Midterm Evaluation, Pt. 2: Literary Theory

In part 1 of my midterm evaluation, I have told you about my class on Pop and High Culture of Twentieth Century America. And until now, I haven’t managed to address my two English classes which are equally interesting and maybe even a tad more relevant for my professional future. So here goes! Part 2, Literary Theory.

http://users.humboldt.edu/mseldridge/engl420/poser.jpg

     Those among my faithful and cherished readers who also know me outside of this blog (which might be 100%) already know about my fascination with literary/cultural/critical theory. I might already have lectured you once or twice about the importance and the great subversive potential of it, even if you were just asking to be nice and didn’t really care. Sorry. Anyway, one of my classes is called Literary Theory. Being taught by one of the coolest teachers in the history of teaching, this class is as entertaining as it is enlightening. In the beginning, it was often very interesting to read and discuss original essays by such fundamental writers as de Saussure, Barthes, Marx, Althusser, Freud, de Beauvoir, Foucault, or Said (those links are not Wikipedia entries! So check them out!), on concepts which I had already been introduced to back home at American Studies Leipzig. Here at OU, in Dr M.’s (her own suggestion) class, I think we’ve mostly dug at least a bit deeper than I previously could.

     Beyond that, we’ve also read and discussed some Lacan, Fanon, Kristeva, Mulvey, and Bhabha which was mostly new territory for me (heard the names, but that’s it). Oh, and we tried to make sense of Derrida. Différance. Didn’t quite succeed. Little surprise. There’s definitely a (quite logical) tendency that, the harder a text is—and some of them seem to deliberately refuse to make sense—the less we get out of them in class. When visiting Athens, Prof G. brought up the idea to just start a reading group to get deeper into the texts, and I liked it. Back in reality some hours later, though, I realized that there is too little time for that in the semester due to my other classes. So I guess after all, this class is just another of a few springboards into theory. I’ll have to do the swimming myself.

     Anyway—best part—there’s more to come! Cixous, Butler, Baudrillard (I already had a good thing going with this dude back at ASL!). Great stuff. It is an incredibly good thing to have a class that is devoted to cultural theory which is then applied to literature, movies, youtube videos, ads, and the websites of department stores. I even had to re-read Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, not necessarily one of my favorite reads. (Didn’t read the whole thing again, but psst!). And this class made me realize and appreciate the novel’s depth and ingenuity much more than when I first read it last year. All because I got my theory right. Midterms were quite a bit of work, and I had to look at a picture of toasted tarantula for minutes that felt like hours (because I discussed the ad’s use of Othering and exoticizing), but everything worked out just fine in the end. And the second half of the semester continues to be interesting. We’ve already watched My Life in Pink (Great Belgian movie!! Some weird scenes with weird animations, but good story, definitely worth watching if you’re interested in why you’re a girl or a boy!), and I’m looking forward to reading some Junot Diaz. Heard a lotta good things.