Seeking to Understand
Seeking to Understand: The Work of Jonathan Mullins
Bio
My work towards a degree in English started from a love stories. That love of stories came to me in kindergarten, when my father, who did not beleive in age ratings, let me stay up and watch the original Child's Play with him. After watching the film, I stayed up all night, but not out of fear, rather with a question. Why a doll? Why did the serial killer become a doll? At the time I did not know I had begun to analyze the film, even if it was only in small surface level chunks, but a part of my brain had been turned on that could not be turn off. I found myself analyzing every book I read, every film and tv show I watched, and every story based video-game I played. Anything with a story I would take a mental sledge hammer to so I could see how the pieces fit. When I got to college I was unsuprisingly drawn towards English lit, a place where that deconstruction and reconstruction of stories was not only welcome, but common practice. I found a place where I could share my love of stories, but in my Junior, I had transfered into George Mason University from Larurel Ridge Community College where I took my first theory class, Post-Colonial Theory. In that class I discovered the power stories have to both better and worsen the world, and the ways they can be used as both tools of opression and rebellion. From then on, every class I took and paper I wrote was through the lense of this theory, so I could understand the ways in which I can aid in the betterment and decolonization of the world to hopefully lead to one that is more tolerant.
What is Post-Colonial Theory?
Post-Colonial Theory is the academic study of the effects of colonialism on the world, namely on the groups and areas that have become marginalized because of it. In literary theory that study is applied to literature produced by both the colonizers and the colonized to study the cultural impacts of it in both how it is sustained and resisted. Essentially, post-colonial theory looks at texts that are a result of a groups treatment and designation after the European colonization of most of the world.
