As the semester ends…
December 6, 2009
I thought it would be interesting to find out which text from class everyone felt they developed the most interest in… this is kinda off topic, but I thought it would be fun.
Mine was a toss-up. I liked Convergence Culture because it was easy to read and related to things that I like (except the Matrix and Star Wars). I also have to say I enjoyed Macbeth because it was literature, fiction and didn’t make me wanna blow my brains out.
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Well, the text that piqued my interest the most this semester was one that I read for “fun.” I read several texts outside of class, and Things Fall Apart by Achibe led me to research the literary tradition of Nigeria which is surprisingly rich. I’m currently reading Ben Okri’s The Famished Road and will branch out into authors such as Wole Soyinka.
If we are just talking about texts in the class then I would have to say Lois Tyson’s Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guy because I see myself using this text throughout my stay here at WIU.
As for me, I agree with Rage of Achilles. I liked Critical Theory Today because it gives a broad overview of theory, demystifying many concepts that had been foggy. My other pick was Barthes’ Mythologies because of its profound cultural critique. And Jean Luc Picard, by far, was my favorite captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise. He always seemed like a user-friendly guy.
Considering the fact (at least as I understood it) that the books we read in the course were supposed to introduce us into various fields of study, I think that all the texts were equally valuable for me. Moreover, I liked the very sequence of the material discussed, each former book laying the basis for better understanding the latter one and providing us with the ground sufficient enough to interrogate and analyze.
I really enjoyed Tyson. It was really valuable for me to read about other theories that I had not previously considered and see possible applications of each theory for the same novel. Some I agreed with, and some I didn’t. So I believe could be possible interpretations, just not necessarily for Gatsby. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the queer theory interpretation for Gatsby but I definitely believe that it could exist in other novels and short stories.