76 350 - History of Critical Ideas

Institution:

Carnegie Mellon University

Subject:

Description:

This course studies the long-debated, volatile problem of how readers or spectators respond to texts (in print, theatrical performances and dramaturgy, film, or painting). Aristotle, Plato, Longinus and other ancients theorized about audience response in terms of its danger or advantage to the polis; in that broad sense, the problem has always been political as well as psychological and aesthetic. Eighteenth-century thinkers formulated notions of "beauty" and "standards of taste" to measure audience response to poetry and visual art. Romantic writers developed psychologies of reading as symbolic interpretations. The rise of mass culture links the politics of reading or viewing to questions of consumption and the market of cultural goods. Guided by recent critical theory as well as classic questions, we will ask how the reading or viewing subject is "constructed" by the printed or filmic text; how institutions like schools control the process of interpretation; how individual readers "appropriate" texts for themselves against their authors' intentions. We will also follow the lead of historians by asking how individual readers used books or other media to refashion their lives. What people do with texts, and what texts to do people, will be the threads we trace through readings in literary criticism and theory, film and theater criticism, history of reading, and the sociology of culture. There will be two film screenings, two short papers, and one longer paper required of all students. Participation and regular attendance is expected.

Credits:

9.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.cmu.edu/

Phone Number:

(412) 268-2000

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

The Course Profile information is provided and updated by third parties including the respective institutions. While the institutions are able to update their information at any time, the information is not independently validated, and no party associated with this website can accept responsibility for its accuracy.