This blog is an experiment in using blogs in higher education. Most of the experiments done here are the first of their kind at least in India. I wish this trend catches on.... The Blog is dedicated to Anup Dhar and Lawrence Liang whose work has influenced many like me . . . .
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
A Death of an innocent misconception
Enter: ‘Death of the Author” – Roland Barthes.
There is a man who comes
Nothing in hands, but books
And knowledge in brain
He is neither mad nor bad
He asked me to write
Something that he named it ‘poem’
I took my pen jolt down something strange and meaningless
Nothing I understood what he said
He is not mad but I’m running mad
Because I know nothing about writing
That he said and claimed as ‘poem’
Stanza, octave, and rhythm all these I have learnt
But I don’t know where to start
And how to end
So I start making fun of myself
Writing this poem…
First time in my life ‘English Poem’
Is it a poem? I still know nothing
Whether it is poem or not
Then he stops before my poem starts…
Friday, July 17, 2009
WikiWars - conference based international event on the Wikipedia, February 2010
Event One for the Critical Point of View Reader
CPOV (Critical Point of View) Context: The Wikipedia has emerged as the de facto global reference of dynamic knowledge. Different stakeholders – Wikipedians, users, academics, researchers, gurus of Web 2.0, publishing houses and governments have entered into fierce debates and discussions about what the rise of Wikipedia and Wiki cultures means and how they influence the information societies we live in. The Wikipedia itself has been at the centre of much controversy, pivoted around questions of accuracy, anonymity, vandalism, expertise and authority.
The Centre for Internet and Society (Bangalore, India) and the Institute of Network Cultures (Amsterdam, Netherlands) are working together to produce a critical Reader on Wikipedia and to build a Wikipedia Knowledge Network. Under the rubric CPOV, we propose two events that bring together different perspectives, approaches, experiences and stories that critically explore different questions and concerns around Wikipedia. The proceeds from these two events will result in a Reader that consolidates critical points of view about Wikipedia.
WikiWars Conference: The first conference to be held in Bangalore, called WikiWars, invites participation from users, scholars, academics, practitioners, artists and other cultural workers, to share their experiences, ideas, experiments, innovations, applications and stories about Wikipedia. The WikiWars conference embodies the spirit that guides an open encyclopaedia like the Wikipedia, by referring to the edit battles that users enter into over topics that have many points of view. WikiWars also refers to the contradictory positions adopted by different stakeholders on the various issues of credibility, authority, verifiability and truth-telling, on the Wikipedia. This conference calls for diverse and varied knowledges to come together in a critical dialogic space that informs and augments our understanding of the Wikipedia.
Conference Themes: The possible themes and areas for presentations (projects, experiences, experiments, stories or documentation) can include but are not limited to:
- Wiki Theory: Endorse, question/contest or delineate the theoretical approaches and view points on the Wikipedia
- Wikipedia and Critique of Western Knowledge Production: The predominance of textual or linguistic cultures, post-western knowledge production systems, and indigenous knowledge systems
- Wiki Art: Art that uses Wikipedia models, structures or data to explore and expand the practice of Wikipedia project; and accounts that document Wikipedia based art practices or debates
- Designing Debate: Suggestions, innovations, critiques and ideas that focus on the design and form of the Wikipedia, to explore the claims of neutrality, objectivity, emergent hierarchy, control and authenticity on the Wikipedia
- Critique of Free and Open: Areas like Wikipedia governance, economic practices of and around Wikipedia, and the nature of freedom in usage, production and participation on the Wikipedia
- Global Politics of Exclusion: Exploring questions of non-western material inclusion, language, connectedness, oral histories, women, non-geeks, and alternative material that cannot be documented on Wikipedia etc.
- The Place of Resistance: Space of resistance and dissent in the Wikipedia, structures that allow for alternative voices, experiences and ideas
- Wikipedia and Education: Wikipedia usage in classrooms as a teaching resource, and its effect on pedagogy, the role of Wikipedia in the knowledge production sector, and mobilisation of academic communities around the Wikipedia
For detailed information on each theme, please go to http://cis-india.org/publications/workshops/conference-blogs/Wikiwars
- Students and Wikipedia users who belong to different local chapters or have editorial/contribution experiences on the Wikipedia,
- Academics and publishers who are exploring the changes caused by Wikipedia, both in classroom pedagogy and in knowledge production systems,
- Researchers and theoreticians, practitioners and proponents, artists and social activists, who are interested in Wikipedia cultures and their socio-political conditions, should be attending this conference.
How To Apply: To apply for the conference, please send the following information by email to infowiki@cis-india.org by the 31st of August, 2009. 1. A note of interest (450 - 700 words) detailing your ideas and possible contribution 2. Your updated resume 3. A sample of your work (term papers, published articles, peer-reviewed papers, books, art-projects, social intervention projects etc.)
Conference time-line:
Last Date for submitting Note of Interest and Funding options – 31st August, 2009
Announcement of short-listed proposals – 21st September, 2009.
Sharing of Detailed Proposals with all participants – 15th December, 2009
Announcement of Conference Schedule and Logistics – 30th December 2009
Online Registration for non-presenting participants – 3rd January 2010
Conference Dates – 12th, 13th January 2010
Conference Organisers: Sunil Abraham (Sunil@cis-india.org) and Nishant Shah (Nishant@cis-india.org ), Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. If there are any queries regarding the WikiWars conference please write to us.
Research and Editorial Team: Geert Lovink and Sabine Niederer (Amsterdam), Nathaniel Tkacz (Melbourne), Johanna Niesyto (Siegen), Sunil Abraham and Nishant Shah (Bangalore).
Monday, July 13, 2009
Summer Course: Film and the Historical Imagination
School of Arts & Aesthetics, JNU
July 27 – August 7, 2009
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
The JB MRC invites applications from graduate students, media researchers and practitioners for a two-week long theory course titled “Film and the Historical Imagination”
Course Description:
Film is an archive of sensations, of emotions, of images and of sounds. As a powerful recorder of life and its events, Film lends itself to organizing not just historical knowledge but also commenting on the nature of historical narration. This two week introductory course on Film and the Historical Imagination will map the specific ways in which history and ideas about the past get constructed through the medium of cinema. Issues related to questions of evidence, memory, historical catastrophe, nostalgia, myth and heritage will be discussed and analyzed in relation to world cinema. The course is structured in the form of five illustrated lectures, followed by five full length screenings. The course will conclude with a round table discussion with all participants. A set of key essays will be provided in the form of a reader. The sessions would be held from 11 am to 5 pm every alternate day of the week, excluding weekends.
Ranjani Mazumdar is Associate Professor of Cinema Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her publications and films focus on urban cultures, popular cinema, gender and the cinematic city. She is the author of Bombay Cinema: Archive of the City which was co published by the University of Minnesota Press and Permanent Black, 2007. She is currently co-authoring a book on the Contemporary Film Industry. Her current research interests include the cinema of the 1960s, Globalization and Film Culture, and Film and History.
To apply: Send your CV and a brief statement (500 words max) outlining your interest in attending the course to courses.jbmrc@gmail.com<
• Last date for applications: July 23, 2009
• Course commencement date: July 27, 2009
Selected applicants will be charged Rs. 650/- as the course fee
Historical Biographical and Moral Philosophical approach
In the words of Mr. Pinto, literature does not teach us anything. If, for instance, an individual take up psychology she can become a psychologist or if one is engaged in the field of sociology he can become a sociologist, literature is the only subject wherein an individual cannot be an expert. For example, literature will not teach us how to write a poem. All literature does is engage us in a textual analysis. Our unconscious is accustomed towards textual analysis and hence our engagement in the classroom with the various texts is nothing but a textual analysis of the text. This was Mr. Pinto’s reply to all those who didn’t have a text in the class.
Mr. Pinto wanted us to cultivate an interest in
1. Logic
2. Few schools of philosophy- Socratic school of philosophy
3. The works of Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Khant, Engel and Foucault.
In today’s’ class Mr. Pinto commented on the historical biographical approach and Moral philosophical approach. He took up the word “text” and analyzed it for us. He said textile and textual drew similar ideas. Just as textile is a mixture of various elements, text/ual is also quite similar. A text, like textile, is woven together giving us a definite pattern of writing. Mr. Pinto highlighted the limitations of language by saying that one cannot go beyond the structure of the text. He said that there can be constant replays, modification and difference in perception of the text but all this can take place only within the boundaries of the structure of the text. He said that with a close engagement with the text we can see through it. We cannot accuse the writer based on one notion of the text it is important to take into account the authenticity of the text. The versions that come to us might not always be the original publication but rather the edited versions or editions. For e.g. In Andrew Marvell’s “To his Coy Mistress” instead of “dew” the first edition of the poem had “glue”. Shakespeare’s works’ that we have read is also not the original version but rather edited versions of his work.
The term Genre is a French word that divides the text into various segments. A text may have various genres ranging from poems, essays, short stories and novels. In similar ways poem is also divided into various genres. A poem can be ballad, sonnets, villanelle, the elegy, the ode, the sestina, the haiku and the dramatic monologue. The Elegy harbours the pattern of lamentation; the Ode uses the Pindaric pattern and haiku is a celebration of wisdom which delays understanding.
Haiku combines form, content and language in a meaningful yet compact form. Mr Pinto quoted
“O wonder marvel,
I cut woods,
I drew water from the well.”
These lines have been written by a Buddhist monk after getting enlightened. Though he witnessed change within him, life does not after enlightenment. The monk’s perception towards life may be different after enlightenment but he still had to cut wood and draw water from the well.
Historical biographies concern itself with the emphasis on super structure and the biography of the poet. It was in the seventeenth century that Andrew Marvell wrote “To his Hoy Mistress”. The social setup in that particular time was highly puritan. Renaissance had influenced classical learning and hence Logic. Logic is the formal and systematic study of principle of valid inference and correct reasoning. The term logic is very precise and very particular with the use of languages. For example the opposite of white is non-white and not black or green. The Physical world is structured in such a way there is only an existence of zero and one. To his Coy Mistress is an argument towards a school of thought of puritans and the structure. The argument was a reflection of the writing process removed from traditional conceptions of time and a discourse on the urgency of creating written material within human time frames with the presentation of written material as a celebration of life. This pattern of writing did not reflect the poet’s personal emotions but rather a comment on the structure of the society. Thus the weaving of the text was only a pattern to say something.
Taking a moral philosophical approach towards reading “To his Coy Mistress” Mr. Pinto said that the poem is not of sexual imagery but of time. Mr. Pinto also says that to have clarity in idea one must read philosophy. Andrew Marvell systematically reasoned with his desired object about the futility of delaying their interlude when the hours available to them were limited. Metaphysical writers viewed poetry as an intellectual exercise, an opportunity to develop ideas in a logical, argumentative structure; for them, the object of poetry was not to serve as an outlet for an effusion of emotional sentiments. If one approaches "To a Coy Mistress" as a discussion of the pressures which time placed upon a writer, Marvel's apostrophe took on an ironic twist. He used his analytical skills to coax his writing to manifest his intended desires, providing a playful look at the connection between a man and his work. Complicating this relationship was the necessity of negotiating under the terms and constraints of an outside third party: time.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
A Peek at Plato
Mr. Pinto’s Class Note – 10th July, 09.
(Scene: It’s 5 minutes to the end of Mr. Pinto’s class and he hasn’t yet arrived; busy with an extended interview-meeting. Just when we were all trudging along outside to enjoy a lazy day at the campus, he’s in our class in a flash. There’s an explosion of energy and in just about 10 minutes, he gives us a mine of information. By all rights we should have been groaning and saying nasty things about him, for first making us wait, and then making us stay those extra 10 minutes. But the palpable energy being exchanged in those ten minutes was, to everyone’s good fortune, mutually relished. Besides, it was obvious we had rescued him from what appeared at that time to be brain atrophy. So who cares about those extra 10 minutes when we were briefly heroes?!?)
‘Adeimantus, you and I are not making up stories at the moment; we are founding a community.’
[379, Republic, Book II]
Whether he had known at that time his impact on the future generations of thinkers or not, there is no disputing that the Greek Philosopher Plato laid the foundations of Western Philosophy. He gave initial formulation to the most basic questions and problems (which will be discussed in the next few postings) of Western thought. Literary critics throughout the ages have returned again and again to the classical themes set down by Plato and it would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that history of criticism cannot properly be understood without some of Plato’s key ancient texts, especially since they have exerted such a seminal influence on the discourse of criticism in the ages to come.
A lot of speculation is drawn about the personal details of Plato, only natural considering his popularity. Even his name is being speculated about. Plato or Aristocles, after his grandfather? We know that his birth was roughly around 427/428 B.C and his death, 347/348 B.C. He came from an old Athenian family, said to have played a prominent part in Athenian politics. So it’s interesting that he chose philosophy over politics as his way of curing the ills of society.
An old story says Dionysius sold Plato as a slave and his friends and uncles bought him and set him free. He then became a student of Socrates and later founded the ACADEMY. The Academy was the first school of philosophy and is acknowledged as the first university of the world. At the entrance of the Academy was written:
‘Those who don’t know geometry do not enter this portal.’
This doesn’t just refer to the significant role of mathematics in philosophy and a philosopher’s life but also the importance of abstract thinking required of a philosopher. The little that is known about the Academy is that it was a public gymnasium and that Plato didn’t charge fees for his lessons. It is unlikely that Plato’s school had many of the institutional features of a modern university, so all those who’d like to visualize Plato in his Academy as a sort of Father Vice Chancellor at Christ University, kindly cease thinking along that line of thought.
One known public lecture of Plato’s on ‘The Good’ was said to be a fiasco because the audience came to hear about probably the good life and Plato talked about mathematics.
Plato was the first thinker to demarcate philosophy as a subject, as a distinct way of thinking about, and relating to, a wide range of issues and problems. Philosophy in this sense is still taught and learned in schools and universities today. To put it succinctly, we’re still tackling the questions and problems laid down by Plato in this very 21st Century and that sums up the significance of Plato’s theories in our lives.
[References: Mr. Pinto; A History of Literary Criticism and Theory – M. A. R Habib; PLATO – A Very Short Introduction, Julia Annas]
Friday, July 10, 2009
Emergence of English as a Subject of Study
(Notes contributed by Panom and Divya)
Before examining the above mentioned areas, let’s address the interesting question of When Did Literature Emerge?
Invention of the printing press (1453) by John (Johannes) Gutenberg coincided with the gradual removal of the monopoly that the clergy held over literacy. This shift in monopoly was made possible largely due to urbanization and industrialization. We saw that the onus on the primary sector (agriculture) was slowly diminishing and secondary sector (Industries) took off. What has to be noted is that this industrialization became possible due to colonization.
With the advent of industrialization, there was a need for more clerks and book keepers etc. who naturally needed to be taught and educated in order to increase their efficiency. Earlier, the tradition of education was mainly a seminary one (Wordsworth, Shelly, Keats etc.) and was limited to the age old institutions of Oxford and Cambridge. With the concept of division of labor and regulated work hours, it allowed for a certain novelty called ‘free time’ which was not seen before. Until then there weren’t any regulated work hours like the 8 hour concept we see in the 20th century. In fact, there was a large percentage of children being employed as workers as well and exploited for their ability to work long hours. (References were made by Mr. Pinto to William Blake’s THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER) In this new found free time people naturally turned to reading. Free grammar schools with scholarships began to appear; a lot many workers pooled their resources and hired teachers to teach their children in evening schools. They started reading and studying Romances (full of wars, heroes, knights etc.)
There became an increasing need to ‘know’ more and learn more, even if they happened to be practical pieces of information such as instances of the happenings around them. They started ‘telling stories’ to know more which gave birth to two things – Journalism; Literature.
The ‘Novel’ took off as it was a way of telling “something new”, like a new story that converted incidents into a narrative. The colonials contributed to this ‘novel’ or storytelling. (Mr. Pinto made references to the chapter ‘Defoe’s England’ in G. M. Trevelyan’s ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY) Defoe himself had perfected the art of the reporter; even his novels such as Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders are imaginary ‘reports’ of daily life. For Defoe was one of the first who saw the old world through a pair of sharp modern eyes.
(Note: By the 19th Century, all experiments regarding the novel had already been exhausted – with perhaps the exception of the Stream Of Consciousness which came about in the 20th Century.) (FYI: Observers would notice that the 19th Century wrote and read far more number of novels than the 20th Century ever saw.)
Consolidation of this power in the 19th Century was done in the form of literature. It was used as a political tool and also a source. Literature in a sense addresses all structures of society; the working class, the middle class and the elite. This therefore explains its success as a tool. From Eagleton’s essay The Rise of English, we see how Literature was first introduced as a subject of study to mechanical engineers to bring about ‘morality’. Later, it was studied extensively by women at Oxford, perhaps because they were discouraged from studying the sciences. It was a social construct of expectation and opportunity allotting.
Imperialism being the second reason for English becoming a subject of study saw its works being implemented wherever the English went when they had to consolidate their power. “Flag follows the trade” – the classic imperialistic principle. Literature was introduced to the middle classes and texts were carefully selected and doled out, ensuring that the English stamped their power and superiority over the colonies. On retrospect, it seems like such an obvious design. We saw it happen in Africa by the English, French and Germans. We also saw it in Latin countries as well as India by the British.
Military purposes and totalitarian control were the third reason for English becoming a subject of study. Cleary a strategic move and language typically was introduced to consolidate power and subdue confusion. We saw it happen with India as well where Hindi was introduced after independence in an attempt to unify the nation. Similarly, Britain introduced English Literature to do the same.
'The Rise of English
Thursday, July 09, 2009
The essays and people discussed in class
Thomas Hobbes
Immanuel Kant
Roland Barthes- Death of the Author
Derrida
Michel Foucault- What is an Author?
T.S Eliot- Traditions and Individual Talent
Certificate Programme in the Technology and Culture (Digital Classroom)
1. Introduction:
Certificate Programme in the Digital Class will be conducted by Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bangalore with the direct participation of Centre for Internet Studies (CIS), Bangalore and Centre for Education Beyond Curriculum (CEDBEC), Christ University, Bangalore and organised by Department of Media Studies, Christ University, Bangalore.
2. Programme Objective:
The purpose of this course is to investigate the transformations taking place in the classroom through the process of digitization of the various aspects of classroom pedagogy. Both courses and class readings are downloadable on various formats, teachers commonly use blog and wiki formats as pedagogic devices, students ‘publish’ their assignments and engage in various kinds of peer-learning practices. While several universities and undergraduate colleges have actively adopted such technologies, it is unclear as to how drastic the change is. Is the change no more than conventional content and teaching/assessment strategies moving to new platforms? Or is the change more fundamental than that?
5. Programme Structure:
This course, to be conducted with media students of the Christ University will also see the active participation of faculty from a range of disciplines across the board: education, law, computer science and sociology. It will be conducted over 10 sessions to be divided into five modules which are tentatively listed below:
Module 1: The University and the Class
This module, pivoted around Bill Readings’ The University in Ruins (Harvard, 1996), explores the historic transformation of the classroom as the location for the pursuit of ‘excellence’. From its classic Humboldtian origins, to its ‘developmental’ stage – the rise of the mass-classroom, the principle of education for all – to a present space in which it is a gigantic agglomeration of a variety of small experimental spaces – the classroom has changed dramatically. This module will explore the theory of the classroom, and the change taking place in the category of the student, the teacher and the ‘imparting’ of knowledge paradigm. Students will explore key websites which have explored how such paradigms have changed, and report on their findings.
Module 2: The Public Nature of the Classroom
Both students and teachers are recognizing that the classroom is a very public space: students ‘publish’ their papers, teachers upload their class lectures and put up blogs that are technically accessible to the public at large. What does the entry of the world outside do to the classroom as a closed space for intellectual work, frank debate and the display of insecurity? This module will work with John Willinsky’s The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship (MIT Press, 2006), sections on ‘Development’, ‘Public’, ‘Politics’ and ‘Rights’.
Module 3: The Digital Native
The concept of the ‘digital native’ originates with Marc Prensky’s Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants (2001) to look at a ‘new breed of student entering educational establishments’. The term draws an analogy between how a country's natives, for whom the local religion, language, and folkways are natural and indigenous, separate them from immigrants to a country who often are expected to adapt and assimilate to their newly adopted home. Prensky refers to accents employed by digital immigrants, such as printing documents rather than commenting on screen or printing out emails to save in hard copy form. Digital immigrants are said to have a "thick accent" when operating in the digital world in distinctly pre-digital ways, when, for instance, he might "dial" someone on the telephone to ask if his email was received. How ‘native’ is the digital student today? What happens to the ‘immigrant’, i.e. someone seriously technologically challenged by the heavy reliance on digital ‘insiderism’?
This module will split into an inquiry into the problems faced by the both the class teacher and the student, both of whom may or may not be digital natives. It will include one survey to be conducted about volunteer faculty and volunteer students in Christ University, on the problems and possibilities of digital insiderism. Students will assemble and publish survey results online.
Module 4: Technologies Of L;Earning (1): The Institution And The Institutional Repository
This section will be a set of practical sessions on the role and purpose of repositories in academic institutions. Students will actively explore such classic repositories as CSeARCH (http://culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/CSeARCH.HTM) to see the benefits and problems of repositories. It will end with hands-on experience of a repository, located either at CSCS or at Christ University itself.
Module 5: Technologies of Learning (2):
This session will include two key components:
• Role of peer learning, or student-teach-student.
• Role of examination processes: Are examinations changing? Should they change?
This will again be a hands-on experiment, working mainly with hand-held devices, and the role such devices play in the facilitating peer/participatory learning, and in the continuous assessment mechanisms that are replacing end-of-term examinations. We may actually experiment with a new device here, supported by the Nokia Research Centre, Bangalore (to be confirmed).
Duration: Three months. Classes conducted on Saturdays 2-4 pm. Classes begin on 11 July
Contact: Anil Pinto, Dept of Media Studies - ajpinto42 at gmail dot com
Programe Fee: Rs 1000
Venue: Room 913, II Floor, Auditorium Block
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Intentional Fallacy
Intentional Fallacy was the topic of discussion in Mr. Pinto’s class today. Intentional Fallacy addresses the assumption that the meaning intended by the author, of a literary work, is of primary importance. He said that fallacy was a fault in the argument or something that is not logical. Intentional Fallacy depicts that the writer has the final interpretation. The entire authority of interpretation lies with the author. He supported this with a Marxist example, where he said that the structure had the authority of defining social meaning.
New criticism emerged in the United States of America after the Second World War. Post World War-II lots of “men” sent to fight the war for the government were brought back to the country. In order to engage the soldiers, they were sent to colleges. The classrooms suddenly became huge and it was becoming problematic for the English lecturers especially in keeping the class engaged. To overcome this, the lecturers started handing out photocopies of a poem to the class and told them to interpret it in their own way. Thus it ultimately gave rise to new criticism.
Mr. Pinto then presented us with the argument of Marshal Melchan. With the rise in global media Melchan held the view that technology was determined with how one interacts with it. He supported his argument by saying that the modern day journey is towards loneliness and books primarily does it. He said that when we write poems or journals, we do not invent new things instead we write through our limitations, that is the limitation of language. Mr. Pinto said that what we are learning in the classroom is just another means of getting ourselves accustomed to the structure and power that exist within the system of the society. He again switched back to the argument of Marshal Melchan, he said that theatre or cinema was not meant for a single person but rather directed towards a crowd. Marshall also challenged the existing form of knowledge which in time to come this knowledge could become non- responsive.
Intentional Fallacy is also defined as confusion between the poem and its origin. New criticism emphasises its importance within the text. A text has three classifications:
Ø Internal Evidence: the evidence is present as the facts of a given work. This includes those things physically present in the work itself.
Ø External Evidence: what is not actually contained in the work itself is external. Statements made privately or published in journals, gazettes about the work, or in conversation, e-mail, etc. External evidence is concerned with the claims about why the artists made the work, lessons external to the fact of the work itself.
Ø Contextual Evidence: assumes what the text eventually meant. Concerns any meaning derived from the specific work’s relationship to other art made by the particular artists. Intentional Fallacy is interconnected with the contextual evidence.
Mr. Pinto positioned us with the argument of the New Historicists. New Historicists believed that:
o We will never know what the intention of the author was.
o The author himself does not know what he meant through his writing.
o Even if the author has the plot, a frame work for the text, he can’t control the direction.
New historicist believe that writing precede thought. The fact that writing is born with thoughts and not followed by it, highlights that thought alone cannot exist outside language. He said this saying that even for a ghost to exist ghosts require a body just like thought require language for expression. He ended his lecture saying that Intentional fallacy tries to locate the “gentle hand of the author” which forces us to read the text in a particular way.
Literature as a Construct
Mr Pinto’s Class Note on THE RISE OF ENGLISH, Terry Eagleton.
7th July, 09
One of the important arguments in Eagleton’s ‘The Rise Of English’ is that Literature is a construct.
The obvious questions that arise are who constructs it and why is it done? It is certainly done for social, political and cultural reasons by certain influential forces. A prominent example of such a construct is gender identity. We can see the journey gender identity (heterosexuality, incest love, homosexuality to name a few) has taken place throughout the history of literature and how its suppression becomes a construct of social/political control and influence.
Lets trace this back to the much studied Greek tragedy ‘Oedipus The King’ by Sophocles. On unknowingly obliging a prophecy and killing his own father (Laius) and marrying his own mother (Jocasta), Oedipus, King of Thebes, being a fair and just King decides to go into exile after blinding himself. What can be observed is that there is a control exerted by Greek Literature here to suppress a form of sensuality. Mother – Son.
Interestingly, Judith Butler (Gender Trouble) had raised the question as to why the prophecy existed in the first place. Her archive based research showed that Oedipus’ father, Laius, had been engaging with a young boy, the result of which invited the curse of the Gods and hence the prophecy. Here we observe that the sensuality between man and man is being disapproved, suppressed and controlled by suggesting that sexuality of that kind is punishable by the Gods.
Another important Greek tragedy was of Antigone. Antigone was the daughter of Oedipus. Antigone’s conflict with Creon, Oedipus’ brother, arises when Creon declared that the body of Antigone’s brother may not be given a proper burial as he was suspected to have betrayed Thebes. But Antigone wishes to give her brother a proper burial nevertheless and defying Creon’s orders, buries him. Conclusions drawn were that her incestuous love for her brother resulted in her taking a stand against the King and his orders. Clearly, a covert disapproval of incest sensuality between brother and sister.
All three cases, when studied individually, suggests a taboo against homosexuality and incest through the medium of literature. With the hope of idealizing or supporting heterosexuality? That can be left open to interpretation. There is, however, a certain masculine hegemony being promoted because nowhere does it raise the taboo against female homosexuality (lesbianism). In fact, the subject doesn’t even get addressed in order to be disapproved of. But what is irrefutable is that through a systematic representation and repression of such ideas, ‘illegitimizing’ (for want of a better word) certain kinds of sensualities proves that Literature is indeed a ‘construct’ for socio-political and cultural reasons by powerful social forces.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
My Studies Begin - Ramabai Ranade
Background to the author:
The Late Smt. Ramabi Ranade - whose birth centenary was celebrated in
Summary:
This text describes the marital life of Ramabai Ranade who was married to a progressive, “reformist” justice, Mahadev Govind Ranade. Unlike most women at the time, she was encouraged by her husband to read and write and thus learnt both Marathi and English. This extract from her autobiography presents the conflicts that occurred between Ramabai and the other women in the household who, despite being educated in the same fashion, resent Ramabai’s education and often tease her. Ramabai also recounts an instance wherein she resented the decision of the women of the temple to exclude the wives of the reformists and thus left the temple, thinking she had made a good decision. The extract continues with the description of her husband’s dissatisfaction with that particular decision and their first disagreement.
Themes:
The extract deals with several themes –
1. Marital relationships – though unconventional, the relationship does display many concrete trends of regular relationships with the submissive wife who tends to her husband’s every whim. An important element of the marital relationship addressed here is that of the reformist relationship where Western-educated men encouraged their wives to be literate. This new dimension raises questions as to whether the status of women was really improved or not.
2. Women and the patriarchal society – the extract represents Ramabai’s conflicts with the other women of the household and this portrays the role of women in enforcing the patriarchal society. The rifts between women in the household suggests that it is the women who represent the more difficult hurdle in marital life, an aspect which is curious considering the accepted notion of the man being most restrictive.
3. Roles of women in society - there are conventionally elements of female responsibilities here, such as cleaning, cooking and serving, as well as the religious element with reference to the temple and the cunning of the non-reformist women. This theme raises to mind questions of whether the roles of women have changed at present from the fundamental roles established in the past.
Societal setting:
The story ‘My Studies Begin’ by Ramabai Ranade is set in colonial India. The traditions and customs of the people were more rigid than ever. Many men of that period were being educated in the west and they picked up the western ideas of equality and education for women. They were known as the reformists. Like Ramabai’s husband in this story, some men expected their wives to learn how to read and write. The wives had to do this in addition to the daily household work and they had to bear severe opposition from other members in the family.
The common misconception or superstition around that time was that if women were educated, they would be widowed very quickly. Therefore in order to safeguard their husband’s life they would have to remain illiterate. This was prominent along the same time as Sati and child marriage that were some social evils that people were fighting against. Though there were a few changes being brought about, not everyone welcomed these changes. The women married to progressive men had double the work to do in terms of studying and completing all the household chores on time. As joint family systems prevailed at that time, it was not easy for these women to study without facing ridicule from the rest of the family. Some women could not adjust to the constant criticism and refused to study further while some women adopted certain mechanisms to counter the treatment they received in the hands of other members of the family. Some women lashed out and showed their feelings openly to everyone while some women, like Ramabai, remained submissive and unresponsive. In the story, Ramabai feels that this attitude will discourage the other women and they would slowly stop their ridiculing but it was not always so.
Not only the women in the family, but the women in the society openly rejected the wives of reformist men. This we can see in the story when Ramabai and the other reformist women were not allowed to sit with the women but were made to sit with the men in the assembly hall. This was a great insult to the women which Ramabai could not handle. The uneducated women in society did not like that the reformist women discussed matters openly with men and “pretended” to be equal to them. The patriarchal values that were instilled in these women rebelled strongly against ideas like equality and they made life for progressive women very difficult. They were being pulled from both sides and had to satisfy the wishes of their husbands as well as society. Many women like Ramabai Ranade and Pandita Ramabai faced these obstacles bravely and managed popularize education for women all over India.
Further Questions:
1. To what extent have the roles of women changed from those that were established in Ramabai’s times?
According to our discussion, it was established that the roles of women have not changed from the fundamental ones established many years ago. The extract described Ramabai’s roles as cooking, serving food and tending to her husband’s needs and it is understood that even today women still continue with the same household duties. The only change has been the increase in the number of roles women have to juggle as not only must they run the household but some must also work in offices as well.
2. To what extent have the roles of men changed from those that have always been maintained in the past?
Strangely enough, our discussion established that the roles of men have indeed changed as men are now more likely to get involved in the household than they were in Ramabai’s times. Also, we touched upon many instances where the man has taken over the woman’s entire household responsibility and this suggests that there really has been some sort of transformation in the traditional mentality, even though these instances are rare.
3. Would a matriarchal society be more beneficial than our current patriarchal society?
The resulting discussion of this question cemented the fact that a matriarchal society would not be any better than a patriarchal society. Many of the males in our class did not favour patriarchy themselves and everyone agreed that a society where both genders are equal would be most beneficial.
4. Why is there rivalry between women, as displayed in this extract?
The class suggested that it was an ego problem that acted as a barrier between the older women and the younger women of a household, promoting the infamous rivalry between mother-in-laws and daughter-in-laws. In addition to this, the need to enforce superiority also appeared to be a key reason for the tension. Finally, the class decided that the older women feel that their relationship with the younger woman’s husband is threatened with the presence of this new woman in the household and this results in the conflict.