ENGL 302: Critical Practice (Reading Frankenstein)

ENGL 302_Reading Frankenstein_2024 Syllabus-3.docx

T/ Th. 9:30 – 11:20

THO 202

Prof. Jesse Oak Taylor

PDL A-408

Office Hours T/ Th. 1 – 2 (& by appointment)

jot8@uw.edu; 206-747-4818 (mobile)

Overview:

This course will offer an introduction to critical practice in the study of literature and culture. Our primary text will be Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818/1831), an iconic novel that has become part of the mythos of modernity. Throughout the term, we will take a variety of critical approaches to the novel, seeking to understand both the context in which it was written and its enduring influence in the present. Along the way, we will read critical work examining the novel from perspectives including the history of science, semiotics, feminism, postcolonial studies, ecocriticism, and more. 

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of the course, students should be able to:

• Develop an understanding of theoretical discourse sufficient to being able to read and utilize at least one relatively challenging piece of critical theory with intellectual comfort and understanding.
  
  
• Engage in critical writing and argumentation built upon theoretical discourse.
  
  
• Evaluate and respond to other critics’ interpretations.
  
  
• Engage in original research utilizing the libraries and other university resources.
  
  
• Utilize a range of sources in interpretive practice.  

Readings:

The 3rd Edition of the Norton Critical Edition of Frankenstein (edited by J. Paul Hunter) will be ordered to the UW Bookstore. You must have this edition because it includes a range of supplemental materials that we will be utilizing in class.  

Additional readings will be posted on the course Canvas site: please either print these readings or have them downloaded to a tablet or e-reader (not your phone!) so that you can consult them in class.

Grade Breakdown:

Participation: 20%

Weekly Essays: 15%

Short Essay 1: 15%

Short Essay 2: 15%

Final Project Proposal: 5%

Final Project Presentation: 5%

Final Project: 25%

Participation

A seminar is a collaborative enterprise. Please come to class prepared not merely to pose and answer questions from me, but to engage in frank, thoughtful, and respectful conversations with your fellow students. I expect you to do the reading and have something tangible and specific to say. We will also do in-class writing, which means that you will need to have a notebook and writing implement.

This is a discussion-based course. You will need to speak up in class, join group activities, share your writing, and engage in generous peer review with your classmates. You will also need to listen to others, and not dominate the discussion. I am committed to fostering a classroom environment in which any idea or perspective can be discussed, and in which all participants are respected. To that end, we will adhere to the English Department’s statement on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (posted below). If you feel excluded or marginalized by class discussions, please come talk with me about it.

Nothing generates discussion better than questions. If you are confused by something in the reading, aren’t sure what a word means (or who a theorist is), please ask! This is doubly important given that we are reading literary criticism, which can be pretty brain-bending stuff. I guarantee you that no one in the room (me included) fully understands everything in all these readings. We will rely on one another for guidance. To that end, a final stipulation: no name dropping. If you want to bring up a critic, theorist, or work of literature that isn’t on the syllabus please be prepared to explain it, such that the idea is available to the whole group.

Writing Assignments:

This is a writing intensive course, in which we will take the practice part of critical practice literally. With that in mind, you will have three kinds of writing assignments: 1) short weekly response papers, 2) two short essays in response to course readings, 3) a research project of your own design that engages with course themes.

Weekly Essays: Each week, you will write a short (1 page) reflection, to be posted to the Canvas site by the end of the day on Friday, in which you respond to some aspect of that week’s readings. There is no prompt or criteria for these responses, other than recording your initial impressions, thoughts, and ideas sparked by the reading. You are welcome to build on your weekly responses in your short essays and/or final project. Indeed, that is precisely the point!

As an alternative to the weekly essays, you may also keep a reading journal by hand and submit it for credit at the end of the term. However, if you want to do pursue this option you need to let me know by the end of week 2.

Weekly essays are *not* required in weeks when a longer essay is due, though you may submit them in “off” weeks to make up for a missed essay elsewhere.

Weekly essays are graded only on a complete/incomplete basis.

Short Essays: You will write two short essays responding to course readings. The first (2-3 pages) will ask you to respond to one of the “contemporary reviews” of Frankenstein based on your own initial reading of the novel. The second (3-4 pages) will ask you to place one of the works of theory we will be reading in Weeks 5 & 6 in dialogue with the novel, showing how the theory illuminates an aspect of Frankenstein and vice versa. More detail about each assignment will be provided.

Final Project: Your final project for the course will be a research project of your own design, consisting of a substantive (7-10 page) paper, in which you bring Frankenstein together with a theoretical framework of some kind and engage with existing criticism in some way. While you are welcome to use material from the syllabus, you will also need to do external research. There will be a good deal of latitude within these parameters, including the potential for “creative” projects (i.e., an illustrated edition; fanfiction; musical composition; costumes, etc.) accompanied by a methodology essay in which you detail your research process and the choices you made in completing it. In advance of the final due date, you will submit a project proposal and give a short in-class presentation about your research to the class during the last week. More details will be provided.  

Due Dates and Extensions:

Most written work is to be submitted on Canvas. The exceptions are essays for in-class peer review (for which you will need to bring hard copies to class) and reading journals for anyone who selects that option. If your final project takes a form that is difficult to upload, you can always submit photos or video documenting it – and, as with everything, you can come talk to me if you have challenges.

For graded essays, I will always grant extensions requested at least the day in advance. You do not need to give a reason. However, when you request an extension, please propose a new due date. I will hold you to the deadline you propose, deducting points if you miss it. Thus, make sure you think about the amount of time you actually need and plan accordingly. Please note: I will not accept weekly essays after Saturday of the week in which they are due.

Academic Integrity 

When quoting, paraphrasing, or referring to another writer’s words or ideas (including any you might find on the Internet), you must cite the source properly using MLA citation guidelines, which I will explain before the first essay assignment is due.  Don’t hesitate to ask me if you have questions about proper attribution.  I will hand over any plagiarized work to the Dean’s Committee on Academic Conduct, and plagiarism may result in a failing grade on the assignment or the course.  For further information on what constitutes plagiarism, see http://depts.washington.edu/grading/issue1/honesty.htm#misconduct.

AI Addendum: I expect you to do your own writing in this course. I will admit that I am skeptical about AI, especially in terms of its use in writing and education, in part for reasons that are articulated here (https://medium.com/bits-and-behavior/more-than-calculators-why-large-language-models-threaten-public-education-480dd5300939). The work of the humanities relies on forming your own judgements and interpretations and crafting your own sentences, no matter how painful the process. If you offload it onto the computer, there is no point in doing it. Thus, use of Chat GPT or other AI tools to produce writing for this class is prohibited, and will result in zero credit for the assignment.  Use of AI for *research* (i.e., gathering data) is discouraged for a different reason: it makes stuff up and its hallucinations will likely be difficult for you to spot. Thus, you may find yourself relying on a source that doesn’t actually exist, or analyzing a quote that isn’t in the actual novel.

That said, I also recognize the irony of prohibiting AI in a course centered on Frankenstein, a novel that troubles the category of the human on which my own skepticism relies. Thus, while use of AI is prohibited for most of the writing assignments in the course, exploring its status in relation to the novel will be one of the options for the final project, with more details to follow.

If you have questions or concerns about this policy, please feel free to speak with me.

Computers & Electronics

Tablets and e-readers will be permitted in class, provided they are used only to consult course readings. Laptops and cellphones will not. This policy is based on my experience of a meaningful difference between these devices. Laptops and cellphones are a distraction. This is especially true in a discussion-based course such as this one. Laptops create a wall between you and the person you are talking to, and display your screen to your neighbors, calling their attention. Phones not only display notifications and messages (even if silenced), but also create the impression (accurate or not) that you aren’t paying attention. While tablets also have some of these features, in my experience the effect is much less pronounced, while e-readers are essentially equivalent to paper. If this policy creates a hardship for you, please come talk to me. Please note: there are a couple of sessions during which laptops are allowed for specific activities, as listed in the schedule.

Disability Accommodations

I want this class to be inclusive for everyone. If you have a disability or any other issue that needs to be accommodated, please ask. The UW Office of Disability Resources (https://depts.washington.edu/uwdrs/) offers a number of services for students, and I will be happy to work with them. If you have a DRS accommodation, please let me know at the beginning of the term. In addition, there are circumstances arise that press upon your ability to participate in the course, please tell me.

Religious Accommodations

Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy. Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form.

Departmental Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

The UW English Department aims to help students become more incisive thinkers, effective communicators, and imaginative writers by acknowledging that language and its use are powerful and hold the potential to empower individuals and communities; to provide the means to engage in meaningful conversation and collaboration across differences and with those with whom we disagree; and to offer methods for exploring, understanding, problem solving, and responding to the many pressing collective issues we face in our world--skills that align with and support the University of Washington’s mission to educate “a diverse student body to become responsible global citizens and future leaders through a challenging learning environment informed by cutting-edge scholarship.”

As a department, we begin with the conviction that language and texts play crucial roles in the constitution of cultures and communities, past, present, and future.  Our disciplinary commitments to the study of language, literature, and culture require of us a willingness to engage openly and critically with questions of power and difference. As such, in our teaching, service, and scholarship we frequently initiate and encourage conversations about topics such as race, immigration, gender, sexuality, class, indigeneity, and colonialisms. These topics are fundamental to the inquiry we pursue.  We are proud of this fact, and we are committed to creating an environment in which our faculty and students can do so confidently and securely, knowing that they have the backing of the department.

Towards that aim, we value the inherent dignity and uniqueness of individuals and communities. We acknowledge that our university is located on the shared lands and waters of the Coast Salish peoples. We aspire to be a place where human rights are respected and where any of us can seek support. This includes people of all ethnicities, faiths, gender identities, national and indigenous origins, political views, and citizenship status; nontheists; LGBQTIA+; those with disabilities; veterans; and anyone who has been targeted, abused, or disenfranchised.

Schedule:

All readings are to be completed *before* the day on which they are assigned.

Most readings are in the Frankenstein: Norton Critical Edition, 3^rd Edition, and the page numbers refer to that volume. Please bring it to class with you every day! We will be referring to specific passages in the novel throughout the term.

Additional readings are posted on Canvas, or occasionally linked below. Please either print the readings or have them available on a tablet or e-reader. You need to have access to them in class.

Week 1:

Th. September 26: Introductions, or, WTF is “Critical Practice” anyway?

In-class writing using Barthes’s Mythologies schema

Week 2:

1. Oct 1: Shelley, Frankenstein vol. I (pp. 7-62)

Th. Oct 3: Shelley, Frankenstein vol. II (pp. 65-110)

Week 3:

1. Oct 8: Shelley, Frankenstein vol. III (pp. 113 – 168)

Th. Oct 10: Initial Critical Responses: (Norton pp. 303-304)

Week 4:

1. Oct 15: Shelley, “Introduction” to 1831 edition (pp. 217-222); James, “Changes between the 1818 and 1831 Editions of Frankenstein” (pp. 254-294)

In-class writing workshop / debate comparing differences.   

Th. Oct 17: Peer Review of First Essay (bring 2 copies to class)

Week 5:

First Essay Due Monday 10.21 on Canvas

1. Oct 22: Benjamin, “The Storyteller” (Canvas); Le Guin, “Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction” (Canvas)

Discussion: is Frankenstein a “story” or a “novel”?

Th. Oct 24: Barthes, “Myth Today” from Mythologies (Canvas, pp. 109-159)

In-class activity: mapping “myths” in Frankenstein

Week 6:

Oct 29: Williams, “Dominant, Residual, Emergent” (Canvas); Study OED entries for “Creature” and “Monster” (also ideally "Daemon" and "Being). (UW Library website)

In-class debate: “Creature” vs “Monster” [laptops allowed during this activity]

Th. Oct 31: Cohen, “Monster Culture: Seven Theses” (Canvas)

In-class activity: dissect “theses” in groups

Week 7:

1. Nov 5: Butler, Brantlinger, and Moers in Norton (pp. 439-470)

In-class activity: evaluate arguments, consider evidence

Th. Nov 7: London, Mellor, and Young in Norton (pp. 470-495)

In-class activity: (first half) evaluate arguments, consider evidence

Essay 2 Due Friday 11.8 on Canvas

Week 8:

Nov 12: Fairclough, Buell, Morton, Wood in Norton (pp. 497-546)

Discussion: what is “nature” in Frankenstein

Nov 14: Stryker, “My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix – Performing Transgender Rage” (Canvas); Latour, “Love Your Monsters”  

Discussion: repurposing “monster”

Week 9:

Nov 19: Library Day: Find one Article *and* One Library Book Relevant to Final Project Bring Laptops/devices today!

Th. Nov 21: Final Project Proposals Workshopped in Class (bring 2 hard copies to class)

Week 10:

1. Nov 26: Poor Things (Film) – watch before class! Heffernan, “Looking at the Monster: Frankenstein and Film” Norton (pp. 411-436)

Discussion: Is Poor Things a Frankenstein movie?

Final Project Proposals Due 11.26 

Th. Nov 28: Thanksgiving (No Class)

Week 11:

1. Dec 3: Final Project Presentations
   
   

Th. Dec 5: Final Project Presentations

Final Projects Due Friday the 13^th @ Midnight