Month: November 2022 (Page 1 of 2)

Framing Statement:

Thinking about the work I have done for my major in English and Political Science and then reflecting on this semester’s coursework in literary criticism, for one, I noticed an incredible overlap between the topics and theorists we covered and those within my political science courses. I knew that my two majors complimented each other well just based on bolstering my writing and reading skills, but I hadn’t thought about the possibilities of topics of literary criticism and theory such as Marxism, post-colonial studies, Freudian psychoanalysis, and feminist theory to appear even within my intro-level political science courses. In past English courses, especially ENG 229, which looked at the origins of the novel, I found many connections within our course surrounding narratology and the structures of literature, as well as where the role of authors comes in when analyzing their work. Taking this into account, I feel that the cultural and intellectual relevancies from my two majors extend our work across disciples by utilizing well-known theorists, concepts, and cultural markers to engage with specific areas of each major that left me with a feeling of cohesion, knowing what I am studying has broader implications and significance. 

Within the learning outcomes for my English major, I found the point of being able to “Read texts closely and critically through the conscious application of methods and insights drawn from a range of critical theories” went well with this project as I had to analyze two primary works, one being outside of this class and find and explain their relevance within two theories. Another category was “Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of literature in English with special attention to theory and criticism as a field,” which I felt was the very claim I tried to make within the project. Looking to theory and criticism as a way to enhance and deepen our understanding of literature is vital.

 I thought of this project as an in-depth and reflective scavenger hunt, and looking back through all of the work I did this semester showed me how many directions, and interesting perspectives can arise from theory. Through the modality of an essay, I feel that I have interpreted primary pieces of literature and connected them to various theories while gaining an understanding of those far-reaching historical and cultural moments that created them. 

Final Project Essay:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hDGhgmOA-siwuDFQRDWXda5ShXwQB36KX6XEh9A5WOA/edit?usp=sharing

Theories of interest

Structuralism

• Connection to the narratology aspect and how it can connect to previous works from ENG 229, what makes the novel “novel” with aspects of the structure and assumptions of how a novel as a genre came to be.
• PSC 210 con-law with discussions of frameworks and how certain things are framed (legal concepts connection).
• Texts:

Psychoanalysis

• Connection to Foucault and Freud in PSC 105
• Avenues for Feminist criticism within our review of Virginia Woolf and how that story can be a lens to discuss both.
• Texts:

New Criticism

• Avenue to discuss what theory I don’t like as much and highlight its shortcomings with contemporary examples of ways that literature is connected to outside issues and relevancies
• development of feminist theory to then queer theory and gender studies as a response to the cultural and academic need to press further and expand the role literature plays as well as postcolonial and race studies.
• New questions can be asked that prompt different analyses and exploration of a certain theory.
• Texts:

Quote: “I can’t believe we made it (This is what we made, made)/ This is what we’re thankful for (This is what we thank, thank)/ I can’t believe we made it (This a different angle)/ Have you ever seen the crowd goin’ apeshit? Rah

Comment: These lyrics from “Apesh*t” by The Carters seemed to highlight the elements within Parker’s section on race studies within Post Colonial and Race Studies where the black community can critique and draw new forms of historical awareness to previously normalized renditions of whiteness. As from the chapter, “they honor the past, critique it and change it, and make it their own” (342). I felt that these lyrics are exemplified in the music video as the countless paintings and sculptures all depict this sense of whiteness, yet, at the same time, we know the historical truths of how art and culture were advanced by the work and exploitation of black people. For the Carter’s to bring awareness to that in the form of celebration, they can now take their realities of history and culture into the center of what was usually reserved for white society. 

Question: 

I might raise the question of how this could fit into the concept of double consciousness as presented in Parker’s chapter through the excerpt by W.E.B Du Bois on how “this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity” (329). I thought that maybe this video and song point to the fact that it is usually this balance between cultures, either American or African American, and by the expression within the video, it might be allowing a blend of the two in both response and denial of those separations. 

Quote:  “She didn’t spend the time she had between rehearsals telling Jasmine how to cook and clean American-style. Mrs. Daboo did that in 16B. Mrs. Daboo would barge in with a plate of stale samosas and snoop around giving free advice on how mainstream Americans did things. As if she were dumb or something!”

Comment: What was interesting about the short story is all the subtle hints made to trying to figure out what type of historical background she should share and how much information about herself to let be known. There is tension between wanting to be modern and American but, at the same time, recognizing those immigrants like Mrs. Daboo who attempt to embrace the American way, seeming transparent and overly done to other immigrants like Jasmine. The idea within Parker’s chapter on Postcolonial and Race Studies addressed the diasporic tensions of wanting to maintain a new identity but the inevitable mixing and changes that occur with those cultures and commerce globally. 

Question: I wondered about the significance of the ending and whether or not it is supposed to be a critique of how the assimilation into American culture and way of thinking is always better than her life before. Yet, I also wonder if it is an awakening – to mix both and have an identity that is not tied to one or the other but instead above both.

Robin Mitchell’s chapter titled “Entering Darkness Colonial Anxieties And The Cultural Production of Sarah Baartmann” aims to identify the greater context of the atmosphere in France following the period of the French Revolution to post-Napeolonic rule that led to the use and production of Sarah Baartmann in the early 19th century. Mitchell first identifies that the “Political and Social uncertainty marked this era, with royalists, Bonapartists, and republicans failing to reconcile their disparate ideologies” (Micthell 53). Next, Mitchell emphasizes the understanding of the Haitian Revolution, which brought many racial consequences concerning slavery and empire. Through these connections, Mitchell analyzes how Baartmann had come to resemble not only the scientific discourses of the time but was also employed as a mechanism of control and commodification of the French nationalistic views through Baartmann and her African nationality.

In the case of Baartman’s political implications as a method of analysis for Mitchell, she argued that “She thus represented the antithesis of Frenchness – inappropriate sexuality, feminine aggressiveness, and excess…Baartmann’s body and her image were used to establish nationalistic boundaries” (Mitchell 57). Looking through the lens of colonialism ad maintaining an empire, Mitchell uncovered this justification for continuing racist systems of power and slavery that came from the positioned, manufactured, and misrepresented staging of Baartmann against the traditional society France endeavored to return to. 

Mitchell also continued with an approach of visual representation, which further solidified her conclusions that Baartmann was intended to be a foil “regulating normative French behaviors”(Mitchell 78). The viewing of Baartmann as she was reduced to exaggerated and distorted features within printed sources could provide criticism and foster fear. Employing the well-known imagery within Louis François Charon and Aaron Martinet’s Les Curieux en extase ( The Curious in Ecstasy) is the representation of what “the introduction of “foreign” elements can do to a “civilized” society…Because Baartmann is marked uncivilized, her presence, however submissive, evokes uncivilized behavior”(Mitchell 72). 

Like within the political scope and visual representation, in Mitchell’s conclusion, she links these methods to the imperialistic atmosphere and attempts to regain power and control of a society’s norms and values following such a period of uncertainty. However, a premiere method was the reduction of “powerful black bodies to harmless spectacle assuaged fears and smoothed out conflicts among…society, providing a much-needed unifying force”(Mitchell 79). At the gain of a continued colonial oppressor was the heightened level of division relating to race and white superiority at the expense of Sarah Baartmann and her culture

Quote: “Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long” (paragraph 19?)

Comment: This quote made me think of how this assertion must mean that before, her life was really not her own and that by feeling this new wave of freedom and life’s purpose, she is, for the first time realizing her own confinement within these strict gender roles, her life must have always adhered to prior. Yet, there are still elements like the idea of “running riot” that bring in ideas that this is not a good thing to be feeling and that it is a disturbance or this uncontrollable display that should be repressed. Nonetheless, I still see it as a mechanism for women to subtly start to question their roles and what their lives might look like with this freedom and choice and the idea of something being “her own” while not going too far as not to be published or allowed into their realm of knowledge in this patriarchal system. 

Question: 

Knowing that this article was published in Vogue to me makes this interesting because this is an example of a sphere in society that is usually accessible and taken in primarily by women. How could this perhaps be a way for women to form critiques and silent protests in a way that the publishers or men would not pick up on but the women that this type of magazine may start to pick up on the resistance? Also, the fact that it is in a magazine plays into this commodity idea that this story’s emotions or relevance among their audience could be used just to attract readers. Still, I also feel that these women may have used that as a disguise of sorts to partake in the form of expression they could achieve while under certain conditions in a commodified and patriarchal world.