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When I grow up I want to be...

08:12 / 09.11.01

... a theory-bitch...

Sadly, after years of education in a system, and above all a discipline within that system, which distrusts theory, I have no idea where to start. Any help greatly appreciated...

[ 09-11-2001: Message edited by: Kit-Cat Club ]

The Return Of Rothkoid

08:12 / 09.11.01

I'd tag a rider to that: is much classical philosophy necessary to understand modern theory? Is there a progression that should be followed to avoid confusion? (Though I think confusion's probably all part of it...)

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:12 / 09.11.01

quote:Originally posted by Rothkoid:
I'd tag a rider to that: is much classical philosophy necessary to understand modern theory? Is there a progression that should be followed to avoid confusion? (Though I think confusion's probably all part of it...)

I suspect the terms "classical philosophy" and "modern theory" are so broad that this is an impossible question to answer... Even with my pitiful knowledge of either, I've already encountered ideas that fall under the definition of "modern theory" as I understand you're using the term, which seem as independent from classical philosophy as these things can get - and equally, ideas which are much more closely related to both classical philosophy and philosophy from other times...

As for where progression is concerned, on the one hand it strikes me that there's always a book you should have read before you picked up the book you're reading now, and it is often possible to wing it - to get by on the summary of pre-existing theories/ideas that the text you're currently engaged with offers before or at the same time as positing its own. Problem with this, obviously, is that a distorted or at least highly subjective reading of those ideas may be what is being offered.

On the other hand, I'm sure there *are* books which are better introductions, or start at a more basic level, than others. I think what I'd suggest is, decide what you're interested in as specifically as possible - "theory" is a pretty broad church, isn't it? - and I'm sure someone round here will have a few recommendations.

The Return Of Rothkoid

08:12 / 09.11.01

Gah. For modern, I think I was thinking more of Continental. I know Blackwell's publish some fairly hefty Introduction to [insert strand here] Philosophy texts here, but couldn't tell if they'd be too much of a watering-down of theories, or just the ticket...

Of course, things would probably be a bit easier if I bothered to read the damn Foucault book I've had kicking around for a while.

[ 09-11-2001: Message edited by: Rothkoid ]

08:12 / 09.11.01

Oh dear - Flyboy, you are right - I should have been a bit more specific. This is what comes of going to the Tate Modern, looking at the academic books they have there and thinking 'I know nothing'.

I was hoping that people would offer some good starting points for the areas in which they are interested - that way the thread serves a more general purpose than simply answering a query I might have. Though it would then devolve into a list... (but list threads always seem to be the most successful in this forum anyway).

So, for example, if I was to say the magic words Deleuze and Guattari, could someone provide some useful books for context, or do I not need them?

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:09 / 09.11.01

You'll have to wait for the Australians to either come in from parties or get out of bed in 12 hours time.

I still have a list of titles from ages ago that various people suggested - half of them are Switchboard stuff but it makes for an interesting list.

Me, I'm still stuck on Judith Butler's Gender bleedin' Trouble, a friend's library copy which I now owe a few fees on. I must give it back and buy my own. And start again, probably.

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:12 / 09.11.01

Here's the list I mentioned, complete with Amazon numbers where I could get 'em (did this ages ago - not sure if they're UK or USA numbers - or are they the same?) - not sure how many of these qualify as "theory" though - although some of them obviously don't, let me edit those out now

:

TAZ: Temporary Autonomous Zone – Hakim Bey - 0936756764

Steps to an Ecology of Mind - Gregory Bateson - 0226039056

Culture Jam - Kalle Lasn - 0688178057

Ain't I A Woman - Bell Hooks - 0861043790

Male Impersonators (Men Performing Masculinity) – Mark Simpson -

Negotiations – Gilles Deleuze - 0231075812

My Gender Workbook – Kate Bornstein - 0415916739

The Consequences of Modernity – Anthony Giddens - 0804718911

The Rights of Man – Thomas Paine – 0140390154 / 0460871404

The Mystery of Capital – Hernando de Soto - 0593046641

Lipstick Traces – Greil Marcus - 0674535812

The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property - Lewis Hyde - 0394715195

[ 09-11-2001: Message edited by: Flyboy ]

10:18 / 09.11.01

Well, I seem to have read some of those at least (that Monbiot book is well worth reading if anyone hasn't - made my blood boil - though it's not theoretical per se), which makes me feel slightly better about it.

Most of them seem like the kind of books I have to take notes on in order to get anything out of them, which must surely be a good sign.

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:22 / 09.11.01

Yes, sorry, got a bit carried away there before I realised not many of them are that relevant - just wanted an excuse to post that really.

Completely off-topic now, but Captive State is definitely high on my soon-to-read list, since my flatmate has a copy and so I have no excuse. Same goes for Hidden Agendas by John Pilger, the problem with both of these being I am a lazy git and will retreat to reading comics or watching Buffy given half an excuse.

10:26 / 09.11.01

Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari -Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia and 1000 plateau (haven't read this yet but the D&Gheads rave about it) - for preview of anti-oedipus check Rosa's nov 5th blog entry...

Michele foucault
Disciplin and Punish
The order of things
The history of sexuality

i do enjoy foucault and find his stylr a hell of a lot more readable than D&G

[ 09-11-2001: Message edited by: sleazenation ]

10:35 / 09.11.01

Oh, but the Monbiot isn't a hard read at all... it's rather like an extended edition of Private Eye (and everyone should read the PE FMD special - have been meaning to plug it for yonks). I found it gripping. I even bought a copy for my mother and she is most definitely not a theory bitch...

07:12 / 14.11.01

On classical philosophy: I have read none, nada, rien, which makes it buggeringly difficult to read Derrida, but I do it anyway because I can't bear the thought of reading Heidegger (brrrr).

My own personal take on How to Be A Theory Bitch would be to start from the Great Three: Freud (invented the unconscious), Marx (invented the proletariat) and Levi-Strauss (invented culture). More as I think of it, but required reading is Gayatri Spivak - her 1999 book, can't remember what it's called, is a good place to start.

07:30 / 14.11.01

Amazon suggests:
A critique of post-colonial reason.

I feel a lot less intimidated by Freud, Marx and Levi-Strauss than people like Derrida, I must say - probably because I've already come across them in either a historical or a historiographical context, which means I have a skewed view. But it's somewhere to start... thanks!

19:47 / 14.11.01

For the lit-crit review classes I took, many moons ago, the "Big Three" that you ran across in every discipline were: Freud (Collected Works) Marx (Manifesto), and Aristotle (Poetics and selections from his other work).

Somehow, whatever your perspective, you had to get around these guys.

Other fun stuff includes:

Longinus On the Sublime
Levi-Straus
Durkheim, Weber, and the sociologists
John Stuart Mill On Liberty
The utilitarians
John Crowe Ransom's New Criticism essays--and the responses from the Historicist bunch
Umberto Eco's essays on Lit Crit
Helene Cicoux, feminist perspectives
The existentialists
Derrida
Lacan
Deleuze & Guattari
Foucault History of Philosophy
Bloom The Western Canon] and others

I don't keep up on who's hot right now, but you can try Fish, Frye, Paglia, and a host of others.

14:11 / 15.11.01

Northrop Frye? Thought he was old hat.

I read On Liberty, but it was for a course on Victorian intellect and culture and the approach was not theoretical - more focussed on discourse (unless that *is* theoretical, and you see I wouldn't be able to tell...).

Can one read very dead writers like Mill outside their historical milieu, or not?

16:26 / 15.11.01

Well THERE'S a can of theory worms you just opened there.

Has anyone mentioned Walter Benjamin yet?
"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" is a shortish essay that gets applied to every damn thing there is, in my academic experience.

23:14 / 15.11.01

quote:Originally posted by Kit-Cat Club:
Northrop Frye? Thought he was old hat.[QUOTE]

Like I said, I've been out of that branch of the biz for a loooong time.

[QUOTE]I read On Liberty, but it was for a course on Victorian intellect and culture and the approach was not theoretical - more focussed on discourse (unless that *is* theoretical, and you see I wouldn't be able to tell...).

I just kind of gave you a mixed bag of political and esthetic theory...sorry if that didn't seem particularly helpful. Mill's pretty important in terms of setting out the libertarian critique of the polity, so I stuck him in there.

quote:Can one read very dead writers like Mill outside their historical milieu, or not?
Well, if you can do a Freudian critique of Shakespeare, who lived and wrote hundreds of years before Freud concocted his theories, I don't see why you can't do anybody else in ahistorical terms, dead or not. To some extent, I suppose it depends on what your goals are in providing critical reaction, or in studying theory in general.

Many of the classic schools of textual analysis used approaches (consciously or unconsciously) incorporating psychological and historical contexts and authorial influences. Others treated the text as a timeless artifact, or as an artifact to be analyzed within a present day context. Both of these approaches try to grapple with and/or clarify what a text means.

A lot of the late 20th century schools (post WWII), including the once (and currently?) popular deconstructionists, believe that it is difficult to impossible to objectively determine _what_ a text means, rather seek to determine _how_ it means.

At least, that's how it was explained to me. What do I know, I'm a writer.

12:20 / 16.11.01

Oh, and I suffered (and I do mean suffered) Fear of Derrida until my very last semester of grad school, when a brilliant professor assigned Post Card. Lovely book, half novel, half theory. It's got Derrida's whole communication schema in there.