Wrap it up

Overall this class has been interesting and challenged. I think that critical theory is difficult subject matter for the most part. I like how we eased into it with liberal humanism because most of us were already familiar with it. It's the way we learned about literature in the past. The idea that literature is an art, it is a vehicle for knowledge and literature enlightenment. It makes you more "human" by reading, interpretig, and understanding it

It took me time with most of the other concepts though. I found that i struggled with marxism and i'm not sure why most people seemed to get it pretty easy while on the other hand structuralism and post structuralism came fairly easy.

The most interesting theory was the psycho-analytic. Not just because i presented on it but i think that frued and lacan produced some signinficant theories. I'm drawn to concept of the unconcious and how it makes us act and feel. It really makes me woder how so much can be figured out by using the unconcious to find meaning behinnd ones thoughts or literary work.

When it comes to Mantissa and Cloud 9 i enjoyed reading both but i think cloud 9 was a lot easier to relate to feminism, colonialism, and post-colonialism than any of the theories to mantissa. It's very clear how those concept are aprent throughout the play. For instance clive is the "head of the house" in the first act. Betty and edward base their lives around him. He disempowers betty and edward because all they want to do is please him, they throw aside their feelings and what they desire. Cloud 9 shows how the colonial strcuture impacted how people lived, what was right, and what was socially acceptable.

This has been one of the most difficult classes i've taken at emmanuel but i feel it has been rewarding at the same time. I can look at literary works in from several different ways.

Not sure

I don't really understand the feminism view on literature that well. I don't see how some words can be masculine and some feminine. I don't understand how a whole literary work could be considered feminine unless it was something discussing feminism. I'm not really sure about the whole concept of feminist discourse or masculine for that matter. How can you give a peice of literature a sex? I understand different points of view but it's not clear how it can be categorized as one or the other.

baudrilliard

the first thing i have to question is that who is baudrilliard? i mean what is he? He is considered a postmodernist even though he argued against postmodernism. i agree with his thoughts on marxism and how you have to use sign as well as the other aspects of marxism. Sign has so much value today, it drives our economy, without sign there wouldn't be brand names and symbols that people desire which would defeat our economy. Preexisting sign-value is important because we need a basis to branch off of for anything.

the idea of exchange-value and use-value is an interesting concept, losing sight of how much effort is put into the construction of something disapears when it is converted to a money value. I can see how people may lose sight of it's value, but the price of the object in my opinion reflects the work that has gone into that product. Baudrilliard gets it right when he talks about this and that it doesn't matter who produces it but that it is constantly produced because in capitalism it's all about new products for the consumers.

BARHTES

So i don't really agree with barthes and his idea that text should be separte from author. I think it's important to have the author so if you agree with the authors theories and ideas you're more inclined to read about it. I can see where he is coming from in the sense that it may have the authors bias and culture included but i think a good writer can step out of themselves and write purely on the topic without concerning their own opinions.

http://criticalculture.blogspot.com/2006/06/roland-barthes-plastic_21.html
At this link you will find information about barthes from another blogger. The topic that i want to talk about is questioning films and film makers. you can argue that you can attach a director to a movie the same way you would an author to a book. I think it's critical in movies and also is important in books. People watch movies and read books solely based on who the author or director is. I don't think he makes a valid argument, i think the author is one of the most important factors in the book. You can't have a book without one and taking their backround into consideration should be done because in most cases will affect the book and how it is interpreted.

Freuddd

Yeah so maybe he was a little crazy but i think he got some things right. I think the whole idea of the ego, super-ego, and id is a valid one. The three parts of the brain that control you both consciously and subconsciously are apparent. In Barry i thought it was funny when he reffered to a cigar just being a cigar and not a phallic symbol was humerous because he smoked cigars. What would he say about a popsicle or something else? that's why i think his theory is flawed and a little messed up. There is either too much room for interpretation or there isn't enough, i'm not sure which one it is.
I think Lacan had a better idea of what was going on. Instead of analyzing something by the characters or objects he used the whole peice of literature to find meaning. It makes more sense, lets say there is a tree blowing in the wind in a scene, that could be the whole meaning of the play or text for frued but it's just a part of the bigger picture when it comes to Lacan.

Derrida day two

Overall the film was interesting.
I like how Derrida didn't want to be photographed and forbade it. I agree with why he did it. He was a writter and i think it's better to concieve your own image of what Derrida is through his writting as opposed to his photograph.
The two interviews in the extras were more direct and to the point. It didn't have him walking around or talking in conference rooms. It was stricktly an interview which made it easier to get direct information from Derrida.
I thought it was kind of ironic how he questioned the sex lives of Hegel and Heideger. When he was asked to get into his personal life he blaintly refused to answer any questions about it. He would give significant dates like when they met and were married but that's all he reveled about his personal life. It's interesting to watch his thought process too, he pauses a lot and you think he is going to come out with something important and then he'll just say he has no answer or give a vague one.
Derrida is Mysterious.

De de Derrida

The film so far has been interesting. He kinda seems like a space cadet, but you can tell he is brilliant at the same time. I liked what he had to say about eyes never getting old and how you see things the same throughout life.

I also liked his answer about love, you can't really speak about it in generalities. It depends on what kind of love you're talking about. You can love someone or something. You can also be in love with someone or something, the two notions are completely different. I'm not sure how well i can explain it but when you love something you generally care about them or it in the way a mother love her child. Being in love on the other hand is completely different, it involves aspects of the first love but i think it is more. Being in love is willing to put everything on the line, to sacrafice yourself over the thing you're in love with. It's even more than that, that's why i think Derrida couldn't answer it because i don't think you can put it into words.

structure, sign and play

Alright, now i'm starting to get this. After todays lecture i have a better understanding of the material. I think it would be best to start with the idea of the "center". What it does or stands for is something within the text as well as on the outside. It gives meaning to the material without being the material, it controls it from the outside but relates to the inside. It seems pretty abstract but it makes sense if you think about it.

The Nature/culture idea helps to explain it. With nature it is cross cultural, worldwide. But in culture it's inherint within that culture and doesn't nessecarily go along with other cultures. It follows the idea of Hegemony which is basically another word for culture.

As we move forward and get into the idea of play it gets a little more confusing. Play is just disrupting presence which is the stability of the center. So by disrupting the center you are finding meaning?

I think Bricologe is interesting, it still uses the idea of nature/culture but doesn't credit it as being philosophical. Levi strauss says it's unstable making it less credible. And finally supplement, I know what one is but i don't know what it does in the way we use it. If it insures presence then why does Levi strauss use center as a lost presence? I'm a little confused when it comes to this idea.

a few questions

In structuralism there is a "center" where we find meanings for words. In poststructuralism there is no "center" where does the meaning come from. I am also a little confused about decontruction, is that finding the meaning by looking for the opposite of the word to define it?

take apart my baby’s heart

To attach the word post to a previous body of theory is to relate whatever the main concept was to what it is has changed into or what it means now. The example we used in class described it pretty good. There was 9/11 and after 9/11 a post 9/11 was created. Using post 9/11 to show how terrorism affects us after 9/11 relates our ideas that we had prior to 9/11.

Post-structuralism protests against structuralism in a sense that instead of everything describing everything in a structure through contrastd, post-structuralism opposes it. So the meaning of words is binary, the word is described as what it isn't rather than what it is in post-structuralism. I find this a little confusing because I think words can have more than one opposite with a different meaning.

Structuralism has similar concepts to post-structuralism mainly in a sense that everything still falls into this large structure that constructs language. They both incorporate the idea of the sign and the idea of no essential value. This helps us understand deconstruction using the idea that it's decentering. The is no center, it's a variation in language that fluxuates.

It seems like decontruction is the break down of structuralism, it's a way to look at language in opposition of structuralism.

Structuralism and Saussure

"Signs function not through their intrinsic value but through their relative position"
This quote is basically saying thatthe function of a sign has it's function because of other signs and their relativity to that sign. like in the barry's reading a hut is a hut because you compare it to a house or a shed. If there were fewer words for shelter the meaning of hut would change.
This idea affects how we interpret the world around us through literature. If we weren't exposed to these ideas and didn't have words to describe reality I think that everything would be confusing.

In a basic view of structuralism most of it makes sense, everything falls into this big language structure that contructs reality. It doesn't represent a prexisting reality. The only problem I have with it is that it doesn't incorporate a defenition through economic and social structure, it's mainly based on a sign with no essential value. It doesn't matter what is currently happening in society which i'm against because new words are made up all the time.

I don't know how to get blog roller

I could use some help i have blog roller i just don't know how to get it onto my blog, i'm also a little confused as to what i'm supposed to do with the blog roller..... help please.

On Barry, "Stop and Think"

Basically the main tenet of marxist criticism is that literature is influenced by social and political circumstances in which it is produced. This understanding of marxist criticism interacts with liberal humanism opposingly. Most of the tenets of liberal humanism disagree with that fact. If you look at the first tenet of liberal humanism it says that it transcends historical and cultural moment, it's timeless. Marxist criticism is almost the opposite, it's saying that it's not timeless, it's about the present and what is currently happening.
Although there are similarities with social and political circumstances throughout time there are major differences also. Liberal humanism is a verbal analysis, it doesn't deal with the politcal.
So i can't really answer how they relate and interact with each other, I feel like they don't at all.

blog-1

Hey everyone,
I'm Chad Lenkowski a student in Critical Theory & The Academy class at good old Emmanuel College. I've never blogged before, i'm what they call computer illiterate for the most part. I'm not sure how I feel about blogging but i'm open to knew things. I hope to create a blog that is interesting to anyone who reads it.
My theory on "theory" is that I don't really have one perticular theory about anything, I like to look at things from different points of view. By taking this course I hope to develope a better understanding of theory.