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english 548 ~ spring 2009 |
Course description
[W]e do not live in a kind
of void, inside of which we could place individuals and things. We do not
live inside a void that could be colored by diverse shades of light, we live
inside a set of relations that delineates sites which are irreducible to one
another and absolutely not superimposable on one another. -- Michel Foucault In literary and cultural
studies, the last two decades have been increasingly concerned with the ways
in which space and place inform aesthetics, culture, and politics. This course will attempt an overview
of some of the thinkers, themes, and issues that animate this broadly
interdisciplinary nexus of inquiry.
Why the turn to place and
space? Many of the social and
political issues that have become increasingly central within literary
studies have a fundamentally spatial dimension, including: nationalism,
imperialism and colonialism; cultural globalization; gender and sexuality; urbanization;
digital cultures, and environmentalism and ecopoetics. Space, moreover, has arguably proven
to be a more fruitful foundation than time or history for the interweaving of
connections between different disciplines and modes of inquiry. While the nature of the
course will be interdisciplinary, drawing upon philosophy, geography,
sociology, anthropology, and architecture, we will take care to understand
how these many different disciplines and discourses can inform literary
studies. Literature speaks
centrally to the many issues involved in spatial studies, but literary
language also draws attention to its fraught relationship with space and
place: does a poem create a place in fullness and richness or does it merely
signify the gap between language and place? Does a novel accomplish a kind of comprehensive
"worlding" or does it inevitably fall short of its promise of
presence? Literature thus
functions as a rich and complex site for the analysis of space and place. Literature, of course, is
only one among many "spatial" forms of art. We will also consider other media as
vehicles for the aesthetic expression of place and space, including film, photography,
painting, sculpture, architecture, and music. Texts á Henri
Lefebvre, The Production of Space á Timothy
Cresswell, Place: A Short Introduction á Other
readings to be distributed by me
Roughly
16-20 pages in length, due May 4. Your seminar paper might
be thought of as a first draft of an essay to be submitted to a journal or a
preliminary section of a thesis or dissertation. You are free to choose a topic and approach, as long as it
clearly engages with a significant theme or themes of the course. You should submit a brief (1-2 pages)
prospectus with a working bibliography no later than April 13.
Project Presentation
During
the final class meeting, on April 27,
you will make a 10-15 minute presentation on the topic of your seminar
paper. This will serve two
purposes: to disseminate your own work to the class and to prompt a discussion
that will (ideally) help you in completing the project.
Grading
Roughly
60% your final grade will be determined by your seminar paper. The remaining 40% will be determined by
the following: your discussion openers, short papers, project presentation,
weekly preparation, and active and meaningful participation in class
discussion.
Statement on academic integrity
All
policies will be followed according to the Standards of Conduct for
Students. These can be viewed at
the following website: http://www.conduct.wsu.edu/default.asp?PageID=343.
Disability accommodation
Reasonable
accommodations are available for students who have a documented
disability. Please notify the
instructor during the first week of class of any accommodations needed for the
course. Late notification may mean
that requested accommodations might not be available. All accommodations must be approved through the Disability
Resource Center (DRC) located in the Administration Annex Room 205, 335-1566.
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space & place |
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in theory, literature, & culture |
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Jon Hegglund M 3:10-5:55 Avery 110 |
Office: Avery 202H Office hours: TW 1-3 335-6820 hegglund@wsu.edu |
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Because
this course approaches a nexus of related theoretical issues in an interdisciplinary,
synthetic way, there is no neatly defined corpus of writings that circumscribes
the topic at hand. The material
will draw upon discourses and disciplines that, more often than not, have no
explicit connection to literary studies: geography, philosophy, architecture,
anthropology, and sociology, to name a few. As such (to borrow a distinction made by Jacques Derrida),
we will be bricoleurs rather than engineers,
using the tools at hand to the best of our abilities rather than building a
theoretical edifice from the ground up. As you read, then, try not to worry too much about mastery, and instead
focus on any new thoughts or connections suggested by the readings. Also, I have, as much as possible,
attempted to frontload the reading such that the load is heavier at the
beginning of the semester, and (comparatively) lighter as we move into the
later weeks.
Discussion openers & short papers
Each of you will sign up for
two different weeks during which you will make some brief remarks and
observations that open up at least one of the week's readings for discussion
(you do not need to account for all of
the assigned texts). Rather than
begin within the abstractions of theory, I want the discussions to have some
textual touchstone. What I have in
mind is this: no later than the Thursday before your presentation, you will
distribute some sort of primary text that we will discuss in dialogue with the
week's readings. This text should,
above all, be brief: something along
the lines a poem or series of short poems, a (very) short story, or a short
excerpt from a longer narrative. If the text is excerpted from a longer work, you should give enough context
to orient the rest of us. The text
need not be explicitly literary, either; painting, sculpture, music,
photography, film, or other media would work as well. The success of this assignment depends upon your previewing
the week's reading enough to enable you to choose a text that will
"pair" well with the week's theoretical readings. Also, you should distribute your text
to the class by converting your text into a .pdf file that can be e-mailed to
the class (preferred, and the office staff can do this from the copier). You should have this out to the rest of
the class no later than Thursday afternoon.
Within a week after your presentation, you will turn in a brief (3-5 page) paper that analyzes your text in relation to some of the themes or questions that have come out of the week's reading and discussion. You can certainly think of these short papers as a venue for working out issues that you wish to explore in your seminar paper.
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Course schedule (subject to minor changes)
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