Happy fall, dear comrades, and thank you to everyone who attended August's meeting of the Marxist Knitting Club. Your questions and assessments of Bachelard were challenging and thought provoking; I can only hope you enjoyed this past session as much as I did.
This month's homework is particularly exciting as, selfishly, it comes from the book that got me hooked on reading theory in the first place. Mythologies, by the great Roland Barthes, is a precedent-setting work that moves pop culture commentary in some explosively curious and weird directions – especially for its time (the book was authored between 1954 and 1956, then published in 1957).
In this text, Barthes pioneers a new way of doing thinking by elevating popular events and objects (everything from pro wrestling and cruise ships to margarine and fashion magazines) to the level of great timeless myths, and in doing so, elucidates more about what it means to be human than some of history's greatest question-askers (no tea no shade, but... you know).
I've selected three of my favorites - on soap advertisements, Charlie Chaplin films, and food photography - which you can read at the PDF linked below:
Supplementary media for this month is as follows!
- The opening scene of Modern Times starring Charlie Chaplin (Youtube)
- 1953 commercial for Palmolive Soap (Youtube)
- Weird Foods People Ate During the 1950s (Youtube)
Have fun with this one – for 'extra credit,' try your hand at mythologizing something from our present day. Maybe you see the deeper cultural importance of TikTok dances, esoteric memes, or knitting IG accounts; if so, come prepared to discuss, because I want to hear what you have to say!
See you on Monday, September 23rd at 6 PM!
In margarine solidarity,
Meredith