Emily asks, "who’s to say preconceived ideas are a bad thing? These ideas make up who we are, and can make a text more meaningful."
This makes sense to me; it would surely be impossible to come to a text with NO relevant preconceived ideas, and if we did, we would presumably be so stumped by the text that it would essentially meaningless.
But it's easy to imagine preconceived ideas which do interfere with a reasonable interpretation. I'm reminded of the Kit Ramsay character (played by Eddie Murphy) in _Bowfinger_, who counts the number of Ks in scripts; if the total number is divisible by 3, then that's a sign that the script is racist (because the script contains lots of KKKs).
So what counts as a "legitimate" preconceived idea to bring to a text, and what counts as an illegitimate one?
Wes
