A Semester in Review

Throughout the Critical Theory and the Academy class I have found many theories intriguing. The most intriguing to me was Marxist Criticism. I found this appealing because I felt that it was the hardest concept to fully understand. The differences within the theory itself perplexed me. An example of this would be the difference between Englisian Marxist Criticism and Leninist Marxist Criticism. Leninist, being based around the writings of Lenin, believed that the only writing that is accepted in that in benefit of government. Englesian believed in the exact opposite. It believes on freedom between art and government.

The point that confuses me the most is how two completely different sides can actually be labeled under the same criticism. Yes, both concepts put a work within socioeconomic boundaries, but are they the same? I do not believe they are. If they both have the same goal I would link them together, but they do not. They speak of two totally different concepts.

Another theory that grabbed my attention the most was Postcolonial Criticism. Kyle and I presented on this for our discussion lead and I found it enlightening. I found the concept of finding ones identity interesting. Also, the way that it can apply to many cultures worldwide helped me notice that many people can apply this theory to their own lives. I do not believe that this can apply to me. I am not a colonizer or the colonized. I am in between. The colonization of the United States did not affect me greatly. What found most interesting about Postcolonial Criticism was a point that was presented in class. This was the point that some places cannot find an identity. It would be nearly impossible because they had been taken over and passed around many times.

Overall, the studying of all the theories made me think about how I could apply them to myself and the literature I read. The blog project allowed me to think through these theories and attempt to apply them to various different topics. It also allowed me to read the classes opinions on each theory to further expand my knowledge on the theories we were learning. I enjoyed the class a lot and found the essay paper to be interesting to work on.

Holy Grail: Theory vs Bloodline

My essay is based around the concept of the Holy Grail. Basically, there are two forms of Grail belief, Theory and Bloodline. The most known form of grail belief is that of theory. The theory of the grail has been in many movies and literature. An example of this would be Indiana Jones. Theory consists of a cup or chalice. This is utilized in many different forms of the theory. In some, it is used as a cup at the last supper, and others used as a chalice that held the blood of Jesus.

The bloodline of Jesus is currently becoming quite popular. Theories of bloodline have been around for centuries although just becoming popular because of the books, The Da Vinci Code and Holy Blood, Holy Grail. The idea of a holy grail has been a hot topic for centuries and many theories play into the idea of it. The theories I will be discussing are the feminist criticism and Marxist criticism. Marxist criticism is evident in the book The Da Vinci Code with the cover up by the church to suppress women. This also plays hand in hand with feminist criticism, as a result of the inequality of women in the Catholic Church for centuries.

Imus' Comment and Feminist Criticism

For the past week, the biggest story in the news is the comments about the Rutgers female basketball team by Don Imus. Don Imus, host of morning talk show "Imus in the Morning," said on air that the team was "Nappy-headed hos."

This is a radical comment on many levels both sexist and racist. This applies to feminist criticism because of the "hos" part of the comment. By calling the Rutgers team a bunch of hos, Imus indicates many things. The first indication is that they are sexual objects, not females or individuals, just a group. This group, is shunned upon as a result of the comments by Imus.

Feminist criticism pushes for the equality of genders. The comments by Imus puts females on a lower playing field. He did not make any comments about the Florida men's basketball team, did he? The comments were obviously made by Imus because of blatant sexism. Females are made out to be lesser than males.

Baudrillard

As I discussed in my post to Ken Rufo, I was most engaged at the beginning of the lecture when he discussed the differences between structural Marxism and Baudrillard’s beliefs on Marxism. Although Baudrillard claims he is a Marxist, he has many differing views. The idea of “sign-value” caught my attention the most. Ken discussed that the idea of sign-value is absent from structural Marxism.

Ken discussed how structural Marxism only discusses use-value and exchange value. Baudrillard said that sign-value is more important than both of these terms, and needs to be incorporated within Marxist criticism. Sign-value means that “what an object represents or signifies is more important than how much it costs or how high quality is its construction.” Ken explains this with the Tommy Hilfiger example.

Today, most name brand clothing is nothing much than just a name. Such as Tommy Hilfiger, the clothing is the same quality as a Wal-Mart brand but consumers pay more money as a result of the name. Sometimes the name brand clothes last longer but they are basically the same quality as the Abercrombie and Fitch or the American Eagle clothing. The same thing goes with food. With Shaw’s located right next to school, students flock there to purchase food. The Shaw’s brand macaroni and cheese costs far less than the Kraft but people still fall into the trap of purchasing the name brand even though, the Shaw’s brand is the same item. Lastly, I believe that Ken Rufo’s lecture helped me better understand Baudrillard by understanding the “binary relationship between a signifier and a signified.”

Understanding Author-function with Others

I went on the word of Professor McGuire and searched up Author-function and a blogger named Scriberuslives had many things to say in relation to herself a s an author-function.

http://scribleruslives.blogspot.com/2006/12/displaced-author-function-seeks-new.html

She speaks of text as standing by itself. In this essence the author dies. The author-function is made not by the person who writes but by the writer. She says that she in person is not scriberuslives. She instead is a individual, seperate from the author and the text. The text is the result or even creation of the author. The author creates this text but she explains it as being indepenedant. The text stands independantly away from the author bot being a result and also having/creating its own identity.

She then talks about if a person had actually come along and wrote like Scribleus. Would those words be any less Scriblus like? Especially if the issues at hand were similar, would the writing be different. She is Scriberluslives, speaking in the "voice" of Scriberlus. She is yet a seperate person but also an author writing in the same style as another author.

Getting a Grasp on Lacan

I am still trying to grasp what Lacan is saying but this is basically what I have so far. Lacan focuses his studies and theories on the idea of the self. He thinks that the unconscious is the center of our beings. Lacan goes against the American psychiatric way of reaffirming the ego. Basically Lacan brings into question the theory of “I.” He explains that a person is born into a structure. In this structure the individual is constructed through language. Through this, Lacan questions the famous line by Rene Descartes “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes states that the “I” must exist because I think. Therefore the individual is self aware.

I believe that the I is an individual and there are many aspects that contribute to what the individual is. Every person is different, which creates the unique individual in all of us. Others do have an effect on you but I believe that you create who you truly are. Other outside forces do have an effect on you but you basically decide what you obtain from outside forces and what you disregard from outside sources.

Derrida on Love

In the film “Derrida,” the topic of love is brought up several times. Derrida first presents the idea of love in the beginning of the movie. He says that love is broken up into two parts, "the who" and "the what." When a person falls in love, they can either fall in love with the who and the what. The who is the person themselves. An individual loves everything about a person and just their general being. The other part is the what. The what are certain features that one is attracted to. The certain features that are loved are individualized. The features are separate from each other and the individual might not like or love other features about their counterpart. Is it possible to be in love with the who? Is there something that is dislikable in everyone?

I think that when you love someone, you love them for the what, not for the who. At the time, you might think that you love the who but there are always things about everyone that one doesn’t like. Instead, one falls in love with many whats that comprise an individual. There are several whats that you dislike in a person but it is so outweighed by the whats that one loves that they are disregarded.

Narcissism is later discusses by Derrida in which he talked about himself. He never liked the look of his face, unlike Narcissus. Narcissus was a man who loved his face so much that he kept looking at his reflection in the water. He eventually fell into the water and drowned. When the idea of pictures was brought up in the interview, Derrida commented on how he did not like the look of his face. This started off disliking his face as a child and the loathing of his look grew as he aged.

In Respnse to "Structure, Sign, and Play"

After reading Derrida‘s “Structure, Sign and Play” I was completely lost. During the past two class periods we discussed the reading and it answered some questions for me but also raised many. I believe that this is the point of the class and discussions between blogs. This main goal is to give an overall understanding of others views on the topic which is on hand and most importantly help work through any problems people might have.

I found the most interesting topic of the Derrida reading to be the nature / culture opposition. He then goes on to call this a stabilizing force. He steps out of culture to view it from above and believes that some things are natural and some cultural. The natural things are shared between many different cultures. They are universal in a way. The cultural are specific to certain cultures. They make cultures unique and differ from one another.

Many issues are shared to be immoral in many cultures. Levi Strauss says that if the action is bad in both universal and cultural then it is a scandal. This is where the idea of “incest taboo” comes into play. In just about every culture, people believe that sleeping with a relative is wrong and immoral.

This makes the incest taboo universal, in a sense. Strauss states that the only way that there can be a scandle is if one believes in the difference between nature and culture. People know that it is inherently bad to sleep with their relatives some choose to do it anyway. This brings me into the concept of social norms in nature and culture. In a way, social norms are the building block of cultures just like atoms are the building blocks of matter. So do the problems not lie in the culture but in the social norms? Since we all know that incest is wrong, what actually makes it wrong? This is all due to the concept of social norms and the role they form on culture.

A Response to Structuralism

The attachment of "post" to any body of theory represents the end of an era. Therefore, the idea of poststructuralsim means that structuralism had flaws. Poststructuralsim has one main goal which is to fix the problems that were evident in structuralism. In a way, it is in response to the general idea of structuralism. Poststructuralsim depends on structuralism but is a completely separate theory. They are similar in ways, the main being that they both view language as a system. Poststructuralism was formed as a criticism to structuralism citing counterpoints to the flaws in structuralism. An example of this criticism is the idea of binary pairs. In structuralism, an example of a binary pair is the comparison between two synonyms. The only way a word obtains a definition is in relation to a synonym. In response to this view, poststructuralsim believes that words are contaminated by one another.

The process of deconstruction uses both poststructuralism and structuralism to determine the center of a text. In poststructuralsim, there is a belief of a center. As said in class, deconstruction is poststructuralsim in practice. Deconstruction is reading the text against itself. As a result, the center of the text will be found. Therefore, poststructuralsim and structuralism largely effect to the process of deconstruction.

“The bond between the signifier and the signified is strictly arbitrary”

“The bond between the signifier and the signified is strictly arbitrary.” (Page 39)

Sausser is stating with this quote that the context in which a word is used makes the meaning of the word. A word can mean different things in different contexts. You can hear a word by itself and that word carries a meaning all by itself. The meaning of this word, when put in context, may change or remain stagnant. The true meaning of the word is given when it is put in context and established as having a true definition.

“Arbitrary,” in this sense basically means that it is a matter of individual judgment. The bond between the word, or signifier, and the meaning the signified is a matter of individual judgment. When a word is heard or read it could mean different things to different people. Therefore, the context in which it is said or written is of extreme importance because words can be altered to fit different definitions.
This affects the way I feel about language in many different ways. The whole meaning of a written work can be altered by the use of certain words. The way these words are put together and the location of the points and ideas in a text are important to make the text have a certain flow. Words have different meanings when standing alone but it is only when they are put in context that one meaning is prevalent. If not worded properly, the writer’s entire point of view can be misconstrued by a meaning of a word. This plays into the idea that the location and context of the word really gives the word a proper definition.

Marxist Theory and The Tenets of Liberal Humanism

Marxist Theory has one main viewpoint in which the entire theory centralizes around. This viewpoint is that conditions in both culture and history affect the way a literary text is written. I believe this to be true. Although the writer is essentially writing the text, the surrounding conditions make their writing style the way that it is. Also, the writers’ past experiences affect the style and content of their writing.

Marxist theory directly opposes many, if not all, of the tenets of liberal humanism. The first two of the ten tenets of liberal humanism apply the most directly to what I am discussing. The first tenet basically states that a text cannot be captured in a period; it somehow goes beyond the time in which it was written. This directly contradicts the main Marxist theory of a text being captured by time and the affect of historical and cultural occurrences on a text. The second tenet of liberal humanism is that the text should essentially be read for what it is. It should not be placed within a time or circumstance. It is simply a text, not affected by the events of the culture in which it was written. Therefore, the first two tenets work hand in hand to oppose Marxist criticism.

On Theory

Hello,
I am Ryan and I will be writing blogs for my Critical Theory and the Acadamy class at Emmanuel College. I do not really know that much about theory but I do know what I have learned through my Persusive Strategies class that I took freshman year. Theories are used to decipher and study many different texts using various perspectives. Though this, one can apply what is learned about texts to aspects in culture today.