So in my last semester of my M.A. in English lit, I decided to take critical theory. You know, after I’ve already written all but like one or two of the critical papers I’ll have to write. But hey. Actually, I’ve never taken critical theory, or literary criticism, or any of those types of things–I’ve done some reading in it on my own, so I’m vaguely familiar with most of the big names and critical approaches, but nothing formal or consistent. After the first class today, I think I’m really going to enjoy it. The discussion we had (the first half of which tried to answer the question “What is literature” and the second half started looking at Russian Formalism) was stimulating, and I actually said stuff! No, seriously, this is huge for me. I think I made it through last semester without talking in class at all. Not quite true, but close.<\/p>\n
On the downside, there are three 12-15 page papers and a presentation. Three! Plus a presentation which is supposed to imitate presenting at a conference, which is basically another 10-page paper. No long paper, though, unless we want to combine the second and third papers into one 25-pager. Which I’m unlikely to do, because much longer than 18 pages makes me crazy. On the upside, the professor is perfectly happy for me to do them on critical theory in film if I want instead of literature! Which is so totally awesome, because for whatever reason, most theoretical approaches make perfect sense to me when applied to film, but I can’t follow them as well in literature. So I already end up explaining literary theory to myself in terms of film theory. So that’s exciting.<\/p>\n
The professor, by the way, is totally brilliant. You know when you just hear someone talk for like five minutes, and it’s not like what they’re saying is hard to understand or anything, but you can just tell they’re totally brilliant? It’s like that. And he’s British, which makes him seem even more brilliant (studied at Oxford and St. Andrews, even). He was really good at making us do the discussing, and disagreeing with us to make us clarify what we were saying, and yet never seem to disagree with us in a way that made us want to stop talking or feel like we had to agree with him. Socratic, I guess it was, but less…probing.<\/p>\n
I was definitely right about this semester being more challenging than last semester. Critical theory isn’t easy reading, throw in essentially two more papers than I’m now used to in a class, not to mention the gazillions of pages I’ll be reading for Victorian Novel (that class isn’t until Thursday) and whatever papers we’ll have there, and not to mention trying to take my oral exam in March…busier I will be. I’m sort of glad the writer’s strike has ended most of my TV shows, because I wouldn’t have time to watch them anyway, and that would make me sad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So in my last semester of my M.A. in English lit, I decided to take critical theory. You know, after I’ve already written all but like one or two of the critical papers I’ll have to write. But hey. Actually, I’ve never taken critical theory, or literary criticism, or any of those types of things–I’ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[793],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":365,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/04\/literary-criticism-rant-warning\/","url_meta":{"origin":929,"position":0},"title":"Literary Criticism (rant warning)","author":"Jandy","date":"April 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Literary criticism ruins books. It tears them apart and glues them together again with the critic's pet theory. It reduces character to symbol and narrative to trope. It increases cynicism and decreases enjoyment. It makes every book about something else. It creates a divide between \"critical readers\" and ordinary ones\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":964,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/imitating-roland-barthes\/","url_meta":{"origin":929,"position":1},"title":"Imitating Roland Barthes","author":"Jandy","date":"January 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"We read Roland Barthes for our Critical Theory class this week. And I have learned stuff. For instance, from this quote from Image-Music-Text: Narrative thus appears as a succession of tightly interlocking mediate and immediate elements; dystaxia determines a 'horizontal' reading, while integration superimposes a 'vertical' reading: there is a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":835,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/heavy-reading\/","url_meta":{"origin":929,"position":2},"title":"Heavy Reading","author":"Jandy","date":"December 5, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"So I just checked out the reading list for my Victorian Novel class in the Spring. The list of books follows, along with the page number count for each one (taken from the Modern Library paperbacks, accounting for the notes and commentary, so the number given is the text itself\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":113,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/09\/christianity-and-literature-conference\/","url_meta":{"origin":929,"position":3},"title":"Christianity and Literature Conference","author":"Jandy","date":"September 29, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"So, I'm in Abilene for the Christianity and Literature Conference. There are four or so grad students from Baylor up here (three of us staying together), plus three or four faculty members giving presentations, so it's been really great to be able to get to know some of them a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":217,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/02\/class-registration-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":929,"position":4},"title":"Class Registration Blues","author":"Jandy","date":"February 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"So people are already turning in pre-registration slips for next fall, even though registration doesn't technically begin until the middle of March, because of the trouble we had getting into classes this semester, because of the now-much-firmer 12-person-per-class cap. But I have no idea what to take. The list of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "School"","block_context":{"text":"School","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/school\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":161,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/semester-wind-down\/","url_meta":{"origin":929,"position":5},"title":"Semester wind-down","author":"Jandy","date":"December 8, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I know all I've posted about lately is school. But it has been sort of prominent in my mind. ;) Not as prominent as it should have been. I completely gave into my procrastination tendencies this week, writing my final paper for Metaphysical Poetry last night from 7pm-midnight, then collapsing--until\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}