Autumn Semester 2008

Coordinators:

• Jody Pennington ( engjwp@remove-this.hum.au.dk · http://person.au.dk/en/engjwp@hum )

The Studium Generale course is a one-semester course, which consists of a weekly session of 2 x 45 min. It takes place in the autumn semester (i.e. the students' third semester). In the Autumn Semester 2008, the lectures are on Mondays 12-14 in building 1441, Lecture Theatre 1 .

The course is co-taught by a number of teachers. There will be handouts available at almost all lectures, and these handouts will also be available in a FirstClass conference called ENG Studium Generale A08 .

The sessions fall into four groups, as described in detail further below:

1. General - 3 sessions
2. Linguistics - 3 sessions
3. Literature - 3 sessions
4. Society/History/Culture - 3 sessions

For immediate reactions, questions of clarification, etc., the last 5-10 minutes of each half-session are reserved for debate and contributions from the audience.

Furthermore, for more in-depth questions and/or questions about the reading material, there is an additional question session once a week (Autumn 2008: Tuesday 15-16, building 1441, Lecture Theatre 1 ) , where students have the opportunity to ask questions of the most recent lecturer(s).

The exam format is a take-home written exam of 8 pages (plus/minus 10%), with internal “censur”, marked pass or fail . The exam will contain questions for each of the four subfields above: A, B, C, and D. The question(s) concerning A is obligatory, whereas only two subfields of the remaining three, B/C/D, have to be chosen. The weight of the exam is 10 ECTS points.

Each semester, the reading material is made available to the students in the form of a compendium containing photocopied versions of the papers mentioned under the individual sessions below. The compendium for the Autumn Semester 2008 will be available at Stakbogladen by the end of August.

For reasons to do with copyright rules (we will be reading 135 pages), the compendium does not contain the material from the following book, which students are therefore expected to buy (in addition to the compendium): Pinker, Steven. 1994. The Language Instinct. New York: William Morrow.(Paperback edition, London: Penguin.) This book is also available at Stakbogladen.

For the sessions of part C. Literature , we will also be reading Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein , but you will not have to buy it, as all of it is reprinted in the Norton Anthology of English Literature (7th ed., vol. 2, pp. 907-1034).

 

 

Course Readings:

 

Section A: General

________________________________________________

1A: Introduction (Various)

No readings

1B: Enlightenment (Ocke Bohn)

Kant, Immanuel. “An Answer to the Question: ‘What Is Enlightenment?’” In

 Kant’s Political Writings , edited by Hans S. Reiss, 54-60. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.

 

Wilson, Edward O. “The Enlightenment (Chapter 3).” In Consilience: The

 Unity of Knowledge , 15-48. New York: Knopf, 1998.

2A: Epistemology (Ocke Bohn)

 

Popper, Karl. “The Problem of Demarcation (Chapter 8).” In A Pocket

 Popper , edited by David Miller, 118-30. London: Fontana, 1983.

   

2B: Structures and Paradigms (Jens Fredslund)

Foucault, Michel. “Preface.” In The Order of Thing: An Archaeology of the

 Human Sciences , xv-xxiv. London: Tavistock Publications, 1974.

   

———. “What Is Enlightenment?” In The Foucault Reader , edited by Paul

 Rabinow, 32-50. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984.

 

de Saussure, Ferdinand. “Nature of the Linguistic Sign.” In Modern

 Criticism and Theory: A Reader , edited by David Lodge, 10-14. London: Longman, 1988.

3A: Deconstruction (Jens Fredslund)

Miller, J. Hillis. “Stevens’ Rock and criticism as Cure, II”. Theory Now and

 Then . Durham: Duke UP, 1991. 117-131.

 

3B: How the mind works (Ocke Bohn)

 

Wilson, Edward O. “The Mind (Chapter 6).” In Consilience: The Unity of

 Knowledge , 105-35. New York: Knopf, 1998.

 

              

Section B: Linguistics

 

Please note that several of the readings for Section B are in Pinker, Steven. The Language Instinct . London: Penguin, 1994. These readings are not in the compendium, as the book should be purchased from Stakbogladen.

 

4A: Linguistics and epistemology (Johanna Wood)

 

No preparatory readings

 

4B: Prescriptive vs. descriptive linguistics (Johanna Wood)

 

Bostrup, Steen. “Svamp i sproget.” Udog Se May 2001: 50-51.

 Hansen, Erik. “Når sjusk bliver til korrekt dansk.” Nyt fra Sprognævnet 2 (1992): 9-12.

 

Pinker, Steven. “Language Mavens (Excerpts, Chapter 12).” The Language

 Instinct . London: Penguin, 1994. 370-383; 399-403

 

Van Buren, Abigail. “Dear Abby - Good Grammar Is Sweet Music to Any

 Language-Lover’s Ears.” Accessed September 16, 2007 < http://www.uexpress.com/dearabby/?uc_full_date=20020409 >.

   

5A: Innateness and linguistic knowledge (Johanna Wood)

   

Pinker, Steven. “Chatterboxes (Excerpt, Chapter 2).” The Language Instinct .

 London: Penguin, 1994. 25-39.

 

--. “An Instinct to Acquire an Art (Chapter 1).” The Language Instinct . London:

 Penguin, 1994. 15-24.

 

--. “The Tower of Babel (Excerpt, Chapter 8).” The Language Instinct . London:

 Penguin, 1994. 231-255.

5B: Universal Grammar and the logical problem of language acquisition (Johanna Wood)

 

Pinker, Steven. “Baby Born Talking - Describes Heaven (Chapter 9).” The

 Language Instinct . London: Penguin, 1994. 262-296.

 

6A: Linguistic competence vs. linguistic performance (Johanna Wood)

   

Pinker, Steven. “Talking Heads (Excerpt, Chapter 7).” The Language Instinct .

 London: Penguin, 1994. 192-222.

 

6B: Formalism and functionalism in linguistics        (Johanna Wood)

   

Newmeyer, Frederick J. “The Form-Function Problem in Linguistics (Chapter1).”

 Language Form and Language Function . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998. 1-21.

Section C. Literature

Please note that lectures in the literature section will refer to Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein . Penguin Classics. Edited and with introduction by Maurice Hindle. London: Penguin Books, 2003. Frankenstein is not in the compendium and should be purchased from Stakbogladen.

 

7A: What is literature? (Dominic Rainsford)

   

Eagleton, Terry. “Introduction: What Is Literature?” Literary Theory: An

 Introduction . Oxford: Blackwell, 1983. 1-16.

 

7B: Form and genre (TabishKhair)

   

Botting, Fred. “Gothic Forms (Chapter 3).” Gothic . London: Routledge, 1996.     

 44-61.

   

Eagleton, Terry. “Form and Content (Chapter 2).” Marxism and Literary Criticism .

 London: Routledge, 1976. 19-34.

 

8A: Humans and Non-humans (Dominic Rainsford)

   

Malpas, Simon. “Why Lyotard? (Excerpt).” Jean-François Lyotard . London:

 Routledge, 2003. 1-4.

 

——. “Art, the Inhuman and the Event (Excerpt).” Jean-François Lyotard .

 London: Routledge, 2003. 88-96.

 

Agamben, Giorgio. “ MysteriumDisiunctionis .” The Open: Man and Animal .

 Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004. 13-16.

   

——. “Physiology of the Blessed.” The Open: Man and Animal . Stanford, CA:

 Stanford University Press, 2004. 17-19.

 

8B: Cultural Materialism and New Historicism (Michael Skovmand)

   

Butler, Marilyn. “Frankenstein and Radical Science.” Frankenstein: The 1818

 Text, Contexts, Nineteenth-Century Responses, Modern Criticism . Ed. J. Paul Hunter. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996. 302-313.

9A: Culture, Environment and Literature (Peter Mortensen)

   

Bate, Jonathan. “The State of Nature (Excerpt).” The Song of the Earth .

 Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. 49-55.

   

Coupe, Laurence. “General Introduction.” The Green Studies Reader: From

 Romanticism to Ecocriticism .Ed. Laurence Coupe. London: Routledge, 2000. 1-8.

   

Snyder, Gary. “Is Nature Real? Nature as Seen from Kitkitdizze Is No ‘Social

 Construction’.” Whole Earth .Winter (1998). Accessed: 7 August 2007

 

9B: Empire and Literature (Vera Alexander)

Spivak, GayatriChakavorty. “Frankenstein and a Critique of Imperialism.”

 Frankenstein: The 1818 Text, Contexts, Nineteenth-Century Responses, Modern Criticism. Ed. J. Paul Hunter. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996. 262-270.

 

Section D. Society / History / Culture

10A: Society Survey: What is Sociology? (Jody Pennington)

   

Giddens, Anthony. “What Is Sociology?” Sociology . 5th ed. Cambridge: Polity,

 2006. 4-28.

 

10B: Society Topic: Sociological Questions and Sociological Theory (Jody Pennington)

   

Giddens, Anthony. “Asking and Answering Sociological Questions.” Sociology .

 5th ed. Cambridge: Polity, 2006. 74-99.

 

11A: History Survey: The History of History (Dale Carter)

   

Southgate, Beverly. “What Was History? (Chapter 2).” History: What and Why .

 London: Routledge, 1996. 12-27.

 

 

11B: History Topic: History and Memory (Michael Böss)

   

Lowenthal, David. “Excerpt.” The Past Is a Foreign Country . Cambridge:

 Cambridge University Press, 1985. 211-214.

 

12A: Culture Survey: The Meanings of Culture and the History of Cultural Studies (Dale Carter)

   

Smith, Philip “British Cultural Studies (Chapter 9).” Cultural Theory—An

 Introduction . Oxford Blackwell, 2001. 151-166.

   

---. “Introduction: What Is Culture? What Is Cultural Theory?” Cultural Theory--

 An Introduction . Oxford Blackwell, 2001. 1-5.

   

12B: Culture Topic: Culture, Anthropology and Identity (Michael Böss)

   

Geertz, Clifford. “The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man

 (Excerpt).” The Interpretation of Cultures . New York: BasicBooks & HarperCollins, 1993. 44-51.