ENGL 608
Introduction to Critical and Research Methods
Fall 2016 Th 7-9:30
p.m.
Professor Betsy
Klimasmith Classroom:
Wheatley 6/047
Office Hours: Th 4-6
and by appointment Email:
betsy.klimasmith@umb.edu
Office: Wheatley
6/089 Office
Phone: 617.287.6760
Class Blog: http:// http://english608fall2016.blogspot.com//
COURSE DESCRIPTION
English 608 is
designed to orient beginning graduate students to the characteristic concerns
and practices of academic literary studies. We will explore the contours and
boundaries of contemporary literary scholarship and examine the histories that
have formed it. Working with literary criticism—and a number of local literary
critics—we will investigate scholars’ intellectual paths while forging our own
through several shared literary texts. Along the way we will also consider some
of the current debates and conflicts over the proper objects, goals, and stakes
of English scholarship and English departments, and the prospects for literary
scholarship in the coming decades. The course aims to prepare students to
participate in the theories and practices of the field. More broadly, it aims
to both cultivate and critically reflect upon the practices, modes of
attention, and habits of mind that characterize contemporary work in
English. And most immediately, English
608 offers students an opportunity to analyze, explore, and experiment with
different forms of scholarly discourse as they encounter these forms in their
other courses. Course work will include four short critical/bibliographical
exercises, several oral presentations, and three longer, linked investigations
into a focused author, approach, or topic of the student’s choice.
REQUIRED TEXTS
Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction (University
of Minnesota Press)
Rita Felski, The Uses of Literature (Blackwell)
Bruce McComiskey, English Studies: An Introduction to
the Discipline (NCTE)
Cindy
Moore and Hildy Miller, A Guide to Professional Development for Graduate
Students in English (NCTE)
Matthew K. Gold, Debates in the Digital Humanities (University of Minnesota Press)
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Nathaniel Hawthorne,
The Scarlet Letter
Ross C. Murfin, The Bedford Glossary of Critical and
Literary Terms
Plus selected articles/chapters on e-reserve through
the Healey Library and/or linked to the course blog: http://english608fall2016.blogspot.com/
You
must have a Healey Library barcode and a class password to Healey e-reserves.
§
All of
the required texts are available at the UMB bookstore. Most of them should also be available (new or
used) at other area bookstores or online.
§
You need
to have an active email account that you can access at least twice a week.
§
You will
also be responsible for printing multiple copies of several assignments to
distribute to the class.
§
I may
hand out additional readings in class or upload them to the course website.
WORK: There will be times when I or my
colleagues will lecture or perform a bit of show-and-tell. But graduate
education relies upon and builds your capacity for both independent and
cooperative learning. Everyone in a 600-level course must carry their
weight: they prepare all assigned reading thoughtfully and scrupulously, they
hand in work on time, and they show up with something to say, with or without
explicit prompting from an instructor. These are your most basic
responsibilities.
Thus, I expect you
to have done your reading and/or written work by the time you get to class (often
you will need to email written work to be BEFORE class starts). I expect that you will be prepared to discuss
the work you have done. If you are confused by the reading or feel that you are
in over your head, be prepared to ask questions or come to see me during my
office hours. I do not expect or assume
that you will buy every required book (though I strongly advise you to acquire
your own copies of Eagleton, McComiskey, and Moore/Miller, since we will be
referring to them regularly).
Also: Be aware that assignments for this class will require you to go
beyond the assigned reading for the course, and will almost certainly require
you to look beyond the resources available in the Healey Library. At the
Healey, you can get a Boston Library Consortium card, which will give you
access and borrowing privileges at many of the major research libraries in the
Boston area. I highly recommend that you
take advantage of this resource. Also,
get familiar with Inter-Library Loan and the Virtual Catalog. For more information
on such resources, speak with me or with a librarian at Healey.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Generally, you will submit assignments via email on the
Tuesday before class meets, which gives me time to assemble your responses
before our class meets on Thursday. I
will respond to most of your assignments electronically.
§
Final Project: The semester will culminate in a multi-part
research project that will require you to investigate and annotate a critical
article or book chapter of your choice, retracing, through notes and
bibliographical references, the intellectual path the scholar took as his or
her inquiry developed. An 8-10 page analytical Footsteps Essay will detail your findings. It will be supplemented
by an 8-10 page Field Statement that
looks more broadly at the field to which your Footsteps Essay contributes. An Annotated Bibliography will accompany
these essays. You will also be required to deliver a Conference-style Presentation on your project during panel
presentations scheduled for the last two weeks of the term. Further details of
this project will follow. The Final Project will account for 50 percent of your
grade.
§
Exercises/Short Writing Assignments: I will assign a series of shorter critical
exercises and reflective writing assignments over the course of the semester (many
of these will help prepare you for your final project). Together, these will
account for 30 percent of your grade. You will need to distribute your
responses to several of these exercises to the class via email. Details will follow.
§
In-Class Presentations and Participation: The remaining 20 percent of your grade will
be determined by my assessment of your class participation over the course of
the term. In assigning your grade I will pay attention to your performance in
the following components of the course:
1) Active, thoughtful, and regular participation in seminar discussion
2) Taking responsibility, in pairs, for leading discussion of one of the required
course texts during a portion of one of our class meetings (I will pass out
a sign-up sheet for this exercise. Leaders
must submit questions and/or an outline of your plan to me via email by 7 pm on
the Tuesday BEFORE you lead discussion. I
will post your handout to the course blog and distribute via email, so that your
classmates may engage in discussion before class. Schedule to follow.)
3) Posting
to the class blog: asking
questions, responding thoughtfully to posts etc.
Assignment Distribution: We will read and discuss your responses to course assignments
frequently this semester. Sometimes distribution of responses will happen via
WISER; other assignments will be posted on the class blog. Do pay attention to the specific instructions
for each written assignment as they will vary over the course of the semester.
Communicating:
· I look forward to meeting with you to discuss
your work in the seminar. I am available to meet with you during my scheduled
office hours and by appointment. You can
schedule an appointment with me via the English MA wiki: http://english-ma-program.wikispaces.umb.edu/Appointments. I am on campus on most Mondays, Wednesdays
and Thursdays, though this may change as the semester progresses.
· Email is generally the most convenient way to
reach me, especially over a weekend. Please let me know if you will be unable
to attend a class. If you miss several
classes and/or assignments by midterm, I will suggest that you drop the course.
· I will post any announcements or changes to
the assignment calendar on the class blog and via email. Emails will come to you through WISER, which
mails to your umb.edu account. If you don’t check your umb.edu account
regularly, you should set up forwarding from the umb.edu account to the account
you actually use. You should also sign
yourself up for updates (text, phone etc) from the University regarding campus
closures—just in case!
Disability Accommodations:
Section
504 and the American with Disabilities Act of 1990 offer guidelines for
curriculum modifications and adaptations for students with documented
disabilities. Students may obtain adaptation recommendations from the Lillian
Semper Ross Center (617 287-7430). They must present these recommendations to
each professor by the end of the Add/Drop period.
Plagiarism and Academic Honesty:
The University Policy on
Academic Standards and Cheating, which includes a lengthy definition and
explanation of plagiarism and its consequences, may be found at the UMB
registrar's web page (http://www.registrar.umb.edu/). In brief, “students may not solicit or use
unauthorized material or assistance for their own benefit and may not offer or
give such assistance to another student. Every written report or similar class
assignment must indicate fully the sources from which the information used is
obtained, and any verbatim quotations or paraphrases must be clearly indicated
as such and properly credited to the source form which they were extracted or
adapted.” If you are at all uncertain about the meaning of plagiarism, please
be sure to discuss it with me.
SCHEDULE OF CLASSES, READINGS, AND ASSIGNMENTS
What follows is a brief
outline of the term’s assignments, which I will amplify as the semester
progresses. Assignments will also be posted/updated
on our class blog: http://english608fall2014.blogspot.com/. Please be sure to check your email before you
go to class to be sure that you haven’t missed any updates.
Sep 8 Introductory
class. What to expect from English 608.
In class: Gerald Graff, “Disliking Books at an Early Age” (emailed handout)
Critical Exercise #1 due by
Tuesday, September 13 via email; bring a paper copy to class.
Sep 15 The
Field: Eagleton, Literary Theory, Intro and Chapter 1; McComiskey Introduction, Chapter
4; Moore and Miller, Introduction.
Discussion Leaders*:
*Please submit discussion questions/outline to me via email by 7pm on
TUESDAY, Sept 13.
Critical Exercise #2 due by
Tuesday, September 20 via email; bring a paper copy to class.
Sep 22 McComiskey Chapters 1, 2, 5 and
6
Discussion Leaders*:
*Please submit discussion questions/outline to me via email by 7pm on
TUESDAY, Sept 20
Critical Exercise #3 due by
Tuesday, September 27 via email; bring a paper copy to class.
Sep 29 Sep 29 Mary
Shelley, Frankenstein
Eagleton, Literary
Theory, Chapter 2
Discussion Leaders*: Brian, Nate
*Please
submit discussion questions/outline to me via email by 7pm on TUESDAY, Sept 27.
Critical Exercise #4 due by
Tuesday, Oct 4 via email; bring a paper copy to class.
Oct 6 Oct 6 Mary
Shelley, Frankenstein
Eagleton, Literary
Theory, Chapter 3
Discussion Leaders: Emma, Darisse
Please submit discussion questions/outline to me via email by 7pm on
TUESDAY, Oct 4.
Critical Exercise #5 due by
Tuesday, October 11 via email; bring a paper copy to class.
Oct 13 Hawthorne,
The Scarlet Letter
Eagleton, Literary
Theory, Chapter 4
Discussion Leaders*: Erin, Kassidy
*Please submit discussion questions/outline to me via email by 7pm on
TUESDAY, Oct 11.
Faculty Interview due by
Tuesday, October 18 via email; bring a paper copy to class.
Oct 20 Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.
Eagleton, Literary Theory, Chapter
5
Discussion Leaders*: Emily, Tricia
*Please submit discussion questions/outline to me via email by 7pm on
TUESDAY, Oct 18.
Proposal (selection and
rationale) for footsteps essay due October 25 via email. Bring a paper copy to class.
Oct 27 Gold,
Debates in the Digital Humanities
(selections TBA)
Discussion Leaders*: Effie, Sheelan
*Please submit discussion questions/outline to me via email by 7pm on
TUESDAY, Oct 25.
Long List Bibliography for Field
Statement due November 1 via email.
Nov 3 Moore
and Miller, 1, 2, 4, 6.
Altick Ch. 6 (Healey
e-reserve); Harner, “On Compiling an Annotated Bibliography” (Healey
e-reserve).
Discussion Leader: Rita
Please submit discussion questions/outline to me via email by 7pm on
TUESDAY, Nov 1.
Annotated Bibliography Due Nov
9 via email. Bring a paper copy to class.
Nov 10 Felski,
Uses of Literature
Discussion Leaders: Justin, Bill
Please submit discussion questions/outline to me via email by 7pm on
TUESDAY, Nov 8.
Reflection on Goals Within, Beyond Program due Nov 15 via email. Bring a paper copy to class.
Reflection on Goals Within, Beyond Program due Nov 15 via email. Bring a paper copy to class.
Please sign up for optional
conferences this week or next to discuss your Final Project.
Nov 17 McComiskey Chapter 3, Eagleton, Chapter 6
Discussion Leader: Rob
Please submit discussion questions/outline to me via email by 7pm on
TUESDAY, Nov 15.
Footsteps Essay due via email
by 9 am Monday, Nov 21. I will email comments and a preliminary grade to you.
Nov 24 THANKSGIVING DAY HOLIDAY. If you
would like to submit a draft of your Field Statement, please email it to me by
Friday, November 25h. I will
return it to you with comments and a preliminary grade.
Dec 1 Final
presentations: panels 1 and 2.
Dec 8 Final
presentations: panels 3 and 4; Course Evaluations.
Final Projects (Revised Footsteps Essay,
Revised Field Statement, and Bibliography) are due by Thursday, December 15. You may email them to me or drop off a hard
copy at my office on the 15h.
