Tuesday, June 22, 2010
industrial psychology practical material
HEY THESE ARE THE INDUSTRIAL PSYCHOLOGY PRACTICAL MATERIAL(MRMT).THEY ARE POSTED IN THE REVERSE ORDER KINDLY ADJUST.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
V Semester Literary theory class notes 2
11 June 2010
Continuation...
A study of anything in a university converts it into a discipline. The institution prescribes a set of writers and thinkers as the authentic thinkers and writers. There is first choice of names then the choice of texts and then the choice of methods.
After the choice of names there are only a select texts of that name that are prescribed. For example the most studied work of Marx is “capitol”, although there are many other works of his which might even be better which are not being studied.
John Donne was never a favourite until T.S. Eliot started writing. Eliot was a philosopher who wrote a powerful essay called, “metaphysical poets”. Eliot in his works put Shakespeare first then Donne then himself and then other writers. He completely ruled out Wordsworth from his choice of writers.
F.R Leavis was in the department of English at Cambridge. He drew two categories: one was the Great tradition, the other minor tradition.
All the writers that Eliot referred to were the Great traditions and others which he considered ‘small’, such as Emily Dickinson and Bronte sisters came under minor traditions.
Also since the past hundred years the English taught in India is the one prescribed by him and has yet not been challenged!
Now the problem that occurred was that the names that he considered small were actually great. For example in Shakespear’s time Christopher Marlow was equally famous.
Coming to methods, disciplines usually use the existing methods. For which they went to philosophy.
Hermeneutic is a school of philosophy which is the theory of interpretation. It was interpretation of primarily The Bible. They tried to read and understand what God said and what God meant when he said those words.
So the theory suggested that Author, like God, has produced something and, to put it in Mr. Pinto’s words, “you waste your lifetime trying to understand what he meant.”
This was also an effort of secularizing the method.
So the question asked constantly is, “What did the author perhaps mean when he wrote?”
And examinations are exactly a test of whether the screwing in of this question has been successful or not. It is a training to think in a particular way and to stop any creativity or thought process.
The next question is,
“How do I know what the author meant?”
Therefore to know what he/she really meant, their biographies were studied.
Was Shakespeare gay?
Start reading about his life
Start reading the text more closely
Make connections!
Then came the formalist approach. Form referring to and paying more attention to structure and discouraging history. Seeking an interpretation which has all its evidences in the text itself.
This was introduced by I.A. Richards who was the first H.O.D. of English in Cambridge at the age of 24 years!
He gave the same poem to two different classes say A and B. But with different names. To class A he gave the poem saying it is by someone called John, and to class B he gave the same poem informing that its by someone called Joan.
Now class A had very positive views of the poems appreciating its style and structure and so on. Whereas class B considered the poem not worthy of praise and discarded it as a poem with nothing to appreciate.
This experiment proved that the readers had connected the names to the sex of the poet and were hence biased.
Therefore Richard suggested that knowing the history of a writer can make you biased, which is why one must concentrate only on the text.
Both these methods continued to be dominant till 1950’s. After which comes “Structuralism” and changes literature and the way it is studied. Mr. Pinto is happy that it happened and promises to explain it in the next class.
Pinto, Anil. Class lecture. Introduction to Literary Theory. Christ University. Bangalore, India. 11 June 2010.
V Semester Literary theory class notes 1
07 JUNE 2010
INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY THEORY
People have been writing for many years, writings also referring to what cave men did on walls of their caves.
Anything that records human thought on a surface is writing, which also includes paintings. One example of pictorial writing is the Chinese script.
Till 19th century there was a separate category of writers. Before which there was nothing called ‘Literature’.
It was only in the 20th century that it became a discipline. And because it became a discipline it had to form boundaries and rules. It has to be defined under a category.
The need for English Literature was felt after the First World War. Primarily because of nationalist reasons, which had become a major concept. And hence things like passports and visas came into existence. Boundaries became more rigid than ever. And yet nations exist only in imagination.
People and government became strongly conscious of their identity.
This lead to the birth of Literature.
Till now throughout England only German writings and philosophies were studied in universities. Therefore it was impossible to generate hate towards Germany and a sense of nationalism and patriotism when the majority population loves and appreciates the works of German men.
For these reasons German works were displaced by English Literature. Hence Literature evolved on the death bed of philosophy. Literature borrows its tools from theology and philosophy.
However in the selection of texts there was a clear bias for the aristocracy and their writings. All the prescribed texts were from the higher class of the society. All the great ideas were a part of a marketing strategy.
Now some texts were treated as special and some not special. The one’s treated as special were prescribed and appreciated. However what made them special had no logic to it.
Pinto, Anil. Class lecture. Introduction to Literary Theory. Christ University. Bangalore, India. 07 June 2010.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
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