reading a text through a lens. why is this important? we always bring our own perspective...
TRANSCRIPT
![Page 1: Reading a Text through a Lens. Why is this important? We always bring our own perspective (“lens”) to anything that we read. – Our values, experiences,](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032702/56649cd95503460f949a379d/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Reading a Text through a Lens
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Why is this important?
• We always bring our own perspective (“lens”) to anything that we read.– Our values, experiences, and social expectations
shape the way we read.– No “natural” response.
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Reading and Personal Experience
. . . a man must bring To music what his mother spanked him forWhen he was two: bits of forgotten hate,Devotion: whether or not his mattress hurts: The little dream his father humored: the thing His sister did for money: what he ateFor breakfast—and for dinner twenty yearsAgo last autumn: all his skipped desserts. —“The Sundays of Satin-Legs Smith”
Gwendolyn Brooks
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All of us read through our own lenses . . .
But in literary theory, that lens is more explicit (stated rather than implied).
We can also “try on” different lenses to develop different points of view.
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“Literary theory functioned in my life as a prism, which I could turn to refract different spectral patterns of language use in a text, as one does daylight. Turn the prism this way, and one pattern emerges; turn it that way and another pattern configures.” -
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
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What is “Theory”?
• It used to refer to theories about literary form and language.
• Now, it has expanded—philosophy, social histories, intellectual histories, etc.
• All of this is considered “Critical Theory” or “Theory.”
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Theories of Language and Form
• Structuralism• Post-Structuralism• New Criticism– Now considered more “old-fashioned”– Focus on the text itself (apart from social or
political context)– “Close Reading”
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Social Criticism and Cultural Studies
• Post-colonialism• Critical Race Theory• New Historicism• Marxist Theory• Feminist Theory• Gender Studies• Queer Theory– Grew out of Gay and Lesbian Studies
![Page 9: Reading a Text through a Lens. Why is this important? We always bring our own perspective (“lens”) to anything that we read. – Our values, experiences,](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032702/56649cd95503460f949a379d/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
Social Criticism and Cultural Studies
• Post-colonialism• Critical Race Theory• New Historicism• Marxist Theory• Feminist Theory• Gender Studies• Queer Theory– Grew out of Gay and Lesbian Studies
![Page 10: Reading a Text through a Lens. Why is this important? We always bring our own perspective (“lens”) to anything that we read. – Our values, experiences,](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032702/56649cd95503460f949a379d/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
Social Criticism and Cultural Studies
• Post-colonialism• Critical Race Theory• New Historicism• Marxist Theory• Feminist Theory• Gender Studies• Queer Theory– Grew out of Gay and Lesbian Studies
![Page 11: Reading a Text through a Lens. Why is this important? We always bring our own perspective (“lens”) to anything that we read. – Our values, experiences,](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032702/56649cd95503460f949a379d/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
Social Criticism and Cultural Studies
• Post-colonialism• Critical Race Theory• New Historicism• Marxist Theory• Feminist Theory• Gender Studies• Queer Theory– Grew out of Gay and Lesbian Studies
![Page 12: Reading a Text through a Lens. Why is this important? We always bring our own perspective (“lens”) to anything that we read. – Our values, experiences,](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032702/56649cd95503460f949a379d/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
How does this work?
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Let’s look at Cinderella . . .
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Marxist Reading
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Feminist Reading
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Intersectionality
• Combines multiple theories – Acknowledges that no identity or social force exists in
isolation.
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Snow White
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Snow WhiteFeminist Theory
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Snow WhiteFeminist Theory + Critical Race Theory