A Worldly Perspective

A quote that stood out to me from "Situating Race" is that

"critical race theorists emphasize the ways in which racism is normalized in US culture, such that the principles of liberalism are not adequate to address its distortions. In particular, critical race theorists question the view that color-blind or 'formal' conceptions of equality can actually remedy the effects of a pervasive and deeply rooted social racism" (Rivkin and Ryan, 5).

The majority of the information presented and studied from the articles on race theory have pursued perspectives of race from the US. However, what do you think race theory means to those in other countries, or what thier perspective on race would be? Does it differ from our social concept of race, or are their mostly similarities? How do you know?

Countries

http://digital.vpr.net/post/why-world-split-countries#stream/0  

In addition, a quote that also caught my attention is from "The Social Construction of Race," where Lopez states that "greater genetic variation exists within the populations typically labeled Black and White than between these populations" (10). Does this mean that different groups further box themselves into separate categories within the overarching group they identify with? Are there any examples you know of where this concept exists? 

Boxed in?

I did a little more thinking on what we were talking about the other day, about the harmful effects of stereotyping minority groups, (sometimes as a result of good intentions). I found this quote and I thought it was interesting, it made me think of all the news about Kanye and Chance the rapper this week. It also reminded me a lot of the postmodernism blackness article we read.

Courious to hear your thoughts classmates?

Just a quote!

"Do you know what it feels like to be black? To pop lock your way in and out of hugs, it is not a problem you want to sympathize, but to tell me you know my pain is to stab yourself in the leg cause you saw me get shot. We have two different wounds and looking at yours does nothing to heal mine." --Darius Simpson

So I lied. . . it's not just a quote. It's a quote from a poem!

((at least it's not a picture of a quote))

Representation and Production from Culler

While reading Culler’s chapter on Race theory and writing a paper analyzing a story through the lens of both Post Colonialism and Race theory, I have come across an interesting quote. “Does discourse represent identities that already exist, or does it produce them?” What is true representation and what is the creation of a queer, race, or ability diverse character/story for the sake of fanfare? What is the line between equal true representation, and the act of writing in “hollow” diverse characters for the sake of diversity? Should these characters face adversity or be presented without it? If these characters are always written with struggles of adversity do we as a society perpetuate the oppression that they feel as a group? What is a piece of text that seems to have a diverse character without any real “characterization”.

 

Pictured: Something someone that says they "just don't see color" speaking on diversity

(Source: https://media1.giphy.com/media/3ogsjUeIUkMzM5qIta/giphy.gif)

Is there an outside of Nature?

(This post may need some gesticulation or a chart when we discuss it, because I am curious (and a little confused) about my question)

As we discuss Ecocriticism this week I have been thinking about the world outside of what is considered “Nature”, or possibly what is considered “Nature”. Is space and the universe considered Nature or is it outside of the realm of the setting that interacts with the characters, or is space lumped into the space of interaction in the text. If space isn’t considered Nature, is it because our Nature is man-made? Or is our Nature not man-made but a product of what came before the text? Can consider Nature outside of the text because the text is in the same realm, or should we only regard the Nature within the text, or the time period it is written in? I ask these questions because of the chart we viewed for Deconstruction week, guess Derrida stuck around in my head more than I expected him to.

(Also, nature...Nature?)

(Source: https://giphy.com/explore/space)

Nature, Nature, And More Nature!

One thing that stood out to my from this week was the idea that when nature is being discussed, it is typically romanticized and it is a form of nature that no longer exists. Many have a desire to be in the nature of long ago, before towns and cities and civilization tore most of it down and built a "jungle" of it's own. And one question in particular made me stop and come up with one of my own. Dr. Gottfried asked when the last time we had been in nature was. I wonder, what do we consider nature? Is nature simply the outdoors where a few trees surround you, is it a hiking trail where along the path there are marks of human intervention, or is it being somewhere completely detached from civilization where human intervention is little to none? If it's the latter, I don't think that's possible in most areas, if not all. There doesn't seem to be much land that has been untouched. So, is there a true form of nature at all, or has our definition of nature changed because of that?

Here's a picture of my cat Louie. He's so calm and I've had a stressful week so here's my calm cat to help me and anybody else who's stressed.

The Importance of Language

I really liked the deconstruction chapter in Beginning Theory by Barry, since the methods of how to do deconstruction and the explanation of what it is is very clear and concise. On page 65, it mentions that post structuralism "distrusts the very notion of reason, and the idea of the human being as an idependent entity, preffering the notion of the "dissolved' or 'constructed' subject, whereby what we may think of as the individual is really a product of social and linguistic forces."

Facebook

Facebook seems to construct a person's identity by the comments someone writes, the pictures they post, and the experiences they depict. Therefore, you do not need a physical person to represent who you are. You are constructed by language. That's how others can know you without ever really meeting you.

Being put this way, does it seem like structuralism and reader response criticism are influenced by this theory? He does post structuralism differ? Post structuralism seems to me to go a little further outside the text. The author's intentions do not matter and there's no intent to interpret the text, for post structuralists "seek to show that the text is characterized by disunity rather than unity" (75). The goal is more to understand the inner workings of it based on language (like hermeneutic, semantic, etc in structuralism).

Does this count as a picture?

RFirst of all, I really want to thank Dr. Kolmerten for telling us her story and teaching us about the wonderful, and blissfully clear feminist theory. I loved every minute of it and am sorry you couldn’t be with us today. 

But on to the real task at hand. I decided I would (finally) use a picture, I figured I ought to do a quote for my writing. My quote is from The Madwoman in the Attic, and expands on the broader reach of feminist theory, and the purpose of female literature. “Recording their own distinctly female experience, they are secretly working through and within the conventions of literary texts to define their own lives.” I found this quote intriguing because I thought that was what all writers do, but it got me thinking about the reasons a person writes. 

So I maybe failed at not using a quote... I originally had a gif I wanted to use but I’m not that technologically gifted. I tried. Maybe next time.

A Mind and a Voice

One quote that stuck out to me was when Kolodny writes that, "if we are to survive, to challenge the (accepted and generally male) authority who has traditionally wielded the power to determine what may be written and how it shall be read." (175) One reason this quote stuck in my mind is because it used to be considered bad for a woman to read or write or think for herself, and this states what many have accepted and worked towards, which is making sure women have a voice that is heard.


Source: https://giphy.com/gifs/disney-books-beauty-and-the-beast-belle-JEhCPFfqi2Hy8

More Than Social Classes

In Beginning Theory, it mentions that "Marxist literary criticism maintains that a writer's social class, and its prevailing 'ideology' have a major bearing on what is written by a member of that class" (Barry 161). It is believed that social class has a strong power over an individual, as well ideological apparatuses mentioned later in the chapter (167). There are a lot of higher up institutions that do hold a lot of control over the choices individuals in a society have. However, do you think the emphasis of social class affecting a writer is overdramatized? Could our environment, biological influences, experiences, and social influences factor in to one's ideology as well?

Social Influences

Also, does a writer's ideology effect thier writing as much as Marxist criticist says? Creative writers can portray characters as stereotypes believed from a class point of view, or they can choose to create an original character in opposition from stereotypes.

What are People Thinking?

From Male Hysteria  by W. H. R. Rivers he states that "[s]hell shock was so obviously a retreat from the war that the British military initially tried to keep it from the public;" 

Then after a few lines down he continues with "when they realized that shell shock did not have an organic cause, many military authorities refused to treat victims as disabled and maintained that they should not be given pensions or honorable discharges." 

Fear controls people more then they would like others to believe, so when something unknown and potentially unstable arises, people let the fear control them. 

Why does the public matter so much when the people that are hurting the most are trampled under foot? 

a changed generation

"The French instituted a system of keeping men suffering from shell-shock in rest hospitals  behind the front instead of sending them home to their families. They did this because they found that a nervous disease was better treated in the hard medical environment of the camp than letting the patients return to their families, where they were sympathized with an 'Molly-coddled.'" (Misnomer)

Uh, War is Really Scary

With the topic of WWI and shell shock, not only in this class but in all my classes, I’ve been horrified. I think its the combination of all the poems and short stories about the feeling of anxiety that occurred in that time. What’s even worse is that all the real horror is that it all actually happened. This brings me to my question; What is the most horrifying time period for historical fiction writers? It doesn’t have to be genre horror, but any horrifying feeling you’ve felt because you couldn’t even begin to imagine what is like to be a person in the character’s situation. This week also made me want to ask what period of time my classmates like to read about the most, and why? 

Reading anything about war that ever occurred.

Source: https://gfycat.com/gifs/tag/scared

Haunted

In Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum est, there were a couple line that I found particularly haunting. Owen writes that, "Behind the wagon that we flung him in,/And watch the white eyes writing in his face,/His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin," about a man who could not get his gas mask on in time and died because of the gas released on them. (18-20) The description alone is enough to leave me a bit haunted by a memory that was not mine. Do you feel the same way about this section of this poem?

Gif: http://untethered.textplus.com/post/77083070561/5-overreactions-to-common-cell-phone

Literature's an Onion: It Has Layers - and Structure!

      Structuralist Theory perfectly captures literature's many faces - through structure, we can observe and analyze the patterns and deviants employed, and can understand the value of word choice and the emotions they evoke. Frye seeks to describe the importance of criticism with the quote: "The poet may of course have some critical ability of his own, and so be able to talk about his own work but...what he says has a peculiar interest, not a peculiar authority. It is generally accepted that a critic is a better judge of the value of a poem than its creator." Do you believe that this is true? Is there something unaccountable in the author's own interpretation, and that there is a dividing line between critic and writer?
     Beyond this dividing idea of judgment, what can we say of the value of Structuralism? From our class discussions, we found ourselves impressed by our better understanding of Sonnet 73 by breaking it down and valuing the diction and figurative language used by Shakespeare. What can we gain from having a Structuralist perspective? Does it help us to better understand, appreciate, and study the art of writing and all that it brings forth?

Structure and scaffolds can provide the foundation for something truly great.

https://irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/58151f06/dms3rep/multi/desktop/s3-1280x520.jpg

Boundaries equal freedom

Hello classmates, Kamryn, Maddie, Abby, Tim, Alex, Meredith, Savanna, Layla and Natalie.

I hope that will be able to have class without my presence. I know you all miss me dearly, and I understand there may be bitter weeping and gnashing of teeth in my absence, but fear not, I will return next week.

Just kidding. I suck. Lol. Bet y'all didn't even notice I was missing. Hahaha (*fake laughing to hide real pain).

But for real, what a great workshop on Structuralism. The breaking down of Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 we did in class kinda blew my mind. Understanding the mechanisms a text uses to convey meaning (for me at least in the texts we broke down in class), helped me not only see how a text like Sonnet 73 conveyed its meaning, but also helped me understand even more clearly what it was saying.

We talked a lot about how language as a system has limitations, and that all literature must operate within that system.

At first I thought to myself that having a system we must operate within limits what one can say, but upon a little further digestion I think it is quite the opposite. Because once we understand the system language, literature and words operate within, the more freedom we have to be creative with it inside of its boundaries.   

I think this quote from Albert Einstein can be applied to language as a system. The "Rules of the game" is our understanding of language, and "Playing" is how we express ourselves through language.

Separate Circles, Same Track?

In Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism the quote, “liberal knowledge is its own end” stuck out to me because I was wondering how we can truly come to a real ‘end’ in school of thought. Is there an end to philosophy? What about music theory? The opportunities to approach something differently are endless, but how mind blowing is it that we could probably never configure just all those ways? I think when I posted earlier I was channeling my (attempted) understanding of structuralism into frustration rather than open thought. Are there mixtures of schools of thought and theory? Or are they black and white and everyone will be grouped into one exclusive school of thought?

Me before I opened my mind:

(Source: https://tenor.com/view/real-housewives-thats-my-opinion-opinion-shout-yell-gif-3984951)

Me after I opened my mind:

(Source: https://imgur.com/gallery/NZrRI)

All readers?

“In any case, all readers come to the text already predisposed to interpret it in a certain way based on whatever interpretive strategies are operating for them at the time they read” (Tyson, 177)

Day of the Poem?

In Louise M. Rosenblatt's The Poem as Event, she makes the statement that a poem, "must be thought of as an even in time. It is not an object or an ideal entity. It is an occurrence," which was confusing. How can a poem be an event in time? Writing can represent an event in time, but do you think it could really be an even itself?

Photo: https://images.pexels.com/photos/273011/pexels-photo-273011.jpeg?w=1260&h=750&auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb

To what extent can a poem take on a life of its own and how much control should its creator have over its "life": AKA a Frankenstein poem?

I am beginning my post with a short quote, but only to lead into a question.

From the Lynn reading The Purpose of New Criticism, Lynn tells us "Only the poem can tell us how to read the Poem."

I take this statement to mean that poem once published takes on a life of its own, and that the authors intentions of the poems meaning should not have any swing on how readers interprete it.

I mostly agree with that, however...

 I have a few questions regarding this statement. The first would be, what do YOU take this to mean, "Only the poem can tell us how to read the poem?"

Also, what if two readers interpreted the poem differently? Technically "the poem" told the readers two different things, does the poem then have two different meanings? What if the author clearly intended the poem to have only one meaning?

Certainly I am on board with texts taking on a lives of their own. I appreciate the beauty of a poem meaning separate things to separate people. But do you think it is possible for someone to get the meaning of a poem wrong, or is meaning relative?