This event was hosted by the English department and coordinated by Kathy Holmes for high school students to showcase their talents at reciting poems by assorted number of authors in the Stern ballroom this past Sunday. I volunteered at the welcoming and judge’s table. It was quite interesting to see people of that age being […]
Blog 2 on Culture
In the The Theory Toolbox Jeffery Nealon and Susan Giroux argue that in order for a culture to be deemed as such it needs a, “context in which any meaning can happen, an exclusion has to take place; to configure the meaningful context […] the very nature of the process, to exclude all those who […]
importance of ideology
The ironic part about ideology is that it has existed within me for the whole of my 21 years of living. Yet having finished reading it’s dedicated chapter in Nealon & Searls Giroux’s The Theory Toolbox, I realize this is the first time it’s been introduced to me as a field of study. All this time […]
“History”
In psychology, I remember greatly discussing memories and how they can be untrustworthy. Basically, the more you call an event to memory, the more it is tampered with. So actually, the things you don’t remember so well or haven’t thought about in years are your safest and most true-to-reality memories. I think the same can […]
Culture within culture
I believe the idea of culture is more complex than most people think. On page 52 Toolbox states, “How does one identify a specific culture? what are its boundaries? Can it be usefully conceived of in such terms–or does each culture contain within it several semiautonomous cultures?” My answer is yes there are several mini […]
would we all be insane without culture, or are we insane because we have culture?
In both the chapters “Culture” and “Ideology” in The Theory Toolbox, much of the material and topics discussed reminded me of discourse one often hears in anthropology classes, or reads about in anthropological articles/books/etc. After you study the concept of culture for a while, the notion that culture doesn’t even truly exist (which sounds insane, […]
The Oft-Ignored Narrative of the “Vanquished”
As a history and English double major, I simply could not stop myself from discussing the Theory Toolbox chapter “History.” Although I recognize that the two disciplines view literature through different lenses, I tend to combine the two frames of reference somewhat. However, in the case of history being written by the victors, while “literature tends […]
Some Thoughts Relative to Relativism
It seemed to me that the chapter “Culture” of The Theory Toolbox tended towards a very deflating relativism. I got this impression particularly from the authors’ attack of the imposed division between high and popular culture, posting the observations of Allan Bloom as a sort of quintessential example of conservative misconstruements of the very concept […]
Theory Module 2
Welcome back to the weekly wrap-up. As always, please feel free to comment on these weekly posts, especially if you are less likely to contribute to our conversations in class. Looking Back So here we are “doing” English. We’re learning about concepts and methodologies rather intensively during these early weeks, and we’ve even begun applying […]
What is an “American”?
When reading the chapter on Culture in the “Theory Toolbox”, I was struck, initially, by the short-short story by Franz Kafka. Really, before reading this less-than-a-page story, I hadn’t really considered society and what my role is within American “culture”. Kafka writes that “the five of us did not know each other, either; and it […]