Tom Foster
English 202A
Spring 2026
Introduction to English Language and Literature
This course will provide an introduction to a range of historical contexts that have defined literature as an object of analysis and organized literary study as an approach to that object. The first section of the course, "What is Literature? National Vernaculars, the Printed Book, and Modern Culture,” will consider what distinguishes literature from other forms of writing, and explore how our present understandings of literature and authorship are linked to the rise of capitalism and of nationalism, to the development of new print technologies, and to concepts of "civilization" and "humanity" forged in the contexts of modern imperial expansion and colonial rule. We will be especially concerned with the historical roles of literature and print culture more generally in defining the concepts of the modern individual, private or expressive subjectivity, and public life or citizenship. We will also be concerned with the relation of literature to the large social, political, and cultural changes referred to as “modernity,” while on the level of literary history we will focus on the transition to romanticism and historical alternatives to that definition of literature. In the second section of the course, "What is Literary Study? Theories of Reading, Writing, and Meaning," we will chart how the establishment of literary study within the modern university, especially the creation of English departments and curricula, has shaped the understanding and reception of literature. In this regard, we will consider some of the main approaches that have organized academic literary study, including New Criticism, reader response, deconstruction, and ideology critique. One of the key issues that will emerge in the course of these readings is the relation of literary studies to linguistic theory as well as the relation of the aesthetic functions of language to the social functions. In the third and final section of the course, "'Writable’ Texts and the Cultural Politics of Reading," we will build on the first two units of the class in order to develop a vantage on literature as a practice, rather than a product.
Required readings for the course will include Catherine Belsey, Critical Practice (2nd edition), a historical introduction to literary criticism; along with three novels: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (Penguin Classics Edition); William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying (Norton Critical Edition); and Nisi Shawl, Everfair. Shorter works, especially selections of poetry and critical essays will be available electronically, through the Canvas site for the course.
Assignments will include a midterm and a final exam, each of which will have consist of two parts, a short answer section and a short essay. Participation in the sections and informal writing assignments will make up the rest of the grade.
The format of the class will be a hybrid of online lectures, posted at the Pantopto Recordings link on the course Canvas site, and in-person discussion sections, at the times listed in the time schedule. The lectures therefore will be asynchronous.