From English to Cultural Studies

I've been thinking about how we name the subject we teach. Rosenblatt called it "the arts of language," which I like. But Deborah Appleman in Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescents suggests the name "cultural studies," which I think I like even better. Calling the subject English is limiting in the languages and types of literature that the name suggests. Cultural Studies, on the other hand, opens up the subject to all types of texts, many aspects of culture, and multiple cultures.

I've also been thinking about why we study literature; isn't it about exploring the cultures in which we live? Appleman uses literary theory to give purpose to reading and studying literature:
- read from a multiplicity of perspectives and recognize the limitations in our current perspcetives
- read the cultural texts that surround us
- use the skill of reading to understand the world around us (read the world)
- recognize ideologies that exist in texts and in our world
- recognize what factors have shaped our worldviews
- move beyond dualistic thinking
- discern how power and privilege are inscribed all around us

Appleman says, "We are no longer transmitting knowledge, offering literature as content, as an aesthetic experience, or as neutral artifacts of our collective cultural heritage" (p.11). These reasons for teaching literature have seemed insufficient to me in the past. The use of literary theory, as Appleman describes it, gives purposes to studying literature that I believe are worthwhile and relevant in that we can connects what students do in school to the real world outside of school.

Studying literature becomes much more than learning and refining skills; it becomes "a political act whose aim is not simply to interpret the world but to change it, by changing the consciousness of those who read and their relation to what they read" (p.81).

While I find much value in Rosenblatt's theories of reader response, I find that approach a bit limiting. I enjoyed reading Appleman's response to a reader-centered study of literature, and I like the idea of teaching reader reponse as one lens of many, one tool that students can use. I also think it is important for students to be able to name what they are doing in school. I often used different literary theories with my studednts, but I kept them "behind the curtain" rather than explicitly telling students what they were doing. There is power in naming and in knowing what the theories are so that we can call upon them later.

Ideas from Critical Encounters that I would like to try:
- have students critique the lenses that they have used
- create questions about a text based on the lenses
- look at one piece through multiple lenses
- examine cultural artifacts using multiple theories