Midterm

Question 1

New critics believe “the best possible interpretation” of a work will derive from this reading practice:

Answer 1

close reading

Question 2

Define: intentional fallacy

Answer 2

attempting to determine what the author may or may not have meant in their text

Question 3

Two formal elements in fiction:

Answer 3

plot and characters

Question 4

Freud’s tripartite psyche:

Answer 4

id, ego, and superego

Question 5

Two way Freud believed the unconscious can be accessed:

Answer 5

therapy and hypnosis (or dreams)

Question 6

Define: Oedipal complex

Answer 6

male desire to marry/have sex with his mother and kill his father

Question 7

Lacan’s two “Orders”:

Answer 7

imaginary

symbolic

Question 8

Define: mirror stage

Answer 8

the moment when an infant recognizes themselves as separate entities from their mother
they recognize themselves as one entity

Question 9

Lacan believed the unconscious is structured like this, or on this idea:

Answer 9

• on the idea of loss

- the unconscious is structured like a language, as it is necessary to use to describe things that aren’t there

Question 10

Lacan associates this figure with language:

Answer 10

the father

Question 11

In structuralism, a sign is composed of these two elements:

Answer 11

signifier and signified

Question 12

The difference between langue and parole:

Answer 12

langue: the structure/underlying governing rules (i.e. grammar)
parole: the surface phenomenon, the specific individual words used in sentences

Question 13

The words of this sentence are what structuralists call his “phenomenon”:

Answer 13

surface phenomenon

Question 14

What is the grammar or “deep structure” of the word “are”?

Answer 14

verb

Question 15

An archetypal theme:

Answer 15

heros journey

coming of age

Question 16

The critic does not deconstruct the text, but rather this does:

Answer 16

the text deconstructs itself, as language is unstable and changing

Question 17

In deconstruction, there is no ultimate signified, but only endless chains of these:

Answer 17

signifiers

Question 18

Define: logocentric

Answer 18

word/concept centered

Question 19

A binary opposition:

Answer 19

light and dark

boy and girl

Question 20

The founder of deconstruction:

Answer 20

Jaques Derrida

Question 21

What Marxist theory sees as the central conflict in society:

Answer 21

class

Question 22

In Marxist theory, the base gives rise to the:

Answer 22

superstructure

Question 23

Explain what Marxists mean by sign value:

Answer 23

the social status an object reflects about the person who bought it

Question 24

Why Marxists believe capitalism inevitably leads to imperialism:

Answer 24

capitalism needs new markets to exploit

Question 25

In terms of feminist theory, define biological essentialism:

Answer 25

the belief that men and woman have inherent essences that differ from each other owing to biology

Question 26

Name the concept opposed to biological essentialism:

Answer 26

social construction

Question 27

Name two schools of French feminism:

Answer 27

Materialist and psychoanalytic

Question 28

The key difference between gay & lesbian studies and queer theory:

Answer 28

gay & lesbian studies focus on identity as stable categories while queer theory focuses on fluidity and unchanging categories

Question 29

Provide an example of a homosocial institution:

Answer 29

single-sex schools

Question 30

Explain the difference queer theorists make between minoritizing and universalizing points of view:

Answer 30

• minoritizing looks at the LGBTQ experience as different from the norm and separate their experience as other or a minority to the hegemony
• universalizing looks at the LGBTQ experience as common among all people, that even heterosexual individuals struggle similar experiences

Question 31

Explain what is known as the Great Migration and the period in which it took place:

Answer 31

The migration of African Americans from the South to the North following World War I in 1918

Question 32

Provide an example of intersectionality:

Answer 32

• sees identity as composed of various forms of social stratification, such as race, class, gender/sex, sexual and sociopolitical orientation, and personal history
• attempts to identify how interlocking systems of power impact those who are most marginalized in society, for example the experiences of a black-impoverished-gay woman in a white-straight-male dominated society

Question 33

Name a character type common in African-American literature:

Answer 33

the healer

signifying trickster

Question 34

Explain what is meant by folk motif:

Answer 34

common themes and elements that occur in folk art that isn’t considered “high art” by the dominate culture
example of folk art include folklore, song, and dance

Question 35

Define: subaltern

Answer 35

people seen as inferior to the colonizers

Question 36

Provide an example of the exotic other:

Answer 36

Pocahontas or the China Doll

Question 37

New Historicism sees history as subjective or objective?

Answer 37

subjective

Question 38

New Historicism makes no distinction between so-called high art and this form of art:

Answer 38

pop-culture

Question 39

Explain what New Historicists mean by cultural work:

Answer 39

how historical events are interpreted and represented in the discourses and art of a particular time period

Question 40

According to Michel Foucault, items of exchange in society are:

Answer 40

ideas (discourses), people (adoption, slavery), and material goods