Lecture 5 - Derrida, Deconstruction and Poststructuralist Theories of Interpretation

Today we reviewed Structuralism and spoke a little bit about how Derrida and Poststructuralism fit within the time-line of literary theories.

We noted that (largely) for Structuralism and Formalism that the structure of language produces reality and that the meaning of a text (be it a novel or musical piece or artwork) is (usually) derived from the elements which constitute it (grammar or line and colour and texture) rather than the context etc...

Lecture 4 - Reader Response

Due to severe weather conditions the lecture today is cancelled:




Please review the lecture presentation that has been uploaded to Blackboard (in both the course documents and learning materials sections) and complete the Wordle activity.






For your own "reading" assignment, choose ONE of the following:

http://www.telescopictext.com/ by Joe Davis

¨Inanimate Alice, Episode 2: Italy, by Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph, www.inanimatealice.com

¨Carving in Possibilities, by Deena Larsen, http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/larsen__carving_in_possibilities.html

¨ii — in the white darkness: about [the fragility of] memory, by Reiner Strasser and M.D. Coverley, http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/strasser_coverley__ii_in_the_white_darkness/index.html#top

***Reading for next week:***
“Différance” by Jacques Derrida
http://www.hydra.umn.edu/derrida/diff.html

Week 2 - Modernism

Today's discussion grew out of the assigned readings which included Borges' "Pierre Menard," Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," and John Lechte's Fifty Key Contemporary Thinkers: From Structuralism to Postmodernity.



I jotted (on a laptop of course) as the discussion evolved:

• Why is "aura" important to Benjamin?
• Situate Benjamin within the climate in which he was working; modernist artists and composers were beginning to talk about defining aspects of the time including a look to the future, the importance of originality, universal concepts (grand narratives). One such believer in universality was Le Corbusier:

"If I hold up a primary cubic form, I release in each individual the same primary sensation of the cube; but if Iplace some black geometric spots on the cube, I immediately release in a civilised man an idea of dice to play with, and a whole series of associations which would follow. A Papuan would see only an ornament." (1920)

• In other words, it seems Le Corbusier believes one can strip away cultural context in order to reveal only the surface meaning. This is, according to Le Corbusier because everyone "reads" primary forms in the same way.

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• Does abstraction imply a stripping away of cultural significance?

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• Without art in the world what would happen? Does art have a "utility" value? (Think of Malevich's Suprematist Composition: Red Square and Black Square)
  
  

Reading for next week:

Roland Barthes, Image/Music/Text, "Death of the Author" essay, and Mythologies

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein

Lev Manovich's The Language of New Media


Task: research the concept "literacy."