ENGL 390T(F) History in Theory (W)

In this tutorial, conceived primarily for juniors and seniors, we will consider the ways in which a number of important theorists have conceptualized the historical past and our relation to it, and will explore the usefulness of such models for interpreting a range of modern literary and cinematic texts. Readings will be drawn from theoretical writings by Edmund Burke, G. E. Hegel, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Walter Benjamin, Hayden White, Michel de Certeau, and Henri Lefort; literary texts such as Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener, Thomas Mann's Disorder and Early Sorrow, Peter Weiss' Marat/Sade, Marguerite Duras' The Lover, Tony Kushner's Angels in America, and Tom Stoppard's Arcadia; and films such as Sergei Eisenstein's October: Ten Days That Shook the World, Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, William Wellman's Nothing Sacred, and Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers. We will consider such topics as the mutual influences of historiography and literary theory; the competing claims of aesthetic and ideological valuations of a work; the volatile uses of documentary style; historical repetition as literary trope; the aesthetics of fascism; the relation of charismatic leadership to democracy; and the uses of melancholy in representing historical crises.
Format: tutorial. Requirements: Students will meet with the instructor in pairs for an hour each week, will write a 5-page paper every other week (five altogether), and comment on their partners' papers in alternate weeks. Emphasis will be placed on developing skills not only in reading and interpretation, but also in constructing critical arguments and responding to them in written and oral critiques.
Prerequisite: a 100-level English course, except 150, and a course in Criticism. Enrollment limit: 10 (expected: 10). Preference given to junior and senior English majors.

Tutorial meetings to be arranged. SOKOLSKY