/lit/ - Literature

Why go to college to read literature

When it stopped being only a place for smart people and became high school 2.0

>>16217007
I had the same experience in my Shakespeare class but really it was just the professor tailoring his material to the students. My whole class was nothing but average looking artsy girls, and those were really the only topics they could relate to and could grasp.

>>16217041
I took a class on film theory and we watched Taxi Driver. During the lecture the professor starting going on about Lacanian psychoanalysis, Marxism, and post modernist shit. He didn't even explain what of these things were, he just assumed that a class of 20 year olds know all his obscure critical theory neologisms. I fucking hate the university system.

>>16217060
>tfw you don’t realize that existence mediated by a language is fundamentally specular

>>16217007
I could perhaps understand the focus on race and gender to Shakespeare - at least when related in accordance to specific plays - but since when did psychoanalysis have anything to do with it? And even then, I think it'd be best left to it's own class.

>>16217087

Race is relevant to Othello and no other play.

These retards, I hate wokeists I really do. Shakespeare influenced the West so much and if he isn't being cancelled for being White or his lines from MacBeth removed for being "anti semitic" his themes of death, granduer, history, etc. are replaced by race bait propaganda. Fuck this country I want the elites to have their heads removed with razer blades I'm sick of it.

>>16217107
Exactly, the professor made no mention of covering those universal themes that are deeply imbedded into Shakespeare. It was all race and gender with some psychoanalysis. We even have presentations and the topics are ONLY about race and gender

>>16217107
Quite. Though I'd image others could be explored in theme. Albeit more if related to similar subjects of the period. But in comparison it's neither here nor there.

Psychoanalysis has been at the cornerstone of American literary criticism since the 50s, even the New Critics were writing on it favourably. Hell, Harold Bloom, darling of the anti-theorists (as if such a thing could even exist) not only praised Freud as a literary-philosophical innovator on par with Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Kafka (see: Ruin the Sacres Truths) but actively used Freudian concepts in his poetic theories e.g. canonical anxiety and influence from an Oedipal standpoint.

>>16217060
This is a shame. Reading theory after a class on it has greatly enriched my own criticism and understanding of literature but when left to students own devices they either become neocon moralists who hate anything but talking about characters and start screaming "PC police" at the mention of gender in a work or dipshit bougie leftists who mistake structural critique as political critique.

P.S. its a damn shame Lacans theories still hold such prominence when Derrida has been forgotten so quickly

>>16217060
People knew about all that shit in my highschool. Blame the american education system for producing retards who go home and watch tv

>>16217218
>Hell, Harold Bloom, darling of the anti-theorists (as if such a thing could even exist) not only praised Freud as a literary-philosophical innovator on par with Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Kafka (see: Ruin the Sacres Truths) but actively used Freudian concepts in his poetic theories e.g. canonical anxiety and influence from an Oedipal standpoint.
And that's why I can't take him seriously.

>>16217041
they were all fat in mine. didn't even try for any of them.

>>16217324
>People knew about all that shit in my highschool
uh-huh

>>16217060
he was just trying to impress a hoe

>>16217469
Same, by "average looking" I was implying a bit on the ugly side, many were fat/chubby. Attractive women are only in certain majors, I find.

>>16217060
I'm sorry that was your experience, anon. I do believe college experience can vary greatly depending on what major you're in and where you go. I used to go for English but really hated it despite loving to read in my spare time. I later changed majors to something else and found it a really fun and enjoyable experience. You just got unlucky.

>>16217007
Directly after WWII actually

>>16217324
american high school is so exhausting and unpleasant that you spend the rest of the day recovering from it

>>16217007
even religious studies are pozzed. saw a course that included gender and diversity stuff

>>16217060
>Lacanian psychoanalysis, Marxism, and post modernist shit
>obscure
why are americans so illiterate, in europe this is taught at 15

>>16217020
For the guidance of experienced people who have studied the subject matter at a high level for the majority of their lives?

>>16217007
>take Jane Austen class taught by some 60-70 year old feminist lady
>spends most of the time talking about free indirect discourse and explaining the historical context of the landed gentry that most normies wouldn't understand just from reading the books
>defends the incest and age difference stories

>>16217741
that explains a lot, ahmed

>>16217060
was your professor Slavoj Žižek mate

>>16217741
at 15 americans are taking algebra courses. i'm not joking

>>16217743
That's a rather petty reason. Just because they've studied in the highest of levels for 20, 30, or 40 years and have much experience time-wise - doesn't entail they truly know something. Hell, for some - and this I say in general to those of higher levels, not just to Shakespearean studies - I've learned more from my neighbours.

>how dare they teach about issues that are important to contemporary times!

>>16217060
Where are you from? That stuff is taught in most high schools I thought

Jews.

>>16217007
Judging by this website, your post as one of many examples, everything IS about race gender or psychoanalysis

>>16217007
From what I can tell, the 60s.

>>16217060
You're not supposed to know critical theory, just remember the names and drop them in conversation when needed so you can act smug and tell people you disagree with to read a book

>>16218080
>Just because they've studied in the highest of levels for 20, 30, or 40 years and have much experience time-wise - doesn't entail they truly know something
It's hella likelier than some faggot on 4chan truly knowing absolutely anything, especially something regarding literature
>Hell, for some - and this I say in general to those of higher levels, not just to Shakespearean studies - I've learned more from my neighbours
Your neighbours have great knowledge of Shakespeare, among other things? Sounds sweet, where do you live?

>>16217743
that's why you come here. college is not for that

APOLOGISE

>>16217440
I don’t know what that guy is talking about. Harold thought that freudianisms in productions of Hamlet and other works of Shakespeare was a bunch of nonsense. He also thought that Freud stole a lot from Shakespeare

>>16218508
>the world starts slipping into darkness after he dies
bros...

>>16218596
>after

>>16217324
Sure, sure

>Imagine not studying law, finance, or medicine
>imagine needing a class to tell you how to read Shakespeare

>>16217007
>Take A-Level English (ages 16 to 18) in Bongland
>Two years and every single module (except the one where you pick your own text) was feminist

>Poetry 1st Year: Carol Ann Duffy
>Prose 1st Year: Angela Carter
>Drama 1st Year: The Importance of Being Earnest, specifically the female's in the play and their experience

>Poetry 2nd Year: Percy Shelley, mostly about Mary and the Romantics touching on working people and women's themes
>Poetry II 2nd Year: World War I poets (surely this is a reprieve) but we talked about the possibility of homoeroticism and gay love among Sassoon and Owen
>Prose 2nd Year: Own module (I picked For Whom The Bell Tolls)
>Drama 2nd Year: World War I play about women who were left at home and their struggle to fight loneliness

How the fuck I survived this, I will never know. I genuinely don't think I have read a female author since. Not out of spite, just can't remember ever stumbling onto a book by a woman.

>>16217741
>in europe this is taught at 15
and this is why europe is dying

>>16219249
>World War I play about women who were left at home and their struggle to fight loneliness
i want to make a joke about this but it's just too depressingly ridiculous

>>16217741
it almost sounds like you're boasting about being fed frankfurt school propaganda. why?

>>16219259
I know. It was so thin on the ground too.
>Oh Diedre, I am fed up
>Why Barbara? At least we aren't out in Belgium
>Huuuuuh! Pfffft! And what about us, eh, Diedre?! Anyone think about you and me?!

This was the whole fucking play.

>>16218330
You seem to have missed the part where I said "not just to Shakespearean studies." But anyways, one just around the block is a bit of a Shakespeare freak. And if ever I need a bit of teaching in Protestant Christianity, I could consult the two pastors who live within 3 blocks of my house. Plus, if ever I got more interested in psychology a few years back, I could've talked to the grandfather of an old friend of mine, who supposedly owned and had read the entirety, of his psychology-saturated library. But they no longer live here.