I foresee the terms literary theory and literary criticism getting used a lot on this site. Since an agreement of terms is the basis for constructive communication, let’s look at what each of these terms means in the context of examining and discussing works of art, in the case of GeekLitTheory.com these will usually be stories in written form.

The above sentence holds the key difference between the terms. Examination and discussion.

LITERARY THEORY refers to schools of thought through which someone examines a literary work. There’s a lot of them. A LOT. Since the 1970’s it seems that schools of literary theory have been spreading like an ever-evolving zombie plague. I was going to go and list some of the fun ones, but we’ll get to those as we post about them from the geek perspective. Also, most schools aren’t an “all or nothing” game. Think of the whole of literary theory as those multi-lens goggles you sometimes see steampunk fans wearing. Each lens represents a school of lit theory. When we examine a piece of literature, we can lower any number of the lenses we want to help give us a different perspective on that work. Not all lenses are appropriate to every literary work. For example: If a book is told in a traditional, straightforward, beginning-middle-end narrative, viewing it through a Structuralist perspective isn’t going to give us much in the way of new ideas about the book, or literature as a whole. However, we could use a Structuralist perspective on say The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemison, which bounces back and forth between third and second PoV and is told in the present tense. How do those choices inform the work? Likewise, we could use Structualism to examine books such as A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, which has lots of tense and PoV shifts, as well as a chapter told in powerpoint presentations. I could go on and on with examples using Feminism, New Historicism, Post Colonialism, Gender Studies, (queue Yule Brenner) et cetera, et cetera, et cetera…

LITERARY CRITICISM is the discussion of literary works when using one or more lenses of Literary Theory, whether it’s through writing or speaking about it in a presentation, panel at a convention, or on YouTube. Yes, I realize that it’s a subtle distinction, but sometimes those subtle distinctions are the most important when going as deep as I hope to on this site. I’m sure some people will disagree with my definition — I’m waxing academic on the internet after all. I’m happy to disagree with people. I do it often. However, for the purposes of discussions on this site, these are the definitions we’ll be using.

A bit more clarification about Literary Criticism. It’s more than saying, “I liked this piece,” or “I didn’t like this piece.” When we’re engaging in criticism, even when viewing a work through the lens of something like Reader Response Theory, we want to do more than say,  “I liked this piece,” or “I didn’t like this piece.” Criticism means to engage the work with a reflective and attentive attention analysis of the work. We want to balance examining a work’s merits and faults so that we can arrive at a sound, well-rounded assessment of the work as a whole unit, rather than those bits we approve or disapprove of. This is largely the difference between the reviewer and the critic. This is not to say one is better, more noble or intellectual, than the other. It’s just a clarification of the purposes of a review and that of true literary criticism.

It’s important to become familiar with the schools of LIterary Theory because each carries certain privileges and blind spots, favoring some aspects of a work over others. All of them have some intellectual agenda at their core. In understanding this, we can take care to not allow these biases and agendas to affect our opinion of a work as a whole. We can use that understanding to appreciate that view of the work and not to get into arguments with misplaced energy.

Over this last year, people have come up to me at events, having seen “The Geek’s Guide to Literary Theory” on the list of programming items, and they’ve asked something along the lines of, “Why should geeks care about literary theory?”

Two things: curiosity and communication.

In the post “Defining ‘Geek'” I talk about the insatiable curiosity of geeks as well as their love of talking about the things they are curious about. Having an understanding of the schools of literary theory will help focus both curiosity and conversations about the things geeks love. Understanding these terms will help smooth over disagreements, as we’ll be able to understand where those disagreements are coming from, especially in those moments when engaging with people outside geek culture.

For example,

I had several conversations with people I respect about our difference of opinions on the literary merit of The Road by Cormack McCarthy. Some of these have been rather heated. One such exchange jeopardized a professional relationship. In hindsight, playing the interaction back in my head, I realized that we were approaching our experiences of The Road through very different lenses of literary theory. My examination of The Road comes largely through a Metatextual lens, with more than a healthy dose of Reader Response Theory and a dash of Deconstruction. From what I gather from the exchange, the other party came to The Road with equal parts New Criticism and Religious Studies.

Understanding this gives me two positive outcomes on the exchange.

First, I don’t feel the need get defensive over my position. I can defend it, but I don’t need to get defensive. I don’t feel the need to prove I’m “right” and the other party is “wrong.” I can’t because we’re coming at the conversation from two extremely different places, and that’s completely okay. We don’t have to waste time or emotional energy on a largely fruitless conversation.

Second, this has piqued my curiosity. I’d never considered examining The Road through a lens of Religious Studies. Because I’m a huge lit theory geek, I’m considering diving into The Road again, this time through the lens of Religious Studies. I doubt doing will change my mind about this book from a Metatextual perspective, but I’m always excited to learn about new ways to examine a story. I may even gain further insight into why so many people find this book such a brilliant reading experience when my experience is just the opposite. In this way, I hope to gain a greater sense of empathy for my fellow man, which is one of the major benefits of being a reader of great literature, no matter what genre.

So, that’s why we as readers and writers want to study literary theory: curiosity and communication. The more schools of theory we acquaint ourselves with, the better we will be at exploring the art we love with critical curiosity. We’ll also be more prepared to engage in meaningful discussions with others, or we’ll be more prepared to understand when it’s better to agree that those involved in the conversation aren’t ever going to come to an agreement, and further discussion is a waste of time and emotional energy.

Largely, I’m undertaking this labor of love, working to inspire my fellow geeks to educate themselves in lit theory because I’m selfish. We geeks love to talk about things we love. We do this on a deeply personal level, but we lack the precision of terminology used by both the literary and academic communities. We’re a smart bunch, we could probably invent our own lexicon of terms, but why expend that energy when we already have a body of language or terms waiting for us. I also desperately want to read the books that expect will come out of a shared dialogue between the literary and genre communities. This is happening already, slowly, but it could be so much more.

So, my fellow geeks, are we ready to get to work?

Originally, I didn’t want to write this post. I didn’t want the herculean task of trying to define “geek.” Even now, as I type these words, an alarm is going off in the back of my head, “Warning! Danger! Abort!” It’s likely, with the volatility that runs through geek culture, I’m going to offend someone, or multiple someones. It’s just as likely that theses offended someones will let me know that they are offended, why they are offended, and tell me, at length and in exacting detail, why my definition is wrong. However, I’ve already gotten a bit of backlash for not defining what I mean when I say, “geek.” since the mission of this site is to foster communication about literature between different communities, it’s disingenuous to leave one of the core terms in the name of the site, “The Geek’s Guide to Literary Theory” undefined.

The challenge of defining “geek” is that even geek culture can’t seem to decide what it is. Gatekeepers galore want to decide who is and, more importantly, who isn’t a “geek.” This occasionally blows up, and rather than reinvent the wheel about who is and isn’t a geek, I’ll direct you to this awesome post by John Scalzi on the subject. Spoiler alert: Anyone who wants to identify as a geek gets to identify as a geek.

That being said, what do we mean when we say, “geek?”

That’s no simple task.

In preparation to write this post, I went to google and did three different searches:

• “What is a geek?”
• “Who gets to be a geek?”
• “Are you a geek?”

The lists of websites resulting from these searches is a mixture of inspiring, heartbreaking, bittersweet, fascinating, and turned into a massive timesink that really got me no closer to a concrete definition. So, in an effort to help come up with a definition, I posted to social media, asking folks for their definitions, and went for a walk to ponder this while playing Pokemon Go for a bit, to consider the conundrum of creating a definition of “geek” that embodies the spirit of geek culture while being inclusive rather than exclusive.

First off, this site will use the terms “geek” and “nerd” interchangeably. Yes, some folks out there seem to feel the pedantic need to over-define them into distinctly different things. Once upon a time, I embraced that need, but no longer. To argue the difference between geeks and nerds is tiresome and counterproductive to the mission of this website. If that level of nit-pickery is your idea of fun, then by all means, have your fun. This site isn’t a place we’re going to do that.

For the purposes of this site, we’re going to consider a geek as any individual with deep interest and curiosity for some subject or topic that is traditionally considered counter-culture or outside of the main-stream. This includes, but is in no way limited to, science fiction, fantasy, comic book, video games, role-playing games, board games, theater, costuming, computers, education, anime, etc… the list goes on and on. Many geeks often refer to themselves as the type of geekery they especially identify with. At various times in my life, I have been a gamer geek, a ren faire geek, a scifi geek, a dance geek, computer geek, a Red Sox geek (yes, you can be a sports geek), a WWE geek, and a literary theory geek.

I believe the most important word in the paragraph above is “curiosity.” Of all other descriptors or qualities that apply to geeks, I would say they are curious more above and beyond anything else. They become so curious about a subject that they want to know anything and everything they can about it. This is a double-edged sword, as this quality also leads to many of the biggest squabbles that have come out of geek culture as opinions and curiosities clash.

Speaking of geek culture, for the purposes of this site, we’re going to consider “geek culture” as the gathering and/or communication of two or more geeks to discuss and celebrate the geeky things they love and cherish.

These aren’t perfect definitions, but I believe these will do for the purposes of this website. I’m sure as time goes on, I’ll refine these definitions, tweak them here or there, as that’s kind of what geeks do. We’re always redefining and reexamining the things we love and the ways in which we talk about and celebrate them.

Now that we have those definitions, we can start posting essays and articles.

MTG