Cracking Theories

Why aversion to theories?? Recently had a discussion with one of my friends from teaching fraternity on Theories - he was much against theory and its application and above all teaching it in the classrooms. He finds all these a waste of time. Theory is not an object of pleasure to him and is a nightmare. To him literature is synonymous with reading a poem of Keats or a work of Scott. So, What is theory to you - a nightmare or a pleasure? To me learning and understanding a new theory or a theorists gives me a sense of achievement. At times i will be at loss. But the effort to be back in the track and to be back again keeps me moving. When i teach theory to the students, trying to crack Foucault or Derrida into simpler units makes me feel that am doing something worthy in the classroom. And let me try to jot down my classnotes here... To be continued

Postmodernism Postmodernism as a term can be used in two ways. 1. To represent the contemporary cultural context and 2. As a description of a set of characteristics which are there in the selected texts. Pomo (lets read Postmodernism as Pomo hereafter) has its application in variety of fields - art, music, film, literature, architecture, technology... I love Pomo because It denies the idea of fixed meanings, or any fixed reality or truth. Common characteristics features of postmodernism can be listed as follows. a. denial of absolute truth. They are against absolutism and value relativism. According to them Knowledge is not stable and eternal as the history of science has shown us. b. Refers to probabilities rather than certainties. c. Pomo rejects generalizations. d. They are intolerant of truth and values, unless they are considered local. Diversity is celebrated by the postmodernist After 1960s Pomo literature established itself as an inevitable force. The writers who rebelled against the age old traditions of writing - subverting the very structural and formal bases of writing are being labelled as pomo writers The writers no more considered that they are vested with the holy duty of presenting the 'reality', deriving inspiration from the poststructuralists and meaning was something not inherent in a text but was to be constructed to them... The Marxist theorists like Fredrick Jameson popularised Pomo as a stream of knowledge that dealt with the features of the 'late capitalist society' (Jameson himself is credited with the patent of the term 'late capitalism') To list down the Postmodern techiniques - 1. The concepts of plot, theme and action are out of fasion 2. They prefer to be Narcists - reflecting on the mode of production of a texts and the term Metafiction thus came into being 3. Major ingrediants of a Postmodern curry - Parody, Pastiche, Intertextuality, Irony and Fragmentation - grind it and paste , u will get a delicious pomo cutney... Enjoy....