In the “Introduction to Theory and Criticism” in the NATC, “cultural studies” is described as espousing a “complex view of subjectivity” in which “authored texts by definition contain unconscious and socially symptomatic materials unique to specific, times, places, and persons” (32). Cary Wolfe describes animals studies as one “branch of cultural studies” (565); he also, however, argues that such an association needs to be questioned and critiqued. Why? What is it about cultural studies that is a problem? And in what way(s) does animal studies offer a critique of what’s problematic about cultural studies?
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Morton provides a complex phenomenological account of the relation of art to “ecological-ness.” What are the features of that relation? Another way to ask this might be “What is the relation of art to the environment?” (And how is “environment” different than that nebulous concept, “context”?)
What are Haraway’s three “crucial boundary breakdowns”? How does the breaking-down of these three boundaries present, according to Haraway, both a challenge and an opportunity? (One might go on to think about how her figure of the cyborg sits at the juncture of these boundary breakdowns and further ask: What are the key features of the cyborg? In what ways is the cyborg a problematic figure? In what ways is the cyborg a figure of promise?)
Early on in their piece, Tuck and Yang make the clear statement that "Decolonization is not a swappable term for other things we want to do to improve our societies and schools. Decolonization doesn’t have a synonym." A central concern is that "decolonization" comes to be something of an empty signifier rather than a marker of particular practices that pertain to but are not commensurate with social justice and human rights. How does decolonization as described by Tuck & Yang differ from other social justice or human rights-oriented thinkers that we have read previously or are reading this week? If there is no "synonym," then perhaps might we say that there are "resonant" or "analogical" concepts/movements, and what might those be?
We see Fanon begin to imagine (imagination plays an important role in this text) the post-colonial moment, and in that imagining he asks about the relation of “the struggle” and “culture.” “There remains one essential question,” he says. “What are the relations between the struggle—whether political or military—and culture? Is there a suspension of culture during the conflict? Is the national struggle an expression of a culture?” (p. 245) What, if anything, does Fanon decide about the relation between “the struggle for liberation” and “culture”?
Mbembe's essay argues for a reconceptualization of "biopolitics" to that of "necropolitics" by showing how politics and death are intertwined in modernity. In advancing this reconceptualization, Mbembe is on the surface doing something different than Tuck & Yang's argument against the "metaphorization" of the decolonial project. Nevertheless, to what extent might we adapt their injunction that "decolonization has no synonym" for Mbembe's work: "necropolitics has no synonym"?
“Sex in Public” appeared over 20 years ago. How recognizable is the cultural and political landscape to which Berlant and Warner are responding? (Rather than tracking some kind of “progress” per se here, I am more interested in what conjunctions of media, ideology, and/or power remain in place or not.)
To what extent should we understand Crenshaw’s specific examples and specific institutional location as crucial for understanding the now regularly used term, “intersectionality”?
Gilbert and Gubar (it is no mistake that this text is a co-authored text) are interested in "Western literary history," that is in issues of canonicity, power and authority, as well as influence and exclusion. They open their discussion of these issues by asking a huge question: "What does it mean to be a woman writer in a culture whose fundamental definitions of literary authority are...both overtly and covertly patriarchal?" What is/are their answer(s) to this question?
Best and Marcus explicitly name their intervention in literary studies in terms of how “we” read (I follow Best & Marcus in putting scare quotes around that third person plural pronoun), contrasting their program of “surface” reading with the more theoretically-inflected program of “symptomatic reading” that developed in the last third of the 20th century. Best and Marcus identify six different types of reading that “might come under the rubric of ‘surface reading’” (2611). What are the key features of those six “types”? What commonalities, if any, do those types have with each other?
In this hallmark text, Wimsatt and Beardsley argue for a particular way of engaging with literary texts. They argue strongly for attention to, as many New Critics would say, "the text itself." If pushed to do so (as I now push myself to do so), I would select the following passage as the center of their take on literary criticism:
"The poem is not the critic's own and not the author's (it is detached from the author at birth and goes about the world beyond his power to intend about it or control it). The poem belongs to the public."
Here, the text - "the poem" - isn't decontextualized but remains the possession of "the public." How does this belonging to the public inform one's critical work with a literary text?
What other moment(s) might we identify as central to a New Critical focus on the text in lieu of my suggestion above?
bell hooks stages a perfect example of an attentive, though highly critical, response to a tradition of thought and practice in this piece that dates from 1990. What critiques does hooks pursue? What, if anything, does hooks affirm from postmodern thinking? Following from that: how does hooks make her argument? That is, what is her methodology? In what ways does that methodology extend, qualify, or censure other methodologies we’ve seen so far?
Freud’s “Beyond the Pleasure Principle,” presented us with a rhetorical structure in which the final paragraphs seem to actually be the place to start unpacking his argument. Lacan often replicates this structure, and our selection is no different. Indeed, on the final page, Lacan asserts, “Our experience shows that we should start instead from the function of méconnaisance that characterizes the ego in all its structures.” He had barely introduced the term méconnaisance one page earlier, yet here he suggests its “function” as a/the starting place. What is méconnaisance, and how might we understand it as a starting place for this text?
What does Kaplan’s investments in feminism help her see in discussions of trauma (especially from a psychoanalytic perspective) that might otherwise go unnoticed?
Luxemburg seems to be doing something very different in this text than Gramsci and Althusser. Whereas Gramsci and Althusser seem to be after a kind of theory of, respectively, the formation of the intellectual and the structure of ideology and the State, Luxemburg seems much more praxis-oriented. Where are moments where Luxemburg seems most distant from the concerns or methodologies found in Gramsci and/or Althusser? Are there moments where there seem to be points of contact? If so, what are they, and to what extent can L, G, or A shed light on each other?
Gramsci is a radical Marxist. He is thus very interested in issues of class and labor. Intellectuals seem to pose something of a special case for Gramsci in that they seem to simultaneous be part of particular classes and associated with certain kinds of labor even as they also seem to form their own class and perform their own kinds of labor. Who counts as an intellectual? What problems does Gramsci identify with using this term? What kind of labor does an intellectual do?
(bonus question: I think it'd be really interesting for us to think about the category of the “unproductive worker” which Gramsci borrows from Achille Loria. What makes a worker “unproductive”? Gramsci questions Loria’s concept, but I’d like us to think a bit about the ways that Gramsci’s work might shed light (or not) on the situation that the humanities as a discipline now finds itself in terms of discourses of utility as applied to higher education.)
Though he was not the first to consider “softer” topics of culture and identity within Marxist thought, Althusser’s major contribution to Marxist scholarship was the marrying of Marxist thought with insights from psychoanalysis—specifically the work of Jacques Lacan (who we’ll read next week). Althusser, after many twists and turns trying to parse an account of ideology that at times feels very Gramscian, finally arrives at a definition of “Ideology”: “Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence” (1350). This definition relies on tying together two seemingly incompatible concepts “imaginary” and “real.” How does Althusser navigate this tension? Or, in other words, what does he say about the connection between how we imagine our lives and how we live our lives?
The Ars Poetica is neither “a systematic exposition of a coherent theory of poetic composition nor a comprehensive textbook for aspiring writers.” Nevertheless, the Ars Poetica does espouse certain values. What are the key values—either explicit or implicit—that Horace upholds?
How does Christine address her position as a woman arguing in the "Querelle de Roman de la Rose" - what is often described as “France’s first literary debate”?
Throughout our selection from Kant's Critique of Judgment we find the author making a series of distinctions moving us toward a definition of art and especially that which is beautiful: art/nature, art/science, art/handicraft, mechanical art/aesthetical art, to name just a few of his major distinctions (there are several related subsidiary distinctions). Choose a distinction that appeals to you and explain what seems commonsensical about it to you as well as what seems strange or unexpected.