Aquinas, Biblical Hermeneutics, the Emergent Church, Postmodernism...it's on my mind

I’ll willingly humble myself enough to admit that I had a bit of a difficult time reading Aquinas' Summa Theologica the other day. It wasn’t that the content was difficult to understand it was more my lack of experience with reading medieval arguments that was the problem. Anyway, as I was doing a little additional reading on good old Aquinas I stumbled across the following, which might help you decipher Aquinas’ argument.

Check it:

http://www.bluffton.edu/~humanities/1/st_tips.htm
So what is it that Aquinas is arguing in Summa Theologica? Simply put, that Christ’s Incarnation was to restore human nature by removing “the contamination of sin”, which humans cannot irradiate by themselves. His argument is against several of his contemporary and of historical theologians who held differing views about Christ. Aquinas’ main point was that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh and that he had a real body of the same nature of ours and yet he was also a perfect Deity.

In Response to Hermeneutics: http://www.textetc.com/theory/hermeneutics.html
I found it interesting to read that originally Hermeneutics were thought of as a science. One in which the reader sought to understand the author’s intention, to strip his or herself of their own biases or prejudices. It all began with Schliermacher, and his wanting to look at texts more objectively. So really hermeneutics precisely attempt to strike a balance between the way of the sciences and the way of the arts. Perhaps this is why I like studying hermeneutics so very much. In many ways I am a creative person yet I still have an overriding scientific approach to thinking and analyzing information. Maybe I should just be a hermeneutican if there even is such a thing. As I was reading on hermeneutics I couldn’t help but consider how biblical hermeneutics fit, or don’t fit into a postmodern society. Do we allow the Bible so say that which we want it to say? I am afraid such has been the case actually since much before the days of postmodernism.
A few nights ago I was in a conversation with my father and he brought up the topic of the emerging church. Quite a popular and controversial topic these days, I must say. I’ve been curious about the emerging church for quite some time, and on quite a few occasions have read articles on it. The truth is, it is rather difficult to pinpoint a definition for the emerging church, perhaps that is because there really aren’t any overriding central truths. Emerging churches vary greatly, and in fact emergent churches argue amongst themselves in regards to what it is that they stand for- can we say- postmodern? I’m not saying that emerging churches are all bad news. There are some things most of them are doing quite well, like being missional, embracing a world that would be otherwise left un-embraced. But anyway I just wondering what the emergent church would think about biblical hermeneutics…maybe this is a question at issue for me =P. Or maybe I just don’t completely understand the interrelationship between postmodernism and hermeneutics- if anyone can help me out here I welcome your thoughts. Perhaps I should reading Crystal Downing’s How Postmodernism (Serves) My Faith.

Hermenutics- I like it!

I am going to respond to that which Michelle wrote on her blog because I like the topic and I have a few discrepancies or at least comments:

Michelle Writes:
I really am fascinated by this new section of Christian theory / hermeneutics that we are studying in class, one that I think is so often neglected when studying the Bible in general. I thought of this quote when we were discussing the question of Biblical interpretation. Someone actually brought up the fact that when we interpret the Bible today for ourselves, we are actually "interpreting an interpretation," since the Bible wasn't originally written in English, but translated from the Greek, Hebrew, and Latin (not necessarily in that order - see, I don't even know how our English translation came about!). Therefore, choices were made when interpreting words and phrases from language to language, since Augustine himself talks about the discrepancies sometimes found between languages. And from this short talk on the topic, I was left with a lot of questions and thoughts on Biblical interpretation.
My Response:
Hermenutics not talked about? Certainly we must hang out in different circles. I feel like I am constantly in conversation over biblical interpretation. Then again I am studying in the biblical and religious studies department and I am going to divinity school next year. Maybe I am the one who usually strikes up these conversations, but I don’t know they seem to be preeminent in my life. Indeed we are interpreting an interpretation. The good news (pun- ha) is that the interpretations that we have of the Bible are fairly similar to one another there is nothing vastly different about the way scholars have translated from the biblical language to the language of our context. It is true, what Augustine writes about translating biblical language. There are simply some words that can’t be translated from say Koine Greek to English. In example, take the word Amen we leave it as Amen in the English but really it means something like “so let it be” if I remember correctly back to my days of studying Koine Greek.
Michelle Writes:
First off, let's just think about one of the questions we discussed in class as a spin-off from this main theme: Do all readers have authority to interpret a text, or do scholars have greater authority based on their greater expertise? From looking at the above context, it seems that only scholars would have the means to go back to the Greek, Hebrew, and Latin to see what the original texts actually said. Then they are able to aid us in our present-day interpretive quandaries. But the common person is not fluent in any of these languages, and therefore cannot even begin to see their original meanings. And with meanings also comes connotations to words. Each society attaches connotations to words and phrases, and different meanings come about for words as the years go on (just look at where a word like "gay" has come from over the centuries, and what it means now). So words and phrases that mean something to us now meant something totally different to the Biblical writers, hence where many of our interpretational difficulties come from. Now, commentaries are available for the common person who does not go to school for Biblical studies or for languages such as the ones mentioned above, but really, let's be honest, when was the last time any of us picked up a commentary or concordance when we read the Bible. I'll be honest: I never have, unless I had to for a class. And I've forgotten most of what I learned there.
My Response:
Certainly, not all of us can read translate the Bible from the original, but thankfully that is done for us. Our job is to understand, or to interpret the meaning of that which has already been interpreted into our language. Michelle…I will be honest…I am a dork and I care about biblical interpretation and I do often use a Greek concordance and practice translation when reading the New Testament…there are some of us weirdos out there…
Michelle Writes:

I took my last Bible class last semester, and I will never forget something the professor said. Our study was going deep into historical contexts and into many other areas that I had never heard of in the church. The professor said that the average preacher would not know half of these things, for they do not go to school and study all the same things that Biblical professors study... their classes are different for the different degrees (I'm sure I'm grossly misquoting, but the point was that Biblical scholars often "know more" than the average preacher, and if they do know the same amount, there is no way they can cover such intense and obscure topics as we are talking about here in a Sunday sermon - they'd lose half the audience!). That leaves us with scholars who know more about the Bible, or can talk more about the Bible in different ways than the average preacher can on a Sunday morning, and therefore they have authority to help us interpret in ways we couldn't do because of lack of knowledge.
My Response:
HOLD UP! Dare I say…don’t believe EVERYTHING your professors say. I would say it depends largely upon whether the pastor has had a seminary/divinity school education. Most denominations today require such an education. So if a pastor has his or her MDIV degree they most likely had to studying biblical languages as part of their education. I would know I have looked into many divinity school curriculums. I have heard the same kind of response from Bible professors who have liberal theological views. They say they hold these views because they have studied Hebrew and Greek and that their knowledge from such has led them to have these view- to which I say…HOG WASH there are many conservative biblical and theological scholars who have studied just as much biblical language. I argue it is all about one’s presuppositions
Michelle Writes:
Going back to the beginning, the study of languages opens up a whole new arena for Biblical interpretation, because we are seeing the original language and what those words really were. And if we go into the historical context, we see what those words really meant to the people of that day. My Bible professor last semester often gave us the Greek interpretation of the passage we were reading, focusing on what the words really meant for the people then. It was an awakening for me. But in the end, that's as far as it went. I haven't researched any deeper into it (mostly for lack of time and energy, since life takes over with all its busyness). And that leads me to not be as much as an "authority" as my professor, since I do not know all that he knows. Yes, it is at my disposal with the advent of such a large dissemination of print texts, but I also need the time to go and find those books... and then read them.
My Response:
I of course don’t know who your professor is or what his agenda but all I can say is you have to use discretion. This is why I am such a proponent of doing my own study. Maybe one of the reasons I am headed off to divinity school next year myself. I think we have to be aware that scholars often use their authority to bend the truth, or simply just to interpret it in a way that suits themselves and it is easy to fall into the trap of believing them simply because they have Ph.D by their name…I say…I’ll do the study myself thank you.

On Biblical Interpretation

Ahhh…yes I loved the discussion of biblical interpretation that we had in class today. It was interesting to hear from the perspectives of English majors rather than my usual hearing about it from my classmates in the field of biblical and religious studies. I think it is important to interpret Scripture with recognition given to its original context. And as much as I hate to admit it, because I know how much I struggled in my study of it, I think it is important to have the ability to interpret Scripture from its original language. I cringed as I typed that because I know how much I wanted to die when I took Koine Greek (okay so maybe I am being a little dramatic but not really) it was a painful experience. Anyway, you know how they say beauty is pain? Well, I suppose such is the case with interpreting from the original language and context. It isn’t an easy process, but it allows us to interpret Scripture and bring it into the context of present day. And yes I will admit that it is strangely rewarding to be able to translate from the original language. Ok, but what about those who don’t have the education and/or ability to translate in such a way? This is something a friend and I were recently discussing. She is studying Christian Ministries and I Religion, so we have both been taught all kinds of things about biblical interpretation that we wouldn’t know if we weren’t studying in the Bible/Religion Department. Yet both of us question…isn’t God a clear and contextual communicator? Wouldn’t he communicate in such a way that the common person would be able to read and understand the Bible? I want to say yes, but I really don’t know. Sometimes the more I study the Bible and Religion the more I honestly feel like I know nothing of it. We all come to the Bible with our own presuppositions. We give different hierarchal value to different sources. Hence the flatbook verses hierarchal reading of Scripture. Hence the countless ways in which various denominations interpret Scripture. Is one of us correct? Is there a certain ordering of sources we should use in out method of interpretation? These are questions that seriously plague me on a daily basis. I know this post is out of control grammatically, but it is rather stream of conscious. I want to believe that there is one correct way of reading the Bible, and yet I want to believe that it can be read and understood by all people. I want to believe that the context in which it is written can be translated into present day. I want to believe that God communicates clearly and contextually throughout time. There are so many cans of worms though…biblical hermeneutics, biblical exegesis, dispensationalism, reading the Bible as a flatbook as opposed to a hierarchal view of Scripture, reading through a binocular verses reading through a telescope. There are so many questions, and so few solid answers. I am going to be a student at divinity school next year…these questions are going to plague me even more than they do now. As a theologian I am going to be responsible for giving my best answers to some of these questions. Oh my, what have I and am I getting myself into? Overwhelmed.

If only Aquinas would have lived to finish Summa Theologia, but atlas he didn’t, as morbid as that might read. I find it so fascinating, and yet I, as well as all others, are left to wrestle with its incompleteness. I like how his prologue suggests that he is about to attempt to understand sacred doctrine with clearness, “so far as the subject to be treated will permit.” So long as the subject permits, isn’t that the truth?
As a student studying English and Religion, I find myself frequently being plagued by the questions of interpretation. Interpretation of biblical texts is precisely that which divides those of the faith community. Our interpretation can have tragic implications, so we ought to take it quite seriously. In articles nine and ten Aquinas chimes in on the issues at hand in relation to figurative language. Those who study theology know that this is huge in relation to biblical hermeneutics. This is something that I find myself struggling with and pondering on a daily basis. How do I know what to interpret as figurative language? If I choose to interpret something figuratively what are the implications? How would people of a lesser education even know that Scripture can be interpreted figuratively? Even if they did know, how would they know what it meant to interpret it figuratively? Wouldn’t God communicate with people in a clear and contextual way? These are just a few of the questions I find myself constantly at arms with.
Maybe as an English major I should have a bitter distaste for Aquinas since he suggested that poetry is to be distrusted, that is obscures truth, that it is the lesser of sciences. Yet, I admire Aquinas for so much desiring to pursue that which is true, even though in the process, yes, he does downplay the value of poetry. Aquinas however does not completely disregard the use of figurative language. He does after all believe use the convention of searching for “hidden meaning” and agrees that texts sometimes have a multiplicity of meanings.

This is powerful, thank you Augustine:
“In the likeness of our word, there is also this likeness of the Word of God, that our word can exist and yet no word may follow it; but there can be no work unless the word precedes, just as the Word of God could be, even though no creature existed, but no creature could be, except through that Word through whom all things were made. Therefore, not God the Father, not the Holy Spirit, not the Trinity itself, but the Son alone, who is the Word of God, was made flesh, although the Trinity brought this about, in order that by our word following and imitating His example, we might live rightly, that is, that we might have no lie either in the contemplation or in the work of our word. But this perfection of this image is to be at some time in the future. In order to obtain it, the good master instructs us by the Christian faith and the doctrine of godliness, that ‘with face unveiled.’ From the veil of the Law, which is the shadow of things to come, ‘beholding the glory of the Lord,’ that is, looking as it were through a mirror, ‘we might be transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as through the Spirit of the Lord,’ according to our previous explanation of these words.”

Ngugi's Devil On The Cross and Postcolonial Criticism

Recently, I read Ngugi's Devil On The Cross. Below I is a short essay in which I relate some of the text with some of the concepts of postcolonial criticism:

It’s the story of two families, one living with the legacy of colonialism, and the other basking in the largess of a new imperial power. The families lives, though very different, draw a definitive parallel. Anita Desai, in her novel, Fasting, Feasting, creates strict comparisons between an Indian and American middle-class family. She points to these comparisons through the stories of characters who are accustomed to particular ways of thinking and living largely shaped, respectively, by colonial and imperial ideology. In so doing, Desai brings light upon the negative realities present in both India and the United States. Desai shows that both colonizers and the colonized struggle in the balance between that which she terms fasting and feasting.
The story opens with the presentation of the colonized orthodox Indian family. The father is presented as a generally successful man who holds steadily to a consistent way of living. He has been impacted largely by changes brought to India by American colonizers. As the text explains, “his eyes had been opened to the benefits of meat along with that of cricket and the English language: the three were linked inextricably” (Desai 32). The mother, though largely submissive to her husband, as the two are named as one, MamaPapa, has never completely given way to the “novel concept of progress” (Desai 32). The two have three children; Uma, the eldest daughter is described as clumsy and slow, Aruna, the middle daughter described as beautiful and intelligent, and Arun is the only son whom the parents pour the hopes and dreams of their lives into, in an effort to become more eurocentistic.
The tension between fasting and feasting is shown in Uma in relation to the colonialism of the educational system. Uma, unlike her sister Aruna, is unable to get high marks in school, and therefore is essentially forced to withdraw from the highly selective system of education. That which she desires to feast upon, namely education, becomes that which she fasts upon. The tension between fasting and feasting is also found in relation to Uma’s experience with the Indian system for arranged marriages. Twice her family attempts to get her married, figuratively speaking, attempting to strive toward feasting but twice their attempts fail, and leave them fasting. In their first attempt a family cons Uma’s father into giving a dowry, but then breaks off the engagement. The second time Uma gets married, but finds that the man she married is already married, leading to the devastation, or fasting, of her divorce. The devastation of Uma’s life situations which have led her to fasting bring her to the place at which we meet her, as a gray-haired spinster, living under her parents rule. When Uma is given the potential to feast, as she is offered a job at a local hospital, her parents refuse to allow her to work there, leaving her to again fast. Even Uma’s moments of greatest feasting are marked by her oblivion or fasting such as when she succumbs to a fit in an ashram which her Aunt Mira-Masi has taken her to, or when she nearly drowns in the Ganges River during a religious ritual. Though Uma attempts to move toward feasting she is seemingly doomed by inevitable fasting. Uma is largely caught in the tension of syncretism between India and America.
Uma’s younger sister, Aruna, though beautiful and intelligent, is also struck by the tension between fasting and feasting. Aruna marries a man who is termed a “catch-prize” and moves to Bombay. For a time she appears to be feasting in her marital relationship, but even her feasting is short-lived. Her obligation to keep up with her appearance leads her into a mode of fasting. Furthermore, Aruna become neurotically obsessed with the need to keep both her children and her husband under her control at all times. Aruna portrays this idea that sometimes one’s seemingly blinded striving toward feasting only leads to fasting.
As the youngest child, and the only son, Arun’s parents have poured their resources into his intellectual nourishment. Arun is almost held as an object that has the potential to lead the family toward upward mobility. For this reason, the parents are feasting with joy when Arun is accepted to study at an American University. However, his parent’s response of feasting is contrasted with his own fasting. Uma speaks of her brother’s blank joylessness upon receiving word of his acceptance into the American University. Here we find the tension between fasting and feasting, even between members within the same family. Arun’s parents appear fixated on the hope of their son becoming educated, which shows that they have been influenced largely by the ideology of the imperialist’s power to convince them that upward mobility is equivalent to idealism. However, Arun remains more or less unconvinced of these colonial idealistic values.
Through Arun’s experience of moving to Boston and living with the American Patton family, we begin to view parallels between fasting and feasting in regard to the people of colonized India and the United States imperialist powers. The American Patton family symbolically represents feasting in regard to their excess. We find that the father is constantly barbequing large slabs of meat, and the mother is obsessed with restocking the family’s freezer. The daughter of this American family binges, or feasts and then fasts, on candy bars. As a victim suffering of bulimia, the daughter, Melanie, symbolically represents the ever-present tension between feasting and fasting as she consumes candy bars and then regurgitates them. We find the Patton family son, Rod, to be a jock, who is completely obsessed with his body image, constantly jogging, in an effort to work toward feasting upon the body image that he hopes to attain. Through the Patton family Arun witnesses the tension that both Indian and the United States have in relation to fasting and feasting. Specifically, Arun finds a strong correlation between his sister and Melanie and thinks, “How strange it is to encounter it here, where so much is given, where there is both license and plenty.” (Desai 214). Arun also says, “one can’t tell what is more dangerous in this country (America), the pursuit of health or of sickness.” (Desai 205).
The condition of both the Indian and American families portray the reality that people of both the United States and third world countries struggle with tensions associated with fasting and feasting. Often we are lead to believe that the United States, because it holds imperial power, is somehow superior to colonized countries, such as India. In Fasting, Feasting, we come to recognize that though the people in both countries struggle differently, they both struggle. There is an ongoing tension between the denial of one’s basic needs, and the denial of basic liberties, leading to the struggles related to fasting and feasting which, as we read in the novel, are present in families in India as well as the United States. Anita Desai, in Fasting,Feasting, shows that both the colonized and the colonizers are in a constant battle to escape imprisonment from the struggle between fasting and feasting.

Check out this harsh article:

The bad news is that Shakespeare has disappeared from required courses in English departments at more than three-fourths of the top 25 U.S. universities, but the good news is that only 1.6 percent of America's 19 million undergraduates major in English, according to Department of Education figures. When I visit college campuses, students for years have been telling me that the English departments are the most radicalized of all departments, more so than sociology, psychology, anthropology, or even women's studies.
That's why it was no surprise that Cho Seung-Hui, the murderer of 32 students and teachers at Virginia Tech, was an English major.
Demonstrators gather to listen a speech at the Columbia University campus where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will speak during his stay in New York September 24, 2007. Ahmadinejad met leaders of an anti-Zionist Jewish group on Monday at the start of a visit to New York for the U.N. General Assembly meeting that has sparked protests and anger. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson (UNITED STATES)
Related Media:

In the decades before "progressive" education became the vogue, English majors were required to study Shakespeare, the pre-eminent author of English literature. The premise was that students should be introduced to the best that has been thought and said.
What happened? To borrow words from Hamlet: "Though this be madness, yet there is method in it." Universities deliberately replaced courses in the great authors of English literature with what professors openly call "fresh concerns," "under-represented cultures," and "ethnic or non-Western literature." When the classics are assigned, they are victims of the academic fad called deconstructionism. That means: pay no mind to what the author wrote or meant; deconstruct him and construct your own interpretation, as in a Vanderbilt University course called "Shakespearean Sexuality," or "Chaucer: Gender and Genre" at Hamilton College.
The facts about what universities are teaching English majors were exposed this year by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. English majors are offered a potpourri of worthless courses.
Some English department courses are really sociology or politics. Examples are "Gender and Sociopolitical Activism in 20th Century Feminist Utopias" at Macalester College; "Of Nags, Bitches and Shrews: Women and Animals in Western Literature" at Dartmouth College; and "African and Diasporic Ecological Literature" at Bates College.
Many undergraduate courses focus on extremely specialized subjects of interest only to the professor who is trying to "publish or perish," but of virtually no value to students. Examples are: "Beast Culture: Animals, Identity, and Western Literature" at the University of Pennsylvania; and "Food and Literature" at Swarthmore College.
Some English departments offer courses in pop culture. Examples are: "It's Only Rock and Roll" at the University of California San Diego; "Animals, Cannibals, Vegetables" at Emory University; "Cool Theory" at Duke University; and "The Cult of Celebrity: Icons in Performance, Garbo to Madonna" at the University of Pennsylvania.
Of course, English professors now love to teach about sex. Examples are: "Shakesqueer" at American University; "Queer Studies" at Bates College; "Promiscuity and the Novel" at Columbia University; and "Sexing the Past" at Georgetown University.
Some English-department courses really belong in a weirdo department. Examples are: "Creepy Kids in Fiction and Film" at Duke University, which focuses on "weirdoes, creeps, freaks, and geeks of the truly evil variety"; "Bodies of the Middle Ages: Embodiment, Incarnation, Practice" at Cornell University; "The Conceptual Black Body in Twentieth-Century and Contemporary Visual Culture" at Mount Holyoke College; and "Folklore and the Body" at Oberlin College. Replacing the classics with authors of children's literature is now common. Assigned readings for college students include Dr. Seuss, J.K. Rowling, The Wizard of Oz, and Snow White.
Twenty years ago, University of Chicago Professor Allan Bloom achieved best-seller lists and fame with his book "The Closing of the American Mind." He dated the change in academic curricula from the 1960s when universities began to abandon the classic works of literature and instead adopt multicultural readings written by untalented, unimportant women and minorities.
Bloom's book showed how the Western canon of what educated Americans should know - from Socrates to Shakespeare - was replaced with relativism and the goals of opposing racism, sexism and elitism. Current works promoting multiculturalism written by women and minorities replaced the classics of Western civilization written by the DWEMs, Dead White European Males.
Demonstrators gather to listen a speech at the Columbia University campus where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will speak during his stay in New York September 24, 2007. Ahmadinejad met leaders of an anti-Zionist Jewish group on Monday at the start of a visit to New York for the U.N. General Assembly meeting that has sparked protests and anger. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson (UNITED STATES)
Related Media:

Left-wing academics, often called tenured radicals, eagerly spread the message, and students at Stanford in 1988 chanted "Hey hey, ho ho, Western civ has got to go." The classicists were cowed into silence, and it's now clear that the multiculturalists won the canon wars.
Shakespeare, Chaucer and Milton have been replaced by living authors who toe the line of multicultural political correctness, i.e., view everything through the lens of race, gender and class based on the assumption that America is a discriminatory and unjust racist and patriarchal society. The only good news is that students seldom read books any more and use Cliffs Notes for books they might be assigned.
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni says "a degree in English without Shakespeare is like an M.D. without a course in anatomy. It is tantamount to fraud."
College students: Don't waste your scarce college dollars on a major in English.



I would like to begin by clarifying that being an English major does not automatically make me eligible to be a killer, as this author suggests. So this author is a bit off her rocker. Talk about an article that completely lacks balance. Couldn't she give English majors a little credit? Though I do have to admit that I think she has some legitimate points, its just that she makes you not want to believe a word she says because of her abrasive stance. As an English major I agree that a lot of times the major feels more like hmmm...I suppose like a mixture of majors. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing though. In fact, it suits me just fine as a person who likes to study many subjects other than English. I do however sometimes sense that English Departments are dropping that they were originally about in an effort to be politically correct. Dare I say it is a rather progressive field of study. I like the quote she includes about an English major graduating without having studied Shakespeare is like an M.D. who hasn't taken a course in anatomy. I agree and yet...I haven't studied Shakespeare as an English major- ouch! Sometimes I feel like the English major is actually way too few credits. Something is just wrong with the fact that I finished the major in two years, although I'm not complaing because it worked well for my specific situation. I think the author has some legit. points she simply needs to tone it down a bit and embrace the side of an English major, the positives, a bit more, and by that I meant atleast somewhat!

Re: On the Abolition of the English Department at Messiah College

Re: A Modest Proposal: Viz, On the Abolition of the English Department at Messiah College

The first thing among many things I would question about this proposal is how it serves to replace the English Department. I really don’t think that you would be drawing from the crowd of perspective students who want to study English. Simply put, students wanting to study English would just attend another institution. Even though the proposal seeks to address how the Christianity and Cultural Studies Department would benefit Christian students, it still doesn’t uphold the same ideals as an education in English. Furthermore, as a student who is also studying Religion I can say many of the objectives of the proposed Christianity and Cultural Studies degree are covered by the Religion major.
Many of the basic principles for the proposed department can be implemented into the English Department as it now stands without completely changing the department. As it now stands it completely lacks balance, and honestly I am pretty uncertain what one would do with a degree in Christianity and Cultural Studies, certainly not that which they would do with a degree in English. As if finding a job with an English degree is at all easy.

Responses to the four basic principles:
1. You can study Christians authors/ their history without it being the entire curriculum
2. As a liberal arts institution we already are required to take many of these courses
3. Students can develop more imagination when they are confined
4. We can require service learning without changing the entire department

· I could write a lot more but granted it is near 12 a.m. and I have been up since 6 a.m.- I’m quite tired.

Stephen Doesn't Know of Ngugi

Well my friends I am back to the world of blogging after a week of putting it to rest. Today I would like to write about the infamous Ngugi, but before I get started let’s begin right there. Just how infamous is he? We studied him in the postcolonial literature class in which I am currently enrolled, and I was told of his fame in Kenya. We were assigned to read his book titled Devil On The Cross, which is currently starring at me from my bookshelf. This assignment fell over our Easter break and so I thought it would be a fine opportunity to further connect with my family’s new found Kenyan friend Stephen.
Stephen is a young man from Kenya who is studying here in the United States to become a nurse. He hopes to then go back to Kenya and serve his native people. My family first met Stephen because he is currently working as a PCA at the nursing home at which my Alzheimer’s stricken grandfather lives. My aunt who spends quite a few hours of her week at the nursing home quickly befriended Stephen and learned his story. My mother works at a nurse at the same residence and she too came to know Stephen and his story. Before I knew it he was attending my family’s holiday functions and began referring to my family as his American family. So over Easter as Stephen and I were sitting eating breakfast at the church my family attends I asked him if he was familiar with Ngugi. Much to my dismay Stephen had never heard of the man. I couldn’t help but consider that this was the result of the education he had received from the catholic missionaries in Kenya, though I by no means want to belittle their efforts. They are, after all, the ones who gave Stephen the opportunity to come and study here in the United States.
In ,On the Abolition of the English Department, Ngugi gets at this revolt against the British colonial rule. It presents how academic institutions have helped implement cultural imperialism in Africa. Ngugi provides a glimpse into the political effects of literature and the seemingly neutral institutions of writing. I agree with Ngugi in the sense that I think that one’s own literature should be at the center of its country’s curriculum. If in Africa this means abolishing the English Department, then dare I as an English major say, I think that the English Department should be abolished. This doesn’t mean that English literature wouldn’t be taught elsewhere, but simply that it would not be at the center of the education. Think of it in terms of our own culture. It would essentially be like us having an Africa Department instead of an English Department. Perhaps that sounds like a far cry, but really that is what it is like. For this reason a salute Ngugi and his efforts to uphold his own culture.

Stephen Doesn't Know of Ngugi

Well my friends I am back to the world of blogging after a week of putting it to rest. Today I would like to write about the infamous Ngugi, but before I get started let’s begin right there. Just how infamous is he? We studied him in the postcolonial literature class in which I am currently enrolled, and I was told of his fame in Kenya. We were assigned to read his book titled Devil On The Cross, which is currently starring at me from my bookshelf. This assignment fell over our Easter break and so I thought it would be a fine opportunity to further connect with my family’s new found Kenyan friend Stephen.
Stephen is a young man from Kenya who is studying here in the United States to become a nurse. He hopes to then go back to Kenya and serve his native people. My family first met Stephen because he is currently working as a PCA at the nursing home at which my Alzheimer’s stricken grandfather lives. My aunt who spends quite a few hours of her week at the nursing home quickly befriended Stephen and learned his story. My mother works at a nurse at the same residence and she too came to know Stephen and his story. Before I knew it he was attending my family’s holiday functions and began referring to my family as his American family. So over Easter as Stephen and I were sitting eating breakfast at the church my family attends, I asked him if he was familiar with Ngugi. Much to my dismay Stephen had never heard of the man. I couldn’t help but consider that this was the result of the education he had received from the Catholic missionaries in Kenya, though I by no means want to belittle their efforts. They are, after all, the ones who gave Stephen the opportunity to come and study here in the United States.
In, On the Abolition of the English Department, Ngugi gets at this revolt against the British colonial rule. He presents how academic institutions have helped implement cultural imperialism in Africa. Ngugi provides a glimpse into the political effects of literature and the seemingly neutral institutions of writing. I agree with Ngugi in the sense that I think that one’s own literature should be at the center of its country’s curriculum. If in Africa this means abolishing the English Department, then dare I as an English major say, I think that the English Department should be abolished. This doesn’t mean that English literature wouldn’t be taught elsewhere, but simply that it would not be at the center of the education. Think of it in terms of our own culture. It would essentially be like us having an Africa Department instead of an English Department. Perhaps that sounds like a far cry, but really that is what it is like. For this reason a salute Ngugi and his efforts to uphold his own culture.

Langston Hughes...and all that jazz

As I was reading on Langston Hughes I couldn’t help but recall studying him in, well, I believe it must have been AP English in high school. Honestly, all I really remembered was that he wrote a lot about jazz music, or in relation to jazz music. Hmmm…jazz music. When I was young my parents had a nanny, as in a paid child caregiver, not a grandmother, (although she did come to fill that type of role and even more in my life) for me and my siblings. Anyway, I spent a lot of my childhood days/nights etc. at her home and she and her husband were HUGE jazz music fans (for lack of better terms). For this reason I came to appreciate jazz music at a young age, it kind of seemed as though I was forced to. She frequently took my siblings and I to jazz concerts, and when she vacationed with our family, at our beach house in RI, she always took us to hear jazz musicians in Newport. Kind of strange when I think back on it and realize how young I was when I began listening to such music, not the typical music selection for a young child. Mind you, I listened to plenty of Psalty the Singing Songbook and his pal charity church mouse (they were def. my favorite musicians) and little did they know they had plenty of dances choreographed to their music. I guess I was simply unknowingly preparing myself for the day that I would begin choreographing and teaching for the Acclamation Dance Ministry- haha. Basically I went from teaching stuffed dolls to eventually teaching real live college students the amazing art of dance. Anyway, I am majorly off on a tangent- sorry for the reminiscing.

Back to jazz and Hughes…I realize that with the death of my nanny some years ago went the death of my listening to jazz music. Langston Hughes almost made me want to retry the appreciation of such music. Onward to his essay, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain. Perhaps the thing I most appreciate about this essay is his call to people to take a stand unashamedly for who they are. Something that bothers me perhaps more than most things is people who aren’t willing to take a stand for what they believe, and essentially who they are in the face of tension. It was interesting to me how Hughes brought to attention the tension that comes even from within the same ethnic class- namely, the tension between the higher class African Americans and the lower class African Americans. This is not to say that Caucasians aren’t blame for probing this tension. However, I think that often when we think of the struggle that comes with ethnicity we think of it as being among those of different ethnic backgrounds. Hughes welcomes us into the reality that there are struggles even amongst those of the same ethnic backgrounds. Hughes is to be upheld for the call he gives to everyone to be who they are in the place they are. For the Christian scholar at a secular institution this might be a call to not shy away from one’s faith even in the midst of secular tension. Really this takes on all kinds of tensions, but the Christian scholar was simply one that came to my mind while I was reading the article. Ok, I really could write more, but actually I am off to teach my tap dance class, go figure =)!

Theocentrism

From Structuralism/Poststructuralism: http://www.colorado.edu/English/courses/ENGL2012Klages/1derrida.html

“Structuralism is appealing to some critics because it adds a certain objectivity, a SCIENTIFIC objectivity, to the realm of literary studies (which have often been criticized as purely subjective/impressionistic).”

I think that is precisely why I like structuralism. To be honest the subjectivity of literary studies sometimes nearly kills me. I think I am a paradox of an English major, because in many ways I prefer realism over that which is imaginative, I prefer objectivity over subjectivity. Please don’t disown me for being honest.

Structuralism simply makes sense to me. This notion that authors merely inhabit pre-existing structures (langue) that enable them to create a sentence, or more than a sentence, even a novel. I like how this article I read says that structuralism is simply the idea that “language speaks to us, rather than that we speak to language.” If nothing more it allows me, as a writer, to move away from egocentricity. Perhaps structuralism isn’t well taken by some because it demands a certain amount of humility. It suggests that our perception of reality is limited because we understand reality only through the structure of language. I think it would be interesting to consider what it might look like if we placed God as the center structure. It seems that structuralism could potentially really serve Christian thought. Hmmm…maybe this is something I could consider working with in graduate school next year. I know, I’m a dork, but I am already considering different aspects of theology I might be able to research and study, and I am hoping that some of my background in English studies will provide assistance to me.
I’ve read quite a bit of Derrida in some of my higher level religion classes and he seems to get at some of the concepts of structuralism a great deal. I have read works by Derrida that focus on this concept of logocentrism, and this got me to thinking. I studied biblical Greek here at Messiah and from it I know that logos is koine greek for word, as in the word of God. Soooo…what if we replaced logocentrism with theocentrism in which of course theos, God, would be at the center. Maybe I am on to something. Maybe not. I tend to have a lot of lofty theological ideas floating around in my mind. Clearly, this might just be another of them. If all things including the way we think and everything are based upon structures, then that is why it is so vital that God remain at the center of who we are. I know we , Christians, throw the concept of God as center around a lot, and it has become a part of what I like to term our “Christianese language”, but maybe we ought to seriously consider its implications.

Feminism, Theory, Theology

“In my view, it is a fine thing for many of us, individually, to have traversed the minefield; but that happy circumstance will only prove of lasting importance if, together, we expose it for what it is (the male fear of sharing power and significance with women) and deactivate its components, so that others, after us, may literally dance through the minefield.”
- Annette Kolodny

While I was reading Annette Kolodny’s, Dancing through the Minefield I couldn’t help but think that she was all around so much more down to earth (at least in this essay) than the works of other feminist critics I have read. Not to mention Kolodny gets kudos for using the a dance analogy =)- I’m a fan. But seriously, I like her propositions. First, that literary history is a fiction, that it is constructed by specific individuals within specific institutions and with specific assumptions and aims. That such narratives and the canons they create can- and should- be contested. Secondly, we, readers, engage in paradigms. We often unconsciously appropriate meaning from a text according to our own needs or desires, or according to critical assumptions or predispositions that we bring to it. Thirdly, is Kolodny’s axiom that we must reexamine our seemingly inherent biases and assumptions informing our critical methods. I think Kolodny is being completely fair in her call to get people to become aware of their literary interpretations. I think about this a lot in relation to theology. I know, I know, I am constantly relating things to religion, but what can I say, it is my other field of study. Also, I find a lot of interrelationship between literary theory and theology. Anyway, much of one’s theological understanding if not all of it, is dependent upon a hierarchy of sources. In example, theological sources might include experience, community, etc, and depending upon the value you give those sources you will arrive at a given theological understanding. This relates to the idea behind the binocular or telescope view of Scripture- you know like Scripture as a flatbook or whatever. Anyway, the same is true of literary theory. Depending upon which sources you place the most value on will determine how you interpret literature. For feminist literary critics it is certainly on gender (female), but I suppose historically a greater weight has been placed on masculinity. Anyway, that is it for now because I actually need to go work on a 35 page theology paper- ahhhhhhhh!

Binary Oppositions: Dressed Up Antonyms?

1. Sun/moon
2. Sacred/secular
3. Light/dark
4. Good/evil
5. Hot/cold
6. Cat/dog
7. Male/female
8. Black/white
9. Young/old
10. New/old
11. Good/bad
12. Winter/summer
13. Fall/spring
14. Traditional/contemporary
15. Construction/deconstruction
· Hmmmmm…binary oppositions are fun but at the risk of sounding facetious I am wondering if they are just glorified antonyms. Seriously, is there any difference besides the fact that they evidently have particular connotations associated with them? Are we simply dressing up and giving a new term to that which we learned in elementary school? Someone please tell me. Also, in class we were placing them in columns according to our negative and positive associations of the words and I was wondering is there a certain side the negative is supposed to go on? I thought that I read somewhere that the word with the negative connotations goes on say the left side and the word with the positive connotation goes on the right side? Is this true? Also, because some of our perspectives differ regarding associations with the words I am wondering if that makes the whole theory behind binary oppositions relative. I think I have more questions than anything in this entry. Must be the whole question at issue deal rubbing off on me.

Girl Power?!

The other day I found myself in a course of conversation with a friend during which she declared to me that she is a feminist. Perhaps the word declared is a bit abrasive, it wasn’t as though she was purposefully making a declaration of her feminist ways, but that is neither here nor there. I couldn’t help but chuckle from deep within my being, though silently, mind you I am not that rude, as I considered that this friend was relating herself to people like Helene Cixous. As I giggled inwardly, I realized the very real possibility that my friend has never even read anything by any feminist critics. I am certainly not suggesting that my friend, in declaring herself as a feminist, was drawing a perfect parallel between herself and Cixous, yet her statement just aroused a bitterness within me. A bitterness for people who make statements without having any real knowledge on what they are saying. Not that my friend isn’t at all a feminist, in actuality most of us are even if to a minimum, but I take issue with people who say things prior to “doing their homework”. If it weren’t for my ability to tame my words I probably would have asked my friend, right then and there, to evaluate her feminist ways in relation to VirginiaWolfe and Helene Cixous. The point is, if you are going to say you are something, you ought to study up on that something first. I am a major proponent of studying. Ok, I need to stop before my bitterness completely takes over the voice of my writing, as I believe it has already begun to. Can I be honest? Ok, I take that ummm silence as a yes. While reading "The Laugh of Meduse" I couldn’t help but think how bizarre Cixous must be or have been (wait is she living?). Looks like IIIIIIIII didn’t do my homework! Anyway, along with the bizarreness of the essay, she was also quite crude. Several times I had to resuscitate myself from the shock of her writing. I never knew writing to be such a sexual act, but I guess I never asked Cixous before. Honestly, her writing really disgusted me and half the time, well over half the time, I found myself questioning how she even came up with such strange notions. I’m not even sure I completely followed her notions that “women are multiple,” “women are open to the other,” “women write in white ink,” etc. Perhaps the essay would make more sense to me if I read “The Laugh of Medusa” prior to Cixous’ response.

Random fun story:

I thought of the following the other day in class when Dr. Powers asked the question at issue of whether theory impacts our everyday lives. I can't say it impacts the way I brush my teeth, atleast not yet, but it does impact everyday conversation. Last week I was on the phone with, well someone I am really close to, but we will leave them unnamed. Anyway, we were having this conversation that related to upward mobility, and all of the sudden I found that I starting twisting Ohmann's whole essay to fit the conversation. I started relating and basing all of our conversation about upward mobility to capitalism. I went so far that the person I was speaking with on the phone finally made the comment that I was being a bit too extreme, at which point I realized I was going over the top with my relating the conversation to capitalist ideology. Anyway, I will admit that I am starting to relate everyday things to literary theory. Sad, scary? Perhaps, but also true!

The Global Market & Art

Recently I was reading an essay titled, Capitalism and Art , and it really caused me to consider the interrelationship between economics and art. Perhaps more specifiically, the way in which art is controlled by the economy. Sadly, as the essay explains, capitialists tell us that we live in a global market and the market exists to make money. This made me consider that artists are actually, in a sense, oppressed by capitalism because their work, as art, is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether it sells. In effect, anything that sells gets labeled as art. This lead me to consider the possibility that many of the works that we consider to be art are indeed little more than pieces that sell. Perhaps this also holds true in relation to authors whose work sells. It isn't necessarily that they are extrodinary literary scholars, rather, they are people who kno w precisely how to create that which will sell on the market. This my friends, is rather tragic.

Male/Female Mind & Other Assortments

So I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a feminist. I mean, I guess anyone who thinks that women should have rights equal to those of men might actually be considered a feminist. There are just so many branches of feminism, if you will. I rather not classify myself with any movement or branch of a movement. For the most part I think that women should be permitted to the same things as men, given a few slight objections.
Who am I really to respond to Virginia Woolf, in her essay A Room of One's Own, clearly she is writing from a time period, and likewise a context quite different from my own. Interestingly, near the end of her essay she writes, "I consoled myself with the reflection that this is perhaps a passing phase; much of what I have said in obedience to my promise to give you the course of my thoughts will seem out of date much of what flames my eyes will seem dubious to you who have not yet come of age." Certainly, there are still instances in which women are having to fight for their rights because of injustices based solely upon their gender. Yet still, I fill obligated to write as a women there are also benefits that only I as a woman can reap. I fear my attempt to read Woolf's essay according to its historical context was quite frail and rather lacking because of my present context.
Woolf's notion based upon her observation of two people getting into a taxi and the satisfaction it gave her seemed strangely odd to me. She asks herself whether there two sexes in the mind corresponding to the two sexes of the body, and whether they also require to be united in order to get complete satisfaction and happiness. She then sketches out a plan each person has two powers, namely, one male and one female. In the man's brain the man predominates over the woman, and in the woman's brain, the woman over the man. In an effort to reach what she terms a "normal" or "comfortable" state of being the two must live in harmony. Dare I say that I don't even know how someone could read this and not seriously question Woolf's mental status while writing this.
Regardless of the reality that Woolf's notion seems utterly bizarre, I also find that she seems to contradict herself later in the essay. On women's inability to fully relate to that which a man writes Woolf writes, "Do what she will a woman cannot find in them that fountain of perpetual life which the critics assure her is there. It is not only that they celebrate male virtues, enforce male values and describe the world of men; it is that the emotion with which these books are permeated is to a woman incomprehensible." Here Woolf sounds more like what I would consider a feminist, or even just a person recognizing the differences between men and women, but what happen to her earlier notion of one sex having both a male and female mind?

Aesthetic Pleasure

Pierre Bourdieu’s work is all about revealing the pernicious social consequences of modern aestheticism’s exaltation of art and those who appreciate art. Bourdieu's work reveals that aesthetic judgment is a process of sorting according to economic status. He rejects Kant’s work which drew heavily upon the idea of aesthetics as that which is related to disinterestedness, taste, and autonomy. Kant held that art is to exist in its own autonomous realm whereas Bourdieu insists that aesthetic disinterestedness and autonomy are class-based notions.

As I was reading Bourdieu’s, From Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, I couldn’t help but relate that which he wrote about to fashion, namely, clothing style. I have often considered the reality that much of my own aesthetic taste related to clothing flows from my parents own taste. At times I have had a crisis of identity where I wonder if my style is at all my own. Ok, so perhaps I was being a bit melodramatic when I wrote that I have had a crisis of identity, but this is something I have often pondered.

I remember clothing shopping with my mother when I was a young girl. If I would select an article/s of clothing that did not please her taste she would condemn my selection. She would also often point me in what she believed to be the tasteful direction of style. Through this process I developed my taste, but when I consider how it was developed, I must question whether it is really even my own. As one who enjoys fashion and is a keen observer I often notice that many children have styles similar to their parents. I was thinking this just last night when one of my friends mother’s was visiting her here at school and I observed that what she was wearing looked just like something my friend would wear. So I recognize that I am not the only one whose taste might not really be my own.

Perhaps sadly, this process might last a lifetime. Granted I am a twenty-one year old woman, by this point one would hope that I would be able to select my own clothing without having my parents say, not so. I remember last Saturday night I got out the clothes that I planned to wear to church on Easter Sunday. My mother took one look and proclaimed to me that she wasn’t so sure the top and the bottom matched style wise. She advised me to consult my father, who in my estimation has an “eye” for style. Of course according to Bourdieu perhaps my father’s eye for style is based solely upon his class status.

I contemplated the above as I was reading Bourdieu’s essay, so as you might imagine I was quite pleased when I came upon the paragraph in which he writes, “And nothing is more distinctive, more distinguished, than the capacity to confer aesthetic status on objects that are banal or even common (because common people make them their own, especially for aesthetic purposes), or the ability to apply the principles of pure aesthetic to the most everyday choices of everyday life, e.g., in cooking, clothing, decorating, completely reversing the popular disposition which annexes aesthetics to ethics. And I say, right on Bourdieu!

I'm a Fan of Course Material Overlapping

We (meaning our lit. crit class) has moved onward to studying Marxist criticism, and likewise my postcolonial literature class seems to be in Marxist mode. I'm a fan of course material overlapping, as it can serve to adhance my studies. I have just about completed my reading of Devil on the Cross, a book written by Ngugi while he was imprisoned. Four characters in the book are particularly affected by capital class. I did a bit of reading on Marxism, so that I could better understand what it entailed, and I would encouraged you to check it out yourself at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism. Yes, thank you wikipedia even though you are so ummm unscholarly. Anyway, the basic idea of Marxism is that the belief that capitalism is based on the exploitation of workers by the owners of capital, which is huge in Devil on the Cross. Allow me to demonstrate Marxism through a few of the characters in the book.

Jacinta Wariinga:

- she is suicidal because of her hate for her skin color, for this reason we find that she tries to use skin lightening creams- she certainly suffers from cultural imperialism- she thinks that her skin color is the root of her problems- in fact, the entire country has been taken over by cultural imperialism, their music, art, culture etc is no longer their own- economic stability cannot be reached

Robin Mwautra:

- he is a trickster who manipulates the poor, though we do not find this until later in the novel, but he essentially oppresses the poor

Muturi:

- Nugui speaks through this character with the use of oral tradition- he presents the idea that oral tradition destroys the walls between lower and upper class created by capitalism

Professor Gatirira:

- doesn't understand his position within capitalism- tries to create an anthem but that which he wants the people to sing is untrue because of the divide between classes

* this is brief but really this whole book revolves around Marxism I read an interview with Ngugi which you can check out at: http://www.postcolonialweb.org/poldiscourse/pozo3.html

Abigail's Entry, My Response

The following is from Abigail Nye's blog:

"To summarize: a small group of book buyers formed a screen through which novels passed on their way to commercial success; a handful of agents and editors picked the novels that would compete for the notice of those buyers; and a tight network of advertisers and reviewers, organized around the New York Times Book Review, selected from these a few to be recognized as compelling, important, "talked about." (Ohmann, 1884)
Let me preface this blog by saying that I have a lot of pride for the country I live in. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that my father has served in the military for over 25 years. Nevertheless, I proud to say I live in America and feel incredibly blessed to be given the opportunities I have been given because I am a citizen of this country. This does not mean I completely agree with every decision our government has made or that I stand behind ALL of the notions America seems to stand for. It simply means I know the cost and weight of the freedom I possess to live the lifestyle that I do. This being said, I have a difficult time with Ohmann's complaint that our capitalist nation has become nothing more than a censor for which only those with the highest degree of wealth of power make the decision of what is popular and what is not. I am aware of the fact that SOME of the books that have been chosen as "best sellers" have been selected by an elite group. I am also aware of the fact that monopolies like the New York Times Book Review do need to do more in order to incorporate a more realistic and balanced view when it comes to deciding what literature is worth being read. However, I also feel that there is not enough emphasis in Ohmann's writing placed on individual decisions. Although we can attribute some of the decisions made about books to the imbalance of power, we cannot forget about human nature and individual will. Yes, marketing does play a part but when I walk into a bookstore I don't find myself at the "20 Top Books" stand but way back in the corners where the books that are not so popular are sold (most of the time this is because I think that the books being produced today are garbage and I am skeptical-and also because I just like to look at the cookbooks-haha). I understand Ohmann's argument but feel it is somewhat unbalanced. After all, we all make choices everyday which determine affects that happen in the bigger picture. Even when discussing society and literature, this fact cannot be overlooked. It is easy for people to complain about America and blame so many factors in our world on Capitalism. To some degree I can resonate with these issues and concerns. However, I also feel that people and the world cannot use capitalism as an area to place the blame for poor individual decisions made. Yes, we are all a community. But each member of the community makes decisions that effect the community as a whole so individual choices cannot be overlooked and blamed on the community as a whole. I don't even know if I am making any sense at this point...but I just wanted to offer a counter-argument to Ohmann's conclusion.


My Response to Abigail Nye's Entry Posted Above:
I'm honestly not sure that I am able to follow your line of reasoning. I think you would be profoundly hard-pressed to prove Ohman wrong. He has quite a few valid points. I'm not so convinced that Ohmann isn't proud to be an American, and I am not so sure how you arrived at that kind of conclusion. It seems to me that you might have rationalized ideas of what he is getting at, but there are not facts for evidence of such. As I was reading his essay I couldn't help but think well ummm DUH to a lot of his statements. At the risk of sounding like a complete jerk, I thought it was ridiculous that Ohmann did research to conclude such obvious points. It seemed to me that what he was getting at, even more than capitalism, was the idea of things being political. This relates to the notion of the ruling class. Perhaps those things political are closely related to capitalism. Just to clarify when I speak of politics I am in no way assocaiting governmental politics. I mean politics in the sense that who I know, or my place in society, will determine my success in the world.

Storytelling Hasn't Completely Lost Its Sting...Not For The Children I Babysit

* Note the picture of Walter Benjamin- not gonna lie, sometimes my head hurts from spinning after studying literary criticism too =P*


By now you might think I have fallen off the planet or at the very least have taken a brief hiatus from this blog. You are correct in your assumption of the later. Last week marked my college’s combined Easter/spring break. I didn’t forget about my blog over break, but couldn’t seem to bring myself to dealing with the turtle speed of the internet connection at home. Furthermore, I was focusing on trying to accomplish some writing for another class, namely, a forty page paper that is due in a few short weeks. Regardless, of all this I am back to this lovely blog and hope to post on a regular basis.
Over break I received an e-mail from a woman at my church requesting that I babysit her six children. Might I add that her six children are under the age of well, I know they are at least under the age of ten. Seeing as I am a poor college student, I really didn’t consider myself to have a choice in the matter. My mother thought it was a grand opportunity that might allow me to consider the realities of having six children. My father apparently must have thought I would struggle to find ways to occupy the enthusiastic children at 6 a.m. (yes a.m.), and got a few tips from their grandmother, who told him that they love to hear stories. My father of course reported back to me telling me that I might want to consider the tactic of storytelling. I panicked ever so slightly as thoughts of our recent literary criticism reading assignment, The Storyteller Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov, filled my mind. After having read this essay by Walter Benjamin, I was unsure whether I even knew what it meant to tell a story, to be a storyteller.
According to Benjamin, we are losing the act of storytelling at large. He suggests that this is because the idea of experience has lost its value. I have to admit that I struggle to agree with this notion. It seems to me that much of our society places a strong emphasis on experience. Nearly any position one might apply to will likely ask of the applicant’s experience. Furthermore, most positions requires experience and interviewees the interviewer of his or her experience. I think that perhaps Benjamin is getting at “something” but I don t think that experience is the correct term for that which he is alluding to.
I hate to keep picking at Benjamin, but I also disagree with his notion that the nature of every real story is that it contains something useful. Benjamin suggests that a real story must have a moral, or give practical advice. What I ask of this suggestions is what of stories that don’t contain a moral, and don’t give practical advice. Are they not stories? It seems to me that many stories that are told orally are simply stories with humor. We tell such stories to provide entertainment. Shall we dispose of such stories?
Benjamin’s statements against the novel are fairly strong. It is almost as thought he is saying that in came the novel and out went real communication. Perhaps Benjamin’s issue with the novel is similar to my present day issues with things like instant messenger and facebook. Seems to me that all with the aim of bettering communication we have made it worse. We no longer no how to communicate in the real sense, as mechanisms like instant messaging and facebook have made to easy to communicate falsely. In my estimation they have so much distorted our way of thinking about communication that we no longer know what it means to truly communicate.
The premise of Benjamin’s essay is largely the idea that storytelling has lost its importance. I think this is to be expected with society’s advances (advances- ha!- oxymoron?). It is obvious that oral tradition will certainly become more and more marginalized as we have more options in regards to communication. However, I don’t think that storytelling will ever completely lose its sting. After all there will always be children, like the six that I babysit, who ask to hear stories.

From Elrena Evans to Michel Foucault

Yesterday author and speaker Elrena Evans visited the senior seminar in which I am currently enrolled. She spoke, among other things, of what she terms her miserable experience as a graduate school student. She earned a full scholarship and pursued her M.F.A, but said that she never felt as though she fit in among those of the academy. She spoke of the academic snobbery and of her pot smoking professors and classmates who could have carried less about the fictional stories she wrote about Bible characters. Snickers aroused from those who are also enrolled in this literary criticism class when she complained about having to study the lofty works of Derrida and Foucault. She asked we had yet studied the works of these two men. Ironically, I had read some Derrida the night before and was scheduled, according to the syllabus, to read Foucault today, which I did. I had read some of the work of Derrida in the past, but this was my first time studying Foucault, and Elrena is correct, correct in deed in regard to the loftiness of his subject matter.

One time I was scolded by an English professor who told me that I write too lofty. He told me that only lofty readers will be able to understand my writing. I don’t think my professor could necessarily have justified his scolding. What did he expect me to write like, when most of what we are assigned to read, within the major is rather up there, in the sky somewhere. Besides I have another excuse to offer, I am also studying religion, much of which is based upon writing that is totally out there, lofty, and high in the sky. Clearly, our reading influences how we write, though I am sure that could be argued on the contrary. Seriously, though sometimes all this lofty reading has me thinking so abstractly that I need someone to grab a hold of my ankles and pull me back down to earth. Ok, so perhaps I am being a bit dramatic and really this is more of a fear that I have, of how I could potentially become because of my choice of academic study. Anyway, I am seriously digressing more and more with every word, so now, onward with the purpose of this post. Foucault’s essay, What Is an Author, yea, from what I could gather he is calling into question what it means for “the death of the author” (thank you Roland Barthe for your infamous phrase). Foucault suggest that we must consider that “function” which the “author” fulfills within a given “discourse”.

The author, according to Foucault, precisely serves as an organizing device. As such the author allows us to group certain texts together. The function of the author is both to organize the vast reservoir of materials of the past, and to anchor a certain way of interpreting those materials. Seems that his ultimate target is that of “humanism”, or the postmedieval understanding of who and what individuals are. Foucault’s essay invites its readers to study the ways in which literary criticism approaches its object, the text, and accords it the prestigious title of literature; this partly through the exaltation of the author.

I’m pretty sure that Foucault loses sleep over questions such as the question of an author is, the one at hand in this essay. I found it strangely humorous that he seems so apologetic of some of his earlier work, which is the reason that he reevaluates his prior assumptions. I think I agree with Elrena, in regards to the loftiness of Foucault, but not to go without saying that Foucault has some interesting lofty ideologies regarding what an author is, even if nothing more.

Elrena Evan's Page:
http://elrenaevans.com/

Responsibility to Appreciate What We Don't Like?

From Dr. Powers blog:

…Well, enough about that. Today I'm also interested in Wimsatt and Beardsley and am wondering about the following question: Do we have a responsibility to appreciate things that we don't like? Or even do we have a responsibility to expand our repetoire of pleasures? In our culture today, we tend to think not. Students get offended when they hear Flannery O'Connor's quotation that undergraduates are having their tastes educated--that is, they are being taught what to like and how to like it. Nothing offends our relativistic and basically consumerist spirit more. Indeed, I suspect that far from literature and art as the great undergirding ideologies of capitalism, capitalism might fall apart in the contemporary world if we dared to assume that there were some things that people ought to seek to appreciate or even like, even if they don't like them natively. I think of opera in my own experience, which was first a vague appreciation, then a mild interest, until it finally became a passion and a practice. But I also think of literature. At the least we ask students to appreciate the significance of certain achievements, the first doorway to actually enjoying those achievements. This strikes many folks as oppressive. What right do I have to tell other people they ought to work at appreciating something? Still, I think there's something to the notion that we have an ethical responsibility to expand our repetoire of likes and dislikes. Maybe more on this later…

My response:

…At the end of class a few days ago Dr. Powers posed the question to my classmates and I of whether we have a responsibility to appreciate things that we don’t like. I think this question is paradoxical by nature. How might we sincerely appreciate something that we don’t like? Perhaps the issue at hand here is more about the qualification of the word appreciate. Perhaps this is more about respecting those things that we don’t like, yet even that wouldn’t work. I don’t think that we are necessarily obligated to respect those things that we don’t like. What if the very reason that we don’t like something is say because it is unethical? Dr. Powers suggests that our culture tends to think that we do not have the responsibility to appreciate those things which we don’t like, but again, I disagree. We live in a culture that seems to strive toward tolerance, religious tolerance, cultural tolerance, ethnicity tolerance, political tolerance, the list could go on. I think it is important that we are, at times, exposed to those things that we don’t like, but this in no way obligates us to appreciate such things. I don’t think it is even possible to wholly appreciate something that we don’t like. Dr. Powers suggests his growth in coming to like opera and says that it started with a vague appreciation. In such a way he seems to support that which I have stated above. We have to have that initial interest in order to arrive at a greater appreciation of that thing which we don’t like. This is why it is important to be exposed to even those things that we don’t think we like. In such a way we might awaken an appreciation that we didn’t know existed. However, this does not constitute a responsibility to appreciate things that we don’t like…

Putting the De in the construction

At the risk of sounding completely odd I really enjoy binary oppositions. I find them rather intriguing and even more so after reading an overview on Structuralism/Poststructuralism and hence forth arriving at a broader understanding of the purpose of such. As you are probably well aware Jacques Derrida is often referred to as the leading figure in deconstruction. Perhaps like me, you have studied his work in your philosophy or religion courses.

Derrida looks at Western philosophy, or metaphysics and proposes the idea that there necessarily has to be a center, or point at which everything comes. In example, this point could be God, human self, the mind, or the unconscious. This of course depends on the philosophical system that is being referred to.

So playing off of this ideology comes the presumption that spoken word guarantees the existence of somebody doing the speaking. Derrida calls this the idea of the self that has to be there to speak part of the metaphysics of presence. Presence is itself a binary opposition. That is right, you guessed it, presence/absence. Of course presence becomes that which is preferred over absence. So this privilege of speech is what Derrida calls logocentricism. Logos, greek for word and centricism of course for center. For once my painful study of biblical Greek comes into practice- yay!!!

All this to say that the basic method of deconstruction is to find a binary opposition. Then comes the importance of showing how each pair is a part of the other. Supposedly then the structure of opposition, which kept the two binaries apart crumbles. The binary is to loose its meaning so that you can’t tell the difference between the two. I say supposedly in the above sentence, because this to me seems like a far cry from reality. Anyway, regardless of what I think this is why the method is called deconstruction because it is a combination of construction and deconstruction. This feels like a lesson taken straight from Intro. to English Studies all over again. Those of you who had the privilege of taking that course probably remember Downing talk about divine construction, on what seemed like a daily basis. Just thought I would refresh your lovely minds, now mine needs some sleep for refreshment. I'm of to sleep and dream divinely of deconstruction, maybe, just maybe.

Link used for above outside research: http://www.colorado.edu/English/courses/ENGL2012Klages/1derrida.html

What up Barthes?

::This entry needs a disclaimer, so here it is: I spent my day typing my senior seminar paper (26 pages thus far) and then taught a tap dance class and now am back writing this blog entry as the clock quickly approaches 12 a.m. so you might have to forgive that which I write that is completely and utterly bizarre:

Ok so I read this assignment over the weekend and perhaps I completely missed something but I’m not exactly positive what the leading French structuralist, Ronald Barthes was trying to express in From Mythologies Soap-powders and Detergents. It seems to me that Barthes makes an effort to show the way in which culture is covered by myths, disguised as truths. Perhaps the way he writes, which left me feeling a bit dumbfounded, is impacted by the reality that he is writing on the brink of structuralism and poststructuralism. Seriously though, what up with the collaboration between science and detergent? I did not just write “what up”, oh yes I did. What a shame, I had an English teacher in high school that used to say “what up” and I thought it was quite disturbing given his position and now his influence just came through in my blog entry. Anyway, can someone please clue me in as to how his essay related to structuralism? My brain is fried.

Annie Dillard on Lit. Crit.

Just came across the following as I was reading over some things I highlighted not long ago in Annie Dillard's The Writing Life:

"My work was too obscure, too symbolic, too intellectual. It was not available to people. Recently I had published a complex narrative essay about a moth's flying into a candle, which no one had understood but a Yale critic, and he had understood it exactly. I myself was trained as a critic. I was a critic writing for critics: was this what I had in mind?"

Thought this related quite well to some of the frustration I have sensed from my fellow literary criticism classmates. In studying literary theory do we risk being able to communicate only to those who, like us, have studied literary theory?

Structuralism: Scientific Study of Narrative- I kind of like it

So, I think I’m a fan of structuralism mainly because I tend to be a realist and one whose reasoning generally flows rather logically. Perhaps this also relates to my perfectionist personality. I like formulas and knowing that there is an objective answer. I’m not particularly a fan of subjectivity. Perhaps given these truths it seems strangely odd that I am an English major, and I admit to finding it strange at times myself. However, I do also have the creative, imaginative brain. Much of my passion lies within the performing arts and I feel most alive when I am dancing, acting, singing, or playing my violin. The logical scientific part of me wants to embrace Tzetan Todorov, who is best know for advocating the scientific study of narrative, modeled in linguistics, for which he coined the term "narratology".

As a student studying English I have often cringed in light of how subjective the interpretation of literature is. For students like me, few and far in between as we might be, Todorov offers us a theory, or resource for objectively interpreting literature. Structuralists apply the scientific model of linguistics to other aspects of human culture, seeking to chart their underlying structures and rules. In Structural Analysis of Narrative Todorov quite interestingly designates the specific elements of each plot, on the model of the sentence, as subject, predicate, and adjective. He works to discern grammar rather than semantic meaning of narrative. In this essay he specifically focuses on that of the plot and suggests that, “there are a certain number of useful categories for examining and describing plots” (Todorov 2102). He then goes on to give examples of plots and a formula for interpreting or understanding the plots.

Though this will appear difficult to understand without having the plots in front of you, this is an example of his formula for interpretation:

X violates a law --> Y must punish X --> X tries to avoid being punished à

--> Y violates a law --> Y does not punish X

--> Y believes that X is not violating a law

I am definitely in love with the objectivity of this notion, though it seems to me that it is subjective in the sense that it seems as though it might only work if we are to entirely rid the work of its author. Structuralist doesn't leave room for authorship. I take issue with this ideology because without the poet we obviously wouldn't have the poem. That is an example of my logical flow of reason (haha). Seriously though, I don't understand how structuralists can comfortably rid a work of it's creator. Is it not apparent that something is missing. I'm uncertain as to how structuralists would respond to this other than to say they aren't concerned with the poet, that it is the text that matters. I beg to argue on behalf of the poet because we wouldn't even have a poem to interpret without the poet.