Literary theories have existed as long as literature has, “Literary Theory,” with the capital letters, points to sets of ideas that have greatly influenced the way we have thought about, taught, and produced scholarship on literature within colleges and universities in the past thirty to forty years. “Literary Theory’ is a big unbrealla term that covers a variety of approaches to texts (‘literary’ or not); if these approaches have anything in common, it is that all of them examine factors that shape how a text is written and how we are able to read it. ‘Literary Theory’ comes from all kinds of disciplines, including linguistics, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, history, economics, gender studies, and political science; much of what falls under the heading ‘Literary Theory,’ as you’ll see, has little to do directly with what we think of as literature. (p. 4-5).
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A special note for those of you who have been directed to this page from →The Natural Law Primer. After pondering/studying the ideas presented in some of these theories, I would like to direct your attention to the study group’s philosophy page and a hotlink off of that page titled ==> Conflicting Paradigms: Traditional Logic vs. Contemporary Logic. The page contains links to excerpts taken from Dr. R.C. Sproul’s Classical Christian Apologetics which delve into the three logical principles of classical thought: The Law of Non-Contradiction, The Law of Causality, and The Basic Reliability of Sense Perception. You will also find an essay accessible from another link on that page titled, The Two Logics authored by Dr. Peter Kreeft. You may note Dr. Kreeft is another Christian thinker who has a page devoted to him, and whose work is displayed on the site.
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We contend that these additional resources, when seriously considered, have the philosophical/theoretical resources and potential–if understood correctly–to successfully address, and defeat, all of the issues that these differing systems, and “non-systems,” of thought attempt to bring forward and, successfully, argue. For a more robust statement of our position-with regard to the sorts of modern & post-modern theories listed below; please reference the statement in the section just beneath the listing of theories near the bottom of this page.
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Click on any one of the single hot-links–among the constellation of theories below–and you will be taken to what is essentially a summary of whatever theory you may choose–among the assortment of theories which have been generated and given the title of literary criticism in recent history.
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However, to find a more solid terrain for this kind of study you will want to look at our Literary Criticism page which will point you to some of the works Lewis produced in his activity as a literary theorist and critic. You can find out more about his work in this genera; in addition and for those of you who would like to consider a more traditional approach to the field of hermeneutics and textual analysis, please visit our How To Read a Book/How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth page.
And finally, in order to understand the importance Lewis attributed to the art of reading good books you will want to peruse our C.S. Lewis On The Reading of Old Books page.
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I’ve provided a hot link titled Fear and Trembling listed among the modern and post-modern studies below. The author of this work, which was the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard was considered by almost everyone to be a kind of great-grandfather of Existentialist thought–though he was a Christian theist; what further developed however, were philosophies in the mode of existentialist thought, as they proliferated the academic/intellectual landscape, which were in turn taken on (following Fredrik Nietzsche’s atheistic [God is Dead] turn) by those who were later to develop the kinds and assortment of theories you see listed below.
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Claude Levi-Strauss “The Structural Study of Myth” and Other Structuralist Ideas
Structuralism/Post-Structuralism
Derrida and Deconstruction: “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences”
Psychoanalysis and Sigmund Freud
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→ How to Make a Critical Theory . . .
. . . Out of Anything
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Ø → The Cult Dynamics of Wokeness
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Roland Barthes and The Death of the Author
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↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑
(The Full Essay)
Click → Gayle Rubin & The Origins of Queer Theory← (3 episodes)
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Caution: By light of most of our visitor’s standards and sensibilities the following podcast hot linked below contains what most-if not all of you-will consider explicit, offensive and vulgar language. However, the true nature of these theories needs to be appreciated by anyone who is concerned about the directions that our culture has, and is taking, along with the attendant danger these theories have the potential to impose on all of us. We therefore, and regrettably, feel it as imperative to make it available for your consideration. If any of you think, or feel, this is out of order, then you really need to scroll down this page and listen to “Groomer Schools 1: The Long Cultural Marxist History of Sex Education, ” podcast to consider with what your children, your kids, are having to deal.
Queer Theory and “Cripping Incest Discourses
→ Related concepts & Ideas given during the course of the lecture hot linked above.
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Feminist Theory/”The Laugh of the Medusa”–Helene Cixou
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FYI
You can watch the, → What Is A Woman ← documentary by Matt Walsh on The Daily Wire, by subscribing to the “Insider” membership; you can find more details about the same → here. Other than that, you can also stream the documentary for free on Twitter. However, you don’t have the option of buying or renting the movie on any of the digital platforms.
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The Dialectical Process
The idea of the dialectic is a very confusing concept with many moving parts. I have therefore embedded two presentations below, the first by RC Sproul and a second by Dr. James Lindsay the former being shorter while the later being a bit longer. I suggest that you first expose your thinking to both, at which point you will undoubtably walk away bewildered and confused. You need to realize that you are not alone. After a short period passes you will want to come back to them after you’ve allowed a period of time for them to unconsciously incubate, if you will. This concept has been at the heart of leftist thought since Jean-Jacus Rousseau elaborated his philosophy in 1764. This idea plays a major role in Kimberly Crenshaw’s idea of Intersectionality as well–as elaborated in a of set of podcasts you can find a little further down this page (see the section on MAPPING THE MARGINS). Therefore, do not be discouraged on your first run at these ideas, it requires exposure to dialectical thinking and thought. Therefore, I suggest that you allow yourself a brief period of time so you can come back at them. That’s just the way one has to go about apprehending these kinds of ideas.
8
→ Gnosticism and the Technologies of Our World ←
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See Also: → Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
In order to understand the broader and more comprehensive placement of this idea, you will want to consider this lecture titled → The Dialectical Faith of Leftism.
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Louis Althusser’s “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”
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⊂ ♦ ♦ → Christopher.Rufo.com ♦ ♦ ←⊃
The C.S. Lewis Group’s → Christopher Rufo Page
Ò
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↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
→ The Calamity of Scientific Gnosticism
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Mark Steyn explores what Daffy Duck used to call “pronoun trouble”. His guest is Jordan Peterson, a clinical psychologist at the University of Toronto whose entire career has been imperiled by his opposition to the new “non-binary” gender pronouns – such as “zhe”. Transgender activists and other politically correct enforcers have determined to destroy him. In this full-length interview, Steyn and Professor Peterson discuss the Orwellian perversion of language and the totalitarian impulses of social engineering. And Mark asks the big question: Is the jig up for western civilization?
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Even though Mr. Chapman’s video above gives an excellent historicalanalysis along with many salient facts; a must see follow through Addendum to The Mark Steyn Jordan Peterson interview, seems to me, to be more spot on concerning the sort of more benevolent motivations Mr. Ryan presupposes in his presentation above. See . . .
Political Correctness & Postmodernism
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For a more elegantly elaborated idea on what may be found behind the motivations that the woke possess (or more accurately phrased, “are possessed by”) see . . .
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As university administrators assist students in protesting the event, Matt Walsh is LIVE at the University of Wisconsin-Superior to tackle the Left’s war on reality, examine why they want to redefine America’s core Institutions, and share how you can stop their radicalism before it’s too late . . .
. . . Too Late
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Herbert Marcuse’s
(4 Episodes)
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The Forging of the Woke One Ring:
Kimberlé Crenshaw’s
→ “Mapping the Margins” (2 Episodes)
Click Here for → The Full Essay
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https://youtu.be/OVZPYQS1dFA
→ THE HOAX PAPERS ←
(also known as THE GRIEVANCE STUDIES AFFAIR)
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See Also:The Coddling of the American Mind
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Through brand names like “comprehensive sex education” and one of its parent programs, “Social-Emotional Learning (SEL),” our government schools have been turned into Groomer Schools, and parents are beginning to notice. What many will not understand, however, is that this isn’t just a fluke of our weird and increasingly degenerate times. It is, in fact, a long-purposed Marxist project reaching back into the early 20th century. In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, join James Lindsay as he explains the long history of the sexual grooming that has come into our schools through Critical Gender Theory and Queer Theory as they have crept into educational programs. If you want an explanation for how sexually explicit materials, gender-bending ideology, pornography, and strippers have made their way into our government schools, including for young children, this is a must-hear.
→ A SUGGESTION
For those of you who would like to come to a more full understanding of the intellectual landscape that we find ourselves in as well as gaining access to the remaining 3 podcast, in the 4 part Groomer School series, we would encourage you to visit our → Andrew Breitbart page. It contains a PDF download titled Breakthrough, a chapter from his book Righteous Indignation in which he describes his experiences when confronted with the Critical Theory of The Frankfurt School as an undergraduate at Tulane University.
→ A Public Response ←
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The Ongoing Fiasco
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Exclusive: State Attorney General Launches
Investigation into Texas Children’s Hospital
↓ ↓ ↓
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A Must See Epoch Times Movie
! → The Gender Transformation Movie ← !
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A story that seems to be running in a parallel track with that of our own is between the Canadian and American governments, which seems to bee taking a more sinister turn leaving us with the question, where does it go from here?
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The YouTube above was placed on the site before the transgender killer ambushed and killed the children in Nashville Tennessee, unfortunately we can now see where it went from there.
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For those of you who have listened to and understand what was explained in Groomer Schools 1, during the course of which Dr. Lindsay made an observation that can only be understood in the context of . . .
→ Groomer Schools 4: Drag Queen Story Hour
: hot linked above for your convenience. Likewise, here’s a hot link for → a number of other topics and concepts that are discussed in the Groomer Schools1, episode which I recommend you consider before proceeding further.
Tucker Carlson → Continued ⇐
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⊕ → The Nature of Pseudo-Reality ← ⊕
Click → Abuse of Language–Abuse of Power ← Click
⇒ Psychopathy and The Dark Triad ⇐
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→ A Message to the Christian Churches
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This is dedicated to and for the rider (Sunday–07\30\23). Thank you for your thoughtfulness and consideration.
Tulsi Gabbard speaks concerning The Ideas of God ← and The Right to Religious Freedom as viewed from within the Democratic Party.
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For an extended view to where this kind of twisted thinking could eventually lead us–moreover, in light of the kinds of pseudo-realities we currently see developing in our culture, enlightening comparisons can be made between what we see in many contemporary events, to the kind of developments that eventually led to the rise of Nazism during the last century and thus seems to be a natural extension of what was discussed in the preceding You Tube above.
→ Nietzsche and the Nazis becomes very germane here.
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https://youtu.be/oWEB31FMsn
For a more in depth perspective click on → Video Watch Extended for more information and analysis on this issue.
→ Medical Lysenkosim and Woke Medical Practice
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In order to come to a better understanding of just where these ideas came from you may want to watch a more exhaustive analysis of just how we have come to live on the end point of a 250 year long spear, the very tip of which was very long in the making.
→ See The Democrat’s Hydra below ←
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⇒ → A Battle for the American Mind ← ⇐
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“Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the LORD ISAIAH 1:18
→ An Introduction To Classical Liberalism ←
🇺🇸 🇬🇧
https://youtu.be/W5OPCtf-EhIN
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To follow the lead of one of our site philosophers, Edward Feser, we would suggest that the theories listed above have the same kind of theoretical shortcomings as do all thinkers, and theorists, have whose orientation is found in a godless way of thinking about the natural world. I’ve therefore adapted a statement from his book, ==> The Last Superstition, as he addresses the new atheists, with the thought of the thinkers and theories listed above.
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“I propose interpreting naturalism and secularism as religious phenomena. Or rather, if secularism is not precisely a religion, it is what we might call a counter-religion. It has its countersaints (Darwin, Clarence Darrow, Carl Sagan); its “Old Testament” counter-prophets, stern and forbidding, brimming with apocalyptic doom or at least pessimism (Marx, Nietzsche, Freud); and its kinder and gentler “New Testament” counter-apostles, hopeful for a realization of the Kingdom of Godlessness on earth via “progressive” educational policy and other schemes of social uplift (Dennett, Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens – and into the bargain, each member of this foursome even has his own Gospel). It affords a sense of identity and meaning to those beholden to it, a metaphysics to interpret the world by and a value system to live by, even if all of this is little more than a negation of the sort of metaphysics and morality associated with religion: that is to say, a counter-metaphysics, a counter-morality. And yet it is also a belief system that is, as I have said, deeply irrational and immoral, indeed the very negation of reason and morality. Thus do I call it the last superstition: not merely “last” in the sense of being the superstition that remains when all the others have purportedly been abolished by it, but also “last” in the sense of being the ultimate superstition, “the mother of all superstitions.”
Dr. Edward Feser, The Last Superstition, Location 505/520 in the Digital Version.
For those who have questions and doubt whether Dr. Feser’s line of reason on this issue holds water, we would invite you to ponder the thought of Ray Comfort’s ==> The Atheist Delusion.
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==> An Amazon Link <==
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—– > ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ <—–
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