A Critical and Cultural Theory Reader

A Critical and Cultural Theory Reader

A Critical and Cultural Theory Reader. 2nd Edition. Edited by Antony Easthope and Kate McGowan. Open University Press, 2004. 287 lk

See on lugemik, mis sisaldab peaaegu kõiki tuntud nimesid kellega esimesel semestril tutvusin ja ka nimesid, kellega edaspidi pean tutvuma. Erinevalt köitest Culture Theory, mis sisaldas sekundaartekste, sisaldab käesolev primaartekste ehk autorite endi tekstidest mõistlike pikkustega katkendeid, mis annavad aimu nende huviorbiidist ja kirjastiilist. Raamat on jagatud sektsioonideks, millest esimene on kohe semioloogia (Saussure, Barthes, Macherey, Eco, MacCabe). Teine osa on ideoloogia (Marx, Engels, Althusser, Beauvoir, Said, Bhabha, Žižek), kolmas subjektiivsus (Freud, Lacan, Fanon, Kristeva, Foucault), neljas lühike ja ainult Derridat sisaldav "Difference", viies sugu ja rass (Gixous, Mulvey, Mercer, Rajan, Butler) ja viimaks postmodernism (Lyotard, Baudrillard). Erinevad autoris on panustanud ka erinevatesse diskursustesse, aga ma ei näinud mõtet Barthesi või Derrida nime korrutada.
Raamatut on raske lugeda. Iga peatükk on erinevalt autorilt, erinevast ajastust ja erineva käsitlusega erinevast teemast, mis teeb sellest väga mõru kompoti, mida korraga läbi lugeda on raske - väga palju läheb lugedes kaduma ja keerulisemad artiklid jäävad arusaamatuks. Siiski oli nii mõnigi lõik huvitav, lausa pinevalt põnev. Esimest korda lugesin Saussure mõtteid ehk väljavõtet üldlingvistika kursusest. Foucaulti tekstides tajusin jälle seda Foucaultilikku sõnavara (nüüdseks olen juba rohkem harjunud sellega). Ja kõige rohkem meeldis postmodernismi osa: Baudrillard simulaakrumitest; Lyotard inimese lõpust; Derrida surmast jne. Kokkuvõttes selline lugemik, mida paari aasta pärast mõistaksin palju paremini, aga vähemasti olen nüüd alguse teinud (seda mõtet hellitan siin lugemisblogis tihti).

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Real understanding of any scientific subject must include some knowledge of its historical growth; we cannot comprehend and accept modern concepts and theories without knowing something of their origins - of how we have got where we are. Neglect of this maxim can lead to that unfortunate state of mind which regard the science of the day as finality. (Cherry 1977: 32)

We should temper reading by writing, and reciprocally, so that the written composition gives body (corpus) to what has been obtained by reading. Reading collects orationes logoi (discourses, elements of discourse); we must make a corpus of them. (Foucault 2005: 359)

The existence of the inner book, along with unreading or forgetting, is what makes the way we discuss books so discontinuous and heterogeneous. What we take to be the books we have read is in fact an anomalous accumulation of fragments of texts, reworked by our imagination and unrelated to the books of others, even if these books are materially identical to ones we have held in our hands. (Bayard 2007: 85-86)

The post-Cubist function of quotations in collages emerges with particular clarity in the early notes of Eisenstein, who wrote in 1928 that "an entire treatise can be made by composition of quotations." In his later works, in which compositions of quotations are often used, he himself explains them (in the spirit of the "linear style" of quotations) by a desire for "minimal distortion." (Ivanov 1976b: 323)

A person may be interested in scientific statements for their own sake (interested in collecting them as a person may be interested in collecting butterflies); a person may have knowledge and the increase of knowledge as his goal. (Morris 1949: 128)

In non-literate society, of course, there are usually some individuals whose interests lead them to collect, analyse and interpret the cultural tradition in a personal way [but] it is still evident that the literate individual has in practice so large a field of personal selection from the total cultural repertoire that the odds are strongly against his experiencing the cultural tradition as any sort of patterned whole. (Goody & Watt 1963: 335)

A different language is too often taken for stammering, a nonconformist virtuosity is misinterpreted as formlessness, exquisite variability is confused with cruelty, intentional enigmatic indefiniteness is deplored as the disappointing obscurity or fragmentariness of a mere neglected sketch, and in the stupendous interplay of symmetry and disequilibrium onesided critics are prone to overlook the harmony and to observe nothing but chaos. (Jakobson 1981[1967b]: 498)

I am convinced that there must still be a number of other concepts or models of potentially systemic generality scattered in some (un)fairly unknown works of disappeared or living researchers. We should dive for them in the deeps of literature. (François 1999: 217)

The selections included are of such a nature that readers who feel that the study of the history of systematic social theory is a waste of time will have occasion to ponder how thoroughly our predecessors have plagiarized many of our best ideas. (Meyer 1956: 166)

This, we may conceive, would be no small Advantage to the Knowledge of a thinking Man, if all his past Thoughts and Reasonings could be always present to him. (Locke 1741a: 115)

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