Rereading Brian Stock's essay “Minds, Bodies, Readers," I wondered what class members would say about it: why are we reading this? What does healing and meditation have to do with reading? What does the history of medicine and pre-modern mind-body theories and practices have to do with reading?
And while I cannot answer these questions directly, I found myself, again, very intrigued by Stock's comments on the early, pre-modern western practices of meditative reading and visualization, which apparently were abandoned as time passed (I am still not quite certain why).
Stock's historical survey of body-mind concerns in relation to the history of reading makes me aware that reading is an activity that does involve the mind and the body; yet we forget about the body, even though, or precisely when, reading is pervasively understood as a cognitive skill.
We have all experienced, however, how profoundly our bodies respond to, and are engaged with, what we read--and not only in moments of narrative suspense. When we describe reading as a refuge or an escape, we also describe a way of feeling about ourselves--relaxed, perhaps, at ease, comfortably or pleasurably engaged.
What might meditative reading be like? Perhaps a bit like what Newkirk describes as "slow reading?" Reading in which we linger over a text, in ways that allows us to forget ourselves or connect with ourselves as deeply as we might in meditating, when we enter a realm that is no longer merely the personal self--when we become self-forgetful?
I don't know--but I am intrigued and agree with Stock that we should find out much more about reading as a body-mind practice.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Gendered readings
I find myself amazed, reading the excerpt from Mellor, Patterson, and O'Neil's Reading Fictions, how deeply gendered my own reading of "A Lot to Learn" was. I guess I have a lot to learn! I assumed that the scientist, by the name of Ned, was male (not surprisingly, but still--if "Ned" had been an elementary school teacher I might have allowed for the possibility that "Ned" is the shortened form for a female teacher). And, given that first assumption, I found myself in a brief shock when an actual girl appears in his miracle machine: a naked eight-year old girl with freckles and a brace (what kind of brace? I cannot really imagine that). Two readings that immediately popped into my head were: a. Ned is caught up short by his sexist assumption about women as "girls," available to him whenever he wishes for them (like money, a martini or bottle of beer); b. Ned is actually a pedophile and got exactly what he asked for. The reading that did not occur to me, but that instantly occurred to me when Ned became Nell, is that he/she wanted a child (of course, the wish for a member of the opposite sex--that's still a bit weird, even if we think of Ned as Nell).
But then why say "hell"?
The entire exercise or experiment made me deeply aware of how my readings of texts are shaped by gendered expectations, much more so than I thought.
What brought me up short right away, however, was the reference to "opposite sex"--a dead give away, in my mind, that the story's, or at least Ned's, expectations about gender are heterosexual (or what is sometimes called "heteronormative"). The assumption is that there are two sexes, each of them opposite to the other--some might call this a very rigid, binary model, that does not allow for the fluidity or even multiplicity of gender.
What if Ned is a transgender scientist seeking to confuse the machine he created?
But then why say "hell"?
The entire exercise or experiment made me deeply aware of how my readings of texts are shaped by gendered expectations, much more so than I thought.
What brought me up short right away, however, was the reference to "opposite sex"--a dead give away, in my mind, that the story's, or at least Ned's, expectations about gender are heterosexual (or what is sometimes called "heteronormative"). The assumption is that there are two sexes, each of them opposite to the other--some might call this a very rigid, binary model, that does not allow for the fluidity or even multiplicity of gender.
What if Ned is a transgender scientist seeking to confuse the machine he created?
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Caedmon
Jul2006.jpg)
Memorial to Cædmon, St Mary's Churchyard, Whitby, England.
I am intrigued by the story of the Anglo-Saxon poet Caedmon and the signficance Howe sees in it for our understanding of the transition from a purely oral to an increasingly textual culture. Caedmon's ability to compose beautiful religious poetry in Anglo-Saxon after listening to monks' expositions of passages from the bible, in Latin, made Caedmon an admired member of the monastic community. Nobody, it seems, felt the need to "teach" Caedmon how to read the written texts, not in order to keep him from that skill but because his skill of transforming what he heard into powerful, persuasive orations was so highly respected within the "early medieval textual community." Howe does not emphasize Caedmon's skills as a translator, but this is what impresses me (and what I, at first, did not even grasp): that Caedmon apparently understood Latin (although he did not speak it?) and was able to translate it, on the spot, into Anglo-Saxon verse. So, in this story, "reading" involves an impressive number of practices, performed by different people in a textual community: comprehending a written text; performing a "text" by reading it aloud or reciting from memory; listening and memorizing a "text" read aloud; translating the performance of a written text (latin) into a poem or hymn, something to be sung, in Anglo-Saxon.
I was struck by Howe's following remarks:
"To the question why the monks did not teach Caedmon to read, one might respond that it would have been a waste of everybody's time. Less facetiously, one might say that the question itself reveals a misunderstanding of the nature of an early medieval textual community. Established as he was within the monastery, Caedmon had no need to read alone and to himself. Indeed, his particular responsibility to transform Latin text into Old English verse emphasized the skills of oral performance rather than of reading comprehension. We must also ask if the entire question of Caedmon's inability to read is not at least partially anachronistic in its assumption that this ability be defined by our own cultural practice as readers who exist in only the most tenuous of communities." (70-71, my italics)
Somehow I am saddened by our own narrow understanding of what constitutes reading!
What did it mean to "read" in Anglo-Saxon England?
Howe writes: "Quite simply, no Anglo-Saxon learned to read in order to read alone, late at night, in a quiet house and a calm world." (71)
Instead, as Howe shows by, among other things, tracing the etymology of to "read," reading in Anglo-Saxon England was a communal affair that involved not only "comprehension of a written text" (very few people were able to do that), but the oral performance of a written text to a community, an oral performance that was frequently based not on a direct deciphering of a text but on memorizing another's reading "aloud" of a written text. As a result, "listening" and "memorizing" were important aspects of "reading."
I am intrigued by Howe's piece because it makes me realize something about my native language, German. He points to the etymological links of the English "read" to the German words "reden" and "raten." "Reden" is the German word for speaking, or, more formally, holding forth on a topic, as in giving a speech or lecture (this perhaps more formal aspect differentiates it from "sprechen"--to speak). "Read" is also related to "raten," the German word for puzzling something out, for deciphering. A puzzle is "ein Raetsel" in German. Both of these usages suggest an understanding of reading as rooted in speaking or giving councel and deciphering or figuring something out, and thus to an entirely more oral, and not exclusively textual, understanding of the cultural practice of reading.
I am intrigued by Howe's point that this earlier and more expansive or "oral" use of "read" survives in contemporary usages of to read as deciphering social or personal texts, as in "I could not read him" or "he was unable to read the social dynamics." Also a "palm reader" does more than "comprehend" the lines on your palm. It's neat to know the ancient roots of this word! And see how these ancient meanings still, at times, assert themselves in contemporary contexts and practices.
Instead, as Howe shows by, among other things, tracing the etymology of to "read," reading in Anglo-Saxon England was a communal affair that involved not only "comprehension of a written text" (very few people were able to do that), but the oral performance of a written text to a community, an oral performance that was frequently based not on a direct deciphering of a text but on memorizing another's reading "aloud" of a written text. As a result, "listening" and "memorizing" were important aspects of "reading."
I am intrigued by Howe's piece because it makes me realize something about my native language, German. He points to the etymological links of the English "read" to the German words "reden" and "raten." "Reden" is the German word for speaking, or, more formally, holding forth on a topic, as in giving a speech or lecture (this perhaps more formal aspect differentiates it from "sprechen"--to speak). "Read" is also related to "raten," the German word for puzzling something out, for deciphering. A puzzle is "ein Raetsel" in German. Both of these usages suggest an understanding of reading as rooted in speaking or giving councel and deciphering or figuring something out, and thus to an entirely more oral, and not exclusively textual, understanding of the cultural practice of reading.
I am intrigued by Howe's point that this earlier and more expansive or "oral" use of "read" survives in contemporary usages of to read as deciphering social or personal texts, as in "I could not read him" or "he was unable to read the social dynamics." Also a "palm reader" does more than "comprehend" the lines on your palm. It's neat to know the ancient roots of this word! And see how these ancient meanings still, at times, assert themselves in contemporary contexts and practices.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
What is ideology, cont'd
Althusser!
I tend to teach this essay in grad. literary theory courses as an example of Marxist theory. More and more, I am deeply irritated by Althusser's argument, which is basically that the "subject" is interpellated by ideology. In other words, when we think we are most ourselves (when we are subjects, agents, captains of our own fate, etc.--what Althusser would call the whole fantasm of western individualism), we are most subject to ideology and thus, I guess, more easily controlled by the "State Apparatus."
Now, there's some truth to that. For instance, when I first got into Baseball and watched a Tiger's Game, I was struck by how we were constantly instructed from a super large screen--to sing the anthem, to clap our hands, to buy food and drink, to stand up, to sit down, etc. Really, I thought to myself, how does that differ from the Soviet propaganda that I remember from visiting East Berlin: red flags on houses that praised the communist party and the thriving economy. With one difference: East Germans knew they were coerced. They knew the flags and slogans were state-imposed propaganda. In America, we don't think of consumerism as a state-imposed ideology, necessitated by capitalism. Should we? Afer all, we love the apparent choices a consumer society offers and define our individuality in many ways by what we buy. We are, Althusser would say, perfectly subjected by thinking of ourselves as subjects.
But here's what bothers me about Althusser. For him there cannot be a genuine subject. We cannot ever really know ourselves, never make decisions that are not shaped by hegemonic, that is dominant, ideologies. In other words, we cannot be "critical" subjects. And that is simply too pessimistic a view for me. What, if we hold Althusser's point of view, is the point of teaching?
I tend to teach this essay in grad. literary theory courses as an example of Marxist theory. More and more, I am deeply irritated by Althusser's argument, which is basically that the "subject" is interpellated by ideology. In other words, when we think we are most ourselves (when we are subjects, agents, captains of our own fate, etc.--what Althusser would call the whole fantasm of western individualism), we are most subject to ideology and thus, I guess, more easily controlled by the "State Apparatus."
Now, there's some truth to that. For instance, when I first got into Baseball and watched a Tiger's Game, I was struck by how we were constantly instructed from a super large screen--to sing the anthem, to clap our hands, to buy food and drink, to stand up, to sit down, etc. Really, I thought to myself, how does that differ from the Soviet propaganda that I remember from visiting East Berlin: red flags on houses that praised the communist party and the thriving economy. With one difference: East Germans knew they were coerced. They knew the flags and slogans were state-imposed propaganda. In America, we don't think of consumerism as a state-imposed ideology, necessitated by capitalism. Should we? Afer all, we love the apparent choices a consumer society offers and define our individuality in many ways by what we buy. We are, Althusser would say, perfectly subjected by thinking of ourselves as subjects.
But here's what bothers me about Althusser. For him there cannot be a genuine subject. We cannot ever really know ourselves, never make decisions that are not shaped by hegemonic, that is dominant, ideologies. In other words, we cannot be "critical" subjects. And that is simply too pessimistic a view for me. What, if we hold Althusser's point of view, is the point of teaching?
What is ideology?
I found James Gee's "Ideology and Theory: The Moral Basis of Discourse Analysis" useful and clarifying. I wondered why I had not read this piece before--and why it is not included in the anthologies of literary theory I tend to use in my graduate theory classes. Although it does not deal with literature, neither do some of the other theory selections in such anthologies--like Althusser's "Ideology and the Ideological State Apparatus."
This essay does a very good job explaining what Ideology is by pointing out that all ideology is based on theory. He gives us useful ways of thinking about the levels of explicit or tacit, removed or deferred theories--which he defines as a "set of generalizations about an area...in terms of which descriptions of phenomena in that area can be couched and explanations can be offered." (You can tell that I am using this post as a way to remember the salient point of his argument).
The picture of the world and the ideologies we hold about it--and their impact on our understanding of and response to the world--that arises for me from this article is of multiple, competing and conflicting, but also mutually reinforcing, overlapping ideologies, most of them not particularly coherent, rarely entirely explicit, based on the uncertain, shifting ground of either our own experiences and observations or those of others and more often on hegemonic ideologies like individualism, personal responsibility, the ideals of self-improvement, capitalism, the protestant work ethic.
Somehow I love the multiplicity and messiness of all that. I also appreciate the moral imperative that Gee articulates in this essay:
Know your ideology or rather ideologies
Know what they are based on
Know how your ideologies affect other people
This essay does a very good job explaining what Ideology is by pointing out that all ideology is based on theory. He gives us useful ways of thinking about the levels of explicit or tacit, removed or deferred theories--which he defines as a "set of generalizations about an area...in terms of which descriptions of phenomena in that area can be couched and explanations can be offered." (You can tell that I am using this post as a way to remember the salient point of his argument).
The picture of the world and the ideologies we hold about it--and their impact on our understanding of and response to the world--that arises for me from this article is of multiple, competing and conflicting, but also mutually reinforcing, overlapping ideologies, most of them not particularly coherent, rarely entirely explicit, based on the uncertain, shifting ground of either our own experiences and observations or those of others and more often on hegemonic ideologies like individualism, personal responsibility, the ideals of self-improvement, capitalism, the protestant work ethic.
Somehow I love the multiplicity and messiness of all that. I also appreciate the moral imperative that Gee articulates in this essay:
Know your ideology or rather ideologies
Know what they are based on
Know how your ideologies affect other people
Thoughts on "Whose Inquiry is it Anyway? Using Students' Questions in the Teaching of Literature"
I liked this piece--although I must admit to reading it rather partially, paying more attention to the beginning and less to the practical suggestions, which I will come back to now that I know this essay exists.
What intrigued me about this piece was Meyers' concentrated effort to offer different ways for teachers to elicit questions from students and to make student-generated questions not just the starting place for discussion (I often use them that way) but the foundation of of inquiry driven learning--the kind of learning I am committed to in my classrooms. He provides a well-reasoned rationale for putting student-generated questions at the center of classroom learning.
This semester, in my Women and Literature course, I put students into "Scholars' Communities" (not sure about the name, but there it is), who meet in frequent workshops. The first workshop asked them to generate discussion questions for chapters of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. I set aside an entire class session--over an hour--for this workshop, and truth be told, felt a bit guilty at not "teaching." I walked from group to group, to see what students were doing, offered suggestions, asked questions of my own, but in general, did not expend much energy. I was just sort of there.
Reading Meyers' essay, I feel much better about myself! I did "teach," just not in the way in which I was taught to "teach."
Over the next class sessions, individual scholars communities will present their responses to a chapter of Woolf's text and pose their discussion questions. Let's see how they'll do.
I am sure to go back to Meyers' essay for future workshops.
What intrigued me about this piece was Meyers' concentrated effort to offer different ways for teachers to elicit questions from students and to make student-generated questions not just the starting place for discussion (I often use them that way) but the foundation of of inquiry driven learning--the kind of learning I am committed to in my classrooms. He provides a well-reasoned rationale for putting student-generated questions at the center of classroom learning.
This semester, in my Women and Literature course, I put students into "Scholars' Communities" (not sure about the name, but there it is), who meet in frequent workshops. The first workshop asked them to generate discussion questions for chapters of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. I set aside an entire class session--over an hour--for this workshop, and truth be told, felt a bit guilty at not "teaching." I walked from group to group, to see what students were doing, offered suggestions, asked questions of my own, but in general, did not expend much energy. I was just sort of there.
Reading Meyers' essay, I feel much better about myself! I did "teach," just not in the way in which I was taught to "teach."
Over the next class sessions, individual scholars communities will present their responses to a chapter of Woolf's text and pose their discussion questions. Let's see how they'll do.
I am sure to go back to Meyers' essay for future workshops.
Monday, January 9, 2012
On Radway's "A Feeling for Books"
I wonder if Radway's dilemma--the gap between her reading preferences and the stuff, i.e. the canonical literary works, she expects herself to read and enjoy--is still as intense and wide-spread today.
I imagine it is, and this despite decades of attack on canonical literature. I sense it in my own life: Although I went on the job market, many years ago, as a scholar of modernism, I had not read the most modernist of all novels, James Joyce's Ulysses. Over the years I would try, again and again, but always gave up after the first few pages. The task of making it through this allusive stream of consciousness novel (500 pages at least) was too daunting.
It was only three or four years ago, that I decided to embark on the novel, but not on my own: with two friends, one of them a retired literature professor, the other a very curious reader. We had a great time. We read parts of the novel aloud, we admitted to our complete ignorance and befuddlement, we free associated, and, thanks to the one friend who had read, even studied, the novel before, learned a lot about it. I began to genuinely like it, but more than that, I enjoyed the experience of reading it. Truth be told, I also felt like I passed an academic test long overdue (Now I didn't need to pretend I had read the novel...)!
Still, I would never choose Ulysses as bedtime reading or, necessarily, holiday reading--unless I'd have a couple of friends to read it with.
This makes me wonder if the gap is not only about the kind of texts we read--on our own and as students or scholars of English Literature--but also about how we read them...I'll do some more thinking about this...
I imagine it is, and this despite decades of attack on canonical literature. I sense it in my own life: Although I went on the job market, many years ago, as a scholar of modernism, I had not read the most modernist of all novels, James Joyce's Ulysses. Over the years I would try, again and again, but always gave up after the first few pages. The task of making it through this allusive stream of consciousness novel (500 pages at least) was too daunting.
It was only three or four years ago, that I decided to embark on the novel, but not on my own: with two friends, one of them a retired literature professor, the other a very curious reader. We had a great time. We read parts of the novel aloud, we admitted to our complete ignorance and befuddlement, we free associated, and, thanks to the one friend who had read, even studied, the novel before, learned a lot about it. I began to genuinely like it, but more than that, I enjoyed the experience of reading it. Truth be told, I also felt like I passed an academic test long overdue (Now I didn't need to pretend I had read the novel...)!
Still, I would never choose Ulysses as bedtime reading or, necessarily, holiday reading--unless I'd have a couple of friends to read it with.
This makes me wonder if the gap is not only about the kind of texts we read--on our own and as students or scholars of English Literature--but also about how we read them...I'll do some more thinking about this...
Sunday, January 8, 2012
On "Disliking Books at an Early Age"
Reading Graff's essay I thought both about my own "liking of books" at an early age and my son's dislike for books, which used to trouble me. So I found myself entirely in agreement with Graff when he comes to the following conclusion: "...our ability to read well depends more than we think on our ability to talk well about what we read" (45). In other words, even when we experience reading, especially the reading of fiction or poetry, as a private experience, it's still essentially social, embedded in a web of relationships and motives. When my son and I read together, for instance the Harry Potter novels, he didn't mind reading at all. But once he decided that he was too big to read with his mother, he stopped reading--or rather, he stopped reading books and started reading magazines (Sports Illustrated and, later, National Geographic) and communicating online. Am I right to say that's not reading?
Graff's essay, first published in 1992, responds to the "culture wars" within English departments between those who insisted on the inherent value of reading something called "literature" and those who brought a complex array of literary theories to the study of literary texts. Although I agree with Graff's side of the issue--that there is no "innocent" or unmediated reading of a literary text--I don't agree that teaching the debates about a text is always the best way to help students approach it. However, creating conversations about a text is, in my mind, the best way to enable the kinds of relationships that might motivate a young reader to give a new piece of "literary" reading a chance.
But what kinds of conversations?
Graff's essay, first published in 1992, responds to the "culture wars" within English departments between those who insisted on the inherent value of reading something called "literature" and those who brought a complex array of literary theories to the study of literary texts. Although I agree with Graff's side of the issue--that there is no "innocent" or unmediated reading of a literary text--I don't agree that teaching the debates about a text is always the best way to help students approach it. However, creating conversations about a text is, in my mind, the best way to enable the kinds of relationships that might motivate a young reader to give a new piece of "literary" reading a chance.
But what kinds of conversations?
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