Literature and the Ideology of the Aesthetic

Pending Approval. Theoretical and historical exploration of the idea of literature understood as writing that has the status of art--and of the relation of this idea to the emergence and elaboration of discourses of the aesthetic. First six weeks: decisive eighteenth- and nineteenth-century developments in the meaning of literature as it relates to the aesthetic. Second six weeks: recent positions (espeically poststructuralist and Marxist) that figure prominently in current debates. Enrollment limited to 20 seniors.