Your Scholar or Theorist Mt. Rushmore

[DontHate]

Oh shit, better change fields.

I guess you could go into... Media studies?

[lisajay]

That was a neat video; thanks for sharing!  I'm assuming it's yours?  If so, do you mind telling me what music you used?  I liked it lots.  The music towards the end was Dylan, right?  Which song?

 

yessir. there's a paper that goes with it, but that's not nearly as fun. the music used is:

 

"mea culpa" // brian eno & david byrne

"paris is burning" // st. vincent

"most of the time" // bob dylan (post-broken neck, which is the best dylan)

[practical cat]

I guess you could go into... Media studies?

I considered that. Too many movies, not enough books. (I really am more into lit than it sometimes appears.)

[asleepawake]

(That and eating disorders. I really want to teach an eventual class on celebrity memoirs and Portia de Rossi's is so relevant to my interests but how?) 

 

Yes yes yes. It seems to not have been done much, though fat studies/body studies is happening. Is it possible to be too close to something to write about it academically? With this one, I just might be.

Edited December 21, 2012 by asleepawake

[t1racyjacks]

I say, I feel that DFW is a great writer. I don't think he's pretentious at all. I get the sense that he comes across like that because he's overly self-conscious and that leads to reflexivity that can get annoying. It's a struggle. But there are times where I think he feels free and that is where his prose really shines. I don't think that he's doing whatever he's doing to 'act clever'.

 

I think that M.H. Abrams does an admirable job as a critic. Derrida's reading skills I think, are often overlooked in favor of his philosophy -- but he is an incredible reader as well. I.A. Richards had some good stuff too. Call me old skool.

 

Unfortunately? I don't have a theorist/ scholar Mt Rushmore. I was a biology undergrad for one semester... my admiration, sadly, is mainly reserved for the writers who touch my heart. It is not too difficult to be clever, I think. But it is difficult to express something complicated in a very concise and touching manner -- http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15401'>like so or http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-lemon/'>like so. I am quite sick of cleverness and am not very clever myself. I just know that I'm in this because I feel that literary studies have become some sort of desperate search for 'clever' and 'original' ideas. If it were a matter of having 'good ideas' I wouldn't even be doing this. But I do want to remind people of the power of great literature.

 

All the scholarship in the world could not have persuaded me to drop a lifetime of science studies and do my degree in something that I had no guarantee of passing. The only reason why I took that huge risk is because I felt that it was worth it, worth the exposure, worth the time talking about things I loved -- no matter if I failed the degree -- I was willing to take the risk. And ditto with my phd studies. I can't really be bothered to be too clever and come out with wonderful ideas. But I do want to try and make a difference to the way people understand the experience of reading. As my POI told me, if you don't fight for what you believe in, who will? someone's gotta do the job

[thestage]

Suicide studies? Go on

 

I study suicide all the time

 

usually at night

[NowMoreSerious]

in the past several years, i've become much more attuned to representations of suicide in books, film, television, &c. then this past semester, one of my professors joked that literary theory & criticism is logically progressing toward death, so i say, why not specialize in suicide studies?

 

this is outside the scope of my SOP, but it's definitely something gnawing away at the back of my brain.

 

if you're really interested (& at the risk of overdisclosure), here.

Great video by the way. It's amazing how much some of those people look like Hemingway.

[lisajay]

isn't it?! a giant, living, breathing, annual meme. *swoon*

 

& thanks. glad you enjoyed it!

[delimitude]

Gilles Deleuze

Jacques Derrida

Martin Heidegger

Bernard Stiegler

[Riotbeard]

Karl Marx (Kind of amazed I am the first person to put up Marx)

Michel Foucault

E. P. Thompson

Eva Sedgwick

[NowMoreSerious]

Karl Marx (Kind of amazed I am the first person to put up Marx)

Michel Foucault

E. P. Thompson

Eva Sedgwick

Marx is almost too foundational for me. In the sense that if we were to really be honest about a Rushmore, it would be something like Plato, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud for many of us.

[ProfLorax]

bell hooks

Angela Davis

Simone de Beauvoir

Eli Clare

[Datatape]

Alice Walker

Cheryll Glotfelty

Ursula Heise

Jean & John Comaroff (technically cheating as they make it five, but they were co-authors of the book I found so illuminating)

[dazedandbemused]

Eve Sedgwick

Jack Halberstam

Michel Foucault

Stephen Greenblatt

[asleepawake]

I guess I'll do mine, but PLEASE do not desecrate a mountain for this list.

 

Martin Heidegger

Michel Foucault

Jacques Derrida

J.M. Coetzee

Edited December 23, 2012 by asleepawake

[sebastiansteddy]

1) Freud (No one else has listed him?!)

2) Lacan (Can you see where I'm going with this?...)

3) WJT Mitchell (Well, this list took a turn...)

4) 4th one is tough... Benjamin? Foucault? Barthes? Laura Mulvey? Kristeva? Graham Harman?

[Deadinthewater]

3) WJT Mitchell (Well, this list took a turn...)

Are you applying to Chicago?

[sebastiansteddy]

Are you applying to Chicago?

 

Yes...sigh. It'll never happen, but... a kid can dream.

[Swagato]

Oh dear.

 

Bill Brown

WJT Mitchell

Mary Ann Doane

Miriam Hansen

 

(I purposely left out "canonical" names like Benjamin/Foucault/Deleuze because let's face it, we *all* rely on them anyway.)

[Deadinthewater]

Bill Brown, WJT Mitchell. Looks like I am among adversaries.

[sebastiansteddy]

Oh dear.

 

Bill Brown

WJT Mitchell

Mary Ann Doane

Miriam Hansen

 

(I purposely left out "canonical" names like Benjamin/Foucault/Deleuze because let's face it, we *all* rely on them anyway.)

 

So glad someone else picked Mitchell too!

[waparys]

No love for Woolf?

[thestage]

Woolf is for To the Lighthouse

Edited December 24, 2012 by thestage

[waparys]

"Modern Fiction," A Room of One's Own...those are just bi-products?

[thestage]

Woolf is for To the Lighthouse