Intellectuals

First off, Eagleton is awesome. There were several points in his piece that he brought up great theorists and I half expected him to put himself into the mix as his style almost certainly requires. The reading makes the difficult simple, and makes fun of those who make the difficult difficult.
One part of the book that piqued my interest was the shift in what is an intellectual. I guess I had seen it throughout the semester changing from theology to philosophy, philosophy to science then become more specialized as summarized from Eagleton, but it hadn't hit as to how specialized our intellectual realms have become (80-1). Where at one point all wrote and thought about one subject, now there are schools of thought in different fields.
Is this a loss in theory as Eagleton has mentioned? Well, it certainly creates more jargon to sift through, but we do have dictionaries to help us with that. It also shows a decline in scholarship on specific subjects. But, overall it creates a wider range of studies that are focused on our culture - the one unifying concept to all specialized theories.
Because of this shift, we are able to allow ourselves to think and allow our thoughts to be, as Brecht says, "'a real sensuous pleasure"' (87). Theory, according to Eagleton, is meant to "illuminate" as well as "be illuminating;" therefore let us be specialized and illumine our culture (87).

Centers are for Sissies

The post-structuralism of gay/lesbian theory had never crossed my mind until I read the Barry this week and the attempt of these theorists to "desexualize" and show that opposites don't necessarially attract (137).
This movement does need to be asexual for it to have any weight. This is why the news showing hand holding, flamboyant homosexuals are not helping this movement at all. I mean, as we all know, the media is corrupted by right wingers who want nothing to do with queer theory or the sub-culture at all so the pictures are there for that purpose only. This school of theory (which this is my first introduction to) will not have much success at all until the movement is truly desexualized and reverted back to the original form of analyzing female relationships with females and male relationships with males.
Will we be able to stay scholarly this week in our class discussion with such a hot topic of theory?

...dum dum dummmmmm.

I Read Dead People

Ok, my brain is so far overloaded with theory and book reviews that I have no clue which way is up. This will be my frazzled brain’s attempt at intelligently discussing a concept from this week’s reading.
Greenblatt’s piece begins with possibly the best line yet this semester. He goes further to discuss in brief modes of exchange in dealing with language. He discusses appropriation, purchase, and symbolic acquisition. I am going to discuss appropriation in this blog as his example is amazing.
Greenblatt describes appropriation as having “little or no payment” in acquiring, and gives the example of language. We all appropriate a language and some continue to appropriate, while others seemingly stop. Our words and rhetoric are free and “there for the taking” as Greenblatt describes.
I don’t see language as an appropriation because one does give back to the language community. Whether we realize it or not, our language that we have acquired will be given back in the long run. So, though the price is not material, our language is not merely there for the taking – it comes with a great price – the furthering, bettering, and teaching of the words in your power.