Week+8+Discussion+Questions

Culture

2. Greenblatt writes, “Great writers are precisely masters of these codes [those governing human mobility and constraint], specialists in cultural exchange. The works they create are structures for the accumulation, transformation, representation, and communication of social energies and practices” (230). Therefore it is valuable to understand the societal concerns of the author, the historical times presented in work, and additional cultural elements detailed in text before we can develop a clear interpretation. Why then, is it also imperative that we question our own assumptions and methods when reading a text? Are our own societal concerns, historical times, and additional cultural elements any more or less important than those of the author in order to clearly understand a text?

4. If we look at a work as a social production, as cultural poetics critics do, and focus on three areas, the life of the author, the social rules and structures in a text, and the work’s historical situation, can we give privilege to any one of these three or are they all of equal importance? Would our understanding of a text fail if one area is ignored? Ideology

2. Kavanagh points out, and it should surprise no one, that political interest is waning in this country. Even in light of the recent Occupy Wall Street movement, many American seem uninterested. What does our seemingly disinterest say about American culture? What do you think as allowed our ideology in this area to become so complacent? Is there a way to change our ideology without a revolution? 