory (fail) (2.0): inadequate knowledge and analytical as well as critical skills

Bibliography

Bal, Mieke. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. London: University of Toronto Press, 1997.
Brooks, Cleanth. 1956. The Well-Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry. New York: Harcourt Brace.
Alison Booth, et al. (eds). The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. W.W. Norton, 2010.
Buell, Lawrence. 1995. The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture”.
Burzyńska A., Markowski M.P. Teorie literatury XX wieku, Antologia, Kraków 2006.
Burzyńska A., Markowski M.P. Teorie literatury XX wieku, Podręcznik, Kraków. 2006.
Campbell, Joseph 1959. The Hero with Thousand Faces. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Iser, Wolfgang. 1978. The Act of Reading. A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Leitch, Vincent. 1982. Deconstructive Criticism: An Advanced Introduction and Survey. New York: Columbia University Press. 1982.
Leitch, Vincent B. (ed.) The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: Norton, 2001.
Culler, Jonathan. 2000. Literary Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Culler Jonathan. 1975. Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics, and the Study of Literature. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Cuddon. J.A. 2000. Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, 4th ed. New York: Penguin.
Cunnigham Reading After Theory. Malden, MA. Blackwell Publishers. 2002.
Delgado, Richard and Jean Stefancic. Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. 2nd ed. New York: New York University Press, 2012.
Delgado, Richard and Jean Stefancic, eds. 2013. Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge. 3rd ed. Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
Fry, Paul. H. 2012.Theory of Literature. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Klarer, Mario. 2004. (the fourth expanded edition.) An Introduction to Literary Studies. London and New York: Routledge.
Haraway, Donna. 1991. "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” In: The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: Norton, 2001.
Eagleton Terry. 1985. Theory of Literary Criticism: A Logical Analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Frye, Northrop.1993.Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Preminger, Alex, and T. V. F. Brogan (eds). The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
Tyson, Lois. 2015.Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. Routledge: New York and London. Third Edition.

Additional information

Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system:

Description of 15-MBLIT-11 in USOSweb