UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones December 2018 Literature in the World: A Critical Discourse Study of World Literature Pedagogy Elisa Cogbill-Seiders Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalscholarship.edu/thesesdissertations Part of the Curriculum and Instruction Commons, and the Rhetoric Commons Repository Citation Cogbill-Seiders, Elisa, "Literature in the World: A Critical Discourse Study of World Literature Pedagogy" (2018). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones.34917/14279049 This Dissertation is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by Digital Scholarship@UNLV with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Dissertation in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use.
For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. This Dissertation has been accepted for inclusion in UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones by an authorized administrator of Digital Scholarship@UNLV. For more information, please contact digitalscholarship@unlv. LITERATURE IN THE WORLD: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE STUDY OF WORLD LITERATURE PEDAGOGY By Elisa Cogbill-Seiders Bachelor of Arts – English Literature University of Delaware 2005 Master of Arts – English Literature Rutgers University, Camden 2010 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature Department of English College of Liberal Arts The Graduate College University of Nevada, Las Vegas December 2018 Copyright 2018 Elisa Cogbill-Seiders All Rights Reserved Dissertation Approval The Graduate College The University of Nevada, Las Vegas November 15, 2018 This dissertation prepared by Elisa Cogbill-Seiders entitled Literature in the World: A Critical Discourse Study of World Literature Pedagogyis approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy - English Department of English Denise Tillery, Ph.
Kathryn Hausbeck Korgan, Ph. Examination Committee Chair Graduate College Interim Dean Ed Nagelhout, Ph. Examination Committee Member Vincent Perez, Ph. Examination Committee Member Alicia Rico, Ph.
Graduate College Faculty Representative ii Abstract “Literature in the World” is a critical discourse analysis of world literature pedagogy in U. It investigates the ways discourse communities in higher education produce and shape the field of world literature. The dissertation begins by establishing and analyzing the generic conventions of university mission statements, finding they are primarily dominated by discourse on global learning. It follows with an analysis of world literature course descriptions from the same schools.
World literature course descriptions alternatively replicate, resist, or subvert global learning discourses. The last chapter uses findings from the first two chapters to trace how university and instructor discourses shape world literature reading lists, and thus the field of world literature at the textual level. By analyzing global learning and world literature within various academic discourse communities, I find that pedagogical discourse has a strong influence on world literature texts. I therefore recommend that pedagogical praxis be taken under more serious consideration in both course design and literary generic conventions.
iii Acknowledgements I am grateful to my Dissertation Committee, whose questions and advice have proven invaluable during this project. I am especially indebted to Dr. Denise Tillery, the chairperson of my committee. She has been an excellent teacher and mentor, as well as conscientious reviewer and commentator.
Her lessons have taught me more about writing and (good) research than I thought I could learn, and I hope to continue to follow in her footsteps. I am also grateful for the many long conversations, extensive feedback, and loving support of my close friends and family. Jen, I don’t know what I would have done without you. Thank you for indulging my long soliloquys on the state of world literature pedagogy, and for your thoughtful and loving advice on my project.
Artie, thank you for always believing in me even as I bored you to tears. iv Dedication For my husband, Matthew Seiders, and children, Carolina, William, and Kali, who make me believe in the possibility of a better world. v Table of Contents Abstract. v Table of Contents.
vi List of Tables. vii List of Figures. viii List of Appendices. ix Chapter 1: Introduction.
23 Chapter 3: A Thematic Analysis of U. College and University Mission Statements. 45 Chapter 4: A Stance Analysis of World Literature Syllabi. 78 Chapter 5: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Pedagogical Canons: World Literature Reading Lists.
174 vi List of Tables Table 1: Carnegie Foundation Classifications and Descriptions. 50 Table 2: Original Dataset and Corrected Dataset. 51 Table 3: Regional Accrediting Bodies and Schools Represented. 52 Table 4: Social Media Hypertext on Mission Statement Pages.
58 Table 5: Detailed Examples of Attitude Markers. 82 Table 6: Received Syllabi Across Carnegie Classification. 85 Table 7: Received Correspondence Across Carnegie Classification. 85 Table 8: Syllabus Guideline Distribution According Carnegie Classification.
86 Table 9: Received Syllabi Across Departmental Category. 89 Table 10: Carnegie Classification System Abbreviations. 95 Table 11: Received Syllabi Across Carnegie Classification. 124 Table 12: Received Syllabi Across Departmental Category.
125 vii List of Figures Figure 1: Community Theme. 65 Figure 2: Economy Theme. 69 Figure 3: Service Theme. 73 Figure 4: Dataset 2 Organized According to Nation.
135 Figure 5: Dataset 2 Organized by Genre. 139 viii List of Appendices Appendix 1: List of Professional Academic Organizations. 154 Appendix 2: Regional Accreditation Handbooks. 157 Appendix 3: List of Mission Statements.
158 Appendix 4: Syllabus Request Letter. 163 ix Chapter 1: Introduction This dissertation is about world literature that is created and consumed within academic contexts. It focuses on the pedagogical practices and texts that constitute world literature, and it establishes how the term world in world literature is actualized within academic settings. This dissertation thus addresses three central questions: What do academic discourse communities mean by “world literature”? How do U.
colleges and universities shape world literature as a discipline? How do instructors teaching at U. colleges and universities shape world literature as a discipline? In order to address these questions, this dissertation tracks the ways universities, accrediting bodies, professional organizations, scholars, and educators working in or associated with U. higher education construct the idea of world literature. It analyzes a variety of texts implicit in world literature pedagogy, including college and university mission statements and world literature syllabi.
It reviews these texts in order to identify the orders of discourse embedded in world literature as an academic discipline. This dissertation addresses the above questions through a critical discourse analysis, specifically genre analysis. First, critical discourse analysis is a common and also particularly relevant practice for studying higher education because it is an institution that is extraordinarily hierarchical. In English departments alone, Richard Ohmann identifies no less than four different “job levels.” From top to bottom, they are: 1) chairman; 2) associate professor; 3) assistant professor; and 4) teaching assistants and part-time instructors (215).
College and universities as a whole are more complicated still, especially considering departments, programs, athletics, and student life. For these reasons, I use critical discourse analysis to identify the institutional structures and practices reflected by world literature courses in order to identify and establish the 1 ideologies shaping these structures and practices. Second, I utilize genre analysis as a particular type of critical discourse analysis to establish world literature as a professional academic discipline characterized by similarities in regards to communicative purpose, structure, and language choice. Literature Review World literature is represented by a curious body of discourse communities, disciplinary practices, and texts capable of crossing disciplinary boundaries from general education to comparative literature to English literature (Agathocleous and Gosselink 454).
Consequently, I spend the next few sections reviewing how liberal arts and, later, general education in U. colleges and universities laid the foundations for pedagogical practices and text selection in world literature courses today. Please note, I am using Henry Giroux’s definition of pedagogy: “the social construction of knowledge, values, and experiences” and “a performative practice embodied in the lived interactions among educators, audiences, texts, and institutional formations” (61). After tracing relevant developments in liberal and education, I examine global learning conceptualized as a contemporary form of general education, and against a background of globalization.
Finally, I end the literature review by pinpointing the emergence of world literature within comparative literature departments, while tracing its move to English literature departments. Liberal Arts and General Education Today, many scholars use the terms “general education” and “liberal education” interchangeably, yet “general education” is a fairly new term that was invented less than a hundred years ago. Yet because general education and liberal education are so conflated, and because liberal education is by far the older term, it is important to review liberal education in the U. The traditional liberal arts model of classical education in the United States originates in the colonial colleges, which were influenced by English and Scottish universities, especially Cambridge and Oxford (Brint et al 609; Graff 20; Kraus 75).
liberal arts 2 model emphasized the study of literature, history, philosophy, and foreign languages, but had no requirements for natural or social sciences and very little focus on professionalization (Brint et al 609). Many scholars agree the liberal arts model at Harvard was the “beginning of higher education in America,” making the university a long-standing example for the study of liberal arts education (Wehlburg 4, Kraus 64). For this reason, I will review some of its early curricular practices. Harvard’s first curriculum was called the common core.
It was based on Classical liberal arts—the trivium and quadrivium, which were in turn influenced heavily by Plato’s course of education in the Republic (O’Banion 327). The trivium encompasses subjects such as grammar, logic, and rhetoric, while the quadrivium is comprised of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy (Joseph 4). Miller explains: Liberal education, founded on rationalist assumptions, oriented toward essentialism, and based in the methods of logic, is concerned with ideas in the abstract, with the conservation of universal truths handed down through the years, and with the development of the intellect. (qtd in Brint et al 637) Harvard’s students took majors in religion, law, and medicine.
Yet these majors were not separated from their common core (liberal arts) courses, as they are in public colleges and universities today. In other words, a Harvard student’s degree in law required taking liberal arts classes, but those classes were not considered separate from ones “in the major.” All coursework was thus considered part of the same curricular program. As a result, Harvard students took mostly the same classes, all of which were picked for them by faculty. It was not “until the specialization of knowledge and the democratization of education” that liberal education turned into a variety of discrete disciplines and courses (O’Banion 327).
Another factor to consider in early liberal education is its purpose, and the corresponding reason for attending college. The goal or purpose of college in the colonial U. was “to educate students into being well-rounded, productive, ‘cultured [gentlemen]’” while seeing “the study of literature through the classics as a form of acculturation for the ‘cultivated gentleman’” (Zai 203, 3 Graff 20). First, a college education in colonial America was strictly for men.
Second, while Harvard admitted sometimes admitted students from different socioeconomic backgrounds, they primarily served the well-to-do, which partially explains the focused attention on subjects that could maintain or possibly raise one’s social status (Graff 20; Berlin 18-19). As a result, having a liberal education was often related to belonging to certain, higher social classes. But which texts comprised a “Harvard education”? According to Brint et al, the curriculum “…emphasized study of the heritage of Western civilization for purposes of contributing to students’ intellectual development and cultural appreciation” (607). In addition, courses were taught in Latin, and students exclusively studied Classical authors and the Hebrew bible (Kraus 66).