Post #7

The presentations helped me a lot for what choice to pick on my final. According to the presentations about Post-colonialism, this means colonies of other countries. Assumed that European cultures are the ones that spread this. I was able to grab two three term from this, which are orientalism, un-homeliness, and decolonization. Orientalism means something considered characteristic of the peoples and cultures of west, east, or central Asia. The knowledge and study of these languages and cultures. Un- homeliness meaning neither culture feels like home for a person it could mean they don't feel like they belong anywhere.  An ideology that is often forced on groups of people. And decolonization meaning giving political independence to a country that was previously a colony. They term hybridity stood out the most for me. It means the creation of new transcultural terms within the contact zone produced by colonization. takes many forms including cultural, political, and linguistic. A good example of New Historicist that the presentation talked about was a story. So, we basically feel that history is history but we can not really say why and how it happened we were never in their shoes so we can not possibly know the reasons to why they decided to do what they did. For African American theory I was able to understand the theory through the short story Battle Royal by Ralph Ellison. About real cultural issues affecting African Americans in society throughout history. For example, when they see the naked white lady they don't know if they should look or not look. They do not know how they are expected to behave. Therefore they do not know their place in society. And Queer Theory which was mainly about how gays, lesbians, cross-dressing, and any other that might fall into the term queer. Like the term binaries meaing men/women and straight/gay. Sexuality and gender are fluid concepts. One great example that my group and I were able to relate this theory with was Brokeback Mountain. A movie that was meant to show the love relationship of two men and we were able analyze how society sees that as just a plain "gay" movie. But queer theory analyzes the term gay and lesbian. By placing them together for the term queer. The terms in the presentation for each of the theories made it a lot of easier for me to understand them.

Blod post 7

I thought the presentations overall were really funny and entertaining. Some were better than others, in terms of keeping me interested and awake, but it seemed better to me when a group used pictures,power points or even video clip to entertain the audience rather than blatantly speaking on their theory.I really liked New historicism and my own groups,Queer Theory, since we used video clips to even help the audience picture what had happened.

"Postcolonialism theory consists of a set of theories in philosophy & various approaches to literary analysis that are concerned with literature written in English involving colonialism and imperialism." Their group used Aria to discuss how two different cultures can clash when trying to determine what a persons cultural background is, to how should they act around the public. That to be an American or a Citizen of a given country you must give up your social identity and adjust and assimilate to the cultural background set by that country. '

Also after hearing on the African American criticism i realized both our groups shared common literary terms such at the binary opposition and the "other" to show how Africans are discriminated against such as gays in a point in time in American culture. I really dove deeper and felt the connection between the two theories.

Blog Post 7

The presentation were all really well put together and i enjoyed watching and listening to all the different theoretical theories. It was interesting learning the new theories with different approaches from each of the groups and then learning how they applied it to a certain piece of literature. They were all  easy to follow and learn from unlike other presentation i've seen in the past. The use of engaging material and video clips made watching and learning the material more entertaining and helpful overall. The two presentations I really got the most information retained from would be the Queer theory and New Historicism.

The Queer theory group did an awesome job describing the theoretical framework as well as applying it to their  literary piece. I learned from this group what exactly is queer theory which is the challenging assumptions of sexual identity, gender, and sexual differences, maintaining that our identities are not connected to our supposed essence but to what we do and who we are. On top of all that i learned the term social constructivism which is basically how people formulate ideas about certain words and change its meaning. I also enjoyed this presentation because they incorporated many movie clips from Brokeback Mountain which helped implement these ideas.

New Historicism was the other theory which i found interesting since i like the idea of history being subjective rather than objective. It opens the mind to new view points and helps us understand what was really happening in certain texts. Of course with this literary criticism I learned the most influential figure for it was Greenblatt since the group really put some emphasize on who he was and what he did for new historicism. The examples given to us like the Nazis and the pilgrims where really interesting to learn about because it cemented how the past is really not just viewed one way. This taught me that the their are many discourses on how to view the world ultimately.
-Leo

Blog post 7 Michelle Smart I really enjoyed the presentations. I thought that it was very beneficial to hear how other student learn and how they connect different literary theories to different pieces of literary work was very interesting. I learned a lot from my fellow students in this manner. They were fun and engaging. Not only is it hard to get up in front of an entire class but trying to teach the, something that we are going tobe tested on is a pretty hard thing to do, but I love a challenge. I really liked the New historic group. They were one of the brave ones to go very first. I really washable to understand that this theory does not take what historians think to be the ulitimate in truth when incomes to history. I think it is a very brave way of looking at literature and we can learn a lot more from seeing the other side of the coin of history. The Post Colonial groups were also ver informative. When I went through this theory in the Bresslers book I did not really understand what was going on. These groups helped me to realize that there is a difference in the colonizer and the colonized. And this is the stories of the colonized. I loved the break down of "Counter Parts" by James Joyce. The way the group brought out the British control from the way this man worked to even the young man he got into a fight with, helped me understand the control in these stories and what about them stands out. Thanks guys!

Blog Post #7

I really enjoyed doing the presentations as well as learning from them. It was a fun and creative way to learn different types of analytical theories using our own methods. They were all very well done but the two that stood out to me was New Historicism and Queer Theory.

I wasn't sure at the beginning of the presentation what the difference between New and Old historicism was but the group did a very good job elaborating and explaining the differences. I like how New Historicists perceive history as subjective and try to acknowledge different points of views rather than the Old, which views history as concrete. The example referring to the Nazis and the Holocaust really stuck with me. As we all know, the Nazis commited horrible acts but with a New Historic point of view it really opened my eyes to the possibility that many of them probably resented what they were doing but were either not in the right state of mind or so bound by fear to do anything else. The group did a very good a job at engaging the audience which made things easier to understand.

I enjoyed how the Queer Theory group incorporated the use of the film in order to help us understand different parts of the theory. During the first scene when they kiss, was a great example of double-consciousness. On one hand they live their lives as cowboys with the "macho-man" reputation with a wife and kids and on the other hand they are homosexuals that are in love with each other. They cannot mix their two lifestyles together because of conflicting issues as well as the fear of how society would view them. This can be seen in the second clip when he tries to get a job, he is denied because his boss knew about him being gay, although he had previously worked their and was more than capable of doing the job.

Blog Post 7

I really enjoyed the presentations! I think everyone did a fabulous job in articulating what their theory was about. I found the presentations to be really informative, because i will admit that some of the theory's i had heard of but i didn't know much about them. Two of my favorite theory's were queer theory and post colonialism theory.

Queer theory are the theoretical & critical writings concerning things like gender identity & sexual desires. Queer theory builds both upon feminist challenges to the idea that gender is part of the essential self & upon gay/lesbian studies close examination of socially constructed nature of sexual acts & identities. This theory was discussed using the film Brokeback Mountain. This film really does stumble upon some of the issues that come across in queer theory, such as stereotyping, social constructivism, binary operations, etc. But for me binary operations stood out because of the fact that it kind of deals with what is right and wrong according to society (morally speaking). I loved the fact that the presentations had videos as visual aids because it was easier to connect with.

Postcolonialism theory consists of a set of theories in philosophy & various approaches to literary analysis that are concerned with literature written in English involving colonialism and imperialism. Our group used Aria by Richard Rodriguez as an example of post colonialism. This story ultimately dealt with the assumption that in order to gain a public identity you have to loose your native identity. The term that really interested me in this theory was the idea of "unhomeliness", because personally i could connect with the idea of feeling caught between two cultures.

Chaz's Final Blogg post

The group presentations were really good this year. I have had many other classes with group projects and presentations but I didn’t learn near as much. The most valuable thing to me was the analytical critique in different types of criticism. It really helped seeing the mechanics of each story unfold for a specific type of critique. The two that I found the most interesting were Post Colonialism and Queer Theory.

Post Colonialism is different view on events historically. We are always looking at information from the point of view of the colonizer and rarely the colonized. Post Colonialism isn’t made up of just one element but encompasses many from English literature from many different countries. “Aria” by Richard Rodriguez was used to describe this type of Theory. I liked the term The “Other,” which was very poetic in  of its self. We had orientalism, that unveiled European stereotypes that negatively depict Asians. The term of unhomeliness really stood out as well. There are many foreigners that feel as though they are caught in this principle.

The Queer Theory is very relevant in today’s society. The term queer is becoming this word that encompasses all things that may be termed as homosexual. Broke Back Mountain was a perfect example of this. The story shows how many become uneasy at the thought of a queer relationship. Our group did New Historicism, which could focus on certain events in history that may have been very important in the queer society. All in all this was a great class. I learned the most out of this English class than all of the one’s combined to this point.

Blog Post #7

I think that all of the presentations were done well and everybody seemed to know what they were talking abut. The two topics that stuck out to me were the Queer theory and African American Criticism because both of these topics were already well-known to some extent.
The Queer theory group showed movie clips which helped explain their theory. First, Brokeback Mountain showed the double-consciousness of two gay cowboys and how they live in two different worlds that are always conflicting with each other. Then they showed a clip from Scary Movie 4 that made fun of Brokeback Mountain. This shows how society still cannot completely accept homosexuality. The group also talked about the superstructure and the foundation of society and explained that the "other" is a term used for gay people as the unimportant people. Binary opposition is when privileged people are compared to the "others" like straight/gay.
The group that talked about African American Criticism was also good. I never realized that there many similarities between this theory and Queer theory. They both use the "other" and binary opposition to show how gays and African Americans are discriminated against. The group analysed the story "Battle Royal" by Ralph Ellison who was an African American critic who wrote about the struggles that his people had to face through history. In all, I believe that all of the presentations were well done and it seemed like everybody did their part.

blog post 7

I learned a little something from all of the presentations but the ones that stood out the most and that i learned the most from were new historicism and queer theory.

New Historicism caught my attention the most. I didn't know the difference between Old Historicism and New Historicism and I ended up finding out that the old hist. only looks at history from one point of view, while new hist. looks at history from all different aspects and say that history is subjective to all bias. Some of the examples the group gave us were: pilgrims being seen sort of as heros when really they were just taking credit from the native americans. Or, the nazi's and the jews. How the nazi's were normal, good people but then were brainwashed by hitler and his followers. I found these to be interesting, especially the one about the nazi's because i would have never looked at it from their point of view. One person I learned about that is of much importance is, Greenblat, who was from Ireland and the founder/face of new hist.
The other theory I found interesting is queer theory. I've never actually seen "Broke Back Mountain" but i have heard about it, and i thought it was pretty cool how they used actual clips to show us after they summarized them so we could all get a better understanding of it and it was just a good way to catch everyones attention also. The most interesting thing about the presentation was how they touched on the subject of the stereotypical gay man. usually when you think of a guy man the first thing that pops into your head isn't a rugged man's man cowboy typer, especially not one with a wife and kids. All different types of people can be gay and not everyone is the same no matter what your sexual orientation.

So going into these presentations I didn't know much about either of them but especially not new hist. and actually thought it was going to be pretty boring. however, it was one of my favorite ones and i can actually say i know something about it now.

Last Blog Post!

I thought everyone did an excellent job on their presentations. Everyone seemed well prepared and interested in their topic and they did a great job portraying their knowledge to the class. However, the ones that really resonated with me were the Queer Theory and the African American Criticism.

For Queer Theory, I liked how the group used video clips as their examples from the text Brokeback Mountain. I enjoyed the movie when I saw it in theaters, but now that they were using it as an example, I saw it from a more critical analytical perspective. They really showed all the terms they used and described like how society taught us that being gay s a sign of weakness and men have this expectation to live up to that gay people just cant accomplish. They also showed binary opposition and the "Other." They touched base on the foundations of society and the superstructure, as well as how being a homosexual is a stereotype of identity and it discrimination. I think that was probably one of the more important terms because it is true, there is a lot that society does to bring these people down and there is a lot of discrimination going on.

Another theory that stuck with me was African American Criticism. This presentation stuck with me because I had no idea that this could be a theory and I did not know anything about it. I liked how this group talked a lot about one of the leading voices of this criticism, Ralph Ellison. The group read Battle Royal from Ellison's novel Invisible Man and they did a great job thoroughly going through all the examples in it. They talked about how African Americans have challenges with their ideologies, racial boundaries, and racial prejudice and how their criticism highlights how they are being suppressed. They talk about the stereotype of how black men want white men and how the white men put them in uncomfortable situations as a way to mock their freedom. What I learned from this theory was that this theory discusses how society keeps the African Ameican's in line by having them do what they want and how they are double voiced and unhomeli. This double voicedness and unhomeliness were the more important terms because it showed how they are are influenced by both blacks and whites and they do not know which side they can really relate to.

All in all, everyone did a great job and I learned a lot about all the different types of theories and the ways to analyze a text.    

Blog Post 7

I really enjoyed listening to all of the presentations. I found it interesting how they all seemed to be tied together in one way or another. They all seem to be based on the assumption that we shouldn't take our ideas and assumptions for face value, but rather look past them to try and find underlying truths.

New Historicism and Queer Theory seemed to be the most aligned with this viewpoint. New Historicism is based on the theory that all history is subjective and based on the views of the observer, that all viewpoints must try to be accounted for in order to get at the true meaning behind a text. And it is true that history is written by the victor, they become the dominant force and get to choose what gets taught and passed on to the following generations. Entire pieces of history have been forever lost because the party in control didn't like what it taught, or thought it might undermine their control. And so it makes sense that in order to find real truths behind texts, one must look beyond biases and assumptions, and must try and put themselves in the position of the subject.

Queer Theory expands on this thought in a different area of life, instead of focusing on history, they say that words, meanings, and gender are things that are all subjective. It is the thought of history being written by the victor, but in the present. The controlling party dictates what is considered normal and right, alienating anybody that doesn't fall into the described guidelines. It is interesting to see how what is considered taboo and off limits in one culture, is completely accepted in another, the people are not biologically different from each other, but the way they have been conditioned by their respective societies effects their psychological processes. Queer Theory seeks to combat this by asking people to look beyond what they see through their biases, and try and see things for what they really are.

As far as presentations went, I enjoyed the discussions that the questions handed out by the New Historicism group brought up, and I also found it easier to follow along to power points, as the poster boards were too small to be able to see very well.

Blog Post Seven

When it comes to group presentations I usually roll my eyes and just hope that its over quickly. These presentations were different though, not only did I enjoy them but I actually learned something. I think what made these presentations so different from others was that they were all covering different topics. Not only that but I was unfamiliar with almost all of the literary topics that were covered so each one was new to me. The two that I found the most interesting were Post Colonialism and Queer Theory. All the topics were interesting but these were the two that stuck with me. 

Post Colonialism is great because its a totally different take on topics historically. As students we are always looking at information from the point of view of the colonizer and rarely the colonized. I like that Post Colonialism is made up of many theories, all focussed on English literature from different countries. The text that was covered yesterday was a excerpt from a book by Richard Rodriguez, it was called “Aria”. The piece brought up many different terms that were new to me. The most interesting ones were The “Other,” which is essentially what it sounds like, to become different from. Another was orientalism, a creation of non European stereotypes that negatively depict asians. The idea that I think is the most unique is the term of unhomeliness, the idea that a person can be caught between two cultures and not feel a sense of belonging to either. The power point presentation that both groups did were great, I was glad that we covered this topic twice, it was very interesting. 

The topic of Queer Theory is another one that I found very interesting. One of the things that I liked most about this topic is how new it is compared to the others. I also liked the progressive nature of the topic in general. The group presented the theory using an excerpt from Brokeback Mountain and enhanced their presentation with a lot of video. Usually I don’t enjoy a lot of video use but in this case it really illustrated the points that they were making. The main point being the challenge to the homosexual stereotype of the feminine male. Many of the terms that came up in their discussion were ones that also applied to ours, we did African American Criticism. The discussion on sex and gender, and the differences between them was very well done. I thought it was one of the strongest discussions that were presented. 

I enjoyed these presentations on the various literary criticisms very much. I fell like I got a lot more out of the topics with presentations than I would have without them. It was a great way to end the semester in my opinion, I thought every did an outstanding job. 

Blog 7 - Brandon Arnold

From the presentations, I am getting different perspectives on different literary criticisms, which I am using in my own thought process as I try to make sense of them. I feel like I understood the concepts, but applying the concepts has been the hard part for me at first. Once I catch on, seeing where the terms and ideas can be applied in different texts almost starts to seem obvious. Nevertheless, before that, I am not always completely sure if I am properly applying the different criticism appropriately, or I am just really stretching the meaning of the text to fit the concepts. Because of that, I really enjoy, and find useful, the parts of the different group's presentations where they explain how they applied their theory to their text. While I disagreed with their interpretations almost as much as I agreed with them, I found it extremely useful and clarifying of the appropriate way of using the different criticisms. I particularly liked, and found helpful, the post colonialism criticism and new historicist presentations. 

I thought it was interesting how the group that used post colonialism to analyze Jame Joyce. For this criticism in general, but especially for the story "Counterpart", the terms unhomeliness, and the other were important for their analysis. The Character Farington is forced to work a note taking job he hates for the British occupiers. While he is at work, he is abused, and his boss yells at him. Both of these illustrate how he and his people have become "the other", or those who are different and oppressed by their colonial masters, for their neither treated equally or allowed equal political power. This gives the colonizers power to force the colonized to do what they want, in this case, Farington works a job he hates. In this society, he is not accepted equal by the British, and when he goes home, he beats his kid. This represents the unhomeliness that the Irish were faced with. The same way immigrants integrate by imitating the culture they observe in their new home, Farington is being socialized into thinking the way the British are treating him is how one should treat those who you have power over. Being that his child is the only one he has power over, he exerts his power by oppressing his son as he is oppressed. The end result, Farington literally has no where to call home as he is now stuck in a perpetuating circle of violence.

I particularly enjoyed the new historicism analysis of "Another Way to Die". For this analysis, I thought that binary power, and episteme were of particular importance. Binary power was important, because the story surrounded a war. In a war, people create an a us and a them. Each side sees themselves, and the others, in terms of good and bad. They accept the other side as bad which justifies them killing them, which is explained by episteme which means that "through language and thought each period of history develops its own perceptions concerning the nature of reality". Today, those countries are at peace, so if they did what they did now, then it would be seen as wrong. However, at the time, they were at war, the perception of the time was that they were bad, that was their reality, as a result, killing the cruelly was acceptable. New historicism acknowledges that history is written with bias. Each side would perceive these events differently. For example, Nazi's are portrayed as pure evil, as a result, the common German man has become a symbol of evil. In contradiction of that, new historicists would make the argument that the German people were, like the Jews, victims of Hitler, for they were brainwashed and taken advantaged of. Similarly, who ends up being portrayed as good and bad is a direct result of who whens the war and is able to present their bias: something the conquered group will be unable to do. Therefore, the winners will take the role of good, and the losers take the role of bad.

Blog 7

I think the presentations definitely helped understand the main concepts of the theories and elaborated on what we had already been taught in class. The major points I learned from the Post Colonialism theory(also my group project) were that the theory it self consisted of many theories that focused on English Literature from different countries, it was also referred to as "third-world" literature, and the West was the colonizer and the "others" were the colonized. The "others" were considered inferior and equally "evil". The key terms mentioned were: Otherness/other, unhomeliness, double consciousness, and Orientalism. The powerpoint was a helpful visual aid, and the methodology was skillfully applied to the texts they presented. In both stories the protagonist characters tried to establish their own identity. The "overwhelming feeling of unhomeliness and perpetuation violence was like a "winding sheet".  I grasped the main ideas of the New Historicism  theory but not the terms that were used. New Historicism, history is subjective and admits its own prejudices. It states that nobody can escape both public and cultural prejudices. This group did a nice job presented the old historicism as well. They described old historicism as history being objective rather than subjective and history served as a background to literature. The text used in Old historicism  supposed to mirror the history of its time. History was written as the "truth". The queer theory was pretty straight forward (no pun intended). The Queer theory put focus both the area of gay and lesbian studies. The superstructure taught me about the foundation of society.The text used for this theory definitely fit with the major points made by the group. The two macho cowboys found it difficult to hide what they truly were, like other gays they just wanted to be accepted. I jotted down the term binary opposition in my notes but did not define it. The African American Criticism was shaped by enslavement of blacks in colonial America by white Western Europeans and suppression of the black race that follows . In the text Battle Royal the whites were considered the "others" and it was during the Harlem Renaissance which brought new voices to center stage. I think visual aids were most helpful, to me personally because I grasp things better that way.

Discussion Post #7

When listening to the presentations about the major theories the two that I found quite interesting were New Historicism and the Queer Theory.  

New Historicism introduced new things that I had never realized before.  The major ideas that I took away from it were that   New Historicism formulates its own formulations of history, the elders say text mirrors history and is true, the newer generations say all history is subjective to bias, and no one can escape public/private cultural influence.  I like how in the presentations the group interacted with the audience and gave out questions to go into more depth of the explanation of their theory.  One term that really caught my attention was the memetic view discussing the art and history of the theory.  I think that is an important term to use when discussing the theory.  And when using the example of Cowboys and Indians about how the Cowboys were good and Indians were barbaric, which led people to believe all that was true, but it wasn't.  I think I like this theory because I could relate to believing in a story that was told the wrong way.  

The other theory that caught my attention was the Queer Theory.  I think this theory is being used a lot in today's society.  The politics getting into the issues if being gay is wrong or not is all over the news, especially without the elections around the corner.  The example used, Brokeback Mountain, allowed me to grasp the concept better because it helped me realize that there is not just one stereotypic source when figuring out if someone is gay.  There are all types of personalities that make a person who they are, but not necessarily determine how they are labeled, such as the term gender.  Your gender can either be male or female, but just because that is what you are doesn't mean that is who you have to be.  You can be a male and have a more feministic personality than a girl.  Just because you are male or female doesn't mean that is 100% who you have to act like.  

All the presentations had good incite on their particular theories, but I believe these two theories play a major role in society today.  

Discussion Post 7: Presentations

I feel that all 4 of the theories we are discussing in class have practical uses in the real world as well as within literary criticism, which makes this section of the class very enlightening and intriguing.  Of the group discussions that we have already seen, I think I have gained the most from Queer Theory and African-American Criticism.

I found Queer Theory so intriguing because it is so applicable to many "issues" that our society is currently dealing with.  Gays and lesbians are fighting such a hard battle right now for equal rights, and I think that has made homosexuality a very popular topic for this generation.  Repressive theory stood out to me because it clearly explains why homosexuality is such a "taboo" for most people.  Double-consciousness and binary opposition are important terms as well because they explain how difficult it can be for a person to be stuck between two clashing identities because society disapproves of one of them.  I thought that the movie clips were very helpful during the group's discussion.  Even though the movie differs slightly from the book, being able to see the passion between Jack and Enus, as well as the sadness, helped me to understand the characters better and just how difficult it was for them to lead double lives.

African-American Criticism is similar to Queer Theory in many ways, which made them interesting to learn about on the same day.  They both deal with minorities that have had to fight for their rights and are often judged for being "different." It was interesting to learn so much about Ralph Ellison, and I can see why he was such an influential African-American writer. The short video about him was very informative and I think it added to the audience's understanding of his importance. I think the history behind this criticism is the most important thing to understand.  There would not be African-American Criticism if black people didn't have to endure so much scrutiny from white people.  Battle Royal was a perfect story to demonstrate this type of criticism because it seemed to have all of the elements that a good African-American story should have, such as binary opposition, double voiceness, and metaphors that stand for the rights that black people did and did not have during that time.  The Power Point presentation was easy to follow along with and made note-taking that much easier.

Discussion Post 7 (and last!)

Tell us a bit about what you’re getting out of the presentations. (I’ve posted several reminders that these would be the subject of end-of-the-semester assignments and reminded you to take notes. I will be posting some of the info from the PowerPoints etc., tomorrow night) You should cover at least two in your answer (by tomorrow, you will have seen all of them). Which major ideas (about the theories and their application to literary texts) did you take away? Which methods of presentation worked well for you, in terms of elucidating/distilling the theory? Which terms stand out to you as most important for/within the criticism? Your take-home portion of the final involves the texts chosen for the presentation as well as the ideas and concepts, so if you haven’t read them (as you should have), you really need to do so soon. I’m giving you until Friday, the 25^th to submit this portion of the final as well as your research paper, and beginning with this discussion should really get you in the mode of thinking analytically about the presentation material and drafting ideas.

Blog Post 6 - Brando Arnold

Our group is using Michel Foucault's "History of Sexuality". We are using this piece of pure theory as the basis of our queer theory analysis of "Broke Back Mountain". Foucault first explain the "repressive theory" which argues that that rise of the negative connotation of homosexuality parallels the rise of the bourgeosie 300 years ago. In a capitalist society, the bourgeosie benefits financially from a working class that is not distracted  from their work. As a result, any kind of activity that someone does purely for pleasurable purposes is a bad thing in the eyes of the bourgeosie. Obviously, two men, or two women, can not have a baby. Therefore, gay sex is purely pleasurable, and as a result, it becomes something that is unacceptable. This theory argues that not only is gay sex frowned upon, but it is actively repressed by the bourgeosie. Through the use of the superstructure, the bourgeosie have convinced the working class that homosexuality is something that is a unspeakable, unthinkable, terrible thing.

Foucault rejects the "repressive theory"; instead, he argues the opposite. He believes that the negative connotation that surrounds homosexuality is a result of the sexual liberation that has taken and place. Foucault believes that people actively talk about sex, and it is the way that people talk about sex, and homosexuality, that has created a society that is oppressive to homosexuals.

Foucault argues that our society is unique in our approach to sexuality, because we do not talk about it in general. We talk about it from a scientific viewpoint. We analyze it and did studies on it. 300 years ago the discourses on sexuality in medicine, psychiatry, criminal justice, and social work emerged. This is when we started to talk about sexuality from a neutral viewpoint. Scientists did not address sex itself. They addressed the abbereations, perversions, oddities, and stuff like that. It made people afraid, because they presented their research as absolute fact, so people started to think things like homosexuality would spread or be passed on. Freud for example described homosexuality as an "abnormality" that results from an error in a child's developmental stage.

Foucault also believes the Christian "right to reconciliation" played a large role in the way we see sexuality and ultimately homosexuality. Through confession, truth and sex have combined, and from that dislike of homosexuality evolved. People have always asked questions like "who are we" or "where are we from", Christians answer those questions with their religion, so their religion becomes their source of truth about themselves. In a confession you confess your crimes and your sins. Sex and unpure thoughts are often part of that confession. This associates sex with bad things. Homosexuality itself is a sin to orthodox Christians. Because their religion is their source of truth about themselves, through confession, sexuality becomes part of that truth about who they are. Since they now see themselves in terms of sexuality, they will then start seeing other people in terms of sexuality. Sex becomes more than just sex like this. It becomes a source of knowledge about someone, and it says alot about their character to them. So if sexuality says alot about someone's character and you have people like Freud saying homosexuality is an abnormalitie than that is going to create a society that sees homosexuality in a negative light.

We are using this theory both as an explanation of homosexual repression and to demonstrate how the work itself is a piece of the bourgeosie superstrucutre. It reveals a society that is oppressive to homosexuals, and it illustrates how literature is used to oppress homosexuals.

Post #6

The piece my group and I picked is "From The History of Sexuality" by Michel Foucault. This piece
relates to Queer Theory. He begins to talk about how power is misunderstood by society. Mostly trying to explain sexuality government wise. How the government always had the last word in sexuality. In other words how people didn't really have a say on how and what they wanted to do with their sexuality. But he didn't only mean government wise but also the way people see other people just because of their sex. Or how they get the wrong interpretations when they take power and decide the sex like for some one. That is what he meant to say about power that many people see this word as the government for example but in reality it's who ever is decided the type of sex for the person is who really has the power. Foucault broke this explanation down in 5 parts and each relates to the his meaning of power. My group and I have decided to incorporate this with the meaning from Queer Theory that we got from the lit. crit. book. So basically squeeze some of Foucault explanation to what the actual theory means.

Twelve O'Clock News

I was lucky enough pick our group topic randomly.  We drew New Historicism and applied it to the story “twelve O’Clock News” by Elizabeth Bishop. The stage was set during the Vietnam war, which was perfect for New Historicism. Elizabeth Bishop was a poet who was involved emotionally in writing about what it was like living in a poor unorganized area. As a third world country, Vietnam didn’t have the natural advances such as  industrialization that most of the world enjoyed. So many people of its home land misinterpreted the magnitude of what kind of destruction was going on in their own back yard. The story that Bishop writes discovers this side, or view ,of the Vietnam war that most Americans civilians never heard of. The New Historic would argue that All history written about this war is merely subjective. Within the text we find very graphic warfare of fire and death towards the Saigonese the people. American literature didn’t write about how one of its fighter pilots single handily destroyed a boy on his bike by a dirt road in Vietnam. A co-pilot, who was very tickled to describe this, flew with this pilot in a little FAC plane, writes “Below, a lone Vietnamese on a bicycle stopped, looked up, dismounted, took up a rifle and fired; the pilot let him have it with the whole bomb load of napalm- enough for a platoon.” The way he is tickled makes me sick. Such disgusting views aren’t very heroic. Many Americans who were seen as defenders for our country came home as war victors… fully expecting to be hoisted up on the public's shoulders for their service. I wonder how many of our “hero’s” slipped under the radar with ruthless acts such as this during this war (or any war for that matter). The title “Twelve O’Clock News” is implying that the reality of the war was mediated on TV. However, Bishop shows the side that the twelve O’clock news didn’t. We incorporated the New Historicism principle into our presentation through the view that no one story of history is the complete story but merely a piece.  

Blog #6 queer theory Michelle Smart My group is going to be explaining Queer Theory. The article that we found is an excerpt from Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality. Foucault explains the "Repressive Hypothesis" which is since the rise of the bourgeoise, any expenditure of energy on purely pleasurable activities has been frowned upon. Sex should on,y be a private practical affair, only between and husband and a wife, and any sex outside of these confines is simply repressed. Foucault believes that there are two outlets from this repression: prostitution and psychiatry. Those that used these outlets were called the "other" Victorians and were looked down upon. This repressive hypothesis is an attempt to give revolutionary importance to discourse on sexuality. Foucault asks three main questions to this theory; 1) is it historically accurate to trace what we think of today as sexual repression to the risk of the bourgeoise in the 17th century? 2) is the power in our society really expressed primarily in terms of repression? 3) is our modern day discourse on sexuality really a break with the older history of repression, or is it part of the same history? Foucault wants to know why and how sex has been made an object of discussion and looked down upon. This article will help our explanation of the repressed in Queer Theory. There is so much repression and discussion on what it is to be Queer or writing it into stories that people read. It can be really critiqued in a bad way and not accepted by society.

Blog Post #6 | Post-Colonialism

Our group chose to do Post-colonialism. To find information about the theory we looked in the "Literary Criticism" book by Bressler, and also looked up stories in the "Making Literature Matter" book, which included short post-colonial criticisms. Post-colonial criticism is a subset of cultural studies that looks at the effects that colonization has on the colonized countries, from the psychological effects, such as loss of identity or homelessness, to the social impacts, such as job opportunities (or lack thereof) to class division, to the physical impacts, such as in the stories "Counterparts" and "Like a Winding Sheet," when both the main characters lash out physically. The theory argues that colonialism did occur, that the British Empire was at the center of this colonialism, that the conquerors not only dominated the physical land but also the hegemony or ideology of the colonized peoples, and that the effects of this colonization are still being felt today. The main questions people in these positions have to ask are, Who am I?, How did I develop into the person I am?, and To what country/cultures am I forever linked?.
Our group incorporated the actual theory by talking directly about it and explaining the history of it and how it works. We then walked through post-colonial criticism of two texts that we felt worked very well with the theory.

Blog 6

For our piece of pure theory we used the book A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature, to use for our theoretical framework. Our group is working on the African American criticism which from the book it explains it is an attack on white superiority , and folkloric conception of humankind. The theory states it can be divided into various periods which go through out the Colonial times all the way to Contemporary. In this book it introduces many African American writers including the first African American women author ; Linda Brent. There are also many other notable authors who contributed to this type of criticism through out the history and the development of this criticism. It was not till after the mid 1900's that this type of theory became more mainstream especially after certain movements in black culture made it flourish even more.


Ralph Ellison is mentioned quite a bit in this book and is seen as a highly distinguished black author of his time who wrote, "Invisible Man". This is great for our group since we are using "Battle Royal" which is part of the same story as mentioned earlier. He wrote this novel and is basically dealing with how a young black man is trying to come to terms with his past and the past of his race. This criticism deals with the return of folkloric sources of African American culture into the writing. We can definitely use background information on the author and certain historical events going on that might have influenced his story which ties in really well with this criticism in our presentation.

Blog Post 6

We chose to use the book A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature to read up on our theoretical framework which is African American Criticism. African American theory is about the trials and tribulations of a displaced culture.Their writing consists of a folkloric style that incorporates spiritualism, religion, morality, and politics. African American literature has had a notable influence on American literature, seen especially in the area of music.   

 The author of "Battle Royal" has had a prolific effect in the upbringing of the theoretical framework we are presenting. Ralph Ellison brought African American literature into the mainstream spotlight with his highly acclaimed novel Invisible Man which displays his unique writing style brought on by the events that he had experienced during his lifetime. The pure theory article mentions this author multiple times so we will be relating how the author incorporates the framework by analyzing a piece of his literature during our presentation.

Blog Post #6

The theory that my group designed and presented a discussion for is New Historicism, which basically states that history is subjective and the retelling of it depends on perspective.  The "pure" theory piece that we found explained some of the history behind the theory and used a couple pieces written about the Vietnam War as examples.  Old Historicism states that history is objective and that stories written about historical events are factual. When scholars in the U.S. once again became interested is using history to better understand literature, this way of thinking no longer worked for them.  With all of the social movements of the 1960's, they realized that they could "no longer study literature for 'universal' themes that invariably looked white, male, and heterosexual."  This is when New Historicism was "born" and became the practical way to incorporate history in literary analysis.

The author of this piece of "pure" theory used two piece of literature as examples for New Historicism; a poem by Elizabeth Bishop called "Twelve O'Clock News" and an excerpt from a book by Mary McCarthy.  Both pieces are written about the Vietnam War.  Bishop wrote her first draft while she was still in college, but she did not publish the poem until after she had taken a trip to Brazil and seen what it was like to live in an underdeveloped country.  She took the time to better understand the other side of the story before she published a piece based only off of her opinion as an American. The title of the poem "Twelve O'Clock News" refers to how the media had so much to do with how the war was portrayed and how it swayed many people's opinions by making things look worse, or better, than they were.  

 Mary McCarthy's book is also about the war, and like Bishop, she took the time to get to know the other side of things by taking trips to Vietnam.  Since these writers better understood the country and people that they were writing about, they could deliver more accurate accounts of what happened.  But there is still that subjectivity that will never go away.  

Blog #6

The form of criticism my group is working on is new historicism which is the view that everybody interprets literature in there own way based on their worldview and personal life experiences and walk of life. The article we found and read was an excerpt from Mary McCarthy's book on her experience of the Vietnam War. This article contributes to new historicism because it explains how history can be altered can and sometimes will according to who is explaining it and talking about it based on that persons life experiences and previous events that happen in their life. This writer McCarthy can have a totally different explanation of her experience in Vietnam than another person who comes from another walk of life. We look at history to ground or reinforce what we actually believe and then support it with facts. The article titled "twelve o'clock  news gave facts and about circumstances in Vietnam. The article made a good point about representation and how people in the US at the time of the war only knew what was going on through news on TV of course along with the news whoever was giving the information to the news reporters to share added their personal biases about things going on in Vietnam. Representation of the war was not truly shown to the American people because the only way they got any look on the war was through the news. Our group plans to explain how old historicism says anyone can have an accurate interpretation of historical events. Versus new historicism which explains that each persons interpretation on an event will be different from the next due to personal experiences and worldview. So applying to the article we read McCarthy's interpretation on her experiences in the war would be different from another writer that came from another personal background, with different social standards and norms.

Blog #6

The topic given to my group is Postcolonialism. we found the most useful information from our book "Literary Criticism" by Charles E. Bressler. The piece that we looked at went over the historical development of postcolonialsism, the assumptions, and the methedology.
For the history it tells us how the Western europeans were the colonizers and a lot of African and asian countries were the colonized. In the nineteenth century Great Britain was shown to be the largest colonizer of them all controlling almost a quarter of the world's land mass. It was then thought that British people and even Western Europeans were much superior to everyone else and would take over the world as the people with all the power. 
For the assumptions it tells us that all postcolonialist critics believe:

• European colonialism did occur.
• The British Empire was at the center of this colonialism.
• The conquerers not only dominated the physical land but also the hegemony or ideology of the colonized peoples.
• The social, political and economic effects of such colonization are still being felt today

It goes on to say that it's believed that the people developing postcolonial theories and practicing the approaches to textual analysis are from a heterogenous group. However there are many critics from different kinds of backgrounds; some did come from European or American culture, some were born and raised in non western cultures but now live and work in the west, and others who still live and work in subaltern cultures.
In methodology we learn that there are two main approaches to use for textual analysis and they are postcolonial criticism and postcolonial theory. 
Also there are three significant questions you can ask when analyzing a postcolonial text and they are:

1. Who am I?
2. How do I develop into the person i am?
3. To what country/countries or to what cultures am i forever linked to?

Its said that colonialism is not just a thing in the past but that it very much exists today, just in more subtle ways.

Blog Post #6

My group is doing our presentation on New Historicism. A piece of pure theory that contributes to this theoretical framework is "Twelve O'Clock News" by Elizabeth Bishop. In the writing, Bishop comes back to the United States after living in Brazil for two decades. It is at the same time that Americans are getting involved in the Vietnam War and she understands how terrifying it must be for the citizens of Vietnam because she has seen how chaotic an underdeveloped country can become. The premise of New Historicism is that every individual has their own interpretation and opinion of an event. In Bishop's poem, she states that a Vietnamese man on a bike started firing at an American plane. The American plane decides to fire on the man with enough ammunition for a platoon. If an American read this, they would probably praise the pilot for destroying the man, however, a Vietnamese person would have a different belief on the circumstance and think that the American was wrong for killing him. My group plans on incorporating this into our presentation with other examples of conflicts throughout history.