I would recommend checking out the works of Mikhail Bakhtin,
particularly Speech Genres and Other Late Essays and The Dialogic Imagination.

He’s a Russian literary critic/theorist/linguist who may well have
pioneered a lot of the understanding of literary genres, although he
wasn’t translated into English until the 1980s.

Also, there’s an elaborate debate about whether they’re different guys
or the same guy publishing under different names, but you might also
look at the work of V.N. Voloshinov.

Not a literary critic, but anthropologists like Bakhtin too

Dear Anthro,

Thanks for the book recs.More suggestions appear below; if I got it more than once, it’s asterisked.

Ask a librarian for help*
The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms
Search the online Modern Language Association Bibliography*
Search Wikipedia for terms like “John Swales” and “discourse community”/”discourse analysis”*
Towards an Aesthetics of Reception, Hans Robert Jauss*
Beyond Genre, Paul Hernadi
The spring and summer 2003 issues of New Literary History
Google Scholar
An Introduction to Genre Theory, Daniel Chandler
The Anatomy of Criticism, Northrop Frye
Saussure
To see genre theory in action, The Fantastic, Tzvetan Todorov*
Ask the professor for secondary reading recommendations*
Narrative Discourse, Gerard Genette
Film/Genre, Rick Altman
Get the course syllabus beforehand
The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism
Poetics, Aristotle
A Defense of Poesie, Sir Philip Sidney
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/intgenre/intgenre.html
“Metaphors of genre: the role of analogies in genre theory,” David Fishelov
“Cranked up really high: genre theory and punk rock,” Stewart Home
“The resources of kind: genre theory in the renaissance,” Rosalie Littel
Colie; ed. by Barbara K. Lewalski
“Locating genre studies: Antecedents
and Prospects” in Genre and the New Rhetoric, Aviva Freedman and Peter Medway
Carolyn Miller, “Genre as Social Action” (ibid)
Graham Smart, “Genre as Community Invention: A Central Bank’s Response
to its Executives’ Expectations as Readers” from Writing in the
Workplace: New Research Perspectives

Dear Sars,

Boyfriend and I are moving out of his parents’ house after renting from them
for about a year.My might-as-well-be-mother-in-law asked my Boyfriend how
much we paid for to adopt our dog.He told her, and asked why.She said,
“Because T [his father] and I have decided we’re going to pay you that much
and keep her.”Seriously.That was the complete conversation.Her
reasoning was that our dog is too old and we aren’t going to be able to
afford her vet bills as her needs for medical attention grow.If it were
almost anyone else, I would agree and let the dog go.She’s arthritic and
nearly blind, and we couldn’t find an apartment in the area without stairs.

The reason I won’t let Mother adopt our dog is because about two weeks ago,
Mother found one of her cats lying on the kitchen floor in a pool of its own
blood.She did her version of “the humane thing,” which constituted
wrapping the cat in a towel and abandoning him on the steps of the local
vet, at two o’clock on a rainy morning.She says it was because she had to
get to work, but she knows that any one of the three adults in the house
would’ve been happy to take him to the emergency vet; it was the bill she
didn’t want to deal with.She told her husband the cat died, but she
doesn’t actually know what happened to him.It wasn’t even my cat, and I
don’t think I can forgive her for doing that to an animal.

I know my dog would be better off with someone who could afford to take care
of her, so I’ve contacted a dalmatian rescue to place her with an
appropriate family.

Here’s the conflict.Mother-in-law has basically demanded first refusal due
to her love of our dog.When the inevitable “Where’s Spot?” question comes
up when she comes to visit (shudder), I would like to be able to tell the
truth, that I gave her to a family who will not only love her but also take
proper care of her.Mother sees nothing wrong with the way she “takes care”
of her animals (she’s done worse in the past), and Boyfriend has confirmed
that no one has ever confronted her about it.

I don’t even want a
confrontation, exactly.I would like an adult conversation along the lines
of, “The way you take care of your animals doesn’t make me feel comfortable
giving one of mine to you.”I’d like to find a gentle way to explain to her
that people who abandon their animals the way she did are what makes vet
bills so outrageous in the first place.Boyfriend has made it clear that
he considers the truth in this matter forbidden.Should I go for the truth
and ride out the crapstorm that will ensue, or keep the peace by lying, yet
again?

Sorry I’m so long-winded, and thanks for the goodness that I know is coming,
Spot’s momma

Dear Mom,

If Boyfriend doesn’t want you telling the truth, it is now Boyfriend’s problem entirely.If she asks where Spot is, Boyfriend can answer.If she gets sad, Boyfriend can comfort her, and if she gets pissed off, Boyfriend can calm her down.

I guess I can understand why he doesn’t want that can of worms opened — if she doesn’t get that dumping an injured animal in the middle of the night isn’t appropriate, she’s not going to get it when it’s explained to her, I’d bet — but if that’s the case, it’s really on him to make sure it stays sealed.Tell him that, since you would prefer to tell her the truth but he won’t have that, he will then have to do the lying and the managing of the fallout, because it’s not your mother and it’s not your choice to shine her on.

Sars,

I have a tricky question here: my mother-in-law uses the word “irregardless” a lot. She’s a teacher.She has a Master’s in Education. And I just thought of this after reading the (old) letter from Dorky McNitpicker.

She’s a lovely woman with a lovely son, and I don’t want to…alienate her by making it seem that I’m…better…than her.Or that I think she’s ignorant (…which I do, in this case, because: not a word).

Correcting one’s mother-in-law versus letting this word slide; which is the lesser evil?

Thank you,
Lovely Daughter-In-Law (I hope)

Dear LDIL (Ih),

Let it slide.The issue isn’t really the word, which unfortunately is in the dictionary now, so you won’t be able to prove your superiority unless you read the usage note aloud to her, which will make you sound like a complete bitch.And that’s the issue.As Dr. Phil likes to say, you can be right, or you can be happy, and if you get into it with her over this, when the point is pretty much to show up her ignorance?”Happy” ain’t gonna be the result.

I know that kind of thing grates, but this isn’t a battle you want to pick, I don’t think, if you want her to like you.

[8/30/06]

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