English Literature (ENG) |
118 Prince Lucien Campbell, 541-346-3911
English
College of Arts & Sciences
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M - Major, minor, pre-major, or concentration restrictions. If restricted by date, click on CRN to see effective dates; courses with no date are restricted through the registration deadline. Contact the academic department for additional information.
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Course Data
| ENG 620 Top Gift & Mdvl Lit |
5.00 cr. |
| Recent offerings include Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, Humor and Vulgarity in Medieval Literature. Repeatable. |
| Grading Options: |
Graded for all students
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| Instructor: |
Clark S  |
Office:
374 PLC
Phone:
(541) 346-3960
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Only Open to Majors:
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English
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| Course Materials |
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CRN |
Avail |
Max |
Time |
Day |
Location |
Instructor |
Notes |
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12156 |
10 |
15 |
1400-1650 |
r |
448 PLC |
Clark S |
M |
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Academic Deadlines
| Deadline |
Last day to: |
| September 29: |
Process a complete drop (100% refund, no W recorded) |
| October 5: |
Drop this course (100% refund, no W recorded; after this date, W's are recorded) |
| October 5: |
Process a complete drop (90% refund, no W recorded; after this date, W's are recorded) |
| October 6: |
Process a complete withdrawal (90% refund, W recorded) |
| October 6: |
Withdraw from this course (100% refund, W recorded) |
| October 7: |
Add this course |
| October 9: |
Last day to change to or from audit |
| October 13: |
Process a complete withdrawal (75% refund, W recorded) |
| October 13: |
Withdraw from this course (75% refund, W recorded) |
| October 20: |
Process a complete withdrawal (50% refund, W recorded) |
| October 20: |
Withdraw from this course (50% refund, W recorded) |
| October 27: |
Process a complete withdrawal (25% refund, W recorded) |
| October 27: |
Withdraw from this course (25% refund, W recorded) |
| November 17: |
Withdraw from this course (0% refund, W recorded) |
 | You can't drop your last class using the "Add/Drop" menu in DuckWeb. Go to the “Completely Withdraw from Term/University” link to begin the complete withdrawal process. If you need assistance with a complete drop or a complete withdrawal, please contact the Office of Academic Advising, 101 Oregon Hall, 541-346-3211 (8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday). If you are attempting to completely withdraw after business hours, and have difficulty, please contact the Office of Academic Advising the next business day. |
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Expanded Course Description
| This course will use scholarly analysis of gift exchange from several disciplines (anthropology, philosophy, economics, medieval studies) that consider how and why objects circulate as gifts, how gifts gain meaning, and how gift-giving works as a form of symbolic communication to say things that often can’t be said outright. While gift theory is a sprawling field, the course will be organized in two units. The first focuses on theories of exchange formed in anthropology and economics and builds on insights from Marcel Mauss’s seminal essay The Gift to examine how reciprocity functions in works like Beowulf and Njal’s saga. We will consider sub-topics such as the gift and social order, the gift and violence, and the inter-identity of people and things. The second unit shifts to questions of the gift from philosophy and theology. We will read part of Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction of Mauss in Given Time I: Counterfeit Money in order to consider more explicitly the function of the non-reciprocal free gift in both modern ideology and medieval social structures. This focus will allow us to study how both modern and medieval societies value the other-oriented nature of the gift above self-interested action while teasing out the different senses of the social embeddedness of the individual within particular texts. Gift theory challenges some of the basic assumptions naturalized in modern market capitalism, allowing more nuanced understandings of texts produced in other types of economies and societies. While gift theory grew out of anthropology and sociology, early medieval cultures have been called the most straight-forward example of reciprocal gift giving. As this course will show, there is nothing straightforward about the gift. |
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