Here is the topic for our take-home final exam as discussed in class:
As part of your response, focus on three different “ways of seeing” or central ideas that critical theory might help us to understand. Make sure also to bring in some practical examples that help to illustrate your points. These might be examples of how critical theory can be applied to one or both of the two novels we’ve read or to texts from outside our class.
Your goal in this reflective, but still relatively formal essay is to pull together the threads of what we’ve been discussing all semester long and to articulate what you’ve taken away from our discussions as to the point of learning about critical theory.
ESSAY LENGTH: 1200 -1500 words (Maximum)
DUE DATE: English 086A: Friday, May 1. 12:00 PM
English 086 B: Thursday May 7, 12:00 PM
Comments
A couple people have e-mailed me for clarification about what I meant when I said "ways of seeing," a phrase I put in quotation marks because it happens to be the title of a book by John Berger.
I've attached my reply to those e-mails below:
I used the terms "ways of seeing" because I don't want to limit you to the idea of particular theoretical schools of thought. One way to think about this would be to look at some of the broader questions that theory asks about texts. Take a look back at Culler and see what he says about this and how, in some ways, all theoretical approaches ask similar questions about a text. They simply find different ways of answering those questions.
So, again, you could answer this question with a more narrow approach of a particular theory or with a broader approach looking at some of those core questions that theory asks. Either approach will work.
Best,
Paul
Posted by: Paul at April 30, 2009 2:46 PM
