ROLAND BARTHES (1914 – 1980) PART ONE Writing Degree Zero (1953) One of the most interesting facts of the life of Roland Barthes was that he was struck by a laundry van and, after lingering for a month, died of his injuries. “The Painter of Modern...
HAROLD BLOOM AND THE MODERNIST TRADITION Literary Criticism and Close Reading Although Harold Bloom (1930-), from the perspective of the 21st century seems like a historical figure, he was a liminal figure caught between Modernism and Postmodernism. It is one of the...
HAROLD BLOOM (1930 -) The Canon The most prolific upholder of the Modern “canon” is Harold Bloom, the quintessential Modernist holdout surrounded by a sea of Postmodern theorists. However, Bloom, always an interesting and prolific writer, is merely more frank than...
ÉCRITURE FEMININE PART TWO: Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema LAURA MULVEY (1941 – ) One of the most famous essays critiquing the structures of masculine oppression comes not from France and not from America but from the genteel shores of the British Isles:...
JACQUES LACAN (1901 – 1981) PART SIX: LACAN AND WOMEN Throughout this series on the teachings of Jacques Lacan, I have noted several times that his terms must not be taken literally. The Masculine Order does not signify “men” or “males,”...
JACQUES LACAN (1901 – 1981) PART FIVE: THE FORMATION OF THE SUBJECT Anyone who has read the writings of Jacques Lacan came to the humbling realization that in any meaningful way s/he simply didn’t exist. Having gone through the boot camp of the Oedipal...
