[The Personist]

Thread for discussing that most delightful of disciplines, literary theory and critical theory! Let's all show some love!

"...and in the homosexual phase which would follow Eurydice's death...Orpheus sings no more, he writes." - Jacques Derrida

[mattmatumbo]

Of course, 37 views, no posts. Douche bags.

Irigaray is racking my mind, i'm pretty sure in The Bodily Encounter with the Mother, she's saying that women are phallic. I don't know how to relate this to literature though...

[The Personist]

Originally Posted by mattmatumbo

Of course, 37 views, no posts. Douche bags.

Irigaray is racking my mind, i'm pretty sure in The Bodily Encounter with the Mother, she's saying that women are phallic. I don't know how to relate this to literature though...

I need to read her, haha. She sounds fascinating. I'm still a bit obsessed with Lee Edelman and his assertion in No Future that the queer is anti-politics by nature, because the focus of ALL politics, be they conservative or liberal/progressive, is the subversion of the death drive. In essence, politics are geared toward the Child, which guarantees humanity its futurity. The queer is anti-futurist. It's brilliant, radical, violent, and a bit tough to understand without reading the book. He also uses a lot of Lacanian parlance, which is kind of cool.

I'm doing a creative senior project which involves writing poems, but right now I'm working on the theoretical/analytical introduction/preface, and I think it is going to end up being quite Derridean.

[mattmatumbo]

Originally Posted by The Personist

I need to read her, haha. She sounds fascinating. I'm still a bit obsessed with Lee Edelman and his assertion in No Future that the queer is anti-politics by nature, because the focus of ALL politics, be they conservative or liberal/progressive, is the subversion of the death drive. In essence, politics are geared toward the Child, which guarantees humanity its futurity. The queer is anti-futurist. It's brilliant, radical, violent, and a bit tough to understand without reading the book. He also uses a lot of Lacanian parlance, which is kind of cool.

I'm doing a creative senior project which involves writing poems, but right now I'm working on the theoretical/analytical introduction/preface, and I think it is going to end up being quite Derridean.

It's funny because Irigaray claims that politics and religion are against women being Women and want them to be only Mothers. They do this through the regulation of birth control and contraceptives. Funny analog there haha.

Good luck with your senior project. I'm not quite that ambitious haha.

[The Personist]

Originally Posted by mattmatumbo

It's funny because Irigaray claims that politics and religion are against women being Women and want them to be only Mothers. They do this through the regulation of birth control and contraceptives. Funny analog there haha.

Good luck with your senior project. I'm not quite that ambitious haha.

haha, thanks.

Irigaray sounds awesome. Have you read Cixous?

[GrapesIndigo]

I am a philosophy major and recently I've been really interested in Gadamer and Ricoeur. Especially Gadamers philosophical hermeneutics....I'm glad someone started this thread....I am not familiar derrida, any works you suggest?

[mattmatumbo]

Originally Posted by The Personist

haha, thanks.

Irigaray sounds awesome. Have you read Cixous?

I have not, but Cixous is in my big book of theorists haha.

[The Personist]

Originally Posted by GrapesIndigo

I am a philosophy major and recently I've been really interested in Gadamer and Ricoeur. Especially Gadamers philosophical hermeneutics....I'm glad someone started this thread....I am not familiar derrida, any works you suggest?

Plato's Pharmacy is the only one I've read, but it's brilliant.

[saofan_315]

I love that there is a thread about literary theory. I'm taking my senior seminar right now on Franz Kafka and all of the secondary reading we have to do is all theory based. I wish I were better at reading it, but I love it nonetheless.

[The Personist]

What are you reading for the class?

[saofan_315]

The main texts for the class are a bunch of Kafka's short stories, Amerika, and The Trial. We have a ton of secondary essays from people like Fredrick Jameson, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Deluze and Guittari, and Max Horkheimer.

[The Personist]

Originally Posted by saofan_315

The main texts for the class are a bunch of Kafka's short stories, Amerika, and The Trial. We have a ton of secondary essays from people like Fredrick Jameson, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Deluze and Guittari, and Max Horkheimer.

Deleuze is awesome, at least from what I've read by him. I like Camus's study of Kafka, except he concludes that Kafka fails as a writer of the absurd since he allows for a glimmer of hope.

It's hard for me to like Jameson ever since I read Charles Bernstein's response to one of Jameson's myriad articles about postmodernism. Bernstein really goes to town on him.

[saofan_315]

We've definitely talked about other theorists ripping apart Jameson. That being said, "Third World Literature and Global Capitalism" is still probably my favorite essay assigned for the class.

[eraserhead]

Took Lit Theory last semester, easily the most intellectually stimulating class I've had in college thus far.

[The Personist]

Originally Posted by saofan_315

We've definitely talked about other theorists ripping apart Jameson. That being said, "Third World Literature and Global Capitalism" is still probably my favorite essay assigned for the class.

"In The Middle of Capitalism in The Middle of Modernism" is, I believe, the brilliant anti-Jameson Bernstein essay. haha, I might take a look at it tomorrow. I love the way Bernstein thinks and writes.