ENG 600: Introduction to Graduate Studies
Joseph T. Thomas, Jr.
email: jtthomas@mail.sdsu.edu
Class Meetings: Tuesday 7:00PM - 9:40PM ; HT-022
Office: AL-255
Contact: jtthomas@mail.sdsu.edu
Office Hours: Tuesdays & Thursdays: 11:00-12:00 & 3:30-4:30PM (and by appointment)
!!!! IMPORTANT: Online Schedule !!!!
(This schedule is tentative. Check back often for changes and updates)
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This course is designed to familiarize you with the complex and rich world of English Studies, as well as the historical traditions that inform it. We will be reading a wide array of texts of varying degrees of difficulty. The course of study we are undertaking is not a subject that can be "mastered"--indeed, much of the critical theory produced in recent years resists the very idea of mastery. Instead of "mastering" these texts and the ideas they seek to communicate, we will seek to engage and interact with them, discovering how they might inform the work we undertake as students and scholars of English Studies.
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Texts (required):
Falling into Theory: Conflicting Views on Reading Literature (Paperback)
by David H. Richter
# Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's; Second Edition edition (December 24, 1999)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0312201567
# ISBN-13: 978-0312201562
$34.00How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read
by Pierre Bayard
# Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (October 30, 2007)
# ISBN-10: 1596914696
$20.00Professing Literature: An Institutional History, Twentieth Anniversary Edition (Paperback)
by Gerald Graff
$19.00
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 20 Anv edition (December 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226305597
• ISBN-13: 978-0226305592* Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes Toward an Investigation" (Blackboard & Online)
* Barbara Christian, "The Race For Theory"
* Guy Debord, "All the King’s Men" (Online Only)
* Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle (Online Only)
* Samuel R. Delany, "Reading at Work, and Other Activities Frowned on by Authority: A Reading of Donna Haraway's 'Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century'"
* Ann DuCille, "The Occult of True Black Womanhood," from Skin Trade
* Terry Eagleton “The Subject of Literature”
* Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century"
* Mustapha Khayati, "On the Poverty of Student Life: A Consideration of Its Economic, Political, Sexual, Psychological and Notably Intellectual Aspects and of a Few Ways to Cure it " (Online Only)
* Ron Strickland, “Confrontational Pedagogy”
* Joseph T. Thomas, Jr. "'a joint rolled in toilet paper': Funkadelic's Funky Soul" (Online Only)
* Mas’ud Zavarzadeh and Donald Morton, "Theory Pedagogy Politics: The Crisis of 'The Subject' in the Humanities's"
Late Work:
Work will be turned in on the date due or not at all. We all have schedules, and it is imperative that we keep to them. However, I am not completely draconian. In extreme cases I may accept late work, but don't count on it.
Plagiarism:
Plagiarism is taking someone else's words, idea, or argument and claiming it as your own. Don't do it unless you have a interesting and rigorous intellectual or aesthetical reason. Cite all your sources unless you discuss your appropriation with me first. Instances of plagiarism designed to avoid intellectual work will earn you an F for the course, and, in egregious cases, may result in expulsion from the university. Please familiarize yourself with SDSU plagiarism policies, discussed in your handbook. Throughout the syllabus and my links page are links to many useful web sources. Do not take the words or ideas from any of these sources without providing the appropriate citations unless, again, you discuss your aims with me first. This goes for oral presentations as well as written work.
Assignments/Grade Distribution:
Participation: 25%
Critical Question: 15 %
Midterm Take Home Exam (Essay): 25%
Final Take Home Exam (Essay): 35%
Participation: (25%)
I expect you to come to class with something to say. In addition to researching the authors, think about when the books or essays were published, reacquaint yourself with historical context that surrounds the work, its reception, etc. Make connections between the content of this course and others you have taken, and apply whatever theoretical, philosophical, or pedagogical rubrics you feel are appropriate (check out the literature, poetry, and theory links on my webpage. And use print sources as well. The library is a wonderful place).
Absences will count against your final grade, especially as this is a once a week class. One absence is the same as missing an entire week of class. Keep that in mind, and miss as few classes as possible.
Critical Question (15%)
Your critical questions will engage the week's readings, framing them in the context of and in connection to previous readings. Your questions will be about a paragraph long, and facilitate the discussion of an idea or problem or claim found in the readings. They are always due on or before the Monday evening before the class meeting in which we discuss the readings inspiring your question.
Midterm Take Home Exam : (25%)
Toward the middle of the semester I will supply you with a prompt that you will respond to in the form of a five to six page essay (1,250-1,500 words).
Final Paper: (35%)
Similar to the midterm, your final essay will be a response to a prompt, asking you to think about the various authors we've read in a systematic way. The essay will be around ten to twelve pages (2500-3000 words).