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Students will take a weekly two-hour lecture-seminar during the Autumn and Spring Terms on theoretical approaches to writing and national culture.

Spring Term Timetable and Reading

Autumn Term: ‘Writing the Nation’

Course Convenor: Dr Robert Irvine

The meetings will take place on Thursday 4 - 6pm in the 2nd Floor Seminar Room (Left hand flat), 18 Buccleuch Place:

Please note: Teaching may take place in the seminar leader's office. Please check before going to the room allocated.

The Reading for each week's lecture-seminar is to be found below the timetable.

Reading

Theoretical Context (Robert Irvine)

1. Introduction: Defining the Nation

Theory: John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith (eds), Nationalism (Oxford: OUP, 1994)

Readings:

Section I, ‘The Question of Definition’, pp. 15-36

Section III, ‘The Rise of Nations’, pp. 132-154

Section IV, ‘Nationalism in Europe’, pp. 160-184

Section V, ‘Nationalism outside Europe’, pp. 196-236

Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism and Modernism (London: Routledge, 1998), Chs 1, 7, 8

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2. Theories of Nationalism and National Culture

Theory: John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith (eds), Nationalism (Oxford: OUP, 1994)

Readings:

Section II, ‘Theories of Nationalism’, pp. 47-122

Section VI, ‘Nationalism and the International System’, pp. 241-280

Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism and Modernism (London: Routledge, 1998), Chs 2-6

Literary Texts:

Walter Scott, Waverley (1814)

Ivanhoe (1819)

Eighteenth-Century Constructin of British Identities

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Eighteenth-Century Construction of British Identities

3. British Identities

Literary Texts:

Alexander Pope, ‘Windsor Forest’ (1713)

James MacPherson, Fragments of Ancient Poetry (1760),

Tobias Smollett, Humphry Clinker (1771)

Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775)

Historical Contexts:

Linda Colley, Britons (New Haven: Yale U.P., 1992)

Gerald Newman,The Rise of English Nationalism: a cultural history, 1740-1830 (New York: St Martin's Press, 1997)

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Romantic Nationalism in Scotland and Ireland

4. Culture and the National Romance.

Primary Texts:

Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent (World’s Classics)

Sydney Owenson, The Wild Irish Girl (World’s Classics)

Walter Scott, The Bride of Lammermoor (World’s Classics)

Secondary Texts:

from Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations;

from J.G. Herder, On the Origin of Language and Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Penguin)

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5. Nation and Orality.

Primary Texts:

Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel (dept. edition)

James Hogg, The Three Perils of Man (Canongate)

Secondary Texts:

Ian Duncan, “The Upright Corpse: Hogg, National Literature, and the Uncanny,” Studies in Hogg and His World 5 (1994): 29–54

Penny Fielding, Writing and Orality (Oxford U.P. 1996)

Katie Trumpener, Bardic Nationalism (Princeton U.P. 1997).

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6. Romantic Nationalism and the British Empire.

Primary Texts:

Scott, “The Surgeon’s Daughter” in Chronicles of the Canongate(Edinburgh: in library)

Elizabeth Hamilton, Letters of a Hindoo Rajah (Broadview)

Extracts from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine

Secondary Texts:

Jonathan Arac and Harriet Ritvo, eds., Macropolitics of Nineteenth-Century Literature: Nationalism, Exoticism, Imperialism (Uni. Pennsylvania Press 1991)

Nigel Leask, British Romantic Writers and the East: Anxieties of Empire (Cambridge U.P. 1992)

Saree Makdisi, Romantic Imperialism (Cambridge U.P. 1998)

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National Culture in the United States (Susan Manning)

7. National narrative/ Personal narrative in the American Revolutionary Period:

Primary Texts:

Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland; or, The Transformation, ed. Fliegelman (Penguin)

Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer, ed. Manning (World’s Classics)

Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography and Other Writings, ed. Silverman (Penguin)

Additional Texts:

Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence (1776)

Tom Paine, Common Sense (1776)

Susanna Rowson, Charlotte Temple (1794)

Secondary Reading:

Bercovitch, Sacvan, ed., The Cambridge History of American Literature, vol 1: 1590 – 1820 (1994)

Bush, Clive, The Dream of Reason: American Consciousness and Cultural Achievement from Independence to the Civil War (1977)

Davidson, Cathy, Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America (1986)

Ferguson, Robert, The American Enlightenment: 1750 - 1820 (1997)

Giles, Paul., Transatlantic Insurrections: British Culture and the Formation of American Literature, 1730 - 1869 (2001)

Gustafson, Thomas B., Representative Words: Politics, Literature, and the American Language 1776 – 1865 (1993)

Kramer, Michael P., Imagining Language in America (Princeton, 1992)

Manning, Susan, Fragments of Union (2001)

Simpson, David, The Politics of American English, 1776 – 1850 (1986)

Verhoeven, W.M., ed., Revolutions and Watersheds: Transatlantic Dialogues, 1775 - 18185 (1999)

Warner, Michael, The Letters of the Republic: Publication and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century America (1990)

Ziff, Larzar, Writing in the New Nation: Prose, Print, and Politics in the Early United States (1991)

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8 & 9 Frontier and Language in American Writing

Primary Texts:

James Fenimore Cooper, The Prairie (1827), ed. Ringe (World’s Classics)

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1855), ed. Cowley (Penguin)

Women’s Indian Captivity Narratives, ed. Derounian-Stodola (Penguin)

Frederick Jackson Turner, ‘The Significance of the Frontier in American History’ (1894)

Additional Texts:

Francis Parkman, The Oregon Trail (1849)

Mark Twain, Roughing It (1872), ed. Hill (Penguin)

Willa Cather O Pioneers! (1913), ed. Lindemann (World’s Classics)

Secondary Reading:

Bercovitch, Sacvan, ed. The Cambridge History of American Literature, vol 2: Prose Writing 1820 – 1865 (1995)

Bridgman, Richard, The Colloquial Style in America (1966)

Drinnon, Richard, Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building (1980)

Fender, Stephen, Plotting the Golden West (1981)

Fussell, Edwin, Frontier: American Literature and the American West (1965)

Goetzmann, William, Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West (1966)

Kolodny, Annette, The Land Before Her: Fantasy and Experience of the American Frontiers, 1630 – 1860 (1984)

Merk, Frederick, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History (1963)

The Oxford History of the American West (1994)

Pearce, Roy Harvey, Savagism and Civilization (1965)

Sheehan, Seeds of Extinction: Jeffersonian Philanthropy and the American Indian (1974)

Smith, Henry Nash, Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth (1950)

Ziff, Larzar, Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America (1981)

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10. Nation and Empire (Robert Irvine)

Literary Texts:

John Buchan, Prester John (1910)

Rudyard Kipling, Selected stories from Short Stories, vols 1 & 2, 1971.

E.M. Forster, Passage to India (1922)

Theory and Criticism:

Homi K. Bhabha (ed), Narration and Narration (London: Routledge, 1990)

Bill Ashcroft et al, The Empire writes back : theory and practice in post-colonial literatures (London : Routledge, 1989)

Graham Dawson, Soldier Heroes: British adventure, empire and the imagining of masculinities (London: Routledge, 1994)

Laura E. Donaldson, Decolonizing Feminisms : race, gender, & empire-building (London : Routledge, 1993)

Thomas Richards, The Imperial Archive : knowledge and the fantasy of Empire (London : Verso, 1993)

(3000 word essay due end of first week, Spring Term; to be marked and returned within two non-vacation weeks)

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Spring Term

‘Culture and Politics: Postcolonial Identities’

The meetings will take place on Friday, 9.30- 11.30am, Seminar Room, 2nd Floor, 18 Buccleuch Place

Course Tutors: Professor John Frow, Dr Suzanne Trill, Professor Colin Nicholson, Dr James Loxley, Mr Randall Stevenson

Race and Postcolonialism 1 - Professor Colin Nicholson

Race and Postcolonialism 2 - Professor Colin Nicholson

Readings:

Iain Crichton Smith : The Exiles (1984) or the selection included in Collected Poems, pp. 226-243

Alistair Macleod: Island (Collected Short Stories)

Margaret Atwood: Eating Fire (Collected Poems)

Feminism and Sexuality 1 - Dr Suzanne Trill

Week 3:

Readings:

Bell, Diane & Renate Klein. Eds. Radically Speaking: Feminism Reclaimed. London: Zed Books, 1996.

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism & the Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge, 1999 (1990).

hooks, bell. Feminist Theory: from margin to center. London: Pluto, 2000 (1984).

Laquer, Thomas. Making Sec: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge, Mass., & London, England: Harvard University Press,1990.

Parker, Andrew et al. Eds. Nationalisms & Sexualities. London: Routledge, 1992.

Segal, Lynne, Straight Sex: The Politics of Pleasure London: Virago, 1994.

Schor, Naomi & Elizabeth Weed, Eds. The essential difference Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994.

Spelman, Elizabeth V. Inessential Woman: Problems of exclusion in feminist thought. London: The Women’s Press, 1990.

Feminism and Sexuality 2 - Dr Suzanne Trill

Week 4:

Bell, Diane & Renate Klein. Eds. Radically Speaking: Feminism Reclaimed. London: Zed Books, 1996.

Bryson, Valerie. Feminist Debates: Issues of Theory and Political Practice. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999.

Duncan, Nancy. Ed. BodySpace. London & new York: Routledge, 1996.

Dworkin, Andrea. Intercourse. London: Arrow, 1987.

Medhurst, Andy & Sally R. Munt. Eds. Lesbian and Gay Studies: A Critical Introduction. London & Washington: Cassell, 1997.

Jeffreys, Sheila. The Idea of Prostitution. Australia: Pinifex, 1997.

Tucker, Naomi et al. Eds. Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries & Visions. New York & London: Harrington Park Press, 1995.

Ussher, Jane M. Fantasies of the Feminine: Reframing the Boundaries of Sex. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1997.

Genre 1 - Professor John Frow

Mikhail Bakhtin, 'The Problem of Speech Genres' in D.Duff (ed) Modern Genre Theory

Northrop Frye, Literature as Context: Milton's Lycidas in D.Duff (ed) Fables of Identity

Tzvetan Todorov, 'The Origins of Genres' in D.Duff (ed) Modern Genre Theory

Jacques Derrida, 'The Law of Genre' in D.Duff (ed) Modern Genre Theory

Genre 2 - Professor John Frow

Reading as for Genre 1

Power and Sovereignty 1 - Dr James Loxley

Power and Sovereignty 2 - Dr James Loxley

Postmodernism 1 - Mr Randall Stevenson

Postmodernism 2 - Mr Randall Stevenson

Readings

Brian Nicol, ed., Postmodernism and the Contemporary Novel: A Reader (Edinburgh: EUP, 2002), especially pp. 1-109.

Frederic Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (London: Verso, 1991), especially pp. ix-66 and 296-418.

Brian McHale, Postmodernist Fiction (London: Routledge, 1987), especially pp. 3-25.

Thomas Docherty, ed., Postmodernism: A Reader (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993), especially pp. 1-37.

Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1979; Manchester: MUP, 1986).

(3000 word essay due on the first day of Summer Term; to be marked and returned within two non-vacation weeks.)

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