Cultural Studies

Question:
Regarding the movie "Invictus" (2009), create a thesis statement based on Cultural Studies' approach complementing with another literary approach at the same time, in order to validate your thesis.
+++We encourage you to go beyond the Marxist theory to support your thesis (that's the easiest way to do so).

Criteria:
The thesis must be acquainted with the context of the movie; there must exist a distinction of at least one of the problematics present on the story and also, a brief reflexion on the social struggle between the two classes.

Post-structuralism

Question: Having in mind the plot of "The Hunger Games", write a thesis statement that destroys the unity of the text. For this, apply the theory of deconstructivism and provide examples where the author contradicts herself.


Criteria: The thesis statement should focus in a specific part of the text/movie and the examples could show any of the three stages of deconstruction, such as verbal, textual or linguistic.

Marxist Criticism

Read the following adaptation from the song "The Magnificent Seven" by The Clash and do a close reading of it from a Marxist perspective. Identify the ideology. What is the author criticizing? (support with quotes)

                                           

 ...

Ring! Ring! It's 7:00 A.M.!

Move y'self to go again

Cold water in the face

Brings you back to this awful place

Knuckle merchants and you bankers, too

Must get up an' learn those rules

Weather man and the crazy chief

One says sun and one says sleet

A.M., the F.M. the P.M. too

Churning out that boogaloo

Gets you up and gets you out

But how long can you keep it up?

Gimme Honda, Gimme Sony

So cheap and real phony

Hong Kong dollars and Indian cents

English pounds and Eskimo pence

You lot! What?

Don't stop! Give it all you got!

...

Working for a rise, better my station

Take my baby to sophistication

She's seen the ads, she thinks it's nice

Better work hard - I seen the price

Never mind that it's time for the bus

We got to work - an' you're one of us

...

It's our profit, it's his loss

But anyway lunch bells ring

Take one hour and do your thanng!

Cheeesboiger!

What do we have for entertainment?

Cops kickin' Gypsies on the pavement

Now the news - snap to attention!

The lunar landing of the dentist convention

Italian mobster shoots a lobster

Seafood restaurant gets out of hand

A car in the fridge

Or a fridge in the car?

Like cowboys do - in T.V. land

…

So get back to work an' sweat some more

The sun will sink an' we'll get out the door

It's no good for man to work in cages

Hits the town, he drinks his wages

You're frettin', you're sweatin'

But did you notice you ain't gettin'?

Don't you ever stop long enough to start?

To take your car outta that gear

...

Karlo Marx and Fredrich Engels

Came to the checkout at the 7-11

Marx was skint - but he had sense

Engels lent him the necessary pence

...

You can be true, you can be false

You be given the same reward

...

Adaptation, Retrieved from AZ Lyrics http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/clash/themagnificentseven.html

Psychoanalytic Criticism: Lacan

TEST QUESTION: In the text "The Horse Dealer's Daughter", how can the characters' desires be connected with Lacan's ideas on psychoanalysis? Think about Mabel's transformation after she was saved from drowning herself.

Criteria: The answer must mention the importance that the Symbolic Order has in influencing what the characters, specially Mabel after being rescued, must desire in order to get closer to the ideal connection to the mother that existed in the Imaginary Order.

Psychoanalytic Criticism

TEST QUESTION: How could the following excerpt from Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio represent the conflict between the id and the super-ego, according to Freudian psychoanalytic theory? 

On reaching home, he found the house door half open. He slipped into the room, locked the door, and threw himself on the floor, happy at his escape. But his happiness lasted only a short time, for just then he heard someone saying: 

"Cri-cri-cri!" 

"Who is calling me?" asked Pinocchio, greatly frightened.  

"I am!" 

Pinocchio turned and saw a large cricket crawling slowly up the wall.  

"Tell me, Cricket, who are you?" 

"I am the Talking Cricket and I have been living in this room for more than one hundred years." 

"Today, however, this room is mine," said the Marionette, "and if you wish to do me a favor, get out now, and don't turn around even once."  

"I refuse to leave this spot," answered the Cricket, "until I have told you a great truth." 

"Tell it, then, and hurry." 

"Woe to boys who refuse to obey their parents and run away from home! They will never be happy in this world, and when they are older they will be very sorry for it." 

"Sing on, Cricket mine, as you please. What I know is, that tomorrow, at dawn, I leave this place forever. If I stay here the same thing will happen to me which happens to all other boys and girls. They are sent to school, and whether they want to or not, they must study. As for me, let me tell you, I hate to study! It's much more fun, I think, to chase after butterflies, climb trees, and steal birds' nests." 

"Poor little silly! Don't you know that if you go on like that, you will grow into a perfect donkey and that you'll be the laughingstock of everyone?" 

"Keep still, you ugly Cricket!" cried Pinocchio. 

But the Cricket, who was a wise old philosopher, instead of being offended at Pinocchio's impudence, continued in the same tone:  

"If you do not like going to school, why don't you at least learn a trade, so that you can earn an honest living?" 

"Shall I tell you something?" asked Pinocchio, who was beginning to lose patience. "Of all the trades in the world, there is only one that really suits me." 

"And what can that be?" 

"That of eating, drinking, sleeping, playing, and wandering around from morning till night." 

CRITERIA: Students should be able to identify the cricket as a representation of the super-ego, the set of culture-dependent rules that restrict and criticize Pinocchio's hedonistic impulses, which represent the id. 

Reader Response Theory

(We recommend downloading the image to see it in full detail. )

TEST QUESTION: Considering the Affective Stylistics branch of Reader Response Theory, how would you apply the theory (phrase by phrase analysis) to the poem Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas? (Excerpt from the poem below)

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Criteria: Students should refer to the experience created by the words chosen in the poem (alliteration, for example) and how these words contribute to the central theme of the poem. Students should emphasize the idea that words create an experience and not a fixed meaning.