Major Critical Thinking Paper

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Description:
Focus on two skills: that of developing a strong, complex, and original claim which you sustain, prove, and complicate through the length of your paper. In turn, I"d like you to sustain, prove, and complicate this claim through the process of close reading and rhetorical analysis. That is, each body paragraph should focus on and analyze in depth little bit of language from whichever texts you"ve chosen.

The following prompt is a place to start. Paper should focus on no more than two poems, or no more than a poem and a short excerpt.

In her essay, "on linguistic vulnerability," Judith Butler uses Althusser"s concept of "interpellation" in order to show the ways in which speech has power. Specifically, she notes that when one is addressed or called a name, they are interpellated by that act - that is, defined as a specific subject in a specific place and time. This can happen because language and ideology precede us, they exist before any given individual and precisely the terms by which any one gains an identity. Investigate the specific dynamics of "interpellation" in Butler"s use of the term, and then explore the ways that one of the other texts (listed below) use this linguistic power. In other words, how does one of the speeches, letters, or manifestos call a "subject" into being? What kind of "subject" is that? Is this "subject" the same as you, the reader? Or is it targeted towards someone else? In what ways is this use of language akin to what Butler describes? In what ways might this text be responding to or trying to counter the effect of the violence of speech? Does this text itself use one"s "vulnerability" to language to its own ends?