小說理論

The novel is the latest of all literary genres that develop in the West, but it happens also to be the most dominant literary expression of the present day. The theory on and about the novel achieves its first quantum leap with Georg Lukács, a Hungarian theorist writing in German, and later with the Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin, whose discourse on the novel has single-handedly changed our conception of the genre. In this class, we will cover works that begin from the German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel, whose posthumous Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art (1835) Lukács is indebted to, and continue our discussion up to Northrop Frye, Benedict Anderson, and Homi K. Bhabha. All the debates involved have originated from Aristotle's Poetics and can find their resonance in contemporary critics like Jonathan Culler, Lucien Goldmann, and Galin Tihanov, as well as the novelist E. M. Foster. Our scope will mainly be on how the novel makes its journey through the literary history in the West: how it has developed and later differed from such other genres as the epic, tragedy, comedy, as well as the short story. The distinction between the novel and the fiction will also be briefly addressed. The novel, like other genres mentioned above, has its own response to make to the society at large, and inferentially to the postcolonial nations in the Third World. Aside from theoretical writings, two shorter novels will be assigned for reading. They are George Orwell's Animal Farm (1945) and Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea (1952). Reading them will help us to better understand how the theory of the novel functions on the ground.

Students must have a good command of English in reading and writing. All assignments and discussions will be conducted in English.

Teaching assistant: Angela 游師晴 (angelayu0207@gmail.com) GENERAL INFORMATION 1. Class attendance is mandatory. For any absences, an official leave of absence from the University Administration must be obtained at http://stuoffcourse.nctu.edu.tw/ (via https://portal.nycu.edu.tw/). 2. Requirements. Students are required to read the assigned readings, take the quizzes on the assigned novels, submit their responses online, join the class discussions, and submit a term paper. In all cases, English is the only language used. Unless a waiver has been granted, all students must also do the “Paper Planning” assignments. 3. Classroom decorum a. No food or beverage (except drinking water) is allowed in class. b. Unless a special permission is granted, electronic devices (laptops, tablets, iPads, etc.) are discouraged from use in class. c. Cellular phones must be switched to the flight mode. No browsing, texting, or call answering is allowed in the classroom during the class sessions or the breaks. d. No internet connection is allowed through any devices except in a presentation. e. No recording, taping, broadcasting, or photographing is allowed in class without permission. f. All precautionary protocols against the covid pandemic apply. 4. Reserved materials. To locate the items on reserve at the library, follow these steps: a. At the library search page (http://webpac.lib.nctu.edu.tw/), click on the tag “Course Reserves” (指定參考書) above; b. At the slot “Field to search” (查詢欄位), pull down the window and select “Course Number” (課程號碼); c. Key in the current course number as 5785 to retrieve the reserved list. 5. Correspondence: a. You can write your e-mail in either Chinese or English. b. Always specify your Chinese or English name in full, as well as your student’s ID, in all your correspondence. c. All course-related announcements will be sent to your e-mail address on file at the website of the NYCU Online Course Registration System (OCRS, https://course.nycu.edu.tw/) and e-Campus or E3 (http://e3.nycu.edu.tw). Keep good maintenance of your mailbox and check your mails regularly. d. Internet activities and course grades will be posted at our site at our E3 page. e. Whom to write to: write to the T.A. only if an error in your grades is suspected. Otherwise, direct all your queries to the instructor. 6. Rights. The instructor reserves the final and exclusive rights to amend any portion of the course syllabus, including the grading scale, course schedule, regulations, and instructions on assignments and term papers.

Class Participation 15 points Online Responses (on all readings except the novels) 30 points Quizzes (on the two assigned novels) 25 points Term Paper 30 points Student with paper planning waiver Paper planning 5 points Final paper 25 points Other students Paper planning 15 points Final paper 15 points Total 100 points Class Participation 1. Students will be graded in principle by the frequency of their participation in the class discussion, not necessarily by the quality of their inputs. 2. A student will earn 1 credit point for his or her input in class each week. The aggregate of all credit points earned will be factored into his or her “Class Participation” grade for the semester. Online Responses 1. Purpose. This assignment, to start in week 1, intends to help you prepare what you can bring up as your input to our weekly discussion in class. 2. Length & contents. What you write can either be a paragraph or two of 5 to 25 sentences in total, or some 5 to 25 questions and/or remarks (commands, criticisms, etc.). Remember, do not write beyond 25 sentences, and you are not writing a description, a summary, or a free association. And all internet protocols apply. 3. How to proceed. The responses must be submitted online by following these steps: a. On our page at E3, click on “Discussion” on the left. b. Click on the “Online Responses” forum of the corresponding week, such as “Online Response 1: Poetics.” c. Click on the “Reply” button in the instructor’s posting to begin. d. Always type your student’s ID, to be followed by a title of your choice, in the subject slot, such as “0859088 Aristotle Is Still Relevant.” Avoid such general headings as “Afterthoughts,” “My View,” etc. e. If there should be an error in posting, post your response again and delete your earlier message(s). 4. Grading. Your response will each be graded with the scale of 1.0 to 5.0. Expect it to fall between 4.0 and 4.9 on average. If no response is posted, the grade is 0. 5. Deadline. The deadline to post your response is Sunday by 11:59 p.m. before the class. There is a grace period between 12:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. Monday. Any work posted after 12:00 p.m. Wednesday shall receive 3.5 as the highest possible grade. 6. An online posting is required even for the week when there is no class session. Quizzes 1. Purpose. The quizzes will be on the assigned novels only, aiming to examine if the assigned texts have been read, but not if they have been fully comprehended. 2. How to proceed. The quizzes, ten (10) of them, will be held at the beginning of the class sessions in the designated weeks. Students showing up late cannot take the quiz. 3. Any student who is granted an official leave of absence will receive his or her quiz grade’s semester average as the grade of the quiz he or she has missed. For example, if the average of all the quizzes a student has taken is 4.65, he or she shall receive 4.65 for the missing quiz, if a leave has been granted. 4. The due credit a student shall receive for a granted leave will only be calculated and released by the end of the semester. Paper Planning 1. The purpose of this assignment is to familiarize the students with the MLA documenting style of paper writing (https://www.mla.org/MLA-Style). 2. Students are advised to use the latest edition of MLA Handbook for this assignment. 3. Print and submit your homework assignment beginning week 2 on the A4 paper following the samples given at our website. 4. Exemption: a. Exemption from most of this assignment (exercises 1-10) will be granted, if you are a graduate student at Foreign Languages, or a term paper in English written by you for a different class before is submitted and accepted upon inspection. b. Even with an exemption, students are required to do Paper Planning exercises 11 to 13. Term Paper 1. Your term paper must show that you have learned substantially from the class. 2. In your paper, you must choose at least one novel to discuss. Permission must be granted by the instructor if a novel not from this class is chosen as your subject of discussion. 3. Paper topics must be approved by the instructor no later than week 14. 4. Make honesty your priority. Plagiarism of any form will not be tolerated. Submission 5. You submit a term paper of 10-15 pages, including footnotes or endnotes, but not the “Works Cited” list. (If you plan also to submit the same paper to a different class, you must extend the number of pages to 25-35. You must also notify both instructors beforehand.) 6. Papers will be due in week 16. 7. Turn in both the hard copy and the soft copy, the latter of which should adopt this format to write both the filename and the e-mail subject: “student’s ID, your name in Chinese, Term Paper.” For example, “0859088吳偉雄Term Paper.” Format and Style 8. The latest MLA documenting style will be adopted. Other formats will be accepted only upon the instructor’s approval. 9. All students must fulfill the “Paper Planning” requirements (q.v.). 10. No more than one third of your cited materials should be those from the internet or online database. Print materials available in the PDF format are not counted as electronic resources. Grading Scale for Term Paper 11. A paper will be graded according to the following scale: C (Contents, 5 pts.), L (Language, 5 pts.), O (Organization, 5 pts.), R (Relevance and Originality, 5 pts.), and S (Style and Format, 5 pts.). 12. Students with paper planning waiver: the subtotal is to be averaged and multiplied by 5 to make 25 points. “Paper Planning” takes up the remaining 5 points. Together the total is 30 points. 13. Other students: the subtotal is to be averaged and multiplied by 3 to make 15 points. “Paper Planning” takes up the remaining 15 points. Together the total is 30 points. 14. If the term paper is not submitted, the “Paper Planning” grade will be nullified. 15. For each page you fall short of or go beyond, 1.0 point will be deducted, with 5.0 points as the maximal deducted points. Further Grading Policy 1. The missing works. Unless a special permission has been granted, all missing works (online responses, paper planning exercises, etc.) are due by noon in week 16, after which, for each missing work, two (2) points from the overall semester grade shall be deducted till this grade goes below 60. 2. The term paper. In the case in which a student should request to turn in the term paper after the due date, he or she shall receive an “I” for “incomplete” as the temporary semester grade. If the student should fail still to turn in the paper by the time when the “incomplete” must be resolved and the semester grade be sent, he or she shall receive zero (0) as the grade of the said term paper.

The Course Reader, The MLA Handbook (8th edition), Animal Farm, and The Old Man and the Sea.

地點

Instructor's office: HC414 (Tel: 03-5731792, or campus extension 31792)

時間

Office hours: Monday, 3:30-5:30 PM, and by appointment

聯絡方式

Email: limk@nycu.edu.tw Tel: 03-5731792, or campus extension 31792