SLN: 33019
Wed. 6-9 PM
LL 268
 
   
     
 
Last modified:
2/27/2008
 
     

The Ride of Dick Turpin
from William Harrison Ainsworth, Rookwood: A Romance [1834]

Dan Bivona
Office: L&L 224
dbivona@asu.edu
Office hours: Wednesdays, 3-5 PM, and by appointment
Phone: 480-965-7752
http://www.public.asu.edu/~dbivona

This course is intended to prepare you with the basic skills and knowledge to undertake the kind of research you will need to do to succeed in a graduate program in literature, either at the M.A. or the Ph.D. level. The course is required of all students in the M.A. and Ph.D. programs in our department.

Requirements for ENG 500
Assignment Where it can be found Due Date % of Final Grade
Online research assignment "Assignments" area of Blackboard due in the Digital Drop Box on February 13, 11:59 PM 20%
Annotated bibliography "Assignments" area of Blackboard due in the Digital Drop Box on April 2, 11:59 PM 20%
Literature review "Assignments" area of Blackboard due in the Digital Drop Box on May 5, 11:59 PM 25%
Presentation 1   TBA 10%
Presentation 2   TBA 15%
Attendance/contributions to class discussion   throughout 10%
Total     100%

Please use MLA format for all citations.

Books
Author Title Edition
Altick, Richard, Ed.

The Art of Literary Research

Norton
Graff, Gerald Clueless in Academe Yale UP

These books are currently available at the ASU Bookstore. Other required readings can be found online or on reserve.

Date
Topic
Assignment
1/16
Introduction
 
1/23

What is information? What's the difference between information literacy and information fluency or expertise?

  1. Finding information [Bivona]
  2. Critically evaluating information (reputation of online sources, proprietary databases, primary versus secondary sources, peer review, Wikipedia versus “Joe Shmoe's Website” versus Encyclopedia Britannica; copyright law) [Bivona]
  3. Archival research [Bivona]
Review: Information Literacy Competency Standards (Association of College and Research Libraries) [See also the Information Literacy page of CLAS's IT Steering Committee)]
1/30

Finding Information continued

Literature and History: What is the relationship between historical "truth" and literary "truth"?

Reading: Gerald Holden, "World Literature and World Politics: In Search of a Research Agenda." Global Society 17.3 (July 2003): 229-252. Roland Bleiker, "Learning from Art: A Reply to Holden's 'World Literature and World Politics.'" Global Society 17.4 (October 2003): 415-428. Gerald Holden, "A Reply to Bleiker's 'Reply.'" Global Society 17.4 (October 2003): 429-430.
2/6

How do you find an argument worth making?

Reading : Gerald Graff, Clueless in Academe [discussion led by Bivona]
2/13
Class canceled
2/20*
What is left to say about Defoe's Robinson Crusoe [1719]?

Reading : Defoe, Daniel. The life and adventures of Robinson Crusoe. By Daniel De Foe. Cooke's edition. London , [1793]. Vols. 1-3 [Please read all three volumes]. Literature and Language [Eighteenth-Century Collections Online ]

2/27
Class canceled
3/5

Student presentations:

1. Arguments in Medieval literature;
2. Arguments in Renaissance literature;
3. Arguments in 18th Century literature;
4. Arguments in 19th Century literature (British and American);
5. Arguments in 20th Century literature (British, American, and Anglophone)

 
3/12
No Class: Spring Break
3/19

What is literary research? What is “the literary”?

  1. Establishing “the text”
  2. Who invented literature?

 

Reading: “Textual Criticism” in Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism [online database at www.asu.edu/lib ]

Reading : Altick and Fenstermaker, "The Spirit of Scholarship" (pp. 22-60) and “Textual Study” (pp. 62-87)

Reading: Matthew Arnold, from Culture and Anarchy (1869): “Sweetness and Light,” “Doing as one Likes,” “Barbarians, Philistines, Populace,” “Hebraism and Hellenism” (“Literature Online” through www.asu.edu/lib) [discussion led by Bivona]

3/26
What is an author? Does language have intentions independent of the author's? Who originates the text? Do readers “author” texts?

Reading: Altick and Fenstermaker, “Problems of Authorship” and the “Search for Origins” (pp. 88-118)

Reading: “Death of the Author” in Roland Barthes, Image, Music, Text [1968]

Reading: Michel Foucault, “What Is an Author?” in Language, counter-memory, practice [1977]

Reading: David Saunders and Ian Hunter, “Lessons from the ‘Literatory.'” Critical Inquiry 17.3 (Spring 1991): 479-509 [JSTOR]

Reading: T. S. Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent" (http://www.bartleby.com/200/sw4.html)

4/2**
What is an author? continued  
4/9
Student presentations  
4/16
Student presentations  
4/23
Student presentations  
4/30
Reading Day (No Class)
Monday, 5/5***
Literature review due