Aristotle Vs Plato

Aristotle Vs Plato on Poetry and Mimesis

[Class Notes: 4th, 5th and 8th August, ‘09]

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In The School of Athens (the 16th Century fresco by Raphael, in the Apostolic Palace, Vatican) Plato and Aristotle stand side by side. Plato points to the heavens, to the ideal world of the Forms. Aristotle is shown with his hand open toward the earth. It accurately portrays the difference between Plato and Aristotle. It's a difference that shows up in their approaches to the arts – one dealing with the cosmos and the other grounded in practicality.

Plato considers mimesis in ethical and political contexts; Aristotle uses mimesis as an aesthetic phenomenon. They both agree that poetry is mimetic but they have different ideas about poetry and mimesis.

Plato, in the Republic, uses the argument of mimesis to attack poets, asserting that poets and artists should have no place in the ideal state because their work is far removed from the truth as it is mere imitation or representation of ideas/reality. According to him, there is first the metaphysical world/reality, then the world of appearance/world of ‘becoming’ and lastly, the mimetic world.

Plato has a problem with this mimetic world. He wants to make a distinction between truth and falsity, right and wrong. To understand this mimetic world, one needs to know the reality and the path to reality is in philosophy and reason, not in poetry and emotion. [Note: It is, in fact, not Plato who begins with such a notion of criticism. He comes in the line of people who judge in terms of truth/falsity – called the Kritai.]

These as we can see, lead naturally to the questions of ‘ethics’, which in turn played an important role in Plato’s arguments regarding his ‘ideal state/community’. Interestingly, we can see ideas of the ‘ideal community’ echoed in several works later on, Utopia for instance. Both, Republic and Utopia are political treatises talking about reorganizing society that existed at that time.

For Plato, true literature is that which helps in recognizing the ideal world and also helps us in understanding that what we’re doing is just the manifestation of that world.

Republic is not a treatise on literature, as one might mistakenly think it is, rather, it is a political organization/sketch of what should comprise an ‘ideal state’. It is in this context of creating such a state that he talks of mimesis and banning poetry from the ‘ideal state.’

But Plato’s attitude to poetry is neither simple nor consistent: when he banishes poetry he does so in terms which suggest the renunciation of a sinful love in the interests of a higher good; equally, when he speaks of the poet as divinely inspired [Laws 719c], that image does not carry with it an unambiguous respect for the poet’s message. The ambivalence of Plato’s presentation of poets and poetry in his dialogues has generated an extraordinary variety and range of responses.

By ignoring the ironic resonances of Plato’s concept of poetic inspiration and by reinterpreting the famous ‘mirror’ motif of Republic Book X as a means of exploring the relationship between nature and art in a positive way, later writers, and particularly those inspired by Neoplatonism, were able to respond to Plato’s provocation by developing a defence of poetry which was constructed out of Plato’s own work. Thus, for example, Plotinus, the influential Neoplatonist philosopher of the third century AD, transformed Plato’s view by declaring that the artist bypasses the sensible world and looks to the Forms themselves, enabling him to create works of beauty which improve on the imperfections of nature. And the long tradition of the apologias for poetry from Aristotle’s Poetics to Sir Philip Sidney’s Defence of Poetry (1595) to Shelly’s essay of the same name (1821) can all be seen as responses to the challenge that Plato issued when he banished poetry from his Republic.

For Plato poetry is not an object of study in itself; his concerns for poetry and art are ultimately subordinated to his larger philosophical aims, whether epistemological, ontological or ethical, hence his discussions of poetry are always embedded in some wider context. With Aristotle's Poetics, however, we arrive at the first work of theoretical criticism devoted specifically to poetry in the Western tradition.

Aristotle, Plato’s pupil, was no poet. His treatise is written in a spirit of scientific detachment, and he treats poetry no differently from any other field of inquiry – be it politics, logic or biology. Poetry for him is an independent art with its own internal logic and his emphasis is primarily on its formal aspects without reference to the social, political or religious dimensions which had so preoccupied Plato.

Aristotle makes a distinction between the political and the aesthetic world. The reality in the two is not the same. The reality called ‘history’ – that is, a recording of real facts or happenings – is not what literature (poetry) claims to record. The world of literature constitutes of an alternate (aesthetic) reality. Thus, Aristotle created this break or separation between philosophical and aesthetic works. For instance, he claims that art and philosophy deal with different kinds of truth; philosophy deals with concrete and absolute truth, whereas art deals with aesthetic and universal truth. The difference between mimetic poetry and history is stated as ‘one (history) writes about what has actually happened, while the other (poetry) deals with what might happen’. Art, unlike science, doesn’t abstract universal form but imitates the form of individual things and unites the separate parts presenting what is universal and particular. Therefore, the function of poetry is not to portray what has happened but to portray what may have happened in accord with the principle of probability and necessity. Since poetry deals with universal truth, history considers only particular facts; poetry is more philosophical and deserves more serious attention. In addition, aesthetic representation of reality is not technical, factual, philosophical, and historical.

Poetry, he asserts, are objects in their own right which can best be understood through the analysis of their structure and form; whereas Plato concentrated on textual existence and emphasized on performance.

The Poetics is in part a response to Plato’s strictures against poetry, and the Platonic background is crucial to our understanding of Aristotle's arguments. Whereas Plato views poetry as an inspired, and therefore irrational, activity, Aristotle treats it as the product of skill or art, which is based on rational or intelligible principles.

For Plato the poet has no real knowledge, as the imitations which he produces are far removed from the ultimate reality; for Aristotle each area of knowledge is imitation in the sense that as a human being we all learn through imitation; there is a close relationship between imitation and learning, both at the simplest level (human beings ‘differ from other animals in that we are the most imitative of creatures, and learn our earliest lessons by imitation’, Poetics 1448b), and at the much more sophisticated level where the ‘universal’ situations of poetry are said to be more philosophical than the particulars of historical narration (1451b). Since poetry presents us with ‘the kinds of things that might happen’ in human life, it gives us a generalized view of human nature from which we can learn more than we can from particular facts.

Plato regards poetry, and especially tragedy, as morally harmful in that it stimulates emotions which ought to be suppressed; according to Aristotle, the ability to engage our emotions is an essential feature of tragedy, and one that is positively beneficial in its effects.

Pleasure, which for Plato is the source of poetry’s greatest danger, is for Aristotle an intrinsic part of our response to poetry, since all human beings instinctively take delight in ‘imitations’ (chapter 4).

Aristotle takes over from Plato the idea that poetry, together with other arts such as painting, sculpture, music and dance, is a form of mimesis, but, unlike Plato, he nowhere explains what he means by this term. So the obvious worry is whether it should be translated as ‘imitation’ or ‘representation’, but Aristotle's usage includes both of these meanings. According to Aristotle, the instinct for imitation is a basic element in human nature: we have a natural propensity to engage in imitation, we learn from it, and we instinctively take pleasure in works of imitation. As he explains in chapter 4, we enjoy looking at representations, even if they are of things which we would find painful to see in real life, because we enjoy recognizing the similarities between the image and the thing which it represents. Perceiving likeness and working out resemblances is a positive pleasure for human beings because it satisfies our natural desire to learn. Hence the enjoyment of imitative arts like poetry and painting is rooted in human nature, and the pleasure they afford has cognitive value.

A final note for those who wonder about the relevance of Plato and Aristotle’s arguments on ethics, mimesis and poetry/art in today’s world: Note the criticism levelled by some today against violence and sex in the media. They argue that violence and sex in the media cause us to be a more violent, sexually obsessed culture. This affects not just the people who consume the violent images, but the entire community of which they are a part. There is then a whole other school of argument made today in defence of graphically sexual or violent art or even of pornography or of violence on television. It is defended to be a purging of negative emotions by a dose of (harmless) negative emotions, therapeutic in nature and part of a healthy life for an individual. Ring any bells?

[REFERENCES: Mr. Pinto’s class notes; Literary Theory and Criticism, Patricia Waugh; Classical Literary Criticism, Penguin Classics; The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, Vincent B. Leitch; Plato on Beauty, Wisdom and the Arts, Julia Annas; Internet resources]

Aristotle's POETICS

Poetics

As Aristotle makes clear in his introduction, the poetics is intended as an investigation into the nature of poetry through the classification of its different kinds and the analysis of their function and purpose. Though it contains elements of prescriptive criticism and description, it is primarily a work of aesthetic theory, whose objective is to understand how poetry operates and the way in which it achieves its effects.

The notion of similarity or resemblance between art and its object is crucial to Aristotle’s conception of mimesis, and both poets and painters are specifically referred to as ‘image makers’ or ‘makers of likeness’ (1460b7-8, chapter 25), but that is not to say that mimesis involves the notions of mechanical copying. Rather, what the artist offers is a re-fashioning of nature or experience than a straightforward copy.

Aristotle’s idea of poetic imitation is not unlike the modern category of fiction; what the poet describes is, so to speak, a reality that he imagines. What is crucial, however, is that the poet’s imitation should be plausible – the events that are dramatized should be of the kind that could happen because they are, in the circumstances, either probable or necessary. Tragedy represents the probable rather than the actual, but in doing so it deepens our understanding of the world in which we live.

For Aristotle the poet is a ‘maker’ (the literal meaning of the Greek poietes from which the word ‘poet’ derives), but specifically a maker of imitations, and the work which he produces is poetry because it is an imitation in the verbal medium rather than because it uses metre. Mimesis is thus what distinguishes poetry from other kinds of discourse.

The Poetics promises a discussion of poetry in general but the text itself focuses predominantly on tragic drama. Epic is briefly discussed in chapters 23-5, and a second book on comedy is lost, so the Poetics is, in effect, a treatise on tragedy.

Tragedy, according to the definition in chapter 6, is ‘a representation of a serious, complete action which has magnitude, in embellished speech, with each of its elements used separately in the various parts of the play; represented by people acting and not by narration; accomplishing by means of pity and terror the catharsis of such emotions.’

Based on this single reference of ‘catharsis’ in chapter 6 and briefly in Politics (despite a promised discussion by Aristotle in Politics there are no other references to be found) in the context of a consideration of the uses of music, we understand Aristotle’s version of Catharsis. Music, says Aristotle, has a variety of beneficial functions: it can be used, for example, for the education of the young, for relaxation and leisure, and for catharsis, which he explains in the following way:

“The emotions which violently affect some minds exist in all, but in different degrees, for example, pity and fear, and ‘enthusiasm’ too, for some people are subject to this disturbance. We can see the effect of sacred music on such people when they make use of melodies that arouse the mind to frenzy, and are restored to health and attain, as it were, healing and catharsis. The same effect will necessarily be experienced in the case of those prone to pity or fear, or any other emotion, in the proportion appropriate to each individual; all experience a catharsis and pleasurable relief.” (Politics 1342a4 – 15)

(In other words, catharsis is a kind of therapy that can be used in the treatment of neurotics?)

But what connection does this passage have with the Poetics and what does Aristotle mean by catharsis in the context of tragedy? This is probably a question to which we shall never know the answer to as he never did go on to detail what it meant to him.

What is clear, however, is that, unlike Plato, he attaches considerable value to the emotional appeal of tragedy, and the pleasure which we derive from it. That pleasure stems directly from pity and fear which tragedy arouses, for as he says in chapter 14, we should not demand every kind of pleasure from tragedy, but only that which is proper to it (that is, the tragic poet’s aim to produce by means of his representation ‘the tragic pleasure that is associated with pity and fear’.)

A large part of Aristotle’s discussion (chapters 7 – 14) is concerned with plot, ‘the ordered arrangement of the incidents’. It takes precedence over character because, as he explains in chapter 6, ‘tragedy is a representation, not of people, but of action and life, of happiness and unhappiness – and happiness and unhappiness are bound up with action. Characters, indeed, make people what they are, but it is by reason of their actions that they are happy or the reverse.’

Aristotle considers various types of plots and concludes that the best at arousing pity and fear is a plot that represents a man who is neither a paragon of virtue, nor utterly worthless, but somewhere in between these two extremes, who falls from prosperity into misfortune through some error (hamartia). By hamartia he doesn’t mean a fatal flaw in the hero’s character such as we see depicted in, for example, Shakespeare’s Othello, whose tragic fall is brought about by his own obsessive jealousy. Hamartia is, rather, a mistake or error which is committed in ignorance of what is being done. The classic case is Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, a play which Aristotle takes as the model Greek tragedy. Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother in ignorance of the fact that they are his parents, not because he is morally flawed. Indeed, he does everything that is humanly possible to avoid the terrible fate predicated for him, and it is because his sufferings are so undeserved that we feel such pity for him. Yet his punishment is not accidental because it results from his own actions, actions that are well intentioned, but misguided.

Aristotle places suffering and the mutability of all things at the heart of his conception of tragedy, yet the Poetics is notoriously reticent about the religious explanations of human suffering which are integral to the genre. His neglect of the gods, together with his apparent lack of interest in the social and political implications of tragedy, have been severely criticized my modern scholars. But these omissions are symptomatic of Aristotle’s essentially formalist approach. The Poetics does not set out to provide a comprehensive account of tragedy; rather, it aims to discover for each kind of poetry the form that will best bring about its characteristic effects.

[REFERENCES: Mr. Pinto’s class notes; Classical Literary Criticism, Penguin Classics; The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, Vincent B. Leitch; Internet resources]

I M.A. English, CIA II,III and End sem

I.M.A English

CIA II

Submission Paper: Summarize any article of your choice from a journal available in the library. Summary should be argument based and not just limited to capturing the gist of the article.

Journals to choose from:
1. ICFAI English Studies
2. JSL
3. Indian Literature
4. Quest
5. Contemporary Thought
6. Sage Gender Studies
7. Atlantic Review
8. Economic and Political Weekly

Instructions:
1. Last Date for submission: 3rd September (Thursday), ’09.
2. No word limit.
3. The photocopy of the chosen article must be submitted with the paper.
4. Submissions need to be typed and printed and not hand written.
5. Strictly no plastic folders. A paper clip can be used or the assignment can be stapled.
6. Format and structuring of the paper is the same as the Mid-Sem submission.

CIA III

Submission Paper: Comparison of any two articles; one from any of the journals mentioned above and the other can be any research article (source is your choice but needs to be cited accurately).

Instructions:
1. Last date for submission: 12th September (Saturday), ’09.
2. Comparison can be based on anything; force a connection if you must. Arguments can be traced to ideologies and can be challenged; the approach and dimensions can be analyzed etc.
3. Photocopies of both the chosen articles must be submitted as well.
4. Submissions need to be typed and printed and not hand written.
5. Strictly no plastic folders. A paper clip can be used or the assignment can be stapled.
6. Format and structuring of the paper is the same as the Mid-Sem submission.

End Semester Exam

Submission of a research paper. Write a paper on any selected topic around our syllabus.

Instructions:
1. Submission date: 30th September (Wednesday), ’09.
2. Word/Page limit: 7 to 10 pages.
3. Submissions need to be typed and printed and not hand written.
4. Format and structuring of the paper is the same as the Mid-Sem submission.
5. A draft of the paper must be submitted on or before the 16th of September (Wednesday). The draft must be printed front and back unlike the final submission, which must be printed on one side only.
6. Strictly no plastic folders. A paper clip can be used or the assignment can be stapled.

Any further queries can be directed to Mr. Pinto personally or even through this post as a comment. Any suggestions (except regarding the dates of submission) will be welcomed by Mr. Pinto and can be debated on this blog. All the best!

Session II- Creative Communication

Session II started on 2nd August, 2009 at 9 a.m. As Mr. Pinto promised it all started with a test. It was based on previous day’s discussion and it was an objective test. This test not only revised what the class learnt the previous day but also clarified the confusions.
· After the test Mr. Pinto briefly explained the course structure and what are we going to learn over the next few encounters. The state promotes its self on two important pillars Education and journalism and the only element which is anti-state is Naxalites.
· English was first thought in Harvard University (USA) in 1834, later it was though in Madras, Calcutta and Bombay. In was only 50 years later that English was thought at Oxford, in England.
· Many a times it’s believed that disciplines such as botany etc originated in the west. Other would argue that they originated in the third world countries such as India. But these new discoveries originated due to collaboration of both.
· He explained the origin of Novels, the word itself is derived from the word novella (18th century), meaning new stories. The new stories later gave rise to news stories.
· The two disciplines journalism and novel emerged together.
· The sixth source of creativity was also revealed that is ‘Adaptation’.
· How old is Bharata natyam? This simple question as we thought had a mind-boggling answer. Many could not believe, but Mr. Pinto had his answer ready. He briefly explained how these dance style called as sadir, now known as Bharata natyam.
· He also explained the role of Annie Beasent in is this transformation.
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), Swiss linguist, he studied history of languages and he was also a researchers whose ideas about language structure influenced the development of structuralism.
· After his death, in 1916 his student compiled his notes and published a book in French called ‘Cours de linguistique générale’ (Course in general linguistics)
· Philosophy was considered to be an elite subject until 19th century when it was replaced by literature.
· Semiotics is what you don’t see. Semiotic is the science of science of signs. It finds the langne.
· C. S Pierce was working on the same topic and he uses the term semiotics but Ferdinand uses the term semiology.

Sign = Signified
Signifier
· Sign is the union of signifier and signified and the sign is arbitrary in nature, it not logical or it is not same everywhere.
-as written by Anzil Fernandes

Journals on English Literature and Linguistics in India

Following are some of the acadmeic journals on English studies (literture, lingusitics and other subjects taught in English literature depts in India.) I request the visitors/readers of the blog to contribute to making this list exhustive. Should you know of any other journals and their details please leave those details in the comment section below.

My sincere thanks Nandita Mane, Nagpur for initiating this post. 


I have now started and exclusive blog for Humanities and Social sciences journals. Click here to visit that. 

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      1. Journal of Contemporary Thought

Publisher: Forum For Conteporary Thought, Vadodhara, Gujarath and College of Liberal Arts of the Louisiana State University in Shreveport, USA.

Periodicity: twice a year; in summer and winter

Contact: Prof. P. C. Kar, Director, Centre for Contemporary Theory and General Semantics, C-304 Siddhi Vinayak Complex, Behind Baroda Railway Station (Alkapuri Side), Faramji Road, Baroda-390 007, GUJARAT, INDIA.

E-mail: prafullakar@gmail.com, raths@cwu.edu

Annual Subscription: Institution: Rs 400/-, Individual: Rs 200/-

2. The ICFAI Journal of English Studies

Publisher: The ICFAI University Press, #52, Nagarjuna Hills, Panjagutta, Hyderabad, 500082.

Periodicity: 4 times a year. March, June, Sept, and Dec.

Web: www.iupindia.org

3. The Quest

Publisher: Editor, The Quest, 202, Preeti Enclave, Chandni Chowk, Kanke Road, Ranchi 834008, India

Periodicity: June and December

E-mail: questranchi@rediffmail.com

Annual Subscription: Rs 400/-

4. The Atlantic Literary Review

Publisher: K.R. Gupta, 7/22, Ansari Road, Darya Ganj, New Delhi-110002 (India)

E-mail: editorial@atlanticbooks.com

Editor: Rama Kundu

Subscription: Annual (4 issues): Institutional (net): Rs 1000/-, Individual (net) : Rs 600/-

5. Indian Literature

Publisher: Sahitya Akademi, Rabindra Bhavan, 35, Ferozeshah Road, New Delhi-110001, India

Subscription: Rs 250/-

6. Indian Journal of Gender Studies

Publisher: Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 25, Bhai Vir Singh Marg, Gole Market, New Delhi-110001, India

Editors: Malavika and Leela Kasturi

E-mail: ijgs@cwds.org

Annual Subscription: Individual (print only) Rs 850

7. Journal of Indian Linguistics 
Website: http://www.lsi.org.in/publications.aspx

8. Language in India (issn: 1930-2940)

 Website: http://www.languageinindia.com/ (open access)

9. International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics 

Website: http://www.ijdl.org/Html/IJDL.htm

10. International Journal of Translation Studies (ISSN: 0970-9819)

Website: http://bahripublications.in/journal_of_translation/International_journal_of_translation.htm

11. Indian Journal Of Applied Linguistics (ISSN 0379-0037)

Website: http://bahripublications.in/appliedlinguitic/appliedlinguistics.htm

12. International Journal Of Communication (ISSN - 0975-640x)

Website: http://bahripublications.in/journal_of_communications/communication.htm

13. PARNASSUS: AN INNOVATIVE JOURNAL OF LITERARY CRITICISM (ISSN 0975-0266), published from Feroze Gandhi College, Rae Bareli (Uttar Pradesh), India, and edited by Dr Nilanshu Agarwal, nilanshu1973 at yahoo.com (Details from by JoseAngel)


14. Contemporary Discourse ISSN 0976-3686
Editors,:Sudhir Nikam  and Madhavi Nikam
Website:  www.litsight.com

15. Muse India-A literary E-journal
Web: http://www.museindia.com/index.asp


16. The Muse: An International Journal of Poetry ISSN 2249 –2178

Chief Editor:  Pradeep Chaswal

Email: themuseindia AT gmail.com 

Website http://themuse.webs.com/

17. HYPHEN: An International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Art & Culture (ISSN 0975 2897)

Editor: Dr. Kanwar Dinesh Singh

email: hyphenjournal AT gmail.com; hyphe

njournal AT yahoo.com

URL: www.hyphenpublications.com

(Thankyou Dr Singh for the details)

18  Journal of Ecocriticism ISSN 1916-1549 (Ejournal)
http://ojs.unbc.ca/index.php/joe/index 



19. TJELLS: peer-reviewed, open access, international, quarterly journal,published in March, June, September and December. 
    Website: http://www.tjells.com


Click here to visit the post "Computer Aided Langauge Learning (CALL) Related Journals"

Translation Studies: A Bibliography

Translation Studies: A Bibliography

Bassnett, Susan, and Harish Trivedi, eds. Post-colonial Translation: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge, 1999.

Bassnett, Susan. Translation Studies, London: Routledge, 1991.

Das, Bijay Kumar. The Horizon of Translation. New Delhi: Atlantic, 1998.

Gupta, R.S., ed. Literary Translation. New Delhi: Creative Books, 1999.

Kothari, Rita. Translating India. Rev. ed. New Delhi: Foundation Books, 2006

Mukherjee, Sujit. Translation as Recovery. Delhi: Pencraft, 2004.

Mukherjee, Tutun, ed. Translation: From Periphery to Centrestage. New Delhi: Prestige, 1998.

Munday, Jeremy. Introducing Translation Studies : Theories and Applications. London/New York: Routledge, 2001.

Nida, Eugene A. The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1982.

Nida, Eugene A. Toward a Science of Translating. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1964

Nirajana, Tejaswini. Siting Translation: History, Post-structuralism, and the Colonial Context. Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1992.

Picken, Catriona, ed. The Translator’s Handbook. 2^nd ed. London: Aslib, 1989.

Ramakrishan, Shantha.Translation and Multilingualism: Post-Colonial Contexts. Delhi: Pencraft, 1997.

Ramakrishna, Shantha., ed. Translation and Multilingualism. Delhi: Pencraft, 1997.

Shunmugom, C., and C. Sivashanmugan. Translation: New Dimensions. Coimbatore: Bhrathiar University, 2004.

Talgeri, Pramod, and S.B. Verma, eds. Literature in Translation: From Cultural Transference to Metonymic Displacement. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1988.

Toury, Gideon. Translation Across Cultures. New Delhi: Behri, 1987.

Venuti, Lawrence, ed. The Translation Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 2001.

Vinoda, T., and V. Gopala Reddy, eds. Studies in Translation: Theory and Practice. New Delhi: Prestige, 2000.

Note: The visitors/readers of this blog are welcome to add to the bibliography in the comment section below

Digital Natives: Participation and Pedagogy - A Talk

A talk on "Digital Natives: Participation and Pedagogy"

Date: 27th August (4:00 PM-6:00 PM) and 29th August (2:00 PM-4:00 PM)

Venue: Christ University, Auditorium Block, 2nd Floor, Room No. 915

On the Talk

The two part talk by Nishant Shah explores the location of the Digital Natives in classrooms in higher education. As increasingly, the forms of information access and dissemination change, young students in classrooms are also developing newer forms of learning and education practices. The first session explores the possibilities and potentials of these new technologised conditions of learning, looking at popular spaces of cyberspatial engagement like social networking systems, peer 2 peer networks etc. The second part of the talk posits that the digital natives are not only a part of the changing academic and classroom practices but are also reconfiguring the notions of political engagement and social transformation. Focusing on digital objects which are otherwise relegated to the realms of ‘merely cultural’ or ‘trivial’, the talk explores the changing nature of the public and the political and the way the young users of technology are changing the world we live in.

The Speaker

Nishant Shah (Director - Research) has done his Ph.D. doctoral work from the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore. He has worked diversely as an information architect with companies as diverse as Yahoo, Partecs, and Khoj Studios, looking at questions of digital communities, identities and cultural productions online. He was a Research Analyst for Comat Technologies, working on issues of e-governance, design and accessibility. Nishant has designed and taught several courses and workshops on the aesthetics and Politics of New Digital Media, for undergraduate and graduate level students from various reputed academic institutions likeChrist College (Bangalore), CSCS (Bangalore), St. Joseph’s College (Bangalore), Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA), Women’s Studies Centre (Pune University), University of Tempare (Finland), Washington University (Seattle), and New School (New York). He has presented his work in various international and national conferences and workshops, and has published in peer-reviewed academic journals. like the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies and theEuropean Journal of English Studies. In 2006-2007, he was invited as a visiting scholar at theNational Central University, Taiwan, where he bolstered his interests in comparative work across Asia. A recipient of research grant from the Asia Scholarship Foundation (2008-2009), Nishant’s further research attempts a comparative study of Information Society in India and other developing Asian countries. His other interests are in areas of creative translation, mechanics of writing, and gender and sexuality.

The Procedure for Writing a Research Paper

1. Look for the books and articles that are related to the topic

a) Primary Sources:

i) Concept

ii) Work done as historical survey in the area. Papers in Research Journals have recapitulation of the historical developments which saves you time

iii) Primary Text: Look for authentic texts, Look for the publishers

Times of India or wikipaedia are not authentic sources

b) Secondary sources: Look also to secondary sources. People who have explained the concepts of the key, original authors.

2. Where to look for books:

a) Library

i) Library usage: Find the library classification number of your interested area or areas.

ii) One must know the classification of language. E.g. Derrida may be found in Linguistics, not in philosophy

iii) Go to OPAC, use key word searches and other options. (some libraries give the content page also in the search programmes

iv) Look at journals. Well researched journals will have articles of about 20 pages. In the first five or six you will have the review of the literature in the field.

v) Then go to the bibliography of these articles

vi) Do not reinvent the wheel. So build on what others have established.

Question:

How to distinguish a good article from a bad one?

1. Look at the bibliography

2. You know them intuitively. Gadamer, Heidegger and the like tell us that we have a prereflective knowledge. Even so you will know an article for its worth when we read it.

3. The clarity of thought, is one way to look at the worth of the article

3. Make a list of all the articles and books you will have to read.

4. Start collecting them

5. Read them

6. Write or key in as you read. Do not think of writing from Alpha to Omega at one go.

7. When you write, see that complete citation is given at the time of writing. If you postpone this you waste time.

Annual of Urdu Studies

Link to Annaul of Urdu Studies http://www.urdustudies.com/index.html

Post-structuralism

Three ideas dropped with the world “Post” were:-
1. 'Post' represented time which meant after
For example – India after independence is post-independent India.
2. 'Post' represented the idea itself.
For example – Raja Rao, R K Naranyan are looked at as post colonial writers but most of their post colonial writing stated in the pre-independent era itself (1930s).
3. Result of experience – represented the unconscious shift in ideas.

For example – Post globalisatuib could be used to suggest a state created due to the experience of globalisation

1942 the issue was termed as Babri Masjid.
1990 the same issue was termed as Ram Janmabhuma.
Now it’s known as the disputed site issue.

Ideas in sciences cease to exist once proved wrong. This does not happen in Social scines and humanities. The ideas of Plato, Shakespeare and various thinkers continue to exist.

Post-Structuralism has borrowed ideas from early philosophers like Nietzsche. Thus in a way post-structuralism started even before structuralism. The new thinking in philosophy, sociology and literature in the works of Jacques Derrida, Ronald Barthes, Julia Kristeva, Jean Baudrillard and Michel Foucault gave a new dimension in the study of post-structuralism.

The relation between post-structuralism and post-modernism is similar but the two are not the same. Post-structuralism is the theory of reading and analysis, thus there can never be post-structuralist poetry, post-structuralist play or a post-structuralist painting. On the other hand post-modernism is concerned with the practicality of theory or the theory of doing. Post-modernism unlike post-structuralism can have a post modern architecture, post modern painting, or a post modern novel. Post-structuralism and post modernism does not have a certain standard to measure anything therefore challenging the "center". Nietzsche’s famous remarks, “There are no facts, only interpretation” undercuts and questions commonsensical questions and assumptions. Post-structuralism inherits the habit of skepticism and intensifies it. They distrust the very notion of reason and the idea of human being as an independent entity where by defining and individual as an entity of social and linguistic intermingling.

Documentaries

A website of online documentary films http://www.cultureunplugged.com/

Trailer of the filme Love Kichdi. Click here to view.

On Interpretation in Literature

Notes by Rini Thomas, I MA English on Hermeneutics

IDEA OF INTERPRETATION

HERMENEUTICS: Science of interpretation

HERMEON: Greek messenger whose task was to go to heaven, take God’s message and to give it to the people on earth by interpreting it to them.

INTERPRETATION:

1. Understanding what the text is exactly saying.
2. Try to understand what the author means.
3. What it means in our context.

HEIDEGGER: Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher of 20^th century. He was a nazi. Theory of interpretation is taken from Heidegger philosopher. In philosophy, he is called phenomenologist. Phenomenologist believed in existence.

EDMUND HUSSURL: He was the professor of Heidegger. He began the idea of phenomenology.

HANS-GEORGE GADAMER: Heidegger’s student. He develops Hermeneutics through Heidegger’s idea. Gadamber said, “not all our knowledge is conceptual”.

PRE REFLEXIVE KNOWLEDGE: When you reflect and come to conclusion it’s called reflexive. Pre reflexive knowledge means before reflexive knowledge.

CONCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE: Theorization

CONFLICT:

1. Scientific knowledge
2. Conceptual knowledge

REFERENCE BOOKS:

HEIDEGGER FOR BEGINNERS (UG STOCK: PHILOSOPHY SECTION)

INTERPRETATIONS (BOOK BY Joseph Dorairaj) TALKS ABOUT MYTH AND LITERATURE

LECTURES ON HEIDEGGER CAN BE FOUND IN CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY WEBSITE

Pilgrims and Puritans: Calvinism comes to 17th Century America

Levi-strauss on Oedipus Rex

The structuralist approach cannot be understood in isolation rather they have to be seen in the context of a larger structure. This approach takes us further and further away from the text and into the large and comparatively abstract question of genre history and philosophy. There is a constant movement away from the interpretation of the individual literary work and a parallel drive towards the understanding of the larger structure.

Claude Levi-Strauss applied structuralist outlook in to the interpretation of myth. He looked at myth as an interaction between linguistics anthropology and literary criticism. Anything could happen in a myth there is no logic, no continuity. But there is a profound similarity in myths collected in different regions throughout the world. Early students of language and ancient Greek philosophers did not go beyond the use of words, they associated definite sounds with definite meanings. Modern linguistics like Saussure discovered the relation between the units of sounds. For instance Carl Jung studied myths historically wherein he tried to find the meaning in the basic units of myths construction.

Synchronic is the basic structure in language like grammar which is also the unchanging element in the study of myth. The diachronic elements are the changes in the sequence of words which is placed within the larger structure. Levi-Strauss proposed that the basic elements of myths are not isolated relations but bundles of such relations. Thus to understand myths one has to pay close attention to the various relations within between and among stories. He suggested that the individual tale ( the Parole) from a cycle of myth did not have a separate and inherent meaning but could only be understood by considering its position to the whole cycle.

In his analysis of Oedipus myth, he placed the individual story of Oedipus within the context of the whole cycle of tales connected with the city of Thebes. He then began to see repeated motifs and contrasts and he used these as a basis of interpretation. Concrete details from the Oedipus myth can be seen as a part of a larger structure and the larger structure is seen as an overall network of symbolic, thematic and archetypal resonance.

Levi- Strauss explains the origin of human life and highlights the binary between myths and human knowledge. The structuralist accept that the world is constructed through language and we do not have access to reality other than through linguistics medium. For the structuralist culture can be read like a language since culture is made up of many networks and they tend to operate in a systematic way.

Literary Theory and Criticism links to blogpost for III yr PSEng/FEP/JPEng

Folowing are the links to various blogposts related to III BA Optional English Literary Theory and Criticism course. Please click on the respective topics to access/download the posts.

1. What is Literature?

2. Rise of English

3. Intentional Fallacy

4. Historical-Biographical Approach

5. Levi-strauss on Oedipus Rex

All the best