Critical theory sucks life from pop culture classes
Mona Struthers
Issue date: 6/12/07 Section: Opinion
The Phoenix (UBC Okanagan)
(CUP) KELOWNA, B.C. - As an English student with a focus on the contemporary, I've always looked to pop culture classes as a means to easier credit. There are a number of reasons for this: I feel like I might recognize the texts studied in pop classes.
I'd rather study Toni Morrison and Timothy Findley than William Shakespeare. I can relate to characters and grasp thematic concepts more quickly. Perhaps, most importantly, I enjoy reading about places and things, and then connecting those places and things to Kevin Bacon, and eventually, to myself.
Unfortunately, pop culture study has a dark side. It has the potential to be downright excruciating. This happens when cultural texts are hammered into frames for literary, psychological, or sociological theories. Suddenly a film's mise en scene, a novel's mention of the colour red or a musical track's white space cease to exist as independent acts of creative expression and become expressions of a cultural theory.
Interpreting text using the work of theorists like Foucault or Lacan (just to name two who seem fairly well used in academia) is neato. When a professor actually took the time to explain Lacan's ideas about lack to me, I felt really excited. Suddenly I had a new perspective that I could apply to things.
But, more often than not, there isn't time to explain - only to summarize books of innovative thought into three or four fatally reductive bullets on an overhead or handout. It's in these cases that I feel frustrated, because I'm being taught a Dummies version.
Teach it or don't. That's what I want. When a class on culture consists of little more than using bits of theory, I get the feeling that the professor is still trying to convince herself/himself that pop culture deserves to be studied.
The problem is that many theories merit entire courses, and cannot be crammed into the spaces between novels, film, or poems in an English class. Many professors only have time to present a vague, paint-by-number summary of one topic, one idea, out of context.
(CUP) KELOWNA, B.C. - As an English student with a focus on the contemporary, I've always looked to pop culture classes as a means to easier credit. There are a number of reasons for this: I feel like I might recognize the texts studied in pop classes.
I'd rather study Toni Morrison and Timothy Findley than William Shakespeare. I can relate to characters and grasp thematic concepts more quickly. Perhaps, most importantly, I enjoy reading about places and things, and then connecting those places and things to Kevin Bacon, and eventually, to myself.
Unfortunately, pop culture study has a dark side. It has the potential to be downright excruciating. This happens when cultural texts are hammered into frames for literary, psychological, or sociological theories. Suddenly a film's mise en scene, a novel's mention of the colour red or a musical track's white space cease to exist as independent acts of creative expression and become expressions of a cultural theory.
Interpreting text using the work of theorists like Foucault or Lacan (just to name two who seem fairly well used in academia) is neato. When a professor actually took the time to explain Lacan's ideas about lack to me, I felt really excited. Suddenly I had a new perspective that I could apply to things.
But, more often than not, there isn't time to explain - only to summarize books of innovative thought into three or four fatally reductive bullets on an overhead or handout. It's in these cases that I feel frustrated, because I'm being taught a Dummies version.
Teach it or don't. That's what I want. When a class on culture consists of little more than using bits of theory, I get the feeling that the professor is still trying to convince herself/himself that pop culture deserves to be studied.
The problem is that many theories merit entire courses, and cannot be crammed into the spaces between novels, film, or poems in an English class. Many professors only have time to present a vague, paint-by-number summary of one topic, one idea, out of context.
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jumpin jujubees
posted 6/24/08 @ 4:29 AM NA
I'm an academic. I teach communication theory and similar stuff. Frankly, I agree with most of your points.
A bit of clarification:
you wrote:
For example, I would not take a class called "A Lacanian analysis of Rave" but I might sign up for "Levinas and 21st century desire". (Continued…)
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