Digital Cultures

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Lecture 4: Reader Response Wordle Summary, Kieren Boddy

The Wordle tag cloud matched my interpretation to some extent through how highly I rated particular key words that stood out from reading the paper. Some of the words, although not used frequently, stood out from my interpretation of the context in which they where used. The words raised where 'conspiracy', 'Marxian', and 'rhetoric-police',whilst decreasing 'reading','writing' and 'professionalism', which were used frequently.

My interpretation of the paper itself was that it was written by a person who is enthusiastic about the 'reader-response theory' and is dismayed by the 'grand conspiracy' against it by 'the elite' scholars who do not see the value of such a 'popular' theory such as the one she supports.

Is there a conspiracy against the Reader-Response theory? I cannot tell from reading just this paper. I could tell that Harkin is entrenched into the idea that Reader-Response is the theory that should be taught more, but the way the paper was written makes me immediately question the validity of this through the way the point was argued for. 'Reader-Response' was described as populist in the 1970's and 1980's and was, and 'still is' shunned by the scholarly elite whilst those elitists hold up more newer or more established theories. I feel that it was more about 'apathy' than 'conspiracy' that lead to the decline of reader-response. A theory that was once made popular by an enthusiastic 'underclass' and its figureheads declined because of its figureheads dieing off and not being replaced and driving the benefits home. No matter what its benefits, a theory still needs proponents who voice them, in the case of 'Reader-Response', the proponents left seem at first reading, more desperate by siting 'Elitists', 'Conspiracy' and 'Marxism' to forward their views rather than just focusing on the benefits of such a theory. This then results in my views, although not fixed, of disregarding the paper with my own 'apathy' as I was not really won with the argument.

I also would like to  agree with the points made by the previous blog posts by Paul and Rachel and the remarks they made about the theory and 'Common-Sense'.

Lecture 4: Reader Response Wordle Summary: Maxine Armstrong

http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/500045/Reader-response

The Wordle tag cloud does matches my interpretation of the article, but does not necessarily match a general viewpoint. Harkin raised the conflict of ‘populist’ versus ‘elitist’ both being responsible for the reader-response theory.
Reader-response theory does make sense to me in that a reader’s interpretation is based on their own experiences and understanding rather than the author’s intent.
From my own limited reading I can understand Harkin’s view, that there is a conspiracy to bury reader-response as a literary theory that is no longer explored. A theory remains a theory and evidence is gathered to either support or dismiss it. In my view if a theory is accepted by people in general, such as the theories of evolution or relativity, it is no longer viewed as a theory but as a fact (even though it remains a theory). As ‘reader-response’ does indeed seem to be ‘common-sense’, I think it is not seen as worth exploring further and theorists have therefore moved onto other things.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Lecture 4: Reader Response Wordle Summary: Rachael Folds

I feel that the wordle image is a reasonably true visual representation of the key components of the text, from my perspective. It is all in the perception of the reader. I do agree with Reader Response theory in that we make assumptions based on our individual experiences/class/knowledge, however do not feel that the theory needs to be as laboured and analysed.
I too believe that perhaps the reason that it is not discussed/taught in such lengths is that it is common sense. After all - it is a theory!!

http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/497187/Reader-Response_Theory_IOCT

Paul D. Found "I Made Tea" http://www.telescopictext.com/ by Joe Davis

I chose the Joe Davis piece because it is about one of my favourite things - tea. The starting phrase "I made tea" is sufficient to tell that part of the story. Well, it is the story. "I made tea" by itself carries enough description to allow the mind to fill in the action of making tea. In the context of reader response theory, this allows each reader to interpret the activity in their own way.

There are however, additional layers of information and detail to be accessed if the reader wants to. By revealling all of the text, the ability of the reader to have their own interpretation is diminished - the "blanks" are filled in. There are some highly descriptive sections, "The kettle began grumbling fiercely", and "as I glanced outside for a minute across the city mist. I could almost taste the grey" being two examples.

While a clever idea, it seems that the amount of expansion is there only to prove the idea works. There is a "Reality Effect" at work, whereby the author is adding too much detail in an attempt to make the passage more real.

Lecture 4: Reader Response Wordle Summary, Paul D. Found

http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/497075/Reader_Response

The tag cloud is pretty close to my interpretation of the text, as I think the whole point of reader-response was to obviously, focus on the reader, but also to create a universal theory. Being universal, it had to appeal to elitist (academic) and populist (lay-person) groups. The aim was to make "reading" teachable - reading as in the interpretation and moeaning of texts, rather than the mechanics of actually reading.

Is there a conspiracy as Harkin suggests? I do not think so. As she seems to suggest herself, reader-response is really just "common-sense" - it is obvious to most people now that the reader is key to interpreting a text. As she says herself, "We no longer even expect different readers to arrive at identical readings".

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.