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.
I thought that New Historicism and the Queer Theory were really interesting as well. I had never really heard about either of them until I took this class. I thought that the way New Historicism makes its own formulations of history was really interesting. I agree that no one can can escape public/private cultural influence of recorded history. The group on this topic was great, the interactions with the audience and questions they passed out were helpful in understanding the topic. Queer Theory was another topic that I had never heard of before taking this class. The example of Brokeback Mountain was a really good choice in my opinion. The discussion on sex and gender was great too. Very good post, it looks like we got similar information out of the presentation.
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