ENGL 485-01, Senior Seminar, Fall 1998

Abstract

One purpose of this course is to explore questions related to reading, writing, and the production of meaning. A second purpose, which is also a means to accomplish the first, is to become conversant in some recent developments in literary and cultural theory. We will begin by considering the basic terms in the literary event--author, text, and reader--and how their interaction produces meaning. Then we will explore structuralism and how it led (some say inevitably) to deconstruction; next we will see this pattern repeated in the areas of psychoanalysis, materialism, and feminism. Along the way various theoretical ideas will be tested in relation to selected literary texts. In the concluding unit, groups of students will consider works of contemporary fiction from the perspectives of various critical and theoretical positions.