A Critical Reading of the 1964 Konkani Movie Nirmonn- Kevin Fernandes

In the anxiety to construct a pan-Indian identity, the multiplicity of regional narratives and texts are often subsumed under a grand narrative of nationalism. Nirmonn (1966), is a Konkani movie with a different tale. Based on Lord Tennyson’s character, Enoch Arden, the film was remade into Hindi, titled Taqdeer (Rajshri Productions, also directed by A. Salam), and subsequently dubbed into seven other languages. In this short essay, the researcher will attempt to explore why a film made in a regional language which has produced less than a dozen films, was reproduced for through a remake and dubbing for audiences belonging to eight different languages. The researcher will also attempt to explore certain features of traditional forms and cultural production from the Konkani cultures that have been retained in the movie. At the outset, it becomes important to first establish the plot of the narrative.

Nirmonn was the second production of Frank Fernand, who also wrote the music for the film, for which it remains immortal in the collective consciousness of the Konkani people. The story and direction was by A. Salam, and the dialogues by C. Alvares. Starring Shalini Mardolkar, C.Alvares, Anthony D'Sa, Jacint Vaz, Antonette Mendes, Ophelia, Jack Souza Ferrao, J. P. Souzalin,  Celestino Alvares, known as the “King of Duets” received the award for best actor in the Konkani film Nirmon. This film had a powerful story and bagged the Certificate of Merit for regional films, the first of its kind for Konkani.

The movie is set in Goa and revolves around the lives of Marku, a music teacher, and his wife, Claudia, and the undying love they share. Unable to meet the needs of the household (they have two daughters, Fiona and Theres, and a son, Ricardo), Marku takes up a job on a ship, and makes his best friend, Rudolf, promise to take care of the family in his absence. Rudolf is a successful business man, and as fate would have it, a former suitor of Claudia. Following an accident at sea, Marku is ship-wrecked (at a part of Portuguese India, one assumes), and loses his memory, forcing him to live there. Shell-shocked by the accident and Marku’s disappearance, Claudia lives the life of a widow, and the family spirals into poverty and starvation. Accepting destiny, Claudia agrees to marry Rudolf, despite being deeply in love with Marku. Though the children is their father, they seem to adjust just fine, except Theres, who seems to constantly have issues with her step-father. The new head of their house hold is money minded, and sentiments mean nothing to him- a far cry from the loving tenderness of Marku.  Close to ten years later, hearing the song Claudia that he had once composed for his wife being sung at a recital, Marku regains his memory and returns back to Goa in search of his family. There he finds that his family has moved on, and he is almost heartbroken and dejected, till he manages to strike up a conversation with Theres, and realizes the misery of his family. Though he doesn’t disclose his identity to them, they eventually find out, and what follows is predictable- Rudolf tries to eliminate him, the family rushes in just in the nick of time to save Marku, and as a result of the fighting going on between the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’, Rudolf gets caught in the trap he sets to eliminate Marku, and he prishes, while Marku is reunited with his family, they rebuilt their old home and they live happily ever after.

Though seeming simple and predictable in terms of plot, the narrative operates using certain traditional tropes. One such trope is that of the chaste wife. Claudia remains faithful to her husband till the verge of starvation, and even at that point, she accepts marriage to Rudolf only in order to meet the needs of her children and better their prospects, as she promised her husband she would, making her a self-sacrificing mother- she is visibly unhappy in her new home. The true husband remains one who loves his wife immensely (enough to write a song for her), and not even nature can separate them, for even in their separation and pain, their love is immortalized and lives in the song. Nothing can separate the chaste wife from her true husband- as Claudia suggests in the film, even though she was married in the Church to Rudolf, now that her actual husband has returned, her second marriage is null and void. The narrative now begins to read like a morality play, or a sati folk narrative, institutionalizing the roles of the chaste wife, the self-sacrificing mother, and the true, loving husband.

The title itself plays an important role in expounding these tropes. Nirmonn means ‘destiny’ or ‘fate’. When one can use this lexical indicator to show how despite being spurned the first time, Rudolf still manages to win the hand of Claudia, the more sustaining and meaningful way to read it is in terms of Marku and Claudia. Theirs was a perfect romantic marriage- a house full of music, laughter and love even through their break and weary economic times. Marku is then suddenly lost at sea, and a whole whirlwind of events leave Claudia with her three little ones at the feet of a man she despised, and through all the comforts, luxuries and opportunities he gives them (which Marku would perhaps never had been able to provide the family), Claudia remains emotionally committed and bound to Marku. As fate would have it, it was written in their nirmon that nothing, not even the devil and the deep blue sea (literally and metaphorically) could keep them apart. They were destined to spend their lives together, albeit for the ten year lull in the middle, and fate saw to it that they were reunited and their family was restored to them.

The song Claudia plays an important role in the text. It becomes a narrative tool; evoking a myriad of emotions- the first time the watcher comes across the song is in the beginning of the movie when Marku is seen conducting a violin duet. Later on, he is seated on the piano, teaching Theres how to play it, despite the fact that she is barely a toddler. From here onwards, it becomes a signifier for memory and hope. It plays once again as Marku leaves the house to report to the ship. It is this very song that helps Marku regain his memory ten years after his shipwreck, and on his return journey home, the song becomes the background score to the flashbacks he has. When Marku sneaks into Rudolf’s house as a trap to see his family, he witnesses his children talk fondly on their memory of their dead father, and they perform Claudia in three part harmony, with Theres on the piano. The song, which is iconic and immortal in Konkani, becomes a symbol and a signifier of memory in the movie, just as it has become a signifier for undying love between a man and his beloved at almost every Konkani wedding.

The narrative of Nirmonn lends itself to upholding, if not validating, a number of ideas, which most forms of Indian popular culture uphold- the faithful, chaste wife, the self-sacrificing mother, the true, devoted husband, the doting father, the money-loving, sentiment-disregarding man, etc. And like all good literature, Nirmonn offers the reader a conflict in a perfect marriage- economical hardship and a husband absent due to an accident. It is also didactic, since it suggests to its readers a very simple axiom- if one adheres to the traditional roles, no matter how hard it may be to do so, and no matter the difficulties that come in the way, nirmonn will ensure that that the family unit consisting of the chaste wife-self-sacrificing mother and the loving-husband-doting father will always stay intact. Therefore, its comes as no surprise that this particular text lent itself to appropriation multiple times- first at as a remake from Konkani to Hindi, and subsequently, through dubbing, into seven other languages, perhaps covering all the linguistic cinema domains present in India at the time. The characters and the virtues they uphold become pan-Indian tropes to be looked up to, and to emulated. One way, perhaps, that this was envisioned right from the outset was the fact that the protagonist, Claudia, is clad in a saree. In any other movie, this would make sense, but considering the narrative is set in Christian Goa, one would imagine her to be wearing a dress, or torop bazu, like most other women in the movie, but definitely not a saree. It is tempting to assume that this was consciously done in order to make the narrative more real and identifiable with a larger India audience, whose aesthetics where different from the Goan Christian aesthetics in a number of ways.

Since the movie is set in Goa, there are certain regional and cultural specific elements that cannot be overlooked, some of these add to the overarching narrative, while others simply ornament and add to the ‘Konkani-ness’ of the narrative. One such important element is music. Most places which have a history of Portuguese or Spanish colonialism also have a tradition of music. While the Portuguese administration made the study of Western music (sight singing as well as playing of musical instruments, most prominently the violin, the guitar, the accordion, and brass wind instruments) compulsory in schools across Goa, the Konkani Christians had their own folk forms of music such as the dulpod (dance songs with a quick rhythm and themes from everyday life, and lends itself to improvisation ; it is often mistakenly called mando or baila), which was an equivalent to the Kunnbi of the oldest peasant inhabitants of Goa, which is represented by the song Kunbi Varaddhi in the movie. The mando is the creolized form of Konkani music, a rich synthesis of Eastern and Western forms, and developed in the 19^th and 20^th century- Claudia is a typical mando, with its central theme being love (the baila is the Afro-Sinhalese form of music from Sri Lanka, which is similar to the dulpod, and also uses western instruments with native themes and beats). In performance mode, the mando uses Western suits with coat tails for men and traditional torop bazu for women. As seen earlier, the song Claudia becomes an important signifier in the movie, and the fact that Marku is initially a music teacher becomes metaphoric how in the last century, much of the Goan diaspora across British India was in the form of musicians (the dominated the music scene in Bollywood as well), both in the service of British and royal households, as well as on ships. In fact, the Goan Christian community has become synonymous with good music and sailing, a respectable chuck of the male population of the community seeks their fortunes in various capacities on ships, also leading to a sizable Goan diaspora in Karachi, Pakistan. Thus, Marku’s attempt to escape poverty by joining the ship is also symbolic of this aspect of the community.

One particular element that doesn’t play an important role in the narration of the plot, but strikes an extremely emotional chord in almost all the Konkani readers of this visual text is the veneration of the relic of St Francis Xavier. It strongly establishes the Goan Christian nature of the text, with his annual feast taking on epic proportions every year, and this historic figure occupying a larger-than-life position in the collective consciousness of the Konkani Catholics of Portuguese conversion.

Another important regional element that one can see is that the movie is the form of the tiatr or the local form of musical theatre, which includes music, dance and singing. Revolving around social, religious and political themes, a defining characteristic of tiatr is the use of song and dance between acts. These songs (Kant, pl. kantaram) are not directly linked to the content or issues raised by the drama, are satirical and are accompanied by a live band, including a keyboard, trumpets, guitars and drums. The song Nach Atamchem is a perfect example of kant- the song plays no role in furthering the narrative, but at the same time raises an important issue- the subsuming of Konkani music over global trends of the time, such as pop, twits and rock and roll. The traditional role of the jester/idiot, who exposes ugly social truths through crude, slapstick comedy, is retained in the form of the drunkard and the hopeless romantic.

In the light of the historical events of the time, one tempted to explore the possible colonial connotations of the text. The movie was made four years after the Liberation/Annexation of Goa. Despite the long, and ugly Inquisition, for the dominant Christian Goan community, the Portuguese were benevolent masters, may be even a caste just above the bahmon (the Brahmins; the Konkani Catholics still retained a strong sense of caste identity post-conversion), and as such, Portuguese colonialism had almost completely wiped out the pre-Christian identity and culture of the Konkani Catholics- thus, there was no Konkani Catholic identity possible without the Portuguese. This, however, was not the case for the lower classes of the Konkani Catholic community, and almost all the Hindu communities. In this context, Marku can be seen as a symbol of the forcibly evicted Portuguese, who seem like the true love of the Goan people. Yet, despite the convenient, albeit forced-by-circumstance, joining of India to the socialist (capitalist) state of India (symbolized by Rudolf), the Goan people can never really separate themselves from all that is Portuguese, and even though the Portuguese will never return to reclaim Goa, as nirmonn brought Marku to Claudia, the Portuguese still live on in the form of the culture and sensibilities of the Goan people, as well as through helping Goans emigrate to Portugal, and investing money in the restoration and maintenance of heritage monuments in Goa and preserving the now creolized Goan culture.

Within the space of this essay, the researcher attempted to examine the structure and tropes in the 1964 Konkani movie, Nirmonn, and explore the reasons that lead to its remake into Hindi and other regional languages. The researcher went on to identify certain characteristics of the text that gave it a distinctive Konkani feel, such as the use of music and the form of tiatr. This particular movie raises a number of issues that can be dealt with and theoretically examined at multiple levels, but due to the constraint of time, the lack of prior work to build on, and the researcher’s own limited understanding of the dialect of Konkani in which the movie was made, the researcher stuck to those explored in this essay. The researcher looks forward to carrying out more research and critical engagement with texts from the Konkani language, and contributing to the knowledge body around the same.

References and Related Material

Link to the movie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0KDjck8Exw

Sound track of the movie

http://gaana.com/album/nirmon

Lyrics and translation of Claudia

http://edskantaram.blogspot.in/2008/09/1.html

Couta, Maria Aurora. Goa: A Daughter’s Story. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2004. Print.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baila

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Goa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirmon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiatr

Pereira , Jose, Micael Martins, and Antonio da Costa.Folks Songs of Goa: Mando-Dulpod and Deknnis. Aryan Books International, 2005. eBook. <http://www.exoticindiaart.com/book/details/folk-songs-of-goa-mando-dulpods-and-deknnis-IDE272/>.

 

 

 

Evolution of Feminist Theory - N Caleb Kath(1324104)

EVOLUTION OF FEMINIST THEORY

`Competition for resources is the foundation of evolutionary theory. It is the force that drives a species to survive.’

Charles Darwin (1859)

The dichotomy between sexes has been there from ages where women are seen as inferior to men, who were considered as protectors. History in itself is a testament of the division between genders and studies in Philosophy, Literature, Economics etc. These discourses are largely male-centric. Women in contrast to men are expected to be subservient towards their husband, look after the children and do the household chores even to this day. They are defined not as positive and independent entities like men, but rather looked at as negative and dependent towards men.

 During the middle Ages, women writers opposed the very structure of societies but their voices were suppressed. It is these inequalities which lead to the emergence of ` Feminism ‘in 18^th and 19^th century.

 Credentials were not given to Women’s literary works and women writers. In order to bring their works in the main stream, they had to take on pseudonyms of men to get their works published; one example was that of the Bronte sisters.  Another Feminist writer who revolutionised the literary tradition was Jane Austen with her iconic novel, Pride and Prejudice. Handful of scholars and philosophers portrayed the women in a positive light. One among such was Lacan in his depiction of women in Courtly love.

Women choices are constantly monitored by the society which expects them to be stooge towards Men. Their literary works were considered insipid and their self are defined in relation with men. The restriction Society imposed on Female gender goad the feminist writer to act as an ombudsman and fight against the prevailing system. Feminist writers from across the world sprout in and challenged patriarchal systems in their works. The theme they explored was on discrimination, sexual objectification, aesthetics etc. Simone de Beauvoir, to name some few stood in opposition of the image of the women in the home. She endowed an existentialist element to feminism with the publication of her book The Second sex where she questions the very source of women’s inequality.  Her study on The Second Sex became the foundation of Feminist Theory.

Reference:

Lecture by Asst.Prof. Vijayaganesh, Christ University, Bangalore on 10 February 2014.

 

Jacques Lacan and Psycho-analysis

Koushambi dixit 1324133

Jacques Lacan and Psycho-analysis

Jacques Lacan (April 13, 1901 to September 9, 1981) was a major figure in Parisian intellectual life for much of the twentieth century. Sometimes referred to as “the French Freud,” he is an important figure in the history of psychoanalysis. His teachings and writings explore the significance of Freud's discovery of the unconscious both within the theory and practice of analysis itself as well as in connection with a wide range of other disciplines. Particularly for those interested in the philosophical dimensions of Freudian thought, Lacan's oeuvre is invaluable. Over the course of the past fifty-plus years, Lacanian ideas have become central to the various receptions of things psychoanalytic in Continental philosophical circles especially.

Lacan tends to associate (albeit not exclusively) the Imaginary with the restricted spheres of consciousness and self-awareness. It is the register with the closest links to what people experience as non-psychoanalytic quotidian reality. Who and what one “imagines” other persons to be, what one thereby “imagines” they mean when communicatively interacting, who and what one “imagines” oneself to be, including from the imagined perspectives of others—all of the preceding is encompassed under the heading of this register. Such a description indicates the ways in which the Imaginary points to core analytic ideas like transference, fantasy, and the ego. In particular, the Imaginary is central to Lacan's account(s) of ego-formation (as per the mirror stage—see 2.2 below).

As Lacan integrates his early work of the 1930s and 1940s with his structuralism-informed theories of the 1950s, he comes to emphasize the dependence of the Imaginary on the Symbolic. This dependency means that more sensory-perceptual phenomena (images and experiences of one's body, affects as consciously lived emotions, envisionings of the thoughts and feelings of others, etc.) are shaped, steered, and (over)determined by socio-linguistic structures and dynamics. With the growing importance of the Real in the 1960s and the Borromean knots of the 1970s, it becomes clear that Lacan conceives of the Imaginary as bound up with both of the other two registers (incidentally, the Imaginary and the Symbolic, when taken together as mutually integrated, constitute the field of “reality,” itself contrasted with the Real). In fact, it could be maintained that the Imaginary invariably involves category mistakes. More specifically, it is the register in which the other two registers are mistaken for each other: What is Real is misrecognized as Symbolic (for example, as in particular sorts of obsessional-neurotic and paranoid-psychotic symptoms, certain meaningless contingent occurrences at the level of the material world of non-human objects are viewed as though they were meaningful signs full of deep significance to be deciphered and interpreted) and what is Symbolic is misrecognized as Real (for example, as in psychosomatic-type “conversion symptoms,” unconscious mental conflicts encoded in language and ideas are suffered as bodily afflictions and ailments).

With his choice of the word “imaginary,” Lacan indeed intends to designate that which is fictional, simulated, virtual, and the like. However, the phenomena of the Imaginary are necessary illusions (to put it in Kantian locution) or real abstractions (to put it in Marxian parlance). This signals two points. First, as one of Lacan's three basic, essential registers, the Imaginary is an intrinsic, unavoidable dimension of the existences of speaking psychical subjects; just as an analysis cannot (and should not try to) rid the analysand of his/her unconscious, so too is it neither possible nor desirable to liquidate the illusions of this register. Second, the fictional abstractions of the Imaginary, far from being merely “unreal” as ineffective, inconsequential epiphenomena, are integral to and have very concrete effects uThe Lacanian Symbolic initially is theorized on the basis of resources provided by structuralism. Tied to natural languages as characterized by Saussure and specific post-Saussurians, this register also refers to the customs, institutions, laws, mores, norms, practices, rituals, rules, traditions, and so on of cultures and societies (with these things being entwined in various ways with language). Lacan's phrase “symbolic order,” which encompasses all of the preceding, can be understood as roughly equivalent to what Hegel designates as “objective spirit.” This non-natural universe is an elaborate set of inter-subjective and trans-subjective contexts into which individual human beings are thrown at birth (along the lines of Heideggerian Geworfenheit), a pre-existing order preparing places for them in advance and influencing the vicissitudes of their ensuing lives.

According to Lacan, one of the (if not the) most significant and indispensable conditions of possibility for singular subjectivity is the collective symbolic order (sometimes named “the big Other,” a phrase to be unpacked further shortly—see 2.3 below). Individual subjects are what they are in and through the mediation of the socio-linguistic arrangements and constellations of the register of the Symbolic. Especially during the period of the “return to Freud,” the analytic unconscious (qua “structured like a language”) is depicted as kinetic networks of interlinked signifiers (i.e., “signifying chains”). Rendered thusly, the unconscious, being of a Symbolic (anti-)nature in and of itself, is to be interpretively engaged with via the Symbolic medium of speech, namely, the very substance of the being-in-itself of the speaking subject (parlêtre) of the unconscious. Furthermore, the Lacanian unconscious is structured like “un langage” and not “une langue.” Although both French words translate into English as “language,” the former (langage) refers to logics and structures of syntax and semantics not necessarily specific to particular natural languages, whereas the latter (langue), which also could be translated into English as “tongue,” does refer to the notion of a natural language. Hence, Lacan is not saying that the unconscious is structured like French, German, English, Spanish, or any other particular natural language.

pon actual, factual human realities.

References:

Pinto, Anil. "Introduction to Freud and Psychoanalysis." Class lecture and discussions. Christ University. India, Bangalore. 29 01 2014. Lecture.

Jacques Lacan , Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lacan/

Dramatury. I BA Theatre Studies. 29 Jan 2014

Lacan. Contemporary Critical Theory. MA English. 30 Jan 2014

Barthes' view on 'work' and 'text'

Barthes writes in his essay "From Work to Text" that the change in conception of language and literary work can be attributed to the development of other disciplines but mainly the disciplines of linguistics, anthropology, Marxism and psychoanalysis.

From the reading of the essay as translated by Stephen Heath, in the first paragraph Barthes writes about why the shift from 'work' to 'text' has occurred in literature. He feels that interdisciplinary studies are a major cause of this change. He questions the term 'text' and what it stands for and goes on to give us seven propositions about the text concerned with:

1.      Method

2.      Genres

3.      Signs

4.      Plurality

5.      Filiation

6.      Reading

7.      Pleasure

About method he says, that a work can be seen as it is a 'fragment of a substance' while a text is a process of demonstration. A work can be held in the hand while a text can only be held in language. Text is experienced only in the activity of production. When a reader engages with a work, it becomes a text. Genres remind us of how a work is liminal. However, a text cannot be bound by classification. The text can be approached and experienced in reaction to the sign. The signified in a work is evident while in a text it is secret, something to be unearthed. 'A work conceived, perceived and received in its integrally symbolic nature is a text.' The text has achieved an irreducible plural. There are infinite meanings in a text. A work is caught up in filiation; it is not seen in isolation. In a text, filiation is discarded. A work is like a composition (like a written book) but the text is about playing (reading the text). A work can be read without being involved but a text needs involvement and engaging. A work provides pleasure of consumption. A text provides jouissance (pleasure without separation).

Barthes concludes by saying that the theory of the text has to be a text itself and must coincide only with a practice of writing.

 

References

Barthes, Roland. "From Work to Text." Trans. Stephen Heath. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. By Vincent B. Leitch. New York, NY: Norton, 2001. N. pag. Print.

"Roland Barthes." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Jan. 2014. Web. 24 Jan. 2014.

 

Introduction to Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939): He was born to Jewish parents in Moravia, now in Czech Republic. His later moved with his family to Vienna, where he got education and eventually secured a medical degree in psychiatry in1881. Within a year his interest turned towards the study of nervous diseases. He has since been credited with the development of new courses. He is one of the rare men who is both a Doctor and a philosopher.

Freud wrote Civilization and its Discontents in 1929. In it he talks about how the civilization and the individual have some fundamental tensions which cause friction. He points out that people crave for individuality and freedom while society/ civilization stresses on containing repression of instincts. Freud says that humans have some instincts which are characteristic to them like desire for sex, predisposition towards violence etc.

In this work he talks about 'the pleasure principle' and 'the reality principle'. He says that the pleasure principle is subordinated to the reality principle. He says that our ego (consciousness) wants to stay away from displeasure and try and achieve happiness but along the course does submit itself to reality. He calls this as sublimation, i.e. subordinating pleasure to reality.

However, because pleasure has been sublimated does not mean that it is no longer retained within us.  There remain many desires which are unfulfilled and settle in the unconscious. Yet they will find some way to be expressed. They cannot be repressed forever. They will find expression in one way or the other.

These 'other' ways which Freud suggests are: dreams, parapraxis and jokes.

1.      Dreams – according to Freud are some form of wish fulfillment. Repressed feelings and unfulfilled desires find an expression through these. They are attempts by the unconscious to resolve the conflict within it. He elaborates on this more in his essay Interpretation of Dreams.

2.      Parapraxes – are the slips of the tongue. It is more famously known as 'the Freudian slip'. Freud says that the slip of the tongue is quite real as it is the true expression of some repressed feeling. It is an outlet for unfulfilled desires. For eHe expands on this concept in his work, Psychopathology of Everyday life.

3.      Jokes – are another form of expression for what is subdued in the unconscious. Jokes have tendencies towards hidden meanings, hidden purpose etc.  He talks more about this in Jokes and their relation to the Unconscious.

 

Reference:

Habib, M. A. R. A History of Literary Criticism: From Plato to the Present. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. Print.

"Sigmund Freud." Wikipedia. Web. 23 Jan 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud.

Thornton, Stephen. "Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N.p.. Web. 23 Jan 2014. http://www.iep.utm.edu/freud/.

Pinto, Anil. "Introduction to Freud and Psychoanalysis." Class lecture and discussions. Christ University. India, Bangalore. 20 01 2014. Lecture.

 

(Prepared by Ranjhani Iyer – 1324131)

Main differences between Structuralism and Post-Structuralism

Theoretical differences:

Structuralism was a literary movement primarily concerned with
understanding how language works as a system of meaning production.
That is to say, structuralism asked the following question: How does
language function as a kind of meaning machine? To answer this
question, structuralism turned its attention to form. Focusing on the
form or structure of the literary work, and the particular use of
language in the work, would allow structuralists to think of language
as a kind of science.
The primary theorist framing the ideas associated with structuralism
was Ferdinand de Saussure, who developed the idea that language was
composed of arbitrary units that were void of concept or meaning until
they acquired meaning through a language system that relied on
differences between terms within their larger linguistic and social
contexts. One of structuralism's characteristic views is the notion
that language doesn't just reflect or record the world: rather it
shapes it, so that how we see is what we see.

Post-structuralism, on the other hand, is less singularly defined as a
movement than structuralism. Is post-structuralism a continuation and
development of structuralism or a form of rebellion against it?
Post-structuralists accuse structuralists of not following through the
implications of the views about the language on which their
intellectual system is based. Post-structuralism offers a way of
studying how knowledge is produced and critiques structuralist
premises. It argues that because history and culture condition the
study of underlying structures, both are subject to biases and
misinterpretations. A post-structuralist approach argues that to
understand an object (e.g., a text), it is necessary to study both the
object itself and the systems of knowledge that produced the object
A number of literary theories fall under the larger umbrella of
"post-structuralism," including "gender theory" and "reader-response"
theories. These theories recognize the overarching notion that meaning
does not exist outside of the text and that meaning is not fixed but
rather contingent and unstable. Post-structuralism evolved alongside
Jacques Derrida's theory of "deconstruction," which emphasized this
concept of unstable, unfixed meaning as it functioned in language.
According to Derrida, language is made up of units that do not contain
inherent meaning and relate to other units (or signifiers) through
their difference. Meaning, in deconstructionist theory, is therefore
constantly deferred, never landing in one place or becoming stable.
Post-structuralism emerges in this context, recognizing this lack of
fixed or inherent meaning and yet also acknowledging the need for
language to acquire meaning.

Some main differences can be listed as follows:
1. Origins: Structuralism derives ultimately from linguistics. It
believes that if we observe accurately, collect data systematically
and make logical deductions then we can reach reliable conclusions
about language and the world. Structuralism believes in this and also
in the method, system and reason as being able to establish reliable
truths. By contrast, post-structuralism derives ultimately from
philosophy which has always tended to emphasize the difficulty of
achieving secure knowledge about things. They inherit the habit of
scepticism and intensify it.
2. Attitude to language: Structuralists accept that the world is
constructed through language in the sense that we do not have access
to reality other than through the linguistic system. By contrast,
post-structuralism is much more fundamental in insisting upon the
consequences of the view that, in effect, reality itself is textual.

Practical differences:

An initial problem here is that post-structuralism often claims that
it is more an attitude of mind than a practical method of criticism.
After all, in what sense could, say, Marxist or feminist or even
liberal humanist criticism be called a method? Only in the loosest
way, since none of these provide anything like a step-by-step
procedure for analyzing literary works. All they offer is an
orientation towards a characteristic central issue and a body of work.
The post-structuralist literary critic is engaged in the task of
'deconstructing' the text. This process can be roughly defined as
'applied post-structuralism'. It is often referred to as 'reading
against the grain' or 'reading the text against itself', with the
purpose of 'knowing the text as it cannot know itself'. (Terry
Eagleton's definitions) At the same time structuralists look for
features like parallels, echoes and reflections. The deconstructionist
looks for evidence of gaps, breaks and discontinuities of all kinds.

The structuralist seeks: The post- structuralist seeks:
Parallels/ Echoes Contradictions/ Paradoxes
Balances Shifts/ Breaks in: Tone
Viewpoint
Tense
Person
Attitude
Reflections/ Repetitions Conflicts
Symmetry Absences/ Omissions
Contrasts Linguistic qiurks
Effect: to show textual unity Effect: to show textual disunity
and coherence




References:

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory An Introduction to Literary and
Cultural Theory. 3rd. New Delhi
: Viva Books, 2012. Print.
Pinto, Anil. Class Lecture. Twentieth Century Critical Traditions.
Christ University. Bangalore,
India. 13 Jan. 2013.

(Notes of the lecture delivered on 13 January. Prepared by Dhanya
Zacharias, 1324128)

Notes on Foucault's What is an Author – Clare Joseph

In his essay What is an Author, Michel Foucault is not discussing authors and their works, rather, he is talking about the concept of work and the functional role of an author, that is, 'author function'.

He says that when people study concerns of a particular concept, more importance is given to the solid and fundamental role of the author, rather than the concept. Foucault lists the possible conditions under which the author was individualised in the western tradition. Did it happen because of the status given to the author when authenticity and attribution of texts were researched, or by inclusion of the author in systems of valorisation, or did it happen when the traditional stories about heroes gave way to different kinds of writing like an author's biography? However, this traditional notion of individualisation of the author has shifted.

To understand this shift, Foucault uses Samuel Beckett's notion of an author – "What matter who is speaking, someone said, what matter who is speaking." Foucault says that this shift has occurred because of two major themes that emerged:

• First, writing freed itself from the necessity of expression, that is, writing was not merely a result of the author's need to express. The meaning of the text was no longer confined within the writing of the text, but in it's exterior deployment. As a result, writing became an interplay of signs, regulated not by the author (the signified) but by the nature of work or text itself (signifier). Thus, the essential basis of writing was not the emotions under which it was composed or the subject inserted into language, but the creation of an opening where the writing subject disappears.

• Second, the relationship between writing and death. Traditionally, death was a guarantee to immortality (e.g. the Greek narratives where by death, the hero gains immortality. Contemporarily, this notion has been altered, and writing is now linked to sacrifice. The narrator is used to forestall death. Where work had the duty of creating immortality, it now had the right to kill its author. After writing, the author is dead, but through the text, the author lives. The author becomes a victim of his own writing, and through his absence, his presence is guaranteed.

Problematising "work"

Foucault questions the concept of work. He says, if we consider that an individual is not an author (when no individual has authority over the work), what do we make of the things written, said or communicated by an individual? Also, if we are dealing with an author, will his work include everything that he has ever written or said (like notes on someone's address or an appointment). He says we lack a theory to encompass the questions generated by a work and the empirical activity involved in publishing an author's complete works (which is questionable). If there is no understanding of what a work is, there can be unified meaning designated by a work. He argues that the thesis of ecriture makes it possible to continue the presence of an author, as it is not concerned with the act of writing or the authorial intentions and meanings within a text, but it elaborates the conditions of spatial dispersion and temporal deployment of any text. But ecriture has merely transposed the empirical characteristics of an author to a transcendental anonymity. Next, he problematises the use of an author's name. He says that an author's name is not just a proper name, but functional. It has functions other than signification (which a proper name is designated for). An author's name is functional in relation to his or her works as it can be used to classify a set of works and also establish homogeneity, filiation, reciprocal explanation, authentification, or of common utilisation. An author's name also characterises a particular manner of existence, circulation and operations of a discourse.

Foucault defines the four major characteristics of author function as follows:

• Author function is tied to the legal and institutional systems that circumscribe, determine and articulate discourses – an author needs to take responsibility while writing, hence, a particular text is attributed to an author.

• Author function does not operate uniformly in all discourses, at all times, and in any given culture – it is difficult to define an author function uniform across various discourses.

• Author function is not defined by the spontaneous attribution of a text to its creator, but through a series of precise and complex procedures.

  Foucault uses Saint Jerome's argument to define author function. St. Jerome says that a text can be attributed to an author if it meets the standard level of quality of other works written by that author; has a coherent idea represented as in other works by the author; has a uniform style of writing and choice of words particular to the author; and those that do not include historical events and figures subsequent to the author's death. Foucault says that St. Jerome's characterisation might not be appropriate for modern critics to attribute authorship of a text, but it helps in defining the author function.

• It does not just refer to an actual individual but gives rise to multiple egos (multiple selves) and a series of subjective positions the individuals of any class may occupy – this arises out of the scission between, and the division and distance of the actual writer from the fictional narrator.

(Discussion on St. Jerome and his role: He is important not just because he translated the Bible to Latin, but because he throws a light on how texts transform demography of the people and what a particular text does to a civilisation. He translated Bible from Hebrew and Greek (Greek was powerful earlier) to Latin (the language spoken at Rome, which ruled Europe when St. Jerome translated Bible to Latin). Similarly, Martin Luther King said that an interpreter is not required and that people need self-interpretation. When he translated Bible from Latin to German (Germany was then powerful in Europe), Latin was overthrown by German, English and other European languages. Religious descent begins the rise of languages. The role of a translator is also functional.

Link to Foucault's essay: While we discuss what is an author and our changing relationship with text, we look at the shift in views over a period of time and how these texts (economic, political, religious texts) shape our society).

Two types of positions of an author:

• Transdiscursive position – Foucault says that even within the realm of a discourse, "a person can be the author of not only a book, but of a theory, tradition or a discipline within which new books and authors can proliferate" Such authors occupy a transdiscursive position (e.g. Homer, Aristotle, church fathers). These kind of authors are as old as our civilisation.

• Initiators of discursive practices – 19^th century Europe produced a singular kind of author, different from transdiscursive authors. They not only produced their own work, but they laid down the possibility and rules of forming other texts. They provided ground not only for analogies to be adopted by future texts, but also made possible differences – they created a space for differing views within the field of discourse they initiated. This, he says, is different from founding of any scientific endeavor.

Foucault however says that the distinction between initiation of discursive practices and founding of sciences is not readily identifiable, and there is no proof that these two procedures are mutually exclusive. His purpose behind bringing out this distinction was to show that "author-function" might be complex when we analyse each book or even a series of texts bearing a definite signature, but when we consider larger entities like groups of works or entire disciplines, author-function can be understood.

Author-function, according to Foucault, is one possible specifications of the subject and, it appears that the form, the complexity and even the existence of author-function is not permanent. The author as a centre was constructed to establish a unified meaning from the text, but now, text itself becomes meaning. The author does not have the authority over meaning – author or the unified subject is displaced from the centre, but not removed entirely. A text needs to be related through larger groups of texts or discourse.

References

Pinto, Anil and Vijayaganesh A.. "Michel Foucault's What is an Author – summary". Christ university. Bangalore. 10 January 2014. Lecture.

Foucault, Michel. "What is an Author.

What is an Author?

class notes prepared by Chitra Tracy Johnson

What is an Author?

Michel Foucault

 

January 7, 2014

Michel Foucault is an author who drew ideas and assumptions from all areas like Marxism, structuralism, sociology, history and so on. He is a post-structuralist author with affinities with to the theories we studied earlier.

Foucault begins his essay "What is an Author" by discussing the criticism he had on his previous work The Order of Things. In this work Foucault make an investigation into the condition of possibility under which human beings become an object of knowledge in some of the disciplines (Social Sciences). "For Foucault discourse is a body of thought and writing that is united by having a common object of study, a common methodology and a set of common term and ideas". This idea of Foucault allows him to talk elaborately on variety of texts irrespective of countries, historical periods, disciplines and genres. This is the reason why while discussing several naturalist without considering the periods in which they belonged he discussed Bulton and Darquin who belonged to the 18 and 19 centuries respectively and also to different nationalities. For him they were following "the functional condition of specific discursive practices" (Text para 3).  They belonged to the same discourse family.

            Critics questioned this association. He responds to this by asking why we are not concerned with the idea of authors at all than seeing discourse as the grouping of texts and ideas. Foucault quotes Samuel Beckett who says "What matter who's speaking" and says that this indifference is fundamental ethical principle of contemporary writing. For him writing is a play of language than an expression. So it is creating an opening where the writing subject entirely disagrees.  

Another important idea Foucault brings in the relation of writing and death.  The Greek narration and epics were designed to guarantee the immortality of the hero. So the Greek hero accepted an early death. But coming to modern times texts like Arabian Nights tries to reverse this equation and try to keep death away from the circle of existence. This concept of writing as a protection against death has been transferred to other cultures where writing is now linked to sacrifice and sacrifice of the life itself. It takes place in the everyday life of writer. The work which has the duty of creating immortality has now turned into a right to kill, kill the author himself. The link between writing and death is manifested in the total removal of the individual characterisation of the writer. The consequence of the removal of the authors is not fully explored.

So when he is saying that the author is dead he is saying that author is deconstructed shown that only a part of the structure a subject position and not the centre. By declaring the death of the author Foucault is deconstructing the idea that the author is the origin of something original and replay it with the idea that the author is the product of function of writing of the text.

Reference:

Lecture by Asst.Prof. Vijayaganesh, Christ University, Bangalore on7 January 2014.

Foucault, Michel. What is an Author? Print.

Notes prepared by Chitra Tracy Johnson

 

What is an Author? Michel Foucault ( Christina Alex)

What is an Author?

Michel Foucault

Date: 9 January 2014

·         In this essay, Foucault is concerned with the author and the work. It was looked upon as a single entity.

·         The task of criticism is to establish the link between the author and the work.

·         The understanding of language is extended to literary theory through structuralist approaches.

Author	Work/ Text
Signified	Signifier
Unified subject	Language
Reference point

·         Foucault discusses the relationship between writing and the necessity of expression.

·         Traditional/ Classic writers believed in the concept of inspiration: the idea of a muse.

·         Writers like Coleridge and Wordsworth have talked about the compulsion that a writer experiences to put down thoughts into words.

·         An example is The Rime of The Ancient Mariner where the narrator is compelled to tell his tale to a passer-by.

·         This can be regarded as a continuation of the story-telling tradition.

·         Secondly, Foucault talks about the concept of writing and death.

·         A writer lives through his work or in other words, attains immortality with his work.

·         Foucault
suggests
that
his
examples,
that
the
idea
of
perpetuating
or


·         postponing
death
in
the
case
of
the
Greek
epic
and
the
Arabian
tales
 were
metaphosed
by
the
Western
society

·         The idea of the power of the narrator to forestall death through story-telling.

·         This further problematises the notion of the author as an unimportant part of the work.

·         Waiting for Godot is an example of a text where there is no unified meaning in the text and hence it requires us to look for the author in the text.

·         New Critics, Formalists, Structuralists, etc looked for a meaning in the text even after doing away with the concept of the author.

·         These tendencies were prominent in the 20^th century.

·         Writing was removed from expression.

·         Hence, the author disappears and there occurs a removal of the unified subject.

·         Here the question of what happens when you remove a reference point comes up.

·         Writing is a signifying system; meaning is relational and based on difference.

·         It reflects the notion of a simple and self-contained identity; circularity of meaning as opposed to a linear one.

·         Text does not indicate the intention of the author; author expresses through a unified language which reader interprets.

·         This linear trend has changed recently.

·         The author as a transcendental anonymity.

·         The focus shifted to the text/discourse. Foucault states that everything is a discourse.

·         The author still exists, even after having claimed to have disappeared. He is still behind the text because we want a unified meaning from a text.

·         The author's name is not just a name, it is functional as it performs a function.

·         Foucault
points
out
that
the author's
proper
name
equals
a
description. He uses the example of Aristotle to conclude that hearing a particular name leads to associating that name to that person's famous works.

·         The way Foucault describes the author is very restricted/ limited.

Reference:

Lecture by Asst.Prof. Vijayaganesh, Christ University, Bangalore on 9 January 2014.

Foucault, Michel. What is an Author? Print.

Notes prepared by Christina Alex.

From Work to Text and Death of the Author

1324118

Annie Isabel Jaison

13/12/2013, Friday

From Work to Text and Death of the Author

·         From Work to Text and Death of the Author are two of Roland Barthes' most important works. A text is an 'object of study' according to Barthes.

·          A text is called so because it is woven from the material available, i.e. words. In a text, the words are being stitched and unstitched constantly.  In the essay 'From Work to Text', Barthes juxtaposes the making of a text to the making of a work. Work has an author and text has a scribe. (The word 'scribe' emerged from 'script' which emerged from 'scripture'. 'Scribe' means 'one who writes).

·         Barthes is of the opinion that an author's words are never his own. His work is inspired by a muse.

·         He gives us an idea of the movement of a text to a work - there is no place for the author, in his place the reader is born. We never know what the author meant while creating his 'work', we only know what various readers have interpreted.

·         Here, Barthes is not denying the existence of the author. He is saying that it is not just the author that is creating a work- the language is not his, the ideas are not his- he is just stitching the ideas and words together.

·          In a way he is just a mediator who merges ideas and language together presents it before the readers. This is where the concept of 'Death of the Author' emerges.

·          As text started travelling out of the culture it was written for, it was interpreted even more vividly by a vast number if readers, thus backing the idea of 'Death of the Author'.

References:

1.      Roland Barthes, Death of the Author (1968)

2.      Roland Barthes, From Work to Text (1971)

Shift From Structuralism to Poststructuralism by Anuradha Acharjee (1324119)

There is seen to be an ''exact'' shift from structuralism to poststructuralism. The basis of Structuralism is Linguistics and Structuralism puts emphasis on 'how to look at language'. The notion is same between the structuralists and poststructuralists but there was a change or shift in the attitude of the Poststructuralists which made them different. From 1973, one can see the pressure of the text on yhe writers and the readers. Barthes Structuralist perspective changed and became Poststructuralist.

Structuralists look at language as a sign system which is natural and has no essence. Each woed is a sign and gives a particular meaning. The nature of meaning is relational and arbitrary. Structuralists basically look for a stable meaning in everything or various concepts they come across. The new version, still being stable, gives a better understanding of the reality. In Poststructuralism, there are no signifieds, only signifiers. E.g. When the word tree is uttered, everybody does not get the same concept or meaning in their minds.

So th basic differences one may find in Poststructuralism is that there are a chain of signifiers, no signifieds. The concept of having a fixed or constant meaning is nullified. All this leads to anxiety about language and Poststructuralists cannot believe that language is reliable to communicate at the first place. They believe that texts also communicate certain meaning.

The time frame of Structuralim and Poststructuralism is demarcated as such, from 1930s to 1940s structuralism existed appoximately and from 1960s onwards, it was Poststructuralism in the scenario. It happened in france first and then in England.

Earlier, there used to be a God centred society. There was a gap between language and reality. It was later found out that reality is just a construct and there was no one to one correspondence. Poststructuralism however, widened this gap. According to Poststructuralism, there is nothing like unified eternal reality in the world. Reality itself is textual and everything is a construct. Then during REnaissance Humanism when man was made the centre of the society, all these absolute facts were subverted. This can even be proven by Literature. Also, rationality and reasoning power or man was developed and Science was born.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, there was a war between religion and science. This can be best understood by reading Mathew Arnold's works, how man was caught between the two worlds. The First World War eradicated the notion of moving forward to a perfectly perfect, materialistic life. Also, European countries were emerging at that time. After the Second World War, faith was lost in everything.

Fragmentation in writing can be seen very clearly in T.S. Eliot's works. There is a fragmented and disordered structure. The shift had continued till thousands of years, undoing of whatever you have learnt so far.

There is no fixed meaning in the text. Feminism also incorporated some of these ideas. Male language per se was replaced with feminine viewpoints. Gynocriticism emerged where woman becomes the centre of the society and everything is for women. Classical feminism is seen to be replacing the centre and it all emerged against a male dominated society.

Structuralism was a step by step process, based on methodology and linguistics whereas Poststructuralism had a sceptical nature and was based on philosophy. Structuralists had a coherent and structured style of writing but Poststructuralists wrote with a lot of puns, allusions, metaphors, multiple interpretations. Their writing was basically constituted with a play of words.

Poststructuralists believe that language or reality is a construct. The Structuralists know this but they live with it without questioning anything. They do not want to look at the uncertainity and totality of meanings. Reality id textual for Poststructuralists. The writers do not follow a linear mode of narration.

References :
1.class taken on 20th December' 2013 by Mr. VijayaGanesh.
2. A basic reading of 'The Death of the Author' by Roland Barthes and some other preceeding texts.

Notes prepared by Anuradha Acharjee (1324119)