On Thu, 15 May 1997 14:14:40 -0400 Jo Ann Rangel wrote:
> yesterday I attended my independent study for my Octavia Butler
> research project and I asked a very general question about the
whole spectrum
> of literary criticism and discovered from my mentoring prof that
there was a
> time when critical theory was such that the works that the theories
were to
> be applied to became secondary if not unneeded in order to apply a
theory of
> criticism??? That the critical field became a genre in itself to a
degree by
> which you studied theory simple pure theory and found little need
for the
> texts aka the novels, the writer's creations et. al...? I was toying
with
> the idea of including a thorough critical backround with my doctoral
work, as
> in choosing critical theory for one of my interests, but silly me, <his
words
> in facetious fun :)> wanted to actually apply approaches to
particular works
> of fiction, which I thought was the basic idea of analysis in
literature...so
> I throw the question out there, why have theory if you are not
applying it to
> works, I thought this was the basic idea of analysing literature in
general??
>
>
> silly me, asking rhetorical questions....heh heh
>
> Jo Ann :)
This is what has been happening to cultural studies in the past ten
years. When I first started you saw cultural studies posts advertised
in many different departments, then they all moved into literature,
and then into specialised cultural studies departments with
emphasis mainly on theory. Only recently have I started to see the
field widen to include historians and sociologists again. However, the
world will always, I suspect, be divided between theorists and those
who want to use the theory.
farah
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:12 PDT