Studies in Literary Theory

We might also call the seminar “What Is Discourse? What Isn’t Discourse?”  We’ll look at three different critical currents in which discourse is a key concept:  Bakhtin and Volosinov; Foucault and Deleuze and Guattari; and then some American sociolinguistic thinkers (Goffman, Silverstein, Urban).  We’ll be interested in getting to know the set of concepts to which discourse has been related (ideology, voice, text, for instance), and in detailing the kinds of relations exist between these concepts, and we’ll be interested in what kinds of concepts people occasionally find they need to use to supplement discourse  in order to perform the analyses that they are pursuing.  As an accompaniment to our study of these theorists, we will read a series of French novels from the 1960s and 1970s (by Nathalie Sarraute and Robert Pinget).  The novels we’ll be reading themselves seem primarily to be about discourse – as if these two novelists  set themselves the goal of using a practice of novel-writing as a way of theorizing various aspects of discursivity.  With a bit of luck, we’ll be able to set up a good critical dialogue between the literary and the theoretical texts.

Seminar participants can read along in English or in French. All of the novels we’ll be reading are available in English translation.  Note, however, that the translations of the novels by Nathalie Sarraute are mostly out of print.  People planning to read along in English should look into obtaining used copies.  www.abebooks.com or www.barnesandnoble.com are excellent resources for this, along with www.amazon.com.

Reading List:

V.N. Volosinov, Marxism and the Philosophy of Language . Harvard UP.

M.M Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination. U of Texas.

M. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge. Pantheon.

M. Foucault, L’archéologie du savoir. Gallimard.

Nathalie Sarraute, Les fruits d’or. Gallimard.

The Golden Fruits. (Out of print.)

Nathalie Sarraute. Vous les entendez. Gallimard.

Do You Hear Them? Dalkey Archive.

Nathalie Sarraute. Disent les imbéciles. Gallimard.

Fools Say. (Out of print.)

Nathalie Sarraute.  L’usage de la parole. Gallimard.

The Use of Speech.  (Out of print.)

Robert Pinget, L’inquisitoire. Minuit.

The Inquisitory. Dalkey Archive Press.

Robert Pinget, Quelqu’un. Minuit.

Someone.  Red Dust.

Robert Pinget. Le Libera. Minuit.

The Libera Me Domine. Red Dust.