Introduction to Contemporary Literary Theory In this course we will introduce several major schools of contemporary literary theory. By reading theoretical texts in close conjunction with works of literature, we will illuminate the ways in which these theoretical stances can produce multiple interpretations of a given literary work. The approaches covered may include New Criticism, Psychoanalysis, Marxism and Cultural Criticism, Race Theory and Multicultural Criticism, Feminism, Post-Colonial Criticism, Queer Studies, Eco-Criticism, Post-Structuralism, and others. These theories will be applied to various works of fiction, poetry, and drama. The goal will be to make students critically aware of the fundamental literary, cultural, political, and moral assumptions underlying every act of interpretation they perform.

Forms of Enlightenment: Long Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture (Pre-1800)  In this course, we will explore the development of literary genres, forms, and institutions in long eighteenth-century (1660-1830) Britain and its empire. We will track how writers in the period reimagined knowledge production, social organization, and politics in print. As we consider the key questions of the moment—the relationships between sensations, ideas, and truth; between reason, sympathy, and self-interest—we will attend carefully to the contradictions, exclusions, and omissions that structure Enlightenment thought, particularly with respect to questions of race and colonialism. Authors might include Aphra Behn, Henry Neville, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Sarah Scott, Adam Smith, Olaudah Equiano, Ignatius Sancho, Edmund Burke, and Phillis Wheatley Peters.

Literature and Economy: Credit, Speculation, Fiction Beyond its engagements with the political economy of its day, Karl Marx’s Capital is rich with allusions to literary texts—among them Dante’s Inferno, Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. In this course we will explore the imaginative aspects of classical economic thought and the economically descriptive capacities of literature. We will track their common interests in concepts of belief, credibility, and abstraction by looking (primarily) at a period that witnessed the emergence of political economy and modern literary forms like the novel—the eighteenth century. Along the way, we will hazard answers to the following question: in an age of rampant inequality and financialization, what can we learn from representations of historical crises, bubbles, and class struggles? 3 hrs. sem

Reading Literature: Fantastic This course seeks to develop skills for the close reading of literature through discussion of and writing about selected poems, plays, and short stories. A basic vocabulary of literary terms and an introductory palette of critical methods will also be covered, and the course's ultimate goal will be to enable students to attain the skills and tools vital to further course work in the major.

Revolt and Rebellion in Long Eighteenth Century Literature The long eighteenth century is replete with uprisings, rebellions, and revolutions. In this course we will think  about why the event of the revolt, especially in colonial contexts, proved intriguing for British writers and  thinkers throughout the period. How did representing historical and imagined uprisings alike enable Britons  to diagnose social and political problems? When and why does it become permissible to revolt? What makes  a revolutionary subject? Authors include: John Milton, John Locke, Aphra Behn, Ottobah Cugoano, Helen  Maria Williams, and Mary Shelley. Critical/theoretical interlocutors might include Laura Brown, Susan  Buck-Morss, C.L.R. James, and Anthony Paul Farley. Pre-1800.

Literature and Class Struggle In this course, we’ll investigate the representation of class struggle in a variety of cultural and historical contexts, ranging from eighteenth-century agrarian poetry to twentieth-century experimental film and the contemporary novel of climate crisis. Under what conditions, we’ll ask, do working-class projects of social transformation take shape? How can literature and film stimulate social consciousness or propel movements? How does cultural work reveal the interplay between class, gender, and race in liberation struggles? With the assistance of Marxist and feminist theory, we’ll offer answers to these questions by studying the work of authors and filmmakers including Muriel Rukeyser, Sembène Ousmane, Leslie Kaplan, Lana and Lily Wachowski, and Kim Stanley Robinson.

Abolitionism(s): Then and Now In this course, we will explore the intersections between historical campaigns to abolish the transatlantic slave trade and chattel slavery throughout the British empire and contemporary American movements to abolish policing and prisons. We’ll pay particular attention to the roles that literary and artistic representations, political speech, and activist organizing play in these processes, and consider how they complement or clash with on-the-ground resistance. We’ll ask: what does the history of abolitionism tell us about the horizons of an abolitionist future? Our guides will range from Olaudah Equiano and Mary Prince to Mariame Kaba, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and Olúf?mi Táíwò.

Creative Derivation: Rewriting, Remaking, and Unmaking Literature The American experimental poet Robert Duncan famously described his work as “derivative.” His  contemporary, Ronald Johnson, once remarked: “I read to steal.” In this course we will take these  articulations of reading-focused poetics as a premise for surveying seventeenth- through twenty-first-century  literature that enacts the reading of other texts; repurposes the narratives and terms of canonical or hegemonic writing; or uses critique as a means of generative engagement. Along the way, we will consider the stakes of  rewriting or reworking texts across cultural, historical, generic, and formal distances. Students will be invited  to pursue creative final projects.

Towards a Poetics of Community Why read literature? One answer: such reading is not individual but communal. It links readers to each other in aesthetic experience, in ethical and hermeneutic debate, and in appreciation for writers and fellow readers. As we read literary texts from different times, cultures, and genres, we will examine how they anticipate, create, or recreate readerly communities, and how these communities in turn help shape the texts as they are experienced. We will also strive to form our own readerly community—one that is as inclusive and as intellectually generous as possible. We will begin with close analysis of poetry in various forms from various historical periods. We will then read dramas by such playwrights as William Shakespeare, Margaret Edson, and/or Lolita Chakrabarti, as well as two works from among such prose writers as Charles Dickens, Emily Brontë, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Marilynne Robinson, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Ian McEwan, Walter Moseley, and Jean Rhys.

Commerce of the World-Century Literature (Pre-1800) British society, politics, and culture shifted dramatically over the course of the eighteenth century in response to the ascendance of an empowered mercantile bourgeoisie, an expanding empire, and the intensification of its investments in the transatlantic slave trade. In this course we will explore how writers and thinkers grappled with these economic, social, and political transformations at the levels of narrative, form, and genre by reading novels, plays, poems, and essays by Aphra Behn, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Susanna Centlivre, Laurence Sterne, Olaudah Equiano, and others.

Ryan Sheldon

Reviews and ratings for Ryan Sheldon at Middlebury College.Ryan Sheldon teaches Intro:Contemporary Lit. Theory, Forms of Enlightenment, Literature and Economy and more.  Explore top rated instructors and find the best for you.Is Ryan Sheldon good ? Find out on MiddCourses.

Theory is such difficult content that I feel like it probably takes a particularly great professor to make it approachable and enjoyable. While Prof. Sheldon is very nice and enthusiastic, I think he's a little too deep into the intricacies of the texts to realize that this is an introductory class and is many people's first interactions with these kinds of dense and complex readings. This is definitely a more relaxed discussion class that is manageable to get through if you don't mind reading and writing in general, but I was pretty frustrated because I feel like I wasn't getting a whole lot out of it. Handwritten journal entries for each night of homework also added a lot of time on top of reading long, dense texts. Again, manageable if you're already used to that kind of work but you'll probably be a bit lost if you're not already into literary theory. 

This course is a challenge for me. Literary theory is something that I can never really grasp, and the readings are always dense and difficult to understand. However, I do think that there is value in theory, and I would recommend for those with patience and love for reading.

This class was fun with Sheldon. I learned a lot, and we had some valuable discussions. Even though this class was outside my major, I found it moving. It changed my perspective on capitalism and how I exist in this society and in my community. Regular readings prep for engaging discussions.