1168-HON270-02: HONORS TOPICS

 LIT 370/Topics in Literature: J. R. R. Tolkien in Context

MoTh 2-3:20pm Armstrong 102

Dr. Felicia Jean Steele
Office Hours: MR 10-11:30 am; TF 2-3:20pm; Bliss Hall 207
Schedule an appointment
steele@tcnj.edu; 609/771-2698

Course Description: 

Almost every English language reader recognizes the name J. R. R. Tolkien. In list after list, The Lord of the Rings is counted among the best literary works of the twentieth century, and innumerable authors count Tolkien as one of their principal inspirations: J. K. Rowling, George R. R. Martin, Junot Diaz, and Ursula K. LeGuin, among the most notable. Without Tolkien, publishing probably wouldn't have anything approaching a "fantasy genre." But Tolkien himself was writing out of a tradition that depended on a sense of the deep past, the notion of a shared cultural history, and the inestimable value of story. As a philologist of medieval languages, Tolkien knew the English, Norse, and Celtic literary and linguistic traditions like few others and translated the tropes, themes, and narrative structures of medieval literature into something new, into The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In this course, we will be exploring J. R. R. Tolkien's literature, specifically those works published while he was alive, and their relationship to three medieval narratives: Beowulf, The Saga of the Volsungs, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. 

We will be studying Tolkien and medieval literature side-by-side to enhance our understanding of both. But there's also a significant reason to study Tolkien as "literature." Our class this semester has an interesting population: many of you are non-majors who have come to the class because of your love of Tolkien, Tolkien's legendarium, and the film adaptations. Many of you are also English majors, who have been trained to approach literature with a particular method and have been taught to distinguish between the "literary" and the "popular" in fiction. The novel as a form (and more generally, perhaps, narrative fiction), as narrative critic George Lukács says, battles against “a caricatural twin almost indistinguishable from itself in all inessential formal characteristics: the entertainment novel, which has all the outward features of the novel but which, in essence, is bound to nothing and based on nothing, i.e. is entirely meaningless.” For students who have come to love literature through this ostensible caricature, the death of the twin delegitimatizes  the joy originally discovered in reading. One goal that I have for this semester is to demonstrate that additional study and analysis of a text can inspire more joy in reading and in the experience of literature.

Course Goals:

In this course, students will

• read closely, attentive to narrative techniques and literary devices used in Tolkien and medieval literature.
• recognize the generic formulations peculiar to, or issuing out from, earlier literary traditions including Medieval narrative poetry.
• recognize the ways these generic formulations inform and are adapted in Tolkien's work.
• familiarize themselves with the historical and cultural contexts relevant to the texts we read in class.
• work in collaboration with other students. 

Course Objectives:

Students will be able to:

• demonstrate their understanding of the course goals in written and spoken discourse appropriate to the disciplines of literary studies.
• and/or demonstrate their understanding of the course goals in creative work shared with their peers.

HSS Goals:

• #1 Written Communication
• #5 Critical Analysis and Reasoning: Ability to critique the arguments of others in the discipline and the construction of one’s own arguments in the discipline, using data/evidence are a focus of instruction and/or the ability to analyze linguistic and cultural patterns
• #7 Interpret Language and Symbol
• #12 Students will be able to demonstrate familiarity with a range of critical, generic, and literary traditions (including recent theoretical approaches) that shape – and are shaped by – literary discourses and texts of particular periods or movements
• #15 Students will be able to read a literary work and characterize its main aesthetic, structural, and rhetorical strategies in an argumentative, thesis-driven essay or in a writing workshop

Required texts:

ISBN:9780140447385 The Saga of the Volsungs, ed. and trans. Jesse L. Byock (New York: Penguin, 2000).

ISBN:9780393975802 Heaney, Seumas. Beowulf: A Verse Translation (A Norton Critical Edition), ed. by Daniel Donoghue (New York: Norton, 2001). Other editions are acceptable.

By J. R. R. Tolkien

ISBN:9780261102637 The Monsters and the Critics (London: Gardners Books, 1997).

ISBN:9780345277602 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo (New York: Random House, 1979).

ISBN:9780547154114 Tales from the Perilous Realm (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008).

ISBN:9780618968633 The Hobbit: 75th Anniversary Edition (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007).

ISBN:9780618640157 The Lord of the Rings: 50th Anniversary Edition (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005).

Course Requirements and Grade Breakdown:

Two (6-8 page double-spaced) critical papers [OR one critical paper and one creative piece (at least ten pages, but no more than twenty)--accompanied by a 2-3 page explanation/analysis of the creative piece]. 40%

Two examinations (midterm [15%] and final [25%]) 40%

Group Presentation (including written materials in support of your presentation) 10%

Participation (both in class and in "Bird and Baby" meetings) 10%

As required by the College's Final Exam/Evaluation Policy (http://policies.tcnj.edu/policies/digest.php?docId=9396), this course has an in-class final exam during the regularly scheduled final exam period for our course; the exam is comprehensive and integrative in nature and counts for at least 15% and not more than 50% of your final grade.

Grading:

I will be using the Canvas gradebook to keep track of your grades. Therefore, the following percentages will constitute these letter grades:

100 - 93.5 % = A  93.4 - 89.5 %  = A-  89.4 - 86.5 % = B+  86.4 - 83.5 % = B  83.4 - 79.5 % = B-

79.4 - 76.5 % = C+  76.4 - 73.5 % = C  73.4 - 69.5 % = C-  69.4 - 59.5 % = D  59.4 - 0 % = F

A Note on Mid-semester Progress Reports:

I use the three descriptors in the following way:

"Satisfactory" means that you are attending class, turning in all work, and making satisfactory progress toward the learning goals.

"Caution" means that you are attending class, turning in all work, but for some reason not making satisfactory progress toward the learning goals.

"Unsatisfactory" means that you are either not attending class or not turning in all work.

Expectations for Written Work: I expect you to prepare your essays conscientiously, as you would for any class. That means that I expect them to have an argument, to be well written, and to be proofread. In addition, they must adhere to the standard format for academic papers. Please make sure that your essays have a title and page numbers and follow other conventions of MLA style. Please turn all your essays in to Canvas. You are always welcome to show me a preliminary draft before the paper is due.  You will cite all your sources in MLA format. For each essay, you will be given a list of expectations and a grading rubric, so you should never be in the dark about my own expectations of your writing. Generally speaking, however, I have the following expectations for student writing:

Minimal Expectations:  Each formal assignment will require you to construct an argument, appropriate for a given audience and purpose, in clear and understandable prose. Your sentences must be grammatically constructed, punctuated correctly, and state their ideas in an understandable manner.  Your essay must be organized and coherent from beginning to end. In order to present a reliable authorial voice, you must document all sources of information correctly and reliably.  Further Expectations:  You should create a clear and understandable structure for your essay, which will allow you to create a consistent pattern of assertion and support, to coordinate the various parts of the argument, and to integrate the various writing modes appropriate to the texts studied and cited smoothly. A logical progression of thought should be apparent from sentence to sentence and from one correctly structured paragraph to the next.  Supporting evidence should be relevant and deployed effectively. In addition, your essay must reflect your efforts to evaluate and interpret sources to determine their credibility. Higher Order Goals: The best essays will have style and originality and all essays should cultivate such virtues.  The ability to control and vary voice and tone, as well as the ability to devise original arguments and construct them in fluid and interesting prose, should be your ultimate objective.

Additionally, all essays should follow all elements of MLA style. Please note that MLA citation style is in transition. I will accept either format for works cited, that following the 7th or 8th edition of the handbook.  All written work should be submitted through Canvas. I will not read papers turned in to me physically. Once you see my office, you'll understand why. I just can't keep track of that many pieces of paper. 

Course Policies: Accommodations
The College of New Jersey is committed to ensuring equal opportunity and access to all members of the campus community in accordance with Section 503/504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). The College prohibits discrimination against any student on the basis of physical or mental disability, or perceived disability. The College will provide reasonable and appropriate accommodations to enable students to participate in the life of the campus community. Individuals with disabilities are responsible for reporting and supplying documentation verifying their disability. Requests for accommodations must be initiated through the Disability Support Services 121 Roscoe West, 609.771.3199, dss@tcnj.edu. If you require special assistance, I will make every effort to accommodate your needs and to create an environment where your special abilities will be respected. If required accommodations are unusual or appear to create an undue burden, I will contact the ODAS to discuss alternatives. http://differingabilities.pages.tcnj.edu/

Academic Honesty

The College has a detailed policy on Academic Integrity, which I encourage you to read. (http://policies.tcnj.edu/policies/digest.php?docId=7642)

It details a wide variety of behaviors, but the infraction of academic integrity that becomes relevant in writing-intensive courses (such as English courses) usually relates to plagiarism: "Using another author's words without enclosing them in quotation marks, without paraphrasing them, or without citing the source appropriately." Even if you provide a citation to a source at the end of a text, you have still plagiarized if you haven't distinguished the material you've used from that source from your own words.

Please note, however, that it is also possible to self-plagiarize. It is not appropriate to turn in work that has earned credit for another class at TCNJ or at another institution. If you have a situation where the course material of this class overlaps with that of another, you may not submit the same work to both instructors.

Plagiarism is a difficult subject to deal with, for faculty as well as for students. The College's policies mandate two things: that I report all infractions to the academic integrity policy and that I discuss the matter with responsible students before I do that reporting.

If I suspect a student has plagiarized in one of his or her assignments, I will document that plagiarism using either Turnitin (software available also to you through Canvas) or through another method that will produce physical documentation. I will then contact the student and ask for him or her to meet with me privately to discuss the issues in my office or in the English department office.

If the issue arises at the conclusion of the semester, the issue is slightly more complex, because students may no longer be on campus. In that case, I will submit an incomplete for the semester and request the same face-to-face meeting. I will not rely on email or phone messages to reflect my concerns, because they are inherently not private and not as reliable as face-to-face communication.

I want to tell all of you the following, however: it's not my job to catch plagiarists, even if electronic tools make that a fairly easy endeavor. I'm much more interested in making sure that you're learning. Plagiarism usually happens when students are under pressure, anxious, or otherwise "not themselves." If you feel as if you are having difficulty keeping up with coursework in this class (or any other), please do not hesitate to talk with me about it. It's much better to negotiate an extension (even with a slight grade penalty for lateness) than it is to risk plagiarism and all its consequences. If you are having difficulty keeping up with other classes or responsibilities, I can also help you work through those concerns. I encourage you to keep these lines of communication open with the faculty members for all your courses.

Attendance and Participation:

Attendance in class is required in order for you to participate. Moreover, you must be attentive and engaged throughout class, willing to speak and listen as appropriate. In addition, students must participate in four "Bird and Baby" sessions through the semester. Tolkien belonged to a group of writers who have come to be known as "The Inklings," which included C. S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, and Charles Williams.  Every Tuesday they met in a pub called the "Eagle and Child" (locally referred to as the "Bird and Baby") to read their works in progress and to share their views on texts that they had all read as well and to muse on the nature of philosophical and theological problems.  You too shall have your own "Bird and Baby" sessions. While the Inklings' meetings were always well lubricated by an afternoon pint, meeting in a bar is not encouraged. In these sessions you will have three major goals: 1) to discuss what we're all reading together; 2) to prepare and rehearse your group presentation on a topic relevant to our understanding of Tolkien; 3) to share your own critical and creative writing for the class. You will submit written individual responses to these meetings through our discussion board.

A note about computers and other devices in class:

Many students now use computers for taking notes during class, and this has advantages and disadvantages. As this practice has become more common, I see that students who take notes with computers often do not perform as well on examinations or have difficulty participating in class discussion. Scholars who study academic settings believe that computer-assisted note taking encourages transcription rather than the synthesis of class discussion. In addition, students are sometimes distracted by devices, especially those with ready access to the internet. If you choose to use computers for note-taking, please be aware that I may ask you to move to paper if I see that you have difficulty participating in class discussion. No computers or cellphones may be used during examinations.