Monday Reading:

I'll provide a bunch of handouts. You do not have any "daily assignments" for this unit.

You'll notice that you are reading a collection of texts that seem to have little to do with literary texts per se. Why?

One move that theorists and critics often make is to appropriate the theoretical tools and insights from one discipline and apply them to another. It's yet another skill you need to pick up, but crossing disciplinary boundaries produces interesting insights as well as energizing the disciplines themselves. Literature departments have gained a lot by trespassing into anthropology, history, philosophy, theology, sociology, psychology, linguistics, aesthetics, biology, and physics--just to name a few.  

Wednesday/Friday

We'll practice cross-pollinating.

Major Essay #6

The basic assignment is to use terms from another discipline (a definition or a concept) to make sense of, interpret, or comment on a "literary" text. In other words, if you say within the art world, you'll need to discuss words in terms of, say, painting, music, architecture, dance, sculpture, etc. For example, it's not a poem; it's a waltz. It's not a short story; it's a melody. Discuss a text in terms of cubism, pop art, or abstraction.

Key concept!!! You're not saying the text is "about" music, cubism, dance, etc. You're arguing that the text "is" music, cubism, dance, etc.

And if you are feeling adventurous, you can do the same with concepts and definitions you find in biology, physics, business, math, psychology, anthropology, agriculture, engineering, medicine, etc.

Again, you're not saying that the text "talks about" or "is about" any of those disciplines. More to the point, you need to equate the text with the concept. So, a certain poem IS an act of cell mutation, a cure for a disease, a neurosis, an act of transculturation, etc.

Choose me! I describe your assignment.pdf

Chose me, too! I offer some extra help.pdf