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Engl 301
notes for the final
147
English
Undergraduate 3
12/14/2011

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Term
Extrinsic Criticism
Definition
Focusing on matters outside the text
Term
Intrinsic Criticism
Definition
focusing on matters inside the text
Term
Paradox
Definition
expression that contains opposites
Term
ambiguity
Definition
refers to suggestively multiple and unsettled meanings
Term
tension
Definition
connected ideas that pull away from each other without reaching resolution
Term
irony
Definition
an expression or event that means something different connotatively from what it means denotatively
Term
formal/formalism
Definition
focuses on form of literary works; literary struction and language
Term
naturalized
Definition
so taken for granted, as if it were simply natural
Term
interntional fallacy
Definition
basing interpretation on an author's intent (or possible intent)
Term
affective fallacy
Definition
logical error or mistaken belief about how we determine literary meaning; meaning lies within the text itself, not in our response to it
Term
binary oppositions
Definition
juxtaposing different concepts against each other
Term
langue (language)
Definition
overall system of langueage; rules of grammar
Term
parole (speech)
Definition
an utterance, an individual instance of language, such as a sentence, news bulletin, poem etc
Term
semiology/semiotics
Definition
structuralist study of culture apart from lingustics/literature
Term
sign 
Definition
language is a system of signs; each sign is made up of a signifier and signifier
Term
signifier
Definition
a sound image, word etc
Term
signified
Definition
the concept that the sound image represents
Term
phonemes
Definition
limited set of sounds
Term
difference (Saussure)
Definition
a system of comparisions and relations that produce meaning
Term
surface structure
Definition
parole, individual instane of a broader deep structure
Term
deep structure
Definition
an overall langue or system of kinship relations
Term
discourse
Definition
refers not only to words and grammar, but also to all structures of perception
Term
discursive
Definition
everything is constructed, reality never existed without language
Term
prediscursive
Definition
reality independent of and prior to language did exist
Term
hermeneutic circle
Definition
to understand the part we have to understand the whole, and to understand the whole, we have to understand the part
Term
defamiliarization
Definition
way that literature, esp realist or satyrical literature, can take familiar things and refresh our perspective of them
Term
tale
Definition
the sequence of events in the order they take place
Term
telling
Definition
the sequence of events in the order they are told
Term
narration
Definition
embedding, reliability, focalization, direct/indirect/free-indirect discourse
Term
embedding (nesting)
Definition
stories within stories, narrative has a framing story and another story with the frame
Term
reliability
Definition
the degree to which the narrator can be trusted
Term
focalization
Definition
narratological term for point of view or perspective, traditionally first person
Term
internal focalizer
Definition
first or third person narration, the angle of mind comes through the character
Term
focalizer
Definition
who might be character or external narrator; the person/character from whose point of view the story is being told
Term
focalized
Definition
who/what, the object of the focalizers attention
Term
shot/reverse shot
Definition
film sequence that alternates between a character and object, implying that the character is looking at the object
Term
free indirect discourse
Definition
narration style related to ID and DD; cannot pinpoint the exact boundary between character's language and narrator's language; 3rd person but blurs the lines
Term
direct discourse
Definition
straight forward represents speech or thought directly often in quotation marks, uses first person
Term
indirect discourse
Definition
less straight forward, third person, uses "that" to signify ID
Term
syntagmatic (horizontal) axis
Definition
things follow in a sequence
Term
paradigmatic (vertical) axis
Definition
things come in a group and can substitute for each other
Term
metaphor
Definition
describes something by something else that IS NOT connected to it
Term
metonymy
Definition
describes something by something else that IS connected to it or a part of it; ie wheels for car
Term
double reading
Definition
a two stage reading; identify singular interpretation with no multiplicity that a structuralist might say, then find things that undermine the structure; "break down the binary" or "explode the binary" 
Term
undecidability
Definition
showing how the free play of the text's signifiers goes beyond the capacity of the system to confine it to one meaning or one set of meanings
Term
bracketing (under erasure)
Definition
to cross words out; using words but marking the use as provisional; using a term but not meaning to endorse it
Term
internal contradictions (internal differences)
Definition
show how meanings cannot settle into a stable structure
Term
differance
Definition
term for the gap between signifier and signified that can never be closed; continuous play of signifiers always defering the signified instad of bringing them closer
Term
antiessentialism 
Definition
disagree on idea that there is a stable literary meaning (which traditionalists believe in)
Term
unconscious
Definition
not just under awareness ubt utterly without awareness
Term
repression
Definition
to push down, ignore
Term
drives
Definition
instincts; our needs and desires
Term
defenses
Definition
ways for proteting our "delicate" psyche; repressing threatening emotions
Term
sublimate
Definition
redirect threatening emotions to other activities
Term
clinical method of psychanalysis
Definition
analysand to talk to the analyst; "talking cure"
Term
free associate
Definition
to say anything and everything that comes to mind, no matter how random
Term
transference
Definition
analysands can transwer onto the analyst emotions that apply to someone else, typically another authority figure (ie a parent)
Term
polymorphous pervisity
Definition
"many forms" and "turning upside down for overturning"; infants born without any particular sexual or gender identity; infants begin with sexual drives that toss and turn randomly in any and all directions, then the process of growing up narrows human identity and desire
Term
castration anxiety
Definition
boy jealous of father (rival), desires mother but see she has no penis, fears father might castrate him for desiring the mother
Term
return of the repressed
Definition
repressed desires can pop back up in the form of neurotic symptoms, disguised representations of unconscious desire
Term
censorship
Definition
psyche rejects threatening unconscious wishes
Term
compromise
Definition
allows threatening unconscious wishes to enter the dream only after they have changed into something less frightening
Term
displacement
Definition
the psychic process of representing one desire by another less threatening, more acceptable desire
Term
condensation
Definition
psychic proess of merging multiple wishes into fewer, less threatening more acceptable wishes
Term
denial
Definition
an unconscious repression and refusal to recognize something
Term
the mirror stage
Definition
6-18 months; before developing own subjectivity, sees its reflected image and identifies with the reflection
Term
the imaginary
Definition
no difference, no absence, fullness and immediacy; no self vs other, no sense of distance or incompleteness
Term
the Father's No, the Law of the Father, the Name of the Father
Definition
the father's opposition to the son's desire for the mother; doesn't depend on actual presence of the father, it is so woven into the culture that is it perceived even if no father
Term
the symbolic
Definition
opposite of the imaginary; difference and absence reign, incompleteness and distance (characteristics inherent to language and representation)
Term
the real
Definition
the underlying intransigent that resists definition
Term
imagined community
Definition
when we feel a sense of oneness or merging, with parents, family, friends, people we might never see, but who share religion/homeland/race/nationality
Term
phallus
Definition
patriarchal authority in general, not necessarily the physical male organ
Term
the gaze (the look)
Definition
"the scopic drive" the way that looking itself is steeped in the erotic, the symbolic visually pursuing the imaginary, trying to collapse the distance and difference between desire and object of desire
Term
misogyny
Definition
the habit of not taking women seriously, not respecting women
Term
patriarchy
Definition
the broader cultural history and practice of centering on men while underestimating women
Term
first wave feminism
Definition
focused on establishing women's rights (own property/vote)
Term
second wave feminism
Definition
1960's, broader cultureal agenda, focused on describing and celebrating and distinctiveness and specialness of women, sisterhood and shared identity among all women
Term
third wave feminism
Definition
build a feminism that focused on the variety of women; antiessentialist and deconstruction principles
Term
images of women
Definition
good women=good work; seen now as limiting and old fashioned because tends to imply female character has to be a good role model to be a good work
Term
prescriptive criticism (prescriptive realism)
Definition
presumptuously tells writers how to write, that they must present realistic characters or characters that offer "positive role models"
Term
the canon
Definition
the standard set of literature that critics and teachers typically studied and taught
Term
womanism
Definition
a secondary term for feminism; thought as more broad and less narrow/narrowing than feminism
Term
masculinization of spectators
Definition
shot/reverse shot editing leads audiences to look through the eyes of a character, thus constructing a visual focalizer; leads audiences to look through the eyes of an actor and at an actress, identifiying with the ACTOR'S gaze at the actress
Term
technological determinism
Definition
the idea that a giving technology produces a predictable result
Term
critical spectators
Definition
active spectators who resist the system as opposed to spectators who passively allow the system to seduce them into naturalizing its assumptions
Term
naturalization of heterosexuality
Definition
the assumption, typically made without thinking, that everyone is heterosexual unless labeled otherwise; that heterosexuality is the norm and anything else is a special case
Term
compulsory heterosexuality
Definition
the impression, explicit or implicit, that people should be heterosexual or else something is wrong with them
Term
outing
Definition
the controversial process of publicly exposing people for "living in the closet"
Term
the closet
Definition
as in "living in the closet" keeping queer desires private rather than public
Term
homosocial
Definition
intense relations between people of the same sex that might not be sexual, but that, through their intensity, can suggest an erotic charge
Term
traffic in women, exchange of women
Definition
men structure their relations with each other by using women; women cement or figure alliances among men and they figure masculine status
Term
homophobia
Definition
a prejudice against and fear of so-called homosexuals; puts the burden of psychological disorder on those with the phobia instead of homosexuals
Term
materialist
Definition
the world is made up of natural, physical things, including food and shelter, rather then idealistic or spiritual abstractions, like beauty, truth and the supernatural
Term
base
Definition
the material economic world
Term
superstructure
Definition
the rest of the world produced by the base
Term
economic determinism, economism
Definition
the idea that economics is the cause of everything else
Term
bourgeoisie
Definition
the new class of capitalist merchants
Term
proletariat
Definition
the exploited class of workers
Term
capital
Definition
not simply money that can be exchanged for goods or labor, but money used to purchase goods or labor for the purpose of making a PROFIT
Term
dialectic
Definition
ongoing class struggle between those who labor and those who own; the way that contradictory arguments and economic forces engage with each other (as in dialogue) to produce something else
Term
alienation of labor
Definition
working on only one small part of a product; hundreds of thousands of people from around the globe play role in making products
Term
use value
Definition
in precapitalist times, workers USED the objects they produced
Term
commodities
Definition
objects for sale on the market
Term
exchange value
Definition
commodies have exchange value; laboring for exchange value redoubles the alienation of labor...
Term
commodiety fetish
Definition
the capacity to enhance desire (by commodities for commodities)
Term
sign exchange value
Definition
have no immediately more practical value but they (the objects) may signify status, special if you own it, normal if you don't (appearance wise)
Term
commodification
Definition
a process in whihc people themselves are commodified, valued not as people, but as numbers, statistics, and cogs in an abstract economic machine
Term
reification (thingification)
Definition
the way that commodification reduces social relations, ideas, and even people to things, thus intensifying alienation
Term
hegemony
Definition
dominating cultural influence; dominant social structure
Term
coercion
Definition
the act of compelling by force of authority
Term
consent
Definition
permission for something to happen or agreement to do something; allowing the interpellation to occur willingly
Term
organic intellectuals
Definition
leaders who arise from within the people and can use civil society to express the people's ideas that the people might not be ready to express for themselves; (opposed to traditional intellectuals who think they are different from and better than other people)
Term
public sphere
Definition
offering a space between state and civil society and offering the best alternative to the threatening fragmentation of modernist art and life
Term
ideology
Definition
UNCONSCIOUS set of beliefs and assumptions, our imaginary relation to real conditions that might not match what we imagine
Term
interpellation
Definition
"calling" the system calls or hails us (saying hello!); the process of being passively, unconsciously drawn into dominant social assumptions
Term
ideological state apparatuses ISA's
Definition
(civil society) which include schools, media, churches, families, unions and entertainment culture; can make us imagine we have chosen the actions that real conditions have chosen for us; subtle and similar to consent
Term
repressive state apparatuses RSA's
Definition
(the state) which includes the police, courts, prisons, and miliary; similar to coercion
Term
intervention
Definition
the technical word for changing or at least trying to change the system
Term
agency
Definition
the ability to make things happen
Term
relative autonomy
Definition
the superstructure's partial independence from its base; suggests at least a little independence from the clutches of the system, from interpellation, but doesn't have to come in the form of individualism
Term
false consciousness
Definition
opposite of relative autonomy; a way of thinking that is so interpellated into oppressive ideologies that it leads people to act against their own interest
Term
alienation effect
Definition
encourage readers/watchers not to identify with the actresses/actors/characters on stage or the roles they play
Term
cultural capital
Definition
class position defined not so much by economic capital as by related qualities of family and formal education; what class you are in determines taste/aesthetic
Term
old historicism
Definition
relagates history to mere background and context witht he literature merely reflecting the history; history as stable and certain, secure facts which allow us to make claimes 
Term
new historicism
Definition
read history and literature together with each influencing the other, and without a stable sense of facts; history just as uncertain and complex as literature; always multiple perspectives and multiple perspectives lead to different interpretations
Term
discourse (Foucault)
Definition
a practice that produces what it purports to describe; a common pattern of culturally internalized expectations rather than the supposedly pure or essential truth that people traditionally mean by the term "knowledge"
Term
police
Definition
restricting potential impulses to act in what the dominant discourse paints as the wrong way (also goes along with surveillance, regulation, and discipline)
Term
cultural materialism
Definition
the heritage of weaving together literary studies with the study of popular culture, cultural history, Marxism, and the working class that emerged through the writings of Raymond Williams
Term
settler colonies
Definition
the colonizers move in permanently and they or their descendents often grow far more numerous than the people they colonized, whose numbers often reduce by disease and abuses (sometimes reaching genocide)
Term
occupation colonies (explotation colonies, colonies of conquest)
Definition
colonists remain a small portion of the population; typically leave home, do their explitative work in the colony and the return, only to be replaced by other colonizers
Term
internal colonies
Definition
settlers forcible or culturally limit outnumbered indigenous peoples to specific areas where they are surrounded by settlers in internal colonies (Indian reservations or reserves)
Term
neocolonialism
Definition
developed from postcolonialism; updates the raages of colonialism, merely splitting the profits between local oligarchs and the colonial power, now represented not only by colonialist govt, but also by colonialist international corporations; "globalization" becomes another word for colonialism
Term
hybrid
Definition
multiplicity, cross breeding
Term
Negritude
Definition
a literary and political movement put together by a group of French speaking black poets and intellectuals in Paris, inspired partly by the American Harlem Renaissance
Term
colonial discourse
Definition
produces ideas about the Orient - the East
Term
Orientalism
Definition
colonial discourse about the Orient; an older sense to refer to Indian subcontinent and esp to Islamic Middle East; Western discourse about the East (travel accts, journals etc) constructed the East as sensual, lazy, exotic, irrational, cruel, promiscuous etc and these terms generated a discourse that produced and then continued to reproduce the East in such terms
Term
mimicry
Definition
in a world of cultural mixing and differences of power, colonized people often end up mimicking their colonizers, adopting the language, educational system, govt systems, clothing, music, and so on
Term
imperialist nostalgia
Definition
colonizers' sentimental respect for a colonized culture (idealized and unrealistic too lol)
Term
metissage (mixing or creolization)
Definition
many cultures, languages and people mixed together that never settles into the stable sameness of Negritude or of conventional European models of identity
Term
race-blind racism
Definition
racial prejudice is always already embedded in the system, so that to ignore race is to allow racism to continue unchallenged
Term
ideal reader
Definition
a reader that responds to challenges and mysteries with relish
Term
implied reader
Definition
as we read, we can sort out implicit assumptions that it makes aobut its readers, what they know and believe or do not know or believe
Term
narratee
Definition
the fictional reader in the narrative; ie the woman singing to the pather/indian devil etc the woman is the narratee
Term
horizon of expectation
Definition
the range of possible expectations in where/when work was written, to the range of possible expectations for a work's readers
Term
reception history
Definition
studies the history of how readers have responded to a given film or literary work
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