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/lit/ - Literature

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3884675 No.3884675 [Reply] [Original]

I want to read Literary Theory or Literary History or something like that.

Hit me with your curriculum /lit/

>> No.3884718

It depends entirely on what you've already read.

>> No.3884726

>>3884675

lives of the poets
ts eliot - tradition and the individual talent
barthes - the death of the author
sontag - against interpretation, illness as metaphor
ihab hassan - toward a concept of postmodernism
william h gass' entire ouvre
helene sixou

this is poststructural heavy, but i think its okay because PS tries to look at the breadth of historical discourse

>> No.3884730

>>3884726
Who are the structuralists anyway?

>> No.3884739

>>3884730
>
foucault, lacan, althusser et al. mostly marxists who needed a structure to complain about.

also look at julia kristeva - powers of horror; essay on abjection

>> No.3884744

>>3884739
So they attacked structures rather than using them? That's an important and probably overlooked qualification. I thought the structuralists were people like Claude Levi Strauss who used "structural" analysis in anthropology.

>> No.3884753

>>3884739
Doesn't Zizek defend some of the structuralists?

Is post-structuralism an aspect of postmodernism, its "critical theory"?

>> No.3884756

>>3884744
Althusser wasn't just "attacking" structures - he found in Capital (rightly or wrongly) a model for laying out the (diachronic and synchronic) structure of modes of production. It was a method of analysis, not just critique.

>> No.3884764

>>3884756
So he was for models (structures) and he also critiqued some structures of previous thoughts. Is that what you are saying?

>> No.3884768

>>3884744
criticising structuralism was part of it, but i'd also think it would be accurate to characterize them as asking and attempting to answer a question like, "what is beyond the explanatory power of structuralism?" ie "structures only have so much influence, what about the 'other side'?"

so like for example a political economist might explain the history of the us as shaped by large 'structures' like slavery, industrial development (like railroads), immigration; political structures like a tripartite government, landed citizenship, etc. so beyond these someone might ask, "then why did men without property eventually get the vote?" or "what explains the dissolution or transformation of [this or that structure]?"

post-structuralists might also approach history with a question such as "what was it like to live as a german immigrant to the US during the era of wwi?" such a question is not about social or political structures, but is instead about subjectivity, the life of an individual or their experience. this is about scope more than causality tho

>> No.3884770

>>3884764
well, rather he used a structural method to outline the structure of modes of production in general, from which one could see how actions and contradictions within a mode of production are grounded in a structure (say, for example, that the production of relative surplus value is what grounds the exploitation of labor power, which then in turn requires state and ideological means to reinforce, etc.); from that point one can critique a mode of production. That's what I meant by critique, but yes he does critique (as everyone does) previous thinkers

>> No.3884771

>>3884753

>Is post-structuralism an aspect of postmodernism, its "critical theory"?

not exactly. postmodern lit is a more 'american' sort of movement (see william gass on this) in fiction, which overlaps PSism but is not exactly the same thing. PSism is a more european movement, more grounded in post-marx and maoist political schools.

for example, postmodernism takes up information theory like norbert weiner (and science in general) much more quickly than poststructuralism. poststructuralism is a more linguistically (see ferdinand de saussure) grounded movement.

it is important to note that both use elements of russian and french art avant garde (dada, futurism, daniil kharms) and even english theory-driven poetics (gertrude stein), but both PM and PS i think use a more systematized approach to deconstruction

>> No.3884823

>>3884675
google. or check one of the zillions of threads already posted here.

>> No.3884835

>>3884771
>>3884770
Very helpful. Thanks to you.

>> No.3884845
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3884845

>>3884835
glad to know the month or so I spent slaving over Reading Capital paid off somehow

>> No.3885668

read terry eagleton's literary theory. it's got a palpable marxist bias and is roughly as heavy on the name-dropping as this thread is, but it's a fair and thorough genealogy of lit. theory. it's syllabus-approved and damn readable for what it is.

>> No.3887876

>>3884675
that makes me moist.

>> No.3887889

>>3884768

Pretty good post anon.

>> No.3887896

>>3887876

That makes me maoist.