• Introduction to the course. (D. Lee: Lineal and Non Lineal Codification of Reality -R)

• Comparative and dialectic analysis.

• Identification of an "object " and its components:
  • what is it?
  • how does it work?
  • what are its functions?
  • in which contexts?
  • what are its components?
  • what are the relationships among the components?
  • what are the relationships between the components and the whole?

• Literature and its " literary objects". Development of analytical tools for reading literature and writing about it:
  • brainstorming, free writing , clustering;
  • pre-writing, drafting, revising.

• Literature and technology: computers, multimedial information, and the study of literature in a multimedial environment.

(Week 2: first in-class assignment.)

2) A FIRST APPROACH TO LITERATURE: LITERATURE AND LITERARY ANALYSIS.

• In search of a definition of literary objects:
  • languages: verbal and non-verbal languages (Solina: Steps of Silence -R);
  • the text: one, none, one-hundred-thousand texts?
  • mono-medial and multimedial texts: texts of words, images, sounds;
  • literary texts: mono-medial or multimedial texts?

• A structural approach to literature:
  • literary texts and their components;
  • setting, story, plot, time, space, point of view, characters , action.

• A semiotic approach to literature:
  • the text as a signifying surface; (Eco: The Role of the Reader-R.)
  • the meaning(s) of texts within communicative contexts; ( Allais: A Most Parisian Episode; Petofi: A Typology of Communicative Situations. -R.)
  • the concepts of interpretation and evaluation of literary texts.

(Week 5: first paper due)

3) LITERATURE AND CRITICAL DISCOURSE

• An introduction to the critical discourse :
  • telescopes and stars: the stars I see are the stars my telescopes allow me to see.
  • theories and literature: the texts I see are the texts my theories allow me to see.

• Literature and literary criticism.

• The critical problem of the critic's work: the author, the text, the reader; where is the true meaning?

• Dismissing objectivity: the TRUTH and the thruths (Akutagawa: In the Wood; Pirandello: It is so (if you think so) -R)

• A short walk through the history of literary criticism: Lynn's Texts and Contexts.

• From the author to the reader:
  • author-oriented criticism: Biographical, Historical, and Psychological Criticism;
  • text-oriented criticism: Formalism, Structuralism, and New Criticism;
  • reader oriented criticism: Reader-Response, Deconstructive, Psychological, Feminist, and New Historical Criticism.

• For an hermeneutic of the text: the author, the text, and the reader; the multiplicity of meanings. (Foucault: What is an Author? -R)

  (Week 10: second paper due)

4) LITERATURE, MULTI-LINEARITY, AND NON-LINEARITY: TOWARD A THEORY OF MULTIPLICITY

• Calvino's Six Memos: five proposals for the literature of the next millennium.
  • Lightness. (Kafka: The Bucket; Marquez: A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings -R.)
  • Quickness. (Coover: Intermission-R.)
  • Exactitude. (Borges: The Library of Babel; Calvino: The Model of Models.-R.)
  • Visibility. ( Molinaro: Chiaro&Scuro; Robbe-Grillet: Snap-shots-R. )
  • Multiplicity (Coover: The Baby-Sitter; Borges: The Garden of Forking Paths; Queneau: Exercises in Style-R.)

• The multiplicity of multiple texts: fragments, intertextuality, metafiction, hyperfiction, and multimediality. (Cicconi: Multimedial Communication, Hypertexts, and Hyperfiction; Barthes: from A Lover's Discourse; Sorrentino: The Moon in its Flight; Carter: Wolf-Alice -R; Joyce : Afternoon.)

• The collapsing of literature and criticism? The metafiction of If on a Winter's Night a Traveler.

  (week 15: third paper due)

• Review and Conclusions.

  (Second in-class assignment.)