History and Literature D. LaCapra

The course will focus on the problem of the relations between history and literature. Of particular interest will be the attempt to negotiate the relations between formal analysis and historical contextualization. Another key concern will be the types of critical theory most relevant to this attempt.

Note: Each student in this course is expected to abide by the Cornell University Code of Academic Integrity.

1. Joseph Conrad: HEART OF DARKNESS (2006 Norton Critical edition) (3

weeks: Text; Backgrounds and Contexts; Criticism)

2. Gustave Flaubert: MADAME BOVARY (2005 Norton Critical Edition (3

weeks: Text; Contexts; Critical Reception)

4. W. G. Sebald: RINGS OF SATURN

5. J. M. Coetzee: ELIZABETH COSTELLO

6. M. M. Bakhtin: “The Discourse of the Novel” in THE DIALOGIC

IMAGINATION

7. Presentations of plans for course papers

8. Ernst Bloch et. al.: AESTHETICS & POLITICS

Recommended:

Jonathan Culler: FLAUBERT: THE USES OF UNCERTAINTY

Dominick LaCapra: “MADAME BOVARY” ON TRIAL

Roland Barthes: WRITING DEGREE ZERO

Derek Attridge: J. M. COETZEE AND THE ETHICS OF READING

W. G. Sebald: AUSTERLITZ; RINGS OF SATURN

Lynne Sharon Schwartz (ed.): CONVERSATIONS WITH W. G. SEBALD

J. M. Coetzee: DISGRACE; DOUBLING THE POINT: ESSAYS AND

INTERVIEWS (1970-1991); INNER WORKINGS: LITERARY ESSAYS 2000-

2005 (esp. essay on Sebald)

Sven Lindqvist: "EXTERMINATE ALL THE BRUTES"

Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison: COLONISER. EXTERMINER

David Ellison: ETHICS AND AESTHETICS IN EUROPEAN MODERNIST

LITERATURE: FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE UNCANNY

Richard Terdiman: DISCOURSE/COUNTER-DISCOURSE: THE THEORY

AND PRACTICE OF SYMBOLIC RESISTANCE IN NINETEENTH-

CENTURY FRANCE

Peter Stallybrass & Allon White: THE POLITICS AND POETICS OF

TRANSGRESSION

Pierre Bourdieu: THE RULES OF ART (Flaubert)

F. W. J. Hemmings: Culture and Society in France1848-1898

Walter Benjamin: THE ORIGIN OF GERMAN TRAGIC DRAMA

Peter Novick: THAT NOBLE DREAM: THE "OBJECTIVITY QUESTION

AND THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL PROFESSION

Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr.: BEYOND THE GREAT STORY: HISTORY AS TEXT

AND DISCOURSE

Lynn Hunt (ed.): THE NEW CULTURAL HISTORY

Lynn Hunt and Victoria Bonnell (eds.): BEYOND THE CULTURAL TURN:

NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE STUDY OF SOCIETY AND CULTURE (Intro.

and chaps. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, Afterword)

Recommended: THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW 107 (2002), 1475-

1520 (discussion of BEYOND THE CULTURAL TURN by Ronald Grigor

Suny, Patrick Brantlinger, and Richard Handler)

Gerald Graff: PROFESSING LITERATURE: AN INSTITUTIONAL HISTORY;

LITERATURE AGAINST ITSELF

James Kloppenberg: "Objectivity and Historicism: A Century of American

Historical Writing," AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW 94: 1989, 1011-30

(on Novick)

David Harlan, "Intellectual History and the Return of Literature," David A.

Hollinger, "The Return of the Prodigal: The Persistence of Historical

Knowing," David Harlan, "Reply to David Hollinger," AMERICAN

HISTORICAL REVIEW 94: 1989, 581- 626

John Toews: "Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn: The Autonomy of

Meaning and the Irreducibility of Experience," AMERICAN HISTORICAL

REVIEW 92: 1987, 879-907

Philippe Carrard: POETICS OF THE NEW HISTORY: FRENCH HISTORICAL

DISCOURSE FROM BRAUDEL TO CHARTIER

Anna Green and Kathleen Troup (eds.): THE HOUSES OF HISTORY: A

CRITICAL READER IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY HISTORY AND THEORY

David Hoy: THE CRITICAL CIRCLE: LITERATURE, HISTORY, AND

PHILOSOPHICAL HERMENEUTICS

H. Stuart Hughes: CONSCIOUSNESS AND SOCIETY; THE OBSTRUCTED

PATH

Robert von Hallberg, ed., CANONS

Joseph Gibaldi, ed., INTRODUCTION TO SCHOLARSHIP IN MODERN

LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES

Bruce Robbins: SECULAR VOCATIONS: INTELLECTUALS,

PROFESSIONALISM, CULTURE

Mark Antliff: AVANT-GARDE FASCISM: THE MOBILIZATION OF MYTH, ART,

AND CULTURE IN FRANCE, 1909-1939

John Guillory: CULTURAL CAPITAL: THE PROBLEM OF CANON

FORMATIONS

Malcolm Bradbury and James McFarlane (eds.): MODERNISM

Michael A. North: THE DIALECT OF MODERNISM: RACE, LANGUAGE,

AND TWENTIETH-CENTURY LITERATURE

Theodor Adorno: NEGATIVE DIALECTICS; AESTHETIC THEORY

Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer: DIALECTIC OF ENLIGHTENMENT

M. H. Abrams: NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM: TRADITION AND

REVOLUTION IN ROMANTIC LITERATURE

Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy: THE LITERARY

ABSOLUTE: THE THEORY OF LITERATURE IN GERMAN

ROMANTICISM

Neil Hertz: THE END OF THE LINE

Carl Schmitt: POLITICAL ROMANTICISM

Jacques Derrida: GRAMMATOLOGY; MARGINS OF PHILOSOPHY; WRITING

AND DIFFERENCE; OF SPIRIT: HEIDEGGER AND THE QUESTION;

GLAS; SPURS; THE EAR OF THE OTHER; "Like the Sound of the Sea Deep

Within a Shell: Paul de Man's War" in Werner Hammacher et al., eds.,

RESPONSES: ON PAUL DE MAN'S WARTIME JOURNALISM;

POSITIONS; NEGOTIATIONS; THE ANIMAL THAT THEREFORE I AM

Paul de Man: BLINDNESS AND INSIGHT; ALLEGORIES OF READING; THE

RESISTANCE TO THEORY

Susan Handelman: SLAYERS OF MOSES

Jean-François Lyotard: THE POSTMODERN CONDITION: A REPORT ON

KNOWLEDGE; THE DIFFEREND; HEIDEGGER AND "THE JEWS"

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guatari: ANTI-OEDIPUS: SCHIZOPHRENIA AND

CAPITALISM ; A THOUSAND PLATEAUX; TOWARD A

MINOR LITERATURE

Michel Foucault: MADNESS AND CIVILIZATION; WORDS AND THINGS;

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE; DISCIPLINE AND

PUNISH; LANGUAGE, COUNTER-MEMORY, PRACTICE; THE HISTORY

OF SEXUALITY

Jacques Lacan: ECRITS; THE ETHICS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

Julia Kristeva: REVOLUTION IN POETIC LANGUAGE; POWERS OF HORROR:

AN ESSAY ON ABJECTION; BLACK SUN: DEPRESSON AND

MELANCHOLIA

Judith Butler: GENDER TROUBLE; BODIES THAT MATTER: ON THE

DISCURSIVE LIMITS OF "SEX"; THE PSYCHIC LIFE OF POWER

Judith Burler and Joan Scott (eds.): FEMINISTS THEORIZE THE POLITICAL

Ernesto Laclau & Chantal Mouffe: HEGEMONY & SOCIALIST STRATEGY:

TOWARDS A RADICAL DEMOCRATIC POLITICS (esp. Chap. 4)

Ernesto Laclau: NEW REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION OF OUR

TIME

Slavoj Zizek: THE SUBLIME OBJECT OF IDEOLOGY; ENJOY YOUR

SYMPTOM!; THE TICKLISH SUBJECT

Cathy Caruth: UNCLAIMED EXPERIENCE: TRAUMA, NARRATIVE, AND

HISTORY; Cathy Caruth (ed.): TRAUMA: EXPLORATIONS IN MEMORY

Linda Belau and Petar Ramadanovic (eds.): TOPOLOGIES OF TRAUMA:

ESSAYS ON THE LIMIT OF KNOWLEDGE AND MEMORY

Nicolas Abraham & Maria Torok: THE SHELL AND THE KERNEL

Terence Des Pres: THE SURVIVOR: AN ANATOMY OF LIFE IN THE

DEATH CAMPS

Françoise Lionnet: POSTCOLONIAL REPRESENTATIONS: WOMEN,

LITERATURE, IDENTITY ( esp. Intro., chaps. 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, Concl.)

Robert Young: WHITE MYTHOLOGIES: WRITING HISTORY AND THE

WEST

Barbara Taylor: EVE AND THE NEW JERUSALEM: SOCIALISM AND

FEMINISM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Carlo Ginzburg: THE CHEESE AND THE WORMS

Hans Kellner: LANGUAGE AND HISTORICAL REPRESENTATION: GETTING

THE STORY CROOKED

Hayden White: METAHISTORY; TROPICS OF DISCOURSE; THE CONTENT

OF THE FORM; FIGURAL REALISM

Dominick LaCapra: RETHINKING INTELLECTUAL HISTORY: TEXTS,

CONTEXTS, LANGUAGE; HISTORY & CRITICISM; HISTORY, POLITICS,

AND THE NOVEL; SOUNDINGS IN CRITICAL THEORY; REPRESENTING

THE HOLOCAUST; HISTORY AND MEMORY AFTER AUSCHWITZ;

WRITING HISTORY, WRITING TRAUMA; HISTORY IN TRANSIT:

EXPERIENCE, IDENTITY, CRITICAL THEORY; HISTORY AND ITS LIMITS:

HUMAN, ANIMAL, VIOLENCE

DomInick LaCapra and Steven L. Kaplan: MODERN EUROPEAN

INTELLECTUAL HISTORY: REAPPRAISALS & NEW PERSPECTIVES

Brook Thomas: THE NEW HISTORICISM AND OTHER OLD-FASHIONED

TOPICS

H. Aram Veeser (ed.): THE NEW HISTORICISM

François Dosse: LA MARCHE DES IDEES; HISTOIRE DES INTELLECTUELS -

HISTOIRE INTELLECTUELLE

Eric L. Santner: STRANDED OBJECTS: MOURNING, MEMORY, AND FILM

IN POSTWAR GERMANY; MY OWN PRIVATE GERMANY

Carolyn Dean: PLEASURES OF THE SELF: BATAILLE, LACAN, AND THE

HISTORY OF THE DECENTERED SUBJECT

Michel de Certeau: THE PRACTICE OF EVERYDAY LIFE; THE POSSESSION

AT LOUDUN; THE WRITING OF HISTORY

Joan Scott: GENDER AND THE POLITICS OF HISTORY

Saul Friedlander, ed., PROBING THE LIMITS OF REPRESENTATION: NAZISM

AND THE "FINAL SOLUTION"; NAZI GERMANY AND THE JEWS

Paul Gilroy: THE BLACK ATLANTIC: MODERNITY AND DOUBLE

CONSCIOUSNESS

Mary Louise Pratt: IMPERIAL EYES: TRAVEL WRITING AND

TRANSCULTURATION

Joan Dayan: HAITI, HISTORY, AND THE GODS

Steven Connor: POSTMODERNIST CULTURE: AN INTRODUCTION TO

THEORIES OF THE CONTEMPORARY (esp. chaps. 1, 2, 4, 8, 9)

Peter Dews: THE LIMITS OF DISENCHANTMENT (esp. chaps. 1-8); (ed.): LOGICS OF DISINTEGRATION; HABERMAS: AUTONOMY &

SOLIDARITY

Steven Best and Douglas Kellner: POSTMODERN THEORY

Jürgen Habermas: PHILOSOPHICAL DISCOURSE OF MODERNITY; THE NEW

CONSERVATISM: CULTURAL CRITICISM AND THE HISTORIANS'

DEBATE

Nancy Fraser: UNRULY PRACTICES: POWER, DISCOURSE AND

GENDER IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL THEORY

Edward Said: ORIENTALISM; THE WORLD, THE TEXT, AND THE CRITIC

David Hollinger: IN THE AMERICAN PROVINCE: STUDIES IN THE HISTORY

AND HISTORIOGRAPHY OF IDEAS

Martin Jay: THE DIALECTICAL IMAGINATION; FIN-DE-SIECLE SOCIALISM

AND OTHER ESSAYS; FORCE FIELDS; REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE

Mark Poster: EXISTENTIAL MARXISM IN POSTWAR FRANCE

Cornel West: THE AMERICAN EVASION OF PHILOSOPHY

Frank Lentricchia: AFTER THE NEW CRITICISM

Bryan D. Palmer: DESCENT INTO DISCOURSE: THE REIFICATION OF

LANGUAGE AND THE WRITING OF SOCIAL HISTORY

Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob: TELLING THE TRUTH

ABOUT HISTORY

Reinhart Koselleck: THE PRACTICE OF CONCEPTUAL HISTORY: TIMING

HISTORY, SPACING CONCEPTS

Andreas Huyssen: AFTER THE GREAT DIVIDE: MODERNISM, MASS

CULTURE, POSTMODERNISM

Klaus Theweleit: MALE FANTASIES

Michael Rothberg: TRAUMATIC REALISM: THE DEMANDS OF HOLOCAUST

REPRESENTATION

Neil Levi and Michael Rothberg: THE HOLOCAUST: THEORETICAL

READING

Paul Eisenstein: TRAUMATIC ENCOUNTERS: HOLOCAUST

REPRESENTATION AND THE HEGELIAN SUBJECT

Elizabeth J, Bellamy: AFFECTIVE GENEALOGIES: PSYCHOANALYSIS,

POSTMODERNISM, AND THE "JEWISH QUESTION" AFTER AUSCHWITZ

James Berger: AFTER THE END: REPRESENTATIONS OF POST-

APOCALYPSE

Gianni Vattimo: THE END OF MODERNITY

Fredric Jameson: THE POLITICAL UNCONSCIOUS; THEORIES OF IDEOLOGY

E. Ann Kaplan: TRAUMA CULTURE; (ed). POSTMODERNISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS

Linda Hutcheon: THE POLITICS OF POSTMODERNISM; THE POETICS OF

POSTMODERNISM

Hal Foster (ed.): THE ANTI-AESTHETIC; ESSAYS ON POSTMODERN

CULTURE

Peter Bürger: THEORY OF THE AVANT-GARDE

Renato Poggioli: THE THEORY OF THE AVANT-GARDE

David Harvey: THE CONDITION OF POSTMODERNITY

Russell A. Berman: MODERN CULTURE AND CRITICAL THEORY: ART,

POLITICS, AND THE LEGACY OF THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL

Brian McHale: POSTMODERNIST FICTION

Brian Wallis (ed.): ART AFTER MODERNISM

Christopher Norris: WHAT'S WRONG WITH POSTMODERNISM

Brian Fay et al. (eds.): HISTORY AND THEORY: CONTEMPORARY READINGS

Keith Jenkins: ON "WHAT IS HISTORY?" FROM CARR AND ELTON TO

RORTY AND WHITE; (ed.): THE POSTMODERN HISTORY READER

Some Relevant Journals: CRITICAL INQUIRY. DIACRITICS, TWENTIETH-

CENTURY LITERATURE, NEW LITERARY HISTORY, HISTORY

AND THEORY, RETHINKING HISTORY, CLIO, THE JOURNAL OF THE

HISTORY OF IDEAS, HISTORY AND MEMORY