A. Techniques
spend the time
take notes
take notes on notes
make outlines
paraphrase
look carefully at examples, metaphors, illustrations
ask who they are arguing against
B. Assess what makes it
hard
it's badly written?
writer is deliberately obscure?
you don't have necessary background knowledge?
you don't understand key terms?
it is dense, needs to be read more slowly or aggressively?
gives you terminology Example: Cornell's (p.294) hegemonic
masculinity, emphasized femininity
gives entry to ongoing conversations/communities (maybe
as troublemaker, if that's your pref.)
experience of the theory's cognitive microclimate gives
you new way of being - new perceptions, new thoughts, new sense of connections,
new framework
political tool
everybody is already part of theoretical communities;
working with theory helps make those background theories apparent so they
can be consciously accepted, rejected or revised
Ask who made the theory, when and why. Example: the origin
of cultural studies theories in British universities, where class divisions
were very marked.
Look for and evaluate implicit and explicit assumptions.
Test them against your own experience.
Example 1: Mead (p.270) "we cannot get an experience
of our whole body." Mead was only thinking of vision; he forgot that
we can feel the whole of our bodies.
Example 2: the chapter's authors (293) talking about body
modification as "converting the raw and mute body into an active communicator
of symbolic significance." What if we experience our own and others'
bodies as subtle and eloquent presences that cannot help broadcasting much
about the persons they are?
Watch the metaphors. Example: the chapter's authors (268,
271) saying bodies are our vehicles. Does this language imply that "we"
are separate or separable from our bodies the way people are separable
from their cars?
Ask whether the writer's conclusions actually follow from
their premises.
Assess definitions, look for invalid dichotomies.
Example 1: implicit definition of nature as "realm
outside culture and society" (267). Primate groups such as macaques
and orangutans are increasingly being understood as societies and cultures,
and culture is increasingly being understood as part of nature.
Example 2: the chapter's author saying (293) the body
is "considerably more than a biological entity." He is assuming
that social and cultural facts are not also biological facts.
Don't buy the whole farm if all you want is the pumpkin.
Carefully track what it is that you like in a theory, what it is that actually
interests you. It might be a term or a distinction or an observation. Maybe
that is all you need maybe you can just pluck it out of its framework
and use it elsewhere (with credit given of course).
Assess the mood of the theory. Ask yourself whether
it is a mood you trust.
Example: Jungian theory can have a kind of expansive euphoric
feel. French postmodern literary theory can have a speedy paranoic feeling.
As we get more experienced with theory, it is possible
to read with hawk eyes, accepting what we find acceptable, bracketing what
we don't trust, paraphrasing in better language when we don't like the
terminology or metaphors, redefining key terms, rethinking conclusions.
The sorts of aggressive scrutiny described here make us
full, empowered and responsible citizens of our theoretical communities.
Vigilantly testing theory against our own experience makes
our theoretical moments congruent with our feeling and sensing moments:
it allows us to be integrated bodies.