Category: reflections

Final Reflections

Like everyone else I am also surprised how fast this semester went by. I feel like I just started the term. But as I reflect back I can see that there is a lot we have covered and that there is a lot we have learned. When we started the fist class the first thing we did was try to define what literature theory is and then what literature is. This was a really good introduction because it really showed how critical and hard it would be to define terms. Not only that but by trying to answer these questions we could see that many of the terms we were going to considered would have many definitions, depending on who was defining it. I think that first the class has given us a good foundation on general understanding of terms and theory. Now when we go to conferences and read a paper that discuses literature and theory we have a better understanding of what is being considered. Secondly we have really become critics of literary theory. In class we not only considered or interpret what we thought the author was trying, but we also gave our own opinion. Some of the more memorable classes were about us sharing our own experiences and trying to analyse how our experiences and background affect our thinking. All of us coming from such diverse and different backgrounds really made the class interesting. This was also done in the blog which I really enjoyed writing and reading the response of others.
One thing I learned also was that theory is never a clear specific answer. It involves examination and interpretation in formalism when people were trying to find an exact science of literature a systematic approach this was not successfully because there is something extra in theory that can’t be systematic. And accepting this allows us to be more open minded of literature theory. Lit. Theory also allows us to think out side of the box because it questions out own opinions. As I learned more about theory this term I see it more and more as a. Puzzle that you never finish building but that the more you understand the clearer the picture.
In conclusion there is much to say about this class I really enjoyed all our discussions and points of view that we share and good luck to everyone at the test next week!!!

First I think that I learned a lot this semester. I have never done a just theory course and I practically did not have any previous knowledge about literary theory in general before taking this course. I remember that at the beginning of the term I wanted to find an answer to “what is literary theory, and why would anyone want to write or read it?” I don’t think I still have a good answer for them. Perhaps literary theory is an attempt to understand the various ways that different people read texts. Yes, we all know that not everyone “interprets” a book, poem, or even a song the same way. Theory gives readers a chance to view a text with a so-called different set of lenses. There are many different schools of literary theory that work off of different assumptions and take different approaches to the study of literature. For example, feminist literary theory explores how different literary works portray women and how they represent male privilege in society. Reader-response theory explores the role that a reader plays in constructing the meaning of a text. Marxist literary critics use different Marxist ideas to explore literary works and their connections with political ideas. All of these different schools can provide useful insight into a work of literature. I think it has been good for me to learn about the big thinkers such as Foucault, Freud, Barthes, Derrida etc… as I have heard about them before but didn’t know much about them. I also encountered some new theories and concepts that will be very useful for my thesis (and also in analyzing and interpreting other texts in the future) I also really loved working with other people (questioning and criticizing together) and getting to know new students in the department!

I had a very new experience while travelling through literary theory. There are many things that I want to share about the journey. I had studied the authors in my final year of Masters Program in India but they were lecture classes where the teacher dictated notes about a particular theory and we wrote them down without thinking. Therefore, reflecting upon these theories was never possible or a discussion was not there. I had diaries full of notes which I somehow forgot to bring here and I think in certain ways it was a blessing in disguise because I had to read them all. I started understanding the difference between reading them and taking notes from the teacher on them. Notes are very easy to understand as they are generally dictated in a very comprehensive way whereas reading the authors was completely a new experience for me.  I say this as a journey precisely because of the act of reading them. This act of reading took me through various phases of emotions – anger, frustration, irritation, excitation (when finally I was able to understand some parts of it) etc.

The other part of the journey was writing blogs. I never wrote any blog before this nor have I read so much on blogs. I am always very afraid to speak in front of everybody about my views and also hesitate that everybody read or listen to me. But this concept which initially made me feel so nervous had actually benefited me in many ways. First, I read the articles every week to write something on the blog and at times not once but twice or thrice especially the one about which I was writing. Earlier I was only bothered about writing something on the blog as part of the work that has to be completed but slowly I also started reading other blogs and it was interesting when I started receiving comments on what I wrote. The hesitation that I had earlier about my classmates reading what I think has somehow started disappearing and now I enjoy a discussion on this forum and also share my opinions. The other relation between the blog and the reading that I found interesting is when I re- read my blog. Earlier they were just a summary of the text in my own words, later I started comparing them with each other (texts) and see how they were different, much later there was observation of the reading of different periods and in the last few blogs I started relating the articles with incidences from my country.

I think it would be far more enjoyable if we had read it in two semesters so that we had less reading for each class and then the discussion in the class. For me, it was a sudden stop in that journey when I just started enjoying my travel through the literary theory!!

I have to admit, I was not impressed at the beginning of the semester. I was afraid the theory class would quickly turn into an “ideological” class. As the weeks went by, I started to make connections with what I was working on and started to see the advantages of a theory class. I came across a few articles and theories that I’d never heard of before and that proved to be very useful for my thesis. Don’t get me wrong!! That theory class was not that pink bubble I seem to be describing. I had my up and down. I ended up hating finding annoying disliking a few theorists more than I already did. I still have that impression of a closed space reserved to critics who write theories for a certain elite. I still have the impression sometimes when I read theories on Race, cultural studies, “postcolonial studies”, etc that while denouncing the oppressive relationship between the dominated and the dominants, they tend to reinforce that oppression by writing for a small privileged group of people. Thank God, theory is more than that. Other authors helped restore my hope in humanity

….and you look good in a coffee place with a critical theory book…if you are lucky, you may even be offered a free coffee.

We are thrown into this world without notice. In a certain point of our life we realize that everything is strange: the world, society, its creations, and, of course, ourselves etc., etc. Questions like these arise: “Who I am?” “Which is the sense of life? What is society? Which is my role in society? Why do I have this role in society? What is art? The uncertainties continue to the infinite and beyond. So, we need answers, desperately. In this point we begin to think, to theorize about ourselves, about the world, about society, etc., etc. We also begin to criticize: why the things have to be like this? Why being born in certain society or with certain characteristics typecast us? So, again, we think, we theorize.

However, we are never satisfied. It’s part of our nature. One answer (one theory) to one of our questions lasts few seconds. For instance if I make a theory about Art and develop some terms about it, someone would come and say “Ok, but maybe…” or “No, that is not completely true…” or “No, Art is…” Theory then enters into the dichotomy that gives it life: writing/rewriting. If we accept as definite one theory, then the dynamic finishes. But it cannot end, because, we are never satisfied with only one answer and one answer, paradoxically, conduce to more questions.

This demonstrates that we are very complex and that we like complexity. And more: we need complexity. We can complain about it (“Why everything is so complicate?!, Why life is so difficult?!”, etc.), but we need it. Also, we need art, culture, daily life problems, etc. But, why do we need all these. Only because is in our nature being complicated? I think there is something deeper.

I said that we have infinite uncertainties, but I did not mention that we have only one certainty: we are mortals. This fact, the only one that is for sure, is much more disruptive than the millions of uncertainties regarding the reality that we could have. Of course, this fact also generates multiple questions, but the main difference with all the others is that theories that we could make about it cannot be empirical. Even, religions have their certainties about death; there is no possibility of a real discussion. In other words, we cannot theorize about our transitory condition in the world, because we do not have elements to do it. We only can imagine.

So, my question is: Maybe our need to create theories, art, culture, daily life problems, etc. has not only the purpose of answering our questions about the world, but distract us of the undeniable fact that we are mortals? In that sense, the need of complexity is in someway also a good way of forget our deep nature of being mortals? I am not saying that the aim of theorizing or making art is only to distract us from death, but maybe it is also a function that we are not aware all the time.

This is a reflexion that I could make after a course that demonstrate that we are all the time making questions, attempting answers, criticizing, making more questions; in other words, writing and rewriting. So, one “meta-question” would be “Why we like to be questioning, criticizing, complaining all the time? One possible answer (among multiples, of course), even pessimistic (but also realistic) is that, as I said, we need to be distracted of our mortality. I don’t know. This is only a theory.