ENGH 305: Dimensions of Writing and Literature

ENGH 305-002: Dimensions of Writing and Literature
(Spring 2021)

10:30 AM to 11:45 AM TR

Online

Section Information for Spring 2021

In this class, we focus on core skills and issues in reading literary works and writing about them. The aim of the class is to develop our understanding of and our ability to perform three things: first, we learn to do close, analytical readings of individual literary works; secondly, we build on close reading by undertaking analysis of intertextual and contextual dynamics, implications, relationships between a literary work and its literary and cultural intertexts and its extra-discursive historical contexts; and, thirdly, we undertake close, critical analysis of secondary scholarship in order to make effective use of existing scholarship.

So, we will be interested in questions such as the following: What do we mean by close, analytical reading of a literary work? Why or when is it called for? How do we carry it out? What kinds of interpretive questions arise from such analytical reading and motivate our analyses of literary works? How do we transform our analytical reading into written literary analysis? What kind of work should a literary analysis do? What kinds of interpretive questions require other kinds of inquiry and analysis (beyond analytical reading of the individual work)? In particular, when and in what ways does it become eligible or necessary to place the work under consideration alongside other texts and in relation to its context? What forms do intertextual and contextual implications take? So, too, what use can or should we make of literary scholarship about a literary work we are analyzing? What does close, critical reading of existing scholarship look like? How do we situate our own written analysis of a literary work in relation to existing scholarship? The questions and materials we will work with are centered on literary works and literary criticism, but the issues of interpretation, analysis, and written argument apply much more broadly to critical engagement with all kinds of cultural texts and the scholarship about them.

Because the course is focused on process and learning-by-doing, (as well as learning by example) the syllabus and reading materials are kept somewhat thin and flexible. We’ll read articles to help us understand some of the issues involved in this kind of interpretive practice and we’ll look at exemplary close, analytical readings, but we’ll focus on our own hands-on engagement with a group of literary works and our construction of analytical, intertextual, contextual, and critically-informed readings of these works.

Most of our work as a class will take the form of (online) discussion, discussion boards, and short assignments, but much of the work you will be doing will actually take place in your own individual encounter with the assigned reading and the work of analysis you undertake in relation to it. As with most things, your own engagement in the process of inquiry and analysis is where the real learning takes place: this occurs as much in the effort to elaborate your thoughts and findings in written form as it does in the critical reading and analysis work that precedes and feeds into this written expression. In other words, the work you do directly with the class will be productive in concert with the work you do, before and after, for the class.

The aim of the course is to help you become better readers and interpreters of literary works and of literary scholarship, by understanding better the challenges and requirements of close, analytical engagement with a literary work. The hope is that you will acquire a good foundation from which to continue to build on what you gain from this class through all of your subsequent classes in literary and other textual study.

The basic challenge in reading a cultural text is to understand someone else’s discourse—someone else’s words and the perspectives, assumptions, values, understandings, attitudes they embody. This is challenging enough when dealing with contemporary discourse; it’s all the more challenging when we are dealing with cultural texts from more distant worlds. There is an ethics of interpretation that turns on the obligation to try to understand others. The practice of textual interpretation—hermeneutics—is a response to this challenge and that’s what we will be engaged in this semester, as we approach this challenge via close reading, intertextual and contextual analysis, and engagement with the scholarship of others.

ENGH 305 002 is a distance education section taught synchronously. Students should expect to be online at the scheduled class meeting times.

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Course Information from the University Catalog

Credits: 3

Teaches students the conventions of writing in literary studies while emphasizing writing process. Develops interpretive skills for further study in the major though the teaching of in-depth close reading, intertextual analysis, and critical reading in scholarship. Limited to three attempts.
Specialized Designation: Mason Impact., Writing Intensive in Major
Recommended Prerequisite: Satisfaction of University requirements in 100-level English and in Mason Core literature.
Schedule Type: Lecture
Grading:
This course is graded on the Undergraduate Regular scale.

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