Presented @ Rani Anna College

1. THEORY
Reading Beyond Lines

2. Theory
What? 1
How? 3 Why? 2

3. WHAT IS THEORY?
• “THEORY” with capital ‘T’
• Guideline to read Literature/Film/Any Message
•

4. INTRINSIC VS. EXTRINSIC THEORIES
TEXT
WORLD
READER
Language
WRITER

5. CHARACTERISTICS OF THEORY
• Distorts Meaning
• Theory Speculates
• Breaks the Binary/Tradition/Rules
• Middle Ground
• Suspects/ Interrogates so-called Truth
• Against Super Structures
• Interdisciplinary
• Deconstructed Meaning/Fixed
• Makes You a Better Critic

6. INTRINSIC THEORIES (OBJECTIVE)
• Russian Formalism
• New Criticism
• Structuralism
• Post-Structuralism (Deconstruction)

7. EXTRINSIC THEORIES
• Psychoanalytic Theory (Expressive)
• Reader Response Theory (Pragmatic)
• Marxism
• Feminism
• Postcolonialism
• Postmodernism/Cultural Studies
• New Historicism
• Ecocriticism

8. WHY THEORY??

10. VICTORIAN COMPROMISE

11. WORLD WAR I & II

12. MODERNISM (DADAISM)

14. POSTMODERMNISM (SHATTERED)

15. POSTMODERN CONDITION

16. HOW TO DO THINGS WITH THEORY
• SYMPATHETIC TOWARDS SUBALTERNS
• RESEARCH METHOD
• RELEVANCE OF THEORY IN CONTEMPORARY LITERARY
STUDIES
• ANTI-AUTHORITY THEORIES ‘CARNIVALESQUE’
• EXAMPLES OF CROW AND FOX

17. DEATH OF THEORY
• SPATIALITY
• POSTHUMANITY
• CULTURAL THEORY