Crash Course

I thought I would make a crash course post. I am probably leaving some things out, but this is basically a reflection of all the major take-aways thus far… according to me. And, yes this is subjective. I think teaching is the highest form of learning. So if I had to teach a class on what we have covered so far, it would go something like this:

Introduction

Make it personal. If you want to learn something and retain it, make it personal. Pretend that these guys are people you know. Find random things that make them more human, that take them out of the distant theorist group. Find your inspirations, find your colleagues, and find your opponents. This will make understanding theories and theorists so much easier. Maybe this will help someone on the exam.

The Defense of Posey by Sir Philip Sydney

I’d like to think Sir Philip Sidney is endorsing The Beatles, which is probably entirely inaccurate. He probably would have thought The Beatles were poet-apes in suits, but roll with the analogy. He says that “poesy therefore is an imitation, for Aristotle termeth it in the word mimesis— that is to say, representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth— to speak metaphorically (“I am the Walrus” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”), a speaking picture (“Penny Lane”), with this end to teach and delight (“All You Need is Love” and “Baby You’re a Rich Man”). I would give George Martin and The Beatles an A+ any day in a “teacheth and delight” course. But, let’s be fair, The Monkees get an A+ in mimesis and imitation. Sidney claims that poetry- expression in language serves a purpose- it urges creation- it urges action, since it teaches.

La Distinction by Pierre Bourdieu

Bourdieu is like this awesome sociologist who complicates the influences of nature and nurture. He is all about Taste, but creates a Catch 22. He says we are totally influenced by society and culture, but our cultural tastes reflect our position in the social hierarchy of classes. If you do not like classical music, well then you are probably just not upper class. You are denying what has been denied to you. If you do not like Barthes… well that is probably because he is too smart for you and you resent him for that, so you say you don’t like him. But the problem here is that there is no agency. Maybe you just don’t like classical music or maybe you just don’t like Barthes and it has no reflection on your social class. There is no variability in Bourdieu’s theory. Because Monet and Renoir were not accepted in their time… impressionism… really? That is just blobs of paint- that isn’t art. Guess what? 150 years later those impressionist paintings are a form of high art. So what does that say about taste revealing social status? …

The Pleasure of the Text by Roland Barthes     

That little yellow book. Barthes is such a rebel. He is such a Frenchman (and I am stereotyping)- longwinded, lyrical, makes sexual feelings seem in line with reading texts. He just writes to write. The page is a catch-all for his thoughts- they are not linear, but splattered and diverging and unorganized. But I love him. He claims that pleasure is found in the familiar, within our comfort zones. He says that jouissance or bliss results in a discrepancy between what we know and what we learn. So, unlike Orwell’s 1984 line “ignorance is bliss,” ignorance is actually not bliss, but rather an ingredient for bliss to occur. Because once that ignorance is shattered with revelation, bliss is experienced. There is a loss in bliss, a loss of ignorance, a loss of the former understanding, but that loss is a sort of high. If I were a neuroscience graduate student, I think it would be cool to see if pleasure reading releases dopamine and blissful reading releases norepinephrine and epinephrine in the brain… like is there actually a neurotransmitter difference between pleasure and bliss… but I’m not a neuroscience grad student. Barthes says that a text can be perverse- without function- beyond the confinements of utility.

“Beyond the Pleasure Principle” by Sigmund Freud

Freud experimented with cocaine, thought everything was sexual, and based his research on unstable clients… but his early work as a neurologist was really cool. He was the Father of Psychoanalysis. Freud’s motto: “The Unconscious Mind is Full of Repressed Memories.” He was all about being in love with your mom if you were a boy and in love with your dad if you were a girl. Nuns thought they could throw off his theory, but he would claim they are fixated in the latency period of psychosexual development. Freud claimed that beyond the pleasure principle, there is a desire for mastery over situations that we have no control over. Therefore, we put ourselves through pain to elicit a sense of superiority or some could say pleasure (but it is really beyond pleasure) from controlling what once or what does control us. Power problems.

A Course in General Linguistics by Ferdinand de Saussure

Saussure… just makes me think of a teacup and saucer. But, anyway, he played in the field of Structuralism. He says there is parole and langue (even though I think parole is a part of langue, we won’t go there). Parole is the sentence level deployment, the context matters. It is communicative and social. Langue is the system or structure of language. Langue is synchronic- it occurs at one point in time, case-by-case basis. But… parole is diachronic- it develops over time (socially evolves). Saussure says there is a signifier (sound-image) and a signified (concept) in the structure of language. He says the concept exists before the sound-image. The sound-image is assigned to the concept. This would make sense given the development of thought and language. Children who cannot speak yet can often understand the concept of “no” or “happiness” without expressing these signifier words. Also, we understand things through binary relationships (opposites-synonyms and antonyms). We understand something only in light of what it is not.

The Two Aspects of Language by Roman Jakobson

Roman Jakobson was born in Moscow so he has a really cool name. Jakobson contributed to phonology and to the distinction between syntax and semantics. He claims there are two aspects to language. The first is metonymic, syntagmatic, adjacent, displaceable, and dealing with continuity (x axis). Metonymy is the signifier- a part that is taken for the whole. Then, there are metaphoric elements that are paradigmatic, replaceable (like synonyms), to be substituted, and dealing in relations of similarity (y axis). Spotlight: Figurative Language. Just think: Metonymy= part taken as whole and Metaphoric: the synonym and you got this.

“The Instance of the Letter” by Jacques Lacan

Lacanian Readings. Then, there is Lacan… the French Freud… which sounded terrifying to me. The stereotype of the French is a lot more sexually explicit, so you can only imagine a French Freud. But yeah. He has two really important thoughts that need to be discussed. First is the mirror stage, which is basically this internal contradiction of existence. If it seems deep, that is because it is. There are three main points: (1) language acquisition influences the mirror stage, (2) apprehension or worriment of oneself is distinct, and (3) the mirror image is the IDEAL self that co-exists with feelings of inability or incompetency. Coolest thing Lacan says: Whenever we put something into language, there is always a loss- an insufficient representation of the true feeling or accompanying state of being. Lacan challenges Saussure and says, “Hey, the sound-image (the signifier) is necessary to understand the concept (signified).” The sound-image, the signifier is a symbol, a “letter.” Therefore, in existence we function alone and together. Language (the system of signifiers) is what enables collective understanding and expression. Therefore, it is necessary for social existence (hence gendered bathroom symbols/letters example). While I get this, I still think the concept (signified) exists before the letter, the sound-image, and the signifier… but that’s just me.