Framing Statement:
I am currently still undeclared in my major, so I can’t quite relate literary theory and criticism to my major’s work, but I’ve taken a history course this semester that I feel literary theory and criticism worked really well in, so I’d like to write about that. The course I took was Colonization and Decolonization in Africa with Professor Berndt. The course focused on the powers that colonized Africa, and how colonization affected them. Later in the semester we learned how decolonization in Africa began, and the effects of that as well. There were many readings for this course that had to do with the topics we went over in class, and since we had to write discussion posts about the readings, I often found myself reading with some sort of critical lens. There were readings about women in Africa that could be looked at through feminism, and a lot of the readings could be looked at through a Marxist perspective. Most specifically in our class when I believe Frantz Fanon and Decolonising the Mind by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o were brought up, that related to the history class’ work a lot and I thought it was very interesting how two unrelated classes could still overlap in content. Some of my reading for my GUST seminar also made me think about literary theory and criticism, as well as some of our class discussions. I just think that in my everyday life I think about certain theories while reading and I read almost everything with some sort of critical lens. I think this is why no matter what major I chose, literary theory and criticism will always find a way into my life and my readings and writing.
