i humiliate, separate the english from the dutch

tracing the trajectory of theory and the class development, i feel accomplished. i picked a liberal arts school to shield myself and my future from constraints and the almighty meatgrinder called american life. now i only wish that this was the class i took freshman year. i made the comment to a fellow student in the class that all freshman should be required to read foucault's "what is an author." the texts and authors we've been introduced to are invaluable to my academic career, considering that indeed i have one. so, can theory really be as good as i make out to be?

the secular and non-secular world are exposed so that we can see all the tiny gears working. what have we exposed?

we've exposed the individual for starters. althusser's concepts of overdeterminism and interpellation all point to the fallacy of our own agency and individuality. balibar and macherey exposed how literature becomes "literature." politics is pervasive. which brings me to the question whether if art for the sake of art can even exist. i don't think so. theory points to an unconscious interconnectedness, nothing is autonomous.

i was very resistant to lacan at first. i accused him of a certain essentialism with the mirror stage and even as i continued to read him throughout the semester, saw myself fumbling with exactly where he was pointing me. his work is like some strange new religion minus dogma. yet it is also very much a science which brings up so many discourses revolving around science and the humanities. a reconciliation might be needed in the academic world.

but let's go back to the academic world. with all we've studied over the semester, it seems to me what we have been most radically questioning yet sidestepping is the very nature and consitution of academe. this is what is of most interest to me. if my chief interest is in the humanities, i would like to think about why i shouldn't just go out and get a real job. i chose academic life and i've been constantly struggling for an outlook that is going to equate income with critical thinking. of course, i'm not going to just let my world divide before my eyes and this is where theory really pulls it together for me. with it, i can understand who has a monopoly of power within a structure while simultaneously understanding that no one has a monopoly on knowledge. and i guess that brings us all the way back to liberal humanism and theory's rejection to its claims.

as this is my final post, i almost forget that were talking about literature! i want to get sentimental and dramatic.

what we've studied is so important in regards to literary realism. i'll never be able to read realist fiction the same way i used to without utilizing the myriad realm of theory. so if something is considered realist fiction, i'll consider balibar and macherey, i'll think about it in lacanian ways, or perhaps if the work is "great", i'll ask myself what has made this work great and how does it act as a component of an isa. and the question over literary "representation" brings me to structuralism and post-.

language constitutes our reality. being introduced to signs and signification was a defining experience in my studies. saussure simply blew me away with "a course in general linguistics." it's technical yet needs to be understood abstractly. the concept of the sign and signification will be utilized for the rest of my life, especially the lacanian use of the term. of course, then derrida tickled the imagination with dissemination and the supplement and deconstruction, etc. in terms of literary application however, i found both structuralism and poststructuralism the most difficult to apply to literature. i do believe that i can use them for an "everyday" situation, actually let's just say an introspective or perfunctory situation, but to utilize them practically in literary criticism seems a little beyond my capabilities. nonetheless, i've gained invaluable insights from the two theories working together.

i honestly felt that after completion of the argument essay, i was a better person. it was a real challenge. the best part about it was that i wasn't even necessarily invested in any of the theories that we studied. i understood them all pretty well yet kept them at bay and refused to let them break down any walls. when we were studying deconstruction, i got to a point where i felt like i had enough and was ready to move on. i guess my first post said it all, i accepted theory only on my terms. but as we moved on, i understood and learned a plethora about "my terms." i was deconstructing my terms as i went along! in researching lacan for my paper, i stopped looking for the means to the end. i always had the end, or the end already was there. the means became more important. and i was understanding how it was important, i was really using theory! while researching, links between theories were revealing themselves. with lacan, i was jumping into feminism, postcolonialism, and even into postmodernism.

all in all, i know i can speak volumes to the theories we encountered. i know which ones i like to keep to myself, which ones i can utilize in studying literature, and which ones TO ME, have the most practical, political application.

rant on the real

here's where theory becomes useful, in only the most pedestrian of purposes, yet still. as an institution (and i speak as part or maybe not) devoted to "social justice", our sympathies are or should be anything but focused in one place. we can utilize hurricane katrina as an example. in an ethics class, i attempted to make a point and floundered miserably. the point i was attempting to make was that in light of hurricane katrina, we have forgotten the impact of a similar event of even larger scale in where? what was it again? i knew what it was, but for some unknown, maybe the irony god of public speaking struck, i couldn't even recall the signifier! tsunami, man. TSUNAMI. yeah i remember, something like 200,000 people lost, it's coming back to me. i made a point in which my own forgetting the point was the point. we can utilize hurricane katrina as an example of the proliferation of intranational sympathies that works against an impetus of looking outward, of course to the rest of the world. even as i write this, animal planet is in the background and the heroism of the animal rescue in new orleans is being exalted. those poor, poor animals. the media explosion around katrina is crazy. and people speak with genuine concern. but i would never placate those concerns and sympathies outside the political, even in terms of human life. hurricane katrina didn't actually do a damn thing to my life but in terms of "american life," made a tremendous impact i.e. "the devastation of hurricane katrina." remind you, the tsunami happened a mere year prior.

a favorite recent riff of pop culture is from recording artist (yes, i'm not saying rapper), kanye west. you can watch it on you tube- http://youtube.com/watch?v=9pVTrnxCZaQ. now this can be argued a bunch of different ways. i've heard some of my friends talk about how as a "black celebrity", he seriously fumbled to say something "positive." i can respect such an argument, yet this is a perfect example of how the political plays off a discursive production, "the devastation of hurricane katrina." the look on mike myers' face is priceless. kanye certainly says something of some relevance. and i could give a shit less if bill o'reilly (even though, i like o'reilly's show) will attempt to circumscribe such a statement for the various reasons. perhaps, it is simply a brash outburst, maybe warranted yet meager and uneffective. to say: "george bush doesn't care about black people" made the hyperreal and its audience stand still for a moment. watch for yourself.

response to previous post

"I definitely agree that your unconscious is "scripting your texts for you," but I don't think it means death of the individual; rather, it's an understanding of how limited our freedom of action is. And the little freedom we do have is important... (previous response)

malraux writes, "the organized significance of art is stronger than all the multiplicity of the world;... that significance alone enables man to conquer chaos and to master destiny." i think this is what you're trying to grasp and that is perfectly fine. there are others who think differently i.e. those with strong post modernist influences. similarly, it reminds me of the process of exegesis in reading mainly christian scripture. an exegetical reading can sometime employ marxism, even structuralism at times, yet ignore the logical ends of using such theories. theory obliterates personal meaning if we seek to let it inform our lives and not let our lives inform theory. or maybe vice versa! confusing subject, to what extent or boundary can we "let" anything truly inform our experience. i think it is a matter of choice, believing or not believing, or simply turning a blind eye.

it's like the matrix!

"... once the image has been mastered and found empty, immediately rebounds in the case of the child in a series of gestures in which he experiences in play the relation between the movements assumed in the image and the reflected environment, and between this virtual complex and the reality it reduplicates..." lacan 190, rice & waugh

my photographer friend said the real no longer exists because it's images and preconceptions of its own reality (the real's reality) have gone beyond catching up with the "actual" real, the images and preconceptions of the real now become constitutive of the real so that one must wonder if the real was ever in the first place a tangible thing. but even with such a question of the real as something that is tangible, all thoughts focused on the real cease to revolve around it and instead, move past it or through it making the real intangible in the first place as a reference point for a discourse that moves far beyond the original start- into the hyperreal. or i think what baudrillard means is that the real is not necessarily exhausted or obsolete but neglected, an antique or artifact made by the proliferating images of mass media (the signs of the real's reality, or existence) that are extending our realities into a "science fiction". yeah, i'm sure he'd roll over in his grave. still it goes to show that what baudrillard implies is that the hyperreal is more real than real.

now what is your symptom? that is the interesting question if one was to employ such an extreme approach to the "i' and subjectivity, i believe an inevitable psychosis would arrive or, materialize to the surface. it's scary stuff to delve into, to even think that your image or the signs you project are moving beyond your own subjectivity, and scripting your texts for you. death to the individual!

dot the i

"And there where there is improvisation I am not able to see myself" (Derrida) and "I think where I am not, therefore I am where I do not think" (Lacan).

hey, are these statements just meta-references? or, are these statements testament to one big meta-reference- our "reality"? (yeah that was seriously a joke.)

i feel derrida is purposely objective in his statement. it is this constant deflection of the self that allows for his explorations to " map the unmappable". yet i feel lacan's statement exalts subjectivity as an inevitability, a constant almost. i will definitely have to read more lacan to find this to be true. nevertheless, i find the primary difference to be that of "objectivity" and "subjectivity". lacan likens thought to a locale of difference, meaning that being and thought are almost dialectical opposed. this is dangerous territory but let me continue.

derrida is objective about going about subjectivity. lacan's statement is more riddled with the question of being and thinking i think to prove the point that our subjectivity is "overdetermined", and i mean this in Althusserian way. yet i said earlier that i believed lacan proposed being and thought as dialectically opposed. conundrum? so far, yes. this is a s.o.s.

"If we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended
That you have but slumber'd here while these visions did appear."

fragments and storytime

everybody loves a "true story". capote's in cold blood "actually happened". would you believe the inhumanity, the humanity? reject the dialectial steam that plagues your blogging. it is difficult. what gets the lasting image- the image a reader is left with, the most prominent, permeating image? employ a question to answer. a lot of things, an infinitude of things, a post structuralist would reply. find a grounds. how does an image on the screen affect our textuality? that is determinant on whether a viewer is actively viewing or passively viewing. can the same grounds for interpretation apply to "reading"? it is a type of viewing. can you passively read something? or more aptly, can you passively interpret textuality? abandon the rhetorical first. i can't; everything is rhetoric. enter the circus of celebrity. images speak louder or can speak louder than the speaker. or a speaker's speak is louder than speaking. how do you know what you are trying to say. i don't know until i say it. do make say think?

The Red Sled

Goddamn that red sled. It’s staring at you like it’s been waiting. For how long, is not up for speculation at this moment. What a horrible sight it is. Stand there, don’t move. You can’t move, both your mind and body are suspended by the sight of the red sled that rests unnaturally against the stacked firewood. Who put it there?

You return to your family cottage every summer with the wife and kids of course. How can you pretend like you don’t know about it, the red sled? The way it just sits there is almost like it knows you better than you know yourself. It’s undisturbed, almost peaceful yet wholly malignant. Think to call for the kids, your wife, remember what brought you out back in the first place. You are pathetic, don’t move.

This place, your summer escape, your parent’s summer escape, your grandparent’s summer escape, is filled with memories. Yet one important memory you’ve seemed to forget. You made it passed that memory, triumphed over it you can even say. You managed to succeed in life, graduated from Yale, fell in love, had two sons of your own, and return here annually.

The red sled doesn’t belong in your life, the new life you had to make for yourself to climb out of the guilty hole you dug. Now fall back into that hole. See all your triumphs in reverse like you are descending down a well with tiers that demarcate each triumph.

It is you driving with family aboard the station wagon, your sons quarrelling in the backseat. Your wife is beautiful, her hair flows out the car window like it was made of gold. It is sunny; summer vacation is here. It is you in the delivery room for the second time, two brothers you think. When your wife cries it is so perfect, you faint. You wake up and feel this is the proudest moment of your life. It is you at graduation, searching the audience with diploma in hand and seeing the tears in your parents’ eyes. Keep falling down deeper.

There he is, your brother, the boy you’ve managed to forget. He wasn’t at your graduation, your wedding, wasn’t there for the birth of your two sons but he is here now. It is winter time and he’s dragging along his favorite sled. You would both go to the top of the trail and much to your mother’s dismay, catapult down the ice and snow. But it is especially cold today and icy. You tell your mother you fell off the back but you know, only you, know the truth. You see the snow plow at the bottom of the street and watched your brother descend down the trail, right out of your life.

It wasn’t the red sled that killed your kid brother. You killed him, then buried him. He wasn’t there to witness all your triumphs, your success. You never let him.

Your wife puts her hand on your shoulder. Climb out of that hole for a second time. She’s frightened when she sees your face. She puts her arm around you and walks you toward the house. You look back over your shoulder and expect to see the vile sled, but it is not there.

where is my mind?

"We have no language-no syntax and no lexicon-which is foreign to this history; we can pronounce not a single destructive proposition which has not already had to slip into the form, the logic, and the implicit postulations which it seeks to contest" (198).

perhaps this is the most digestible sentence if i take it out of context. so in order to fully understand my reality, break it down, I am simultaneously, doubly recreating it and henceforth have contradicted the very nature of contradiction. system shutdown.