First stop, Portsmouth!

So I have been in England for three days now, and I am enjoying every minute of it! It has been great to be around Tony and his family. We went to Hayling Island which is a touristy island near Portsmouth, where Tony lives. It was such a beautiful day out and we got to walk on the beach. A wonderful change from the piles of snow back home!
For New Years, we are planning on staying in Portsmouth, might drop by a friends place, but Jemma (tony's sister) is planning on having a small house party, so we will just probably just stay in and hang out at the Taylor household.
It is really weird to think that I will not be returning to the State's until June... I don't think it has really quite hit me yet. Maybe it will when I receive my last "pre-departure" packet from my program.

Aurevoir Theory

So this is my last post on theory in this blog. It was a fun ride, but it had to end at some point! When I first came into the class, I was very intimidated with the material before me. The first few weeks it felt like I was drowning in a sea of theory. As we progressed through the semester, everthing started to fall into place for me, and now I feel like I have a better grasp on things. I look at things in a different light than I used to. This is why I feel that theory can never really die. When we learn even the smallest bit of theory, you begin thinking about things differently. This also has some thing to do with our final as well. The student in the onion article has applied theory to everything in his life. Although this may eventually drive you mad, it is not a bad thing. Seeing things in a way different to others is always some thing special.

Along with beginning to like theory this semester, I have also become fond of my blog. And since I am studying abroad in Paris next semester, I thought it would be an interesting idea if I kept my theory blog and changed it into my travel blog. So for those of you who want to see where I go and what I think of this Europe place, keep checking out my blog next semester! Along with Paris, I will be in England and Greece, and I am hoping to go to the Netherlands, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and hopfully the Czech Republic. Any one have any other suggestions?

Thank you for the great semester, I really feel like I expanded my knowledge on theory, and I have learned things I will deffinitally keep with me!

Being naive ain't half bad

I remember that when I was younger, I felt like saying that I was a feminist meant I was this modern, amazing female who was way ahead of the rest of my classmates. My aunt Karen was this modern day hippie that kept her last name when she got married, does yoga and is a masseuse and a vegetarian. She always tried to teach me to love the fact that I am a woman and that I should be proud. She was in no way this man-hating, stereotypical feminist that most of society thinks of when they hear the word feminist. My impression of a feminist was a strong woman that understood the world around her. I felt a strong connection to my aunt and I immediately wanted to know more women like her.
In school I studied the different feminist waves, and in third grade I had to dress up as Amelia Earhart, and do a biography on her. I became obsessed with her and the fact that she defied the image of what people thought of women. She did the unthinkable in her time; she showed she was an independent woman that could conquer the great feat of flying across the Atlantic alone. She did exactly what a man did, and she showed she could do it just as well as he did.
In the 6th grade we studied the suffrage movement where I did a project on Susan B. Anthony. Through learning about her and the whole idea of suffrage, I became more proud to be woman.
The next year in 7th grade, I have this specific memory of getting into an argument with a boy in my class. I cannot remember exactly what the argument was about, but I know that it had to do with the equalities and inequalities between men and women. I remember standing my ground so strongly that I ended up completely shutting this boy down. He shamefully started to walk away, and then he turned around and called me a stupid feminist who probably didn’t shave her armpits. I ironically was wearing an orange tank top that said “Boys Lie” on the front of it, and although I did not really understand why he said I probably didn’t shave my armpits, I threw my arms up and shouted, “I am just standing up for what is right!”
It wasn’t until that moment that I learned about some of the bad stereotypes that are associated with being a feminist. I wanted to be known as a feminist, but I did not want people thinking I was a man-hating feminist, especially since I was in middle school! Soon I lost the reason of why I wanted to be a feminist and I was afraid of being categorized in the feminist social construct.
Now, I am not completely sure how to categorize myself in the feminist spectrum. I stand up for myself when confronted with sexism, but I don’t shout it to the world that I am a feminist. Although I enjoy doing things for my boyfriend like cooking for him, I am still fiercely independent in many aspects of our relationship.
I have realized that when I was young, I held true to the ideas of feminism and did not care about what the social stereotype was… I didn’t even know what the word meant. All I knew was that I felt it was important to be independent from men in order to understand myself as a woman. Somewhere along the line of growing up, I lost that idea and it hasn’t been until just recently that I have started to throw the stereotype out the window; I fell that I have come almost full circle.

Mantissssssa

First of all, I want to say that I enjoyed Mantissa. It really helped me pull together all of these theories we have been talking about. The way Fowles presented the theories in a jesting way helped me figure out how to pick theories out of any text.

One scene which I really enjoyed reading was the first part of the book when he first wakes up and has amnesia. As I opened the book, I started reading it looking for the authorship of the book because I knew that is what I wanted to talk about in my class discussion. I found something that I felt had to do with that right away. However, at first glance, I did not quite understand how it was related to authorship. On page four when the being that we see the point of view from realizes, “ it was not just an I, but a male I” I know that we spoke about this quote in class, but I just feel like it is so important to the book. Not only as a quote of identification, but also as a foreshadowing of the personality of this “I”.

When we first read this quote, we think about authorship. The narrator is identifying itself as a male. There, we found the author, he is definitely not dead yet. Then, when we look closer at the quote, we see “male I”. Is this a coincidence or a pun that Fowles has creatively slipped in? Considering that in the rest of the book, the main point of view is from a male gaze, I would think it is the latter. We are always seeing Erato from this sexualized male view of women, and we never see Miles being sexualized. As a matter of fact, we hardly get a description of him! Once the author identified himself, the only depiction I could think of for Miles was the picture of John Fowles on the back of my book, with his graying beard and his blob of a sweater.

The last thing that I really liked about this part of the book was that it was identifying the book as a book about theories. Although it does not blatantly say it, this part of the book shows the reader that there are going to be many different theories intertwined in the plot, and that the author is going to make it fun.

I think that Mantissa is a book that was written to be picked apart and analyzed by any theory, and I liked that about it. It was like wax in my hands; I felt I could apply it to any theory I could think of.

Rocky Horror Picture Show

The purpose of this essay will be to look at the movie, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and take the psychoanalytic theories of Freud and show how the three main characters, Frank-n-furter, Janet, and Brad represent the id, ego, and superego, respectively. Also, I will be applying these characters to the real world and how they represent parts of human nature.
One of the ideas in the film is that Janet and Brad are the type of couple that culture wants them to be and by entering Frank-n-furter’s castle, they are going into a world that is generally dismissed. I will talk about how and why our culture does not approve of the castle.
Finally, I want to speak of why this film has become a cult classic. One of the main reasons is that this movie allows viewers to completely let their id’s run free without barriers.

The following texts will be used to create a full understanding of the id, ego, and superego, as well as the understanding of other psychoanalytic concepts:

Freud, Sigmund. “The Ego and the Id.” The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. 19: 13-48

In Freud’s paper, “The Ego and the Id”, Freud explains the concepts of the ego, super-ego and the id. Mainly, he speaks about the ego and its push and pull with the super-ego and id. Freud speaks of the ego and how it has repressed thoughts that the id is willing to bring out in the open. He also talks about the super-ego and its relationship to the ego; how the super-ego is the exact opposite of the id. Also, Freud explains the love-instinct and the death-instinct and how they create and destroy. Freud explains how all of these parts of a personality work together and how they do not work together.

Mayer, John D.. “Primary Divisions of Personality and their Scientific Contributions: From the Trilogy-of-Mind to the Systems Set.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, Dec2001, Vol. 31 Issue 4, p449

In John D. Mayer’s writing for the Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, Mayer looks at different sets of personality theories. He takes three different sets and reviews them: the trilogy of the mind, including motivation, cognition, and emotion; Freud’s structural set, the id, ego, and superego; and the fairly modern systems set of energy lattice, knowledge works, role player and executive consciousness. He argues what sets are considered good, verses the ones he thinks are not. Mayer reviews the history and identification of all of the sets and how they have contributed to Psychology and the understanding of the human personality.

Moncayo, Raul. “The Partial Object, The Ideal Ego, The Ego-Ideal, and the Empty Subject: Four Degrees of Differentiation within Narcissism.” Psychoanalytic Review, Aug 2006, Vol. 93 Issue 4, p565-602

The article by Raul Moncayo in the Psychoanalytic Review, is about Sigmund Freud and his personality theory on the id, ego, and super-ego and how they relate to narcissism. He first speaks of narcissism and the ways that Freud relates to it in some of his other theories. Moncayo then goes on to explain how Lacan’s mirror phase relates to the ideal-ego and self-image. He also uses the parental metaphor to show how parents can either lead one into narcissism, or wreak it. He takes the ideas of narcissism and applies it to many different personality theories and shows how the theories relate to each other and with the ego.

Life is like a box of chocolates...

I really enjoyed Ken Rufo’s post on Baudrillard and his theories. Ken was able to convey complex thoughts in a way I could grasp and understand, so thank you so much Ken for helping us out!

When learning how Baudrillard basically said that other philosophers did not create terms to describe things, but they created things when they made the terms, it made me really like him. I don’t really know why I liked this statement so much, but it really made me think of how theorists create a term and then a whole study is built upon this term, such as the “Freudian slip”. Yet, even Baudrillard made up his own terms.

I also really enjoyed this post because of the way that Rufo described the terms Baudrillard coined. His examples made me think of instances in my life where I have tried to experience the hyper real.

This summer, my boyfriend Tony and I went on a vacation up and down the east coast via Greyhound, and at one point stopped in the lovely city of Savannah, Georgia. I had read all of the little pamphlets and touristy books I could get my hands on, and found that the scene in Forest Gump where Forest tells his story on the bench at the bus station was in Savannah. The bench was located in Chippewa Square, so Tony and I thought it would be fun to find this square and take a picture on the bench. Once we found the square, we could not seem to find the bench. Racking my mind for the image of Forest on the bench while looking at the actual area was incredibly strange. I was looking for a copy of this picture I had in my head. However, I would never find it because it was just a simulation of realty, and I was trying to make it a part of my reality. When reading Rufo’s description of going to a national park and trying to find that spot where a famous picture was taken, was describing exactly what I was doing. I was experiencing the hyper real.

After a local (homeless man who did not ask for money until after he gave us some useful information) told us that the bench was placed in the visitors center due to fear of theft, he showed us the flower patch where the bench was. Although we were disappointed the actual bench wasn’t there, we found some happiness in the fact that we found the scene of the movie.

When Rufo says, “ So the real you discover will always be an effect of the simulation, a copy or non-copy of it.” I was really able to apply my Forest Gump experience to what Baudrillard is trying to say.

Better late than never (part 2)

Ok, so here we go…

As I was strolling through the blogs of different academic blogs, I was trying to find something that directly related to authorship. While searching, and searching, I could not find too much that really caught my eye and made me think, “That’s Barthes!” Or, “That’s Foucault!” Then, I realized that there was something that occurred in many blogs, even our own theory and academy blog; bloggers having other authors post on their blogs.

Isn’t this interesting? Although we feel that our own blog is our own writing space, if we want, we can have another author write on our space. Why would we want this intrusion? Because if you know of someone that has an idea that you want to show people, it does not matter who writes it, as long as the idea gets out there. In our class blog,http://theoryandacademy.blogspot.com/ we had a guest lecture write a blog because Dr. M wanted us to hear his ideas on Marxism. Sure, she could have just paraphrased him, but what difference would it make, as long as the point got across to us, the readers?

Another blog that I found that did this was Bitch PhD, http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/. Some of her blogs are written referring to Bitch PhD as a third person, so we can only assume that someone else is writing that post. (Or, she just really enjoys writing in third person.) Yet in other posts, she feels the need to introduce herself and say, “Yes, it is me this time, no one else.” I found this especially interesting because of the way she felt that she needed to make sure that everyone knew she was the author. Where Dr. M basically “killed” herself as the author of her blog while letting someone else take over, Bitch PhD made herself become alive in the post. Part of me does not really know what to make of this discovery, but the other part of me wants to figure it out. What is the point of making it known that you are the author when trying to show people an idea? It is the idea that counts, not who has thought of the idea. After reading Barthes, I really get the idea that the language should be the one speaking and not some person.



ps- I couldn't figure out how to do the links and I think it is because that I have a mac. Any suggestions?

Better late than never (part 1)

The whole idea of the author being dead feels right to me. As strange as that sounds, I never went to the bookstore to pick out a book to read, and go straight to my favorite author’s books. The name of the author has been generally irrelevant to me in the books that I like. In high school, we only read the books that were by well-known authors; we studied the writing styles of authors such as Dickens, and Hemmingway. I never felt the need to study the author; I always just wanted to study the story and the characters of the text. I am fascinated by the way we can relate to people who do not exist in the real world and how the story is brought to life by the language of the book.

So, when I was reading Barthes, “The Death of the Author”, the phrase that struck a cord with me was when he was referring to Mallarme and said, “It is language which speaks, not the author”. The author is just the person who came up with the words, but the language is the story. We do not need to know the history of the author to understand the characters and the plot of literature. Ideas can stand by themselves, and they do not need a physical being to hold an idea. The words are enough.

I felt like Barthes helped me understand this idea of the dead author, and I was able to grasp it well.

More to come once I go deeper into the blogging world.

Derrida

This past week I have really enjoyed watching Derrida and how he acts in front of the camera. Also, I finally realized that he is one of the guys on the front of the Barry book! One of the things that I really picked up on in this biography was the fact that Derrida was very aware of the film crew and that his life was being recorded.

I think that there is always some sort of irony when someone is trying to document anything that is true. Everyone is bound to act a different way when they know they are being watched then when they know they are alone. There is no possible way to record the “true” Derrida if he knows that he is being recorded. The directors must have realized this and I think they did take advantage of it. They wanted to see how he would act when put in the awkward situation of having a camera in your face all day. They wanted to know if he would shut down and not enjoy the experience, or if he would open up and enjoy having the spotlight on him.

The directors wanted the biography to be obvious. They constantly had shots just of the camera equipment and of Derrida looking at himself in an interview. The purpose of the biography was to record Derrida, not to tell of his life, but to just let him speak. This format is a metaphor about some of Derrida’s ideas but it also represents the directors. When Derrida told the director that this was her biography, it really made me think. At first I did not really get it, but then I realized that he meant the director’s style and form showed in the biography. It displayed her talents as a director just as much as it displayed the ideas of Derrida.

Overall, I really enjoyed this movie and I found it really interesting to see how he responded to the “American” questions. I got completely pulled in by him, and I liked the format of the obvious biography.

Structuralism

I have been having a hard time figuring out Saussure and structuralism. I thought I got it, but once I read Saussure, I felt even more confused. However, I think that I was able to grasp onto one of his concepts: "The bond between the signifier and the signified is radically arbitrary"

At first this statement puzzled me beyond words, but after class and after looking at it for a while, I think I understand it. In my persuasive strategies class my freshman year, the professor asked us to draw a tree. No one in the class drew the same thing, however all of us had the basics of what a tree was supposed to look like. The thing we call a tree is the signifier, and the actual thing outside is the signified. I remember that I drew something I would have drawn when I was much younger. My idea of drawing a tree was a big poofy thing as the leaves and branches, with a straight trunk and a squirrel hole in the middle of the trunk. The person next to me had a tree with no leaves at all. Since we all had different views on what a tree looks like, that is what was arbitrary in this exercise. People can have different words for an object, but still mean the same thing as what another person thinks that object is. Everything depends on how we perceive it to be. This is why no one is ever going to have one picture of a tree that is the definition of a tree and it is what everyone thinks about when they think of a tree. We all pick out different things than other people do.

I am really hoping that I have gotten this statement down, and I also hope that studying post-structuralism is going to help me understand Saussure better!

Some thoughts on “Some Thoughts on Ideology”

I really enjoyed Proffer Craig’s lecture this week. It was easy to read and it really made me think about how I always go into to Urban Outfitters and I love the atmosphere there. They have this edgy trendy feel that has appealed to me since I first walked into the store as a high school student. The one thing that has always struck me about that store is how it targets the student age, (whether in high school or college) but has prices that are someone with a good salary can afford. Whenever I go there, I can only get one thing at a time. The way that they target students like me is by using that idea of rebellion against the system. The atmosphere of the store tells its shoppers that by buying these clothes, not only are you going to look super trendy, but while trying them on in our “urban” dressing rooms, you will feel a sense of rebellion with a bit of rock and roll.

I actually remember seeing them selling the Communist Manifesto at one point. I never really thought about it at the time, but I felt like something was off about that book being in a commercial place. After reading Professor Craig’s lecture, I realized that everything he talked about is what was unsettling to me when I saw the book. I love irony, so this story and analysis was so much fun for me to read. I completely understand the point the store was trying to do; get you to buy the jeans for the rebellion of it all. However, I found it hilarious if you actually understand what the manifesto is about. I think this also shows how gullible American society is. By buying jeans because you saw this rebellious manifesto next to it, (even if you do not think you bought it because of the book) it shows how Americans do not understand Marxism in general. Students seem to think of it as a threat to their parents generation and thus, they want to use Marxism to rebel against their parents. But, in by doing so, they are contributing to the Capitalist society that Marxism is against. The irony is beautiful.

I just wanted to thank Professor Craig for writing this guest lecture. It really helped me understand what I was studying a lot more, and it made me think of how to look at my world in a Marxist way. I found in interesting to sit back and analyze my own life and how I have given into the irony of stores like Urban Outfitters. The next time I go there, or to a store like it, my eyes will be darting looking for subtle undertones like Marx’s Communist Manifesto.

Human Liberalism vs. Marxism

This past week, it has been interesting reading about Marxism right after the lectures and readings on Liberal Humanism. The two theories most definitely differ in many ways. A liberal humanist perspective says that we should not look at the text from any angle, but we should just look into the text itself to find its meanings. A Marxist view says that we should look at a text by understanding where the author ranks in society, and what is going on in society at the time the text was written. This distinct definition between the two theories shows how Marxism challenges Liberal Humanism. The idea that we should look at literature this way, comes from the tenants of Liberal Humanism. The second tenant says that the literary text contains meaning within itself. Liberal humanist believe that the reader should not be looking to any outside source to find the meaning of the text. When reading a text, you should not even try to figure out what the author was trying to convey, you should just look at what the actual text is saying.
In Marxism, you should investigate many things before trying to understand the text. Marxists look at the world around them and try to relate the text to the society that they live in. They look for class structures and how they affect the society. Also, they find out the social status of the actual author. If the author is a poor man, and in a lower class in society, the Marxist view will look at the text much differently than if the author was a rich man. They try to understand the text by understanding what was going on in the authors’ life and the society around him or her. Then, once that has been evaluated, they look to themselves and try to relate the text to their own society.
Another tenant I found that interested me was the fourth tenant: human nature does not change; it is constant. In Marxism, the point of most of the literature is to change the way that humans tend to act. The view shows humans changing for the better of the society. Change from the norm would be good in a Marxist view because then the infrastructure of society would be changed. Liberal Humanists say that human nature cannot change, and therefore neither could social classes. There will always be the rich, and there will always be the poor. In an ideal communist society, there would be no classes; everyone would get as much out of society as they put into society.
I found that overall, Liberal Humanism is much more concrete than Marxism. You do not need a society to look at a text through the Liberal Humanist view, and you do not need anything other than the text to support your opinions on the text. With Marxism, the ideas are much more abstract. The reader needs to be able to understand the social classes and the society that they live in and what the author lived in. As I go on in my studies, I am interested to find if any other theories will be able to relate themselves to Liberal Humanism instead of conflicting with it as Marxism does.

last class

During the first few classes, I was pretty overwhelmed by all of the information that was coming to me. I was worried I was not going to understand what was going on in class and generally feel like I was drowning. However, after last class, I feel a whole lot better about things, and I have more confidence that I will be able to actively participate in class and have insightful posts on my blog. I sometimes have a hard time comprehending even the most straightforward of texts; so going over the reading in Barry really helped me. By the lecture and discussion in class, I understood that New Criticism is just a close reading of a text; there is no bias in this reading, it is just what the text is, and not what the text means to anyone. During this class, I wondered what the results of reading something like the Bible in a New Criticism view would be like. Would it even be possible? While reading the Bible through this scope, one would be able to appreciate the form and art of the text, but how could one read something like the Bible and not think of it as relating to anything else. I feel like it would be very hard to just look at the text and not see any subtext. Any opinions on this one?

First Post

My name is Krista and I am a student at Emmanuel College. I am currently taking an English class called Critical Theory and the Academy. On this blog, I hope to understand theories through my own writing, and hopefully get a few other people interested in what I have to say.
In my mind theory is necessary to understand the world around you. By looking at ideas and artifacts in different ways, your mind is opened up to many different aspects of human nature. Theories allow you to see something in someone else’s eyes and maybe in a way you would have never thought of. When one criticizes and theorizes about literature or the world around them, they are able to see things from either an objective view or a smaller lense than they would normally look through.