I found the talks from today both interesting and insightful. Conscious of being in an intro to English studies class, I found myself assessing the presentations less in terms of the cogency of a particular point or argument and more in terms of whether I agreed with the approach to the primary text as a valid and useful way to interpret it.
Professor Seaman, more or less strictly following the contents of her posted paper, discussed her efforts to broaden the posthuman perspective so as to equip it to engage with divinity and religion in medieval texts in an explorative rather than dismissive way. Charging posthuman approaches with excessive commitment to secularism, Professor Seaman proposed that a more nuanced method for interpreting medieval texts would depend upon posthumanism’s incorporation of an understanding of religion in the Middle Ages not as the human distortion of natural events but rather as a network of knowledge depending upon the influence of certain “allies” who bolster it with their authority, analogous to science in the present day.
Professor Bruns’ approach was more historical and general in nature, chronicling the development of film criticism into a respected academic field. Interspersed in this chronology were snippets of his work on Hitchcock, the films of whom he is analyzing in terms of how the objects and places of its scenes are essential to probing its characters. He also demonstrated what would be considered in the case of film “close reading” in contrast to the more distant and conceptual approach to Inception that he adopted in his posted article.
I think that, for one, this freshened my perspective on English studies by exposing me to the different starting points with which one can begin their efforts at criticism. While Professor Bruns’ approach seemed much more concerned with the historical transitions that occurred within the field he was exploring, like for example the change to digital filming, Professor Seaman seemed more focused on the evolution of the theoretical backdrop of English studies generally. A third starting place, the one I find as my default, would be to simply notice a formal relationship in the work itself and the explore the implications of it. But, noticing how these professors defy that default may help me in the future to consider alternative ways of beginning criticism.
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