Ryan Kaveh Sheldon

Reading Literature
Please refer to each section for specific course descriptions.(Formerly ENAM 0103)

Introduction to Contemporary Literary Theory
In this course we will introduce several major schools of contemporary literary theory. By reading theoretical texts in close conjunction with works of literature, we will illuminate the ways in which these theoretical stances can produce multiple interpretations of a given literary work. The approaches covered may include New Criticism, Psychoanalysis, Marxism and Cultural Criticism, Race Theory and Multicultural Criticism, Feminism, Post-Colonial Criticism, Queer Studies, Eco-Criticism, Post-Structuralism, and others. These theories will be applied to various works of fiction, poetry, and drama. The goal will be to make students critically aware of the fundamental literary, cultural, political, and moral assumptions underlying every act of interpretation they perform. 3 hrs. lect/disc. (ENGL 0103 strongly recommended) (Formerly ENAM 0205)

Forms of Enlightenment: Long Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture (Pre-1800)
In this course, we will explore the development of literary genres, forms, and institutions in long eighteenth-century (1660-1830) Britain and its empire. We will track how writers in the period reimagined knowledge production, social organization, and politics in print. As we consider the key questions of the moment—the relationships between sensations, ideas, and truth; between reason, sympathy, and self-interest—we will attend carefully to the contradictions, exclusions, and omissions that structure Enlightenment thought, particularly with respect to questions of race and colonialism. Authors might include Aphra Behn, Henry Neville, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Sarah Scott, Adam Smith, Olaudah Equiano, Ignatius Sancho, Edmund Burke, and Phillis Wheatley Peters. 3 hrs. lect./disc. (Formerly ENAM 0225)

Literature and Economy: Credit, Speculation, Fiction
Beyond its engagements with the political economy of its day, Karl Marx’s Capital is rich with allusions to literary texts—among them Dante’s Inferno, Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. In this course we will explore the imaginative aspects of classical economic thought and the economically descriptive capacities of literature. We will track their common interests in concepts of belief, credibility, and abstraction by looking (primarily) at a period that witnessed the emergence of political economy and modern literary forms like the novel—the eighteenth century. Along the way, we will hazard answers to the following question: in an age of rampant inequality and financialization, what can we learn from representations of historical crises, bubbles, and class struggles? 3 hrs. sem

Revolt and Rebellion in Long Eighteenth Century Literature
The long eighteenth century is replete with uprisings, rebellions, and revolutions. In this course we will think about why the event of the revolt, especially in colonial contexts, proved intriguing for British writers and thinkers throughout the period. How did representing historical and imagined uprisings alike enable Britons to diagnose social and political problems? When and why does it become permissible to revolt? What makes a revolutionary subject? Authors include: John Milton, John Locke, Aphra Behn, Ottobah Cugoano, Helen Maria Williams, and Mary Shelley. Critical/theoretical interlocutors might include Laura Brown, Susan Buck-Morss, C.L.R. James, and Anthony Paul Farley. Pre-1800. (REC) 3 hrs. lect./disc. (Formerly ENAM 0433)

Literature and Class Struggle
In this course, we’ll investigate the representation of class struggle in a variety of cultural and historical contexts, ranging from eighteenth-century agrarian poetry to twentieth-century experimental film and the contemporary novel of climate crisis. Under what conditions, we’ll ask, do working-class projects of social transformation take shape? How can literature and film stimulate social consciousness or propel movements? How does cultural work reveal the interplay between class, gender, and race in liberation struggles? With the assistance of Marxist and feminist theory, we’ll offer answers to these questions by studying the work of authors and filmmakers including Muriel Rukeyser, Sembène Ousmane, Leslie Kaplan, Lana and Lily Wachowski, and Kim Stanley Robinson. 3 hrs. sem.