Introduction to Theory 9/10/07

Hello, my name is Brett Scott and I am a second semester senior. I am taking this course in theory and the academy in order to fulfill one of the two 3000 level course requirements that are needed in order to graduate from Emmanuel College with a degree in English and in my case a concentration in communications. My goal for this blog is to give the reader a better idea of how I feel about different types of theory and to allow for meaningful discourse among those who read this blog. My hope is that those who read this blog find it insightful and a place where they can come to see how I feel about literary theory and to exchange comments and beliefs on literary theory.
I would like to take some time to discuss my preliminary thoughts on literary and artistic theory so that we can have a good starting point to begin the semester. First of all I feel that it is important to state that I believe that literary theory is necessary but, not always meaningful or insightful in the study and/or critique of literature and the arts. I feel that well all forms or literary theory provide a good starting point for discourse, that some genres of literary theory do not provide the academic insight necessary to accurately and effectively critique literary theory in a way so that the academic community as a whole can understand where the writer is coming from. The best example that I can think of to explain this is that I do not believe that literary theorists and philosophers such as Michel Foucault would understand the viewpoints of someone such as Neil Postman in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death. I believe that in this instance it is primarily due to the fact that Foucault and Postman were not writing within the same time period and therefore would not understand the culture viewpoints that the other would be observing and writing in the context of. I feel that literary theory provides a sound foundation for the study of literary criticism but does not always provide a good foundation for the study of literature in general.
I believe that in order to accurately study literature one must understand all aspects of how and why literature is created and the different understandings of literature. One must understand that there are many different ways to interpret literature. I personally to do not care for classical literature such as Shakespeare or Hemmingway, I personally enjoy a journalistic style and non fiction genre of writing. This is just my personal preference and while others may agree or disagree with me as they see fit it does not make me any more or less of a reader or make my viewpoints any more or less valid because of my stylistic preferences. I believe that personal viewpoints and understanding of them is absolutely vital to the study to theory and literature.
This is a quick introduction to me and just a brief talk about some of my viewpoints on theory. I look forward to discussing it further with people throughout the semester and I will enjoy talking about this at length in this course.
Thank you,
Brett Scott