literary cultural or political significance

literary cultural or political significance

This essay should argue for the literary cultural or political significance of one or more of the course?s assigned texts; the topic is subject to my pre-approval but otherwise up to you. Please frame your argument as part of a larger intellectual conversation by citing at least three relevant outside sources ? e.g. book or film reviews ?middlebrow? essays (e.g. The Nation New Republic or National Review) or academic books or articles (such as those found in the journal Science Fiction Studies). Effective scholarly writing often uses the ?They Say I Say? model in which you summarize and critique what other critics have said about your topic then indicate how your understanding differs from theirs and finally defend that understanding with a well-reasoned argument of your own. In The Philosophy of Literary Form the literary theorist Kenneth Burke explains this dialogical conception of literary study like this: Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive others have long preceded you and they are engaged in a heated discussion a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent depending upon the quality of your ally?s assistance. However the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late you must depart. And you do depart with the discussion still vigorously in progress. For practical guidance on joining in on Burke?s ?unending conversation ? I recommend the book They Say I Say by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein. In your formal essay you should assume your audience is intelligent and reasonably well informed but not familiar with literary-critical jargon or the specific texts you will be discussing.