Professor Gillian Harkins at gharkins@uw.edu   

Office Hours M/W 11am -12pm or by appointment 

In Person 504-A Padelford Hall or Virtual Office Hour Link Links to an external site.

Course Meetings Mon / Wed 3:30 – 5:20 PM in Room SAV 162  

Introduction to Graduate Studies in English:

Artefacts / Arguments / Audiences

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. What audience or public do you want to address, engage, or call into being?
            2. What claims do you want to make or stories do you want to tell?
            3. How will you transform a limited set of artifacts into evidence of those claims or stories in a way that will be persuasive for that audience or public?

-- Miriam Bartha and Bruce Burgett, “Why Public Scholarship Matters for Graduate Education,” Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture 15.1 (2014)

This is the University of Washington Course Catalog description of English 506: Engages disciplinary genealogies. Offers a grounding in key theories of language, power, circulation, and representation at the root of contemporary scholarship in literary, cultural, writing, language, and rhetorical studies. Addresses some important ways objects of study, methodologies, practices, and terms of value have been constituted, challenged, and re-envisioned.

Our Fall 2023 version of this course will take the epigraph above (from University of Washington’s Miriam Bartha and Bruce Burgett) as inspiration.  The course is designed as an exploration, not a way to bank or accumulate knowledge as certainty.  Our goal is to acclimate everyone who arrives in the classroom to graduate study in English and its interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral conversations.  To meet this goal, each week of the course is organized around specific questions.  What do we mean by Artefact / Audience / Argument?  A university?  An English Department?  Literature?  Culture?  Language?   Method?  Theory?  Course materials will include a range of theoretical and critical writing about the following key topics: language, literature, culture, aesthetics, political economy, racial formation, gender, sexuality, colonialism, nation and empire.   Here is the full Course Syllabus Page or Downloadable Syllabus.pdf Download Downloadable Syllabus.pdf explaining all course requirements.  Feel free to contact me if you have questions.

WEEK ONE          What are we doing here?

WED 9/27          

Come to class in Savery 162 (SAV 162)!

No prep!  In class we may review N.K. Jemisin’s Press Kit Page Links to an external site..

WEEK ONE PORTFOLIO

WEEK TWO         Artefact / Argument / Audience

MON 10/2

Download DuckDuckGo Links to an external site. as search engine [read this Links to an external site.].

Search “Imposter Syndrome” and pick a site/image to share [NEW NOTE: in case it wasn’t clear in class, the idea for this first content session is not only to discuss the experience(s) of graduate school, but also how on-line research impacts/shapes graduate study and how you each might best engage multimodal learning.]

Read Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey, “Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome” Harvard Business Review (February 11, 2021) Links to an external site..

Extra as mentioned in class: “Land Acknowledgements at the University of Washington,” OMA&D Education and Training Offerings

& “companion texts”: “Meeting Stuart Hall,” Media Diversified (February 14, 2014), entry “Sara: "I have been thinking of texts as companions …" Links to an external site.

& more Sara Ahmed: Maya Binyam, “You Pose a Problem: A Conversation with Sara Ahmed” The Paris Review (January 14, 2022) Links to an external site..

WED 10/4

Zadie Smith, “Speaking in Tongues” New York Public Library (December 5, 2008) Links to an external site. “and” New York Review of Books(February 26, 2009). Links to an external site.

Kate Rossmanith, “Ditching the New Yorker Voice” Public Books (Feb 21, 2022) Links to an external site..

Question: Do we want to use “What’s On Your Mind?” Board or Hypothesis shared annotation tool?

WEEK TWO PORTFOLIO

WEEK THREE      What is a University?

MON 10/9 

Chris Newfield, Introduction to Unmaking the Public University: The Forty Year Assault on the Middle Class (Harvard UP 2008): 1-15 Download Chris Newfield, Introduction to Unmaking the Public University: The Forty Year Assault on the Middle Class (Harvard UP 2008): 1-15. & Notes Download & Notes.

Abigail Boggs, Eli Meyerhoff, Nick Mitchell, and Zach Schwartz-Weinstein, “Abolition University Studies: An Invitation” Links to an external site. (https://abolition.university/ Links to an external site.2019). .pdf pages 1-29.

WED 10/11

Terry Eagleton, “The Rise of English” from Literary Theory: An Introduction (U Minnesota P, 1983): 15-46; Download Terry Eagleton, “The Rise of English” from Literary Theory: An Introduction (U Minnesota P, 1983): 15-46; & "Preface to the Anniversary Edition” ( Download "Preface to the Anniversary Edition” (2008): vii-x. & Notes Download & Notes.

Gauri Viswanathan, Introduction to Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India (Columbia UP, 1989): 1-22; Download Gauri Viswanathan, Introduction to Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India (Columbia UP, 1989): 1-22; & “Preface to the 25^th Anniversary Edition” Download “Preface to the 25th Anniversary Edition” (2014): xi-xxiii. & Notes Download & Notes.

WEEK THREE PORTFOLIO

WEEK FOUR       What is Literature?  

MON 10/16

Benedict Anderson, Introduction from Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Verso, 1983): Download Benedict Anderson, Introduction from Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Verso, 1983): 1-7; "Preface to Second Edition” (1991): Download "Preface to Second Edition” (1991): xi-xv. & Bibliography Download & Bibliography

Extra: Here is the “Cultural Roots” chapter Download “Cultural Roots” chapter, the section “Apprehensions of Time” starting page 22-36 talks about the novel and the newspaper.   And here is the “Origins of National Consciousness” Download “Origins of National Consciousness” chapter elaborating print capitalism.  We will take a look at the original arguments in class, but I thought I would post them here also in case you want to take a look ahead of time.

WED 10/18

Daniel Heath Justice, "Introduction: Stories that Wound, Stories that Heal" to Why Indigenous Literatures Matter (Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2018): 1-32 Download Daniel Heath Justice, "Introduction: Stories that Wound, Stories that Heal" to Why Indigenous Literatures Matter (Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2018): 1-32. & Notes Download Notes.

Katherine Binhammer et al, “Srinivas Aravamudan’s Enlightenment Orientalism: Resisting the Rise of the Novel: A Roundtable Discussion” Lumen xxxiii (2014): 1-26 (Srinivas Aravamudan’s comments 20-26). Download Katherine Binhammer et al, “Srinivas Aravamudan’s Enlightenment Orientalism: Resisting the Rise of the Novel: A Roundtable Discussion” Lumen xxxiii (2014): 1-26 (Srinivas Aravamudan’s comments 20-26).

WEEK FOUR PORTFOLIO

WEEK FIVE         Nation / Culture / Language

MON 10/23 

Lisa Lowe, Download Lisa Lowe, Chapter One “Immigration, Citizenship, Racialization: Asian American Critique,” Download Chapter One “Immigration, Citizenship, Racialization: Asian American Critique,” & Chapter Five: Decolonization, Displacement, Disidentification” Download Chapter Five: Decolonization, Displacement, Disidentification” Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics (Duke UP, 1996): 1-36. & Notes Download Notes.

WED 10/25      

No Class Meeting Today

WEEK FIVE PORTFOLIO

WEEK SIX     Culture / Power / Discourse

MON 10/30 

Ngugi wa Thiong’o, “The Language of African Literature” New Left Review 150 (1985): 109-127; Download Ngugi wa Thiong’o, “The Language of African Literature” New Left Review 150 (1985): 109-127; republished in Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (Heinemann Educational, 1986)

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Chapter One: Crossing Borders" from Death of a Discipline (Columbia UP, 2005): Download Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Chapter One: Crossing Borders" from Death of a Discipline (Columbia UP, 2005): 1-23 Download 1-23.

WED 11/1

Stuart Hall, “Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms” Media, Culture and Society 2.1 (1980): 57-72. Download Stuart Hall, “Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms” Media, Culture and Society 2.1 (1980): 57-72.

Angie Chabram-Dernersesian, ed., “More Practices of Cultural Studies in Our Worlds (Asian-American, American, Latina/o, Latin American, Subaltern, African American” The Chicana/o Cultural Studies Forum (NYU P, 2007): 138-209.  WHAT WE WILL FOCUS ON TOGETHER: 138-148; Download Angie Chabram-Dernersesian, ed., “More Practices of Cultural Studies in Our Worlds (Asian-American, American, Latina/o, Latin American, Subaltern, African American” The Chicana/o Cultural Studies Forum (NYU P, 2007): 138-209.  WHAT WE WILL FOCUS ON TOGETHER: 138-148; 160-171.

More Hall: Preface to the 1983 Lectures Download Preface to the 1983 Lectures; 

WEEK SIX PORTFOLIO

WEEK SEVEN       Psychoanalysis / Structuralism / Language

MON 11/6

Michel Foucault, “Nietzche, Genealogy, History” (1971) Download Michel Foucault, “Nietzche, Genealogy, History” (1971) [Trans. info in doc] reprinted in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice. Ed. Donald F. Brouchard (Cornell UP, 1980): 76-100.  [Bonus Track: “What Is an Author?” in .pdf, don’t need to read for this class]. Another non-required bonus track: Michel Foucault, “Orders of Discourse” (“L'Ordre du Discours” 1971), Trans. Rupert Swyer, Social Science Information10.2 (April 1971): 7-30. Download Michel Foucault, “Orders of Discourse” (“L'Ordre du Discours” 1971), Trans. Rupert Swyer, Social Science Information10.2 (April 1971): 7-30.

Gilles Deleuze, “Postscript on the Societies of Control” October 59 (1992): 3-7. Download Gilles Deleuze, “Postscript on the Societies of Control” October 59 (1992): 3-7.

WED 11/8

Jacques Lacan, “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I” [Lecture 1949; published in French Écrits 1966; UK 1977] Trans. Alan Sheridan, Écrits A Selection (Routledge, 1989): 75-81. Download Jacques Lacan, “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I” [Lecture 1949; published in French Écrits 1966; UK 1977] Trans. Alan Sheridan, Écrits A Selection (Routledge, 1989): 75-81.

Antonio Viego, Intro from Dead Subjects: Towards a Politics of Loss in Latino Studies (Duke UP, 2007).  Download Antonio Viego, Intro from Dead Subjects: Towards a Politics of Loss in Latino Studies (Duke UP, 2007).  & Notes Download Notes.

WEEK SEVEN PORTFOLIO

WEEK EIGHT      Method / Theory / Affect

MON 11/13

Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics (Cours de linguistique générale 1916) Eds. Charles Bally & Albert Sechehaye, Trans. Wade Baskin (NY: The Philosophical Society, 1959). Note: the written material published from Saussure’s original lectures can be ordered in different ways.  For our class, we will focus on Chapter One: “Nature of the Linguistic Sign” (Pages 75-80 in this 1983 translation by Roy Harris) Download Chapter One: “Nature of the Linguistic Sign” (Pages 75-80 in this 1983 translation by Roy Harris).  If you have time, I recommend you take a look at Chapter Three, “The Object of Study” presented at the start of this document, as it explains the famous effort to split language (langue) from speech (parole), taken up in Derrida.

Jacques Derrida, “Signature Event Context”( Download Jacques Derrida, “Signature Event Context”(1971/2) Trans. Samuel Weber and Jeffrey Mehlman, Glyph (1977).  For our class, we will focus on pages 1-11, ending where he takes up Husserl, skip “Parasite” on Austin, starting up again bottom page 18 on “Differance” and through the section “Signatures.”  You can look at my underlining and highlighting for the ideas that are central.  If this is totally opaque don’t worry (at all).  I’ll lecture some again.

WED 11/15

Barbara Christian, “The Race for Theory” Cultural Critique 6 (1987): 51-79; if you need to reduce pages, make sure you read the beginning and the ending material. Download Barbara Christian, “The Race for Theory” Cultural Critique 6 (1987): 51-79; if you need to reduce pages, make sure you read the beginning and the ending material.

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading; or, You’re So Paranoid, You Probably Think This Introduction is About You,” Novel Gazing: Queer Readings in Fiction, Ed. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (Duke UP, 1997): 2-37.  Our focus will be on pages 1-6; the list "Paranoia is …” on page 9 (you may want to read the opening paragraph of each point to know what the list means); and the section pages 21-28.  If you have time page 17-19 “Furthermore …” ending “knowledge per se" might be of interest. Download Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading; or, You’re So Paranoid, You Probably Think This Introduction is About You,” Novel Gazing: Queer Readings in Fiction, Ed. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (Duke UP, 1997): 2-37.  Our focus will be on pages 1-6; the list "Paranoia is …” on page 9 (you may want to read the opening paragraph of each point to know what the list means); and the section pages 21-28.  If you have time page 17-19 “Furthermore …” ending “knowledge per se" might be of interest.

WEEK EIGHT PORTFOLIO

WEEK NINE        Method / Theory / Affect

MON 11/20

Dian Million, “Felt Theory: An Indigenous Feminist Approach to Affect and History,” Wicazo Sa Review, 24.9 (Fall 2009). Download Dian Million, “Felt Theory: An Indigenous Feminist Approach to Affect and History,” Wicazo Sa Review, 24.9 (Fall 2009).

Extra: Dian Million, Introduction, Therapeutic Nations: Healing in an Age of Indigenous Human Rights (U Arizona Press, 2014) Download Dian Million, Introduction, Therapeutic Nations: Healing in an Age of Indigenous Human Rights (U Arizona Press, 2014) & Notes Download Notes.

Stephanie Clare, “Affect” in Jennifer C. Nash, ed. Gender: Love (McMillan Reference, 2016) Download Stephanie Clare, “Affect” in Jennifer C. Nash, ed. Gender: Love (McMillan Reference, 2016).

 WED 11/22      

DAY OFF

WEEK NINE PORTFOLIO

WEEK TEN   Marxism / Hegemony 

MON 11/27

This is our reading:  Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes Toward an Investigation” [“Idéologie et appareils idéologiques d'État (Notes pour une recherche)" 1970] Download Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes Toward an Investigation” [“Idéologie et appareils idéologiques d'État (Notes pour une recherche)" 1970] Trans. Ben Brewster, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays(Monthly Review Press, 1971).

Only Recommended:  Raymond Williams, “Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory” New Left Review 1.82 (Nov/Dec 1973). Links to an external site.

WED 11/29

This is our reading: Chela Sandoval, “U.S. Third World Feminism: The Theory and Method of Oppositional Consciousness in the Postmodern World” Genders 10 (Spring 1991). Download This is our reading: Chela Sandoval, “U.S. Third World Feminism: The Theory and Method of Oppositional Consciousness in the Postmodern World” Genders 10 (Spring 1991).

Only Recommended: Antonio Gramsci, shorter excerpts from “The Study of Philosophy” Download “The Study of Philosophy” and “State and Civil Society,” Download State and Civil Society,” Selections from the Prison Notebooks (Quaderni del carcere 1947), (Some English Trans. Hamish Henderson 1957), Trans. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (Lawrence & Wishart, 1971)

WEEK TEN PORTFOLIO

WEEK ELEVEN  Post-Structuralism & After

MON 12/4

CHANGE: NO READING.  If anyone wants to read these and chat, I’m happy to meet up to do so.

Judith Butler, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination” Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories, Ed. Diana Fuss (Routledge, 1991) Download Judith Butler, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination” Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories, Ed. Diana Fuss (Routledge, 1991).

Kadji Amin, “We Are All Nonbinary: A Brief History of Accidents” “Proximities: Reading with Judith Butler,” Special Issue of Representations, Edited by Damon Young, Mario Teló, and Debarati Sanyal 158.1 (2022): 106-119. Download Kadji Amin, “We Are All Nonbinary: A Brief History of Accidents” “Proximities: Reading with Judith Butler,” Special Issue of Representations, Edited by Damon Young, Mario Teló, and Debarati Sanyal 158.1 (2022): 106-119.

WED 12/6

NO CLASS MEETING / Time to work on Reflection Portfolio and Deep Dive Portfolio due by Dec 12

EXAM WEEK 

12/12  All Portfolios Entries Due

12/19  Grades Due to Registrar by 5:00 PM