English 563.301 Fall 2000 -- Topics in Twentieth Century British Literature
| Tuesdays 3:00-6:00 --- Williams 741 |
Jim English
|
| Listserv: english563@english.upenn.edu |
Office: Bennett 308
|
| email: jenglish@english.upenn.edu / phone: 8-7822 |
Hours: Wed 2:00-3:00, Thurs 1:30-2:30
|
|
|
|
|
DESCRIPTION: This course will serve as a general introduction to some of the major novelists of contemporary Britain, as well as to sociological methods of literary study. Our first aim will be to situate some of the figures of the "contemporary canon" within the system of individual and institutional agents that produces that canon and the hierarchy of values on which it is predicated. These relatively neglected producers of literature include editors and publishing houses; literary agents and their firms; film producers and their backers, booksellers and book clubs; university professors and the academy; prizes and their judges, administrators, and sponsors; book reviewers, fiction editors, and the journals that employ them; and, very importantly, other authors. Each student in the class will undertake three independent research projects aimed at positioning one of the novels we read on the larger literary field, gauging its particular status and cultural trajectory. The formidable problem with which the entire class will be concerned is that of making sense of the relationship between "the novel itself" -- the specific pleasures and challenges it offers us as readers -- and the novel as a form of capital circulating through interlinked symbolic and commercial economies. To address this problem responsibly entails reconceptualization of literary study within a general economy of cultural practices.
REQUIREMENTS: Apart from the reading for the course, which is fairly heavy, each student will be asked to undertake three independent research projects. The results of these researches will be presented orally to the class and submitted in the form of short 2-3 page papers. One of the three papers will be developed into a longer 10-12 page essay, due at the end of the semester. (No incompletes!) In addition, each student will write a review of a newly published British novel of his or her own choosing, and revise it after receiving my comments. The reviews should be written as though for publication in an actual journal -- and indeed it is hoped that many of them will in fact be published.
TEXTS: The novels for this class are available through amazon.com and bn.com, and most of them can be purchased at local bookstores such as the University bookstore, House of Our Own, or Borders. Be sure you purchase the editions listed below. All other readings are in a bulkpack available from Wharton Reprographics, or are linked to this web page.
Martin Amis. The
Information. Random House. 0679735739.
Christine Brooke-Rose. Amalgamemnon.
Dalkey Archive. 1564780503.
J. M. Coetzee. Disgrace.
Viking (hardcover). 0670887315.
Lucy Ellman. Man or Mango.
Picador. 0312209673.
Penelope Fitzgerald. At
Freddie's. Houghton Mifflin. 0395956188.
Helen Fielding. Bridget
Jones's Diary. Penguin 014028009.
Doris Lessing. Diaries
of Jane Somers. Vintage. 0394729552.
Doris Lessing. The Fifth
Child. Vintage. 0679721827.
David Lodge. Nice
Work. Penguin. 0140133968.
Salman Rushdie. The
Satanic Verses. Henry Holt. 0805053093.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I. Sociologies of Literature
Tu 9/12: Introduction.
------------
Tu 9/19: Cultural Studies, sociology of culture, and contemporary critical practice
Readings:
Janet Woolff, "Cultural Studies and the Sociology of Culture" (online);-----------
Raymond Williams, from The Sociology of Culture;
Steven Seidman, "Relativizing Sociology: The Challenge of Cultural Studies";
Janice Radway, "Ethnography Among the Elites: Comparing Discourses of Power";
Radway, "Interpretive Communities and Variable Literacies"
Radway, "The Book of the Month Club and the General Reader: On the Uses of 'Serious' Fiction"Research reports:
Janice Radway (Katherine Hjerpe)
Raymond Williams (Jeff Allred)
Readings:
Pierre Bourdieu, "The Forms of Capital";
Bourdieu, "The Interest of the Sociologist";
Bourdieu, The Rules of Art (excerpts);
John Guillory, "Bourdieu's Refusal";
Amariglio and Ruccio, "Literary/Cultural 'Economies' . . . and the Question of Marxism";
Gagnier and Dupre, "Reply to Amariglio and Ruccio";
Koritz and Koritz, "Symbolic Economics: Adventures in the Metaphorical Marketplace."Research reports:
Economism and New Economic Criticism (Matt Hart)
Tu 10/3: Britain, America, and the phenomenon of literary celebrityII. Scandal, Celebrity, and Literary Stature
Readings:
Amis,
The
Information
Joe
Moran, Star Authors (excerpt)
Research reports:
Controversy
and advance publicity surrounding The Information (Katherine
Hjerpe)
Reviews
of The Information, biographical vs critical orientations (Laura
Heffernan; Stephanie Harzewski)
------------
Tu 10/10:
Postcolonial Politics and Literary Prestige: The Verses Affair
Readings:
Rushdie, Satanic Verses
Research reports:
Rushdie's
career before the Verses: novelist as postcolonial intellectual
(Jeff Allred; Jane Degenhardt)
The
Verses
affair - origins and chronology (Alex Fleck; Leigh Anne Palmer)
------------
Tu 10/17: Postcolonial Politics and Literary Prestige: The Verses Affair (2)
Readings:
Rushdie,
Satanic
Verses, complete
The
Rushdie Affair, excerpts
Research reports:
Prize
politics: the Booker and the Nobel in the aftermath of the Verses
affair (Jasmine Park; Jane Degenhardt)
Participation
by other writers in the Verses affair: statements, publications,
interventions (Alex Fleck)
III. The Generational Logic of Literary Production
Tu 10/24: "The finest British writer alive"
Readings:
Fitzgerald,
At
Freddies
Bourdieu,
from Field of Literary Production
Research reports:
Age
and generational anomaly in the positioning of Fitzgerald (Jasmine Park)
Obituaries
and literary marketing: Fitzgerald as case history (Stpehanie Harzewski;
Jenifer Felton)
The
blurb: Fitzgerald as case history (Elena Figueroa; Anna Ivy)
-----------
Tu 10/31: The author as brand name
Readings:
Lessing,
Fifth
Child
Lessing,
Diary
of a Good Neighbor (in Diaries of Jane Somers)
Research reports:
Authorial
imposture and literary production: the Lessing/Somers hoax (Elena Figueroa)
Marketing
of Ben, the sequel, vs. If the Old Could, the sequel (Daniel
Abse)
Lessing
and Book Clubs, Fan Clubs, Critical Societies (Jeff Allred; Anna Ivy)
-------------
Tu 11/7: Younger, Sexier, Lighter: A Jane Somers for the Masses?
Readings:
Fielding, Bridget Jones's Diary
Research reports:
Publication
history of Bridget Jones (Laura Heffernan; Jasmine Park)
Journalists
as bestselling novelists in U.K., 1980-2000 (Jennifer Felton)
BOOK REVIEWS DUE
IV. Contemporary Fiction and Academic Legitimation
Tu 11/14: The Campus Satire: Fiction as Common Sense
Readings:
Lodge,
Nice Work
Wernick,
"The Promotional University"
Research reports:
The
"Culture Wars" in Britain, 1985-1995 (Laura Heffernan; Daniel Abse)
Higher
Education since Thatcher (Leigh Anne Palmer)
------------
Tu 11/21: Good and Bad Daughters in the Academic Family
Readings:
Ellmann, Man or Mango?
Research reports:
The
Ellmann family; the Drabble family (Katherine Hjerpe; Daniel Abse)
Writers
Workshops in the U.K. (Jennifer Felton)
------------
Tu 11/28: The Academic Habitus and Academic Ressentiment
Readings:
Brooke-Rose,
Amalgamemnon
Bourdieu,
from Homo Academicus
Research reports:
The
lit-crit job market and tenure system in contemporary England (Matt Hart)
The
reception of Brooke-Rose in England and abroad (Leigh Anne Palmer; Stephanie
Harzewski)
------------
Tu 12/5: The Campus Novel and the Postcolonial Novelist
Readings:
Coetzee, Disgrace
Research reports:
Coetzee
and South African literary culture (Rita Barnard)
Coetzee
and London literary culture, e.g. Booker Prize (Jane Degenhardt)
Dissertations
on writers studied in this class (Alex Fleck; Anna Ivy)
10-12 PAGE ESSAYS DUE DECEMBER 12 - NO INCOMPLETES