Literary Theory (Theory)

Paper Code: 
25DENG811
Credits: 
6
Periods/week: 
6
Max. Marks: 
100
Objective: 

The Course will enable the students to develop an enhanced ability to read, contextualize, and compare primary material by different literary theorists, recognise the principles of literary theory in the shaping of literature and acquire skills for the textual application of such theories.

 

Course Outcomes: 

The students will:

CO108. Explore   the  history  of  selected  literary theories 

CO109. Examine the significance of, and demonstrate the critical thinking skills required for, the application of  theories to literary texts

CO110. Develop application-based knowledge of key ideas and debates in modern literary theories

CO111.  Appraise the theories for their contemporary relevance

CO112. Problematize a text by gaining an insight into its theoretical underpinnings 

CO113.Contribute effectively in course-specific interaction.

20.00
Unit I: 

Feminism

Virginia Woolf

A Room of One’s Own

Chapter 1

 

Judith Butler

“Performative Acts and Gender Construction: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory

 
18.00
Unit II: 

Postcolonial Studies

Mahatma Gandhi, ‘Passive Resistance and Education’ from Hind Swaraj

Frantz Fanon, ‘Foreword’ to Black Skin, White Masks

16.00
Unit III: 

 Psychoanalysis

(pp. 63-73 from Pramod K. Nayar)

 
20.00
Unit IV: 

Cultural Studies

“Introduction.” The Cultural Studies Reader. (pp1-25)

 

Stuart Hall

Encoding/Decoding , in NilanjanaGupta .ed. Cultural Studies I.

 

Raymond Williams

Culture is Ordinary, in The Everyday Life Reader

16.00
Unit V: 

Ecocriticism

(pp. 241- 46, 249-54 from Pramod K. Nayar)

 
SUGGESTED READINGS: 

Suggested Reference Books:

 

Ahmad, Aijaz. In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures. Verso, 1992, pp. 243-285.  

Buell, Lawrence. The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture. Harvard UP, 1995.  

Butler, Judith. "Performative Acts and Gender Construction: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory." Theatre Journal, vol. 40, no. 4, 1988, pp. 519-531.  

During, Simon, editor. The Cultural Studies Reader. 3rd ed., Routledge, 2007, pp. 1-25.  

Freud, Sigmund. The Uncanny. Translated by David McLintock, Penguin Classics, 2003.  

Gandhi, Mahatma. Hind Swaraj and Other Writings. Edited by Anthony J. Parel, Cambridge UP, 1997, pp. 88-106.  

Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Edited and translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, International Publishers, 1971.  

Hall, Stuart. "Encoding/Decoding." Cultural Studies I, edited by Nilanjana Gupta, Oxford UP, 2003.  

Hoggart, Richard. The Uses of Literacy. Penguin Books, 1957.  

Lacan, Jacques. "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function." Écrits: A Selection, translated by Alan Sheridan, W.W. Norton & Co., 1977, pp. 1-7.  

Nayar, Pramod K. Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory: From Structuralism to Ecocriticism. Pearson, 2010, pp. 63-73.  

Ecocriticism: Big Ideas and Practical Strategies. Routledge, forthcoming.  

 

Said, Edward. Orientalism. Pantheon Books, 1978.  

Williams, Raymond. "Culture is Ordinary." The Everyday Life Reader, edited by Ben Highmore, Routledge, 2002, pp. 91-100.  

Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. Harcourt, 1929.  

 

E-Resources including links: https://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/courses/literary-theory-an-introduction-online  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA3bMh9T4q4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPvzYZz5X7U

 

Reference Journal:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-journal-of-postcolonial-literary-inquiry  https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/17458315

https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ics

 

Academic Year: 
2025-2026