How Gale Primary Sources Supports Students Taking Exeter University’s ‘Approaches to Criticism’ Module

│By Poppy Sargent, Gale Ambassador at the University of Exeter│

The first year ‘Approaches to Criticism’ module taught to English students at the University of Exeter is notoriously one of the hardest compulsory modules, spanning across both first and second term. Throughout this module, you learn to think about yourselves as infinitely complex social and political subjects and how our social and political being shapes reading practices, focusing on systems and subjects in relation to one another.

Leveraging literature from Gale Primary Sources, this blog will highlight how Gale supports this module, sourcing manuscripts and monographs to aid students and lecturers in their work. By focusing on three of (in my opinion) the most interesting and crucial topics of this module, I will show you how Gale’s extensive archives highlight articles covering Marxism, Bodies and Medicine, and Critical Race Studies.

Marxism

One of the first lectures given in the ‘Approaches to Criticism’ module is on Marxism and its impact on the world and literature. Students read sources ranging from the ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’ to ‘The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation’, answering questions on what capitalism is, the relation between classes within capitalism, and what unique insights the Marxist critique of political economy can bring to literature. Delving into Gale Primary Sources unearths a multitude of resources, both visual and written, which can aid students with their studies.

One of the most interesting sources is On the Theory of Marxism, published in 1948, and written by Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, V. I. Lenin, and Joseph Stalin. This source gives students information on the history of Marxism from four radical authors. The inclusion of letters to Joseph Bloch, Conrad Schmidt, and Heinz Starkenburg, allows students to extend their reading further than what is primarily taught, improving the development of arguments within summative assignments and exams.

Another thing to consider is the impact Marxism has had on the present day. Although this is discussed throughout the module’s lectures and seminars, the texts read have no correlation to the present day. Luckily, Gale has a wide range of sources commenting on Marxism now.

Written by Peter Laslett, his article ‘Marxism Now’ reveals how powerful Marxism can be even one hundred years later. His article covers how propaganda is not the main reason why Marxism still has such a severe impact on society and class, indoctrination, and the efficiency of the totalitarian state in aiding the continuation of Marxism.

His listing of various authors who still write on Marxism help students and researchers to link aspects of Marx’s writings with present day Marxism, creating a more convincing and solidified argument.

Bodies and Medicine

The next focus of the module is Bodies and Medicine. Again, this was a thoroughly enjoyable week, combing literature, philosophy, and science all at once, and this can also be linked to Marxism and Capitalism. This module covers authors such as Jean Baudrillard, Elaine Scarry, and Arthur Frank studying why humanities researchers have become interested in discussions of the body and what factors of the modern world might be changing the ways in which we think about our bodies.

James Makittrick Adair’s Commentaries on the Principles and Practice of Physics provides an extremely scientific account of the body and the biology behind it. Chapters VIII and XI focus on the difference of age and sex, and allow students to explore literature alongside scientific fact to enhance arguments and effective analysis.

The Western Daily Press article of ‘The Human Body As a Machine’, despite being a solely scientifical article, contains themes which link to the overworking nature of Marxism, and how the human body can be used as a machine. The section which primarily focuses on ‘In Sickness or Health’ talks about the mechanics of the body and its bodily functions, which students could link to how the overworking nature of Marxism causes bodies to not function as they usually would.

Critical Race Studies

Critical Race Studies is studied in Term Two of the ‘Approaches to Criticism’ module. This study questions what a critical theory of race might attempt to understand as well as linking to the theories of gender and sexuality. With students connecting these thoughts about race to film and literature, for this week, they read authors such as Sylvia Wynter, Frantz Fanon, and Stuart Hall.

This being said, I thought the most effective source in Gale Primary Sources was Sandra F. VanBurkleo’s The Race and Gender Factory. In this source, VanBurkleo reviews Peggy Pascoe’s book Relations of Rescue: The Search for Female Moral Authority in the American West, 1984-1939, who builds on the work of “scholars steeped in critical race and critical cultural studies”. This source provides an external reading opportunity for students to engage in secondary criticism and enhance arguments in exams and summatives.

These articles provided by Gale Primary Sources aid students when completing their first year module ‘Approaches to Criticism’. They allow students to develop arguments and have a deeper understanding of the topics proposed on this module.

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If you enjoyed reading about sources which relate to the ‘Approaches to Criticism’ module, check out these posts:

• Global Communist and Socialist Movements – The Third Instalment of Political Extremism and Radicalism
• Early Modern Medicine: Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health

Blog cover image citation: “New morality; -or- the promis’d installment of the high-priest of the theophilanthropes, with the homage of Leviathan and his suite.” Wikimedia Commons. 15 Jan 2025, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:New_morality;_-or-_the_promis%27d_installment_of_the_high-priest_of_the_theophilanthropes,_with_the_homage_of_Leviathan_and_his_suite_(BM_1868,0808.6762).jpg&oldid=983544100.