ENGL 1302 - Research, Writing and Literary Analysis (Michael Duncan): Understanding Literature

"Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing" is a compact but thorough guide to critical thinking and argumentation. Comprising the text portion of the widely adopted "Current Issues and Enduring Questions," it draws on the authors' dual expertise in effective persuasive writing and rigorous critical thinking. It helps students move from critical thinking to argumentative and researched writing. With comprehensive coverage of classic and contemporary approaches to argument, including Aristotle, Toulmin, and a range of alternative views, it is an extraordinarily versatile text.

Information is endlessly available to us; where shall wisdom be found?" is the crucial question with which renowned literary critic Harold Bloom begins this impassioned book on the pleasures and benefits of reading well. For more than forty years, Bloom has transformed college students into lifelong readers with his unrivaled love for literature. Now, at a time when faster and easier electronic media threatens to eclipse the practice of reading, Bloom draws on his experience as critic, teacher, and prolific reader to plumb the great books for their sustaining wisdom. Shedding all polemic, Bloom addresses the solitary reader, who, he urges, should read for the purest of all reasons: to discover and augment the self.

What does it mean when a fictional hero takes a journey'. Shares a meal? Gets drenched in a sudden rain shower? Often, there is much more going on in a novel or poem than is readily visible on the surface—a symbol, maybe, that remains elusive, or an unexpected twist on a character—and there's that sneaking suspicion that the deeper meaning of a literary text keeps escaping you. In this practical and amusing guide to literature, Thomas C. Foster shows how easy and gratifying it is to unlock those hidden truths, and to discover a world where a road leads to a quest; a shared meal may signify a communion; and rain, whether cleansing or destructive, is never just rain.

Drawing on her extensive teaching experience, Sharon Hamilton uses classroom-tested examples and exercises to reinforce students' understanding and help them apply what they learn in their own writing.

The best-selling Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (formerly the Concise dictionary) provides clear and concise, and often witty definitions of the most troublesome literary terms from abjection to zeugma. It is an essential reference tool for students of literature in any language. It isnow available in a new and expanded edition and includes increased coverage of new terms from modern critical and theoretical movements, such as feminism, and schools of American poetry, Spanish verse forms, life writing, and crime fiction. It also includes extensive coverage of traditional drama, versification, rhetoric, and literary history, as well as updated and extended advice on recommended further reading and entry-level web links. There is also a pronunciation guide to more than 200 terms.

Over the past decade, our understanding of the cognition of literature has been transformed by scientific discoveries, such as the mirror neuron system and its role in empathy. Addressing questions such as why we care so deeply about fictional characters, what brain activities are sparked when we read literature, and how literary works and scholarship can inform the cognitive sciences, this book surveys the exciting recent developments in the field of cognitive literary studies and includes contributions from leading scholars in both the humanities and the sciences.

Falling into Theory is a brief and inexpensive collection of essays that asks literature students to think about the fundamental questions of literary studies today.

1. People: My father's life / Raymond Carver ; Imelda / Richard Selzer ; Boyhood with Gurdjieff / Fritz Peters -- 2. Places: My wood / E.M. Forster ; Niagara Falls / William Zinsser ; Once more to the lake / E.B. White -- 3. Animals: Am I blue? / Alice Walker ; Shooting and elephant / George Orwell ; Dog lab / Claire McCarthy -- 4. Technology / How not to use a fax machine and the cellular phone / Umberto Eco ; Television : the plug-in drug / Marie Winn ; Cyberhood vs. neighborhood / John Perry Barlow -- 5. Language: Sex, lies, and conversation / Deborah Tannen ; Aria / Richard Rodriquez ; The day language came into my life / Helen Keller -- 6. Advertisements: The coolhunt / Malcolm Gladwell ; Salespeak / Roy Fox ; You're soaking in it / Jennifer L. Pozner.