Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
language as the way we see the world, Roland Barthes, Mythologies the…
language as the way we see the world
social relationships:
how language changes the way we see ourselves and others
Barbara Johnson, “Animation, Abortion, Apostrophe”
the linguistic boundary between mother and not mother, life and death, is insufficient to describe abortion and its impact
language is necessarily definite, it does not allow for gradation
questions of where life begins and personhood are linguistically certain, despite their inherent uncertainty
who defines the language is who holds the power
things become political because they are indeterminate, thus debate ensues
consciousness gained through pain -> punishment for eating from the tree of life in Genesis is increased birth pains
"...it attempts the impossible task of humanizing both the mother and the aborted children while presenting the inadequacy of language to resolve the dilemma without violence" (33).
making a woman explain herself and her choice in regard to abortion, rendering her transparent and the transparency in strictly defined language
Saidiya Hartman, “Litany for
Grieving Sisters"
lives summed up by deaths
lists and adoption of the language of insignificance
the use of the collective voice, across time and space, to convey eternality of the shared struggle
how does one assume an identity when it is defined by an absence? ex. the sister without kin
"The no-longer mother, the not-wife, the kinless sister, the lost daughter, the not-woman, the not-man, the nobody, the cipher, the matrix...." (43)
how is one's sense of self disallowed by language? what are the linguistic limits?
the self that is whole vs. the self that has been severed
linguistic subversion
Phillis Wheatley, “On Being Brought from Africa to America”
subversive tone and language
passive voice: "being brought"
falsely positive and airy language: “mercy,” “benighted,” “redemption,” and “angelic.”
linguistic protest despite apparent placation
social signaling to those who have similar experiences
Édouard Glissant, “For Opacity"
the right to Opacity, to being opaque and not fully understood
in response to the colonizer's demand for Transparency, making oneself knowable and thus losing something in the translation; Transparency as an act of reduction
Western science's aim to understand everything, to discover all the unknowns
relation suggests that we can still understand one another without knowing them completely; especially with shared experience, things can be unsaid
language as difference: there is always a gap between the words we use to designate things, thus the failure of translation
"In order to understand and thus accept you, I have to measure your solidity with the ideal scale providing me with grounds to make comparisons and, perhaps, judgements. I have to reduce" (190).
making oneself transparent through using oppressors' language and phrases, but also maintaining opacity through signaling
defining oneself through other's eyes, the adoption of the white lens
a whole people being spoken for
W.E.B. Du Bois,
Souls of Black Folk
double consciousness, the true self seen through the veil and the one defined by others
the constant battle of self-definition to a divided soul
self-hatred and contempt for one's own race, the adoption of a white lens -> Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
pre and post lapse
control of education of control of power
the power of orality and song; the audible past
who is the audience? address to a white audience but hidden meaning in lyrics as social signaling to Black readers
"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness" (11).
the voice that adheres and the true one hidden underneath
René Girard, “Triangulated Desire"
the
vaniteux
: a person who cannot draw his desires from within, and must do so externally
the omnipresence of mediators; nothing is freely desired
external mediation: when the person who desires and the mediator are spiritually (economically or otherwise) distant enough that they cannot expect to have what the other does
internal mediation: when that distance is small and a rivalry forms, thus allowing for hatred and competition between the two
secret admiration concealed by hatred
consumerism:
how language modulates our relationship with buying and selling
Edward Said,
Orientalism
the Orient as a European invention, it doesn't actually exist
orientation, the West using the East as a way to position itself, provide contrast
academic orientalism, used to bolster European beliefs and structures
capital underpinnings; used to justify financial exploitation/monetary benefit
our interactions with other are mediated by an often consumerist desire, thus forming rivalries and discordance
literature is intrinsically tied to consumerism; what books are bought and sold ultimately influences what is noticed and what makes it into the canon
literature and the literary canon:
how language accepts and excludes, thus defining the edges of the canon
education
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, “Decolonizing the Mind”
spiritual, in addition to physical, subjugation
education as a tool of psychological violence, of mastering a population and severing it from its history
need for communication necessitates language
the language of real life
language and identity: you try to take away my language to take away who I am
orality is a more essential form of language than writing
can the language of the colonizer be used as a tool? Achebe says yes but Ngugi says no
exclusion of African literature from the canon
"But its most important area of domination was the mental universe of the colonized, the control, through culture, of how people perceived themselves and their relationship to the world...To control a people's culture is to control their tools of self-definition in relationship to others" (1135).
studying "other" worlds
Edward Said, “Jane Austen and Empire”
internalization of narratives
Said's rejection of formalism
playing out imperialism at home; imperialism of domesticity
Mansfield Park's Thomas embodies imperial authority
empire exports nationality
Austen's lack of a framework for understanding; confinement in domesticity
cancel culture, to what extent is the writer responsible?
the Orient as the periphery
context is vital
can art be separated from the artist?
only what's on the page should be considered
Rivkin and Ryan, “Formalisms”
literature providing a different kind of truth than science
literary vs. normal uses of language
emphasis on close reading
literature should be considered in and of itself, free from external context
intentional fallacy: “...meaning resides in the verbal design of a literary work, not in statements regarding his or her intention that the author might make” (5-6).
affective fallacy: “…the subjective effects or emotional reactions a work provoked in readers are irrelevant to the study of the verbal object itself, since its objective structure alone contains the meaning of the work” (6).
concrete universals: literature embodies universal truths
literature as a form of incomparable truth-seeking
Aristotle,
Poetics
emphasis on specific structures or methods of constructing a poem or a plot; ratios and orders of events
poetry as embodying universals
poetry as more important and essential than history
"In order more accurately to read works like
Mansfield Park
, we have to see them in the main as resisting or avoiding that other setting, which their formal inclusiveness, historical honesty, and prophetic suggestiveness cannot completely hide" (1124).
who defines the literary canon? what does African literature actually entail?
Roland Barthes,
Mythologies
the transformation of a sign into a myth
loss of original context
the desire for predictability
the co-opting of mythology by companies for marketing purposes
stories (myths) give commodities identity
Karl Marx, “Capital”
superstructure: the culture of the ideology (they secure the means of production)
base: modes or means of production
commodity fetishism, primitive and talismanic
an act or translation entails lost meaning
commodities in conversation with us
necromancy -> death of labor ghosts
marking -> tattoos, branding, brand identity
hidden labor; disconnect between labor and product
calls religion is opiate for the masses
justification of a system of capital and extraction; what is "exotic" or "backwards" is easier to dominate
sex tourism, purchasing of "exotic" goods, and the commodity fetish
how are our desires mediated by myths? how have companies co-opted myths to make products desirable?
pre and post lapse
what does it mean to use the language of the oppressor?
devaluation of oral/auditory tradition
forcible understanding, I will mould you into my model of a good student, thus reducing you
how we learn is how we live and interact with others
prescriptive language, literature should be done
this way
education as a means of bolstering systems of subjugation, and mapping
Karl Marx, “The German Ideology”
being in a body entails labor
Marx as materialist, concerned with Earth over heaven
not humans in the abstract, but as they really are
ideas are reflective of our material conditions
ideas cannot be separated from history
the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas
you can't have a revolutionary class without revolutionary ideas
it is a luxury to sit around and think
who are our mediators? how are they influenced by the ruling class?
to what extent are our desires a function of what the rich want us to desire?