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ENGL 423: Advanced Literary Theory (Rev. 7) Report a Broken Link

English 423 investigates the power of reading practices to challenge conventional perspectives and offer new ways of understanding the world around us. It examines key authors, primary texts, and movements in literary theory from the early twentieth century to the present.

Resources

Project Gutenberg
Poetry Foundation
Gowans, Adam L., editor. Classic Short Stories. Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2008. https://0-ebookcentral-proquest-com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/lib/athabasca-ebooks/reader.action?docID=3022222&ppg=6&c=UERG
Chamberlain, Pam, and Adien Dubbelboer. Read, Think, Write: Writing in University. Athabasca University Press, 2023, read.aupress.ca/projects/read-think-write.
Shakespeare, William. King Lear. ca. 1605. Ed. Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston, and Rebecca Niles. Folger Shakespeare Library, 19 Sep. 2025, https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/king-lear/read/.

Unit 1: Russian Formalism, New Criticism, and Poetics

Learning Activities
Melville, Herman. "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street." Project Gutenberg, 2024 (originally published 1853), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11231.
Poe, Edgar Allan. "Alone." Undated manuscript (ca. 1829). Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46477/alone-56d2265f2667d. 
Supplementary Material
Fry, Paul H. "Lecture 5 - The Idea of Autonomous Artwork." English 300: Introduction to Theory of Literature, Open Yale Courses, Yale University, https://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-300/lecture-5. Accessed 22 Jan. 2025.
Fry, Paul H. "Lecture 6 - The New Criticism and Other Western Formalisms." English 300: Introduction to Theory of Literature, Open Yale Courses, Yale University, https://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-300/lecture-6. Accessed 22 Jan. 2025.
Fry, Paul H. "Lecture 7 - Russian Formalism." English 300: Introduction to Theory of Literature, Open Yale Courses, Yale University, https://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-300/lecture-7. Accessed 22 Jan. 2025.
“The Defamiliarization Technique that Broke Literature Wide Open.” YouTube, uploaded by LitGram, 14 Oct. 2024, www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEGXgEYNnYM.
“Literary Talks: New Criticism Theory.” Literary Critical Theory, Spotify, open.spotify.com/show/0q5RTSpG2qSl1rrjezRYGP.

Unit 2: Structuralism, Linguistics, and Narratology

Supplementary Material
Fry, Paul H. "Lecture 8 - Semiotics and Structuralism." English 300: Introduction to Theory of Literature, Open Yale Courses, Yale University, https://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-300/lecture-8. Accessed 27 January 2026.
Fry, Paul H. "Lecture 9 - Linguistics and Literature." English 300: Introduction to Theory of Literature, Open Yale Courses, Yale University, https://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-300/lecture-9. Accessed 27 January 2026.

Unit 4: Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Theory

Assigned Reading
Lacan, Jacques. "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience." Écrits: A Selection, translated by Alan Sheridan, Taylor & Francis, 2012, pp. 1–8.
Supplementary Material
Fry, Paul H. "Lecture 12 - Freud and Fiction." English 300: Introduction to Theory of Literature, Open Yale Courses, Yale University, https://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-300/lecture-12. Accessed 22 Jan. 2025.
Fry, Paul H. "Lecture 13 - Jacques Lacan in Theory." English 300: Introduction to Theory of Literature, Open Yale Courses, Yale University, https://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-300/lecture-13. Accessed 22 Jan. 2025.
“Jacques Lacan - The Mirror Stage.” YouTube, uploaded by Then & Now, 22 Sep 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=agTYUU4gTOo.
“Psychotherapy - Sigmund Freud.” YouTube, uploaded by The School of Life, Nov 28, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQaqXK7z9LM.

Unit 5: Marxism, Critical Theory, and History

Supplementary Material
Fry, Paul H. "Lecture 19 - The New Historicism." English 300: Introduction to Theory of Literature, Open Yale Courses, Yale University, https://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-300/lecture-19. Accessed 22 Jan. 2025.

Unit 6: Gender Studies and Queer Theory

Supplementary Material
Fry, Paul H. "Lecture 23 - Queer Theory and Gender Performativity." English 300: Introduction to Theory of Literature, Open Yale Courses, Yale University, https://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-300/lecture-23. Accessed 22 Jan. 2025.
Butler, Judith. "Judith Butler: Your Behavior Creates Your Gender | Big Think.” YouTube, uploaded by Big Think, 6 June 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo7o2LYATDc.

Unit 7: Post-Colonial and Transnational Studies

Supplementary Material
Fry, Paul H. "Lecture 22 - Post-Colonial Criticism." English 300: Introduction to Theory of Literature, Open Yale Courses, Yale University, https://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-300/lecture-22. Accessed 22 Jan. 2025.
“Edward Said interview (1998).” YouTube, uploaded by Manufacturing Intellect, 30 July 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPqDnWn8uYM.
“Gayatri Spivak’s ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’” YouTube, uploaded by Theory & Philosophy, 8 Aug. 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnRs3nVAUH0.
“Gayatri Spivak: The Trajectory of the Subaltern in My Work.” YouTube, uploaded by University of California Television (UCTV), 8 Feb. 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZHH4ALRFHw.

Unit 8: Indigenous Studies

Assigned Reading
Gregory Younging. "A History of the Portrayal of Indigenous Peoples in Literature." Elements of Indigenous Style : A Guide for Writing By and About Indigenous Peoples. Brush Education, 2018, pp. 7–16. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=05bd91d3-41d2-3ebf-bbad-4f980f8b1bb5.
Justice, Daniel Heath. "How Do We Learn to Be Human?" Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2018, pp. 44–74. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://0-ebookcentral-proquest-com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/lib/athabasca-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5317922.
Justice, Daniel Heath. "How Do We Learn to Live Together?" Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2018, pp. 144–163. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://0-ebookcentral-proquest-com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/lib/athabasca-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5317922.
Theory in Practice
Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. 1610. Ed. Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston, and Rebecca Niles. Folger Shakespeare Library, 27 Feb. 2026, https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/the-tempest/read/.
Byrd, Jodi A. “‘This Island’s Mine’: The Parallax Logics of Caliban’s Cacophony.” The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism, University of Minnesota Press, 2011, pp. 39–76. 
Learning Activities
Vowel, Chelsea. Buffalo Is the New Buffalo: Stories. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022.
Further Reading
Kamboureli, Smaro, and Christl Verduyn, editors. Critical Collaborations: Indigeneity, Diaspora, and Ecology in Canadian Literary Studies. Wilfrid Laurier Press, 2014.  
Reder, Deanna, and Linda M. Morra, editors. Learn, Teach, Challenge: Approaching Indigenous Literatures. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2016. 

Unit 10: Animals, Humans, Places, and Things

Miravete, Gabriela Damián. "They Will Dream in the Garden." Translated by Adrian Demopulos, Latin American Literature Today, iss. 6, 2018, https://latinamericanliteraturetoday.org/2018/05/they-will-dream-in-the-garden-gabriela-damian-miravete/
Bishop, Elizabeth. "Pink Dog." 1979. http://www.poetryatlas.com/poetry/poem/2261/pink-dog.html

Assignment 1: Critical Reflection 1

García Márquez, Gabriel. "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings." Translated by Gregory Rabassa, 1971, https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/profscanlan-eng2001-o535-fall2021/files/2021/09/A-Very-Old-Man-with-Enormous-Wings.pdf.
Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery." 1948, https://fullreads.com/literature/the-lottery/.
Bradbury, Ray. "There Will Come Soft Rains." 1950, https://users.wpi.edu/~zrbutzke/Docs/BradburyStories(1).pdf.
"Poetry: Close Reading." Purdue Online Writing Lab, owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/writing_in_literature/poetry_close_reading.html.

Assignment 4: Critical Reading in Practice

"Annotated Bibliography Samples." Purdue Online Writing Lab, https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/common_writing_assignments/annotated_bibliographies/annotated_bibliography_samples.html