March 8, 2008
Foucault Afterthought
P.S. After seeing Foucault in action in video form, I realize he looks like and has the same mannerisms as my fiance's dad.
Noam Chomsky vs. Michel Foucault
Note: I do not know how to post a video on my blog yet, but I will post the video I am responding to as soon as I know how.
The video to which I am referring is a conversation between Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault about justice vs. power. It seems that enhancing our literary theory knowledge by surfing Youtube is the "in" thing to do, so I thought I'd give it a try as well. I was particularly interested in this clip because I recognized both names in the video's title. I learned about Chomsky in my Spanish Linguistics class, specifically his push for a "gramatica generativa" or a general, universal grammar, just like the structuralists love. He wanted to find an explicit, mechanical set of rules to govern the construction of sentences. He wanted to find an underlying structure to language, just like the structuralists and poststructuralists we learn about in Lit Crit. I just love when the topics I learned in different classes overlap. It's really quite magical!
So Foucault is also associated with structuralism and poststructuralism. After reading and discussing "What is an Author?" we see that the text has a structure that is dependent on the discourse that has been developed out of our particular culture. The text does not stand alone in what it means to us, we view it and talk about it and analyze it based on the discourse we use for it. I think Chomsky would agree with this line of thinking, this structuring, if you will.
So, the video. It is only a six minute clip of a larger discussion, but I think some meaning can be gaged in and of itself from both men. They are basically in agreement with one another, yet Chomsky seems a bit more idealistic in his idea that the fundamental element of human nature is free creation and how that will, if realized, rise above our oppressive systems and institutions. He seems to want to find a quick, though idealistic, answer to societal problems, while Foucault simply states what he believes and does not offer a solution because he does not know if there is one. I think this is why Foucault is so gripping and evocative. He does not claim to know all the answers, yet he is REALLY brilliant. His ideas about power and its nature are fascinating and so true (just look at the enthusiasm of the audience to clue you in!).
But seriously, I find his thoughts on power so interesting. Chomsky seems to want to compartmentalize power as oppressive, whereas Foucault says it is productive because it produces knowledge, at least the knowledge that counts. He says in this video that political power is exerted by independent, private institutions apart from the government that should not be exerting political power. Foucault directly attacks the educational system by saying that this power-- this knowledge-- is held in the hands of a certain social class and is excluded from another social class. His views have a Marxist...coloring to them. His focus is on power and social class and how that plays out. Who has the power? And how is it exerted?
I took Comparative International Education last semester and we analyzed international education through all the schools of theory, including Marxism. We talked about how society will represent the dominant culture (whether that be a social majority or minority) in all its institutions, including schools. The dominant society welds the power, the power produces acceptable knowledge, whoever cannot latch onto that accepted knowledge is pushed to the margins, we then just go on and use that accepted knowledge to talk about whatever, literature let's say, and that's the way it's done. So what I want to know is, why is that?
Foucault exclaims in the video that the institutions which weld that political power must be challenged or else they will reconstitute themselves and the process will never end. So I wonder if discourse can be changed? What does change it if it can be changed? Would Foucault think Messiah College was an oppressive institution, welding its undeserved poltical power as a representative of the dominant society? Should we challenge the dominant society? I think, maybe yes. For example, if I decided to speak Ebonics in my classes at Messiah (or let's say an African American friend at Messiah) wanted to do that, would she be accepted? I can't help but believe more than one professor would be appalled. Or let's say we petitioned the English department to teach obscure Medieval Renaissance and 19th century writers for such prescribed requirements of the major. If we had a solid case, would they agree to it? I think not. What about all those high school students who didnt have the proper SAT scores to get into Messiah? Certainly they couldnt bring much of value to the school if their grades werent evidence that they could be groomed for intellectualism.
There is a discourse already applied to Messiah College. It is embedded in the campus and I feel like we could never change it. I hear Cumberland Valley school teachers were going to strike. What if Messiah students decided to strike on the grounds that we shouldnt have to believe that what we are learning and, more importantly, how we are learning is so essential to what it means to be educated in our society? Would we have a shot at being heard? Could we get some answers?
The video to which I am referring is a conversation between Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault about justice vs. power. It seems that enhancing our literary theory knowledge by surfing Youtube is the "in" thing to do, so I thought I'd give it a try as well. I was particularly interested in this clip because I recognized both names in the video's title. I learned about Chomsky in my Spanish Linguistics class, specifically his push for a "gramatica generativa" or a general, universal grammar, just like the structuralists love. He wanted to find an explicit, mechanical set of rules to govern the construction of sentences. He wanted to find an underlying structure to language, just like the structuralists and poststructuralists we learn about in Lit Crit. I just love when the topics I learned in different classes overlap. It's really quite magical!
So Foucault is also associated with structuralism and poststructuralism. After reading and discussing "What is an Author?" we see that the text has a structure that is dependent on the discourse that has been developed out of our particular culture. The text does not stand alone in what it means to us, we view it and talk about it and analyze it based on the discourse we use for it. I think Chomsky would agree with this line of thinking, this structuring, if you will.
So, the video. It is only a six minute clip of a larger discussion, but I think some meaning can be gaged in and of itself from both men. They are basically in agreement with one another, yet Chomsky seems a bit more idealistic in his idea that the fundamental element of human nature is free creation and how that will, if realized, rise above our oppressive systems and institutions. He seems to want to find a quick, though idealistic, answer to societal problems, while Foucault simply states what he believes and does not offer a solution because he does not know if there is one. I think this is why Foucault is so gripping and evocative. He does not claim to know all the answers, yet he is REALLY brilliant. His ideas about power and its nature are fascinating and so true (just look at the enthusiasm of the audience to clue you in!).
But seriously, I find his thoughts on power so interesting. Chomsky seems to want to compartmentalize power as oppressive, whereas Foucault says it is productive because it produces knowledge, at least the knowledge that counts. He says in this video that political power is exerted by independent, private institutions apart from the government that should not be exerting political power. Foucault directly attacks the educational system by saying that this power-- this knowledge-- is held in the hands of a certain social class and is excluded from another social class. His views have a Marxist...coloring to them. His focus is on power and social class and how that plays out. Who has the power? And how is it exerted?
I took Comparative International Education last semester and we analyzed international education through all the schools of theory, including Marxism. We talked about how society will represent the dominant culture (whether that be a social majority or minority) in all its institutions, including schools. The dominant society welds the power, the power produces acceptable knowledge, whoever cannot latch onto that accepted knowledge is pushed to the margins, we then just go on and use that accepted knowledge to talk about whatever, literature let's say, and that's the way it's done. So what I want to know is, why is that?
Foucault exclaims in the video that the institutions which weld that political power must be challenged or else they will reconstitute themselves and the process will never end. So I wonder if discourse can be changed? What does change it if it can be changed? Would Foucault think Messiah College was an oppressive institution, welding its undeserved poltical power as a representative of the dominant society? Should we challenge the dominant society? I think, maybe yes. For example, if I decided to speak Ebonics in my classes at Messiah (or let's say an African American friend at Messiah) wanted to do that, would she be accepted? I can't help but believe more than one professor would be appalled. Or let's say we petitioned the English department to teach obscure Medieval Renaissance and 19th century writers for such prescribed requirements of the major. If we had a solid case, would they agree to it? I think not. What about all those high school students who didnt have the proper SAT scores to get into Messiah? Certainly they couldnt bring much of value to the school if their grades werent evidence that they could be groomed for intellectualism.
There is a discourse already applied to Messiah College. It is embedded in the campus and I feel like we could never change it. I hear Cumberland Valley school teachers were going to strike. What if Messiah students decided to strike on the grounds that we shouldnt have to believe that what we are learning and, more importantly, how we are learning is so essential to what it means to be educated in our society? Would we have a shot at being heard? Could we get some answers?
March 5, 2008
Death of the Author
I have to say I really enjoyed this piece. Barthes' views on the relationship between author, reader, and text are innovative and engaging. He makes such bold statements so that you'd think theyre just waiting to be ripped apart and criticized horrifically, yet I have to say I agree with them. I see it.
He writes that writing is the destruction of every voice on pg. 1466. The voice loses its origin, though I dont think he would say that this statement means the voice has no origin in tradition. I think Barthes would agree with the theories of Eliot rather than Emerson if we decide to talk about tradition. When he says that the voice has no origin, I think he means that the meaning of a produced work, the voice from which the text speaks, is not definite. He gives the example of Balzac's Sarrasine where a particular sentence about femininity cannot be analyzed to find out exactly who the speaker is. Barthes says it could be the actual author's voice or maybe the author's voice imbedded in the text or maybe the protagonist in the story's voice. It is unknown. So the author and his own thoughts and assumptions and intentions has "died" in a sense when the words actually come out on the page. I like to think of the image of a pebble hitting a smooth surface on a pond where the ripples undulate outward or maybe a window cracking and fracturing into a million pieces. As soon as the words are written, interpretation and meaning can go anywhere. Now this line of thought leads me to wonder if Barthes could be for postmodernism, for this immersion of diverse interpretation and meaning. Now I know Barthes was all for the push for the universal grammar of narrative but then I learned that in his work S/Z, he has grown bored with structuralism and its search for common structure. The biography in The Norton Anthology seemed to paint him as this contradictory, quirky guy, so I wonder what he thinks of this idea of "anything goes" in the way of intrepretation and meaning.
But I do digress. I meant to write about Barthes' thoughts on tradition. I do not believe he thinks a work is a production of sheer imagination and originality, a perfect embodiment of Truth and Beauty in poetry that has already existed before time. Rather, I think Barthes does value tradition like Eliot does in that it impacts present work just as that present work impacts the past. But then Barthes gets even more particular then that. He's focusing on what actually happens when thoughts materialize into words. And I understand this. It's the whole thing about how no one can truly know another. A bit existential, yes. But it's true. One's thoughts can never entirely be known by another. All we have to communicate are our imperfect words, and those can be intrepreted in a million ways. Barthes puts the Author and the Text on a linear timeline and says the Author comes before the Text on pg. 1468. They cannot exist together. Rather, a scriptor with no origin is birthed within the text. He (or she) does not know himself. It is his language that simply knows a subject, not a person.
I do wonder about this last thought, though. Yes, I realize a whole person cannot be known simply through a text, but what if that piece of literature is wrapped up in that author's own personal experience, and the reader knows this? I just finished Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking and it was clearly about her very personal account dealing with her husband's death and her daughter's continuous hospitalization. I understand that the underlying themes of dealing with death and overcoming self-pity could be interpreted in any number of ways and could have been the voice with no origin, but the plot of the book was most certainly the voice of Didion. Would Barthes agree to this?
He writes that writing is the destruction of every voice on pg. 1466. The voice loses its origin, though I dont think he would say that this statement means the voice has no origin in tradition. I think Barthes would agree with the theories of Eliot rather than Emerson if we decide to talk about tradition. When he says that the voice has no origin, I think he means that the meaning of a produced work, the voice from which the text speaks, is not definite. He gives the example of Balzac's Sarrasine where a particular sentence about femininity cannot be analyzed to find out exactly who the speaker is. Barthes says it could be the actual author's voice or maybe the author's voice imbedded in the text or maybe the protagonist in the story's voice. It is unknown. So the author and his own thoughts and assumptions and intentions has "died" in a sense when the words actually come out on the page. I like to think of the image of a pebble hitting a smooth surface on a pond where the ripples undulate outward or maybe a window cracking and fracturing into a million pieces. As soon as the words are written, interpretation and meaning can go anywhere. Now this line of thought leads me to wonder if Barthes could be for postmodernism, for this immersion of diverse interpretation and meaning. Now I know Barthes was all for the push for the universal grammar of narrative but then I learned that in his work S/Z, he has grown bored with structuralism and its search for common structure. The biography in The Norton Anthology seemed to paint him as this contradictory, quirky guy, so I wonder what he thinks of this idea of "anything goes" in the way of intrepretation and meaning.
But I do digress. I meant to write about Barthes' thoughts on tradition. I do not believe he thinks a work is a production of sheer imagination and originality, a perfect embodiment of Truth and Beauty in poetry that has already existed before time. Rather, I think Barthes does value tradition like Eliot does in that it impacts present work just as that present work impacts the past. But then Barthes gets even more particular then that. He's focusing on what actually happens when thoughts materialize into words. And I understand this. It's the whole thing about how no one can truly know another. A bit existential, yes. But it's true. One's thoughts can never entirely be known by another. All we have to communicate are our imperfect words, and those can be intrepreted in a million ways. Barthes puts the Author and the Text on a linear timeline and says the Author comes before the Text on pg. 1468. They cannot exist together. Rather, a scriptor with no origin is birthed within the text. He (or she) does not know himself. It is his language that simply knows a subject, not a person.
I do wonder about this last thought, though. Yes, I realize a whole person cannot be known simply through a text, but what if that piece of literature is wrapped up in that author's own personal experience, and the reader knows this? I just finished Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking and it was clearly about her very personal account dealing with her husband's death and her daughter's continuous hospitalization. I understand that the underlying themes of dealing with death and overcoming self-pity could be interpreted in any number of ways and could have been the voice with no origin, but the plot of the book was most certainly the voice of Didion. Would Barthes agree to this?
Structure and Todorov
I tend to want to tear apart these critical essays, seeking to critique them and to critique them harshly, but with Todorov's essay on the structural analysis of narrative, I saw that his argument was convincing and he did not neglect the arguments that might be risen against his piece.
Todorov truly believes in his structural approach to literature, and I think I understand the importance of this linguistic, scientific-like approach. At first I thought Todorov might be alluding to the Romantics in his exaltation of the literature itself. I know the Romantics stress importance in the Poet, but there is also this idea that the poem-- the work of literature is Truth and Beauty, and it will bring enlightenment to the masses. Todorov is not preoccupied with this. He wants to study structure. In fact, I do not believe he is like the Romantics at all. He seems to be all about a scientific approach, and why is that bad. He even speaks to those who may want to separate science and literature by acknowledging their objection and saying that the novel is a "living thing, all one and continuous, like any other organism...[he] thinks that in each of the parts there is something of each of the other parts" (2101). There is a structure where parts make up the whole and those must be studied. And why is this hard to accept? How can anyone deny that literature has a structure? And then that that structure can be studied to understand the whole work of literature in relation to others? Really, isnt all study we do in college, in some way, scientific? Think about it. How else can you study some subject without empirical evidence of some sort. We need something tangible, something real to study something else. Even in our religion classes, we study books, we study famous ministers and theologians. We think about and discuss abstract ideas, but do we really study them? I am proposing that the word "study" in and of itself connotes scientific inquiry. Yes, Todorov allows for the importance of theoretical and, say, psychological "study" of literature, but he says there is a hierarchy among them. Ok, I dont know if I agree with this, but I do agree that study of structure is essential and scientific because we study the concrete of poetics. Todorov says on pg. 2105 that "literature becomes only a mediator, a language, which poetics uses for dealing with itself." We can clearly use poetics (ex. of plot in Decameron) to understand an organic connection, similarity, unity in structure of many plots in literature. We understand this. As I read about the examples in Decameron I thought to myself, This is exactly what I've done in all my English classes. This is how we talk about literature.
But then I asked, Why is it important? I already know this stuff. I already know that structure is important.
Maybe I asked this question because I live in a postmodern 20th century world where structuralism has come.....and still remains. At least traces of it, I think. We never just talked about our "feelings" towards this poem or that novel in my English classes. We studied the structure, and, let's hope, it was an objective study like Todorov demands it must be. So, yeah, we've already been doing this, and maybe because of Todorov and the other structuralists.
But... the one major thing I can think to criticize is his search for a universal grammar of narrative. I like the question Karen brought up in class about what Todorov would say to postmodern literature, with its fragmented and experimentative structure. With time, comes change, naturally, but did Todorov realize this? It seems that after the Tower of Babel happened (I believe it did, yes), humans have had this idealistic desire to become unified once more, and we have tried this in different ways. Todorov is doing it with a push for a universal grammar of narrative. Did he really believe it would work? Was he formulating it with an ethnocentric approach, only through the lense of his own education and his own experience, even that of his own circle of intellectual contemporaries? What would he say to how different Africans approach literature analysis? Or the Chinese? Or Native Americans? Do they matter?
Todorov truly believes in his structural approach to literature, and I think I understand the importance of this linguistic, scientific-like approach. At first I thought Todorov might be alluding to the Romantics in his exaltation of the literature itself. I know the Romantics stress importance in the Poet, but there is also this idea that the poem-- the work of literature is Truth and Beauty, and it will bring enlightenment to the masses. Todorov is not preoccupied with this. He wants to study structure. In fact, I do not believe he is like the Romantics at all. He seems to be all about a scientific approach, and why is that bad. He even speaks to those who may want to separate science and literature by acknowledging their objection and saying that the novel is a "living thing, all one and continuous, like any other organism...[he] thinks that in each of the parts there is something of each of the other parts" (2101). There is a structure where parts make up the whole and those must be studied. And why is this hard to accept? How can anyone deny that literature has a structure? And then that that structure can be studied to understand the whole work of literature in relation to others? Really, isnt all study we do in college, in some way, scientific? Think about it. How else can you study some subject without empirical evidence of some sort. We need something tangible, something real to study something else. Even in our religion classes, we study books, we study famous ministers and theologians. We think about and discuss abstract ideas, but do we really study them? I am proposing that the word "study" in and of itself connotes scientific inquiry. Yes, Todorov allows for the importance of theoretical and, say, psychological "study" of literature, but he says there is a hierarchy among them. Ok, I dont know if I agree with this, but I do agree that study of structure is essential and scientific because we study the concrete of poetics. Todorov says on pg. 2105 that "literature becomes only a mediator, a language, which poetics uses for dealing with itself." We can clearly use poetics (ex. of plot in Decameron) to understand an organic connection, similarity, unity in structure of many plots in literature. We understand this. As I read about the examples in Decameron I thought to myself, This is exactly what I've done in all my English classes. This is how we talk about literature.
But then I asked, Why is it important? I already know this stuff. I already know that structure is important.
Maybe I asked this question because I live in a postmodern 20th century world where structuralism has come.....and still remains. At least traces of it, I think. We never just talked about our "feelings" towards this poem or that novel in my English classes. We studied the structure, and, let's hope, it was an objective study like Todorov demands it must be. So, yeah, we've already been doing this, and maybe because of Todorov and the other structuralists.
But... the one major thing I can think to criticize is his search for a universal grammar of narrative. I like the question Karen brought up in class about what Todorov would say to postmodern literature, with its fragmented and experimentative structure. With time, comes change, naturally, but did Todorov realize this? It seems that after the Tower of Babel happened (I believe it did, yes), humans have had this idealistic desire to become unified once more, and we have tried this in different ways. Todorov is doing it with a push for a universal grammar of narrative. Did he really believe it would work? Was he formulating it with an ethnocentric approach, only through the lense of his own education and his own experience, even that of his own circle of intellectual contemporaries? What would he say to how different Africans approach literature analysis? Or the Chinese? Or Native Americans? Do they matter?
March 2, 2008
Emerson's "Nature"
I know we read "The Poet" and "The American Scholar" a school of literary criticism ago, but I kind of like Emerson, and I found his essay Nature quite interesting, though I do believe his writing is a little opaque sometimes because he tries to reason the abstract. Sometimes I'm with him, other times I say, "Huh?"
Either way, he presents some interesting thoughts on humans' relationship to nature. On pg. 28 of his essay he writes, "Nature is thoroughly mediate. It is made to serve. It receives the dominion of man as meekly as the ass on which the Saviour rode." Surely, he believes Man is higher than nature; Man can overcome nature or at least use nature for his own ultimate understanding of existence. And I think it is interesting, too, that, in drawing out this analogy, Emerson is essentially equating Man with the Messiah. We can be like God. We can fully comprehend God and we use nature to do this. At one point, on pg. 10 in his famous edict about being a "transparent eyeball," Emerson states that he is "a particle of God," which I love, and then he says later, among other things, on pg. 45 that "man is a god in ruins." He seems to believe that we have the potential to be great though we are flawed at present. He writes on pg. 42 that "we are as much strangers in nature, as we are aliens from God." There is potential, though. That potential.
In reading "The Poet" I thought Emerson to be extremely arrogant and stuffy like lots of intellectuals are, but I want to think that he believes all men to have this potential to comprehend the unity of the universe and our connection to it and all that. He does, however, mention the figure of the poet in this particular essay and this essay was written before "The Poet" so I may have to admit that he places so much stock in the figure of the poet. I keep wondering about this? Why one exalted poet? Where are the concrete examples of what the poet does and how he helps humanity's enlightenment? Emerson writes in Nature that the poet conforms things to his thoughts, things like "the sun, the mountain, the camp, the city, the maiden." He writes that the poet's power is to "dwarf the great, to magnify the small." He brings everything into unity. Ok. But how? I constantly wonder this. What experience will bring this kind of enlightenment, and then what do you do with it once you possess it? It's all fine and wonderful that Emerson is writing all this philosophy and reason about what should be, but when is it going to happen?
Should I not be asking these questions? Is the important part of comprehending this essay to dissect what he is saying and ponder the philosophy in and of itself? Please tell me, I'd like to know! Am I being too pragmatic in my thinking? Can I truly read a piece of criticism or philosophical work with a pragmatic, practical lense? Is there a school of criticism for that? Can I align my lense with that of the Marxists and Feminists and Formalists? Should we read literature as an isolated text where we study its structure, not its content, kind of like what Wimsatt and Beardsley might say? Is all this--all this blogging that I'm doing-- just some linguistic, structural study? I have taken Eliot's criticism on tradition to mean that tradition is living and breathing. It can be manipulated and reformed with works of the present. If you could call this blog entry a present work (let's just stretch our imaginations on this one), then could I say that my personal thoughts on Emerson's Nature are, in fact, valid to the meaning of Nature as a living work in tradition?
Either way, he presents some interesting thoughts on humans' relationship to nature. On pg. 28 of his essay he writes, "Nature is thoroughly mediate. It is made to serve. It receives the dominion of man as meekly as the ass on which the Saviour rode." Surely, he believes Man is higher than nature; Man can overcome nature or at least use nature for his own ultimate understanding of existence. And I think it is interesting, too, that, in drawing out this analogy, Emerson is essentially equating Man with the Messiah. We can be like God. We can fully comprehend God and we use nature to do this. At one point, on pg. 10 in his famous edict about being a "transparent eyeball," Emerson states that he is "a particle of God," which I love, and then he says later, among other things, on pg. 45 that "man is a god in ruins." He seems to believe that we have the potential to be great though we are flawed at present. He writes on pg. 42 that "we are as much strangers in nature, as we are aliens from God." There is potential, though. That potential.
In reading "The Poet" I thought Emerson to be extremely arrogant and stuffy like lots of intellectuals are, but I want to think that he believes all men to have this potential to comprehend the unity of the universe and our connection to it and all that. He does, however, mention the figure of the poet in this particular essay and this essay was written before "The Poet" so I may have to admit that he places so much stock in the figure of the poet. I keep wondering about this? Why one exalted poet? Where are the concrete examples of what the poet does and how he helps humanity's enlightenment? Emerson writes in Nature that the poet conforms things to his thoughts, things like "the sun, the mountain, the camp, the city, the maiden." He writes that the poet's power is to "dwarf the great, to magnify the small." He brings everything into unity. Ok. But how? I constantly wonder this. What experience will bring this kind of enlightenment, and then what do you do with it once you possess it? It's all fine and wonderful that Emerson is writing all this philosophy and reason about what should be, but when is it going to happen?
Should I not be asking these questions? Is the important part of comprehending this essay to dissect what he is saying and ponder the philosophy in and of itself? Please tell me, I'd like to know! Am I being too pragmatic in my thinking? Can I truly read a piece of criticism or philosophical work with a pragmatic, practical lense? Is there a school of criticism for that? Can I align my lense with that of the Marxists and Feminists and Formalists? Should we read literature as an isolated text where we study its structure, not its content, kind of like what Wimsatt and Beardsley might say? Is all this--all this blogging that I'm doing-- just some linguistic, structural study? I have taken Eliot's criticism on tradition to mean that tradition is living and breathing. It can be manipulated and reformed with works of the present. If you could call this blog entry a present work (let's just stretch our imaginations on this one), then could I say that my personal thoughts on Emerson's Nature are, in fact, valid to the meaning of Nature as a living work in tradition?
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