Literary Theory- Feminism. Help please.

[suwoo]

Right, you educated lot. I am in my first year of an english lit degree and this semester we are doing literary and cultural theory, namely Marxism, Post Colonial Theory, Psychoanalysis, Queer Theory and Feminism. We haven't had the lecture yet but I want to get ahead of the game. Plus, I have to do an informal presentation to my seminar group on this subject and I would like to be well informed with 'insider' knowledge as it were. Anyone point me in a useful direction?
Thanks.

Btw, what's the parenting stuff you know (nosy)?

Well, I don't really use it on MN, but I'm an NCT BFC, and also have made it my business to read as much as I possibly can about how children learn and grow up. I know a lot about attachment theory, how babies' brains develop, how bedsharing works, how human instincts/hormones work etc. I am just fascinated by it all, and would love to actually study it formally and I would love to do a PhD into the disempowerment of parents and how that affects the rest of their parenting life and the lives of their children and society as a whole. But my degree (BSc (hons) nursing studies) was only a 2:2 so no chance of that happening any time soon...oh yes, and I have the small issue of four at-home-full-time children to contend with too Have to just make do with reading, and reading, and reading!

And I can now see I'm so excited by it all that I have lost my ability to form sentences properly and have overused the word 'and' quite dramatically!

at the NC

Of course, now you say it, I remember your thread now that you wrote a week or so ago.

I'd love to know about how babies' brains develop, I think it's fascinating. I read the sort of pop-science stuff on it, you know the kind? It's always really interesting but it'd be amazing to be able to study it in detail.

4 kids at home?! Wow.

But how, Rhadegunde? I don't know where to start - I just have all these ideas and thoughts and for a good few years now, they've been developing and growing and being backed up etc. over and over again. I don't know what I can do with them, though, without the academic backup behind me IYSWIM. What would I write? And for whom?

I wonder if you could approach a university department, tell them you're looking to get into an MA/PhD and ask them for advice?

That's a good idea, LRD - it's a starting point at least

Haven't read the whole thread but has anyone mentioned Toril Moi - Sexual Textual Politics? I remember reading that when doing feminist lit crit. And Luce Irigaray and Kristeva.

I Queer Theory and Post-Colonial literature too.

Can you ask for a reading list in advance if you want to get ahead?

Thank you Rhadegunde and Prolesworth - will get started asap! I did have some ideas in the night - just need a nice big notebook now.

I'm going to dumb down this thread quite a bit but it's worth noting that in the first year of a literature degree the most important thing is going to be applying feminist analysis to text. Which is probably going to be really very easy.

In my degree everyone tied themselves in knots reading complex theories but the actual essay questions asked us to do things like give a feminist interpretation of Jane Eyre (madwoman/attic/blindness/castration) or Macbeth (witches/original sin/sexuality/motherhood) which is hardly rocket science!

I'd suggest a trawl around this board looking at how different feminist interpret different situations (especially looking at the Foulkes on Fiction thread) and maybe take a favourite novel and flex your muscles thinking about interpretations? If it were something lots of us had read then we'd all chip in on a thread with ideas I'm sure. :)

Flaming O'Bingo. Love it (to be sure) :)

Flaming O'Bingo, PhD. It does have a ring to it!

Flaming O'Bingo I agree with what the others have said re PhD. Don't let a 2:2 put you off. Sure there are plenty of places that want people out of the mould, but there are also some that don't. And a genuine passion and enthusiasm would open all sorts of doors. Find academics' work you like, speak to them, go to hear them speak, ask interesting questions (not the usual pseudo intelligent ones).

You are all so encouraging! I can't tell you how brilliant that feels

I made a start today...I bought a big A4 Pukka Pad

Onwards and upwards!