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Reading Lessons: An Introduction to Theory
This book introduces students to the ways literary theory can enhance their reading, and invites them to read in ways that are both personal and critically informed. "Reading Lessons" focuses on the playfulness of theory and on the compelling questions theory helps us to ask. Draws on popular examples from literature, film, advertising, television, and other media. For anyone interested in an introduction to literature and literary theory.
192 pages, Paperback
First published June 26, 1999
33 people want to read
About the author
Scott Dominic Carpenter
7 books59 followersMinnesota-born and Midwest-bred, Scott Dominic Carpenter is the author of Theory of Remainders: A Novel (named to Kirkus Reviews’ “Best Books of 2013”), This Jealous Earth: Stories, French Like Moi (2020) and its sequel Paris Lost and Found, coming out 9/24. Winner of a Mark Twain House Royal Nonesuch Prize (2018) and recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board grant, he has published in a wide variety of venues, including The Rumpus, Silk Road, Catapult, and South Dakota Review. His work has also appeared in various anthologies.
When not tearing his hair out over life in France, Carpenter teaches French literature and creative writing at Carleton College (MN).
His website is at www.sdcarpenter.com.
When not tearing his hair out over life in France, Carpenter teaches French literature and creative writing at Carleton College (MN).
His website is at www.sdcarpenter.com.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 16, 2019
i picked this book up because i was sick of seeing words like “structuralism” and the like in english classes and academic texts and not knowing what they meant. and i was pleasantly surprised with what carpenter delivered! being that so many academic texts are such headaches, i was surprised at how clear and immediate carpenter’s descriptions and introductions to these different types of theory are. i got the most out of his chapters on structuralism and poststructuralism, partly for personal reasons—i knew some about gender and cultural studies already, i found, and freudian psychoanalysis continues to bug me—but also because carpenter does a great job weaving the history and disparate ideas and thinkers related to these theories together. the last chapter is really good too
more nuanced review: 4.15. a good guidebook to have on your bookshelf, but it’s not going to change your life
more nuanced review: 4.15. a good guidebook to have on your bookshelf, but it’s not going to change your life
November 17, 2016
“Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books.” (John Ruskin, 1865)
1 – Monkeys at the Typewriter (Signs, Meaning, Communication)
p.7 – What is Literature? – What one includes among the ranks of literature is largely a matter of personal or collective preference, and that no essential, absolute distinctions can be made to separate the literary wheat from the chaff of hack writers. For this reason, critics have largely abandoned the notion of Literature with a capital L, often replacing it with the more elementary notion of text.
The term text is value neutral; it implies no qualitative judgment.
p.8 – First, we need to identify patterns. Patterns are the sign of order and organization.
p.16 – Words and Communication [sense vs. meaning] – even when words seem to make sense, how do we determine whether they are meaningful?
2 – Rounding Up Some Unusual Suspects (Formalism and Structuralism)
p.27 – Structuralism tends not to focus on the author or reader, but rather on the construction of the “message,” or text itself.
p.29 – Structures – it invites us to consider meanings without succumbing to the urge to refer to intentions.
3 – “Mssng Lttrs” (Poststructuralism and Deconstruction)
p.37 – “Nothing succeeds like excess.” (Oscar Wilde)
5 – Gender Gaps (Feminism and Gender Studies)
p.89 – Our lives are steeped n distinctions based on gender, and these distinctions have a real, demonstrable impact on the way people live and interact.
p.90 – in addition to social encouragements to conform to certain standards, we have established significant disincentives for straying across gender boundaries: nothing is more stigmatizing for a young boy than to be called a girl (or one of the slew of similar slights); some little girls may enjoy being called a tomboy, but if their unladylike behavior continues too long (notably, through puberty), they become “butch,” with sinister overtones.
In terms of sexual identity we are commonly taught that there exist two and only two possibilities. It’s the public restroom phenomenon: our society is comprised of Ladies and Gents. Transgressions are not tolerated – except by small, accompanied children, who, presumably, are not yet fully sexed.
The human mind tends to structure things by binary oppositions.
There is but limited tolerance for sexual cross-identification: when done “all for fun” (as in the recurrent “drag” theme in popular cinema – Tootsie (1982) and Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) – or as in the 1992 film, The Crying Game, it can prove profoundly troubling.
p.92 – Fairy Tales are often among the first formal narratives we encounter in our childhood, these tales can be revelatory when put to critical scrutiny. […] Women and girls generally display passive, domestic behaviors (Snow White, Cinderella), whereas the men are busy questing, risking, and otherwise testing themselves. Women who do show some initiative (Bluebird’s wife) usually end up paying dearly.
p.95 – Women’s magazines seem geared to helping women desire to become the objects of desire for the male gaze.
p.102 – Playing Roles – Most of us are dimly aware of the vast number of roles we play simultaneously: husbands, wives, lovers, brothers, sisters, parents, children, providers, team members, leaders, followers, women, men. […] our roles are, in some measure, previously scripted.
But do our chameleon characters mean we are by turns true and unfaithful to some “core” identity? Do we have, in fact, any identity that precedes our role-playing, our taking-on of masks? Or are our identities more or less constructed, formed by the parts we play?
In Playboy and Cosmopolitan point of view is regularly male, regardless of the sex of the main character. That is, women and men are both trained to view the world through the filter of male desire.
This dynamic, which grants him the power to look, while limiting the role of women in the story as the lot of being looked at, reinforces the stereotypical gender dynamic. (Laura Mulvey, in “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” described the essential quality of the traditional heroine as “to-be-looked-at-ness” – her role is to attract the gaze.)
6 – The Importance of Context (New Historicism and Cultural Studies)
p.118 – Words and images carry tremendous baggage, bearing traces of all past usages and associations.
Cultural Studies places emphasis on context.
1 – Monkeys at the Typewriter (Signs, Meaning, Communication)
p.7 – What is Literature? – What one includes among the ranks of literature is largely a matter of personal or collective preference, and that no essential, absolute distinctions can be made to separate the literary wheat from the chaff of hack writers. For this reason, critics have largely abandoned the notion of Literature with a capital L, often replacing it with the more elementary notion of text.
The term text is value neutral; it implies no qualitative judgment.
p.8 – First, we need to identify patterns. Patterns are the sign of order and organization.
p.16 – Words and Communication [sense vs. meaning] – even when words seem to make sense, how do we determine whether they are meaningful?
2 – Rounding Up Some Unusual Suspects (Formalism and Structuralism)
p.27 – Structuralism tends not to focus on the author or reader, but rather on the construction of the “message,” or text itself.
p.29 – Structures – it invites us to consider meanings without succumbing to the urge to refer to intentions.
3 – “Mssng Lttrs” (Poststructuralism and Deconstruction)
p.37 – “Nothing succeeds like excess.” (Oscar Wilde)
5 – Gender Gaps (Feminism and Gender Studies)
p.89 – Our lives are steeped n distinctions based on gender, and these distinctions have a real, demonstrable impact on the way people live and interact.
p.90 – in addition to social encouragements to conform to certain standards, we have established significant disincentives for straying across gender boundaries: nothing is more stigmatizing for a young boy than to be called a girl (or one of the slew of similar slights); some little girls may enjoy being called a tomboy, but if their unladylike behavior continues too long (notably, through puberty), they become “butch,” with sinister overtones.
In terms of sexual identity we are commonly taught that there exist two and only two possibilities. It’s the public restroom phenomenon: our society is comprised of Ladies and Gents. Transgressions are not tolerated – except by small, accompanied children, who, presumably, are not yet fully sexed.
The human mind tends to structure things by binary oppositions.
There is but limited tolerance for sexual cross-identification: when done “all for fun” (as in the recurrent “drag” theme in popular cinema – Tootsie (1982) and Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) – or as in the 1992 film, The Crying Game, it can prove profoundly troubling.
p.92 – Fairy Tales are often among the first formal narratives we encounter in our childhood, these tales can be revelatory when put to critical scrutiny. […] Women and girls generally display passive, domestic behaviors (Snow White, Cinderella), whereas the men are busy questing, risking, and otherwise testing themselves. Women who do show some initiative (Bluebird’s wife) usually end up paying dearly.
p.95 – Women’s magazines seem geared to helping women desire to become the objects of desire for the male gaze.
p.102 – Playing Roles – Most of us are dimly aware of the vast number of roles we play simultaneously: husbands, wives, lovers, brothers, sisters, parents, children, providers, team members, leaders, followers, women, men. […] our roles are, in some measure, previously scripted.
But do our chameleon characters mean we are by turns true and unfaithful to some “core” identity? Do we have, in fact, any identity that precedes our role-playing, our taking-on of masks? Or are our identities more or less constructed, formed by the parts we play?
In Playboy and Cosmopolitan point of view is regularly male, regardless of the sex of the main character. That is, women and men are both trained to view the world through the filter of male desire.
This dynamic, which grants him the power to look, while limiting the role of women in the story as the lot of being looked at, reinforces the stereotypical gender dynamic. (Laura Mulvey, in “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” described the essential quality of the traditional heroine as “to-be-looked-at-ness” – her role is to attract the gaze.)
6 – The Importance of Context (New Historicism and Cultural Studies)
p.118 – Words and images carry tremendous baggage, bearing traces of all past usages and associations.
Cultural Studies places emphasis on context.
June 26, 2012
This is a great intro to different methods in approaching literature. I had to read this book for a class, but it was quite enlightening and has really opened my mind to new ways to read literature (and watch movies and just about everything else in life). Carpenter walks his readers through using approaches such as psychoanalysis, formalism, structuralism, feminism, etc. Carpenter uses detailed explanations and tends to draw on examples that anyone can relate to and even enjoys relating to-- like famous movies or short Edgar Allen Poe stories. And he isn't a dry writer-- his personality shows in this book and I found it to be an great read-- I actually enjoyed receiving reading assignments for this book. I think I just might hang onto this book instead of selling it back with some of my other books from the semester... :)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews