Introduction to Structuralism

Structuralism is an intellectual movement which began in France in the 1950's and is seen in the works of anthropologist Claude Levi Strauss. Simon Blackburn says "structuralism is the belief that phenomenon of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract culture" (Wikipedia on structuralism).  One of the most basic ideas of structuralism is the belief that things cannot be understood in isolation, they have to be seen in the larger structures they are part of. So structuralism seeks the inter relationships through which meaning is produced. "In the literary theory structuralist criticism relates literary texts to a larger structure which may be a particular genre, a range of inter-textual connections, a model of universal narrative structure or a system of recurrent pattern or motif"(Wikipedia on structuralism in literary theory and criticism). Each text has a structure in it. So everything written has certain rules that govern the structure. In short a structuralist is to find out the fundamental units on which the text is constituted and the rules that govern these units.

            An example to explain this is the study of fairy tales by Vladimer Propp. He found that fairy tales have, 'after an initial situation', 31 functions irrespective of languages. So when we see the construction princess – Stepmother - prince it brings to our mind the story of Cinderella and snow white. Both these stories have the same structure where princess and prince represent goodness stepmother represent evil. Since the prince and princess represent goodness a rule that govern the structure evolves that they must marry together.        

            Another example is the study of Judith Butler on Greek mythology of Oedipus. She has found a structure in this myth. She brings to our attention three characters, King Laius, Oedipus and Antigone. All these three had some illegal relations. King Laius had an illegal relation to a young boy. Oedipus has married his mother and Antigone daughter of Oedipus has buried her brother against the decree of the King out of her illegitimate love towards her brother. The society does not promote the illegitimate relation of man to man, illegitimate relation of parent to child and illegitimate relation between siblings. This illegitimate relation brought disaster to their family and the city. The rule that govern this structure is that the society allows only heterosexual relation. So in a structuralist approach there is a movement from the interpretation of individual texts to understand larger abstract structures that contain them.

            Structuralism originated with a heavy dependence on Aristotelian science and 19^th century science which tried to find out the building blocks of science by dividing atoms into subatomic patterns that is by going deep into its structures. Like that the structuralist also tried to understand the building blocks of language and found that phoneme and sememe are the foundations of language.  

      

Referance:

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. 3rd. New Delhi: Viva Books, 2012. Print.

Pinto, Anil. Class Lecture. Twentieth Century Critical Traditions. Christ University. Bangalore, India. 11 Nov. 2013. 

Wikipedia contributors. "Structuralism." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopaedia. 02 Nov 2013.

(Notes of the lecture delivered on 11 November. Prepared by JobinT.James)

 

An Introduction to Liberal Humanism

Liberal humanism can be defined as a philosophical and literary movement in which man and his capabilities are the central concern. It can also be defined as a system of historically changing views that recognizes the value of the human being as an individual and his right to liberty and happiness.

             

Liberal humanism has its roots at the beginning of English studies in the early 1800's and became fully articulated between 1930 and 1950. It was attacked by theories such as Marxism and Feminism beginning in the 1960's. In 1840, F.D. Maurice argued that the study of English literature connects readers to what is "fixed and enduring" in their own national identity. Liberal humanism inspired a scientific, rational world view that placed the knowing individual at the center of history, and viewed that history as the progress of Western thought. It served as the catalyst for the modern world's reliance on individualism and belief in a common human nature, scientific rationality, and the search for truth as universal knowledge and certainty in the world. The study of Liberal Humanism finds meaning within the text itself, without elaborate processes of placing it in contexts. It  detaches itself from its context and age; in isolation without any prior knowledge, prejudice or ideological ideas about the text.

              

There are some aspects to liberal humanism that have been made into what is called the 'ten tenets'. They are invisible guidelines literary critics use when reading a text. It is said that " they can only be brought to the surface by a conscious effort of will." (Peter Barry).

The ten tenets of liberal humanism are:

• Good literature is timeless, transcendent and speaks to what is constant in human nature
• Literary text contains its own meaning (not in subordinate reference to a sociopolitical, literary-historical, or autobiographical context)
• Text therefore studied in isolation without ideological assumptions or political conditions—goal of close verbal analysis to 'see the object as in itself it really is' (Matthew Arnold pace Kant)
• Human nature unchanging—continuity valued over innovation
• Individuality as essence securely possessed by each 'transcendent subject' distinct from forces of society, experience, and language
• Purpose of literature to enhance life in a non-programmatic (non-propagandistic) way
• Form and content fused organically in literature
• 'Sincerity' resides within the language of literature, noted by avoidance of cliché or inflated style so that the distance/difference between words and things is abolished
• 'Showing' valued over 'telling'—concrete enactment better than expository explanation
• Criticism should interpret the text unencumbered by theorizing, by preconceived ideas—must trust instead to direct, empirical, sensory encounter text (Lockean legacy)

The  key critics in history of criticism: Aristotle, Sidney, Johnson, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats and Shelley. Shelley anticipates Russian formalists' emphasis on 'defamiliarization'; for Shelley, poetry "strips the veil of familiarity from the world" his criticism also anticipates Freudian notion of mind made up of conscious and unconscious elements. Works of George Eliot, Matthew Arnold, Henry James also played major roles. Arnold feared with decline of common belief in religion that society needed literature to enable the middle classes debased by materialism and philistinism to recognize "the best that has been known and thought in the world" via canon of great works—goal to attain pure, disinterested knowledge, and employ past touchstones to evaluate present works. Eliot's idea of poetic 'impersonality' expressed in "Tradition and the Individual Talent"—anti-Romantic sense of tradition speaking through and transmitted by the poet.

Recurrent ideas in critical theory:

1. Many notions that we habitually regard as fixed and reliable essences (gender identity, individual self-hood, literature itself) are fluid, unstable, socially constructed, contingent, provisional categories upon which no overarching absolute truths can be established.

2. All thinking affected and largely determined by ideological commitments—no mode of inquiry is disinterested, not even one's own (Barry notes that this premise introduces risk of relativism that may undercut one's argument).

3. Language conditions and limits what we see and all reality is a linguistic/textual construct

4. All texts are webs of contradiction with no final court of appeals to render judgment

5. Distrust of grand, totalizing theories/notions, including notion of "great books" that are somehow identifiably great regardless of a particular sociopolitical context; likewise, concept of a "human nature" that transcends race, gender , class is untenable, and can be shown to have the effect of marginalizing other categories of identification/affiliation when some general "human nature" is invoked, appealed to.

Finally, one can conclude that:

• Politics is pervasive,
• Language is constitutive,
• Truth is provisional,
• Meaning is contingent,
• Human nature is a myth.

 Reference

A, Vijayganesh. Class Lecture. Twentieth Century Critical Traditions. Christ University. Bangalore, India. 08 Nov. 2013. 

(Notes of the lecture delivered on 8 November. Prepared by Angelo Savio Pereira)

A Brief Introduction to Twentieth Century Critical Traditions

The twentieth century was marked by many diverse ideas and traditions in criticism. Certain colossal events have profoundly shaped the worlds of literature and criticism. These events included the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, World War I (1914-1918), the great economic depression of the 1930s, World War II (1938-1945), the Cold war between the capitalist nations and the communist bloc, decolonization of many nations, fall of Soviet Union, change of bipolar world into a uni polar world, emergence of the so-called "Third World" etc. Also the student movements attained strength and became more active during this period. The consequent psychological and material devastation after the World Wars led thinkers in all domains to question both heritage of the Enlightenment and the very foundations of Western civilization. The two World Wars, the rise of Fascism, the depression, and decolonization had a profound impact on literature and criticism. A long period from 1947 to 1973 witnessed a considerable growth and prosperity, which harboured the greatest and most rapid economic and cultural transformations in recorded history. Modern criticism and theory has broadened to encompass all these devastation and developments the twentieth century world experienced.

The two dominant intellectual literary traditions of this time were the German Tradition and the French Tradition. One of the main philosophical idea from the stream of German tradition is 'Phenomenology'. Phenomenology  is the philosophical study of the structures of subjective experience and consciousness. As a philosophical movement it was founded in the early years of the 20th century by Edmund Husserl and was later expanded upon by a circle of his followers at the universities of Gottingen and Munich in Germany. In Husserl's conception, it is primarily concerned with the systematic reflection on and study of the structures of consciousness and the phenomena that appear in acts of consciousness. This ontology can be clearly differentiated from the Cartesian method of analysis which sees the world as objects, sets of objects, and objects acting and reacting upon one another. This theory was later followed and developed by other philosophers like Edith Stein, Martin Heidegger, Max Scheler, Emmanuel Levinas etc.

From the French tradition  there came Jacques Lacan, Ferdinand de Saussure (A Swiss linguist but deeply rooted in French ideas) and major theories like psychoanalysis, structuralism, post structuralism etc. Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". He influenced many leading French intellectuals in the 1960s and the 1970s, especially those associated with post structuralism. Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytical theory is another important theory in French tradition that has brought significant changes in the twentieth century. This school of thought emphasized the influence of the unconscious mind on behaviour. It has influenced French feminism and other dominant traditions of feminism. The two keywords those were dominant all around twentieth century were 'sign' and 'subject'. Levi Strauss(America), Prague school of linguistics(Russia), Roland Barthe (France), Lacan(France), feminists, Derrida etc were strictly adhered to the term 'sign'. The term 'subject' was very much used by Lacan, Derrida and feminists. Lacan brought together both the terms 'sign' and 'subject' together for the first time.

Reference
Pinto, Anil. Class Lecture. Twentieth Century Critical Traditions. Christ University. Bangalore, India. 07 Nov.                 2013. 

(Notes of the lecture delivered on 07 November. Prepared by Anantha Narayanan)

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Conceptualizing the Popular: Some Notes: Susie Tharu

A report by Chithira Eliza, EFL University Hyderabad.

A talk titled "Conceptualizing the Popular: Some Notes" was organized by the Department of Cultural Studies, English and Foreign Language University, Hyderabad on 4th August 2013. The talk was given by Prof. Susie Tharu, one of the faculty members of the same university.

The main attempt of the talk was to distinguish between popular culture/art and high culture/art. Some of the questions that were taken into consideration at the beginning of the talk were: (i) How do we conceptualize the popular; (ii) what is the popular; (iii) What are the ways in which people have tried to understand and write about it; and (iv) why is this understanding significant. Tharu argues that even though popular culture is presented to us in a very simple manner which appears to be highly comprehensive, in reality and technically speaking, popular culture is unreadable. She contrasts her argument with the tremendous literacy. According to her, due to the presence of several discourses like philosophy, criticism, the high art get easily readable and one becomes comfortable with the canonical criticisms and pedagogies in high art. She differentiates popular culture and high culture as two different entities because unlike popular culture, high culture provides with an experience of "lift" refers to something that takes an individual out of him/herself.

Unreadability of popular culture doesn't mean that there are no efforts made to read it. Tharu looks into how to read popular culture rather than how to appreciate high art. Therefore she puts forth two propositions: (i) there are complexities involved in these readings, and (ii) high culture/art and popular culture/art are not similar and not two objects that can be placed under the same framework. She divides the popular into two categories: (i) good popular involving skilled, sophisticated, folk art which can be redeployed and used in a popular form at a pedagogic mode, and (ii) corrupt, unruly and popular culture that can be witnessed in the cities and in the culture of urban lower classes, especially the cinema. In this scenario, good art falls in alignment with the state and the bad art needs to be disciplined.

Considering cinema, it was seen as a threat to establishment, order of things, good culture due to which disciplinary measures came up such as censor board, cinema-related norms. But, from 1970s onwards, writings related to cinema emerged. Ashis Nandy, Madhav Prasad, M.S.S Pandian were some who wrote upon cinema. If Nandy claimed the popular culture that involved cinema as authentic, Prasad viewed it as an extension of the state while Pandian looked upon its relevance and authenticity. In the field of academics, during 1970s-1980s, a popular 'turn' took place with the unravelling of the earlier consensus regarding concepts like what is India, what is Indian and the like. Many theorists looked upon the issue of this unravelling such as Partha Chatterjee, Sudipta Kaviraj, Rajni Kothari and according to them, when such an unravelling happens, the national scene gets changed and makes one difficult to get a sense of it. Among the changes, Tharu cites three. Firstly, the nature of political parties get changed as they play a very important role due to their weightage and representation at a mass level. Nowadays, one can witness a shift from 'charismatic leader' of the party to ' charismatic family'. Secondly, new constituencies emerge such as women, dalits, backward castes, religious minorities and regional elites. Thirdly, there is the emergence of Hindu majoritarinism, especially Hindutva movement.

Susie Tharu also looks upon the issue of subaltern and feminism in order to analyze popular culture. She argues that it is very difficult to read the intellectual knowledge of the subaltern. The subaltern are interested in studying how the doctrine of elites works. When the latter tries to govern the former, there is a reaction against the government or the popular. Thus an idea of nationalism emerges among the subaltern. Considering the feminist critic of literature, they do not merely look into art through an understanding format, they also look at it as an institution that identifies, appreciates, circulates and evaluates the literary works. Thus there is a gradual displacement of the old, patriarchal literature as a new popular form erupts. Feminism presents popular as the battle between traditional elite culture and popular culture.

Tharu concludes the talk by analyzing popular practices. She looks upon the recognition of the importance of these practices. According to her, it is located in the 'in-between spaces' like space of moral medicine, illegal commercial institutions. She takes the support of culture of medicine in order to strengthen her argument. There is a narration of a gradual development from primitive to scientific medical knowledge in most of the medical textbooks. The recent studies show that the origin of medicine is a recent one and can be traced amidst modern state/nation. People talk about medicine nowadays because of the huge investment made by the state into this field. But Tharu opines that there is a lack between individual sickness and the medical system as they are two different systems. She then projects several medical practices followed by common men in their daily lives and finally poses the question: how do we extract a theory from these practices?

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Things by which you judge a poem

A few days ago, when I was trying to speak about psychoanalysis and writing, the topic moved towards art, and what makes it greater or lesser, and if there was a scientific basis on which one could arrive at such conclusions. Like a typical American academician, as my professor claimed, I deigned that I had no exacting basis on which to say that one could determine something as good or bad poetry since I had only been in fiction workshops at Columbia. A few days later, however, I realized that as the assistant poetry editor, it was my responsibility to read slush that came in to the Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, and determine if it was worthy of a second glance by a senior editor. Following this, I did arrive at some conclusions as to decipher whether a poem was written well, and was consequently, a piece of good art or not. Here, in short, are my conclusions.

1. Does the poem hold my attention till the last verse whilst I'm reading hundreds of poems along side it? Have I already lost track of what is happening in the poem in the second line?

2. Is the poem clear? We think that the matter of clarity applies only to prose but its a valid question with poetry as well. A poem can find many ways to be unclear. It can have too many characters or be filled with irrelevant details which don't contribute to the core of the poem.

4. The most common, and sometimes, distressing aspect of a poem are line breaks that don't make sense logically or poetically. Form and Content have to synchronize with even greater ease in a poem than in prose. While one can't break a line whenever one wants to, simply to bestow the poem with a rhythmic quality, it is also not aesthetically justified if the poem doesn't present itself as aesthetically appealing. To achieve poetic justice is a difficult and rewarding route, and requires reworking at an idea until one feels it can't be said any better.

5. What is the language of a poem? As someone who has worked through different stages of one's own poetry without formal training, I can understand, to some extent, how much work has gone into a poem. I can understand what level they're writing from, and if they have a clear vision, and if that vision is lost in translation, or if it isn't there in the first place to begin with.Is the poem trying to tell me a story or convey emotion? Is it attempting to get at something larger; perhaps some universal meaning or logic that I wasn't previously aware of and am now enlightened of? Is it stating something deep within me that I didn't know how to express?

6. Does the poem create magic for me when I read it for the first time? Does it make me feel like this could have been written no other way? One can argue that this is subjective, but I'd like to differ. There are cases when one can sit with works by great poets: Frost, Hughes, Neruda, and can then discuss if they create magic for each individual person or not, but I know when I've written a bad poem.

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Critical Theory and Creative Writing: The Spectrum of Writing in the Arts

As hard as writing is, it is has become an invigorating and inevitable part of my life, and I have relearnt, as I knew before, that I cannot live without it. I'd like to list here, some of my experiences as a student of literature working through the processes of being a poet, fiction writer, and as someone who's dappled a little in critical writing as well.

I feel like I have had the great opportunity of working with different genres of writing, ranging from academic critical theory, poetry, and recently, now at the MFA program at Columbia University, fiction. I believe that I am a writer in the making, drawing from bits and pieces of experience from professors and fellow writers in workshop, as well as the writers I read for pleasure outside of the school. I will not call myself a critical theorist, or a critical writer, because I could never mince myself out of a text enough to be truly critically articulate. I was bad at it, and it wasn't a consequence of my lack of trying. Well, actually, let me correct that. It was. But it was backed by this genuine feeling that critical writing did not allow my hyper-creative, over-imaginative, happy self to come alive, and breathe. I remember feeling stifled, crushed and missing literature. I remember missing Shobhana's lectures on meaning, intention, style, and tone, and obsessively rambling about Neruda; I remember thinking how lost I was without literature—a myriad of feelings, narrative arcs and psychological progressions that grounded me in concrete human experiences.

Critical writing is the extreme test of writing. It takes all your faculty of thought to construct an argument that you must first find proof of in the world. It takes everything out of you to be able to articulate an observation based in fact, but also takes nothing away from you, because the experiences you're writing about are not individual, or metaphoric but sensible, cultural, meaning making processes in society that you are bringing to light. If you can do critical writing, or even think you can do it, you have come a long way, as long as it isn't what you really want to do. If you're not sure that that's what you want, then its best to take a step back, and another one, and another, and start running in the opposite direction... towards. Creative. Writing.

Prose is tough. I know. I transitioned from poetry. It isn't the easiest deal. Then again, neither is poetry. Poetry is like smiling and traipsing down one thought and putting it fully on the page. You have a page to say everything you want to. Its fast. It hurts less. It's over, and everyone has something beautiful to enjoy. But prose? Padma Kumar once told me Plato's Republic was so brilliant because he rewrote the first page 70 times. How he came to know of this, I am not sure, but I see his point. I was at Mary Karr's Non-fiction dialogue today, and she was saying that she doesn't write. She only revises. Prose is all about revision. You write something, change a word, then change a phrase, then change a sentence, then a paragraph, then a character. You fashion it, construct it, cuddle with it, console it, and hold it from all angles so you have a fully built world at the end. No loose ends. No strings left unexplored.

But creative non-fiction is truly joyful. I recently wrote a piece on Grand Central, and its thematic position in Edith Wharton's House of Mirth, and submitted it thinking it wasn't my best writing. I was very unconscious when I was writing it. I never allowed myself to fully gleam the meaning of the words. I was just not in the mood. All I had was an idea. I had compiled it into sentences, enhanced it with evidences from the Station by visiting, and standing around in different spots, observing the windows, clock, arrival and departure boards etc. But it came well together, I suppose. That is the beauty of creative non-fiction. One can combine the solace of the imagination with the solace of truth, and something beautiful is churned out: an opinion, an idea, a thought, fully enunciated, of what someone thought of the world. It's scary that it's easier than I think it is. Writing always has to be hard. That's the only time you're getting it right. So maybe, non-fiction isn't my forte after all.

A toast
To building worlds with words

Kanasu, the fiction writer

Jesuit Commons

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UGC Sponsored One Day International Seminar on Defamiliarizing Identities Iin Post-Colonial Literature

Organised by Department of English Madras Christian College (Autonomous), Tambaram, Chennai

12 July 2013

         

This conference is an attempt to distil dilemmas, to reclaim and re-create indigenous experiences. Restoration of human self and transformation would, therefore, deal with the question and perception of identity.  Presenters are welcome to concentrate on the following themes also.

Multi-Culturalism

Non-canonical literatures

Oriental Studies 

Resistance Studies

Commonwealth literature

LGBT Literature 

Oral Literature

Cultural Studies & Migration Studies

Dalit literature

Diasporic literature

Points to remember:

Presenters are requested to avoid plagiarism. Effective software will be used to find out plagiarism.

Manuscript of the full paper in MS-Word should not exceed 10 pages including cited works. The paper should have Times New Roman, font size 12’, A4 (8.27”x11.69”) paper size, with 1.5 line spacing, justified, and 1 inch margin on all sides. Abstracts will be selected by the selection committee that consists of eminent professors from various International Universities. 

Acclaimed Writers, Academicians and Professors have consented to take part in this one day event. A Book with ISBN Number on the outcome of the Seminar is planned.

DD must be drawn from any nationalized bank in favor of “The Bursar, Madras Christian College” Payable at Tambaram.

Address for Communication

Dr. S. Franklin Daniel

Convener

Department of English

Madras Christian College (Autonomous) Tambaram, Chennai, India- 600059

Email: mccenglishseminar AT gmail.com

Website: mccenglish.hpage.com

UGC Sponsored National Seminar on Literature and Environment

The Department of English, Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady, Kerala  is organizing a UGC sponsored National Seminar on the topic Literature and Environment on 25, 26 and 27 March, 2013.

Students, research scholars and academicians are invited to participate in the three-day National Seminar and to present papers related to the topic. The presented papers will be further screened and published as a book.  

The possible areas of focus are:

·       Ecofeminism

·       Ecolinguistics

·       Environmental Journalism

·       Religion and Environment

·       Ecology and Bionomics

·       Environmental Law

·       Environmental Literature (Nature writing, Science writing, Writing the Environment)

·       Ecology and Cinema

·       Children's Literature and Environment

·       Ecospirituality

·       Climate and Environment.

         

The last date for submission of abstracts is 11th March, 2013 

Full papers : 19th March 2013.  

The papers may be sent to: jjean960 AT gmail.com

Regards

Seminar Co-ordinator :

Dr N. Jenny Rappai

 Associate Professor

Department of English 

Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit

Kalady. 

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