Overview of the Course: English 495 is an entirely on-line graduate course in Marxist cultural theory. It is a 3-credit hour course scheduled to be offered in the Spring 2003 semester for M. A. and Ph. D. students at Illinois State University, and it is available for students at other institutions and students-at-large as well. Information on how to register and on available tuition waivers for students not enrolled in the graduate programs at Illinois State University is available from the main course web page.

Rationale for the Course:
The distinctive features of internet courses are by now familiar:

(1) The internet allows convenience and flexibility for non-traditional students to work around busy schedules,

(2) it allows students to study at a distance,
    (3) and, though this feature is often swept under the rug, the internet allows larger class sizes and the possibility of "reproducing" a series of lectures for virtual repetition.
   

In fact, when one surveys the internet course offerings available so far, and the stream of studies and articles about internet courses on the web, in the Chronicle of Higher Education and in major newspapers, this last features seems to be the one that has captured the public imagination. The internet course, one suspects, is seen by some state legislators and college administrators as a mechanism for squeezing more surplus value from the labor of professors and students, in the sense that more students can be "credentialed" or "processed" through large and easily repeatable on-line courses than in conventional courses.

My interest, however, is in the internet course's potential for enhancing quality and accessibility:

(1) Enrollment in this course will be limited to no more than twelve students, which is the standard limit for conventional doctoral-level courses in the English Department at Illinois State University.

(2) Since it is a graduate course, it is assumed that the students will be well-motivated and well-socialized in academic conventions, so the often-heard concern that the internet course fails to give students necessary direct personal attention will not be relevant here.

(3) Reading and writing requirements for the course will be no less rigorous than those for a conventional course, and the internet will enable us make virtually all of the work done in the course "public," or available for examination by anyone who is interested. Making my introductory comments, the course discussions and formal essays public on the web will enhance the level of intellectual engagement and the quality of the knowledge produced in the course. I have written about the value of making knowledge production "public" in an essay entitled "Pedagogy and Public Accountability."

(4) And the internet will enable us to include the participation of guest scholars and students from a variety of locations and institutions; both of which, I know from previous experience with "hybrid" internet/conventional courses, will enhance the level of knowledge production in the course.
   

Goals of the Course:

  • To provide students interested in literary and cultural studies with a comfortable familiarity with the critique of Capitalism as a social and economic system in Capital, Vol. I and other texts by Marx and Engels
  • To provide a broad introduction to the range of Marxist and Postmarxist analysis and critique in contemporary Literary and Cultural Studies
  • To provide an opportunity for students to study Marxist literary and cultural theory with recognized experts in the field from different universities
  • To provide an opportunity for students to study Marxist theory with other students from different institutions and different disciplinary sites
  • To produce an exemplary model available for examination by other faculty and students interested in Marxist theory and on-line graduate education