Literary Cultural Theory

1
Literary (Cultural) Theory

• Feminism Postcolonialism

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Theory

• Some General Observations

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Theory

• Nothing right or wrong about different
  theories
• Ways of looking at the world
• Ways of reinterpreting the human experience
• Lenses through which to view cultural artifacts
• Theories borrow from each other
• Rarely does a scholar use only one theory

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Feminism
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Feminism

• Main concern
• cultural context of texts and cultures
• male/female power struggle in texts and cultures
• othering
• Trends
• study of difference
• study of power relationships
• study of female experience

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Key Concepts in Feminism

• Antrocentrism attitudes, practices or social
  organizations based on assumption that men are
  the model of being
• Gynocriticism trend examining distinctive
  characteristics of the female experience
• Misogyny hatred of women
• Patriarchy Social system headed and directed by
  a male

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Postcolonialism
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Postcolonialism

• Main concern
• Study of cultures formerly (or currently)
  colonized
• Power struggle between cultures
• Intersection of cultures
• Trends
• Study of colonizing process
• Study of colonization fallout
• Study of new colonizing efforts

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Key Concepts in Postcolonialism

• Colonialism
• the subjection of one population by another
• often violent
• Cultural colonization
• subjugation of colonized culture in all respects
• imposition of colonizers culture on colonized

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Key Concepts in Postcolonialism

• Othering the assumption that those who are
  different from oneself are inferior
• Demonic other view that those who are different
  from oneself are not only backward but also
  savage, even evil
• Exotic other view that those who are different
  from oneself possess an inherent dignity and
  beauty, perhaps because of their more
  undeveloped, natural state of being

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Key Concepts in Postcolonialism

• Double vision/double consciousness sense of
  being part of both colonized and colonizing
  cultures
• Eurocentrism view that European (including
  American) ideals and experiences are the standard
• Hybridity/syncretism quality of cultures that
  have characteristics of both the colonizers and
  the colonized
• Neocolonialism domination of a developing nation
  by international corporations attracted by cheap
  labor and manipulable political and legal
  systems.

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Key Concepts in Postcolonialism

• Mimicry imitation of the dress, manners, and
  language of the dominant culture by the oppressed
• Subalterns people of inferior status
• Unhomeliness the sense of being culturally
  displaced, of being caught between two cultures
  and not at home in either.
• Universalism belief that a great work of
  literature deals with certain themes and
  characters that are common in European
  literature--Eurocentric in nature.