Literary theories in academia

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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scholar.google.gr/scholar?hl=en&q="cultural marxism"&btnG=&as_sdt=1,5&as_sdtp=
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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/watch?v=dYu6qhd88_M

It's marxism applied to culture, what's so hard to grasp?

it's a poor analogy though

misogynist is a feminist term while retard is an intellectual term not a retard term

terminology it's your way to shape the world...

Google psychoanalytic institutions. It is not a joke.

>Psychoanalysis is huge with loads if interesting theories and therapies based on observable phenomenon. There is also loads of scientific evidence which supports Freud's theories. There are even branches of psychoanalysis which update theories in light of modern advances in psychology.
If you have the time, could you post some links where I could read more about this?
>I don't know much about archetypes, but there is some scientific support.
Jung?

English major here, went to a top-tier (and VERY liberal) American college. Literally none of my professors required us to learn feminist, Marxist, postcolonial, or queer theory at any point. I feel like much of Veeky Forums imagines that these things are forced down the throats of college students, and people like Bloom are the only thing heroically standing in the way of the spooky liberal brainwashing.

I went to a liberal college and they used feminist theory, so I guess my anecdote cancels yours, my friend.

Well, the 'terse description' (this guy is clearly trying very hard to sound intelligent, and for that, at least, I commend him) is already absurd and wrong. I can accede to the idea that 'Critical Theory,' which is not a monolithic enterprise, but a hodgepodge of all kinds of vastly divergent theories, is influential on the high culture of today. Though notice that I say only high culture. TV doesn't give a damn about post-Marxism or gender neutral queer theoretics of the body or whatever. TV, which I take as the primary cultural artifact of 'the masses,' embraces only a vague, feel-good version of neoliberalism, which includes feminism. You will find no discourses on Judith Butler anywhere but in academe and among those who aspire towards academe. I'm not sure if it's for better or for worse that our contemporary critical theories have little influence on culture at large, but that's the way it is. So I already object to the term 'academic influence,' and the academy is not the same as the contemporary left (thank God).

And I cannot watch anymore after that F Bomb (Frankfurt School); it's just too painful. You can continue to believe that a bunch of men with Semite noses shaking hands are secretly running the show, I don't really care. If only Theodor Adorno and friends were really the men behind the curtains! You are already past redemption, although maybe my brief objections to the terse description can point something out to other, slightly less wayward souls.

>embraces only a vague, feel-good version of neoliberalism
You clearly don't know what you're talking about, see Swedish TV for example. And you are such a bitch that you can't even see a full video? Jesus. Stay bluepilled.

Let me ask you: what books have you been reading recently? What poetry can you recite? What is your opinion on the Mona Lisa; why does it captivate so many? Is it, as Pater suggests, because she represents a certain chthonic element which has been forbidden by our excessively celestial religions? or are you more with Eliot, that it intrigues only because it is enigmatic and is not necessarily a masterpiece, just like Hamlet? perhaps you've got another perspective? How about Bethoven? Is the Grosse Fuge visionary and sublime, or is it senile nonsense? What makes you so very invested in what Ezra Pound (with whom you are presumably politically allied with) memorably calls this 'three gross of broken statues / A few thousand battered books'? Are you really a defender of culture? Do you REALLY care about all this dry, heavy, boring stuff? Or are you more interested in expressing hatred electronically? I am thinking the latter, but I always try to stay open-minded. It's just that in my experience it is the latter.

You have a charm for rhetoric, I'll give you that. You still a pussy though. I'm reading "Aesthetic Themes in Pagan and Christian Neoplatonism" right now, thanks for the interest.

Is it impossible for someone to defend and appreciate art that has shaped their cultural identity without participating in dry academic conversations about it? The university professors are actively encouraging their students to flood Europe with iconoclasts and I don't have to know exactly why I like Laocoon to know that I don't want it smashed with sledgehammers in the coming decades.

Sounds intriguing; I'll have to check it out after the thousand other books on my reading list. How are you enjoying it? Do you enjoy it any more because you're 'redpilled?' Do you understand it any better?

I think that dry academic conversations are actually very much worth having, yes, but I maintain that they have no influence on the big societal picture. Poetry makes nothing happen, etc., etc. I don't really know what you mean by 'iconoclasts' here, but that is all academics can do: encourage. And those who run the world heed no encouragements from academia, for better or for worse. And I can see little point in enjoyment without the understanding of enjoyment, but I guess that's the Kantian in me. If you just want to enjoy, why not have a lot of sex instead of bothering with this heavy, boring stuff? And I'm kind of with Bloom (boring, I know) again here in that good literary criticism is itself a form of literature.

>Psychoanalysis

Are you trying to say say Freud wasn't a revolution for literature? Even Papa Bloom knows you are retarded.

basically it's low hanging fruit. it's low-effort intellectualism at its absolute finest, masquerading for moral instruction when in actuality it's just a handful of memes spat around by a bunch of people who insist on thinking of themselves as the smartest people in the room. in doing so they reveal their shallowness and lack of critical engagement with the material, all while masturbating their moral egos in one big massive circle jerk.

academia is a joke; intellectualism is best practiced in private or among friends.

>the reason why the academics fight so hard is that there's so little at stake.

if you want refreshing intellectual content, check out the analytical thomists and the tiny underbelly of academic analytical philosophers who are returning to the medieval intellectual tradition and finding extremely ripe topics for exploration.

>pic related; an intellectual actually worth her salt

>"Prof. so and so gave me an A on some Marxist drivel! I must be right! You're just a neo-Nazi because sometimes I hear things that sound similar being said by neo-Nazis."
you're either too stupid to realize that this is not an argument or you're being deliberately slimy. I'm assuming the latter.

>like all marxists, cultural marxists want the game to be played such that no one may lose or fail, or at least not fail TOO hard to the point where one can definitively say that one side won and the other side lost. in economic policy, social policy etc, this is the general sentiment of marxism. Of course it can be applied to culture and the arts, and of course those so afraid of the consequences of actually sticking their necks out to hold definitive, non-relativistic positions endorse this mentality.

>You're a worm, and rather than admit that you want to go and redefine the entire animal kingdom so that you're no longer a part of the food chain/pecking order.

Fucking off yourself. Either that or go into the echo chamber of academia and get your paycheck from the alimony-fueled bank account of some prissy pseudo-intellectual 19 year old's mother.

being this fucking pretentious, holy shit XD

Has Fredric Jameson the current final boss of marxian literary theory?

Is

Was.

well who is it now?

I think you've quite misunderstood what I've said, and you've also misunderstood Marxism. If you think Marxism is in any way about relativism, I'd like you to become acquainted with the Soviet Union, which was far less relativistic than the good old US of A has ever been. By a faulty leap of logic, you might well think that Marxism applied to art would mean a sort of pluralistic, modernist approach, but only if you know nothing of what Marxism actually did to the arts. Marxism is economically egalitarian, but because it presupposes that everything is ultimately economic, it has no qualms with making the humanities extremely absolutist, which is evidently what you want. Well, I say sign me out. I can appreciate the sentiment of proletarian realism (and it is, ultimately, sentiment, to the dismay of most Marxists), but it is horrible that it should absolutely predominate. I would like it if socialist realism could have been preserved as a pluralistic school of art, but societies are never pluralistic enough, not in the important sense. And indeed I think that multiculturalism as commonly understood is not pluralistic enough in that important sense. But it's better than nothing, and certainly better than the society you cretins desire.

the mona lisa does not captivate. it's a pretty boring painting, and not even remotely one of his best.

like a lot of things, what you are witnessing is a sociological effect fueling itself. people are told there's something great about it. when asked to back up this claim, one says "well a lot of people seem to think so, so there must be something there." this gives a sense of legitimacy, which further excites more navel-staring as one tries to come up with something intelligent to say so their peers can admire them.

>pic related: exhibit A.
>guy decides to prank an art exhibition by leaving his glasses on the floor
>ignorant gallery attendees assume it is art
>a small crowd forms, inciting others to see what the fuss is about
>a bunch of fucking retards wrack their brains trying to "enter the work"

moral of the story is that people are by and large stupid, gullible and most of all: VAIN.

read your fucking post. it's fucking hilarious how far up your own ass you are.

>well, I say sign me out
good, don't slam the door on your way out, pussy. you weren't bringing anything to the conversation anyway.

marxists know academia is an ISA that reproduces the relations of production, and generally babysits the children of the petitbourgeoisie until they are ready to be slotted into their careers. they know it is also a parasite on the proletariate who fund it, build it, clean it, but get nothing out of it.

this board is fucking cancer. at least i got some sick dubs while i was here, faggots.

woahhhhhhh, that's like, soooo subversive man

Well, I was trying to be a little overbearing, but I think the core point remains. And it's good that you have an opinion on the Mona Lisa, though I'm worried that it's still a little too bound up in all that reactionary mumbo-jumbo popular on here. And I actually tend to think that enough navel gazing can give you something worthwhile. For example, for me I find Pater's essay on the Mona Lisa more compelling and moving than the thing itself, but then again I'm not a visual person. I guess my real problem is people viewing art through an ideological lense, whether it's conservative, liberal, or reactionary.

Interesting. See, it's good if this sort of stuff is part of the pluralistic public dialogue, but once a lot of people start seriously believing it, things get dangerous. That's all I'm trying to say.

you're a failure even by Veeky Forums's standards

thread was ok until user pooped in the pool

you write, think and reason like a goddamn weenie, so evidently all your navel gazing hasn't done you any favors. go suck off zizek behind the copy machine or something and maybe you guys can talk about "viewing art through an ideological lens" after.

this dick is nuts, son

You're really tempting me to get condescending (and in saying this I guess I already am), but I'll hold out for just a little longer, I don't know why. By the way I've never read Zizek, but I think I agree with some of the stuff he says. One thing I find indecipherable about this post is that second paragraph and the image. What do homophobia etc have to do with the current conversation? Or is the face that guy's making the one you have in regards to me? If that's all that's meant, maybe you should crop it.

He's arbitrarily and wrongly lumped you in with the SJWs I take it. You've been strawmanned in his mind and dismissed through ad hominem. Dont bother

you must be so much fun at parties, user.

zizek is a babbling moron, like you.

i included the pic b/c i thought it was funny. also because posts with attached pictures tend to get read more frequently, and i want my post to be read.

this is obvious samefaggotry; the writing style is equally as weenie-like and pedantic as the OG retard who shat his draws in this thread

Yeah, I gathered as much, but we're playing a little game here. By the way I actually hate that term SJW. Social justice, understood properly, is obviously a good thing, and it's very much something worth being a 'warrior' for, although preferably without actual physical violence. And I don't think any of those wayward souls on tumblr will be committing any acts of violence anytime soon. But to me it's sort of like calling someone a tryhard. Presumably it's good to try hard at things. They're both inappropriate terms that mock legitimate ideas.

OK, fair enough. And actually I can be fun at parties when and if I can get comfortable with the crowd. But I guess that's a tautology.

As for samefag, it isn't obviously, but I don't feel like proving it. Start posting faster: I need to read and get to bed. Call me a shithead and storm out once and for all or something.

you sound really, really stupid.

holy shit man you really are the king of the 'spergs

nice trips tho

Weak, man. Was that really it? At least give me a copypasta. You really must be an intellectual midget if you can't even shitpost properly.

...

>look at these charts!

Oh /pol/

Maybe you should try a new hobby, model airplanes or something.

lol you got BTFO but you keep posting

let it go man. it's an anonymous laotian graffiti forum.

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Ah! Perfect! Stupidity. vulgarity, as a form of the sublime! Why, I could write a poem! I could even read one! This sorry one, who lives beyond the shabby corridors of the living, thanks you, enterprising soul of shitpost, for liberating me from miasmal wandering. Sleep, sleep at last!

i thought u had to go to bed faggot

itt: an oblivious autist SJW makes a fool out of himself while thinking he was participating in an intellectual pissing contest with an anonymous stranger

I don't get it. What are you doing?

this fuckin guy

>icism. I don't pretend to know if she was correct about it, but it was funny and memorable.
why do women always shit up Veeky Forums with shit logic

>feminism is an absolute interpretive horizon

it's at best a bourgeois obsession to be subsumed under a properly Marxist historicizing operation

>get's asked for literature on cultural marxism
>post a youtube video

right wingers, everyone

An Austrian buddy explained it to me once as feminist theory was a major criticism of sociology in general, and now queer theory is like that with feminist theory. So it's interesting insofar as you're on a fore front of enquiry.

A fair number of places are more traditionalist tho and don't accept this line of questioning or something along those lines.

>the mona lisa does not captivate
Nah m8 it does. You're just one of those people that can only find connection to art by whining about it. You may not have like when the Chapman Bros painted over Goya but I bet you wouldn't have shut up about it.

English Major here. I will make three observations

1 - The pressure to publish has led English academics to adapt. Theory provides a conceivably endless wellspring of topics for academic papers, because it multiplies the number of possible "creative readings" of any given text.

This is the progressive logic of industrial society manifesting in English academia. Because it is a moral imperative to constantly produce at a high rate, English Departments have been taken over by people who can do that.

It is remarkable that literature, an essentially "past-oriented", conservative (in a literal rather than political sense) subject, can be observed to have adapted to a progressive and future-oriented culture.

TLDR: The creation of formal theories or subjectivities (with which to read texts) creates an effectively boundless scope for academic production.

2 - The service-oriented economies of Western Anglo nations have trended toward the provision of services as niche specialisations resembling artisanship.

Universities are providing degree programs mapped to identities (and literary theories are branded with identities) which serve as abstracted sources of truth. They wield the moral authority of suffering and victimhood, and also run on the cognitive biases that tell us that somehow "that other class of people knows the secrets of life".

The specialised university programs are pointless for anything except providing an education in them (i.e. spreading them) - they represent the education analogues of artisan attractions like deconstructed coffee served at niche hipster cafes and bars... Education in general is an industry which has embraced growth and sold out to (among other things) demand for more personalised degrees and university experiences.

>those schools contribute nothing but a new academicized form of mysticism
This is a very interesting way of expressing it, also.

He's much more eloquent and has obviously put more thought into his opinions than anyone else itt though

>psychoanalysis
I don't mind this one at all. I had a professor who specialized in psychoanalytic theory and he taught my Kafka class. Was a blast.

>get's

>Dave Rubin is a neo-nazi
wew lad, kys

It's not eloquence, though. It's obnoxious and juvenile pedantry, and that's saying something when compared to the rest of this board.

Admittedly not (though he is in some respects a reactionary), but he is an idiot, so I consider the distinction unimportant.

Texts are only legible through their political implications, and the only reading capable of fully realizing those implications is the Marxist one.

Hey Paul see you tomorrow afternoon

>I don't want to inform my self, if it has a chance of going against my currently cemented world views

Fucking pseuds...

What a sorry way of viewing literature! what a forlorn way of viewing life!

>which is an empty term used only by Neo-Nazis.

scholar.google.gr/scholar?hl=en&q="cultural marxism"&btnG=&as_sdt=1,5&as_sdtp=

idiot

At Hong Kong? Where is Tracer Tong?

why aren't you reading my controversial thesis about how kangaroos are actually running all of the worlds top financial institution?
You don't want to inform youself? It goes agains your current cemented world view?

no, it's because you don't have time and interest to read everything.
Also /pol/ charts are biased as fuck.

>Jung

haha meet at the theater bar at five I've got to show you what my student gave me for my birthday

While I admit I was not aware of this usage in academic circles, it seems to be quite different from what you people have in mind. I readily agree that portrayals of Marxism are important in the culture. But again, that's something closer to socialist realism than the Jewish boogeyman of multiculturalism that you people have in mind.

in this shithole of a thread. these two posts are the only decent posts here

eloquence=/=content

he can write a lot but hardly says anything, other than fawning his ego

the one true faith!
God wills it!
Ahem...
I mean
Marx wills it!

All of those except archetypal are worthwhile, but any scholar who ONLY uses one of those methods of analysis is a hack

wew lad

>“cultural Marxism” as pursued by Raymond Williams, Gramsci, Habermas, Lukacs, and others

It's literally the exact same thing, except without the "conspiracy" angle.

Undergrad here. Should I major in philosophy (analytic) or theory? My school's department in theory is pretty good (fwiw) from what I understand. Jameson teaches here.

this thread really is pure dookie
was right

...

if you want intellectual rigor at the expense of sexiness, analytic philosophy

if you want to fuck hot undergraduate women, theory

analytic philosophy is so specific. in my experience it rarely if ever touches on literature of the kind Veeky Forums occupies itself with, except for pointing to an example to illustrate a larger point. usually the writing is dry. if you think analytic philosophy consists of wittgensteinian aphorisms, you'll be VERY disappointed.

Can you blame them? they've got literally zero career prospects outside of tenure, they receive little to no respect even from other staff and their discipline suffers from ever declining interest and budget.

Let 'em believe they'd be royalty in Marxist Amerikkka, It's the only thing they've got left.

if you do major in philosophy in a department that specializes in analytic philosophy, be sure to take philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, metaphysics and some ethics.

>(there's a reason why lawyers often study analytic philosophy as undergraduates)