Senior Seminar: Novel / History (ENG 5000.01)
MWF 2:00–2:50, White Hall
120
Scott Black, SAC 427, 610-519-4642
office hours: MW 3:00-4:00,
and by appointment
scott.black@villanova.edu
http://www.homepage.villanova.edu/scott.black
This seminar will offer an idiosyncratic history of the novel and a chance to consider several ways the genre has engaged history. Starting with the work that first defined many of these problems—Don Quixote—we’ll begin to explore the relationships between fantasy and facts, stories and histories, inspiration and suspicion. These themes have organized the novel’s response to history as well as its own history, and we’ll look at the ways novelists have variously shouldered the burden of these pasts. Our readings offer a range of narrative approaches, raising questions about how different kinds of narratives do different kinds of work—sometimes engaging the weighty exigencies of representation and responsibility, sometimes enabling the weightless quests of play and irresponsibility, sometimes making one seem like other. The course is loosely structured in order to allow room for your input.
Texts (available in bookstore):
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote (trans. John Rutherford; Penguin)
Walter Scott, Rob Roy (intro. Georg Lukács; Modern Library)
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
A. B. Yehoshua, Mr. Mani
We’ll also be reading selections from Theory
of the Novel, ed. Michael McKeon, on reserve in Falvey. You may want to
purchase the book to save yourself the hassle and cost of photocopying the
selections. The exact readings will be determined as we go along, subject to our
evolving interests. See last page for an initial list.
A couple good
recent essays on Don Quixote (reviews of the new Edith Grossman
translation) are here:
Carlos Fuentes in New York Times Book Review and
Terry Castle
in The Atlantic.
Requirements: participation (20%), weekly informal response papers (15%), presentation (10%), first paper (15%), independent research project: presentation (15%) / seminar paper (25%) (You must pass each part to pass the class.)
Participation: This is a seminar. Its success or failure depends on your willingness to participate fully. All of the reading is required; discussion of the reading is required. Come to class prepared to discuss the readings. (To do this, you must come to class: attendance is required).
Presentations: Each student will present twice to the class. The first presentation will serve to introduce and frame the day’s reading. You will be responsible for presenting the material, questions it raises, and a close reading of an important passage or two. The second presentation will be a chance for each of you to share with the class some of your independent research at the end of the semester.
Academic Integrity: Do your work, and do your own work. If you cheat, you fail. Period.
M 1/12 Intro
W 1/14 Don Quixote, --p. 70
F 1/16
M 1/19 (MLK day: no class)
W 1/21 Don Quixote, --p. 243
F 1/23 (Penn conference: no class)
M 1/26 Don Quixote, --p. 479
W 1/28
F 1/30
M 2/2 Don Quixote, --p. 692
W 2/4
F 2/6
M 2/9 Don Quixote, --p. 838
W 2/11
F 2/13
M 2/16 Don Quixote, --p. 982
W 2/18 paper 1 due
F 2/20
M 2/23 Rob Roy, --p. 215 [Author’s Introduction not required]
W 2/25
F 2/27 (scsecs conference: no class)
spring break
M 3/8 Rob Roy, --p. 430
W 3/10
F 3/12
M 3/15 Mrs. Dalloway
W 3/17
F 3/19
M 3/22 The Book of
Laughter and Forgetting, --p. 160
Kundera interview (1989)
good website
on Kundera
W 3/24
F 3/26
M 3/29 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, --p. 312
W 3/31
F 4/2
M 4/5 Mr. Mani, --p. 201
Yehoshua interview (March 2004)
W 4/7 project proposal
due
F 4/9 (Easter break: no class)
M 4/12 (Easter break: no class)
W 4/14 Mr. Mani, --p. 368
F 4/16
M 4/19 independent project presentations / annotated bibliography due
W 4/21
F 4/23
M 4/26 independent projects presentations
T 4/27 (F schedule)
W 4/28 seminar paper due
Here are selections from Theory of the Novel that we may be reading as we go along:
McKeon, intro to “Grand Theory 1,” 179-83
Lukács, from Theory of the Novel, 185-218
Lukács, from The Historical Novel, 219-69
McKeon, intro to “Grand Theory 2,” 265-69
Ortega, from Meditations on Quixote, 271-93
Ortega, from Notes on the Novel, 294-320
McKeon, intro to “Grand Theory 3,” 317-20
Bakhtin, from The Dialogic Imagination, 321-353
McKeon, intro to “Revisionist Grand Theory,” 355-61
Watt, from The Rise of the Novel, 363-81
McKeon, “Generic Transformation and Social Change,” 382-99
Jameson, from The Political Unconscious, 400-13