LITERATURE AND THEORY IN THE U.S.A.

According to the Dublin descriptors, students, at the end of the course, will demonstrate:

Knowledge (contents)

Literary theory and criticism in the US (XX-XXI century).

Know-How (skills)

The practice of literary theory and criticism. Case study: a critical reading of the textual hoax (both literary and academic) in comparison with fake news in the age of  infodemic “post-truth”.

Learning to learn

Ability to learn while attending the course and actively studying; overall ability to communicate contents and acquired skills with clarity and autonomy of judgment.

Lectures, assignments, class discussion.

Module A

“Literary Hoaxes vs Fake News and Infodemic Post-Truth”

Four literary hoaxes between xix and xx century (Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Witter Bynner & Arthur Davison Ficke, Clifford Irving) against the rhetoric of fake news.

Module B

“ Theory and the challenge of Academic Hoaxes”

US Literary Theory meet the Sokal and the Boghossian / Pluckrose / Levin Hoaxes.

► Module A

1) Four literary hoaxes between xix and xx century

— Edgar Allan Poe, “The Balloon Hoax” (1844); “The Case of M. Valdemar” (1845).

https://www.eapoe.org/index.htm

— L. Walsh, “Poe’s Hoaxing and the Construction of Readerships”, in Sins Against Science. The Scientific Media Hoaxes of Poe, Twain, and Others, New York, State University of New York Press, 2006. pp. 51-119 (*)

— Mark Twain, “The Petrified Man” (1862); “A Bloody Massacre Near Carson” (1863); “A Touching Story of George Washington’s Boyhood” (1867); A Double-Barrelled Detective Story, cap. IV, “Incipit” (1901).

— L. Walsh, “Mark Twain and the Social Mechanics of Laughter”, in Sins Against Science, cit., pp. 121-171 (*)

— Emanuel Morgan and Anne Knisch [[Witter Bynner and Arthur Davison Ficke], Spectra. A Book of Poetic Experiments, New York, Mitchell Kennerley, 1916

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26918/26918-h/26918-h.htm

— W. J. Smith, “The Story”, in The Spectra Hoax, Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, 1961, pp. 3-70 (*)

— Clifford Irving,  Autobiography of Howard Hughes (New York, McGraw-Hill 1972) volume mandato al macero, nel .pdf fatto circolare dall’autore, 20062  (*)

— K. Young, “Spruce Goose”, in Bunk. The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists. Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News, Minneapolis, Gray Wolf, 2017, pp. 253-270 (*)

2) On hoax, fake news, post-facts, and infodemic

— B. McHale, “‘A Poet May Not Exist’: Mock-Hoaxes and the Construction of National Identity”, in The Faces of Anonymity: Anonymous and Pseudonymous Publication from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century, ed. by R. J. Griffin, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. 233-252 (*)

— M. Zimdars, “Introduction” to Fake News. Understanding Media and Misinformation in the Digital Age, ed. by M. Zimdars and K. McLeod, Cambridge (Mass.), The MIT Press, 2020, pp. 1-17. (*)

► Module B

1) Fifty Years of Literary Theory in the US (1970s-2020s)

— Jonathan Culler, Literary Theory. A Very Short Introduction, New York and London, Oxford University Press, 2011. pp. 1-146.

In alternativa :

— P. Barry, Beginning Theory. An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory, Manchester and New York, Manchester University Press, 2017.

2) A book for choice among the following (the original edition ar any translated version):

Roland Barthes, S/Z. Paris, Seuils, 1970; Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics New York, Routledge, 1975; Harold Bloom, Paul De Man, Jacques Derrida, Geoffrey Hartmann, J. Hillis Miller, Deconstruction and Criticism, New York, Seabury Press, 1979; Gérard Genette, Seuils, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1987; Terry Eagleton, The Ideology of Aesthetics, New York, Routledge, 1990; Shoshana Feldman, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History, New York, Routledge, 1992; Brian McHale, Postmodernist Fiction, New York, Routledge, 1996; Annamarie Jagose, Queer Theory; An Introduction, New York, New York University Press, 1996; Catherine Gallagher, Stephen Greenblatt, Practicing the New Historicism, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2000; Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, New York, Rootledge, 2005; Ellen Rooney (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Literary Theory, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2006; Greg Garrard, Ecocriticism, New York, Routledge, 2011; Joni Adamson, William A. Gleason, David N. Pellow, Keywords for Environmental Studies, New York, New York University Press, 2016.

3) The Sokal affaire

— Alain Sokal, “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics”, Social Text, 46/47, Spring/Summer 1996, pp. 217-252:

https://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html

—Peter Barry, “The Sokal Affair”, in Beginning Theory, cit., pp. 301-303 (*)

► Extras

On Fake News e Fact Checking

—Y. Hope, A. Swenson, and A. Seitz, “Trump’s claims of vote rigging are all wrong”, AP Fact Check, December 3, 2020:

https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-ap-fact-check-joe-biden-donald-trump-technology-49a24edd6d10888dbad61689c24b05a5

On Clifford Irving

Movies with and on / Interview to / Books by Clifford Irving

— C. Irving, Fake! The Story of Elmyr de Hory, the Greatest Art Forger of Our Time, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1969; The Hoax, New York, Permanent Press, 1981.

— K. Kipling, “Behind the Fake: An Interview with Author Clifford Irving”, Sarasota Magazine, May 30, 2014

https://www.sarasotamagazine.com/arts-and-entertainment/2014/05/behind-fake-interview-author-clifford-irving

— O. Welles, F For Fake! (1973)

— L. Hallström, The Hoax (2006).

On the Sokal affaire

— B. Robbins, A. Ross, “Editorial Response to Sokal’s Hoax by the Editors of Social Texts” https://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/SocialText_reply_LF.pdf

Online access to Sources

Within the limits of fair use, the texts referred to as (*) will be made available in .pdf on Studium.

Briefing Note on Copyright

Please remember that in compliance with art 171 L22.04.1941, n. 633 and its amendments, it is illegal to copy entire books or journals, only 15% of their content can be copied.

For further information on sanctions and regulations concerning photocopying please refer to the regulations on copyright (Linee Guida sulla Gestione dei Diritti d’Autore) provided by AIDRO - Associazione Italiana per i Diritti di Riproduzione delle opere dell’ingegno (the Italian Association on Copyright).

All the books listed in the programs can be consulted in the Library.

Assessment

Oral exam at the end of the course (see the oral exam schedule).

Evaluation

The following are evaluated, in order of importance: (a) skills (know-how); (b) specific knowledge about the topics of the course(knowledge) (c) the ability correctly build an argument: (d) effective presentation of knowledge (e) individual programs.

(a) Item (a) refers to choherence and consistency, quality of the evidence produced to support an argument; recognition nd use of the methodologies of contemporary literary criticism (theory and practice). Item (b) refers to specific knowledge about the correct placement and assessment of the texts (diachronic, diatopic, (inter)/(con)textual) and their status as hoaxes, fake news, post-facts. Item (c) refers to texts and their correct analytic and synthetic expository skills; adequacy of stylistic registers; lexical richness and appropriateness; linguistic cohesion. Item (d) refers to the criteria on the basis of which the individual study program was designed.

There follows a list of possible topics on which to reflect and discuss in the oral exam. Of course, what is listed below is intended as a model and not as an exhaustive list of the questions.

1) What are hoaxes and fake news

2) How do literary hoaxes work

3) Discuss the ohax perpetrated by X

4) What is Literary Theory

5) Discuss the book for choice in the light of lierary teory.