This course is a thematic introduction to poetry. For our first three units – on Love, Loss, and Humanity – we will read chronological selections of poetry from some of the greatest and most exciting poets in the English language. The fourth unit focuses on a volume of contemporary poetry by Michael Robbins, a talented and provocative young American poet.
Evan Gottlieb
Associate Professor of English
Oregon State University
Moreland 326
2550 SW Jefferson Way
Corvallis,
OR
97331 USA
Tel:
541-737-1654
Email contact form
Credentials
- Ph. D. SUNY Buffalo 2002
- M.A. SUNY Buffalo 2000
- B.A. McMaster University (Canada) 1997
Research
Evan Gottlieb specializes in British Romanticism and literary theory. He holds the MA and PhD from University at Buffalo, SUNY, and the BA from McMaster University, Canada. He is the author of three books -- Romantic Globalism: British Literature and Modern World Order, 1750-1830 (Ohio State University Press, forthcoming), Walter Scott and Contemporary Theory (Bloomsbury, 2013), and Feeling British: Sympathy and National Identity in Scottish and English Writing, 1707-1832 (Bucknell University Press, 2007) -- and co-editor of two more: Representing Place in British Literature and Culture, 1660-1830: From Local to Global (Ashgate, 2013) and Approaches to Teaching Scott’s Waverley Novels (MLA, 2010). He is currently working on two new books: Romantic Realities: British Romanticism and Speculative Realism (under contract with Edinburgh University Press), and a new Critical Edition of Tobias Smollett’s eighteenth-century comic novel, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (under contract with WW Norton). As well as teaching courses on British writing of “the long eighteenth century” (i.e. 1660-1830), Gottlieb regularly teaches classes on literary criticism and theory. He also writes about literature for the Huffington Post, where his blog archive is http://www.huffingtonpost.com/evan-gottlieb/.
For Professor Gottlieb's CV and more, click here.
Course Information
Available Spring Term
True: many of the biggest names in literary and critical theory from the second half of the twentieth century – including Derrida, Foucault, Baudrillard, Lacan, and Deleuze – are no longer alive. Also true: their so-called High Theory has been so thoroughly absorbed into the mainstream of literary and cultural studies that it is no longer particularly shocking or even controversial. False: as a result, theory is now dead or – perhaps worse – irrelevant. This seminar’s contention is that we are not in an era of post-theory, but rather in an era of “post-linguistic turn theory.” In other words, many of the new (or newly popular) theorists gaining attention both in and out of academia have moved beyond their predecessors’ overwhelming concerns with the discursive construction of society and subjectivity, and are forging new frameworks and methodologies to engage with the pressing issues of our times. In three main units on what are arguably the central themes of contemporary theory – the Subject, Politics, and Truth – plus a supplementary unit on entitled “After Anthropocentrism,” we will read some of the newest short(ish) texts by a number of theorists – including Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler, Gayatri Spivak, Peter Sloterdijk, and Graham Harman – who show every promise of being as important to the first half of the twenty-first century as Derrida, Foucault & co. were to the last half of the twentieth.
Given the challenging nature of the readings, there will be no exams in this course. Instead, in addition to regular attendance and active engagement in class discussion, the following grade schemes will pertain: for 475 students, a series of 2-3 pp. response papers, plus an annotated bibliography of recent reviews/ critiques of one of the course’s main theorists, and a 7-10 pp. term paper; for 575 students, the annotated bibliography, a 45 min. presentation/ class discussion leadership session; and either a series of 4-5 pp. response papers or a 12-15 pp. term paper.
Although it is not a specific prerequisite, 475 students are encouraged to have taken ENG 345 prior to taking this course.
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