Any other anons work in academia?
What's your opinion on English instructors consistent use of the following literary theories?
>Feminist
>Marxist
>Archetypal
>Psychoanalysis
>Postcolonialism
Why do so many professors touch on these theories in particular?
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school of resentment
Blame cultural marxists.
>What's your opinion on English instructors consistent use of the following literary theories?
much prefer it in philosophy rather than in shallow comp-lit
any interesting and revolutionary aspects of any of these theories are disabled exactly because they are made theories for literary analysis
Mostly uninteresting (though I haven't read any Jungian criticism, and I think that might be cool), but it keeps the paychecks rolling in, since most actually sensible things about the classics have already been said. Most, but surely not all, otherwise we couldn't call them classics. So it's the distinguished critic who can say something new and interesting about a classic that doesn't rely on a pretty much arbitrary and unrelated ideological framework. There's not really anything inherently wrong with those frameworks, it's just that they rarely apply to the actual task of the critic, and are effectively crutches. So yeah, I'm pretty much with Bloom on this one, although I think he's sometimes too hostile. 'Queer theory,' however, and all of those more radical malignant offspring of feminism should be completely stamped out though, in my opinion. Not because I dislike gays--I don't think you can be a remotely literate person and also be homophobic in this day and age--but because those schools contribute nothing but a new academicized form of mysticism. Feminism, Marxism, and especially psychoanalysis (which is a major part of the modern mythology) are good for some things, presumably, just not for reading literature. Queer theory and its close relatives are good for nothing but their own self-propagation, however, like a virus.
No, blame yourself for believing in something called 'cultural Marxism,' which is an empty term used only by Neo-Nazis.
Thanks, man. This is illuminating and gives my heart hope for the future of both literature and academia.
I'll look more into this, but maybe you can tell me: For what purpose do cultural marxists wish to "destroy western civilization"?
Can you recommend any good literature on the subject?
>Feminist
>Postcolonial
good but limited
>Marxist
>Psychoanalysis
good but overdone
>Archetypal
shit
The theories you listed are useful and interesting ways of considering published works but so are ones you've omitted. Can't say what makes one lens more popular when another lens allows for just as good an examination
but sex is a major theme in every movement of literature, and most of it has only been examined through a very specific, narrow sexual perspective.
To implement communism. See: youtube.com
It's marxism applied to culture, what's so hard to grasp?