Rebecca Rabinowitz (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} diceytillerman) wrote,@ 2008-03-07 23:48:00 |
|
a bit of rambling
I was in graduate school when I formally found out about deconstruction. This is odd, because I was an English major in college and we USED deconstruction, but somehow I fell through the crack of knowing its name.
When I found queer theory, at the end of a Criticism class in grad school, I could see that it was a descendent of not just Feminism and Gay & Lesbian Theory but also of deconstruction. (Side note: clearly I have doubts about when to capitalize schools of theory. Please advise.) Those grandparents of queer theory, so to speak, are obvious. But what’s been slowly dawning on me over a number of years, so slowly I barely noticed, is that archetypal theory, too, is queer theory’s ancestor.
Ah, archetypal theory. How I love it. It’s what creates those delicious layers of depth in books that refer to other books – older books – and old stories. All the fairy tale retellings, and all the bible story retellings, lend a reader archetypal lenses whether she knows it or not. And once you have those archetypal lenses (again, whether you know it or not), you can see archetypal meanings all over the place. It’s awesome.
But archetypal theory is not just about seeing links with the bible and Grimm’s tales and Greek/Roman myths and Shakespeare. It’s not just about connecting a modern book with old books; it’s also a structure of thinking, and the structure is based on the idea of archetypes. Archetypes - or icons. And thinking about humanity in terms of icons – if the icon is “girl” or “boy,” for example – leads right to queer theory. Judith Butler and others have done all kinds of queerness work arguing that the ICONIC boy or girl can not really exist – that it’s only an idea in our head, and that no living human person can map neatly onto that icon. The identity of “boy” and of “girl” are messy BOTH THEORETICALLY AND IN REAL LIFE – and that’s the stuff queer theory is made of.
It’s true that traditional archetypal theory leans upon the notion of icons, while queer theory messes with any icon in its path. But the schools are thus related, and I think they need each other. Or maybe what I mean is, I need both of them. *grin*
So, archetypal theory, I thank you. I knew I loved you all along, but I didn’t realize until recently that you were another key to the birth of queer theory. Props to you.
I was in graduate school when I formally found out about deconstruction. This is odd, because I was an English major in college and we USED deconstruction, but somehow I fell through the crack of knowing its name.
When I found queer theory, at the end of a Criticism class in grad school, I could see that it was a descendent of not just Feminism and Gay & Lesbian Theory but also of deconstruction. (Side note: clearly I have doubts about when to capitalize schools of theory. Please advise.) Those grandparents of queer theory, so to speak, are obvious. But what’s been slowly dawning on me over a number of years, so slowly I barely noticed, is that archetypal theory, too, is queer theory’s ancestor.
Ah, archetypal theory. How I love it. It’s what creates those delicious layers of depth in books that refer to other books – older books – and old stories. All the fairy tale retellings, and all the bible story retellings, lend a reader archetypal lenses whether she knows it or not. And once you have those archetypal lenses (again, whether you know it or not), you can see archetypal meanings all over the place. It’s awesome.
But archetypal theory is not just about seeing links with the bible and Grimm’s tales and Greek/Roman myths and Shakespeare. It’s not just about connecting a modern book with old books; it’s also a structure of thinking, and the structure is based on the idea of archetypes. Archetypes - or icons. And thinking about humanity in terms of icons – if the icon is “girl” or “boy,” for example – leads right to queer theory. Judith Butler and others have done all kinds of queerness work arguing that the ICONIC boy or girl can not really exist – that it’s only an idea in our head, and that no living human person can map neatly onto that icon. The identity of “boy” and of “girl” are messy BOTH THEORETICALLY AND IN REAL LIFE – and that’s the stuff queer theory is made of.
It’s true that traditional archetypal theory leans upon the notion of icons, while queer theory messes with any icon in its path. But the schools are thus related, and I think they need each other. Or maybe what I mean is, I need both of them. *grin*
So, archetypal theory, I thank you. I knew I loved you all along, but I didn’t realize until recently that you were another key to the birth of queer theory. Props to you.
