5. +
When the semester
began, despite having been
warned that theory is something
you do and not a set of facts you
can know, I still foresaw the work
ahead of me as a giant
memorization and
comprehension challenge.
6. +
I thought if I studied hard, read
carefully, wrote
thoughtfully, engaged in
discussion with my peers and
dedicated plenty of time and
energy to learning the theories
we studied, I would eventually
“get it”. I would know theory.
7. +
In my head, this was something
like installing a software program
on the computer of my mind: it
was going to take awhile, and I
might run into technical
difficulties, but in the end, the
information was going to be
there, complete, concrete and
ready to be put to use.
9. +
I was right about reading.
And I was right about writing.
I was right about studying, and
discussion, and time and energy…
(though I never could have foreseen quite so much time and energy…)
10. +
I was wrong about getting it.
By week four, I stopped
expecting to “get it” and started
desperately hoping my
blogs, discussion posts and
exercises were even making
sense.
(Sometimes my writing didn‟t make sense. Sometimes my writing
was terrible and seemed pointless… but every once in awhile, writing
would lead me to a breakthrough. So I kept writing about everything I
was reading.)
11. +
I had visions of knowing all the
buzzwords, the appropriate
jargon to use and the hot topics
to bring up when discussing each
theory.
12. +
But I realized that even if I knew
the lingo, and could “talk the
talk,” there was only one way for
me to “walk the walk”—by
actually doing theory.
13. +
My blog posts,
my Moodle forum posts,
my discussions with peers
and comments on their work
were preliminary;
preparatory exercises to exorcise
the clutter from my brain so I could
cull out what was really significant
and just write.
(Like Dr. Jerz tells me to do. Stop overthinking. Stop worrying. Just write.)
That‟s my new mantra.
Stop overthinking. Just write.
14. +
For my first exercise in criticism, I
tried to make sure I sounded like
I knew what I was doing, even
though I felt like I was writing in a
foreign language.
(Not just any foreign language. A dead language. Like Sanskrit. Or
Latin. Or Old English. Or Klingon…. Oh, wait…..)
I wrote things like:
“Hamlet uses his play to simulate the conditions under which his
father‟s murder took place, but does not consider that the actions
and reactions of those who witness the play will cause it to cease
being a simulation and to become reality itself—he believes he is
staging what is not reality, but in fact he is constructing reality
through his simulation, thus defying and disturbing order and
rationality—as Baudrillard says, „order opts for the real‟ (Baudrillard
373). “
(Yes, that‟s all one sentence...)
15. +
My first attempts at doing theory
were full of ridiculously long
sentences, fancy words (the kind
that earn you big points in
Scrabble) and vague, imprecise
connections.
(I often fall prey to the idea that if I can make it seem like I know what
I‟m supposed to be doing, I‟ll look competent. Once in awhile, it
works. Usually, not so much.)
By the way, did you know that the longest word currently in use in the English language is
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis?
It‟s a lung condition. I swear I‟m not making it up.
(But you can‟t actually make that word in Scrabble…)
16. +
A few weeks later, as I began to work on my
next formal exercise, I had a meeting with Dr.
Jerz. I had spent about twenty hours
formulating the position I wanted to take on
Arundhati Roy‟s The God of Small Things and
writing my essay. Dr. Jerz didn‟t want to read
my paper; he wanted me to talk about my
paper. As usual, when put on the spot, I
flaked and couldn‟t articulate my thoughts. Dr.
Jerz gave me lots of advice that would have
been helpful before I started writing.
(I left. And cried. Because I had finally thought I was getting it right until the meeting, after
which I was sure I was getting it all wrong. For the rest of the semester, I found it
impossible to motivate myself to write anything prior to a meeting with Dr. Jerz for fear I
would have to throw it away and start over. Don‟t get me wrong—Dr. Jerz is helpful and
encouraging. But I‟m really good at psyching myself out.)
17. +
Once I stopped panicking and got down to
business with my psychoanalytic
perspective on The God of Small Things, I
noticed a difference in my writing.
I wrote things like:
“The physical encounter between Rahel and Estha is more than an incestuous expression
of love—it is an inevitable manifestation of long-repressed memories and emotions
stemming from childhood trauma. The traumatic sequence that occurred twenty-three
years earlier, when the twins were eight years old, provoked such definitive repressive
mental action in both siblings that neither was able to cope alone. Reunited for the first
time since childhood, the twins symbolize the re-establishment of their unified identity with
physical consummation. Their pairing represents quiet retribution for all the injustices
committed against both of them as children—drastically damaging events such as Estha
being the victim of child molestation, the twins witnessing their mother‟s abuse at the
hands of their father, and the twins witnessing Velutha‟s vicious beating by the police. All
of these instances were permitted and even quietly condoned according to societal
norms, while the act of incest, were it to be found out, would carry far heavier
repercussions than any of the far more damaging events of their childhood. Their union
symbolizes emotional freedom, taking back control and finally moving forward. “
18. +
There were coherent sentences
of a manageable length. Most of
the vocabulary was comprised of
words I would actually use in
everyday speech. My ideas were
clear and the approach had
taken was evident.
(Okay, maybe most people wouldn‟t use those words in everyday
speech, but I would. It‟s a personality quirk.)
19. +
Maybe I wasn‟t engaging with my
primary source enough, or drawing
on secondary sources to support my
conclusions. I knew I would need to
improve in those areas. But at least
I was able to demonstrate my
improving grasp of how to do theory.
20. +
Once I realized I was capable of
doing theory—and putting forth a
decent performance, at that—I got
excited. Actually, I got
super-enthusiastically overzealous.
(You have to be super-enthusiastically overzealous to try to take on
Stieg Larsson‟s entire Millennium trilogy in a couple of short
papers…)
21. +
I wrote a Marxist perspective on Stieg
Larsson‟s Millennium trilogy. I meant to
write only on the first book, The Girl With
the Dragon Tattoo. But after I got into
writing, I realized most of the material I was
trying to discuss was in the other books.
Rather than backing off and tackling a
more manageable text, I dug in my heels
and searched harder for passages that
would support my assertions.
(See, told you I learned something from the paper I wrote on The
God of Small Things!)
22. +
My first Millennium paper said things
like this:
“Lisbeth is not a commodity belonging to the capitalist domain, despite being labeled a
ward of the state. She manipulates her circumstances so that she has total control.
Though her methods of acquiring funds are not legal, once those funds are in her
accounts, they appear legal for all intents and purposes. She employs her exceptional
computer skills to procure all information necessary to perform the financial transfers
legally and openly (Dragon Tattoo 634). Then, she uses her digital research skills to
select and blackmail lawyers and financial advisors to manage her estate, which furthers
her appearance of legitimacy in the upper social echelon (Hornet’s Nest 617-22).
Additionally, most of the funds she appropriates have first been procured by the entities
from whom she has stolen them by illegal, illicit or corrupt means. Even if they could
implicate her in the theft, which would be nearly impossible considering Lisbeth‟s
unsurpassed skill in embezzlement, those entities are in no position to fight to have the
stolen money returned or to have Lisbeth prosecuted. So the funds she possesses are
good as legal, and the upper echelon mobility and power she procures with those funds
is legitimate, as though those assets were legal. Lisbeth is not owned by capitalism
because she exists outside of that socioeconomic hierarchy. “
23. +
Ambitious? Probably.
Fun to write? Definitely.
Exasperating at times? You bet.
Did I feel sure of what I was doing?
Not at all.
(But because I‟m a glutton for punishment, and sifting through 1800
pages of text for good evidence for my paper seemed like a
productive way to spend my time, I pressed onward and expanded
the Millennium paper for a second exercise. Crazy, I know.)
24. +
What I learned during Millennium, round two:
1. Sometimes even when you‟re searching as hard as you can for
evidence to support your position, all you find is evidence to the
contrary. This is discouraging, but don‟t give up! Intuition is rarely
wrong.
2. I understand Marxism better than I ever thought I would, but not
nearly well enough to be writing from a Marxist perspective.
3. Working on a text from a certain perspective cements a lot of
technical stuff in your mind, and you can NEVER, EVER go back to
enjoying that text for fun. Ever.
4. Ambition pays off. My expansion earned a perfect score.*
(*I did not discover this perfect score until I was ten pages into writing
my term paper. Had I realized I was finally “getting it right”, I probably
would have kept slogging through 1800 pages of Larsson.)
25. +
Finally, it was time to write my last
formal exercise, which I planned to
expand for my term paper. After
burning out on 1800 pages of
Larsson, I thought I‟d choose
something short, sweet and simple: a
few short stories by Raymond Carver.
(Also, I wanted an excuse to pull out the Carver collections I picked
up a few years ago but never had time to read. This way, I could
consider it research…)
26. +
I wrote my exercise. It went well.
Plain language, readable
sentences, clear ideas, plenty of
citations. I felt good about it.
Then it came time to expand it
for the term paper.
I panicked.
(I know, I know. When do I not panic?)
27. +
But after some reassurance from
Dr. Jerz that I was, once
again, overthinking it, I settled in
to write.
All the while, telling myself, “Stop overthinking. Stop worrying. Stop
panicking. Just write what you think you want to say. Just write.”
28. +
And I surprised myself.
By creating an outline of all the ideas I
wanted to include, rearranging them into
a logical progression, marking where
and how I would engage with scholarly
sources and noting what questions I
wanted each section to answer, I came
up with a plan for my term paper—a
thorough, detailed plan. A good plan.
(Now all I had to do was write.)
29. +
So I wrote. I wrote all my topic
sentences first. Then I started
filling in paragraphs and
citations. I began to see ideas
come together. I thought to
myself, I think you might finally
be starting to do theory!!
30. +
And I was.
And it wasn‟t about using fancy
words—or even about knowing
the right words. It wasn‟t about
memorization or being
conversant about hot topics. It
wasn‟t about how much I could
read or write or cram into my
head at once.
(Though reading, writing and hours of studying certainly paid off…)
31. +
It was about taking a work of
literature I had read before and
looking at it from a new
perspective—a new “lens,” as Dr.
Jerz would say. And it was about
being able to support that
perspective with evidence from
the text and communicate it in a
clear, progressive and engaging
manner.
(All along, I had been making it so much harder than it needed to be. Who knew?)
32. +
My term paper, a cultural studies
perspective on three selected
stories from Carver‟s What We
Talk About When We Talk About
Love, culminates like this:
“In these three stories, Raymond Carver creates meaning implicitly by
accentuating the differences between cultural ideologies and
representations of reality. Carver situates his characters in mundane
circumstances in the midst of working-class America, then unwraps the
tidy package of perceived normalcy to reveal the beauty, complexity and
horror of anomalies which are, perhaps, not so unusual after all. In “A
Storyteller‟s Shoptalk” Carver writes, “what creates tension in a piece of
fiction is partly the way the concrete words are linked together to make
up the visible action of the story. But it's also the things that are left
out, that are implied, the landscape just under the smooth (but
sometimes broken and unsettled) surface of things.” Carver creates the
space between ideology and reality, the gap between explicit and
implicit, but ultimately, meaning is as much a product of interpretation as
transmission. What the reader takes away from these texts depends
upon the way he understands what Carver has left unwritten. “
33. +
I‟m proud of it. And excited about it. I‟m
doing theory. And, just maybe, I like it.
