Entering Academic Entering Academic Conversations:Conversations:

Entering Academic Entering Academic Conversations:Conversations:

What are they talking about?What are they talking about?What are they talking about?What are they talking about?

En120, Spring 2013En120, Spring 2013Week 1: Monday, 11 February Week 1: Monday, 11 February

En120, Spring 2013En120, Spring 2013Week 1: Monday, 11 February Week 1: Monday, 11 February

Prof. E. Prof. E. KuglerKugler

Graff and Graff and Birkenstein's Birkenstein's They They

Say/I SaySay/I Say

Graff and Graff and Birkenstein's Birkenstein's They They

Say/I SaySay/I SayDescribe their approach?Describe their approach?Describe their approach?Describe their approach?

What is their stated What is their stated point?point?

What is What is implicit? implicit?

What is at stake for What is at stake for them?them?What kind of writing styles and What kind of writing styles and

techniques techniques do they value?do they value?

Culler's Culler's Literary Literary Theory: A Very Short Theory: A Very Short

IntroductionIntroduction

Culler's Culler's Literary Literary Theory: A Very Short Theory: A Very Short

IntroductionIntroductionDo you see the rhetorical moves advocated Do you see the rhetorical moves advocated

by Graff and Birkenstein in use here?by Graff and Birkenstein in use here?Do you see the rhetorical moves advocated Do you see the rhetorical moves advocated

by Graff and Birkenstein in use here?by Graff and Birkenstein in use here?

Where does Culler express his own views or Where does Culler express his own views or those of others?those of others?

Where does Culler express his own views or Where does Culler express his own views or those of others?those of others?

Or, at least, when does he represent his own Or, at least, when does he represent his own views or represent his views or represent his take take on the views of on the views of

others?others?

Or, at least, when does he represent his own Or, at least, when does he represent his own views or represent his views or represent his take take on the views of on the views of

others?others?

What is Culler's What is Culler's point?point?

What is Culler's What is Culler's point?point?

Why does he see the need for this book?Why does he see the need for this book?Into what sorts of conversations is he intervening?Into what sorts of conversations is he intervening?

Why does he see the need for this book?Why does he see the need for this book?Into what sorts of conversations is he intervening?Into what sorts of conversations is he intervening?

What is Literature?What is Literature?What is Literature?What is Literature?•Pause and consider what types of texts you

consider literary.List them.

•In groups of 3, organize them in relation to each other.

•Put this chart on the board.

The Paradox of The Paradox of LiteratureLiterature

The Paradox of The Paradox of LiteratureLiteratureLiterature is a paradoxical institution because

to create literature is to write according to existing formulas - to producing something that looks like a sonnet or that follows the conventions of the novel - but it is also to flout those conventions, to go beyond them.Literature is an institution that that lives by exposing and criticizing its own limits, by testing what will happen if one writes differently.

(Culler 40)

The Paradox of The Paradox of LiteratureLiterature

The Paradox of The Paradox of LiteratureLiterature

So literature is at the same time the name for the utterly conventional . . .

and for the utterly disruptive, where reader have to struggle to create any meaning at all)

(Culler 40)

Attempts to Define Attempts to Define LiteratureLiterature

Attempts to Define Attempts to Define LiteratureLiterature

Contexts and Conventions: We name something as literature because it is presented as such.

"To describe 'literature' would be to analyze a set of assumptions and interpretive operations

readers may bring to bear on such texts" (Culler 25).

Attempts to Define Attempts to Define LiteratureLiterature

Attempts to Define Attempts to Define LiteratureLiterature

We assume there's a purpose beyond the surface meaning, because it has been labeled as "literature" 'Literature is an institutional label that gives us reason to expect that the results of our reading efforts will be 'worth it.' And many of the features of literature follow from the willingness of readers to pay attention, to explore uncertainties, and not immediately ask 'what do you mean by that?'(Culler 27).

Most of the time what leads readers to treat something as literature is that they find it in a context that identifies it as literature: in a book of poems or a section of a magazine, library, or bookstore. (Culler 27).

Would you have seen the Burney mastectomy letter as literary if

you encountered it in a different context?

5 Theories 5 Theories on the on the

Nature of LiteratureNature of Literature

5 Theories 5 Theories on the on the

Nature of LiteratureNature of Literature•Literature is the 'foregrounding' of language

•Literature as the integration of language

•Literature as fiction

•Literature as aesthetic object

•Literature as intertextual or self-reflexive construct

5 Theories 5 Theories on the on the

Nature of LiteratureNature of Literature

5 Theories 5 Theories on the on the

Nature of LiteratureNature of LiteratureWhen you read these theories, which was the most familiar to you?

Which made the most sense?

Why do you think this was the case?

What's the Question:Theory as Methodology

Culler defines theory as

1) Interdisciplinary: as a "discourse with effects outside an original discipline" (Culler 14).2) Analytical and Speculative: it "attempt[s] to work out what is involved in what we call sex or language or writing or meaning or the subject" (14). 3) Critical of Assumptions, aka "common sense" or "concepts taken as natural" (15).4) Reflexive: questions "the categories we use in making sense of things"; it is "thinking about thinking" (15).

What is "discourse"?What is "discourse"?What is "discourse"?What is "discourse"?Culler characterizes the theories of Michel Foucault as offering "a general framework for thinking about texts and discourses in general" (13).Foucault "proposes to show us not how insightful or wise texts are but how far the discourses of doctors, scientists, novelists, and others create the things they claim only to analyze. . . . [He] shows how creatively productive the discourses of knowledge are" (13).

What is "discourse"?What is "discourse"?What is "discourse"?What is "discourse"?At a basic level, "discourse" is the conversation surrounding an idea. Theorists, such as Foucault, are interested in how that discourse/conversation defines the idea itself.

What statements are made about X?What are the rules for discussing X? What is included or excluded from that discussion?Who is the subject that personifies X?What are the practices for dealing with those subjects?How does one discourse decline and another take its place?

What is "discourse"?What is "discourse"?What is "discourse"?What is "discourse"?For Foucault, as Culler points out, "power . . . is not something someone wields but 'power/knowledge': power in the form of knowledge or knowledge as power. What we think we know about the world - the conceptual framework in which we are brought to think about the world - exercises great power" (8).

What is "discourse"?What is "discourse"?What is "discourse"?What is "discourse"?Literature is not, then, the primary concern of Foucault's analysis, but it is part of a discourse. The study of literature through a foucauldian lens allows scholars to talk about ideas of madness, sex, sexuality, gender, punishment, etc. as historical constructions. They "look at how the discursive practices of a period, including literature, may have shaped the things we take for granted" (9).

What is Literature?What is Literature?What is Literature?What is Literature?

•Return to your list of literary types.

•Which do you think are granted more cultural value than others?

•Why? How are these hierarchies created?

•What is the discourse surrounding those categories?

Next timeNext timeNext timeNext time

Derrida's life suffused with signs (Culler 9-14)Derrida's life suffused with signs (Culler 9-14)Fairytale as Discourse Fairytale as Discourse

Signs and Supplements in "Sure Thing"Signs and Supplements in "Sure Thing"LunLun

Lunsford's Lunsford's EasyWriterEasyWriterQuestions of Mastery: what is "enough" Questions of Mastery: what is "enough"

knowledge for you?knowledge for you?Eight Journals Collected Eight Journals Collected

Week 0 Assessment ReturnedWeek 0 Assessment Returned

Derrida's life suffused with signs (Culler 9-14)Derrida's life suffused with signs (Culler 9-14)Fairytale as Discourse Fairytale as Discourse

Signs and Supplements in "Sure Thing"Signs and Supplements in "Sure Thing"LunLun

Lunsford's Lunsford's EasyWriterEasyWriterQuestions of Mastery: what is "enough" Questions of Mastery: what is "enough"

knowledge for you?knowledge for you?Eight Journals Collected Eight Journals Collected

Week 0 Assessment ReturnedWeek 0 Assessment Returned