This course approaches the study of literature as a critical practice. The specific focus of this class will be the novel in relation to theory. For as long as the novel has been around, there has been an attempt to explain the particular kind of story it tells, and what happens when readers seek to make sense of it. Students will learn to participate in this discussion by working with a variety of critical perspectives on the matter. We will be concerned with such questions as: does the novel adhere to a particular narrative form (and does that matter)? What is the role of language in the novel? How does the novel function as a cultural artifact that both reflects and perpetuates ideology? The theorists we take up will come from various schools of thought, including those concerned with formalism, structuralism, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, new historicism, post-colonialism, race, gender and sexuality, but they all seek to account for the novel as a literary and/or cultural object.

Students will develop their own reading and writing practices as they work intensively with both theoretical and literary texts. Course requirements will include extensive reading, class discussion, a presentation, and a series of shorter response papers leading up to a 5-7 page final paper. We will take as our case study three novels, likely to be: Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist; Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.