Slideshow for the twenty-first lecture in my summer course, English 10, "Introduction to Literary Studies: Deception, Dishonesty, Bullshit." http://patrickbrianmooney.nfshost.com/~patrick/ta/m15/

1. Lecture 21: Whatever
You Say, Say …
PATRICK MOONEY, M.A.
ENGLISH 10, SUMMER SESSION A
27 JULY 2015

2. Quick notes from Culler
● “Literariness” also occurs outside literature (19-20).
● “Literature” is a contemporary historical category, and
one that has varied a great deal over the last two
hundred years. (22-23)
● Nevertheless, we tend to take some texts as
supporting the move of “treating them as literature.”
(23-26)
● Literature is thus both language organized in
particular ways and a set of conventions that
produces a certain kind of attention.

3. Several approaches to “what is literature?”:
1. Literature is the foregrounding of language. (29-
30)
2. Literature is the integration of language. (30-31)
3. Literature is fiction (or as language with certain
special deictic properties). (31-33)
4. Literature is an aesthetic object. (33-34)
5. Literature is an intertextual and self-reflexive
construct. (34-36)

4. Several approaches to “what is literature for?”:
1. It is civilizing. (36)
2. It is universalizing. (37)
3. It is nationalizing. (37-38)
4. It is the vehicle for ideology, and/or the
opportunity to undo ideology. (38-39)
5. It is cultural capital. (41)

5. "Grauballemannen1" by Sven Rosborn, via Wikimedia Commons

6. Media credits
The photo of Grauballe Man (slide 5) has
been released into the public domain by
Sven Rosborn. Original source:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cate
gory:Grauballemanden#/media/File:Grau
ballemannen1.jpg