Texts

Texts shows students how to use literary theory to approach a wide range of literary, cultural, and media texts ranging from short stories, autobiographies, political speeches, websites, and lyrics to such films as The Matrix and Harry Potter, to television shows like Big Brother, and to shopping malls, celebrities, and rock videos. Each chapter combines an introduction to the text and aspects of its critical reception with an analysis using one of sixteen key approaches, including established angles like feminism, postcolonial studies, and deconstruction to newer areas such as ecocriticism, trauma theory, and ethical criticism. Texts provides students with an innovative introduction to contemporary culture.

Introduction: Starting Points; 1. Film: The Matrix and The I-pod; Approach: Cyberphilosophy; 2. Building: Shopping in Utopia; Approach: Spatial Criticism; 3. Movie Poster: Alien Nature; Approach: Ecocriticism; 4. Pop video: Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' and 'race'; Approach: 'Race' Studies; 5. Celebrity: Diana and Death; Approach: Trauma Theory; 6. TV show: Big Brother after the big Other; Approach: Performativity Theory; 7. Newspaper article: The Gulf War in Real Time and Virtual Space; Approach: Hyperreality; 8. Photograph(er): Cindy Sherman and the Masquerade; Approach: Feminism; 9. Political speech: Margaret Thatcher's Hymn at the Sermon on the Mound; Approach: Historicism; 10. Critical text: Alan Sokal's Sham Transgression; Approach: Reading Postmodernism; 11. Popular novel: The Ethics of Harry Potter; Approach: Ethical Criticism; 12. Short story: Barthelme's Balloon and the Rhizome; Approach: Deleuzian Criticism; 13. Lyric: 'Where's my Snare?': Eminem and Sylvia Plath; Approach: Psychoanalytic Criticism; 14. Autobiography: Martin Amis's Experience; Approach: Self-Life-Writing; 15. Virtual text: Amazonian Democracy; Approach: Globalization Studies; 16. World media event: It's About Time: Cultural History at the Millennium; Approach: Cultural Studies.