your context

Your Context : 

Your Context

Slide 2: 

Explain through a discussion of at least one text, how the reading that we construct from a text will be affected by our context. Present a reading of one of the following texts taking into account its language and generic conventions, the contextual information provided and your own context as a reader.

Slide 3: 

Meaning is not written but read. Make reference in your response to at least one text you have studied. Critical reading is a social practice. Discuss with reference to one or more texts you have studied.

Slide 4: 

Context refers to the personal, social, cultural and historical spaces in which texts are produced and read.

Slide 5: 

Socio-historical Personal Critical Your Contexts Intertextual

Critical Context : 

Critical Context The meanings you make of a text are the product of your post-revolutionary critical context When you produce a reading you occupy a particular critical space made available to you by your context

A Revolution in Literary Criticism : 

A Revolution in Literary Criticism Then (pre 1960s): Unlocking the one true meaning of the text Treating the text as a unified whole Literature as universal, moral wisdom Not acknowledging one’s critical and political positions Lack of engagement with issues of the day

Now : 

Now Texts can have multiple meanings depending on how read Texts can have contradictions and inconsistencies Literature as socially located and politically implicated Readings not disinterested – acknowledging critical and political positions Engagement with issues of the day

Some Critical Approaches Made Available to You By Your Context : 

Some Critical Approaches Made Available to You By Your Context Psychoanalytic Political Marxist Feminist Postcolonial Queer Eco Historicist Biographical Science studies Law studies

Slide 10: 

A critical approach privileges the study of certain discourses Therefore in choosing a critical approach you are undertaking a social or political act – deciding that the study of certain discourses is important personally and socially

Slide 11: 

The critical approach you choose will be affected by the intersection of your personal context with your socio-historical context

Socio-Historical Context : 

Socio-Historical Context You Are Participants in a Social Revolution An ongoing post 1960s Revolution

A Sexual Revolution : 

A Sexual Revolution The pill – greater freedom Greater openness about sexuality Questioning of double standards Greater tolerance of alternative sexualities (awareness of repression)

A Gender Revolution : 

A Gender Revolution

A Revolution in Family Life : 

A Revolution in Family Life

A Revolution in Race Relations : 

A Revolution in Race Relations

Social Inclusion : 

Social Inclusion

A Postcolonial Revolution : 

A Postcolonial Revolution

Not to Mention Changing Attitudes To : 

Not to Mention Changing Attitudes To Science Technology Religion The environment Many other things

Slide 20: 

Your socio-historical context makes you more alert to matters of gender, race, colonialism, family structure etc More likely to want to investigate representations and discourses related to those issues you believe to be of social and personal significance

Slide 22: 

The readings we produce of a text depend in part on the context of the reader, including the critical approach adopted. Because of my social context, I have chosen to read the text from a … critical approach. This approach allows me to focus on discourses about …. I believe the study of such discourses to be of fundamental importance to my current context because ….

Slide 23: 

This text will be read using a ... critical approach, an approach chosen because of its importance to the current socio-historical context in which this reading is produced. A … approach allows us to focus on discourses about …. an issue of fundamental importance to the current context because ….

Slide 24: 

One of the advantages of being a literature student in the context of 21st century is that, unlike certain earlier periods I have a range of critical approaches to choose from when reading texts. In reading Frankenstein I chose to take advantage of this context and use a historicist approach to focus on the text’s treatment of discourses about science.

Slide 25: 

My choice of this approach is of course inextricably bound up with my socio-historical context, a context in which the role of science and its potential for both human improvement and degradation continues to be debated, as indeed it has been ever since the enlightenment period, shortly after which Frankenstein was written.

Slide 26: 

My privileging of discourses about science reflects my belief in the urgency of these debates in the current context and thus my personal context. Launches into brilliant reading of Frankenstein.