Final Exams

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Nightmares and Dreamscapes

Battleground by Stephen King

Narratology

A rose for Emily

Metalepsis

Genette defines narrative metalepsis as “any intrusion by the extradiegetic narrator or narratee into the diegetic universe (or by diegetic characters into a metadiegetic universe, etc.) or the inverse” (234–35). Metalepsis thus designates the transgression of a line of demarcation that authors usually do not touch, namely the “shifting but sacred frontier between two worlds, the world in which one tells, the world of which one tells” (236).

To put it simply, it occures when we move between 2 different worlds in a same text, when we find more than one fictional world.

Genette, Gérard ([1972] 1980). Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaca: Cornell UP.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Story vs Plot

Story: sequence of events in a chronological order, explicitly presented in the text plus the inferences made by the reader, listener. A text must have some kind of logic, some kind of recognizable sequence and that's what the story provides.

Plot refers to the sequence of events inside a story which affect other events through the principle of cause and effect. Plots can vary from simple structures to complex interwoven structures. It is related to the way thevauthor presents it to us, it is everything that the text explicitly presents, it is the narrative as it is read, seen, heard from the first to the last word or image.

A narrative can have the same story but different plots.

Fabula and Syuzhet

The literary theory of Russian Formalism in the early 20th century divided a narrative into two elements: the fabula and the syuzhet. A fabula is the events in the fictional world, whereas a syuzhet is a perspective of those events. Formalist followers eventually translated the fabula/syuzhet to the concept of story/plot. This definition is usually used in narratology, in parallel with Forster's definition. The fabula (story) is what happened in chronological order. In contrast, the syuzhet (plot) means a unique sequence of discourse that was sorted out by the (implied) author. That is, the syuzhet can consist of picking up the fabula events in non-chronological order.

Key Concepts and Fields of Study

Critical theory is a school of thought that stresses the reflective assessment and critique of society and culture by applying knowledge from the social sciences and the humanities. As a term, critical theory has two meanings with different origins and histories: the first originated in sociology and the second originated in literary criticism, whereby it is used and applied as an umbrella term that can describe a theory founded upon critique.

Core concepts are: (1) That critical social theory should be directed at the totality of society in its historical specificity (i.e. how it came to be configured at a specific point in time), and (2) That critical theory should improve understanding of society by integrating all the major social sciences, including geography, economics, sociology, history, political science, anthropology, and psychology.

Narratology refers to both the theory and the study of narrative and narrative structure and the ways that these affect our perception. It examines the ways that narrative structures our perception of both cultural artifacts and the world around us. The study of narrative is particularly important since our ordering of time and space in narrative forms constitutes one of the primary ways we construct meaning in general

Infamous by Douglas McGrath

A film about the context of production of "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote.

Watch the film and pay attention to:

1. First scene with Gwyneth Paltrow. When an actor/actress has a brief appearence in a film it is called "a Cameo appearance"

2. Characterization of Truman Capote: clothes, voice, movement, attitude.

3. Binary oppositions between New York and Holcomb

4. Cinematography: camera shots, editing, mise-en-scene.

In the scene we are just looking at, we can see a low angle shot showing the faces of Al Dewey and other Journalists from Holcomb, all dressed in smar clothes. The previous shot shows a high angle shot of Truman Capote.

A theory of Adaptation by Linda Hutcheon

According to its dictionary meaning, “to adapt” is to adjust, to alter, to make suitable.

An adaptation is a critical rereading, a critical revisiting of a text. I don’t necessary have to reproduce, to replicate it. Linda Hutchen statest that "[a]daptation is repetition, but repetition without replication". I’m moving from one system to another, from words to images, or sounds. 

It is a fundamental process by means of which literature survives, fundamental process by means of which culture is kept alive.

There is a dialogic connection between two texts as both are in constatn dialogue to each other, the source text and the target text. When we call a work an adaptation, we openly announce its overt relationship to another work.

Concerning fidelity, the author claims that "[a]n adaptation’s double nature does not mean, however, that proximity or fidelity to the adapted text should be the criterion of judgment or the focus of analysis."

Linda Hutcheon’s book on adaptation begins with the statement, “[a]dapting is a bit like redecorating,” which is an apt description of what is happening across the media landscape today.

Harper Lee & Truman Capote

In Cold Blood - Soundtrack

Truman Capote

Narrative Voice

Narrative voice: the format (or type of presentational form) through which a story is communicated.

The narrative voice describes how the story is conveyed: for example, by "viewing" a character's thought processes, reading a letter written for someone, retelling a character's experiences, etc. It is intangible, it decides when and how to give us information as well as what to say and what not to say.

In the case of "In Cold Blood" the narrative voice, this invisible concept that organizes the information for us, is going to include dialogues taken from neighbours but also from others like Mrs Clutters' doctor.

It can be ironic, it can anticipate plot, it can also extablish comparisons and contrasts.

In Cold Blood - Context of Production

Assassination of John F. Kennedy

Assassination of Malcom X

Assassination of Marthin Luther King Jr

The Cold War

Vietnam War

In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood is a non-fiction book first published in 1966, written by American author Truman Capote; it details the 1959 murders of Herbert Clutter, a farmer from Holcomb, Kansas, his wife, and two of their four children.

When Capote learned of the quadruple murder, before the killers were captured, he decided to travel to Kansas and write about the crime. He was accompanied by his childhood friend and fellow author Harper Lee, and together they interviewed local residents and investigators assigned to the case and took thousands of pages of notes. The killers, Richard "Dick" Hickock and Perry Smith, were arrested six weeks after the murders, and Capote ultimately spent six years working on the book.

Some critics consider Capote's work the original non-fiction novel, although other writers had already explored the genre, such as Rodolfo Walsh in Operación Masacre (1957). In Cold Blood examines the complex psychological relationship between two parolees who together commit a mass murder. Capote's book also explores the lives of the victims and the effect of the crime on the community in which they lived. In Cold Blood is regarded by critics as a pioneering work of the true crime genre, though Capote was disappointed that the book failed to win the Pulitzer Prize.

(Wikipedia)

A new Concept: Interpellation

Interpellation: This term was coined by Louis Althusser and it derives from the French verb appeller, which means ‘to name’. Interpellation is a process by which individuals internalize cultural values or ideologies. For Althusser, ideology calls on us to accept unquestioningly certain elements of our culture as fixed, natural and disinterested because we are free, autonomous and choosing subjects. A subject can be interpellated by institutions such as the police, the school, the family, the church and the army. There are different reactions to interpellation: response, negotiation and resistance through silence, action or passive resistance.

How to include quotations

I tried to keep it simple for your exam, but bear in mind there are more things to learn about this topic!!
Chick here to download the document.

Hitler's Children

Episode I: Seduction

Episode II: Dedication

Episode III: Education

Episode IV: War

Episode V: Sacrifice

Patriarchal Society

What is a Patriarchal System?

A patriarchal social system can be defined as a system where men are in authority over women in all aspects of society. In the past, men were often the established gender of authority and exhibited control in all situations.

The etymology of the word patriarchy allows us to understand the meaning of the term. The term patriarchy comes from the Latin words pater, which means “father”, and archein, “to rule”. Also, patriarchy derives from the Greek terms patriarches (“chief or head of family”) and patria (“family, clan”) Therefore, it refers to male political power within society and the father’s authority within his family.

Malpas and Wake (2006) claim that:

Patriarchy is a term used – especially but not exclusively in feminist theory – to analyse male dominance as a conventional or institutionalized form. Literally the ‘rule of the father’, patriarchy historically describes systems in which the male has absolute legal and economic control over the family. The patriarch is the male head of a tribe, religion or church hierarchy. (...)

Patriarchy was stablished as a system, defeating the ‘mother right’ and controlling women’s sexuality in order to establish paternity and protect private property. (Malpas and Wake, 2006: 237)

Characteristics of a Patriarchal System 

(male dominance, male centeredness, obsession with control, male identification)

Firslty, a patriarchal society is male dominated, which does not mean that all women are powerless, but the most powerful roles in most sectors of society are held by men,whereas the least powerful roles are held by women. 

Secondly, it is organized with men at the center, while women occupy the margins. This is so because of the assumption that women need men's supervision, protection, or control because they are fragile or vulnerable. 

This takes us to the thrid characteristic, which is the obsession with control. Men living in a patriarchal system or society must be in control at all times. They have a desire to control all social and family situations and must make all decisions regarding finances and education.

Finally, it is important to mention those aspects of society and personal attributes that are highly valued and which are generally associated with men, while devalued attributes and social activities are associated with women. Men are concerned with identification that includes qualities of control, strength, forcefulness, rationality, strong work ethic, and competitiveness.

Reference:

Malpas, S. and Wake, P. (eds.) (2006) The Routledge Companion To Critical Theory. London: Routledge

Gender Studies: sex & gender

It is necessary to make a distinction between the concepts of sex and gender. Sometimes, these terms are used interchangeably, but in fact, their meanings are different. 

Anthony Synnott stated that “the body is not only a biological phenomenon, it is also a social creation of immense complexity.” (Synnott,1993:1). This phrase helps to clarify the difference between the two terms in question. 

On the one hand, sex refers to biological differences such as chromosomes  hormonal profiles, internal and external sex organs. 

On the other hand, gender is a social construction of the characteristics and behaviours associated with males or females. The idea of what is to be a man or a woman is culturally determined, it differs from society to society and changes over time. For example, women are generally associated with the domestic sphere, i.e. cooking, cleaning the house and taking care of the children while men are associated with the public sphere, i.e. working and supporting the family economically.

Reference:

Synnott, A. (1993) The Body Social. London: Routledge

Michel Foucault's ideas

Reception Studies

Context of production: when a text originated. The situation or circumstances in which a text is produced with significant factors influencing the writing or speaking of a text.

Context of culture: context inside the text. For example, the Context of culture inside An Inspector calls is 1912. The context of culture inside 1984 is the universe of a dictatorial regime.

Context of reception: the situation or circumstances in which a text is received with significant factors influencing the reading, viewing or listening of a text.The reception of a text is always affected by the own context. (Argentina, latin America, Southern Area of Greater Buenos Aires, ethnicity, gender, proffession, education, religion, etc)

An Inspector Calls (1954 version)

Blancanieves 2012

Film studies

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Digital Day

One easy way to work collaboratively  for your written assignments is to use a google docs. 

Google docs is a real-time collaboration and document authoring tool which allows many users to edit a document or ppt at the same time. You can see each other’s changes immediately, leave comments and chat online. All interactions, files and folders are contained in Google's Internet servers (the cloud), and are accessible from any device.

 

Once you have finished your assignment and it is correct, you need to have it ready for your portfolio, which will be analysed and discussed at the moment of signing in your student's card.

One way of keeping an organized portfolio is to do it online: e-portfolio with Blooger.

A blog (a contraction of the term “web log”) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. (Wikipedia)

You can also publish reflection you make or information you gather while reading "An Inspector Calls" or "1984". The idea is that this e-porftolio shows your growth as a student and teacher-to-be.

You can also publish material from other subjects as long as you write the corresponding tasks. 

In the end, this blog should become part of your CV, it should tell the world about your thoughs, ideas, and knowledge acquiered. 

The Gothic

Here you'll find the concepts worked in class with its explanations and examples.

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Assignment # 1: First World War.

After having watched the documentary WWI IN COLOUR you will hand in your first written assignament.

It consists of two parts:

Part 1: you will describe verbal content. It should have three paragraphs of 50 words each.

Part 2: you will decribe the images in two paragraphs of 50 words each. The third paragraph should explain the experience of the soldiers.

The whole assignment should be 300 word minimum.

Submission date: Wednesday, May 13th