This blog will serve as a forum for members of the Nassau Community College English Department's Literary Theory Committee to begin and continue their discussions and share other information.
Thanks a lot, John, for setting this up. I am looking forward to your discussion of the avant-guarde. I was thinking of the Spivak seference in Desai's book that says Spivak "was made cutting edge by a sari and a combat boot wardrobe" (218). Interesting image! I was wondering whether the word cutting edge is used more or even instead of avant-guarde in a postmodern context. Will be interesting to explore the connection.
That quote really made me laugh. It's interesting you bring up postmodernism. Backstrom claims that in certain linguistic contexts the avant-garde is something that can be considered part of the postmodern, while in others it is necessarily defined as separate from what is deemed postmodern. (He even says that in an American context postmodernism has replaced avant gardism, due to the fact that there is, in Backstrom's opinion, little avant garde work created in America.
There has been so much work done in the area of language poetry in the U.S., from Gertrude to Stein to contemporary poets like Hejinian, Lauterbach, Rankine, etc. I wonder if these experimentalists would be considered avant-garde by Backstrom.
Thanks for setting up the blog. great idea. Sorry I could not be at the last meeting. Life has been hectic, though in part for good reason. The collection I am co-editing on pop cultural responses to 9/11 has a publisher--and a quick deadline for the final version. The good news is that the work we did on Zizek really helped me a lot in writing the intro. The bad news is they want our intro to situate our essays among a broader range of responses to 9/11 (Zizek, Baudelair, Faludi, Delillo were not enough), so I have been reading Sontag, Didion, Virilio, and not Judith Butler, whose stuff is great. Would love to present on something from her work in the future.
Ann's presentation on Iser brought our attention back to the text and its reception. It will be great if we could look more closely at the ways of reading that are most beneficial to our understanding of a work and its meaning.
7 comments:
Thanks a lot, John, for setting this up. I am looking forward to your discussion of the avant-guarde. I was thinking of the Spivak seference in Desai's book that says Spivak "was made cutting edge by a sari and a combat boot wardrobe" (218). Interesting image! I was wondering whether the word cutting edge is used more or even instead of avant-guarde in a postmodern context. Will be interesting to explore the connection.
That quote really made me laugh. It's interesting you bring up postmodernism. Backstrom claims that in certain linguistic contexts the avant-garde is something that can be considered part of the postmodern, while in others it is necessarily defined as separate from what is deemed postmodern. (He even says that in an American context postmodernism has replaced avant gardism, due to the fact that there is, in Backstrom's opinion, little avant garde work created in America.
There has been so much work done in the area of language poetry in the U.S., from Gertrude to Stein to contemporary poets like Hejinian, Lauterbach, Rankine, etc. I wonder if these experimentalists would be considered avant-garde by
Backstrom.
Thanks for setting up the blog. I'll include your comments on accessing it in the minutes and send it out "alleng."
Thanks for setting up the blog. great idea. Sorry I could not be at the last meeting. Life has been hectic, though in part for good reason. The collection I am co-editing on pop cultural responses to 9/11 has a publisher--and a quick deadline for the final version. The good news is that the work we did on Zizek really helped me a lot in writing the intro. The bad news is they want our intro to situate our essays among a broader range of responses to 9/11 (Zizek, Baudelair, Faludi, Delillo were not enough), so I have been reading Sontag, Didion, Virilio, and not Judith Butler, whose stuff is great. Would love to present on something from her work in the future.
I have been reading Hejinian's discussion of the avant garde as related to G.Stein. Will share with you later.
Ann's presentation on Iser brought our attention back to the text and its reception. It will be great if we could look more closely at the ways of reading that are most beneficial to our understanding of a work and its meaning.
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