Please contact instructor for course description.

The Cinema of Martin Scorsese: Essayist of the Darker Psyche

From the psychotic Vietnam Vet in Taxi Driver to the narcissistic mafiosi of Goodfellas to the delusional schizophrenic character of Shutter Island, Scorsese emerges as a manifest social critic/documentarist, and as a therapist with a camera, –and an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of cinema —who dares struggle with the dark side of the psyche.

This course will examine contemporary conversations in queer theory around ideas of history, community, and memory. We will be looking at a variety of literary texts from the 20th century to explore how the literary has offered a lens through which categories of identity (such as sexuality, race, and gender) are established and contested. We will also be thinking about the impulse to claim historical figures and texts as "queer," delving into what the archives we choose tell us about the contours of identity today.

Encountering the Archive in Theory and Practice - This seminar will explore the role of the archive in literature and literary scholarship through a variety of approaches, including that of critical archive studies, memory studies and the exploration of archives as a source for creative work. Central to our discussions will be a case study concerning the 2022 archival “discovery” of new documents about the “raptus” of Cecily Champaigne by medieval poet Geoffrey Chaucer, sometimes called the “father of English poetry.” The conversations and controversy surrounding this recent revelation will serve as an opportunity to examine the role of the archive in shaping literary history and literary historical methodologies. While informed by a range of theoretical perspectives, the course will also have a strong focus on praxis. We will coordinate with UCSD Special Collections to learn of opportunities for archival work on our campus, in the UC system, our local area and beyond. The course will also draw on the expertise of Literature faculty who will share what they have learned from their own encounters with the archives. Course assignments will include practical preparation for utilizing archives for scholarly and creative work and for securing funding to visit archives.

LTEN 272

LTTH 210B Introduction to Literary Theory

How Literature Works

Winter 2025
2-4:50pm

Instructor: Jody Blanco
RWAC 0365 (Arts and Humanities Building)


(Illustration: Remedios Varo, Premonition [1953])

In Part I of their magnum opus Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari identify a connective synthesis as the basis of desiring-production: the emission of a flow and its interruption, diversion, channeling, conduction. A melody, a daisy chain, a conga line, lights on (or off), a word in cursive lettering. The point of this vocabulary, they argue, is to refocus our attention from what things mean to how things work. Following this line of thinking, our study of literary theory will revolve around the concept of literature as a connective synthesis – the organization and problematization of knowledge and the relation between different kinds of knowledge (anthropology, sociology, religion, the law, ideology), analytical categories (gender, race, nation, language, etc.), and historical frames (secularism / secularization, modernity, coloniality, post-colonialism, postmodernity, globalization). Each week will focus on a different connection (literature and the written word, literature and colonial rule, literature and the aesthetic, etc.), even as we try to thread the needle back into the week(s) prior as part of the conversation. Along the way, we will study not only how writers, intellectuals, and advocates of various kinds conceived of literature as a subject, object, project (literature as a ball) but also how we conceive and “use” literature in our societies and as an academic discipline.

Requirements include: weekly attendance and participation, readings, 8 short reflections (~800 words), one oral presentation introducing the theme of the week, a final project tailored to the dominant interest of the student in literature, literary studies, or the literary arts.