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Final chapter ends with a discussion of Julia Kristeva's use of Lacan's approach in a feminist perspective, which was interesting enough. And then closes with a revisit to Freud's Pleasure Principle and a meditation on how reading for pleasure is a thing we all do but that somehow wasn't serious enough for an academic subject--he actually uses a line about how if anyone can still read for pleasure after taking a degree in literature is "either heroic or perverse". Just have the conclusion and afterward to go and I am outsies on this protracted exercise. Its been interesting, I've learned a lot about perspectives of criticism. It seems a field for those with a whole lot more knowledge than I though, so seeing more of it in action would be cool.
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May 8, 2020 07:08
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Do translation criticism (in particular Lance Hewson) next!
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May 8, 2020 08:57
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aaaah I'm probably done with theory for a while, except to finally finish this one that I started a few years back after reading Stanley Fish's review in the NYT: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2649770-french-theory Good thing about the Eagleton is that it has given me a better insight into the players for that too!
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May 9, 2020 03:31
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Oh wow, I'd completely forgotten about this thread! I mainly remember the introduction where he tries to define literature and ends up saying that it's what professors assign to students and thinking that this was a good first step, what's next? It was really annoying.
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May 9, 2020 16:27
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Bilirubin posted:Just have the conclusion and afterward to go and I am outsies on this protracted exercise. Its been interesting, I've learned a lot about perspectives of criticism. It seems a field for those with a whole lot more knowledge than I though, so seeing more of it in action would be cool. This is how I finally edited my initial reaction, which was more along the lines of "ok, so cool to know all that, but what really is the point of all of that". Had I posted my initial reaction, then I would have been expertly manipulated by the author, who launches his Conclusion by answering that very question! He comes back around to what Safety Biscuits there observed, that literature doesn't really exist as a thing, with his conclusion that neither does literary criticism. Instead he sees it more of a cultural dialectic that can equally be applied to any form of culture, high or low: TV, movies, pulp, advertising (immediately I thought of Zizek here), and that for long term survival in universities departments of literature should reorganize along those lines. He then differentiates political (socialist, feminist) criticism as not something being drawn from the text but rather the text serves as a means to an ends. Anyway, count me as manipulated by the author. There is more here but I am now fully out of steam for this project. Fin. Thanks for reading my live blog of reading this text.
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May 10, 2020 05:24
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Forgot when writing the previous that he spends a fair bit of time in the final conclusion requiring criticism as rhetoric. The afterward is pretty good.
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May 11, 2020 03:53
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Bilirubin posted:aaaah I'm probably done with theory for a while, except to finally finish this one that I started a few years back after reading Stanley Fish's review in the NYT: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2649770-french-theory Finished the Cusset book now too. I'm tempted to wade deeper into Hegelian and Marxist theory now too, but not immediately.
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May 25, 2020 04:59
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hey op i like your thread even though my doodoo brain doesn't know any of this people or what most of these words mean. I understand how poststructuralism works to deconstruct from your explanation but that's where my understanding ends. I'm def missing something but is the idea that poststructuralist critique is a response to others or is it supposed to act as a caveat to anything anyone says about writing or...? is the goal to secure writing as a wholly subjective experience and, if so, does it matter what someone wrote?
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May 31, 2020 23:41
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nut posted:hey op i like your thread even though my doodoo brain doesn't know any of this people or what most of these words mean. I understand how poststructuralism works to deconstruct from your explanation but that's where my understanding ends. I'm def missing something but is the idea that poststructuralist critique is a response to others or is it supposed to act as a caveat to anything anyone says about writing or...? If your understanding of poststructuralism comes from what I have written ITT then I can get your confusion
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Jun 3, 2020 22:16
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*kramers into thread* Did someone say Poststructuralism????? Hold up, I will give you a big old effort post in a little bit
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Jun 3, 2020 23:57
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So, the big thing with Post Structuralism like a lot of the "posts" is that they can be kind of incestuous and esoteric. They can be esoteric because to understand "post" anything you also have to understand the thing that came before. It can be incestuous because philosophers and ideas can be interchangeable depending on who you ask. This is especially a problem because Post-Structuralism gets blurred a lot with Post-Modernism. If I had to simply define the difference between Post-Modernism and Post-Structuralism, its that Post-Modernism and Post-Structuralism are both concerned with similar language games while Post-Modernism looks at language games in terms of power and Post-Structuralism looks at them in term of the subject. Again, this is an extremely reductive definition but lets use it for now. So, to get to the core of Post-Structuralism you first have to understand Structuralism and the theory of Semiotics. It comes down to the idea of a sign, which is a combination of a signifier and a signified. Its the basic idea that we use language to interpret reality by attaching meaning to objects and through attaching meaning to an object we can comprehend the object we are seeing. For example, lets say you have never seen a chair before. In a non-linguistic world, you can identity that an object exists and is present, but are unclear about how the object exists as a component of reality. Imagine a second chair was placed before the first chair while you still have no linguistic understanding of chair. In this situation, the two objects are entirely different and only ambiguously related. We only understand that these two objects are the same by attaching to them language. We call an object a chair, and by calling that object a chair we understand that chair, as an idea, has a set of criteria by which we can determine the "chair-ness" of all things. The term chair gives significance to aspects of reality that might be used to identify other chairs. We know the second chair is also a chair because it shares values identified as "chair values" and that all chairs share these values. This is the nature of the sign. The physical object is the signified. The term "chair" is the signifier. The understanding of the object as an aspect of reality and its interaction with reality by the attachment of meaning is a sign. In simpler terms. When I say "chair" you immediately get an image in your head of a chair. That is the sign. We are still not yet at Post-Structuralism. This is all still structuralism. Now, we get to my biggest pet peeve in all of criticism. The misuse of the phrase "subjective." Too many people interpret the term "subjective" to mean "opinion, or personal taste." You often hear "quality is subjective" as an argument for why you can never criticize someone's taste or opinion. However, subjective is not something the subject has conscious control over. Subjectivity is not a "choice" it is a state. Think about signifiers and signifieds in terms of subject and object. The signified is the "object" aka objective in existing as a concrete aspect of reality. The meaning attached to that object is done by the subject aka subjective. Most of the time the subjective meaning of things is not something we consciously attribute to an object, it is simply an outcome of our existence as subjects in perception. So, when we say something is "subjective" we don't mean that the viewer decides their own values, we mean that the values the viewer uncovers are intrinsic to their existence as a being independent of the object they are perceiving. NOW we get to Post-Structuralism. So, Post-Structuralism shows up and goes "Hey, what if the signifier is just another sign. And what if the signifier of that sign is also a sign. And what if that signifier is also a sign and..." eternally. Essentially, it argues that meaning is not a simple relation of object to subject, but an endlessly cascading interaction of the subject with itself. Barthes summarized it eloquently when he said "In the multiplicity of writing, everything is disentangled, nothing deciphered." Essentially, there is never a clear resolution to meaning. We never get to "object" as separate from "subject." Instead, our perception of reality is built upon a constant dialog of the subject with itself. The end result of this "de-construction" is essentially pulling at the thread of language until it unravels.
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Jun 4, 2020 00:40
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I think I get it 
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Jun 4, 2020 00:55
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see this is why Hieronymous keeps me around
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Jun 4, 2020 00:57
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But who'll start an argument about it so we can have fun?
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Jun 4, 2020 01:03
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Mrenda posted:But who'll start an argument about it so we can have fun? I don’t get it that much
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Jun 4, 2020 01:07
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Are these language philosophies typically discussed in terms of an independent person? It seems like including social influence on what people say/mean is a pretty easy criticism of structuralism. I mean I guess all context could be
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Jun 4, 2020 01:10
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nut posted:Are these language philosophies typically discussed in terms of an independent person? It seems like including social influence on what people say/mean is a pretty easy criticism of structuralism. I mean I guess all context could be Social influence is an inseparable aspect of the signifier The difference is that Structuralism says that we have a basic societal consensus of our signifiers while Post-structuralism says "lol nope"
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Jun 4, 2020 01:12
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nut posted:I don’t get it that much I'll make an attempt. If you accept this post-structural idea of signifiers all the way down, to gain power what you need to do is establish your meaning of the signifier and have other meanings rejected. Not that power will come from this, but that establishing your meaning is power.
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Jun 4, 2020 01:13
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Mrenda posted:I'll make an attempt. That's literally Post-Modernism
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Jun 4, 2020 01:14
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Mel Mudkiper posted:That's literally Post-Modernism I know. I was hoping someone would disagree.
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Jun 4, 2020 01:16
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But isn’t there social consensus in the meaning of signifiers or else languages would be useless?
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Jun 4, 2020 01:24
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nut posted:But isn’t there social consensus in the meaning of signifiers or else languages would be useless? A shared delusion. Or, possibly, laziness.
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Jun 4, 2020 01:27
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Mrenda posted:A shared delusion. Or, possibly, laziness. Lazy as in you’re not disentangling what a chair is when you tell someone hey sit in that chair? I’m trying my best to start a fight
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Jun 4, 2020 01:30
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nut posted:But isn’t there social consensus in the meaning of signifiers or else languages would be useless? There is no consensus, instead there is only the assumption of consensus and language exists only as long as there is no dissonance in this assumptions ie. we do not use the same language, but we assume we do, and as long as there is nothing to make harm that assumption we can consider language as functional EDIT: When I say chair I am envisioning a different chair than you are but as long as the difference in what we envision is not significant enough to make meaning impossible its workable Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Jun 4, 2020 |
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Jun 4, 2020 01:36
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Imagine if someone said tree and u don’t think of a beautiful maple imagine if you thought of a pine
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Jun 4, 2020 01:42
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nut posted:Imagine if someone said tree and u don’t think of a beautiful maple imagine if you thought of a pine On the simplest level thats pretty much it but deep deconstruction is like when you say tree you envision an oak an oak that was outside the river that had the smell of fresh water and the smell of fresh water is the smell that reminds you of youth and the summer days spent at the river with your first love and your first love had dark hair and the sight of dark hair is the sight of love and.... on and on forever
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Jun 4, 2020 01:44
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nut posted:Lazy as in you’re not disentangling what a chair is when you tell someone hey sit in that chair? I’m trying my best to start a fight Lazy in the sense it's not worth fighting over. It's "good enough." But what if there's someone it's not "good enough" for. That "chair" is something with four legs, a horizontal surface and padding, that you can sit on. For someone else it's the chair their mother sat in every evening before she died, it's her chair, not just "that chair." Is it still a chair, yes, is it also something else, yes. In this case a matter of precision, but also how things can have different meanings. But what if you extend it to ideas considered illnesses. Is that a webcam? Yes, it's what I use to videoconference with my brother. Is that a webcam? No, it's the device the CIA uses to watch me when I get undressed at night. It's just a webcam, you're acting crazy. Then why on videos with Bill Gates does he have his CIA device covered with tape? You're delusional in thinking it's the thing you use to videoconference on, it's a tool of the state to monitor and inflict torture on radicals.
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Jun 4, 2020 01:45
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I must once again state that best book on beginner critical theory is Mythologies by Barthes
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Jun 4, 2020 01:47
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Mrenda posted:But what if you extend it to ideas considered illnesses. Is that a webcam? Yes, it's what I use to videoconference with my brother. Is that a webcam? No, it's the device the CIA uses to watch me when I get undressed at night. It's just a webcam, you're acting crazy. Then why on videos with Bill Gates does he have his CIA device covered with tape? You're delusional in thinking it's the thing you use to videoconference on, it's a tool of the state to monitor and inflict torture on radicals. Woof, I think this helped a lot. Does this mean the dictionary is a fascist tool
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Jun 4, 2020 01:49
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nut posted:Woof, I think this helped a lot. Does this mean the dictionary is a fascist tool no but all enforced consensus is an act of power The dictionary is not necessarily a "fascist" tool but it is absolutely a tool used by power to entrench power
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Jun 4, 2020 01:51
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These posts are loving me up
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Jun 4, 2020 01:52
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A great example right now is the term power itself When I say the dictionary is a tool for power it might mean, for you, a tool of an oppressive state on an oppressed population but I use it more to mean anything that is able to supercede authority over anything else.
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Jun 4, 2020 01:53
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nut posted:Woof, I think this helped a lot. Does this mean the dictionary is a fascist tool Now imagine that's not representing a conversation with someone, like a conversation with a doctor or therapist. Imagine that as a conversation someone's having in their own head.
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Jun 4, 2020 01:54
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Mrenda posted:Now imagine that's not representing a conversation with someone, like a conversation with a doctor or therapist. Imagine that as a conversation someone's having in their own head. And that's how you end up with my brain
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Jun 4, 2020 01:55
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Mel Mudkiper posted:And that's how you end up with my brain I wrote a book about it. But then I realised that "someone walking down the street, having crazy thoughts," written as an experience just reads as craziness without offering the perspective of it contextualised as craziness.
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Jun 4, 2020 01:57
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Now, we get to my biggest pet peeve in all of criticism. The misuse of the phrase "subjective." Too many people interpret the term "subjective" to mean "opinion, or personal taste." You often hear "quality is subjective" as an argument for why you can never criticize someone's taste or opinion. However, subjective is not something the subject has conscious control over. Subjectivity is not a "choice" it is a state. I know you chose not to deal with this(not in detail, anyway,) but I'll bite on it and run. That something is subjective is its state, and not a choice someone makes for it, but the appraisal of it can have conscious control. Maybe the unintentional posterchild of post-modernism (at least on the internet) is, "Haha, that's awful. It's great!" The idea that something can be both bad and good at the same time (without getting into the idea that extremes of anything can be considered exemplary and thus have a "Greatness.") But it gets at the contemporary. Extend that to how something can have many meanings to you. There's your reaction, one subjectivity, there's your considered analysis, another subjectivity. Now keep going. How many appraisals of something can you make? How many of them can be contradictory? Is any of them truth? Do you give weight to the thought that you "feel" strongly about, or the one that reinforces your existing beliefs most, or the one challenges you most, the one that's easiest to understand, or the one that worries you the least, or most. Do you have to stick with one thought? Can you validly change between them? If there's one thought that you keep coming back to does that means it's "the one" for you? If it keeps forcing itself on you does that mean it's correct, or an intrusion you wish didn't happen? Consider an apple, then you'll have figured out everything in the world.
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Jun 4, 2020 02:31
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When I tell someone to eat an rear end I used to worry they wouldn’t know what I mean but now I’m worried that I don’t know what I mean
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Jun 4, 2020 02:35
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I skipped a lot of stuff but I'm here to say that Mel Mudkiper's explanation of poststructuralism is pretty poor and it's clear he barely understands it himself. Unfortunately I don't have the time to explain why, but trust me, it sucks. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 4, 2020 03:36
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I'm glad that I missed all of this, like a six-hour probation at 2 a.m.
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Jun 4, 2020 03:50
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cda posted:I skipped a lot of stuff but I'm here to say that Mel Mudkiper's explanation of poststructuralism is pretty poor and it's clear he barely understands it himself. Unfortunately I don't have the time to explain why, but trust me, it sucks. K
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Jun 4, 2020 03:52
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