Sunday, November 29, 2009
Robin Hood
Well it certainly sounds like Eagleton is recommending a Robinhood approach to smooth out our economic imbalances, if not a downright Marxist solution.Because we are all going to die anyway,he says we must live more in the 'here aad now" and less within the confines of permanence (Eagleton,Terry. After Theory. New York: Basc Books, 2003. 209.Print.). In death the author argues that we learn our lives are not able to be mastered nor meaning fully arrived at,as there are always contingencies (Eagleton 213-215). Cheat death, no, but living with the ambivalent and the multiple possibilities in life and death is suggested. It sounds good, but then my father who planned all the details of the disposal of his property, animals and financial assets, as well as his physical care, as his health failed, certainly made everything much easier for himself and his family, as decisions and directions had already been chosen. Six of one and half a dozen of the other?
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
sexuality
Yikes we are talking about the unmentionable-gay sex, where people still ask questions like how do they do it? Aren't all gays HIV positive? Isn' the way you walk or hold your hands a relection of an underlying homosexuality. A gay person cannot really enjoy heterosexual sex can they? Or the opposite--they are no different than you or me, so don't talk about it. The point NOBODY IS TALKING!
It is important to acknowledge differences too initiate a dialogue about race and the same is true for sex and the development of an identity that can be realized in the ability to talk! Then we can begin to deal with the idea of the alien Other within ourselves, as it recognized and TALKED ABOUT for what it is.
It is important to acknowledge differences too initiate a dialogue about race and the same is true for sex and the development of an identity that can be realized in the ability to talk! Then we can begin to deal with the idea of the alien Other within ourselves, as it recognized and TALKED ABOUT for what it is.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
postcolonial theory
The idea of a fluid identity with multiple center not only fits postmodern writing but is apparently more representative of non-western writers. It is important to understand what is not other, as much as it is what is Other, to clearly grasp the stereotypes that are being projected,in order to reach beyond them. In looking at the "hybridity" of culture (Barry 192) it is not just the fact that our society is made up of people whose original origins are from all over the world, but to look at the racial, as well as national origin genetic/social mixing that has occurred over the generations in America. This means that many people are not coming from one particular world view and that our culture is in flux, as to how we see racial issues and our position versus those who set up our original colonies. It is a mistake to pretend that racial issues are no longer important in our society though, even for those whose backgrounds represent several different races. Most people want to own all that they are. It is important to examine how our society still exhibits racism to move it in a direction toward a freer and more equal society. We may have all kinds of laws on the books to protect people, but friendships, the neighborhoods we live, the schools our children attend, the resources available in one community versus another, substance abuse patterns, numbers of the unemployed and underemployed, as well as incarcerated continue to speak loudly. Understanding these things from a number of perspectives may lead to a number of possible remedies. One has to understand one's enemy in order to find a way to bypass them, or better yet come to a sense of mutuality, rather than attempting to destroy one another.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
History and Racism
Linda Daly
It seems that we have entered into a diatribe on cultural wars along with that of questions of identity, use of language and effective transmission of ideas meaningful in the literary tradition. Gates seems to be very critical of black creative writing, saying as an example that there is not apparent black history showing it to be part of the western frontier. Yet for those of you in the Morrison class, we just read Morrison's book Paradise, which is about blacks entering the western frontier of Oklahoma, when it was up for grabs and how all black communities were in fact established there. This is based on legitimate history which blacks were part of.
Multicultural literature, like all literature according to Gates at least by the middle of the nineteenth century, was not great unless imbued with "national spirit and "historical period" (1891). Certainly multicultural literature is part of world culture in this age of globalization, as none of us can escape the other and "we are already contaminated by each other" (Appiah 354, quoted within the Richter article on 1476). Therefore to suggest multicultural texts are not part of the western tradition is apparently spurious. Yet this begs the argument about putting meat into a curriculum that lends itself to knowledge based on depth, not just a collection of ideas. Achieving a true understanding of the original history of the standard absolutist ideas of western civilization does take considerable investigation. Being able to read in the language of the original great books while not commonly done, is not without merit, as Joyce made us all eminently aware. To understand black identity is also to understand in some depth, black history both in Africa and this country, political, social, religious and cultural. Just as this is so of European western traditions. This seems self evident.
Greenblat's ideas that we only listen to a ghost by listening to ourselves and that we only hear many ghostly voices by listening to many voices, is not entirely accurate in my opinion. When a ghost speaks, history speaks, we remember and interpret, as history has done so, because of hardwired archetypal formations, experience and education. We listen to a ghost with the same point of view that we listen to any character, through our eyes and mental storage of information,including historical, along with the text clues. Therefore, many voices really are a part of all of our individual assessments of a ghost.
Bhahha article on post colonial criticism suggested that rigid ideas about race, racism and culture has generally been needed in order to establish "a repertoire of conflictual position (that) constitute the subject in colonial discourse" is thought provoking"(300). It is often true, but authors such as Toni Morrison and Octavia Butler have tried to move the reader beyond this. It is as Bhahha suggests a conversation that occurs in the "margins," not only involving otherness but common humanity and individual choices, which can defy our concepts about each other.
Works Cited
Homi K Bhahha. 'The Other Question: The Stereotype and Colonial Discourse' from Twentieth-Century Literary Theory: A Reader. 2d ed. Ed. K. M. Newton. New York: Palgrave, 1997. Print.
Greenblalt, Stephen. "Shakespearian Negotiation: The Cessation of Social
Energy in Renaissance England. Berkeley; University of California Press, 1988. Print.
Guillory. "From Culturalist Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation: Multicultural Interlude: The Question of a Core Curriculum." Richter, David H., Ed. The Critical Traditions: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford, 2007. Print.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. "Writing, Race and the Difference it Makes" The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford, 2007.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. "Dialogue Between Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Houston A. Baker Jr." The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford, 2007.
It seems that we have entered into a diatribe on cultural wars along with that of questions of identity, use of language and effective transmission of ideas meaningful in the literary tradition. Gates seems to be very critical of black creative writing, saying as an example that there is not apparent black history showing it to be part of the western frontier. Yet for those of you in the Morrison class, we just read Morrison's book Paradise, which is about blacks entering the western frontier of Oklahoma, when it was up for grabs and how all black communities were in fact established there. This is based on legitimate history which blacks were part of.
Multicultural literature, like all literature according to Gates at least by the middle of the nineteenth century, was not great unless imbued with "national spirit and "historical period" (1891). Certainly multicultural literature is part of world culture in this age of globalization, as none of us can escape the other and "we are already contaminated by each other" (Appiah 354, quoted within the Richter article on 1476). Therefore to suggest multicultural texts are not part of the western tradition is apparently spurious. Yet this begs the argument about putting meat into a curriculum that lends itself to knowledge based on depth, not just a collection of ideas. Achieving a true understanding of the original history of the standard absolutist ideas of western civilization does take considerable investigation. Being able to read in the language of the original great books while not commonly done, is not without merit, as Joyce made us all eminently aware. To understand black identity is also to understand in some depth, black history both in Africa and this country, political, social, religious and cultural. Just as this is so of European western traditions. This seems self evident.
Greenblat's ideas that we only listen to a ghost by listening to ourselves and that we only hear many ghostly voices by listening to many voices, is not entirely accurate in my opinion. When a ghost speaks, history speaks, we remember and interpret, as history has done so, because of hardwired archetypal formations, experience and education. We listen to a ghost with the same point of view that we listen to any character, through our eyes and mental storage of information,including historical, along with the text clues. Therefore, many voices really are a part of all of our individual assessments of a ghost.
Bhahha article on post colonial criticism suggested that rigid ideas about race, racism and culture has generally been needed in order to establish "a repertoire of conflictual position (that) constitute the subject in colonial discourse" is thought provoking"(300). It is often true, but authors such as Toni Morrison and Octavia Butler have tried to move the reader beyond this. It is as Bhahha suggests a conversation that occurs in the "margins," not only involving otherness but common humanity and individual choices, which can defy our concepts about each other.
Works Cited
Homi K Bhahha. 'The Other Question: The Stereotype and Colonial Discourse' from Twentieth-Century Literary Theory: A Reader. 2d ed. Ed. K. M. Newton. New York: Palgrave, 1997. Print.
Greenblalt, Stephen. "Shakespearian Negotiation: The Cessation of Social
Energy in Renaissance England. Berkeley; University of California Press, 1988. Print.
Guillory. "From Culturalist Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation: Multicultural Interlude: The Question of a Core Curriculum." Richter, David H., Ed. The Critical Traditions: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford, 2007. Print.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. "Writing, Race and the Difference it Makes" The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford, 2007.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. "Dialogue Between Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Houston A. Baker Jr." The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford, 2007.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Language & Symbolic Power
Linda Daly
The entirety of this work seems to be centered around the validity of language as it describes classes,power,political ideation, economics and religion. I agree that the pairs of terms used to described relationships in opposition and likeness is most accomplished (147) as then we are getting around totality in language and absolutism. It is the unspoken, the unexpressed and unfound, which today will help us most in communicating experience. This is more than a pre-verbal understanding but an understanding of other, the unbelievable, the improbable and undecodable. Naming may represent power but what of non-naming? Is it not the ambiguous that is most intriguing. Domination is accompanied by structuring (1690 but why dominate, if only to encourage rebellion and starting anew? Can we live in relative freedom without risking anarchy? There is balance to Be found along with space in language and classifications that are neutralizing, shifting, doubling and lingering,expanding language and reality fields to the margins, the borders where symbolic effectiveness may be addressed for those who are at odds, at war even, in an attempt to establish a status quo for that point in time and place.
The entirety of this work seems to be centered around the validity of language as it describes classes,power,political ideation, economics and religion. I agree that the pairs of terms used to described relationships in opposition and likeness is most accomplished (147) as then we are getting around totality in language and absolutism. It is the unspoken, the unexpressed and unfound, which today will help us most in communicating experience. This is more than a pre-verbal understanding but an understanding of other, the unbelievable, the improbable and undecodable. Naming may represent power but what of non-naming? Is it not the ambiguous that is most intriguing. Domination is accompanied by structuring (1690 but why dominate, if only to encourage rebellion and starting anew? Can we live in relative freedom without risking anarchy? There is balance to Be found along with space in language and classifications that are neutralizing, shifting, doubling and lingering,expanding language and reality fields to the margins, the borders where symbolic effectiveness may be addressed for those who are at odds, at war even, in an attempt to establish a status quo for that point in time and place.
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