Culture and society in English studies
Andrew Milner
8 or 12 points * 2 hours per week * Second semester * Clayton
Literary studies in England is the heir to a long and distinctive tradition of theorising about the relationship between culture and society - Raymond Williams' famous `culture and society' tradition. This tradition, and the ways in which it has been challenged and reinterpreted by recent critical theory, will be examined for their various accounts of the idea of culture. Theorists under consideration will include Matthew Arnold, T S Eliot, FR Leavis, QD Leavis, Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams, E P Thompson, Stuart Hall, Elaine Showalter and Terry Eagleton. Particular attention will be paid to the part played by literary studies in the genesis of what is now commonly called `British cultural studies'.
Assessment
Two seminar papers * Long 4000-word essay (6000 words if taken as a 12-point subject)
Preliminary reading
Baldick C The social mission of English criticism 1848-1932 OUP, 1983
Eagleton T Literary theory: An introduction Blackwell, 1983
Milner A Cultural materialism MUP, 1993
Turner G British cultural studies: An introduction Unwin Hyman, 1990
Prescribed texts
Arnold M Culture and anarchy CUP, 1960
Eagleton T Criticism and ideology Verso, 1976
Eagleton T The ideology of the aesthetic Blackwell, 1990
Eliot T S Notes towards the definition of culture Faber, 1962
Hall S and others (eds) Culture, media, language Hutchinson, 1980
Hoggart R The uses of literacy Penguin, 1958
Leavis F R Education and the university Chatto and Windus, 1948
Leavis Q D Fiction and the reading public Penguin, 1979
Lovell T Consuming fiction Verso, 1987
Showalter E A literature of their own: British women novelists from Bronte to Lessing Virago, 1978
Sinfield A Literature, politics and culture in postwar Britain Blackwell, 1989
Thompson E P William Morris: Romantic to revolutionary Merlin Press, 1976
Williams R Culture and society 1780-1950 Hogarth, 1992
Williams R The long revolution Hogarth, 1992
Wolff J Feminine sentences: Essays on women and culture Polity, 1990