Count this list as a combination public-accountability statement, and an opening to make suggestions.
[Update: I have no idea what happened to the formatting here, and I can't fix it. Sorry.]
Time-sensitive:
- Call/write Professor who sent out that CFP for 5-7 *minute* papers, and make sure that wasn't a typo. 'Cause, geez!
- Work on abstracts for 1) that 5-7 minute thing that I'm really hoping will be 5-7
pages, 2) Heroic Age CFPs for June and January, and 3) no holds-barred grad
conference at my alma mater.
- Speak to substitute-wranglers at local public schools. Travel takes money, ya
know.
Less time-sensitive:
- Finish up Wheelock and get started on the Oxford Latin Reader.
- Find a person Fluent in German. Bribe him/her to speak with me for a couple of
hours a week. (Don't want to lose my German)
- Get a grip on theory.
- Read Eagleton's book.
- Swipe undergrad Intro to theory syllabus from friend who TAs that course.
- Using syllabus as a guide, read selected bits in the Norton anthology.
- Go on a quest for any other "Idiot's guide to literary theory" I can find.
- I suppose Said and Foucault will have to be a part of this, but Derrida makes
me queasy and Spivak makes me cry. So, starter theory then.
- Swipe area exam reading lists from other universities (people who do the PhD here
make their own), begin compiling the Medieval and Renaissance stuff I need to
read for eventual quals and/or simple self-respect as a medievalist. (I've
already read many of the things on the lists I can find, but there are still
gaps.)
Actually, I'd be happy to get about 1/2 of that done. Eh, we'll see.
5 comments:
My xmas break is going to be all theory (and probably at least a month's worth of blog entries as well). I've been grousing about our dept. not offering enough theory, so I decided to put my money where my mouth is and teach an intro theory class.
Now, if you knew me, you'd be blowing coffee out your nose about now, because I am NOT a theoryhead. But as one of my colleagues says (probably just to make me feel better), that makes me the perfect person to teach the intro.
Anyway, I decided on Bennett & Royle's *Intro to Literature, Criticism, and Theory*, which is organized by topic rather than -ism. Very readable as well as provocative. Plus it's what Peggy Kamuf uses to teach her intro class!
Also helpful in my preparation has been Jonathan Culler's VSI volume -- you know, those little Oxford Very Short Introduction books. Meg-Bob sez check it out.
I second the recommendation of Culler's VSI to Theory, especially as a precursor to reading the primary texts in the Norton Anthology of Theory. Culler is a *hoot* and the book will fit in your pocket. What more do you want?! :)
Hi Heo,
I have two theory reading suggestions. The first is an essay called "The Traffic in Women" by Gayle Rubin. I'd be happy to email you a pdf if you drop me a note. It originally appeared in a volume called *Toward and Anthropology of Women*.
I think Rubin does a terrific job using Levi-Strauss and Marx/Engels to ask some serious and still timely feminist questions about the way we organize ourselves as a society.
The second suggestion is a book called *The Purloined Poe*. In it, the editors (Mehlman, I think, is one; my copy's at school and I'm not) do a GREAT job setting up a series of essays about Poe's short story "The Purloined Letter." You get to read Marie Bonapart's Freudian reading, then Lacan's reading, and Derrida's response to Lacan, and finally Barbara Johnson's response to Derrida.
The introductions to the theoretical essays are incredibly helpful, and each of the essays really brings out the power of a particular theoretical mode. Johnson, especially, helps me realize the power of deconstruction's attempts to question meta-narratives such as Freud's.
Good luck with your project!
Wow! Great suggestions, thanks.
I actually have a copy of the VSI to Theory, but was sort of afraid of what I would find in such a very small book. (Left-over neurosis from dead language study, I think. If it doesn't make my ears bleed, it must not be right.)
Bardiac, the Rubin essay would be fantastic, thanks. You'll be hearing from me. I think the Poe book was a fantastic idea, too. Maybe seeing all these theories in conversation with a single text and each other will make them more real for me.
Meg,
There are departments that don't offer *enough* theory? Wow! Me, I'm in the Edward Said/Jacques Derrida sleep-away camp, now with Spivak.
Rachel,
Welcome! (I'm totally jealous that you get to teach OE!) A friend of mine, a fellow medievalist and non-theoryhead, has vowed to make sure I don't 'cross over' and leave her alone. Not that I think there's much danger of that. I've just become offended by my own ignorance of the topic.
Yeah, I know -- weird, isn't it? Until recently, my department would have been happy for me to teach OE every semester and cover theory (all theory, mushed up into a pellet) every two or three years. All that is changing though, and not just because of my incessant ranting.
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