Webb Chapter 1

This first chapter of Allen Webb's book does a good job of showing his audience exactly why he embraces the literary theories that he does, particularly Reader Response and Cultural Studies theories. I liked his personal experience of bringing Mrs. Golden, and Auschwitz survivor, into his classroom in order to help his students better recognize a connection between the literature that they were reading for class and the lived experiences of real people. I didn't find it surprising at all that his students really seemed to get into it when he brought Mrs. Golden into his class because I feel like allowing them to make those specific connections brings them closer to the text and, therefore, closer to an understanding of the text's "meaning" (as subjective as that may be). On page 6 Webb says, "the experimentation I was doing in [my] classes made it plain that all students, and especially those struggling in school, needed to discover that everyone, even the most persecuted or oppressed, has a voice that can and should be heard and respected." This idea is crucial for students to understand in light of the RR and CS theories that he promotes in this chapter because a significant part of both those theories is the importance of personal experience and cultural experience of the reader in transaction with the text. Another thing that I found interesting about the CS theory in particular was his acknowledgement that the limitations of RR are the strengths of CS. Before reading this chapter I never even knew that a CS theory existed, and now that I do, I honestly think that it is one of my favorites. Using a CS approach to literature sounds more appealing to me than using your typical RR approach because it embraces the elements that could have a negative impact in RR. As Webb states, a cultural studies approach to literature text, "urges us to be self-reflexive but not cavalier about the disciplines we work in. While mixing genres and crossing boundaries, cultural studies spurs us also to consider how the establishment of genres and disciplines has functioned historically" (page 8).