Assignments reign on my life like a horse on steroids, running around the track with great might to please the masters of material gains. It does not concern me, but it does concern my well being. How else would a great horse eat the best of hay, without the effort of running around in an illogical and demeaning race, for the sake of winning our masters the money they do not deserve.
Then again, I shouldn't say my assignments are THAT difficult. However there is a certain level of difficulty that I have come to realize which compares itself to other academic disciple; that social science as opposed to actual science, is hardly tangible. What more when it deals with literature.
To grasp theories in literary criticism, be it the concept of authorship to postcolonial and diasporic literature, there is a sense of indulgence within these ideals. For one, I found it confounding that certain theories from seemingly unrelated fields superimposes itself onto creative works of art. Yes, it does enriches the value and appreciation for such works, but they are hardly necessary since the wider audience are unable to ready themselves for the variable meaning and observation given by these literary theories.
They appear out of fucking thin air, I swear. One moment we question the concept of linguistics itself (why is a chair, called a chair?) and the next we venture in the unintended meaning of an author through the representation of his words in a given work. Similarly in postcolonial literary studies, one moment we are looking at imperial influences on a community and its affects on the nature of history and ideology, next we question the notion of assimilating cultures as a hybrid is an empowerment or not.
Too much to handle, I say. What more my Authorship and Writing class has a 10% failure rate every year. That should be a signal of either the level of difficulty, or the marker is just a hardass. Yes, I avoided the idea that students are just morons, because while there ARE a number of idiots in any given class, it should not represent a high rate of 10%, Way too much. For every 10 students, 1 would fail. Not good.
Right now if anyone is wondering (I mean who even comes here anymore?), I'm working on an analysis of a Malaysian writer about the immigrants from India in Malaysia pre-independence. I shall not reveal the name of the novel in fear of web searches pointing clueless students like me to this site where I do not cover my ass and rant on about how annoyed I am.
Basically the novel covers a range of issues regarding cultural identity, between the assimilation of foreign culture with ancestral roots pertaining to religious tradition and the struggle between these identities in a Malaysian landscape with colonial, post-colonial and neo-colonial influences.
A fucking mouthful, and its only the surface.
I will never be an academic scholar (as in profession), because they are unnecessarily long winded and they drag their points on and on and on and on, with language so obscure that I have to read a single sentence at snail's pace, just to get wind of what the author is trying to say.
Heres an excerpt to illustrate my point:
"Contemporary culture is hybrid, just like colonial culture. The idea of hybridity usefully characterizes the mechanisms of the colonial psychic economy. In the same way as the structures of colonial identity can also be found in contemporary contexts, the structure of hybridity is also found in contemporary cultures." (Huddart 2006:124)
Seems kinda long for a single point right?
FML
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