Culler made me understand ideas concerning language and theory and various different concepts in between. Even though when he was trying to explain language, I couldn’t understand some of his language! What struck me the most though was his discussion about cultural studies and how that is relatable to the canon. He also relates literary studies to cultural studies, which makes the subject easier to understand. He refers to Marxist Literary theory as an example of the beginning of cultural studies, which “Sought to recover and explore a popular, working-class culture that had been lost sight of as culture was identified with high literature.” The cultural study exists with the literary study depending on the time period and what was going on in that present moment, and the type of literature that was popular at the time. The literature that was popular, reflects what was going on in that present moment. But what is overseen is the other literature and works by various individuals who were not recognized due to the literature that fit the “canon.” Some of the writings that did not fit the canon were more representative of popular culture at that time but were not popularized because they did not fit the proper criteria. Culler really got me thinking about what cultural and popular studies was, as well as what fit into that category. His ideas also helped me in understanding the canon that much more.

The most interesting discussion "Literary Theory" is the portion relating to the 5 points that compose the nature of literature. Literature as intertextual and self-reflexive construct speaks about how every work relates to previous works and in a way works that have not yet been written (as the new works relate back to the previous works and thus the previous works relate to the new works before they were even written). For example "Volkswagen Blues" constantly references the books that La Grande Sauterelle uses to guide their journey. From the book about Buffalo Bill to the hints of Jack Kerouac "Volkswagen Blues" is filled with intertextual references. It is also is a self-reflexive novel in that Jack, the protagonist, is a writer himself. His statements about a writer's methods can be translated into the words of Jacques Poulin himself (we see that Jack likes to write in suclusion... does Poulin do the same thing?). Other novels, such as "The Diviners", also have main characters (Morag) who are writers and speak about the struggles of writing, especially writer's block. "Novels are at some level about novels, about the problems and possibilities of representing and giving shape or meaning to experience" states Culler. And I love nothing more than reading, and writing poetry for that matter, about the form of poetry itself.

...Poetics vs hermeneutics is also a very interesting section of "Liteary Theory". Poetics is the where the meaning starts and births a work through this meaning. It is concerned with how this piece and its representation of its meaning are achieved. Hermeneutics on the other hand starts with a text and draws the meaning from what is in front of us. In a sense our uncovering of the various perspectives in books like "In the Skin of a Lion" is working with hermeneutics, because we are presented with a composed work and take it upon ourselves to unpack it. At the conclusion of this section Culler says that "difficulties, apparent nonsense, digressions, and irrelevancies have a relevant function at some level" brings up the fact that mistakes happen in every aspect of life. A poet creating an image that no one can relate to or an author forgetting to mention something in their novel can say just as much about the piece as what is stated. See the poetry of Medbh McGuckian, an Irish poet, as her elimination of political commentary in "On Ballycastle Beach" amplifies the main theme of the book (a woman's role in the household).

One idea that really stood out to me hermeneutics v.poetics. being a poet myself it was very interesting to see how another individual tackled this issue. It also opened my eyes to yet another argument being waged between people in literature and another facet I never considered looking into to understand more about. Sounds in writings are important but so are the content of the poem. Next time a poem is read be sure to look at the content as well as the way it flows.

A Very Short Introduction to Literary Theory posed many interesting ideas, but i thought Culler's most important and personally influential idea was the concept of narratology and its implications, especially for modern literature. Culler shows us that narratology is an active branch of literary theory rather than other theories we have studied that seem outdated. The different ways that authors manipulate plot, the narrators themselves, and narrative techniques have shown themselves to me to be the most interesting aspect of a story. Before reading culler, I wasn't sure what linked all of the contemporary stories that I liked, but it is apparent now that it is new techniques on narrative styles that have intrigued me so much. It was also interesting to hear what he had to say about the plot, presentation, and focalization. I dont think anything else needs to be revisited.

Culler's discussion of meaning, intention, and context specifically caught my attention whilst we read and discussed his book. I think it is very interesting to see a book on "Literary Theory" tell us that it isn't always right to take what the author may have intended as the "correct" literary interpretation of the text. I found this so intriguing because it seems that in so many of my English classes we have done just that. We have discussed the surrounding circumstances of the author and the time period the novel was created in order to gain context and awareness so we dont go into the reading blindly.
What I enjoy most about Culler is how he then counters the "anything goes" argument that critics of his above theory try and argue in an effort to place the authors above the readers (when in my opinion I think Culler views them as equals). Culler states that in order for your interpretation to work, you must share it with someone and do so in such a manner that you persuade them to agree with you. This is great, because if you have some extremely abstract connection that makes no sense then your peers will most likely dismiss you which is a good thing, and prevents "anything going" from happening while still leaving the "doors" wide open for interpretation.

The thing that I found that interested me the most of Culler is the way he discussed individuals and what he said that literature is aesthetic and makes us better people and that an individual is defined by its subjectivity. Finding that different works have different connections to different types of people through their imaginative thinking, is something that I can connect with daily. Not only did he talk about connecting with literature but he also went talked about what literature is and what it is comprised of, the nature of literature; discussing the way that literature came about and what it is comprised of. Being some what of a writer myself I could definitely connect with some of the points that he made. For example, one of the the points that he discussed was the idea of 'literature as intertextual or self-reflective construct' which is the idea that a writer's work is sometimes using another persons work and either reinterpreting it or making it more appeasing to what we think it should be. I know I've done this several times, using Shakespeare especially to help myself and my thoughts about literature and my writing. I feel like this "very short introduction" was filled with a lot of useful information.

I found the most interesting part of Culver's work to be his musings on identity. In class, we sit as thirty some individuals reading one text, yet the interpretations and discussions that could arise are innumerable. We have all grown up in different cities, with different families and different values and because of this we have different points of view. Culver's comments on how this affects our reading of literature made me think about the many different theories I could explore and the different ways that I could look at not only theory and literature, but the world.

I felt that we covered everything sufficiently, and there's nothing we would need to go back to.

In my opinion, the most interesting parts of Culler's Very Short Introduction were his observations on and discussions of individuality and identity. There are as many interpretations of a single piece of literature as there are pieces of literature, and a major distinguishing factor in how one approaches a word, a chapter, or a novel is their identity. The key factor in appreciating a story is the connection between the narrator and the reader, forming a new joint identity. This third individual, separate from the two entities that have previously been described, is what is used to approach analyzing and exploring the plot. There are thousands of different lenses to view this world through, from Feminist to Marxist, and with every theory there is therefor a new piece of literature.

There is nothing I feel we would need to go back to or delve further into.

I thought that the most interesting concept that Culler gave us was the difference between hermeneutics and poetics. With one, it is like seeing how society effects a work, with the other it is kind of like how a work effects society; whether or not the ending of a poem is trying to say more than the words on the page vs. a court hearing with a decision that sets a precedent for the next 400 years. While they are very different principles, Culler points out that they work together very closely in regards to literary criticism despite how different the thought connected with each actually is. I think that I usually focus on the poetics of a piece of literature. It seems easier to ask why something is ironic than to ask if something has a meaning that goes deeper beyond what is visible on the surface.

I found the most intriguing part of Culler's text to be his discussion of exactly what theory is. His description of a theory as something with no definite end point to its argument makes a lot of sense. He claims that literary theory is all encompassing, drawing on social, economic, and psychological factors as well as others. This seems accurate, as the importance of literature can be seen in a number of ways. It is something that really gets one thinking about the way literature is viewed and in what way it should be discussed.

One of the main concepts that frequently comes up in class is the role or function of literature in society. I was interested to see Culler's perception on this subject. As in Eagleton's article, Culler comments on the sense of nationalism literature could foster, as supported by Benedict Anderson's "Imagined Communities" piece. He goes on to present the question of whether literature fosters complacency or rebellion towards societal norms. I felt this was an interesting question to broach which inspired much contemplation on my part. His example of a woman either accepting or condemning the constraints of a poor married life through ideology is very thought-provoking. Books do cause people to form connections to places they've never been, and perhaps certain ideas they may not have possessed in the past. I believe that this section of Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction will stay with me when I read novels in the future and think about how concepts and ideologies are affecting my perception.

At present there is nothing I currently need to revisit in class.

Focalization was a section that I found particularly interesting. Not so much the actual section of the book, but it is a very interesting concept that I'd never thought about before. What the speaker sees seems like the most important aspect of reading experience. Additionally, it is a place in a novel that could be to easily manipulated to change the entire genre of a book. With holding information in the beginning of a book might cause it to seem like a suspenseful thriller where as if the end were given away in beginning it might seem like an unavoidable tragedy. A good example of this would come in the case of the book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, where the opening of the book depicts the main character as returning to her home time ragged with nothing and then has he tell her story. The affect of this is that the reader knows that is an unavoidable down fall lingering in the pages no matter how happy the main character becomes.

I enjoyed reading about performative and constative language, I hadn't considered that some statements are actions in themselves. Chapter eight stood out to me and the question of whether literature presents reality or creates it. It reminded me of when I heard Lauren Greenfield speak about her book "Girl Culture". The lecture has stayed with me because her book which was supposed to shed light on "girl culture" (anorexia and other problems) were glossy photographs of eating disordered girls. I felt like she was creating culture more than fighting it. I am not trying to criticize her book but listening to Tuesday's lecture helped me focus on what it was that bothered me about her lecture and book and I think it was the question of whether literature presents reality or if it's creating it.

I think that Chapter 4: Language, Meaning, and Interpretation is the most interesting chapter of the Culler book because of its discussion of how the process of the reader relates to the meaning of a text. This reminds me of Roland Barthes' 'The Death of the Author' essay in the Richter book. I also like how Chapter 4 talks about how the meaning of words is based on contrast and difference. I think that Saussure's theory that 'language is a system of differences' (57) is important to understand when we begin to decipher a text or a speech. This helps us to understand the context in which a text is written, and what the author is not saying as well as what he or she is saying.

It is also important to consider the 'horizon of expectations' (63) of a reader, which Culler talks about later in the fourth Chapter. This is interesting to me because I have recently become more aware of the issues that arise when we apply our 21st-century values to texts that were written centuries ago.

Topics that I would like to revisit are performative-constative relations and literary utterance, the Presentation section in Chapter 6, and the relation between literature and cultural studies.

I thought that chapter 3, Literature and Cultural Studies was most interesting in Culler's Literary Theory. Culler raises the point that cultural studies has expanded the literary canon. The variation of literature classes today, (American Literature, Women's lit, African American lit, etc.) are examples of this. I think this combination of culture and literature is so important and go hand in hand in producing a better educated student of literature. Going back to Robert Scholes new canon of methods I think that it goes along with his stress on the importance of learning history and context to fully appreciate a text. Since we're trying to move away from this strict canon of texts, knowledge of different cultures can only improve the readers understanding on popular culture today.

I found Saussure's theory on language to be of most interest. Thinking of language as a system of differences. For example, the relationship between the signifier and signified, and how the language gives the signifier its meaning when it could very well mean something else, is an interesting concept about langauge that I've never thought about.

Some things that I would like to go over in more depth are poetics and hermaneutics, since there is much about that chapter that I don't understand. I think the theories of narratology are particularly interesting and can probably be applied to much that we plan on reading.

I found Culler's exposition on Language, Meaning, and Interpretation (Ch. 4) to be the most fascinating topic from the discussion of theory. The task of figuring out the 'ins and outs' of language is very difficult, especially given the fact that it is impossible to talk about language and linguistics outside of using language itself. Saussure's challenging concept of language as a system of arbitrary signs is a doorway into a new understanding of the complexity of literature. Grasping his concept also brings us to an new found awareness about the lives of other people who speak a different language. Personally, Saussure's theory cemented the narrowness of the traditional western canon as the only form of 'great literature'. The section on language and thought was also interesting because it made the point that literature challenges the existing categories and 'bends or reshapes' them to get the reader to think about their world differently- a very powerful influence. Overall, Culler demonstrates by this section that language as communication between people is a universal quality that cannot be taken for granted.

Literature and Cultural Studies interested me the most. Mainly because I think that how culture effects writing is interesting. And also because it talked about the cannon which we had been talking about in class before. The part in the chapter that really got me was when Culler talked about a boy's growing up experience being 'universal' and a girl's as being 'restricted interest'. I looked throughout the chapter and pretty much everything else was based around males. It seemed interesting because he's talking about the influences of the cannon, and then continues on in that way for the rest of the chapter. It really shows how the culture can influence the canon. Because even now there aren't too many female authors who are accepted into the cannon.
There isn't anything I would like to go over.

I found Culler's ideas about narrative to be the most interesting.The art of story telling is fundamental to our human nature and it brings human beings together on so many levels. We've talked about how literature can unite groups of individuals with similar ideals and feelings. Narrative can create a connection through similar experience.
As a science major I have spent the last two and a half years dedicating my energy to learning about the laws of science and math but I've felt a certain disconnect with the ability to tell a good story in writing. I like how Culler puts it when he says, "[life] follows not a scientific logic of cause and effect but the logic of story, where to understand is to conceive of how one thing leads to another". This illustrates two fundamentally different styles of thought: scientific thought and narrative thought. Scientific thought processes leave little or no room for imaginative fiction. There is always a reason why something happens that exists in accordance to fundamental laws but narrative is not so linear. Instead narrative, just like life, is a vast web of interconnecting possibilities with a wrench of chaos thrown in to shake things up. I like to think every human being needs a balance of both.

One of the most interesting topics I found in Culler's short introduction was his writing on meaning and interpretation in the Language, Meaning, and Interpretation chapter. Culler discusses the "hyper-protected cooperative principle" in which "difficulties, apparent nonsense, digressions, and irrelevancies have a relevant function at some level." With this principle he contends that the reader has control over the meaning and the author's intention has no bearing. On the other hand, what is meaning without context? How can we ignore the author's choice of imagery in relation to setting and find a contrasting meaning in something small. This paradox of where to find meaning is extremely interesting to me as a reader and as a writer. What author wants to write only to have his/her work mean something completely different than he/she intended, whether good or bad?

A chapter that really stuck out to me was chapter four: Language, Meaning and Interpretation. I thought it was interesting how the meaning changes from looking at one word, to the utterance and then to the text as a whole. The word order and how language is used can totally change a meaning from one thing to another. It again shows how language is arbitrary. Another interesting fact is how readers create meaning for themselves. It all about how well we can read. For example, I would not pick up "Of Mice and Men" at age 10 and be able to totally understand the whole meaning. I would be confused. Also our assumptions and expectations can change the meaning. Meaning is also arbitrary and changes from person to person which is very interesting. A meaning changes for me all the time in regards to the context in which I am reading a book. If I am on the beach reading, the meaning doesn't sink in as much and I am usually reading for pleasure. However, if it is for an English class, I am constantly digging and prying for the true meaning and taking a lot more out of the book.

A chapter that really stuck out to me was chapter four: Language, Meaning and Interpretation. I thought it was interesting how the meaning changes from looking at one word, to the utterance and then to the text as a whole. The word order and how language is used can totally change a meaning from one thing to another. It again shows how language is arbitrary. Another interesting fact is how readers create meaning for themselves. It all about how well we can read. For example, I would not pick up "Of Mice and Men" at age 10 and be able to totally understand the whole meaning. I would be confused. Also our assumptions and expectations can change the meaning. Meaning is also arbitrary and changes from person to person which is very interesting. A meaning changes for me all the time in regards to the context in which I am reading a book. If I am on the beach reading, the meaning doesn't sink in as much and I am usually reading for pleasure. However, if it is for an English class, I am constantly digging and prying for the true meaning and taking a lot more out of the book.

As somewhat of a linguistics nerd, I was most interested in chapter 4 – Language, Meaning, and Interpretation. Among the various topics, several struck my fancy the most. The idea that interpreting a work lies in the meanings of three things (word, utterance, and text) is a simple one, but it also opens up to a large amount of avenues for exploration. Why does the author use “gem” instead of “precious stone”? How does it affect the sentence? The paragraph? The chapter? The work as a whole?

I had never thought of readers as having more power than authors, and this idea is somewhat disconcerting since I’ve always analyzed readings in an attempt to find out what the author was trying to say about him/herself, society, characteristics, traits, etc. Culler does explain that this concept is not as open-ended as it may seem. Interpretations, in order to be acknowledged and understood, need to be backed up with evidence and explained in a manner that make them accessible to others.

Culler’s discussion on theories of language was very engaging. Reading Nabokov and Solzhenitsyn (two of my favorite authors) had already familiarized me with the fact that “the language we speak determines what we can think.” Though I am glad to know the technical term for this and am excited to look into it further. Most interesting was the notion of “reconstructing the linguistic competence of native speakers”. As a native speaker of the Russian language, I do not think of cases, voiced/devoiced consonants, phonetically hard and soft vowels, intonational constructs, reduction of post- or pre-tonic syllables. Yet I have had to learn to hear these in the speech of others and my own speech as I have tried to help my fellow students in their pursuit of learning this language. In many ways, it has furthered my understanding of both the English and Russian language, but it was difficult and tedious to reconstruct my “linguistic competence”.

The chapter that most interested me in Culler's book was Chapter 4: Language, Meaning and Interpretation. The different meanings of literature have always been interesing and our examination of writer vs. reader in this class is the very relevant in Culler's communication of meaning. Culler says that when asking about the meaning of a text that there are truly three levels of meaning. "The meaning of the word, the utterance and of the text." (Culler pg 56) The difference of these three meanings are the backbone that is used to sculpt different critical views of pieces.
Another interesting subject is the next page where Saussure's theory of language is explained. He says that "language is a system of differences." He shows the language and meaning of a thing as being mostly derived from what makes it different from other things. Both of these viewpoints are interesting and worth some thought. The cultural and literary studies chapter was also a good chapter.

The part of Culler's "Literary Theory" that struck me the most was chapter 8: Identity, Identification, and the Subject. It is interesting to see those things that one thinks to themselves captured so specifically on paper. I feel that the idea of identity, especially in the last few years, has played a significant part of my life. It is interesteing to see someone elses views on identity and subject. It was easy to understand the four mainstream categories of subject as well as how and why identity is developed through his expression.
This section allowed me to think more about the idea of identity as a concept and a construction and question the idea of identity further. It is interesting to think that identity is given and constructed rather than chosen by a person- and especially interesting to think about in literature. Identity can be seen through reality or through fiction and in either form it is constructed based on some forms of ideology of time or place.
I would like to revisit this more in the novels we read. It would be interesting to see how a character is created and given an identity and the how that effects that story.

I found Culler's section regarding integration of language to be the most interesting. This concepts produces an image in my mind of a web that has direct links, converging links, and diverging links. A sentence may be linked to another sentence by a semicolon, an essay's thesis may diverge into many supporting paragraphs, and ah series of events a character of a novel endures may converge and lead to an epiphany. This structure adds dimensions to writing. Integrative writing can smoothly segway, it can expand, and it can contract as it needs to.

It is important to consider not only that ideas are linked, but why they are linked. A good poet does not rhyme for the sake of rhyming, but for the sake of getting the reader to consider the relationship between two concepts. They may be analogous, the may be opposites, or their relationship may be much more complicated than that. It is up to the reader to decide. Therefor, integration makes a word more interpretive and potentially more beneficial to a reader.

Ultimately, the need for integration leads back to the idea that language is a prerequisite to thinking. When an author feels something, it is related with another word in the same way tat when an author rhymes the two words become related. Or, a word may cause an author to feel something. Thoughts and feelings are caught in the middle of this web of language.

I found Culler's section regarding integration of language to be the most interesting. This concepts produces an image in my mind of a web that has direct links, converging links, and diverging links. A sentence may be linked to another sentence by a semicolon, an essay's thesis may diverge into many supporting paragraphs, and ah series of events a character of a novel endures may converge and lead to an epiphany. This structure adds dimensions to writing. Integrative writing can smoothly segway, it can expand, and it can contract as it needs to.

It is important to consider not only that ideas are linked, but why they are linked. A good poet does not rhyme for the sake of rhyming, but for the sake of getting the reader to consider the relationship between two concepts. They may be analogous, the may be opposites, or their relationship may be much more complicated than that. It is up to the reader to decide. Therefor, integration makes a word more interpretive and potentially more beneficial to a reader.

Ultimately, the need for integration leads back to the idea that language is a prerequisite to thinking. When an author feels something, it is related with another word in the same way tat when an author rhymes the two words become related. Or, a word may cause an author to feel something. Thoughts and feelings are caught in the middle of this web of language.

Chapter 3: "Literature And Cultural Studies," was one of the most important chapters of Culler's pamphlet and also, arguably, in the larger scope of our course. We find here that Cultural Studies is a potential new field of study to replace literary studies. Doesn't this make sense? Culler has made it clear that literary theory doesn't simply pertain to literature but does, as others have pointed out in class, involve other disciplines naturally to assess nuance of words. Cultural Studies should not be superficially identified as the study of different cultures and recognize that they're different. There's no usefulness to such a venture. Its utility IS, however, to "understand the functioning of culture, particularly in the modern world: how cultural productions work and how cultural identities are constructed and organized, for individuals and groups, in a world of diverse and intermingled communities, state power, media industries, and multinational corporations," (Culler, 43). All this sounds like the type of thinking that was able to breathe in the liberality of post-dogmatic societies (the medieval period through the scientific revolution), where people attempt to "[demystify] what in culture comes to seem natural by showing that it is based on contingent, historical constructions." "Constructions," here is a key word in understanding how we understand every single thing we've done in this course. Literature is a construction to express our humanity in a meaningful way, so we construct a method of interpreting the expression. For those that read this chapter carefully, there's no need to go into minute detail about what Culler has to say... though it's important to note a few things: Marxist literary theory in Britain spawned ideologies pertaining to "theory" and "cultural studies" which viewed culture as an "expression of the people and ... as imposition on the people." This is to say that culture is important to give us identity in a massive world yet paradoxically we can easily become a "product" of culture, just like everyone else.

This quote was quite telling: "The concept of 'interpellation' comes from the French Marxist theorist Louis Althusser. You are addressed - by ads, for instance - as a particular sort of subject (a consumer who values certain qualities), and by being repeatedly hailed in this way you come to occupy such a position," (45). I'm not entirely sure I buy this 100%, though the cultural stimuli of visual media, audio, and advertisements (just a few examples) WILL imprint certain social identities you grant to certain things. Culler asks this question a couple times: "Have/Will the soaps [replace] Shakespeare and, if so, is cultural studies to blame?" (47). Here is the archetype of the middle aged woman (or man for that matter!) who stays at home, vacuums and raises the kids, without sufficient time to study texts like Shakespeare, who resorts to the more quickly absorbed narratives of the television. Cultural Studies, it is worried, might give more credence and time to visual media surrounding the television and the computer and "replace" people like Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Wright, Hemmingway, Frost, etc. We've talked about this in regards to the "canon," so not to beat a dead horse.... but we do have to face that our cultural is all about how fast can we do this or that (it's inherent in our ridiculously scheduled lives, most of us anyway) and what we value in texts. We CAN gain just as much insight from a short story by Julia Alvarez as we can from a Dante comedy depending on how we theoretically approach it. Where does that leave us?

Chapter 3: "Literature And Cultural Studies," was one of the most important chapters of Culler's pamphlet and also, arguably, in the larger scope of our course. We find here that Cultural Studies is a potential new field of study to replace literary studies. Doesn't this make sense? Culler has made it clear that literary theory doesn't simply pertain to literature but does, as others have pointed out in class, involve other disciplines naturally to assess nuance of words. Cultural Studies should not be superficially identified as the study of different cultures and recognize that they're different. There's no usefulness to such a venture. Its utility IS, however, to "understand the functioning of culture, particularly in the modern world: how cultural productions work and how cultural identities are constructed and organized, for individuals and groups, in a world of diverse and intermingled communities, state power, media industries, and multinational corporations," (Culler, 43). All this sounds like the type of thinking that was able to breathe in the liberality of post-dogmatic societies (the medieval period through the scientific revolution), where people attempt to "[demystify] what in culture comes to seem natural by showing that it is based on contingent, historical constructions." "Constructions," here is a key word in understanding how we understand every single thing we've done in this course. Literature is a construction to express our humanity in a meaningful way, so we construct a method of interpreting the expression. For those that read this chapter carefully, there's no need to go into minute detail about what Culler has to say... though it's important to note a few things: Marxist literary theory in Britain spawned ideologies pertaining to "theory" and "cultural studies" which viewed culture as an "expression of the people and ... as imposition on the people." This is to say that culture is important to give us identity in a massive world yet paradoxically we can easily become a "product" of culture, just like everyone else.

This quote was quite telling: "The concept of 'interpellation' comes from the French Marxist theorist Louis Althusser. You are addressed - by ads, for instance - as a particular sort of subject (a consumer who values certain qualities), and by being repeatedly hailed in this way you come to occupy such a position," (45). I'm not entirely sure I buy this 100%, though the cultural stimuli of visual media, audio, and advertisements (just a few examples) WILL imprint certain social identities you grant to certain things. Culler asks this question a couple times: "Have/Will the soaps [replace] Shakespeare and, if so, is cultural studies to blame?" (47). Here is the archetype of the middle aged woman (or man for that matter!) who stays at home, vacuums and raises the kids, without sufficient time to study texts like Shakespeare, who resorts to the more quickly absorbed narratives of the television. Cultural Studies, it is worried, might give more credence and time to visual media surrounding the television and the computer and "replace" people like Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Wright, Hemmingway, Frost, etc. We've talked about this in regards to the "canon," so not to beat a dead horse.... but we do have to face that our cultural is all about how fast can we do this or that (it's inherent in our ridiculously scheduled lives, most of us anyway) and what we value in texts. We CAN gain just as much insight from a short story by Julia Alvarez as we can from a Dante comedy depending on how we theoretically approach it. Where does that leave us?

One of the most interesting concepts in Culler's book, to me, was the second chapter: "What is Literature and Does it Matter?". Most notably, his in depth investigation of what literature is, and why we view it as literature. He takes an example of a poem, something we undoubtedly would consider literature, and places it in contrast with a line from a cook book and a line from a philosophy text. He also shows how placement matters, like if you write the sentence: "if you add two and two you will get four" it may not be perceived as literature, and yet if you present it as:
"if you add
two
and
two
you will get
four"
then the intimidating setup would lead one to identify it as literature.

I thought the most interesting part in Culler's Very Short Introduction was his overview of identity and individuality. I liked this chapter the most because it explored the different ways in which people identify themselves and how that effects the way they identify with literature and how they analyze it. The only thing I did not like was the way he grouped the different identitys and really did not discuss how those can be crossed and overlap. There were the different theorys for each identity to analyze literature through, but they did not have any type of intermingling. You could look at the same text through all the different perspectives, but the way he wrote, it made it sound like it was one way or the other. Like a feminist literature class could not look at a novel from the marxist perspective, even though in my opinion, in ways they can interlap due to the history of women in the workforce.
I did like his idea that literature always is trying to connect back to the individual. There is always the one person telling the story, addressing the audience, which is typically one reader at a time. The connection back to the individual, whether it be a narrator like yourself or someone who is opposite of you, makes the text mean something. If it was not for the connection between narrator and reader, there would be no use for the text.

The most interesting part of Culler’s short introduction was his ending explanation on theory. I thought these last remarks really summed up the text and Culler’s thoughts on what theory is and isn’t. I enjoyed the idea that theory does not give a set of solutions or teach the reader what meaning is. It makes theory much more enjoyable to not have to come up with a single explanation in the text that you think you’re searching for. Culler says that theory is endless and is an ongoing project of thinking and that’s what I can enjoy about it. I also liked Culler’s “hyper-protected cooperative principle.” I experience this sometimes when going through a text and not understanding why certain things are there. Instead of dismissing what’s going on, or being completely thrown off by it, I assume it’s there for a reason.

The part of Culler’s “Short Introduction” that has stuck with me the most is the idea that theories about literature or any theories aren’t permanent. Theorists are always progressing with their work, improving upon and changing previous theories. It is this idea that is exciting because it is clear that when it comes to theorizing about anything in general you can never be wrong as your theory is most simply your own interpretation. The idea of theory isn’t just linked to literature but can be intertwined in all different studies. Language and literature are the building blocks of most areas of study and therefore have an impact on how a person reads, how they interpret their reading and ultimately a person’s imagination and what he or she thinks is possible. While there isn’t a particular part of Culler’s “Short Introduction” that I would like to revisit, it is the general idea that theory, language and literature are intertwined with each other and with other areas as study as well that caught my attention the most as I find I am always trying to make random connections when reading.

The part of Culler’s “Short Introduction” that has stuck with me the most is the idea that theories about literature or any theories aren’t permanent. Theorists are always progressing with their work, improving upon and changing previous theories. It is this idea that is exciting because it is clear that when it comes to theorizing about anything in general you can never be wrong as your theory is most simply your own interpretation. The idea of theory isn’t just linked to literature but can be intertwined in all different studies. Language and literature are the building blocks of most areas of study and therefore have an impact on how a person reads, how they interpret their reading and ultimately a person’s imagination and what he or she thinks is possible. While there isn’t a particular part of Culler’s “Short Introduction” that I would like to revisit, it is the general idea that theory, language and literature are intertwined with each other and with other areas as study as well that caught my attention the most as I find I am always trying to make random connections when reading.

The concept covered by Culler that interested me the most was the section entitled “What Stories Do” in chapter six. Culler makes the claim that stories give us pleasure, which is linked to our desire to know (or epistemophilia), while they teach us about the world. Stories allow us to see things through the perspective of another person and reassure us that we’re not alone. Culler also argues that narratives police, in that they reinforce social norms to train readers to act a certain way that is “acceptable”. I enjoyed this section because often times when I’m reading for school, I wonder what the true purpose of particular texts is. I have never thought of stories as teachers or as reinforcers of social norms, and it is now clear why certain novels remain prevalent in a school setting. Reading stories about obedience teaches the reader to be obedient, while stories about defiance may have a troubling effect on the reader. Also, I thoroughly enjoyed Culler’s assertion that stories expose readers to a new and fresh perspective of the world, because many people enjoy reading to feel like a new and different person, and I believe that stories hold the power to change ones perception of the world.

The most interesting part of Culler’s short introduction was in his introduction to the analysis of language. The particular part was regarding signifier and signified and the relationship, or lack thereof, between the two. What I liked was the idea that when using language the true meaning behind a word or phrase, is always deferred when described using more language. And thus ultimately true meaning is perpetually deferred. This means that while language gives meaning, as Culler argues, it can only continuously defer said meaning. Therein may be the makings for a paradox. In my opinion a possible paradox is always worth more discussion.

I found chapter 3, "Literature and Cultural Studies" to be the most engaging of the book. This of course could be due to the fact that I am a language minor and am fascinated with other cultures and their identity make-up. In "Literature and Cultural Studies", Culler makes a case for literature and its inclusion in cultural studies. We can examine a culture and their literary practices in hopes to learn more about the lifestyle, etc. Cultural studies "asks how far we are manipulated by cultural forms" (Culler 45.) I think that this is particularly interesting because of how cultures establish their standard set of norms, etc. This of course ties into literature: the way that people read. In some cultures it is standard for only the aristocratic class to read and not the poorer class. In certain cultures only a select type of genre is allowed to be read. The literature produced in different cultures is explained by their cultural pasts. The understanding of the word is articulated through language. Language is a system of thought. Theory tries to challenge our system of things, challenging our preconceived notions. Theory is a critique of common sense—it is reflexive, thinking about thinking. We are trying to work out what is involved in what we call sex or meaning or language or writing of a subject--and we can do this through cultural studies, and literature studies.

So far I have not wanted to revisit anything in class.

The most interesting chapter of Literary Theory A Very Short Introduction in my opinion was chapter 7 Performative Language. I believe that I found this to be the most interesting because it was the most difficult. This chapter stressed the importance of language in regards to constative and performative utterances. A constantive utterance is the act of making a statement that is either true or false. A performative utterance is the act of making a statement that is neither true or false but completes the action in which they infer. These two concepts may seem concrete upon first look however they carry much more complicity once applied to literature.
This is where the source of my interest in the topic resided. When you apply the two terms into language in literature the rules and lines thereby become severely blurred. Fact in literature is created and it therefore ceases to be concrete. Once your fact and fiction have blurred into one and what is true and false is determined by the author the validity of whether or not something can be deemed constative or performative.
This then lead into the conversation of the ability to transform words into different meanings. The example given in the reading was the adaptation of the term Queer to go from being a negative to a positive.
This action of transforming language interested me greatly. How can language function so strongly when it also has such an ability to change. I found this chapter to be empowering. In a book that was in my opinion filled with ambiguity and little satisfaction it was a rewarding excerpt that I found to be fascinating.
I would enjoy revisiting this idea later on in the course to see how it can be applied to the literature we read.

Culler's introductory and final comments stuck out the most for me. I had always thought that theory was something you got right or wrong, or that there were a certain set of ideas you had to adhere to. Theory became a lot less scary once I knew that I could never be wrong, even though that meant I could never be right. I find it interesting that theory is not linked with an iron chain to literature. It expands to other disciplines, and it is more often than not a device that lets us think more about a text even if there is no one true way to interpret it. It leads to the realization that there are an infinite number of directions you can take theory, based in literature or not.

There's nothing I really want to revisit.

Chapter 4: Language, Meaning, and Interpretation interested me the most. The passage breaks down meaning and interpretation of a work into three dimensions: meaning of the word, meaning of the utterance, and meaning of the text. The word is a microcosm of the utterance; the utterance, of the text. Meaning comes from the reader’s interpretation, and is independent of the Author’s intention. The meaning found is based on difference. Saussure outlines in the chapter the arbitrary nature of language in its meaning. The example in the chapter is the signifier – chair, and the signified – what I sit in. The name for a chair is arbitrary, it could just as easily been called something else. The name conveys what it is, however, in a different language it does not. As Saussure says, “If words stood for pre-existing concepts, they would have exact equivalents in meaning from one language to the next, which is not the case.” Tying into another concept, the determination of meaning comes from the language we speak. It all comes down to what the reader interprets the meaning to be. This can open up the meaning of literature, not just to what the author intended, but to all sorts of interdisciplinary studies. Some think the text can mean anything, people can interpret it anyway they want. This somewhat true, however, the argument over meaning has to be able to stand with proper evidence, it can’t simply be any obscure interpretation. I found this to be interesting because the meaning of the work subjective is to the reader’s interpretation, so long as it’s logical and not absurd. I always wondered, when studying literature, why people were allowed to form these theories. I was only aware of the author’s intentions, and there was no way the author could have intended all of this. I felt as though the authors were being lifted to God-like status. This chapter explains it doesn’t have to be the author’s intention, and it doesn’t have to be, the meaning of the text is interpreted by the reader, which can be in many different disciplines.

I don’t have a large request for revisiting in the book, perhaps just touch upon the Narrative chapter a little.

The part in Culler's "short introduction" that caught my attention was presentation, and how the way a piece is present shapes the feel of the writing. It is very interesting to me that the voice you use to tell a story can change so many aspects of a story. If the main character is narrating you receive one' person's thoughts, if an omniscient narrator is present you are able to read all the character's points of views. When you receive more than one person's thoughts on what is occurring in the plot you are able to make more choices (as the reader) about how you feel about the story. Not only does the presentation depend one which character voice is heard, but how they tell the story and even what type of speech they use. It proves how delicate and artful writing in, with all the small choices that are available to the author.

I found Chapter 8: Identity, Identification and the Subject to be one of the most interesting concepts in Culler's book. He discusses the subject as free but also subjected - good point, especially in relation to literature as a mode of control and compliance by upper society. The way it simultaneously empowers and oppresses the individual is definitely something worth considering in determining the meaning of a text (be it for the individual or society). It talks about individual and group identity - something that often comes up in literature. I think what struck me most was the question of whether literature represents identities or forms them. I know it can certainly feel like one is relating to an identity conveyed in a book, but is it really shaping them? If it isn't, has some other work already done so in the past? It makes me think - what really does make reading personally rewarding? It also further brings into question the function of literature, and how it may operate differently for different people.

So far, there isn't anything that I'd really like to revisit in class.