Fall 2022 – LIT 101/Cultures & Canons

LIT 101-06
1 course unit (4 credits)
Term:  Fall 2022
Time: 2-3:20pm MR
Place: Bliss Annex 228
Prerequisites: English major		 Prof. G. Steinberg
Office: Bliss Hall 216
Office Phone: 609-771-2106
Office Hours:  1:30-4:30pm T
Email: gsteinbe@tcnj.edu

REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS.

    • The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale (available online at https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/wife-baths-prologue-and-tale-0)
    • The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle (available in a Modern English adaptation under “Files” in Canvas and in the original Middle English online at https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/hahn-sir-gawain-wedding-of-sir-gawain-and-dame-ragnelle)
    • Cormac McCarthy, The Road (Vintage, 2006), ISBN 9780307387899
    • Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (Vintage, 1998), ISBN 9780307278449
    • Jackie Sibblies Drury, Fairview (Theatre Communications, 2019), ISBN ‎ 9781559369527
    • Tanya Saracho, Fade (Samuel French, 2017), ISBN 9780573705724
    • Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (Penguin, 1994), ISBN ‎ 9780385474542
    • Wole Soyinka, Death and the King’s Horseman (Norton, 2002), ISBN 9780393322996
    • Frank Chin, Donald Duk, 2nd ed. (Coffee House, 1991), ISBN 9780918273833

COURSE DESCRIPTION.  An exploration of how cultural values, aesthetics, and social constructions of race and ethnicity shape literary texts and literary production.  Students will engage in debates involving aesthetic value, disciplinary politics, universality, and canonicity and examine the role of power, categories of difference, and intersectionality.

When the College went through a curriculum revision several years ago, the vast majority of undergraduate courses were “transformed” from 3-credit to 4-credit (1-unit) learning experiences.  While most of the classes continued to meet for only 3 academic hours per week (typically 150 minutes on the TCNJ schedule grid), it was understood that the “transformed” courses offered a depth of learning with additional learning tasks unfolding in the equivalent of a fourth hour, including, sometimes, an actual additional hour of class interaction.  As the equivalent of the fourth hour in this course,

F) The students are assigned additional learning tasks that make the semester’s learning experience more deeply engaged and rigorous, and no other additional classroom space is needed.

GOALS.  By the end of the course, I want you to

    1. to identify and question the standards of the literary canons to which you have been exposed (and to which you will be exposed in your future classes and reading),
    2. to understand and employ concepts, terms, and critical approaches that foreground discourses of ideology, identity, and literary production, both orally and in written literary analyses, and
    3. to apply a common vocabulary and set of analytical concepts to cultures, canons, and literatures drawn from, for example, African-American Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Latino/a Studies, Native American Studies, and/or Critical Race Studies.

More officially, this course contributes to the following goals for the School of Humanities & Social Sciences and the English Department:

#1 Written Communication
#2 Oral Communication
#5 Critical Analysis and Reasoning:  Ability to critique the arguments of others in the discipline and the construction of one’s own arguments in the discipline, using data/evidence are a focus of instruction and/or the ability to analyze linguistic and cultural patterns
#7 Interpret Language and Symbol
#8 Intercultural Competence:  The development of understanding of other cultures and/or subcultures (practices, perspectives, behavior patterns, etc.)  Intercultural Competence:  The development of understanding of other cultures and/or subcultures (practices, perspectives, behavior patterns, etc.)
#9 Respect for Diversity:  An understanding of multiculturalism in US society and/or the world Respect for Diversity:  An understanding of multiculturalism in US society and/or the world
#12 Students will be able to demonstrate familiarity with a range of critical, generic, and literary traditions (including recent theoretical approaches) that shape – and are shaped by – literary discourses and texts of particular periods or movements
#13 Students will be able to describe the effects of social constructions of identity on a particular literary text and on current debates over aesthetic value, universality, and canonicity.
#15 Students will be able to read a literary work and characterize its main aesthetic, structural, and rhetorical strategies in an argumentative, thesis-driven essay or in a writing workshop
#17 Analyze how creative texts, artworks, or performances reflect, shape, exalt, or challenge the values of a culture

REQUIREMENTS.  For this course, you must complete the following graded assignments:

      1. two oral presentations (worth 5% and 10% of your final grade),
      2. eight response papers (altogether worth 10% of your final grade),
      3. three papers (worth 10%, 20%, and 20% of your final grade), and
      4. a midterm exam and a comprehensive final exam (worth 10% and 15% of your final grade).

Your final grade will be based on the following scale:  A = 93%-100%, A- = 90%-92%, B+ = 87%-89%, B = 83%-86%, B- = 80%-82%, C+ = 77%-79%, C = 73%-76%, C- = 70%-72%, D+ = 67%-69%, D = 60%-66%, and F = below 60%.  This scale is absolute.  Because the response papers are in a sense a form of extra credit built into this course from the start, I do not give extra credit at the end of the semester to help students raise their grade even a whisker.  So, even if, at the end of the semester, you are just .0001 points away from an A-, your final grade will be a B+.

PROFESSOR’S AVAILABILITY.  My office is Bliss Hall 216.  My office hours this term are 1:30-4:30pm on Tuesdays and by appointment.  You may contact me by email (gsteinbe@tcnj.edu) or by calling my office phone (609-771-2106) and leaving a message (if I do not answer), but email is usually the best way to get in touch with me.  You may also leave a message for me in my box at the English Department offices in Bliss Hall 124.

ATTENDANCE.  Regular attendance is a virtual necessity for successful completion of this class.  Class discussion constitutes important, useful preparation for your graded work.  If you miss a class, you will essentially lose out on that day’s contribution to your preparation, since it is never really possible to reproduce or recapture the dynamics and flow of information for a missed class meeting (even if you get notes from someone).  If, however, you positively must miss a class, I expect you to find out what you missed and to come fully prepared – without excuses – to the next class meeting.  For more information on the College’s attendance policy, please go to https://policies.tcnj.edu/?p=77.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY.  Academic dishonesty is any attempt by a student to gain academic advantage through dishonest means, to submit, as his or her own, work which has not been done by him/her or to give improper aid to another student in the completion of an assignment. Such dishonesty would include, but is not limited to, submitting as his/her own a project, paper, report, test, or speech copied from, partially copied, or paraphrased from the work of another (whether the source is printed, under copyright, or in manuscript form). Credit must be given for words quoted or paraphrased. The rules apply to any academic dishonesty, whether the work is graded or ungraded, group or individual, written or oral. TCNJ’s academic integrity policy is available on the web at https://policies.tcnj.edu/?p=130.

ACCOMMODATIONS.  The College of New Jersey prohibits discrimination against any student on the basis of physical or mental disability or perceived disability. The College will also provide reasonable and appropriate accommodations to enable students with disabilities to participate in the life of the campus community. If you require special accommodations, I will make every reasonable effort to accommodate your needs and to create an environment where your special abilities are respected. For more information, please go to https://policies.tcnj.edu/?p=145 and https://arc.tcnj.edu/.

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION. We are all enriched by greater diversity, and we all bring different perspectives to this class. I want to create a learning environment that supports diversity and honors your identities and perspectives (including your race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, mental and physical health, differing abilities, politics, etc.). If you go by a name and/or set of pronouns that differ from those that appear in your official records, please let me know. If you feel that your performance in class is being impacted by a hostile environment related to your identity outside of class, please don’t hesitate to talk to me. If something is said or posted in class (by anyone, including me) that makes you feel that your identity is being targeted, misunderstood, or disparaged, please talk to me about it. I will expect our whole class (including me) to strive always to honor every form of diversity. To see TCNJ’s official diversity statement, please go to https://diversity.tcnj.edu/campus-diversity-statement/.

CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT AND COMMITMENT TO STUDENT SUCCESS, SAFETY, AND WELL-BEING.  The TCNJ community is dedicated to the success, safety and well-being of each student. TCNJ strictly follows key policies that govern all TCNJ community members’ rights and responsibilities in and out of the classroom. In addition, TCNJ has established several student support offices that can provide the support and resources to help students achieve their personal and professional goals and to promote health and well-being. You can find more information about these policies and resources at the “TCNJ Student Support Resources and Classroom Policies” webpage here:  https://academicaffairs.tcnj.edu/tcnj-syllabus-resources/.

Students who anticipate and/or experience barriers in this course are encouraged to contact the instructor as early in the semester as possible. The Accessibility Resource Center (ARC) is available to facilitate the removal of barriers and to ensure reasonable accommodations. For more information about ARC, please visit:  https://arc.tcnj.edu/.

RESPONSE PAPERS.  In the course of the term, you are required to write eight short, informal papers (about 2 pages each) on the literary readings for class.  You may choose for which days you want to write a response paper, as long as you have completed eight response papers by the end of the term.  For each response paper, choose one of the following topics and analyze the reading assignment for the day with respect to the topic you’ve chosen:

    1. What kind of story (or stories) is the reading assignment?  In what ways is the reading (or parts of it) a stock story, a concealed story, a resistance story, or a counterstory?  How does the reading portray the “naturalness” of dominant white culture’s ideas, the values, aspirations, and struggles of other races and cultures, resistance (and resistors) to dominant white culture, or the problems of the status quo and the need for change?
    2. What are the effects of social constructions of identity in the reading assignment?  Where do the characters in the reading embrace or challenge the social constructions of identity imposed on them?  To what extent does the reading suggest that social constructions of identity can (or cannot) be undermined or escaped?  How does your own racial, political, and class identity affect how you see and respond to the reading?  What distance do your own social identities put between you and the reading?
    3. Who is portrayed as having power in the reading assignment?  Where does that power come from?  In what ways is the power a matter of physical force, psychological intimidation, cultural influence, social expectation, economic privilege, or moral righteousness?  In what ways is the power resisted (whether successfully or unsuccessfully)?
    4. In what ways are characters in the reading assignment portrayed as nodes of intersectionality?  What advantages and disadvantages – i.e., privileges and discrimination – flow from a character’s interlocking identities (including race, class, gender, sexuality, appearance, disability, etc.)?  Are some characters portrayed as reaping advantages because of one aspect of their identity at the same time as they suffer disadvantages because of another aspect?  Do some characters suffer greater disadvantages because of discrimination based on multiple aspects of their identity?
    5. To what extent does the reading assignment invoke and participate in the perceived foundations of canonicity?  Where does the reading consciously address “universal” themes, show off its author’s command of cultural capital, cater to expectations of “sophistication,” or appeal to the reader’s aesthetic sense?  Where does it undermine or defy such markers of canonicity?

Please note that, when you do a response paper, you are writing about the reading assigned for the day on which you’re submitting the paper. So, you’re writing about the reading before we discuss it in class and submitting the paper before class on the day for which that reading is assigned. You can’t submit a response paper about a past day’s reading assignment.  You should submit each response paper by “sharing” it with me as a Google Doc before class on the reading’s assigned day.  Be sure to grant me “editing” or “suggesting” status when you share the Google Doc with me (so that I can comment directly on the paper).

Response papers will be graded Pass/Fail, so they need not be a perfect, polished product.  Rather, response papers should be just what their name says – a response.  Think about one of the topics  that I have asked you to consider; then write a response.  Don’t worry about typos or comma splices or organization.  Don’t worry about answering every question I ask under the particular topic.  In fact, focus on the one question that seems most interesting to you, and be as specific as you can, getting down as much as you can, as quickly as you can.  Treat response papers more like a journal entry than like a formal paper.  I don’t want a five-paragraph theme.  Rather, I want an exploration – as detailed and specific as possible – of the reading assignment for the day.  But don’t focus too narrowly on just one scene or passage from the reading assignment.  Try to generalize about the reading and then look at specific examples from all over to support your generalization.

Normally, as long as you submit a response paper of suitable length, detail, and thoughtfulness (and as long as you submit it before class on the assigned day), you will receive all the points that the response paper is worth.  The purpose of the response papers is

    1. to help you in your preparation for class discussion,
    2. to help me see where you’re struggling with the readings and concepts in class, and
    3. to help you develop your intellectual independence and your confidence as a reader.

You may submit more than eight response papers in the course of the semester (to make up for any response papers that do not pass), but no matter how many extra response papers you turn in, you will not receive credit for more than eight total.  You may not submit more than one response paper on a single day, nor may you submit a response paper for a day that you are absent from class. (NOTE: Even if you do not submit a response paper on a particular day, you should still come to class prepared to discuss the response paper topics in relation to the reading assignment, since we will focus on these topics in our in-class discussions all semester; in other words, the response paper topics above are a great guide for your class prep every day.)

PAPER 1.  Choose a passage from The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle that we did not discuss in class together.  Compare your chosen passage with a similar or parallel passage in Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale.  In a paper of 2-3 pages (roughly 500-750 words), argue a clear, specific, interesting thesis about how and why the author of The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle has done things differently from Chaucer.  Are the differences between the way that the two texts approach the passages primarily a matter of aesthetic choice, ideology, or cultural capital?  Are the differences cosmetic or substantive, superficial or significant?

You need not use any other sources for this paper.  In fact, I would encourage you not to use other sources (because I’d rather hear what you think than what some published scholar thinks).  But if you do use any other sources (whether scholarly or online), be sure to cite and document those sources appropriately.

Your paper will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

    1. Does the paper have a clear, specific thesis?  Does the thesis offer an interesting perspective or “hook” that is provocative without being gimmicky or offensive?
    2. Does the paper’s analysis progress logically?  Does the paper have a clear and consistent overall organization that relates all the ideas of the paper together in support of the thesis with appropriate transitions to aid the reader (rather than simply a list of random ideas without relation to one another or to the thesis)?  Does the paper have appropriate transitions to aid the reader in following the paper’s logic (rather than weak transitions, such as “The first…,” “Another…,” and “…also…”)?
    3. Does the paper provide relevant, concrete evidence and logically persuasive reasons for every assertion?
    4. Does the paper describe the effects of social constructions of identity on the text or on its placement within or outside of the canon?
    5. Does the paper exhibit confidence and insight when analyzing a work or passage not discussed in class?
    6. Does the introduction to the paper offer an interesting, helpful preview of the content, logic, and organization of the paper?
    7. Is factual information in the paper accurate?
    8. Is the writing in the paper clear, effective, and appropriate to an academic setting?

PAPER 2.  Read “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (1923) by Robert Frost and “I, Too” (1926) by Langston Hughes.  In a paper of 4-6 pages (roughly 1,000-1,500 words), argue a clear, specific, interesting thesis about the role of social constructions of identity in the poems.  How do the poems embody their authors’ experiences of race, marginalization, and privilege?  What ideologies of identity and class do the poems assume, project, or critique?  Be careful not to write two completely separate papers – one on Frost’s poem and the other on Hughes’s poem.  Link the two poems together.  How do their perspectives on identity and race relate to one another?  How do they compare to the readings that we have done in class?

You need not use any other sources for this paper.  In fact, I would encourage you not to use other sources (because I’d rather hear what you think than what some published scholar thinks).  But if you do use any other sources (whether scholarly or online), be sure to cite and document those sources appropriately.

Your PAPER 2 will be evaluated according to the same criteria as PAPER 1.

I encourage you, about a week before the paper is due, to submit a thesis paragraph (a draft first paragraph of your paper or just a paragraph that describes what you plan to write about) to me by email; if you do so by the date noted in the course schedule below, I will give you feedback on your proposed thesis.

PAPER 3.  Read “To Live in the Borderlands” by Gloria Anzaldúa.  In a paper of 4-6 pages (roughly 1,000-1,500 words), argue a clear, specific, interesting thesis about the role of social constructions of identity in the poem.  How does the poem embody its author’s experiences of race, marginalization, and privilege?  What ideologies of identity and class does the poem assume, project, or critique?  How does the poem compare to the readings that we have done in class?

You need not use any other sources for this paper.  In fact, I would encourage you not to use other sources (because I’d rather hear what you think than what some published scholar thinks).  But if you do use any other sources (whether scholarly or online), be sure to cite and document those sources appropriately.

Your PAPER 3 will be evaluated according to the same criteria as PAPER 1.

I encourage you, about a week before the paper is due, to submit a thesis paragraph (a draft first paragraph of your paper or just a paragraph that describes what you plan to write about) to me by email; if you do so by the date noted in the course schedule below, I will give you feedback on your proposed thesis.

ORAL PRESENTATIONS.  You will do two oral presentations for this class.  The assignment for both of them is the same.  Choose a poem (a different poem for each student and each presentation) and present your chosen poem to class in around 10 minutes.  At least one of your two presentations must be on a poem written by a member of an underrepresented group, but the other poem may be by a white, cisgender, middle-class, heterosexual male if you wish.  When you present the poem to class, you should

    1. send a link for the text of the poem to your classmates via Canvas at least three days prior to your presentation (preferably a week before),
    2. begin your presentation by projecting the text of the poem onto the screen in the classroom and reading the poem aloud to your classmates,
    3. give relevant background information about the author of the poem (e.g., race/ethnicity, gender/sexuality, birthplace/family history, occupation/social class),
    4. tell your classmates something that you found interesting in the poem in terms of the concepts that we have been learning in class (e.g., how the poem is affected by social constructions of identity, how power and resistance are represented, how the poem adheres to or challenges the ideologies of dominant white culture, how privilege is manifested or critiqued, how the poem draws attention to intersectionality), and
    5. allow your classmates an opportunity to ask questions or make further comments concerning the poem.

Your presentation will be assessed according to the following standards:

An A presentation

      • understands the poem very well,
      • conveys relevant, specific, and accurate information about the poem’s author,
      • imparts an interesting insight into the poem using the concepts that we’ve been learning in class, and
      • proceeds clearly, accurately, and thoroughly, sticking carefully to the allotted time (neither too short nor too long).

A C presentation

      • misunderstands important elements of the poem or focuses only on incidental points of lesser importance,
      • conveys inaccurate or overly general information about the author,
      • makes only unhelpful or uninteresting observations about the poem in relation to the concepts that we’ve been learning in class or does not seem to understand those concepts well enough, and/or
      • proceeds in a disjointed, unclear, inadequate way or finishes far too early or goes on far too long.

A B presentation is somewhere in between an A and a C.

COURSE SCHEDULE.  This schedule is subject to revision at the discretion of the professor.  Changes in the schedule made after the first day of class will be shown in red.

Date Assignment
R Sep 1 Introductions
M Sep 5 NO CLASS (Labor Day)
UNIT 1: literary canon, aesthetics, universals, cultural capital, historicism, ideology, dominant culture, marginalization, historical accident
T Sep 6 MONDAY SCHEDULE.  We will have class this day at our usual time of day in our usual room.  Before class, add the literary texts that you studied in your high school English classes to the list in the class Google Doc (the link sent to you through Google Drive), and post a comment on “What Qualities Make a Text Worthy of Being in the Literary Canon?” in the discussion thread under “Discussions” in Canvas.
R Sep 8 Read The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle.
M Sep 12 Review The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle.
R Sep 15 NO CLASS
optional conferences in my office (Bliss 216) during our regular class time
PAPER 1 DUE in Canvas by midnight
UNIT 2: social constructions, identity, power, privilege, resistance, stock story, concealed story, resistance story, counterstory
M Sep 19 Read The Road, pp. 1-93.
R Sep 22 Read The Road, pp. 94-198.
M Sep 26 Read The Road, pp. 199-287.
R Sep 29 Read The Bluest Eye, pp. 1-58.
M Oct 3 Read The Bluest Eye, pp. 59-131.
R Oct 6 Read The Bluest Eye, pp. 132-206.
Thesis paragraphs for PAPER 2 DUE via email by midnight.
M Oct 10 NO CLASS (Fall Break)
R Oct 13 NO CLASS
optional conferences in my office (Bliss 216) during our regular class time
PAPER 2 DUE in Canvas by midnight
UNIT 3:  cultural appropriation, exploitation, stereotyping, double consciousness, essentialism, representation, tokenism, microaggression, intersectionality
M Oct 17 Read Fairview.
R Oct 20 Read Fade.
Signups for oral presentations.
MIDTERMS
M Oct 24 MIDTERM EXAM
R Oct 27 ORAL PRESENTATION 1
M Oct 31 ORAL PRESENTATION 1
T Nov 1 Last day to withdraw from class with a W
R Nov 3 ORAL PRESENTATION 1
UNIT 4:  colonialism/imperialism, clash of cultures, hegemony, postcolonial literature, subaltern, Westernization, Orientalism, hybridity
M Nov 7 Read Things Fall Apart, pp. 1-109.
R Nov 10 Read Things Fall Apart, pp. 110-209.
M Nov 14 Read Death and the King’s Horseman.
UNIT 5:  immigration, assimilation, multiculturalism
R Nov 17 Read Donald Duk, pp. 1-85.
M Nov 21 Read Donald Duk, pp. 86-172.
Signups for oral presentations.
Thesis paragraphs for PAPER 3 DUE via email by midnight.
M Nov 23 Thesis paragraphs for PAPER 3 DUE via email by midnight.
R Nov 24 NO CLASS (Thanksgiving)
M Nov 28 NO CLASS
optional conferences in my office (Bliss 216) during our regular class time
PAPER 3 DUE in Canvas by midnight
W Nov 30 PAPER 3 DUE in Canvas by midnight
FINALS
R Dec 1 ORAL PRESENTATION 2
M Dec 5 ORAL PRESENTATION 2
R Dec 8 ORAL PRESENTATION 2
Finals Period FINAL EXAM