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Yale School
The Yale school is a colloquial name for an influential group of literary critics, theorists, and philosophers of literature that were influenced by Jacques Derrida's philosophy of deconstruction. Many of the theorists were affiliated with Yale University in the late 1970s, although a number of the theorists – including Derrida himself – subsequently moved to or became affiliated with the University of California, Irvine. Relationship to deconstruction As a school of thought, the Yale School is more closely allied with the post-structuralist dimensions of deconstruction as opposed to its phenomenological dimensions. Additionally, the Yale School is philosophically affined to the 1970s version of deconstruction that John D. Caputo has described as a "Nietzschean free play of signifiers" and not the 1990s version of deconstruction that was far more concerned with political and ethical questions. Origins During the period between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, Ya ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literary Criticism
Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Though the two activities are closely related, literary critics are not always, and have not always been, theorists. Whether or not literary criticism should be considered a separate field of inquiry from literary theory is a matter of some controversy. For example, the ''Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism'' draws no distinction between literary theory and literary criticism, and almost always uses the terms together to describe the same concept. Some critics consider literary criticism a practical application of literary theory, because criticism always deals directly with particular literary works, while theory may be more general or abstract. Literary criticism is often published in essay or book form. Academic liter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geoffrey Hartman
Geoffrey H. Hartman (August 11, 1929 – March 14, 2016) was a German-born American literary theorist, sometimes identified with the Yale School of deconstruction, although he cannot be categorised by a single school or method. Hartman spent most of his career in the comparative literature department at Yale University, where he also founded the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Biography Geoffrey H. Hartmann was born in Frankfurt am Main in Germany, in an Ashkenazi Jewish family. In 1939 he left Germany for England as an unaccompanied '' Kindertransport'' child refugee, sent away by his family to escape the Nazi regime. He came to the United States in 1946, where he was reunited with his mother, and later became an American citizen. Upon arrival in the US, his mother changed the family surname to "Hartman" to obscure its Germanic origin. Hartman attended Queens College, City University of New York and received his PhD from Yale. After appointments at the Unive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Criticism
New Criticism was a formalist movement in literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object. The movement derived its name from John Crowe Ransom's 1941 book ''The New Criticism''. The work of Cambridge scholar I. A. Richards, especially his ''Practical Criticism'' and ''The Meaning of Meaning'', which offered what was claimed to be an empirical scientific approach, were important to the development of New Critical methodology. Also very influential were the critical essays of T. S. Eliot, such as " Tradition and the Individual Talent" and " Hamlet and His Problems", in which Eliot developed his notions of the "theory of impersonality" and " objective correlative" respectively. Eliot's evaluative judgments, such as his condemnation of Milton and Dryden, his liking for the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metaphysics Of Presence
The concept of the metaphysics of presence is an important consideration in deconstruction. Deconstructive interpretation holds that the entire history of Western philosophy with its language and traditions has emphasized the desire for immediate access to meaning, and thus built a metaphysics or ontotheology based on privileging Presence over Absence. Overview In '' Being and Time'' (1927; transl. 1962), Martin Heidegger argues that the concept of time prevalent in all Western thought has largely remained unchanged since the definition offered by Aristotle in the ''Physics''. Heidegger says, "Aristotle's essay on time is the first detailed Interpretation of this phenomenon imewhich has come down to us. Every subsequent account of time, including Henri Bergson's, has been essentially determined by it."''Being and Time'' (1962), §6, 26. Aristotle defined time as "the number of movement in respect of before and after". By defining time in this way Aristotle privileges what is p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literary Theory
Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, moral philosophy, social prophecy, and interdisciplinary themes relevant to how people interpret meaning. In the humanities in modern academia, the latter style of literary scholarship is an offshoot of post-structuralism. Searle, John. (1990)"The Storm Over the University" ''The New York Review of Books'', December 6, 1990. Consequently, the word ''theory'' became an umbrella term for scholarly approaches to reading texts, some of which are informed by strands of semiotics, cultural studies, philosophy of language, and continental philosophy. History The practice of literary theory became a profession in the 20th century, but it has historical roots that run as far back as ancient Greece (Aristotle's '' Poetics'' is an often cited early ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Différance
is a French term coined by Jacques Derrida. It is a central concept in Derrida's deconstruction, a critical outlook concerned with the relationship between text and meaning. The term means "difference and deferral of meaning." Overview Derrida first uses the term in his 1963 paper "". The term then played a key role in Derrida's engagement with the philosophy of Edmund Husserl in ''Speech and Phenomena''. The term was then elaborated in various other works, notably in his essay "" and in various interviews collected in ''Positions''. The of is a deliberate misspelling of , though the two are pronounced identically, ( plays on the fact that the French word means both "to defer" and "to differ"). This misspelling highlights the fact that its written form is not heard, and serves to further subvert the traditional privileging of speech over writing (see arche-writing and logocentrism), as well as the distinction between the sensible and the intelligible. The difference arti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Deconstructionists
This is a list of thinkers who have been dealt with deconstruction, a term developed by French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004). __NOTOC__ The thinkers included in this list ''have Wikipedia pages'' and satisfy at least one of the three following additional criteria: he or she has * written about deconstruction; * used uniquely deconstructive concepts in a published work; or * has stated outright that deconstruction has influenced his or her thinking. A B * Houston A. Baker, Jr.: Baker is an influential theorist for African-American literature whose work draws on ideas from Jacques Derrida. * Jack Balkin: Balkin is the Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale Law School and a renowned critical legal theorist. On his blog, Balkin said that deconstruction influenced his intellectual life. *Geoffrey Bennington: Bennington is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of French and Professor of Comparative Literature, Emory University, as well as a member ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deconstruction
The term deconstruction refers to approaches to understanding the relationship between text and meaning. It was introduced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who defined it as a turn away from Platonism's ideas of "true" forms and essences which take precedence over appearances, instead considering the constantly changing complex function of language, making static and idealist ideas of it inadequate. Deconstruction instead places emphasis on the mere appearance of language in both speech and writing, or suggests at least that essence as it is called is to be found in its appearance, while it itself is "undecidable", and everyday experiences cannot be empirically evaluated to find the actuality of language. Deconstruction argues that language, especially in idealist concepts such as truth and justice, is irreducibly complex, unstable and difficult to determine, making fluid and comprehensive ideas of language more adequate in deconstructive criticism. Since the 1980s, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbara Johnson
Barbara Ellen Johnson (October 4, 1947 – August 27, 2009) was an American literary critic and translator, born in Boston. She was a Professor of English and Comparative Literature and the Fredric Wertham Professor of Law and Psychiatry in Society at Harvard University. Her scholarship incorporated a variety of structuralist and poststructuralist perspectives—including deconstruction, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and feminist theory—into a critical, interdisciplinary study of literature. As a scholar, teacher, and translator, Johnson helped make the theories of French philosopher Jacques Derrida accessible to English-speaking audiences in the United States at a time when they had just begun to gain recognition in France. Accordingly, she is often associated with the "Yale School" of academic literary criticism. Early life Barbara Johnson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the only daughter of Gilbert and Priscilla (James) Johnson. She graduated from Westwood High Schoo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wlad Godzich
Wlad Godzich (Władysław Bogusz Godzich, Wladyslaw Bogusz Godzich) (born May 13, 1945 in Germany, raised in France) is a literary critic, literary theorist, translator, and scholar. He is attributed with influencing the conceptualization of modern literary critical theory.Mckenna, BarbaraNew dean of humanities named at UC Santa Cruz ''UC Santa Cruz Currents'', July 31, 2000. He currently serves as Professor of general and comparative literature, and critical studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.Duke University Pressboundary 2.2006; 33: 229-231 2006. Career Godzich has published and translated several books, edited eight collections of essays, and authored over a hundred scholarly articles, lectures, and papers.Stanford University November 5–6, 1999. In 2000, Godzich joined the University of California, Santa Cruz as dean of Humanities. Prior to this, he was Professor of English (Chair of Emergent Literatures), Comparative Literature, and European Studies at t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonathan Culler
Jonathan Culler (born 1944) is an American literary critic. He was Class of 1916 Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cornell University. His published works are in the fields of structuralism, literary theory and literary criticism. Background and career Culler attended Harvard for his undergraduate studies, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in history and literature in 1966. After receiving a Rhodes scholarship, he attended St. John's College, Oxford University, where he earned a B. Phil (now M. Phil) in comparative literature (1968) and a D.Phil in modern languages (1972).Shea, Victor (1993). "Jonathan Dwight Culler". In Makaryk, Irene Rima (ed.), ''Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory: Approaches, Scholars, Terms'', p. 283-84. University of Toronto Press. . His thesis for the B. Phil., on phenomenology and literary criticism, recorded Culler's first experiences with structuralism. The thesis explored the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pathos
Pathos (, ; plural: ''pathea'' or ''pathê''; , for " suffering" or "experience") appeals to the emotions and ideals of the audience and elicits feelings that already reside in them. Pathos is a term used most often in rhetoric (in which it is considered one of the three modes of persuasion, alongside ethos and logos), as well as in literature, film and other narrative art. Methods Emotional appeal can be accomplished in many ways, such as the following: * by a metaphor or storytelling, commonly known as a hook; * by passion in the delivery of the speech or writing, as determined by the audience; * by personal anecdote. appealing to an ideal can also be handled in various ways, such as the following: * by understanding the reason for their position * avoiding attacks against a person or audience's personally * use the attributes of the ideal to reinforce the message Pathos tends to use "loaded" words that will get some sort of reaction. Examples could include "victim," i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
