1 Explain the concepts of defamiliarization and “art as a technique” introduced by the critics of Russian Formalism

Defamiliarization or ostranenie (остранение) is the artistic technique of presenting to audiences common things in an unfamiliar or strange way, in order to enhance perception of the familiar. A central concept in 20th-century art and theory, ranging over movements including Dada, postmodernism, epic theatre, andscience fiction, it is also used as a tactic by recent movements such as culture jamming.The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar,’ to make forms difficult to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged.

In "Art as Technique," Shlovksy addresses the ways in which people do things habitually to the point of doing them automatically or unconsciously. He uses the example that holding a pen for the first time is, of course, much different from holding it for the ten thousandth time. By the ten thousandth time, it is so automatic, we don't think about doing it; and to the extreme extent that we don't consciously think about holding the pen, it is as if we are not doing it. Clearly, we do this for the economy of it, to focus on other things. But this is a habit of passive thinking and action. Shklovsky notes that we perceive objects in this passive, or half-attentive way. Using Pogodin's example of the sentence "The Swiss mountains are beautiful", Shlovksy gives his algebraic formulation of it as "T, S, m, a, b." He suggests that, in our habitual inattentiveness, we perceive objects in this condensed way as well. We only pay attention to a small or surface aspect of the object. In general, this is a problem in our individual lives. Being habitually unaware of everything that is going on locally and in the world is a lack of individual and social awareness. In being passive, we become familiar with objects in this algebraic, condensed form. The technique of art is to make these things "unfamiliar" and to make us more active, less passive, to make us exert more effort in perceiving things and thinking about them. This is why Shklovsky, and others after him, believed that poetry fills this criteria of making the familiar unfamiliar (more so than prose). Poetry is condensed but with odd juxtapositions of words and "roughened" rhythm and language, the reader is forced to slow down and think more about each word and its associations with the other words and the poem as a whole. This is the effect of defamiliarization. By making the familiar unfamiliar, the author or artist creates a work in which the reader cannot simply perceive it automatically; he/she has to give more effort, think more actively and creatively. 

2 How did the Russian Formalists assume the study of Literature?

Russian formalism is distinctive for its emphasis on the functional role of literary devices and its original conception of literary history. Russian Formalists advocated a "scientific" method for studying poetic language, to the exclusion of traditional psychological and cultural-historical approaches.Two general principles underlie the Formalist study of literature: first, literature itself, or rather, those of its features that distinguish it from other human activities, must constitute the object of inquiry of literary theory; second, "literary facts" have to be prioritized over the metaphysical commitments of literary criticism, whether philosophical, aesthetic or psychological (Steiner, "Russian Formalism" 16). To achieve these objectives several models were developed.The formalists agreed on the autonomous nature of poetic language and its specificity as an object of study for literary criticism. Their main endeavor consisted in defining a set of properties specific to poetic language, be it poetry or prose, recognizable by their "artfulness" and consequently analyzing them as such.

3 Explain the “architectural metaphor” described by Marx to explain the historical and social conditions.

By way of a problematic architectural metaphor, Marx views production, economics, and technology as the “base” of society upon which all forms of thought, culture, politics, and law

arise as a related “superstructure.” The ruling ideas of society are those of the ruling class, and they comprise an “ideology” – broadly, a conceptual outlook or worldview -- that advances elite interests and justifies class domination as good, natural, and the only possible social arrangement. But the dominant class worldview, Marx noted, is a biased distortion of reality and becomes a “false consciousness” for those who uncritically accept it as given, factual, and true. In reference to a key element of capitalist ideology, Marx described how the vast machinery of production spawns a “commodity fetishism” whereby objects (commodities) take on human-like qualities (assuming an apparent life of their own) and subjects (workers) become more and more like things integrated into technological systems. Bourgeois economists, themselves deluded by this alien “topsy-turvy” world, treated the commodity as if it were independent of social relationships and capitalist exploitation.

4 Give an account of Marx’s formulations of ideological systems and the conflict of social classes.

The identity of a social class derives from its relationship to the means of production; Marx describes the social classes in capitalist societies:Proletariat: "the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live".[22] As Andrei Platonov expressed "The working class is my home country and my future is linked with the proletariat."[23] The capitalist mode of production establishes the conditions enabling the bourgeoisie to exploit the proletariat because the workers' labour generates a surplus value greater than the workers' wages.Bourgeoisie: those who "own the means of production" and buy labour power from the proletariat, thus exploiting the proletariat; they subdivide as bourgeoisie and the petit bourgeoisie.Petit bourgeoisie are those who work and can afford to buy little labour power i.e. small business owners, peasant landlords, trade workers et al. Marxism predicts that the continual reinvention of the means of production eventually would destroy the petit bourgeoisie, degrading them from the middle class to the proletariat.Lumpenproletariat: The outcasts of society such as criminals, vagabonds, beggars, prostitutes, et al., who have no stake in the economy and no mind of their own and so are decoyed by every bidder.Landlords: an historically important social class who retain some wealth and power.Peasantry and farmers: a scattered class incapable of organizing and effecting socio-economic change, most of whom would enter the proletariat, and some become landlords.

According to Marx, when mechanization and automation increases, workers are less needed and therefore get lower wages. This leads to society being split into two "classes": the capitalists who own the factories with the machines, and the proletarians, who own nothing and become poorer and poorer. Obviously, this isn't a stable situation; eventually the proletarians become so poor that they have nothing to lose by inciting a revolution, and the system breaks down. After that, society becomes at first Socialistic, which means that all capital is owned by the State; at this point, distinct states still exist. Finally, the state becomes superfluous and the capital is directly owned by the people as a collective. At this point, we are in the Communistic stage.