Critical Theory

Paper Code: 
ENG 143

Unit I

  • “ The New Criticism”  (from Patricia Waugh, pp. 166-76)
  • Excerpts from J.C. Ransom’s essay “Criticism, Inc.”

 

Unit II

  • Deconstruction: Jacques Derrida     

Extract from “Derrida, Deconstruction and Literary Interpretation”  (from lib. kshs.kh.edu.tw/lib/journals/journals-   94/P145.pdf)

  • Roland Barthes  (from M.A.R. Habib, pp. 72-76.
  • Excerpt from J. Derrida’s Essay : “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourses of the Human Sciences” (from Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass  pp.6-7)     

 

Unit III

  • “Feminisms” (from Pramod K. Nayar, pp.82-90 & 94-108)
  • Excerpt from Elaine Showalter’s A Literature of Their Own (from Rice & Waugh, pp.100-02)
  •  “A People without a History?” (from Jasbir Jain, pp. 1-10 & 23)

 

Unit IV

  • Psychoanalytic Criticism (fromPramod K. Nayar, pp. 63-73 &75-78)
  • Excerpt from Sigmund Freud’s Section V: “The Material and Sources of Dreams” ( from Interpretation of Dreams, pp. 201-04)

 

Unit V

  •   Postcolonial Theory (from Pramod K. Nayar, pp. 153-72 and 175-78)
  • Excerpt fromEdward W. Said “Section II “Introduction” (from Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient, pp. 4-9)  
  • Imaginary Homelands (from Imaginary Homelands: Essays in  Criticism)

 

Source Books: 

      Essential Reading:

 

Derrida, Jacques. Writing & Difference. Trans. Alan Bass. Routledge, 1978.

Freud ,Sigmund.Interpretation of Dreams.1900.

Habib, M.A.R. Modern Literary Criticism and Theory: A History. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell. 2008.

Jain, Jasbir. Indigenous Roots of Feminism: Culture, Subjectivity and Agency. Sage, 2011.

Nayar, Pramod K. Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory: From Structuralism to Ecocriticism. Pearson, 2010.

Ransom, John Crowe. The World’s Body. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965.

 Rice, Philip and Patricia Waugh. Ed. Modern Literary Theory. Hodder Education, 1993.

 

Rushdie, Salman .Imaginary Homelands: Essays in Criticism 1981-1991.Granta Books, 1992.

Said,Edward. Orientalism; Western Conceptions of the Orient .Penguin.1978.

Waugh, Patricia.  Literary Theory and Criticism. OUP, 2006.

 

SUGGESTED READINGS: 

    Suggested Reading:

       

Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths & Helen Tiffin. Eds. The Empire Writes Back. Routledge, 2002. 

 

Childs, Peter. Modernism: A New Critical Idiom. Routledge, 2007.

 

Das, Bijoy Kumar. TwentiethCentury Literary Criticism. Atlantic, 2004.

 

Nagarajan, M.S. English Literary Criticism and Theory: An   Introductory  History. Orient Longman, 2006.

 

Rice, Philip and Patricia Waugh. Ed. Modern Literary Theory. Hodder Education, 1993.

 

Selden, Raman and Peter Widdowson. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. Longman, 1963.

 

Seturaman, V.S. Ed. Contemporary Criticism. Macmillan, 1989.

 

Academic Year: 
2020-2021