Modernism:
As a term, modernism is most often used to identify the most distinctive forms, styles, concepts, and sensibilities in literature and art from roughly WWI to the post-WWII years. Since it is a broad intellectual movement, modernism varies widely in specific features, but most critics agree that it involves a deliberate and radical break with the traditional bases of both Western culture and Western art. Modernists were writers and artists who questioned the certainties and standard truths that had previously provided support systems for all social organization, religion, morality, and the conception of the human self. Modernists were influenced by late 19th century thinkers, such as Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, and Darwin. They were especially influenced by the savagery and slaughter of WWI.
The modernist revolt against traditional literary and artistic forms and subjects manifested itself strongly after the catastrophe of WWI, which shook human faith in the continuity and foundations of Western culture. The inherited mode of ordering a literary or artistic work—and for that matter of ordering the world—assumed a relatively stable and coherent worldview. But there was a general shattering of traditional beliefs and foundational truths after WWI, and there was a general emergence of a belief in the futility and meaningless of life, that the world was characterized by disorder rather than order, by anarchy rather than stability. Experimenting with new forms and styles, modernists explored the dislocation and fragmentation of parts rather than the traditional artistic concept of unity. Modernist writers subverted the conventions of earlier prose fiction by breaking up narrative continuity, departing from standard ways of representing characters, and violating the traditional syntax and coherence of narrative language. Such techniques have obvious parallels in the violation of representational conventions in the modernist paintings of Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, Surrealism, and Abstract Expressionism as well as in the violations of standard conventions of melody, harmony, and rhythm by the modernist composers (Stravinsky, Copeland).
A prominent feature of modernism is the attempt to be “avant-garde,” a military term for “advance-guard.” Quite self-consciously, authors and artists attempted to, in Pound’s famous phrase, “make it new.” By violating accepted conventions and decorums, they undertook to create new artistic forms and styles and to introduce neglected, often forbidden subjects. Frequently avant-garde artists represent themselves as alienated from the established order, against which they assert their own autonomy. Their aim is often to shock the sensibilities of their audiences and to challenge the norms and pieties of bourgeois culture.
Literary Characteristics: free verse, stream-of-consciousness, objective correlative, imagism, multiple points-of-view, broken or fragmentary narratives, iceberg narratives, alienated characters, defiance of traditional values.
Joyce, Faulkner, Pound, Eliot, Conrad, Proust, Woolf, Pirandello, Brecht
Post-Modernism:
The often disputed term postmodernism is applied to the literature and art produced after World War II, when the disastrous effects on Western morale of the first war were greatly exacerbated by the experience of Nazi Totalitarianism and European Fascism, the mass exterminations and horror of WWII, the threat of total destruction by the atom bomb, the devastation of the natural environment, the space age, and the ominous threats of overpopulation and starvation. The term generally applies to a cultural condition prevailing in advanced, industrialized capitalist western societies since the 1960s, characterized by a superabundance of disconnected images and styles, most noticeably in television, advertising, commercial design, and pop video. In this sense, postmodernism is said to be a culture or aesthetic sense of fragmentary sensations, eclectic nostalgia, and promiscuous and random superficiality, in which the traditional values of depth, coherence, meaning, originality, and structure are evacuated or dissolved in a colorful chaos of signals. Postmodernism involves not only a continuation, carried to an extreme, of the counter-traditional experiments of modernism, but also diverse attempts to break away from modernist forms that had become conventional and familiar by the latter half of the twentieth century. A familiar undertaking in postmodernist writings is to subvert the foundations of our accepted modes of thought and experience so as to reveal the meaninglessness of existence and the underlying abyss or void (or nothingness) on which our supposed security is precariously suspended. In recent developments in linguistic and literary theory, there is an effort to subvert the foundations of language itself, so as to demonstrate that its seeming meaningfulness dissipates into a play of indeterminacies. In the most basic (and crude) terms, a postmodern writer or artist does not attempt to wrest meaning from the world through the traditional methods of myth, symbol, and artistic complexity but instead embraces the meaningless confusion and absurdity of contemporary existence with either indifference or flippant enthusiasm. Often postmodern writers write about writing itself (metafiction, or fiction about fiction), in which a narrator reflects critically on the lack of coherence in his or her own writing. Postmodernism as a term is generally not applied to poetry or drama but more often to fiction and art. Some writers often discussed as postmodern are Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, Italo Calvino, Gunter Grass, Angela Carter, Vladimir Nabokov, William S. Burroughs, and William Golding.
Monday, November 15, 2010
John Winthop's "A Model of Christian Charity"
--lay sermon delivered on board the Arbella, the flagship vessel of a fleet carrying some 700 passengers during the "Great Migration" in 1629-1630. Some 20 thousand settlers journeyed to New England during the "Great Migration"
--sermon deals with ideals of Christian charity that must be realized if colony was to succeed in its divine errand--and also to survive the harsh conditions
--Winthrop argued that the settlers had to form a commonwealth for the mutual benefit of all and that their society had to be able to withstand the scrutiny of a hostile world--social cohesion and social commitment were required.
From the Text:
--God Almightie in his most holy and wise providence hath soe disposed of the Condicion of mankinde, as in all times some must be rich[,] some poore, some high and eminent in power and dignitie; others mean and in subjection.
--wee are a Company professing our selves fellow members of Christ
--for the worke wee have in hand, it is by mutuall consent through a speciall overruling providence, and a more then an ordinary approbation of the Churches of Christ to seeke out a place of Cohabitation and Consortship under a due form of government both civill and ecclesiastical. . . . The end is to improve our lives to doe more service to the Lord
--That which the most in their Churches maintain as a truth in profession only, wee must bring into familiar and constant practise, as in this duty of love wee must love brotherly without dissimulation, wee must love one another with a pure hearte fervently, wee must beare one anothers burthens
--Thus stands the cause betweene God and us, wee are entered into Covenant with him for this worke, wee have taken out a Commission, the Lord hath given us leave to drawe our owne Articles . . . Now if the Lord shall please to heare us, and bring us in peace to the place wee desire, then hath hee ratified this Covenant and sealed our Commission, and will expect a strickt performance of the Articles contained in it, but if wee shall neglect the observation of these Articles which are the ends wee have propounded, and dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnall intencions, seeking greater things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us[,] be revenged of such a perjured people[,] and make us know the price of the breach of such a Covenant
--we must be knit together as one man
--for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are uppon us [reference to Matthew 5: 14-15, "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid."]
--But if our heartes shall turne away soe that wee will not obey, but shall be seduced and worship other Gods our pleasures, and proffitts, and serve them; it is propounded unto us this day, we shall surely perish out of the good Land whither wee passe over this vast Sea to possess it
--lay sermon delivered on board the Arbella, the flagship vessel of a fleet carrying some 700 passengers during the "Great Migration" in 1629-1630. Some 20 thousand settlers journeyed to New England during the "Great Migration"
--sermon deals with ideals of Christian charity that must be realized if colony was to succeed in its divine errand--and also to survive the harsh conditions
--Winthrop argued that the settlers had to form a commonwealth for the mutual benefit of all and that their society had to be able to withstand the scrutiny of a hostile world--social cohesion and social commitment were required.
From the Text:
--God Almightie in his most holy and wise providence hath soe disposed of the Condicion of mankinde, as in all times some must be rich[,] some poore, some high and eminent in power and dignitie; others mean and in subjection.
--wee are a Company professing our selves fellow members of Christ
--for the worke wee have in hand, it is by mutuall consent through a speciall overruling providence, and a more then an ordinary approbation of the Churches of Christ to seeke out a place of Cohabitation and Consortship under a due form of government both civill and ecclesiastical. . . . The end is to improve our lives to doe more service to the Lord
--That which the most in their Churches maintain as a truth in profession only, wee must bring into familiar and constant practise, as in this duty of love wee must love brotherly without dissimulation, wee must love one another with a pure hearte fervently, wee must beare one anothers burthens
--Thus stands the cause betweene God and us, wee are entered into Covenant with him for this worke, wee have taken out a Commission, the Lord hath given us leave to drawe our owne Articles . . . Now if the Lord shall please to heare us, and bring us in peace to the place wee desire, then hath hee ratified this Covenant and sealed our Commission, and will expect a strickt performance of the Articles contained in it, but if wee shall neglect the observation of these Articles which are the ends wee have propounded, and dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnall intencions, seeking greater things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us[,] be revenged of such a perjured people[,] and make us know the price of the breach of such a Covenant
--we must be knit together as one man
--for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are uppon us [reference to Matthew 5: 14-15, "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid."]
--But if our heartes shall turne away soe that wee will not obey, but shall be seduced and worship other Gods our pleasures, and proffitts, and serve them; it is propounded unto us this day, we shall surely perish out of the good Land whither wee passe over this vast Sea to possess it
"Self-Reliance" Passages
(First published in Essays, 1841)
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803-1882)
To believe your own thoughts, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men,--that is genius.
A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his.
There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given him to till.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company in which the members agree for the better of securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind. . . . No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong is what is against it. . . . I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.
Then, again, do not tell me, as a good man did today, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong.
What I must do, is all that concerns me, not what people think. . . . It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you, is that it scatters your force. . . . If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible-Society, vote with the great party either for the Government or against it, spread your table like base housekeepers, --under all those screens, I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are. . . If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument.
For non-conformity, the world whips you with its displeasure.
The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word. . . . A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. . .
It is for want of self-culture that the idol of Travelling, the idol of Italy, of England, of Egypt, remains for educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable in the imagination, did so not by rambling round creation as a moth round a lamp, but by sticking fast where they were. . . Travelling is a fool’s paradise.
The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but loses so much support of muscle. He has got a fine Geneva watch, but he has lost the skill to tell the hour by the sun. . . . His notebooks impair the memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance office increases the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery does not encumber . . .
And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is a want of self-reliance. Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long, that they have come to esteem what they call the soul’s progress, namely the religious, learned, and civil institutions, as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, because they feel them to be assaults on property. They measure their esteem of each other, by what each has, and not by what each is.
(First published in Essays, 1841)
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803-1882)
To believe your own thoughts, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men,--that is genius.
A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his.
There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given him to till.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company in which the members agree for the better of securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind. . . . No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong is what is against it. . . . I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.
Then, again, do not tell me, as a good man did today, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong.
What I must do, is all that concerns me, not what people think. . . . It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you, is that it scatters your force. . . . If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible-Society, vote with the great party either for the Government or against it, spread your table like base housekeepers, --under all those screens, I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are. . . If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument.
For non-conformity, the world whips you with its displeasure.
The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word. . . . A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. . .
It is for want of self-culture that the idol of Travelling, the idol of Italy, of England, of Egypt, remains for educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable in the imagination, did so not by rambling round creation as a moth round a lamp, but by sticking fast where they were. . . Travelling is a fool’s paradise.
The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but loses so much support of muscle. He has got a fine Geneva watch, but he has lost the skill to tell the hour by the sun. . . . His notebooks impair the memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance office increases the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery does not encumber . . .
And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is a want of self-reliance. Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long, that they have come to esteem what they call the soul’s progress, namely the religious, learned, and civil institutions, as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, because they feel them to be assaults on property. They measure their esteem of each other, by what each has, and not by what each is.
A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, 1588
Thomas Harriot
They are a people clothed with loose mantles made of deer skins, and aprons of the same round about their middles, all else naked . . . having no edge tools or weapons of iron or steel to offend us.
If there fall out any wars between us and them, what their fight is likely to be, we having advantages against them in so many manner of ways, as by our discipline, our strange weapons and devises, especially Ordinance great and small, it may easily be imagined: by the experiences we have had in some places, the turning up of their heels . . . running away was their best defense.
I respect of us, they are but a poor people, and for want of skill and judgment in the knowledge and use of things, do esteem trifles before things of greater value.
Most things they saw with us, as Mathematical instruments, sea Compasses, the virtue of the load-stone [magnet] in drawing iron, a perspective glass [telescope] whereby was showed many strange sights, burning glasses [magnifying glass], wild fireworks, guns, books, writing and reading, spring clocks that seem to go of themselves, and many other things we had that were so strange unto them, and so far exceeded their capacities to comprehend . . . that they thought they were the works of gods then men, or at leastwise they been given and taught us of gods. Which made many of them to have such opinion of us, as that if they knew not the truth of God and Religion already, it was rather to be had from us whom God so specially loved, than from a people that were so simple.
Thomas Harriot
They are a people clothed with loose mantles made of deer skins, and aprons of the same round about their middles, all else naked . . . having no edge tools or weapons of iron or steel to offend us.
If there fall out any wars between us and them, what their fight is likely to be, we having advantages against them in so many manner of ways, as by our discipline, our strange weapons and devises, especially Ordinance great and small, it may easily be imagined: by the experiences we have had in some places, the turning up of their heels . . . running away was their best defense.
I respect of us, they are but a poor people, and for want of skill and judgment in the knowledge and use of things, do esteem trifles before things of greater value.
Most things they saw with us, as Mathematical instruments, sea Compasses, the virtue of the load-stone [magnet] in drawing iron, a perspective glass [telescope] whereby was showed many strange sights, burning glasses [magnifying glass], wild fireworks, guns, books, writing and reading, spring clocks that seem to go of themselves, and many other things we had that were so strange unto them, and so far exceeded their capacities to comprehend . . . that they thought they were the works of gods then men, or at leastwise they been given and taught us of gods. Which made many of them to have such opinion of us, as that if they knew not the truth of God and Religion already, it was rather to be had from us whom God so specially loved, than from a people that were so simple.
Monday, November 8, 2010
New Historicism: “The historicity of the text and the textuality of history.”
The phrase was coined by Stephen Greenblatt around 1980.
Other practitioners are J.W. Lever. Jonathan Dollimore.
Simple Definition: a method based on the parallel reading of literary and non-literary texts, usually of the same time period. It refuses to privilege literary text.
* It is no longer a matter of literature maintaining the foreground and history the background, instead it is a matter of literature and history occupying the same area and given the same weight. Reading all of the textual traces of the past, fiction or non.
* Places the literary text within the frame of a non-literary text.
* A historical anecdote is given, relating the text to the time.
* Context is replaced by “co-text”, that is an interrelated non-literary text from the same time period. Greenblatt: “Will of the World.”
Differences between old and new historicism:
* Old: hierarchical, with literature being the “jewel,” and history the background
* New: Parallel readings, no more hierarchy.
* Old: A historical movement: creates a historical framework in which to place the text
* New: a historicist movement. Interested in history as represented and recorded in written documents—history as text.
* “The word of the past replaces the world of the past.”
* “The aim is not to represent the past as it really was, but to present a new reality by re- situating it.”
Foucault and New Historicism:
* New Historicism is always anti-establishment, on the side of liberal ideas and personal freedoms.
* Believe in Michel Foucault’s idea of an all-seeing—panoptic—surveillance State.
* The panoptic state exerts power through discursive practices, circulating ideology through the body-politic.
* The State is seen as a monolithic structure and change is nearly impossible.
Advantages. * Written in a far more accessible way than post-structuralist theory. * It presents its data and draws its conclusions in a less dense way * Material is often fascinating and distinctive. * New territory. * Political edge is always sharp, avoids problems of straight Marxist criticism. Barry’s example, Montrose’s essay on Fantasies, reinforces the idea that literature plays off reality and reality plays off literature.
"New Historicism focuses on the way literature expresses-and sometimes disguises-power relations at work in the social context in which the literature was produced, often this involves making connections between a literary work and other kinds of texts. Literature is often shown to “negotiate” conflicting power interests. New historicism has made its biggest mark on literary studies of the Renaissances and Romantic periods and has revised motions of literature as privileged, apolitical writing. Much new historicism focuses on the marginalization of subjects such as those identified as witches, the insane, heretics, vagabonds, and political prisoners."
--Jay Stevenson
Cultural Materialism
Cultural materialism is “a politicized form of historiography.”
-Graham Holderness
Raymond Williams coined the term Cultural Materialism. Jonathan Dollimore and Allen Sinfield made current and defined Cultural materialism as “designating a critical method which has four characteristics:
• Historical Context: what was happening at the time the text was written.
• Theoretical Method: Incorporating older methods of theory—Structuralism, Post-structuralism etc.
• Political Commitment: Incorporating non-conservative and non-Christian frameworks—such as Feminist and Marxist theory.
• Textual Analysis: building on theoretical analysis of mainly canonical texts that have become “prominent cultural icons.”
Culture: What does this term mean in the context of Cultural Materialism?
Culture in this sense does not limit itself to “high culture” but includes all forms of culture like TV and pop music.
Materialism: What does this term mean in the context of Cultural Materialism?
Materialism is at odds with idealism. Idealists believe in the transcendent ability of ideas while materialist believe that culture cannot transcend its material trappings.
In this way, Cultural Materialism is an offshoot of Marxist criticism.
History, to a cultural materialist, is what has happened and what is happening now. In other words, Cultural Materialists not only create criticism of a text by contextualizing it with its own time period, but with successive generations including our own. Cultural Materialism bridges the gap between Marxism and Post-Modernism.
Some things that Cultural Materialist might look at when analyzing Shakespeare:
• Elizabethan Drama during its own time period
• The publishing history of Shakespeare through the ages
• That weird movie version of Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo D. in it
• The tourism and kitsch surrounding Shakespeare today
Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams added to the outlook of Cultural Materialism by employing “structures of feeling.” These are values that are changing and being formed as we live and react to the material world around us. They challenge dominant forms of ideology and imply that values are organic and non-stagnant.
Cultural Materialism embraces change and gives us different (changing) perspectives based on what we chose to suppress or reveal in readings from the past.
Shakespeare is one example of how Cultural Materialism can change our point of view, and even our values, in regard to past texts. Many Cultural Materialist have challenged the fetishistic relationship conservative Britain has with Shakespeare.
"Raymond William's term for the theory of culture he develops in the course of a long dialogue with Marxism, and which ascribes a central importance to the role of structures of feeling. Williams is critical of the base/structure model so often used by Marxists to analyze cultural phenomena on the grounds that it makes, for example, the literature dependent, secondary and superstructural, or subsumes it into the wider category of ideology. Cultural Materialism stresses that culture is a constitutive social process which actively creates different ways of life. Similarly, signification or the creation of meaning is viewed as a practical material activity which cannot be consigned to a secondary lever or explained in terms of a primary level of economic activity. Consciousness itself is not a reflection of a basic or more material level of existence, but an active mode of social being. Williams is also critical of the technological determinism of theorists such as Mcluhan who argues that communications media have independent properties that impose themselves automatically ('the medium is the message'). He does not deny that the function of the media is determined, but insists that its determination is social and always bound up with sociocultural practices."
--David Macey
"Britain's reply to new historicism was the rather different creed of cultural materialism, which-appropriately for a society with more vigorous socialist traditions-displayed a political cutting edge largely lacking in its transatlantic counterpart. The phrase “cultural materialism,” had been coined in the 1980s by Britain's premier socialist critic, Raymond Williams, to describe a form of analysis which examined culture less as a set of isolated artistic monuments then as a material formation, complete with its own modes of production, power-effects, social relation, identifiable audiences, historically conditioned thought forms. It was a way of bringing an unashamedly materialist analysis to bear on that realm of social existence-'culture'-which was thought by conventional criticism to be the very antithesis of the material; and its ambition was less to relate 'culture' to 'society,' in William's own earlier style, than to examine culture as always-already social and material in its roots. It could be seen either as an enrichment or a dilution of classical Marxism: enrichment, because it carried materialism boldly through to the 'spiritual' itself; dilution, because in doing so it blurred the distinction, vital to orthodox Marxism, between the economic and the cultural. The method was, so Williams himself announced, 'compactible' with Marxism, but it took issue with the kind of Marxism which had relegated culture to secondary, 'superstructural' status, and resembled the new historicist in its refusal to enforce such hierarchies. It also paralleled the new historicism on taking on board a whole range of topics-notably, sexuality, feminism, ethnic and post-colonial questions-to which Marxist criticism had traditionally given short shrift. To this extent, cultural materialism formed a kind of bridge between Marxism and postmodernism, radically revising the former while wary of the more modish, uncritical, unhistorical aspects of the latter. This, indeed, might be said to be roughly the stand to which most British left cultural critics nowadays take up."
--Terry Eagleton
Differences
Differences Between New Historicism and Cultural Materialism
As we have seen and read in Barry, New Historicism and Cultural Materialism have a significant overlap. In fact the main difference is politics. There are three main differences:
1. Cultural Materialists concentrate on the the interventions whereby men and women make their own history, where New Historicists focus on the the power of social and ideological structures which restrain them. A contrast between political optimism and political pessimism.
2. Cultural Materialists view New Historicists as cutting themselves off from effective political positions by their acceptance of a particular version of post-structuralism.
3. New Historicists will situate the literary text in the political situation of its own day, while the Cultural Materialists situate it within that of our own.
--from www.cultmatnewhist.blogspot.com
Advantages. * Written in a far more accessible way than post-structuralist theory. * It presents its data and draws its conclusions in a less dense way * Material is often fascinating and distinctive. * New territory. * Political edge is always sharp, avoids problems of straight Marxist criticism. Barry’s example, Montrose’s essay on Fantasies, reinforces the idea that literature plays off reality and reality plays off literature.
"New Historicism focuses on the way literature expresses-and sometimes disguises-power relations at work in the social context in which the literature was produced, often this involves making connections between a literary work and other kinds of texts. Literature is often shown to “negotiate” conflicting power interests. New historicism has made its biggest mark on literary studies of the Renaissances and Romantic periods and has revised motions of literature as privileged, apolitical writing. Much new historicism focuses on the marginalization of subjects such as those identified as witches, the insane, heretics, vagabonds, and political prisoners."
--Jay Stevenson
Cultural Materialism
Cultural materialism is “a politicized form of historiography.”
-Graham Holderness
Raymond Williams coined the term Cultural Materialism. Jonathan Dollimore and Allen Sinfield made current and defined Cultural materialism as “designating a critical method which has four characteristics:
• Historical Context: what was happening at the time the text was written.
• Theoretical Method: Incorporating older methods of theory—Structuralism, Post-structuralism etc.
• Political Commitment: Incorporating non-conservative and non-Christian frameworks—such as Feminist and Marxist theory.
• Textual Analysis: building on theoretical analysis of mainly canonical texts that have become “prominent cultural icons.”
Culture: What does this term mean in the context of Cultural Materialism?
Culture in this sense does not limit itself to “high culture” but includes all forms of culture like TV and pop music.
Materialism: What does this term mean in the context of Cultural Materialism?
Materialism is at odds with idealism. Idealists believe in the transcendent ability of ideas while materialist believe that culture cannot transcend its material trappings.
In this way, Cultural Materialism is an offshoot of Marxist criticism.
History, to a cultural materialist, is what has happened and what is happening now. In other words, Cultural Materialists not only create criticism of a text by contextualizing it with its own time period, but with successive generations including our own. Cultural Materialism bridges the gap between Marxism and Post-Modernism.
Some things that Cultural Materialist might look at when analyzing Shakespeare:
• Elizabethan Drama during its own time period
• The publishing history of Shakespeare through the ages
• That weird movie version of Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo D. in it
• The tourism and kitsch surrounding Shakespeare today
Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams added to the outlook of Cultural Materialism by employing “structures of feeling.” These are values that are changing and being formed as we live and react to the material world around us. They challenge dominant forms of ideology and imply that values are organic and non-stagnant.
Cultural Materialism embraces change and gives us different (changing) perspectives based on what we chose to suppress or reveal in readings from the past.
Shakespeare is one example of how Cultural Materialism can change our point of view, and even our values, in regard to past texts. Many Cultural Materialist have challenged the fetishistic relationship conservative Britain has with Shakespeare.
"Raymond William's term for the theory of culture he develops in the course of a long dialogue with Marxism, and which ascribes a central importance to the role of structures of feeling. Williams is critical of the base/structure model so often used by Marxists to analyze cultural phenomena on the grounds that it makes, for example, the literature dependent, secondary and superstructural, or subsumes it into the wider category of ideology. Cultural Materialism stresses that culture is a constitutive social process which actively creates different ways of life. Similarly, signification or the creation of meaning is viewed as a practical material activity which cannot be consigned to a secondary lever or explained in terms of a primary level of economic activity. Consciousness itself is not a reflection of a basic or more material level of existence, but an active mode of social being. Williams is also critical of the technological determinism of theorists such as Mcluhan who argues that communications media have independent properties that impose themselves automatically ('the medium is the message'). He does not deny that the function of the media is determined, but insists that its determination is social and always bound up with sociocultural practices."
--David Macey
"Britain's reply to new historicism was the rather different creed of cultural materialism, which-appropriately for a society with more vigorous socialist traditions-displayed a political cutting edge largely lacking in its transatlantic counterpart. The phrase “cultural materialism,” had been coined in the 1980s by Britain's premier socialist critic, Raymond Williams, to describe a form of analysis which examined culture less as a set of isolated artistic monuments then as a material formation, complete with its own modes of production, power-effects, social relation, identifiable audiences, historically conditioned thought forms. It was a way of bringing an unashamedly materialist analysis to bear on that realm of social existence-'culture'-which was thought by conventional criticism to be the very antithesis of the material; and its ambition was less to relate 'culture' to 'society,' in William's own earlier style, than to examine culture as always-already social and material in its roots. It could be seen either as an enrichment or a dilution of classical Marxism: enrichment, because it carried materialism boldly through to the 'spiritual' itself; dilution, because in doing so it blurred the distinction, vital to orthodox Marxism, between the economic and the cultural. The method was, so Williams himself announced, 'compactible' with Marxism, but it took issue with the kind of Marxism which had relegated culture to secondary, 'superstructural' status, and resembled the new historicist in its refusal to enforce such hierarchies. It also paralleled the new historicism on taking on board a whole range of topics-notably, sexuality, feminism, ethnic and post-colonial questions-to which Marxist criticism had traditionally given short shrift. To this extent, cultural materialism formed a kind of bridge between Marxism and postmodernism, radically revising the former while wary of the more modish, uncritical, unhistorical aspects of the latter. This, indeed, might be said to be roughly the stand to which most British left cultural critics nowadays take up."
--Terry Eagleton
Differences
Differences Between New Historicism and Cultural Materialism
As we have seen and read in Barry, New Historicism and Cultural Materialism have a significant overlap. In fact the main difference is politics. There are three main differences:
1. Cultural Materialists concentrate on the the interventions whereby men and women make their own history, where New Historicists focus on the the power of social and ideological structures which restrain them. A contrast between political optimism and political pessimism.
2. Cultural Materialists view New Historicists as cutting themselves off from effective political positions by their acceptance of a particular version of post-structuralism.
3. New Historicists will situate the literary text in the political situation of its own day, while the Cultural Materialists situate it within that of our own.
--from www.cultmatnewhist.blogspot.com
Monday, November 1, 2010
Wordsworth
The World is Too Much With Us
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
That winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. --Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
--William Wordsworth, 1807
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
That winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. --Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
--William Wordsworth, 1807
Thoreau
Passages from "Economy"
I have traveled a good deal in Concord; and every where, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways.
I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of.
But I wonder if herds are not the keepers of men than men the keepers of herds.
Most men . . . are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not the leisure for a true integrity day by day . . . He has not time to be anything but a machine.
It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live . . . trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt . . . always promising to pay, promising to pay, to-morrow, and dying to-day, insolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes, only not state-prison offenses; lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility, or dilating into an atmosphere of thin and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your neighbor to let you make his shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import his groceries for him; making yourselves sick . . .
Talk of the divinity in man! Look at the teamster on the highway, wending to market by day or night; does any divinity stir within him? His highest duty is to fodder and water his horses.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
I have traveled a good deal in Concord; and every where, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways.
I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of.
But I wonder if herds are not the keepers of men than men the keepers of herds.
Most men . . . are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not the leisure for a true integrity day by day . . . He has not time to be anything but a machine.
It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live . . . trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt . . . always promising to pay, promising to pay, to-morrow, and dying to-day, insolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes, only not state-prison offenses; lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility, or dilating into an atmosphere of thin and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your neighbor to let you make his shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import his groceries for him; making yourselves sick . . .
Talk of the divinity in man! Look at the teamster on the highway, wending to market by day or night; does any divinity stir within him? His highest duty is to fodder and water his horses.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Ideology:
A set of beliefs underlying the customs, habits, and practices common to any given social group. To members of that group, the beliefs seem obviously true, natural, and even universally applicable. They may seem just as obviously arbitrary, idiosyncratic, and even false to those who adhere to another ideology. Within a society, several ideologies may coexist; one or more of these may be dominant.
Ideologies may be forcefully imposed or willingly subscribed to. Their component beliefs may be held consciously or unconsciously. In either case . . . [they have been] called “the unexamined ground of our experience.” Ideology governs our perceptions, judgments, and prejudices—our sense of what is acceptable, normal, and deviant.
--from The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms
Monday, October 18, 2010
I am conscious of myself and become myself only while revealing myself for
another, through another, and with the help of another. The most important acts
constituting self-consciousness are determined by a relationship toward another
consciousness. . . . The very being of man (both internal and external) is the
deepest communion. To be means to communicate . . . .To be means to be for
another, and through the other, for oneself. A person has no internal sovereign
territory, he is wholly and always on the boundary: looking inside himself, he
looks into the eyes of another or with the eyes of another . . . . I cannot manage
without another, I cannot become myself without another; I find myself in another
by finding another in myself.
--Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination
another, through another, and with the help of another. The most important acts
constituting self-consciousness are determined by a relationship toward another
consciousness. . . . The very being of man (both internal and external) is the
deepest communion. To be means to communicate . . . .To be means to be for
another, and through the other, for oneself. A person has no internal sovereign
territory, he is wholly and always on the boundary: looking inside himself, he
looks into the eyes of another or with the eyes of another . . . . I cannot manage
without another, I cannot become myself without another; I find myself in another
by finding another in myself.
--Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination
Notes from J. Hillis Miller's "Narrative" Essay (included in Critical Terms for Literary Study, Eds. Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. 66-79.
--Telling stories natural to human experience
--critical discussion of narrative as old as narrative tradition, dating back as far as Aristotle, who in Poetics stated that plot was the most important feature of narrative. A good story has a beginning, middle, and an end. All other features (specifically character, setting, and diction) are all subsidiary to plot.
--according to Aristotle, narration plays a fundamental social and psychological role. Narratives (specifically tragedy) effect a catharsis of the undesirable emotions of pity and fear. After arousing these emotions, tragedy purges them.
--all forms of narrative (fictional and factual) are "order-giving" and/or "order-finding"
--narratives provide a detachment from immediate circumstances and obligations
--just as we [humans] are tool-using animals, we are symbol-using animals, and thus we are fiction-making animals
--make-believe is a fundamental human activity
--according to Aristotle, we enjoy fictions as a source of imitation (mimesis) for two reasons: imitation pleases the imagination by providing rhythm and order, and imitation gratifies the intellect by offering learning experiences. We learn by imitation.
--What exactly do we learn? We learn the nature of things as they are. We need fictions in order to experiment with possible selves and to learn to take our places in the real world. We learn about our world, or other possible worlds, and how we might experience our world[s].
--in fictions we order or reorder the givens of experience. We experience a form and a meaning, a linear order with a shapely beginning, middle, end, and central theme.
--The human capacity to tell stories is one way we collectively build a significant and orderly world around us.
--with fictions we investigate, perhaps invent, the meaning of our lives.
--Do fictions create or reveal?
--To say reveal presupposes that the world has one kind or another of preexisting order and that the business of fictions is in one way or another to imitate, copy, or represent that order. In this case, the ultimate test of a good fiction is whether to not it corresponds to the way things are.
--To say create presupposes that the world may not be ordered in itself or, at any rate, that the social and psychological function of fictions is what speech-act theorists call "performative." A story is a way of doing things with words. It makes something happen in the real world: for example, it can propose modes of selfhood or ways of behaving that are then imitated in the real world.
--Would we know about love if we had not read fictions about love?
--Fictions have a tremendous importance not merely as reflectors of a culture but as makers of that culture and as ostentatious--but therefore all the more effective--policemen of that culture. Fictions keep us in line and tend to make us more like our neighbors.
--Fictions tend to draw attention to cultural boundaries.
--Yet there is a function that runs counter to the "policing function. Narratives are relatively safe or innocuous places in which the reigning assumptions of a given culture can be criticized. In narratives, alternative assumptions can be entertained or experimented with--not as in the real world where experimentation might have dangerous consequences, but in the imaginary world where safe experimentations are possible.
--Narratives both reinforce the dominant culture and question it at the same time. The putting into question may be obliquely affirmative: we can ward off dangers to the reigning assumptions or ideologies of our culture by expressing our fears about their fragility or vulnerability in the safe realm of fiction.
--Telling stories natural to human experience
--critical discussion of narrative as old as narrative tradition, dating back as far as Aristotle, who in Poetics stated that plot was the most important feature of narrative. A good story has a beginning, middle, and an end. All other features (specifically character, setting, and diction) are all subsidiary to plot.
--according to Aristotle, narration plays a fundamental social and psychological role. Narratives (specifically tragedy) effect a catharsis of the undesirable emotions of pity and fear. After arousing these emotions, tragedy purges them.
--all forms of narrative (fictional and factual) are "order-giving" and/or "order-finding"
--narratives provide a detachment from immediate circumstances and obligations
--just as we [humans] are tool-using animals, we are symbol-using animals, and thus we are fiction-making animals
--make-believe is a fundamental human activity
--according to Aristotle, we enjoy fictions as a source of imitation (mimesis) for two reasons: imitation pleases the imagination by providing rhythm and order, and imitation gratifies the intellect by offering learning experiences. We learn by imitation.
--What exactly do we learn? We learn the nature of things as they are. We need fictions in order to experiment with possible selves and to learn to take our places in the real world. We learn about our world, or other possible worlds, and how we might experience our world[s].
--in fictions we order or reorder the givens of experience. We experience a form and a meaning, a linear order with a shapely beginning, middle, end, and central theme.
--The human capacity to tell stories is one way we collectively build a significant and orderly world around us.
--with fictions we investigate, perhaps invent, the meaning of our lives.
--Do fictions create or reveal?
--To say reveal presupposes that the world has one kind or another of preexisting order and that the business of fictions is in one way or another to imitate, copy, or represent that order. In this case, the ultimate test of a good fiction is whether to not it corresponds to the way things are.
--To say create presupposes that the world may not be ordered in itself or, at any rate, that the social and psychological function of fictions is what speech-act theorists call "performative." A story is a way of doing things with words. It makes something happen in the real world: for example, it can propose modes of selfhood or ways of behaving that are then imitated in the real world.
--Would we know about love if we had not read fictions about love?
--Fictions have a tremendous importance not merely as reflectors of a culture but as makers of that culture and as ostentatious--but therefore all the more effective--policemen of that culture. Fictions keep us in line and tend to make us more like our neighbors.
--Fictions tend to draw attention to cultural boundaries.
--Yet there is a function that runs counter to the "policing function. Narratives are relatively safe or innocuous places in which the reigning assumptions of a given culture can be criticized. In narratives, alternative assumptions can be entertained or experimented with--not as in the real world where experimentation might have dangerous consequences, but in the imaginary world where safe experimentations are possible.
--Narratives both reinforce the dominant culture and question it at the same time. The putting into question may be obliquely affirmative: we can ward off dangers to the reigning assumptions or ideologies of our culture by expressing our fears about their fragility or vulnerability in the safe realm of fiction.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Engl 30103, Intro to Lit theory
Williams, Fall 2010
Comprehensive Subjective Midterm
I. You get 5 points for holding up the “official” theory card I distributed two weeks ago. You can use the card to answer Part II.
II. Complete the following:
1. Theory Rule Number One: Everything is ______________.
2. Politics is __________________.
3. Language is _________________.
4. Truth is ___________________.
5. Meaning is ___________________.
6. Human nature is a ___________________.
II. Match the following:
1. “There is always a return of the repressed.”
2. “There are no facts, only interpretations.”
3. “There is nothing outside the text.”
4. “I am where I think not.”
5. “ I think, therefore I am.
A. Derrida, B. Descartes, C. Lacan, D. Nietzsche, and E. Freud
III. Using Freudian/Lacanian psychoanalytical theory, interpret the following dream:
A man or woman is late for an important meeting and is riding in a taxi. S/he then discovers that s/he is naked. When s/he tries to tell the driver where s/he lives, s/he realizes that s/he has forgotten her/his address. Frantically s/he gets out and starts running around looking for her/his house while trying to hide her/his nakedness from people on the sidewalk. S/he trips over a red tricycle and hides under a rose bush.
IV. Short Answer, more or less:
1. Cite at least 5 of the social categories that you are subjected to.
2. Cite at least 5 of the ways you communicate non-verbally.
3. Cite at least 5 instances when you have been interpellated.
4. Cite at least 5 instances when you have gone out and bought something as a result of a TV commercial or magazine ad.
5. Cite at least 5 reasons why you disagree—or agree—with Theory Toolbox’s argument that there is no objectivity and/or no essential self.
Williams, Fall 2010
Comprehensive Subjective Midterm
I. You get 5 points for holding up the “official” theory card I distributed two weeks ago. You can use the card to answer Part II.
II. Complete the following:
1. Theory Rule Number One: Everything is ______________.
2. Politics is __________________.
3. Language is _________________.
4. Truth is ___________________.
5. Meaning is ___________________.
6. Human nature is a ___________________.
II. Match the following:
1. “There is always a return of the repressed.”
2. “There are no facts, only interpretations.”
3. “There is nothing outside the text.”
4. “I am where I think not.”
5. “ I think, therefore I am.
A. Derrida, B. Descartes, C. Lacan, D. Nietzsche, and E. Freud
III. Using Freudian/Lacanian psychoanalytical theory, interpret the following dream:
A man or woman is late for an important meeting and is riding in a taxi. S/he then discovers that s/he is naked. When s/he tries to tell the driver where s/he lives, s/he realizes that s/he has forgotten her/his address. Frantically s/he gets out and starts running around looking for her/his house while trying to hide her/his nakedness from people on the sidewalk. S/he trips over a red tricycle and hides under a rose bush.
IV. Short Answer, more or less:
1. Cite at least 5 of the social categories that you are subjected to.
2. Cite at least 5 of the ways you communicate non-verbally.
3. Cite at least 5 instances when you have been interpellated.
4. Cite at least 5 instances when you have gone out and bought something as a result of a TV commercial or magazine ad.
5. Cite at least 5 reasons why you disagree—or agree—with Theory Toolbox’s argument that there is no objectivity and/or no essential self.
The Subjectivity of Self
(from The Theory Toolbox, “Subjectvity”
Meaning is made, not discovered.
Subjectivity is not the opposite of objectivity (“there are no facts, only interpretations”)
Wherever we see a “fact,” an interpretation has already taken place.
In traditional Western thought, the “self” is viewed as that which is primary, untouched by cultural influences. We tend to think that our selfhood is the essence of our unique individuality; the intrinsic, singular qualities that define who we are. These intrinsic qualities preserve our unique individuality without regard to external factors. This insistence on selfhood is culturally pervasive and popular.
The subject is the opposite—anything but unique. The subject is defined by its place among various social positions. To be a subject means that one’s personhood is defined not by intrinsic or internal qualities but by external factors.
The “self” is generally viewed as an inwardly generated phenomenon, a personhood based on particular qualities that make us who we are. The self is the strangely intangible core (the soul?) that we take for the cause of our lives and our actions.
The “subject” is an outwardly generated concept, an effect, an understanding of personhood based on the social laws or codes to which we are made to answer. We recognize ourselves as subjects when demands are made on us.
“The “subject” is always understood in reference to preexisting social conditions or categories (gender, race, class, ethnicity. We do not choose our categories.
We tend to understand the “self” as always in the driver’s seat, whereas the “subject” is the passenger. The self is causing things to happen, whereas the subject is responding to things that happen. Yet the driver is already a passenger.
The fact that the driver feels like she is in control is a cultural response that’s been learned. Ultimately, the driver is like the passenger—always responding to things that are already there.
If we track the driver’s imaginary history, we will see that she’s been a “subject” much more often in her life than she’s been a “self”: subject to her family, her economic status, her ethnic background, her nationality, her education, her employers, the cultural expectations of her race and gender, event he language of her native country. All of these things preexist and outlast her, and her life is determined by the ways she responds to these social conditions., which she has little or no voice in determining.
Eminem, Dennis Rodman, and Rush Limbaugh? They’re supposedly unique “selves,” and if you buy their books or cds, imitate their actions, and follow their lead, you can learn to be unique too.
The self, our supposed driver, is already and always will be a “subject,” a passenger. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a completely unconstrained “self,” somehow free from its social contexts.
The meaning of a subject/ self (identity) always exists within a specific cultural context; the things that make us who we are are found in the context of where we live, where we’re from, and where we’re headed.
Our subjectivity (our inner self) is socially constructed, not mystically or naturally found.
There is no meaning or self that exists temporally before the law; meanings and selves are only articulated in terms of certain laws—linguistic, social, economic, cultural, scientific, etc.
Race is a culturally constructed phenomenon. The seemingly neutral or scientific categories like race are not in fact natural but are rather constructed along political and ideological lines.
Subjects or selves are constructed by being subject to certain social categories or definitions: race, class, gender, ethnicity, etc.
Identity is socially constructed.
The tricky thing that “subjectivity” adds to the vocabulary of the “self” is that the interpreter is herself also one of the cultural signs within the process of making meaning. The subject makes meanings, but the subject is also acted upon by meanings. An absolutely “free” interpreter—a wholly unconstrained self—simply doesn’t exist.
Identity is a product of culture, and thus inexorably dependent on social and cultural categories.
Who you are is dependent on the recognition of your identity by others. Our various identities (the various roles we perform) can only come into being with a recognition from others.
All meaning, and all identity, can only come into being through a process of social negotiation, which involves the recognition of others.
We are social animals, and one of the things we want from each other is recognition.
To be subjected to culture is a process known as interpellation. The individual is constructed or interpellated as a subject by the various institutions of contemporary life.
Our identities only take shape in response to already given codes.
Every time we recognize ourselves—every time we say, “yeah, that’s me—we confront not the freedom and uniqueness of our individual selfhood but rather the cultural codes of our subjectivity.
We cannot escape social categories, particularly labels. We can always quarrel with specific labels fairly or unfairly imposed in specific contexts, but the very act of labeling cannot be renounced. It is impossible to deny the act of labeling (the process of making meaning by using and revising existing cultural categories).
There is no “escape” to some place of perfect freedom where we are untouched by culture. In fact, the dream of such a place is one of the most
(from The Theory Toolbox, “Subjectvity”
Meaning is made, not discovered.
Subjectivity is not the opposite of objectivity (“there are no facts, only interpretations”)
Wherever we see a “fact,” an interpretation has already taken place.
In traditional Western thought, the “self” is viewed as that which is primary, untouched by cultural influences. We tend to think that our selfhood is the essence of our unique individuality; the intrinsic, singular qualities that define who we are. These intrinsic qualities preserve our unique individuality without regard to external factors. This insistence on selfhood is culturally pervasive and popular.
The subject is the opposite—anything but unique. The subject is defined by its place among various social positions. To be a subject means that one’s personhood is defined not by intrinsic or internal qualities but by external factors.
The “self” is generally viewed as an inwardly generated phenomenon, a personhood based on particular qualities that make us who we are. The self is the strangely intangible core (the soul?) that we take for the cause of our lives and our actions.
The “subject” is an outwardly generated concept, an effect, an understanding of personhood based on the social laws or codes to which we are made to answer. We recognize ourselves as subjects when demands are made on us.
“The “subject” is always understood in reference to preexisting social conditions or categories (gender, race, class, ethnicity. We do not choose our categories.
We tend to understand the “self” as always in the driver’s seat, whereas the “subject” is the passenger. The self is causing things to happen, whereas the subject is responding to things that happen. Yet the driver is already a passenger.
The fact that the driver feels like she is in control is a cultural response that’s been learned. Ultimately, the driver is like the passenger—always responding to things that are already there.
If we track the driver’s imaginary history, we will see that she’s been a “subject” much more often in her life than she’s been a “self”: subject to her family, her economic status, her ethnic background, her nationality, her education, her employers, the cultural expectations of her race and gender, event he language of her native country. All of these things preexist and outlast her, and her life is determined by the ways she responds to these social conditions., which she has little or no voice in determining.
Eminem, Dennis Rodman, and Rush Limbaugh? They’re supposedly unique “selves,” and if you buy their books or cds, imitate their actions, and follow their lead, you can learn to be unique too.
The self, our supposed driver, is already and always will be a “subject,” a passenger. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a completely unconstrained “self,” somehow free from its social contexts.
The meaning of a subject/ self (identity) always exists within a specific cultural context; the things that make us who we are are found in the context of where we live, where we’re from, and where we’re headed.
Our subjectivity (our inner self) is socially constructed, not mystically or naturally found.
There is no meaning or self that exists temporally before the law; meanings and selves are only articulated in terms of certain laws—linguistic, social, economic, cultural, scientific, etc.
Race is a culturally constructed phenomenon. The seemingly neutral or scientific categories like race are not in fact natural but are rather constructed along political and ideological lines.
Subjects or selves are constructed by being subject to certain social categories or definitions: race, class, gender, ethnicity, etc.
Identity is socially constructed.
The tricky thing that “subjectivity” adds to the vocabulary of the “self” is that the interpreter is herself also one of the cultural signs within the process of making meaning. The subject makes meanings, but the subject is also acted upon by meanings. An absolutely “free” interpreter—a wholly unconstrained self—simply doesn’t exist.
Identity is a product of culture, and thus inexorably dependent on social and cultural categories.
Who you are is dependent on the recognition of your identity by others. Our various identities (the various roles we perform) can only come into being with a recognition from others.
All meaning, and all identity, can only come into being through a process of social negotiation, which involves the recognition of others.
We are social animals, and one of the things we want from each other is recognition.
To be subjected to culture is a process known as interpellation. The individual is constructed or interpellated as a subject by the various institutions of contemporary life.
Our identities only take shape in response to already given codes.
Every time we recognize ourselves—every time we say, “yeah, that’s me—we confront not the freedom and uniqueness of our individual selfhood but rather the cultural codes of our subjectivity.
We cannot escape social categories, particularly labels. We can always quarrel with specific labels fairly or unfairly imposed in specific contexts, but the very act of labeling cannot be renounced. It is impossible to deny the act of labeling (the process of making meaning by using and revising existing cultural categories).
There is no “escape” to some place of perfect freedom where we are untouched by culture. In fact, the dream of such a place is one of the most
Monday, September 20, 2010
Folk Tale and Fairy Tale
A folk tale is a short narrative that has been orally transmitted through successive generations within any given community and that has typically evolved over time. Although folk tales usually begin as oral tales of unidentified origin, they are generally committed to writing at some point. Folk tales may include fables, fairy tales, legends, myths, tall tales, ghost stories, or stories about giants, monsters, devils, and saints (Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill)
A fairy tale is a brief prose narrative intended to entertain or instruct that typically relates fantastic or magical occurrences involving a hero. Fairy tales are characterized by a number of common elements. They often begin “once upon a time” in an unspecified setting, feature flat (unchanging or superficial) characters, and involve magic, talking animals, disguises and/or physical transformations, and prohibitions or taboos. Fairy tales employ stock characters, such as cruel step mothers, fairy godmothers, fairies, and they usually address a simplified conflict between good and evil.
--from The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms
A folk tale is a short narrative that has been orally transmitted through successive generations within any given community and that has typically evolved over time. Although folk tales usually begin as oral tales of unidentified origin, they are generally committed to writing at some point. Folk tales may include fables, fairy tales, legends, myths, tall tales, ghost stories, or stories about giants, monsters, devils, and saints (Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill)
A fairy tale is a brief prose narrative intended to entertain or instruct that typically relates fantastic or magical occurrences involving a hero. Fairy tales are characterized by a number of common elements. They often begin “once upon a time” in an unspecified setting, feature flat (unchanging or superficial) characters, and involve magic, talking animals, disguises and/or physical transformations, and prohibitions or taboos. Fairy tales employ stock characters, such as cruel step mothers, fairy godmothers, fairies, and they usually address a simplified conflict between good and evil.
--from The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms
Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction?
--language does not merely reflect or record the world; it shapes it, so that how we see is what we see
--we exist in a universe of radical uncertainty, since we can have no access to any fixed point or landmark which is beyond linguistic processing
--in post-structuralism there are no fixed intellectual reference points
--we live in a “decentered universe,” one in which, by definition, we cannot know where we are, since all previous concepts to define a stable center have been destabilized. There are no absolutes or fixed points, and thus our universe is inherently relativistic
--there is an almost universally felt anxiety that language is inexact, that language will express things we hadn’t intended, or convey the wrong impression, or betray our ignorance
--inevitably, there is some breakdown between the signifier, the signified, and the receiver
--Nietzsche’s famous remark is often quoted: “There are no facts, only interpretations.”
--Structuralists accept that the world is constructed through language, in the sense that we do no have access to reality other than through the linguistic medium; post-structuralists take this notion much further, since they reject the notion that language is stable and orderly. Post-structuralism believe that we are never fully in control of language, that meanings can never be set in unchanging contexts. Linguistic anxiety is a keynote of the post-structuralist outlook.
--post-strucutalism accepts a radical break from the past (modernist revolt against the 19th c, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Freud, WWI, WWII, Holocaust, nuclear warfare)
--deconstruction is the critical practice of post-structuralism. In deconstruction literary texts are discussed as emblems of the decentered universe. Texts previously regarded as unified artistic creations are revealed to be fragmented, self-divided, and centerless
--Derrida’s famous remark is often quoted: “There is nothing outside the text.”
--Reading and interpretation, then, are not just reproducing what the writer thought and expressed in the text. Critical reading must produce the text, since there is nothing behind it to reconstruct. Thus, the reading has to be deconstructive rather than reconstructive.
--a deconstructive reading—pulling at a loose thread; all texts are characterized by disunity rather than unity, and by reading against the grain—reading a text against itself—discontinuities will be revealed
--deconstruction demonstrates that any given text has irreconcilably contradictory meanings, rather than being a unified, logical, coherent whole
--all language is characterized by “deferred presence,” that is to say, the thing being signified is never actually present, and every signified concept invokes others in an endless stream of connotations
--deconstruction emphasizes textual undecidability and indeterminacy
--language does not merely reflect or record the world; it shapes it, so that how we see is what we see
--we exist in a universe of radical uncertainty, since we can have no access to any fixed point or landmark which is beyond linguistic processing
--in post-structuralism there are no fixed intellectual reference points
--we live in a “decentered universe,” one in which, by definition, we cannot know where we are, since all previous concepts to define a stable center have been destabilized. There are no absolutes or fixed points, and thus our universe is inherently relativistic
--there is an almost universally felt anxiety that language is inexact, that language will express things we hadn’t intended, or convey the wrong impression, or betray our ignorance
--inevitably, there is some breakdown between the signifier, the signified, and the receiver
--Nietzsche’s famous remark is often quoted: “There are no facts, only interpretations.”
--Structuralists accept that the world is constructed through language, in the sense that we do no have access to reality other than through the linguistic medium; post-structuralists take this notion much further, since they reject the notion that language is stable and orderly. Post-structuralism believe that we are never fully in control of language, that meanings can never be set in unchanging contexts. Linguistic anxiety is a keynote of the post-structuralist outlook.
--post-strucutalism accepts a radical break from the past (modernist revolt against the 19th c, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Freud, WWI, WWII, Holocaust, nuclear warfare)
--deconstruction is the critical practice of post-structuralism. In deconstruction literary texts are discussed as emblems of the decentered universe. Texts previously regarded as unified artistic creations are revealed to be fragmented, self-divided, and centerless
--Derrida’s famous remark is often quoted: “There is nothing outside the text.”
--Reading and interpretation, then, are not just reproducing what the writer thought and expressed in the text. Critical reading must produce the text, since there is nothing behind it to reconstruct. Thus, the reading has to be deconstructive rather than reconstructive.
--a deconstructive reading—pulling at a loose thread; all texts are characterized by disunity rather than unity, and by reading against the grain—reading a text against itself—discontinuities will be revealed
--deconstruction demonstrates that any given text has irreconcilably contradictory meanings, rather than being a unified, logical, coherent whole
--all language is characterized by “deferred presence,” that is to say, the thing being signified is never actually present, and every signified concept invokes others in an endless stream of connotations
--deconstruction emphasizes textual undecidability and indeterminacy
Tenets of Liberal Humanism:
--a firm belief in the stable values of literature, that good literature is of timeless significance, that good literature transcends the limitations and peculiarities of the age in which it was written, and thus speaks to what is constant in human nature
--a firm belief that the literary text contains its own meaning within itself, and this meaning can be perceived through close textual analysis without the elaborate process of placing it in socio-political, literary-historical, or autobiographical contexts. This is an essentialist belief in the primacy and self-sufficiency of the text
--a firm belief that human nature is essentially unchanging, that the same passions, emotions, and situations are seen again and again throughout human history, that literature reveals what is constant in human nature
--a firm belief that individuality is something securely possessed within each of us as our own unique essence. Despite all changes in environment and situation, there is always a core of “me” that is unchanging and constant. This is an essentialist belief in a transcendent self, a self that transcends all of the forces of society, experience, and language. There is something in you that will always be you, something that can never be transformed
--a firm belief that the job of criticism is to interpret the text, to mediate between it and the reader, critics are those who are specially trained to uncover the subtle, often hidden meanings and symbols in a text
--a firm belief that texts have specific authors who are responsible for the craft, structure, and meanings of their texts.
Rejection of Liberal Humanism:
--a belief that there are no stable, unchanging “givens” in the world as we know it, all of the “givens” we have accepted as stable (gender, identity, nationality) are actually fluid and unstable things rather than fixed and reliable essences. Instead of being solidly “there” in the real world of fact and experience, they are “socially constructed,” that is, dependent on social and political forces and on shifting ways of seeing and thinking (essentialism versus relativism)
--a belief that all thinking and investigation is necessarily affected and largely determined by prior ideological commitments. The notion of disinterested enquiry is untenable and often fraudulent
--a belief that language itself conditions, limits, and predetermines what we see. All reality is constructed through language, so that nothing is simply “there” in an unproblematical way—everything is a linguistic/textual construct. Language does record reality—it shapes and creates it, so that the whole of our universe is textual.
--a belief that meaning is jointly created by writers, editors/publishers, and readers and that all meanings are contextual, that there can never be one definitive (fixed and reliable) reading/interpretation of a text
--a disbelief in all “totalizing” notions—such as notion that there is a stable category of great or classic books (since all books are culturally constructed within a specific context), or the notion that there is a human nature that transcends all experience and all situations and transcends all of the particularities of race, gender, and class. Such concepts of human nature have tended to be Eurocentric and androcentric.
--a firm belief in the stable values of literature, that good literature is of timeless significance, that good literature transcends the limitations and peculiarities of the age in which it was written, and thus speaks to what is constant in human nature
--a firm belief that the literary text contains its own meaning within itself, and this meaning can be perceived through close textual analysis without the elaborate process of placing it in socio-political, literary-historical, or autobiographical contexts. This is an essentialist belief in the primacy and self-sufficiency of the text
--a firm belief that human nature is essentially unchanging, that the same passions, emotions, and situations are seen again and again throughout human history, that literature reveals what is constant in human nature
--a firm belief that individuality is something securely possessed within each of us as our own unique essence. Despite all changes in environment and situation, there is always a core of “me” that is unchanging and constant. This is an essentialist belief in a transcendent self, a self that transcends all of the forces of society, experience, and language. There is something in you that will always be you, something that can never be transformed
--a firm belief that the job of criticism is to interpret the text, to mediate between it and the reader, critics are those who are specially trained to uncover the subtle, often hidden meanings and symbols in a text
--a firm belief that texts have specific authors who are responsible for the craft, structure, and meanings of their texts.
Rejection of Liberal Humanism:
--a belief that there are no stable, unchanging “givens” in the world as we know it, all of the “givens” we have accepted as stable (gender, identity, nationality) are actually fluid and unstable things rather than fixed and reliable essences. Instead of being solidly “there” in the real world of fact and experience, they are “socially constructed,” that is, dependent on social and political forces and on shifting ways of seeing and thinking (essentialism versus relativism)
--a belief that all thinking and investigation is necessarily affected and largely determined by prior ideological commitments. The notion of disinterested enquiry is untenable and often fraudulent
--a belief that language itself conditions, limits, and predetermines what we see. All reality is constructed through language, so that nothing is simply “there” in an unproblematical way—everything is a linguistic/textual construct. Language does record reality—it shapes and creates it, so that the whole of our universe is textual.
--a belief that meaning is jointly created by writers, editors/publishers, and readers and that all meanings are contextual, that there can never be one definitive (fixed and reliable) reading/interpretation of a text
--a disbelief in all “totalizing” notions—such as notion that there is a stable category of great or classic books (since all books are culturally constructed within a specific context), or the notion that there is a human nature that transcends all experience and all situations and transcends all of the particularities of race, gender, and class. Such concepts of human nature have tended to be Eurocentric and androcentric.
Meaning and Value
Since the emergence of post-structural criticism, most literary scholars have generally agreed that meaning is not universal, that an act of interpretation takes place in a specific context. Language does not come with inherent meaning and cannot be immediately apprehended. It is the contextual act of interpreting, including the assumptions and intentions of the interpretive act, that determines the meaning of a text. Thus much consideration has involved the “politics of interpretation,” an area of cultural studies that refers to the purposes and presuppositions which generate meaning. Rejecting past New Criticism methods, literary scholars today tend not to discuss literature in terms of universal truths or eternal verities.
Yet literary scholars are generally less willing to accept the contingencies of value. In a landmark essay, Barbara Herrnstein Smith demonstrated that value, like meaning, depends on situations of use, social relations, and other cultural structures of significance. Cultures throughout the world have self-developed systems of value and meaning that have no place whatsoever in the categories assumed by New Criticism to be universal. For these people “other verbal artifacts (not necessarily works of literature or even printed texts) have performed—and do perform—the various functions that Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare perform for us. The literary canon is not a product of essential, natural transcendental values, but of a historically specific cultural tradition.
Smith, Barbara Herrnstein, “Contingencies of Value.” Critical Inquiry 10 (September 1983), 1-35.
Since the emergence of post-structural criticism, most literary scholars have generally agreed that meaning is not universal, that an act of interpretation takes place in a specific context. Language does not come with inherent meaning and cannot be immediately apprehended. It is the contextual act of interpreting, including the assumptions and intentions of the interpretive act, that determines the meaning of a text. Thus much consideration has involved the “politics of interpretation,” an area of cultural studies that refers to the purposes and presuppositions which generate meaning. Rejecting past New Criticism methods, literary scholars today tend not to discuss literature in terms of universal truths or eternal verities.
Yet literary scholars are generally less willing to accept the contingencies of value. In a landmark essay, Barbara Herrnstein Smith demonstrated that value, like meaning, depends on situations of use, social relations, and other cultural structures of significance. Cultures throughout the world have self-developed systems of value and meaning that have no place whatsoever in the categories assumed by New Criticism to be universal. For these people “other verbal artifacts (not necessarily works of literature or even printed texts) have performed—and do perform—the various functions that Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare perform for us. The literary canon is not a product of essential, natural transcendental values, but of a historically specific cultural tradition.
Smith, Barbara Herrnstein, “Contingencies of Value.” Critical Inquiry 10 (September 1983), 1-35.
Prognostications?
(Taken from Sven Birkerts, The Gutenberg Elegies, 1994)
A change is upon us—nothing could be clearer. The printed word is part of a vestigial order that we are moving away from—by choice and by societal compulsion. . . . This shift is happening throughout our culture, away from patterns and habits of the printed word and towards a new world distinguished by its reliance on electronic communication.
Many educators say that our students are less and less able to read, or analyze, or write with clarity and purpose. Who can blame the students? Everything they meet with in the world around them gives them the signal: That was then, and electronic communications are now.
What oral poetry was for the Greeks, printed books in general are for us. But our historical moment, what we might call “proto-electronic,” will not require a transition period of two centuries. The very essence of electronic transmissions is to surmount impedances and to hasten transitions. Fifty years, I’m sure, will suffice.
The order of print is linear, and is bound to logic by the imperatives of syntax. Syntax is the substructure of discourse, a mapping of the ways that the mind makes sense through language. Print communication requires the active engagement of the reader’s attention, for reading is fundamentally an act of translation. . . . The electronic order is in most ways opposite. Information and content do not simply move from one private state to another, but they travel along a network. Engagement is intrinsically public, taking place within a circuit of larger connectedness. . . . Electronic communication can be passive, as with television watching, or interactive, as with computers. Contents . . . are felt to be evanescent. They can be changed or deleted with a stroke of a key. . . . The pace is rapid . . . and basically movement is laterally associative rather than vertically cumulative. The presentation structures the reception and, in time, the expectation about how information is organized [bullet points?].
Transitions like the one from print to electronic media do not take place without rippling or more likely, reweaving the entire social and cultural web.
Tag-line communication, called “bite-speak” by some, is destroying the last remnants of political discourse; spin doctors and media consultants are our new shamans.
And here are some of the kinds of developments we might watch out for as our “proto-electronic” era yields to an all-electronic future:
1. Language erosion. There is no question but that the transition from the culture of the book to the culture of electronic communication will radically alter the ways in which we use language on every societal level. The complexity and distinctiveness of spoken and written expression, which are deeply bound to traditions of print literacy, will gradually be replaced by a more telegraphic sort of “plainspeak.” . . . Simple linguistic prefab is now the norm, while ambiguity, paradox, irony, subtlety, and wit are fast disappearing. . . . Language will grow increasingly impoverished through a series of vicious cycles . . . We can expect that curricula will be further streamlined, and difficult texts in the humanities will be pruned and glossed. . . . Fewer and fewer people will be able to contend with the so-called masterworks of literature or ideas.
2. Flattening of historical perspective. As the circuit supplants the printed page, and as more and more of our communications involve us in network processes . . . our perception of history will inevitable alter. Changes in information storage and access are bound to impinge on our historical memory. . . . The database, useful as it is, expunges this [historical] context, this sense of chronology, and admits us to a weightless order in which all information is equally accessible. . . . For, naturally, the entertainment industry . . . will seize the advantage. The past that has slipped away will be rendered ever more glorious, ever more a fantasy play with heroes, villains, and quaint settings and props. Small-town American life returns as :”Andy of Mayberry”—at first enjoyed with recognition, then later accepted as a faithful portrait of how things used to be.
3. The waning of the private self. We may even now be in the first stages of a process of social collectivization that will over time all but vanquish the ideal of the isolated individual. For some decades now we have been edging away from the perception of private life as something opaque, closed off to the world. . . . I am not suggesting that we are all about to become mindless, soulless robots, or that personality will disappear altogether into an oceanic homogeneity. But certainly the idea of what it means to be a person living a life will be much changed. The figure-ground model, which has always featured a solitary self before a background that is the society of other selves, is romantic in the extreme. It is ever less tenable in the world as it is becoming.
Speculations:
The Age of Print is rapidly drawing to a close. We have already entered into a new age of electronic communication and cyber space is revolutionizing the ways we live our lives, particularly in the ways we interact and communicate. We are not only constantly connected to each other, but we, as human beings, are developing whole new ways of socializing. Quite often we are closer to people one hundred miles away, if not a thousand or more miles away, than we are to those living next to us.
Friendship and love are now as much virtual online phenomena as they are physical realities.
Being wired is already becoming more important than being literate in the traditional sense. An entire new form of electronic literacy is developing at a lightning-quick pace.
The body of literate (or literary) readers is rapidly shrinking. Reading books, as we understand the process, will become an outdated—if not obsolete—skill.
Most students today are considerable less comfortable reading than students a generation ago, even a few years ago. They read less, and they understand less of what they read. They have been trained to skim, searching for the bulleted lists and images. They would generally rather watch a video than read a text.
These same students are much more comfortable with computer screens than with books. They are much more comfortable interpreting visual images and icons than textual descriptions. They have been trained to think in images rather than in deep contemplation.
These students are going to take over the world.
We are rapidly developing a new form of hieroglyphics. Emoticons are becoming wildly popular.
We are rapidly developing new electronic dialects through text messaging—OMG!
The concept of reading is undergoing a drastic transformation. In the near future nearly all reading will take place on computer screens or on Kindle-like apparatuses. What will constitute reading will take place in shorter and shorter durations, and in shorter and shorter forms. Readers will scan for highlighted bits, bytes, and bullets of information.
Students categorically prefer to research online rather than in libraries.
The concept of literacy is undergoing a drastic transformation. If there is a new Dark Ages, the dividing line between the ignorant masses and the enlightened few will be technological knowledge, not humanistic knowledge.
The means through which we receive information wholly affects the way we process that information.
We are losing our capacity to use language in skillful and subtle ways.
Eventually, English departments will be merged into History departments and eventually go the way of Philosophy departments. Libraries will become museums.
(Taken from Sven Birkerts, The Gutenberg Elegies, 1994)
A change is upon us—nothing could be clearer. The printed word is part of a vestigial order that we are moving away from—by choice and by societal compulsion. . . . This shift is happening throughout our culture, away from patterns and habits of the printed word and towards a new world distinguished by its reliance on electronic communication.
Many educators say that our students are less and less able to read, or analyze, or write with clarity and purpose. Who can blame the students? Everything they meet with in the world around them gives them the signal: That was then, and electronic communications are now.
What oral poetry was for the Greeks, printed books in general are for us. But our historical moment, what we might call “proto-electronic,” will not require a transition period of two centuries. The very essence of electronic transmissions is to surmount impedances and to hasten transitions. Fifty years, I’m sure, will suffice.
The order of print is linear, and is bound to logic by the imperatives of syntax. Syntax is the substructure of discourse, a mapping of the ways that the mind makes sense through language. Print communication requires the active engagement of the reader’s attention, for reading is fundamentally an act of translation. . . . The electronic order is in most ways opposite. Information and content do not simply move from one private state to another, but they travel along a network. Engagement is intrinsically public, taking place within a circuit of larger connectedness. . . . Electronic communication can be passive, as with television watching, or interactive, as with computers. Contents . . . are felt to be evanescent. They can be changed or deleted with a stroke of a key. . . . The pace is rapid . . . and basically movement is laterally associative rather than vertically cumulative. The presentation structures the reception and, in time, the expectation about how information is organized [bullet points?].
Transitions like the one from print to electronic media do not take place without rippling or more likely, reweaving the entire social and cultural web.
Tag-line communication, called “bite-speak” by some, is destroying the last remnants of political discourse; spin doctors and media consultants are our new shamans.
And here are some of the kinds of developments we might watch out for as our “proto-electronic” era yields to an all-electronic future:
1. Language erosion. There is no question but that the transition from the culture of the book to the culture of electronic communication will radically alter the ways in which we use language on every societal level. The complexity and distinctiveness of spoken and written expression, which are deeply bound to traditions of print literacy, will gradually be replaced by a more telegraphic sort of “plainspeak.” . . . Simple linguistic prefab is now the norm, while ambiguity, paradox, irony, subtlety, and wit are fast disappearing. . . . Language will grow increasingly impoverished through a series of vicious cycles . . . We can expect that curricula will be further streamlined, and difficult texts in the humanities will be pruned and glossed. . . . Fewer and fewer people will be able to contend with the so-called masterworks of literature or ideas.
2. Flattening of historical perspective. As the circuit supplants the printed page, and as more and more of our communications involve us in network processes . . . our perception of history will inevitable alter. Changes in information storage and access are bound to impinge on our historical memory. . . . The database, useful as it is, expunges this [historical] context, this sense of chronology, and admits us to a weightless order in which all information is equally accessible. . . . For, naturally, the entertainment industry . . . will seize the advantage. The past that has slipped away will be rendered ever more glorious, ever more a fantasy play with heroes, villains, and quaint settings and props. Small-town American life returns as :”Andy of Mayberry”—at first enjoyed with recognition, then later accepted as a faithful portrait of how things used to be.
3. The waning of the private self. We may even now be in the first stages of a process of social collectivization that will over time all but vanquish the ideal of the isolated individual. For some decades now we have been edging away from the perception of private life as something opaque, closed off to the world. . . . I am not suggesting that we are all about to become mindless, soulless robots, or that personality will disappear altogether into an oceanic homogeneity. But certainly the idea of what it means to be a person living a life will be much changed. The figure-ground model, which has always featured a solitary self before a background that is the society of other selves, is romantic in the extreme. It is ever less tenable in the world as it is becoming.
Speculations:
The Age of Print is rapidly drawing to a close. We have already entered into a new age of electronic communication and cyber space is revolutionizing the ways we live our lives, particularly in the ways we interact and communicate. We are not only constantly connected to each other, but we, as human beings, are developing whole new ways of socializing. Quite often we are closer to people one hundred miles away, if not a thousand or more miles away, than we are to those living next to us.
Friendship and love are now as much virtual online phenomena as they are physical realities.
Being wired is already becoming more important than being literate in the traditional sense. An entire new form of electronic literacy is developing at a lightning-quick pace.
The body of literate (or literary) readers is rapidly shrinking. Reading books, as we understand the process, will become an outdated—if not obsolete—skill.
Most students today are considerable less comfortable reading than students a generation ago, even a few years ago. They read less, and they understand less of what they read. They have been trained to skim, searching for the bulleted lists and images. They would generally rather watch a video than read a text.
These same students are much more comfortable with computer screens than with books. They are much more comfortable interpreting visual images and icons than textual descriptions. They have been trained to think in images rather than in deep contemplation.
These students are going to take over the world.
We are rapidly developing a new form of hieroglyphics. Emoticons are becoming wildly popular.
We are rapidly developing new electronic dialects through text messaging—OMG!
The concept of reading is undergoing a drastic transformation. In the near future nearly all reading will take place on computer screens or on Kindle-like apparatuses. What will constitute reading will take place in shorter and shorter durations, and in shorter and shorter forms. Readers will scan for highlighted bits, bytes, and bullets of information.
Students categorically prefer to research online rather than in libraries.
The concept of literacy is undergoing a drastic transformation. If there is a new Dark Ages, the dividing line between the ignorant masses and the enlightened few will be technological knowledge, not humanistic knowledge.
The means through which we receive information wholly affects the way we process that information.
We are losing our capacity to use language in skillful and subtle ways.
Eventually, English departments will be merged into History departments and eventually go the way of Philosophy departments. Libraries will become museums.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Lead Respondent Assignments
09/27, M
CFT, 25-50, 66-73 (Beauty and the Beast)
Beauty and the Beast (WD film)
LT, 55-68
TT, 21-34
BT, 78-91
Chris Sheffey, Katie-Rose Watson, Cathy Moody, and Ashleigh White
10/ 04, M
Beauty and the Beast (cartoon)
LT, 69-81
TT, 35-50
BT, 92-115
Sam Pai, Mary Martin, and Arceli Long
10/18, M
CFT, 74-1000 (Snow White)
LT, 82-93
TT, 51-82
BT, 116-133
Jacqueline Taft and Jason Allcon
10/25, M
Snow White and the Seven Drawfs (WD film)
LT, 94-107
TT, 83-94
BT, 134-149
Becca Allen, Bill Hamlett, and Misa Ho
11/01, M
CFT, 101-137 (Cinderella)
LT, 108-120
TT, 95-108
BT, 150-165
Calvin Smith, Ashlyn Hudson, and Kelsey Turnbull
11/08, M
Cinderella (WD film)
LT, 108-120
TT, 109-124
BT, 166-184
Britany Gable, Amanda Benson, and Omir Perez
11/15, M
CFT, 79-206, (Hansel and Gretel)
Hansel and Gretel (cartoon)
TT, 125-155
BT, 185-195
Connor Safford, Ross Harrison, and Kensey Gilbert
11/22, M
Hansel and Gretel (film)
TT, 157-191
BT, 214-138
Caitlin Haden, Mary Morton, and Brent Skoda
09/27, M
CFT, 25-50, 66-73 (Beauty and the Beast)
Beauty and the Beast (WD film)
LT, 55-68
TT, 21-34
BT, 78-91
Chris Sheffey, Katie-Rose Watson, Cathy Moody, and Ashleigh White
10/ 04, M
Beauty and the Beast (cartoon)
LT, 69-81
TT, 35-50
BT, 92-115
Sam Pai, Mary Martin, and Arceli Long
10/18, M
CFT, 74-1000 (Snow White)
LT, 82-93
TT, 51-82
BT, 116-133
Jacqueline Taft and Jason Allcon
10/25, M
Snow White and the Seven Drawfs (WD film)
LT, 94-107
TT, 83-94
BT, 134-149
Becca Allen, Bill Hamlett, and Misa Ho
11/01, M
CFT, 101-137 (Cinderella)
LT, 108-120
TT, 95-108
BT, 150-165
Calvin Smith, Ashlyn Hudson, and Kelsey Turnbull
11/08, M
Cinderella (WD film)
LT, 108-120
TT, 109-124
BT, 166-184
Britany Gable, Amanda Benson, and Omir Perez
11/15, M
CFT, 79-206, (Hansel and Gretel)
Hansel and Gretel (cartoon)
TT, 125-155
BT, 185-195
Connor Safford, Ross Harrison, and Kensey Gilbert
11/22, M
Hansel and Gretel (film)
TT, 157-191
BT, 214-138
Caitlin Haden, Mary Morton, and Brent Skoda
Excerpts from "Novel Reading, A Cause of Female Depravity"
(from the Monthly Mirror, November 1797)
I now begin to hope I shall see good old days come round again--that moderately stiff stays, covered elbows, and concealed bosoms, will soon be prevailing fashions; and, what is of far greater importance, that chastity--pure and spotless CHASTITY!-- will once more be the darling attribute of women.
(essayist believes that depravity has become "fashionable" among women)
I have been at some trouble to trace to its source this great calamity [female depravity] . . . and I find those who made novel-reading an indispensable branch in forming the minds of young women, have a great deal to answer for. Without this poison instilled, as it were, into the blood, females in ordinary life would never have been so much the slaves of vice.
A girl with her intellectual powers enervated by such a course of reading, falls an easy prey to the first boy who assumes the languishing lover. He has only to stuff a piece of dirty paper into the crevice of her window, full of thous and thees and thys and mellifluous compounds hyeroglyphically spelled, perhaps, and Miss is not long in finding out that "many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.
And yet this, bad as it is, is not the worst result of such pernicious reading. It is no uncommon thing for a young lady who has attended her dearest friend to the altar, a few months after a marriage which, perhaps, but for her, had been a happy one, to fix her affections on her dearest friend's husband, and by artful blandishments allure him to herself. Be not staggered, moral reader, at the recital! Such serpents are really in existence.
"And was novel-reading the cause of this?" inquires some gentle fair one . . . "was novel-reading the foundation of such frail conduct?" I answer yes! It is the school the poor deluded female imbibes erroneous principles, and from thence pursues a flagrantly vicious line of conduct; it is there she is told that love is involuntary, and that attachments of the heart are decreed by fate. Impious reasoning.
(from the Monthly Mirror, November 1797)
I now begin to hope I shall see good old days come round again--that moderately stiff stays, covered elbows, and concealed bosoms, will soon be prevailing fashions; and, what is of far greater importance, that chastity--pure and spotless CHASTITY!-- will once more be the darling attribute of women.
(essayist believes that depravity has become "fashionable" among women)
I have been at some trouble to trace to its source this great calamity [female depravity] . . . and I find those who made novel-reading an indispensable branch in forming the minds of young women, have a great deal to answer for. Without this poison instilled, as it were, into the blood, females in ordinary life would never have been so much the slaves of vice.
A girl with her intellectual powers enervated by such a course of reading, falls an easy prey to the first boy who assumes the languishing lover. He has only to stuff a piece of dirty paper into the crevice of her window, full of thous and thees and thys and mellifluous compounds hyeroglyphically spelled, perhaps, and Miss is not long in finding out that "many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.
And yet this, bad as it is, is not the worst result of such pernicious reading. It is no uncommon thing for a young lady who has attended her dearest friend to the altar, a few months after a marriage which, perhaps, but for her, had been a happy one, to fix her affections on her dearest friend's husband, and by artful blandishments allure him to herself. Be not staggered, moral reader, at the recital! Such serpents are really in existence.
"And was novel-reading the cause of this?" inquires some gentle fair one . . . "was novel-reading the foundation of such frail conduct?" I answer yes! It is the school the poor deluded female imbibes erroneous principles, and from thence pursues a flagrantly vicious line of conduct; it is there she is told that love is involuntary, and that attachments of the heart are decreed by fate. Impious reasoning.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Introduction to Literary Theory
Engl 30103, sec. 060
Bailey 106
Williams, Fall Semester 2010
Course description:
Introduction to Literary Theory is an introductory investigation into critical and aesthetic issues involved in reading and interpreting literature. Particular attention will be given to the tensions that develop between literary texts and readers, and class discussions will focus on the cultural and ideological contexts that inevitably surround texts and readers. Both traditional and contemporary approaches will be examined, and readings will include traditional folk tales and critical texts on literary theory. Students will be expected to participate actively, read critically, and maintain an online reading journal. Interest and enthusiasm are required.
Required Texts:
The Classic Fairy Tales, ed. Maria Tatar (CFT)
Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, Jonathan Culler (LT)
The Theory Toolbox, Nealon and Giroux (TT)
Beginning Theory, Peter Barry (BT)
Recommended Text:
The Bedford Guide of Critical and Literary Terms, Murfin and Ray
08/23, M
introduction
08/30, M
CFT, ix-xviii
LT, 1-17
TT, 1-8
BT, 1-10
09/06, M
Labor Day
09/13, M
CFT, 3-17 (Little Riding Hood)
Little Red Riding Hood (cartoon)
LT, 18-41
TT, 9-20
BT, 11-35
09/20, M
Little Red Riding Hood (film[s])
LT, 42-54
TT, 9-20
BT, 59-77
09/27, M
CFT, 25-50, 66-73 (Beauty and the Beast)
Beauty and the Beast (cartoon)
LT, 55-68
TT, 21-34
BT, 78-91
10/ 04, M
Beauty and the Beast (WD film)
LT, 69-81
TT, 35-50
BT, 92-115
10/11, M
Fall Break
10/18, M
CFT, 74-1000 (Snow White)
LT, 82-93
TT, 51-82
BT, 116-133
10/25, M
Snow White and the Seven Drawfs (WD film)
LT, 94-107
TT, 83-94
BT, 134-149
11/01, M
CFT, 101-137 (Cinderella)
LT, 108-120
TT, 95-108
BT, 150-165
11/08, M
Cinderella (WD film)
LT, 108-120
TT, 109-124
BT, 166-184
11/15, M
CFT, 79-206, (Hansel and Gretel)
Hansel and Gretel (cartoon)
TT, 125-155
BT, 185-195
11/22, M
Hansel and Gretel (film)
TT, 157-191
BT, 214-138
11/29, M
Student Presentations
12/06, M
Student Presentations
Requirements:
1. Quizzes. There will be short quizzes for most classes (3-5 questions). The questions will serve as a reading check, but they will also be used to generate discussion. The quizzes will be graded on a point scale, with 3 for excellent, 2 for good, and 1 for acceptable. At the end of the semester you will receive a cumulative score for your quizzes. Quizzes will be collected and returned.
2. Blogs. Throughout the semester you will have to keep an online reading journal. Your journal will be kept as a blog. We will use a central course blog to link all of the different reading journal blogs, and also for our postings and distributions. To create your own individual blog, go to Blogger (http://www.blogger.com), where you will find easy steps to build your own web log, or “blog.” The purpose of your online journal is to reflect on your experiences as a reader (of both literature and theoretical texts), and more generally as an individual living in a complex world. You will be expected to write 6 brief one- to two-page reflections on your reading experiences with the texts assigned on a particular Monday class, not simply describing what you read but more your thoughts and reactions. You do not have to comment on all of the assigned texts for each of our classes, and what you write is up to you. You do not have to write a literary, critical, or interpretive analysis, though I set no specific boundaries. I would prefer that you examine your reading experience. What happened when you read the texts? How—and why--did you respond to what you read? You are also welcome to use your blog to reflect on your experiences throughout the semester, commenting on whatever moves you to write. But please remember that a blog is not a personal—and private—diary. And please note: your blog entries must be posted on the day the texts will be discussed in class. Late postings will receive half credit.
Blogging is a less formal form of writing than an essay, and thus blogs are a good forum to reflect, analyze, vent, explore, and consider. But blogs are also a public form of writing and, because of the technology, an excellent way of sharing, collaborating, and responding. In addition to posting your own 6 blog entries, you will also be required to post brief responses of around half a page to a minimum of 6 other course blogs throughout the semester. You are welcome to comment on any of the other course blogs, but please vary the blogs you respond to. Please do not respond to the same blog (meaning the same person).
You may submit your reading journal entries at any time throughout the semester, but Please do not wait until the last six classes. I suggest 3 entries before midterm, and 3 after. The same with your blog responses.
We will use our course blogs as an open dialogue to reflect on our experiences in Introduction to Literary Theory. The course blog will be our forum for dialogue and exchange.
3. Midterm and Final Exams: There will be both midterm and final take-home essay exams. The essay topics will not be designed to test for familiarity with course content, but to reflect further on your learning experiences. My intention is not to assess your specific knowledge of texts and theory critics, but to encourage you to examine your experiences as an intellectual and critical thinker, both in my course and in all your courses.
4. Lead Respondent Assignment: Throughout the semester students will be asked to help
lead our discussions, and these discussion-leader assignments may be undertaken
individually or in small groups (maximum of 3). Each individual or group will choose a
specific class day and will be expected to make a presentation to the class on the texts
assigned for that class. These presentations may include biographical or historical
information about writers, summaries of the text’s key points, and an analysis of themes
and issues raised by the texts. More importantly, these presentations should also include
a brief discussion of what the individual (or group) thinks is significant and/or relevant in
the text and a list of questions for discussion. These presentations should be informative
and provocative. Yet at the same time they should also be engaging! I encourage you to
consider creative suggestions for stimulating interest and arousing attention. Video,
internet, and PowerPoint may be used. A brief handout summarizing key points,
pertinent information, and listing the questions for discussion is required.
5. Final Presentations. This is a group project of 4 or 5 students. Each group will choose one of the five folk tales we read and discussed throughout the semester and examine the tale using two different critical approaches (Snow White from feminist and Marxist critical perspectives, or Beauty and the Beast from Psychoanalytic and Deconstruction critical perspectives). For your presentations, you may use PowerPoint, create a video, act out parts, stage a dramatization, use props, costumes, pictures, or even puppets . . . The possibilities are numerous, but I ask three things. First, you must demonstrate how the two critical approaches you have chosen reflect on your folk tale in different ways (the critical approaches must be distinct). Second, put some creative thought into your presentation. I would like the presentations to be engaging and interesting. And third, please keep in mind that there will be a time limit of 15 to 20 minutes. Please do not go over under 15 minutes or over 20 minutes. Please check your time beforehand.
6. Attendance and Participation. You are required to take an active part in this course and
to assume responsibility for its success. Both attendance and participation are required.
Missing more than 2 classes will result in the lowering of one letter for your final grade;
missing more than 3 classes will result in failure. Borderline grades will definitely be
affected by participation. Those who actively contribute will always receive the benefit of doubt.
7. An appreciation of irony and a sense of humor are required.
Grading Scale:
Quizzes 20%
Blogs 20%
Midterm and Final 30%
Lead Respondent 15%
Final Presentation 15%
Note: given the frailty of the human condition, all of the above is subject to change.
Dan Williams
Reed Hall 414D and TCU Press (3000 Sandage)
Office hours: Friday, 10-12 AM and by appointment
Phone: #6250 (campus office), #7822 (TCU Press Office)
Email: d.e.williams@tcu.edu
Course Outcomes:
--gain a familiarity with fundamental concepts of literary theory
--develop basic skills in theoretical analysis
--demonstrate strategies of literary interpretation through writing and class presentations
--identify representative modes of critical approach
Academic Conduct: An academic community requires the highest standards of honor and integrity in all of its participants if it is to fulfill its missions. In such a community faculty, students, and staff are expected to maintain high standards of academic conduct. The purpose of this policy is to make all aware of these expectations. Additionally, the policy outlines some, but not all, of the situations which can arise that violate these standards. Further, the policy sets forth a set of procedures, characterized by a "sense of fair play," which will be used when these standards are violated. In this spirit, definitions of academic misconduct are listed below. These are not meant to be exhaustive. I. ACADEMIC MISCONDUCT Any act that violates the spirit of the academic conduct policy is considered academic misconduct. Specific examples include, but are not limited to: A. Cheating. Includes, but is not limited to: 1. Copying from another student's test paper, laboratory report, other report, or computer files and listings. 2. Using in any academic exercise or academic setting, material and/or devices not authorized by the person in charge of the test. 3. Collaborating with or seeking aid from another student during an academic exercise without the permission of the person in charge of the exercise. 4. Knowingly using, buying, selling, stealing, transporting, or soliciting in its entirety or in part, the contents of a test or other assignment unauthorized for release. 5. Substituting for another student, or permitting another student to substitute for oneself, in a manner that leads to misrepresentation of either or both students work. B. Plagiarism. The appropriation, theft, purchase, or obtaining by any means another's work, and the unacknowledged submission or incorporation of that work as one's own offered for credit. Appropriation includes the quoting or paraphrasing of another's work without giving credit therefore. C. Collusion. The unauthorized collaboration with another in preparing work offered for credit. D. Abuse of resource materials. Mutilating, destroying, concealing, or stealing such materials. E. Computer misuse. Unauthorized or illegal use of computer software or hardware through the TCU Computer Center or through any programs, terminals, or freestanding computers owned, leased, or operated by TCU or any of its academic units for the purpose of affecting the academic standing of a student. F. Fabrication and falsification. Unauthorized alteration or invention of any information or citation in an academic exercise. Falsification involves altering information for use in any academic exercise. Fabrication involves inventing or counterfeiting information for use in any academic exercise. G. Multiple submission. The submission by the same individual of substantial portions of the same academic work (including oral reports) for credit more than once in the same or another class without authorization. H. Complicity in academic misconduct. Helping another to commit an act of academic misconduct. I. Bearing false witness. Knowingly and falsely accusing another student of academic misconduct.
Disabilities Statement:
Texas Christian University complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 regarding students with disabilities. Eligible students seeking accommodations should contact the Coordinator of Services for Students with Disabilities in the Center for Academic Services located in Sadler Hall, 11. Accommodations are not retroactive, therefore, students should contact the Coordinator as soon as possible in the term for which they are seeking accommodations. Further information can be obtained from the Center for Academic Services, TCU Box 297710, Fort Worth, TX 76129, or at (817) 257-7486.
Adequate time must be allowed to arrange accommodations and accommodations are not retroactive; therefore, students should contact the Coordinator as soon as possible in the academic term for which they are seeking accommodations. Each eligible student is responsible for presenting relevant, verifiable, professional documentation and/or assessment reports to the Coordinator. Guidelines for documentation may be found at http://www.acs.tcu.edu/DISABILITY.HTM.
Students with emergency medical information or needing special arrangements in case a building must be evacuated should discuss this information with their instructor/professor as soon as possible.
Engl 30103, sec. 060
Bailey 106
Williams, Fall Semester 2010
Course description:
Introduction to Literary Theory is an introductory investigation into critical and aesthetic issues involved in reading and interpreting literature. Particular attention will be given to the tensions that develop between literary texts and readers, and class discussions will focus on the cultural and ideological contexts that inevitably surround texts and readers. Both traditional and contemporary approaches will be examined, and readings will include traditional folk tales and critical texts on literary theory. Students will be expected to participate actively, read critically, and maintain an online reading journal. Interest and enthusiasm are required.
Required Texts:
The Classic Fairy Tales, ed. Maria Tatar (CFT)
Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, Jonathan Culler (LT)
The Theory Toolbox, Nealon and Giroux (TT)
Beginning Theory, Peter Barry (BT)
Recommended Text:
The Bedford Guide of Critical and Literary Terms, Murfin and Ray
08/23, M
introduction
08/30, M
CFT, ix-xviii
LT, 1-17
TT, 1-8
BT, 1-10
09/06, M
Labor Day
09/13, M
CFT, 3-17 (Little Riding Hood)
Little Red Riding Hood (cartoon)
LT, 18-41
TT, 9-20
BT, 11-35
09/20, M
Little Red Riding Hood (film[s])
LT, 42-54
TT, 9-20
BT, 59-77
09/27, M
CFT, 25-50, 66-73 (Beauty and the Beast)
Beauty and the Beast (cartoon)
LT, 55-68
TT, 21-34
BT, 78-91
10/ 04, M
Beauty and the Beast (WD film)
LT, 69-81
TT, 35-50
BT, 92-115
10/11, M
Fall Break
10/18, M
CFT, 74-1000 (Snow White)
LT, 82-93
TT, 51-82
BT, 116-133
10/25, M
Snow White and the Seven Drawfs (WD film)
LT, 94-107
TT, 83-94
BT, 134-149
11/01, M
CFT, 101-137 (Cinderella)
LT, 108-120
TT, 95-108
BT, 150-165
11/08, M
Cinderella (WD film)
LT, 108-120
TT, 109-124
BT, 166-184
11/15, M
CFT, 79-206, (Hansel and Gretel)
Hansel and Gretel (cartoon)
TT, 125-155
BT, 185-195
11/22, M
Hansel and Gretel (film)
TT, 157-191
BT, 214-138
11/29, M
Student Presentations
12/06, M
Student Presentations
Requirements:
1. Quizzes. There will be short quizzes for most classes (3-5 questions). The questions will serve as a reading check, but they will also be used to generate discussion. The quizzes will be graded on a point scale, with 3 for excellent, 2 for good, and 1 for acceptable. At the end of the semester you will receive a cumulative score for your quizzes. Quizzes will be collected and returned.
2. Blogs. Throughout the semester you will have to keep an online reading journal. Your journal will be kept as a blog. We will use a central course blog to link all of the different reading journal blogs, and also for our postings and distributions. To create your own individual blog, go to Blogger (http://www.blogger.com), where you will find easy steps to build your own web log, or “blog.” The purpose of your online journal is to reflect on your experiences as a reader (of both literature and theoretical texts), and more generally as an individual living in a complex world. You will be expected to write 6 brief one- to two-page reflections on your reading experiences with the texts assigned on a particular Monday class, not simply describing what you read but more your thoughts and reactions. You do not have to comment on all of the assigned texts for each of our classes, and what you write is up to you. You do not have to write a literary, critical, or interpretive analysis, though I set no specific boundaries. I would prefer that you examine your reading experience. What happened when you read the texts? How—and why--did you respond to what you read? You are also welcome to use your blog to reflect on your experiences throughout the semester, commenting on whatever moves you to write. But please remember that a blog is not a personal—and private—diary. And please note: your blog entries must be posted on the day the texts will be discussed in class. Late postings will receive half credit.
Blogging is a less formal form of writing than an essay, and thus blogs are a good forum to reflect, analyze, vent, explore, and consider. But blogs are also a public form of writing and, because of the technology, an excellent way of sharing, collaborating, and responding. In addition to posting your own 6 blog entries, you will also be required to post brief responses of around half a page to a minimum of 6 other course blogs throughout the semester. You are welcome to comment on any of the other course blogs, but please vary the blogs you respond to. Please do not respond to the same blog (meaning the same person).
You may submit your reading journal entries at any time throughout the semester, but Please do not wait until the last six classes. I suggest 3 entries before midterm, and 3 after. The same with your blog responses.
We will use our course blogs as an open dialogue to reflect on our experiences in Introduction to Literary Theory. The course blog will be our forum for dialogue and exchange.
3. Midterm and Final Exams: There will be both midterm and final take-home essay exams. The essay topics will not be designed to test for familiarity with course content, but to reflect further on your learning experiences. My intention is not to assess your specific knowledge of texts and theory critics, but to encourage you to examine your experiences as an intellectual and critical thinker, both in my course and in all your courses.
4. Lead Respondent Assignment: Throughout the semester students will be asked to help
lead our discussions, and these discussion-leader assignments may be undertaken
individually or in small groups (maximum of 3). Each individual or group will choose a
specific class day and will be expected to make a presentation to the class on the texts
assigned for that class. These presentations may include biographical or historical
information about writers, summaries of the text’s key points, and an analysis of themes
and issues raised by the texts. More importantly, these presentations should also include
a brief discussion of what the individual (or group) thinks is significant and/or relevant in
the text and a list of questions for discussion. These presentations should be informative
and provocative. Yet at the same time they should also be engaging! I encourage you to
consider creative suggestions for stimulating interest and arousing attention. Video,
internet, and PowerPoint may be used. A brief handout summarizing key points,
pertinent information, and listing the questions for discussion is required.
5. Final Presentations. This is a group project of 4 or 5 students. Each group will choose one of the five folk tales we read and discussed throughout the semester and examine the tale using two different critical approaches (Snow White from feminist and Marxist critical perspectives, or Beauty and the Beast from Psychoanalytic and Deconstruction critical perspectives). For your presentations, you may use PowerPoint, create a video, act out parts, stage a dramatization, use props, costumes, pictures, or even puppets . . . The possibilities are numerous, but I ask three things. First, you must demonstrate how the two critical approaches you have chosen reflect on your folk tale in different ways (the critical approaches must be distinct). Second, put some creative thought into your presentation. I would like the presentations to be engaging and interesting. And third, please keep in mind that there will be a time limit of 15 to 20 minutes. Please do not go over under 15 minutes or over 20 minutes. Please check your time beforehand.
6. Attendance and Participation. You are required to take an active part in this course and
to assume responsibility for its success. Both attendance and participation are required.
Missing more than 2 classes will result in the lowering of one letter for your final grade;
missing more than 3 classes will result in failure. Borderline grades will definitely be
affected by participation. Those who actively contribute will always receive the benefit of doubt.
7. An appreciation of irony and a sense of humor are required.
Grading Scale:
Quizzes 20%
Blogs 20%
Midterm and Final 30%
Lead Respondent 15%
Final Presentation 15%
Note: given the frailty of the human condition, all of the above is subject to change.
Dan Williams
Reed Hall 414D and TCU Press (3000 Sandage)
Office hours: Friday, 10-12 AM and by appointment
Phone: #6250 (campus office), #7822 (TCU Press Office)
Email: d.e.williams@tcu.edu
Course Outcomes:
--gain a familiarity with fundamental concepts of literary theory
--develop basic skills in theoretical analysis
--demonstrate strategies of literary interpretation through writing and class presentations
--identify representative modes of critical approach
Academic Conduct: An academic community requires the highest standards of honor and integrity in all of its participants if it is to fulfill its missions. In such a community faculty, students, and staff are expected to maintain high standards of academic conduct. The purpose of this policy is to make all aware of these expectations. Additionally, the policy outlines some, but not all, of the situations which can arise that violate these standards. Further, the policy sets forth a set of procedures, characterized by a "sense of fair play," which will be used when these standards are violated. In this spirit, definitions of academic misconduct are listed below. These are not meant to be exhaustive. I. ACADEMIC MISCONDUCT Any act that violates the spirit of the academic conduct policy is considered academic misconduct. Specific examples include, but are not limited to: A. Cheating. Includes, but is not limited to: 1. Copying from another student's test paper, laboratory report, other report, or computer files and listings. 2. Using in any academic exercise or academic setting, material and/or devices not authorized by the person in charge of the test. 3. Collaborating with or seeking aid from another student during an academic exercise without the permission of the person in charge of the exercise. 4. Knowingly using, buying, selling, stealing, transporting, or soliciting in its entirety or in part, the contents of a test or other assignment unauthorized for release. 5. Substituting for another student, or permitting another student to substitute for oneself, in a manner that leads to misrepresentation of either or both students work. B. Plagiarism. The appropriation, theft, purchase, or obtaining by any means another's work, and the unacknowledged submission or incorporation of that work as one's own offered for credit. Appropriation includes the quoting or paraphrasing of another's work without giving credit therefore. C. Collusion. The unauthorized collaboration with another in preparing work offered for credit. D. Abuse of resource materials. Mutilating, destroying, concealing, or stealing such materials. E. Computer misuse. Unauthorized or illegal use of computer software or hardware through the TCU Computer Center or through any programs, terminals, or freestanding computers owned, leased, or operated by TCU or any of its academic units for the purpose of affecting the academic standing of a student. F. Fabrication and falsification. Unauthorized alteration or invention of any information or citation in an academic exercise. Falsification involves altering information for use in any academic exercise. Fabrication involves inventing or counterfeiting information for use in any academic exercise. G. Multiple submission. The submission by the same individual of substantial portions of the same academic work (including oral reports) for credit more than once in the same or another class without authorization. H. Complicity in academic misconduct. Helping another to commit an act of academic misconduct. I. Bearing false witness. Knowingly and falsely accusing another student of academic misconduct.
Disabilities Statement:
Texas Christian University complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 regarding students with disabilities. Eligible students seeking accommodations should contact the Coordinator of Services for Students with Disabilities in the Center for Academic Services located in Sadler Hall, 11. Accommodations are not retroactive, therefore, students should contact the Coordinator as soon as possible in the term for which they are seeking accommodations. Further information can be obtained from the Center for Academic Services, TCU Box 297710, Fort Worth, TX 76129, or at (817) 257-7486.
Adequate time must be allowed to arrange accommodations and accommodations are not retroactive; therefore, students should contact the Coordinator as soon as possible in the academic term for which they are seeking accommodations. Each eligible student is responsible for presenting relevant, verifiable, professional documentation and/or assessment reports to the Coordinator. Guidelines for documentation may be found at http://www.acs.tcu.edu/DISABILITY.HTM.
Students with emergency medical information or needing special arrangements in case a building must be evacuated should discuss this information with their instructor/professor as soon as possible.
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