Noel Polk’s lecture “Living Outside of History” was concerned with social identity, alienation and guilt, both collective and personal. A central theme of his seminar was reconciling the past with the present. The life experiences that he shared illustrated his theories on how personal connections (or lack of) with history influence identity and personal feelings of guilt and alienation in the present. His lecture used life experience to perform the same function as theory, acting as a framework for navigating these issues.
The first experience he recounted was his childhood living in the Mississippi. He described himself and his town as being geographically southern but not connected to the “myth of the south.” By this he means that neither he nor his town had any connection to the civil war, the history of plantations and slavery or, as he argued, to the racial tensions prevalent in other cities in the south. He pointed out that he does not identify himself as a southerner. This is an identity imposed on him by others. Yet despite his lack of connection to the myth and history of the south he says he has learnt that “I would always be tarred with it no matter what I did.”
The second story he told was about his relationship with his father. His father had served in the Second World War and unknowingly suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Polk described his father as a man who would have unexplainable and unpredictable outburst of anger.
The stories that Polk shared were obviously chosen to illustrate his point about guilt and identity, wether they come from within or are imposed from the outside. His life lived “outside of history” gave him a unique perspective on the racial tension of the south, yet he struggled to know what to do about them because he could not give these events context, in his words he lacked “a solid place from which to look.” His point being that a person’s lack of connection to the history of place or institution such as slavery does not remove them from its reality in the present. While he did not have a connection to slavery in the past, he was a part of its history because he was witness to its legacy in the present.
Polk’s lecture could have been read as an entertaining but inconclusive narrative about a life lived geographically close to historically and culturally significant events but never tangibly connected to them. The key to understanding his lecture came when he talked about his father. He speculated as to whether or not knowing about his father’s mental illness would have helped his relationship with his father. He admitted that it probably would have but the he was glad he did not know, because knowing would have compelled him to sympathise with his abuser. Not knowing allowed him to resent his father without guilt. It seems that he was arguing that wilful ignorance of the past or denial of one’s involvement in the present is rarely constructive when engaging with complicated issues like guilt or personal identity. Life experience functioned in the same way as a critical theory. It was a way of drawing out the very complex issues that arise out of everyday life.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Dr. Porscha Fermanis on William Godwin
William Godwin’s History of the Commonwealth (1824-1828) is far from his most popular work, and is accordingly the subject of very few textual analyses. Hayden White is one of the few noted historians to offer an analysis of Godwin’s History…, but his approach focused exclusively on the text itself, whilst deprivileging the role played by romantic fiction. In contrast to the approach adopted by White, Dr. Porscha Fermanis' frames her analysis of Godwin’s History… through the prism of Godwin’s biographical works, his fictional oeuvre, as well as his own personal life.
Dr. Fermanis’ primary source of reference in her exploration of the rhetoric and form of Godwin’s representation of Britain’s history is his novel Mandeville, as well as his biographical studies of both the ‘common man’ (The Lives of Edward & James Phillips, written about his nephews), and luminous figures such as William Chaucer (The Life of Chaucer), all published before History… . These works were themselves thinly disguised historical works hiding under the veil of the biography, and were roundly excoriated by critics as being highly emotive and nothing more than ‘speculative biographies’. Fermanis posits that the sting felt by such criticism would play a significant role in shaping his historical work later in his career; History… is subsequently far more conservative than Godwin’s biographical studies, with much of the research conducted by Godwin personally rather relying on secondary sources. Godwin also relegates the more sentimental aspects located within to the footnotes section (some of which go on for more than an entire page), while the main body of text is composed in a strictly factual, detached style – the direct antithesis of traditional literary form.
Dr. Fermanis also points out the posthumous role played by Godwin’s predecessors, namely David Hume, in formulating his approach to historical literature. Hume’s six-volume History of England was Britain’s standard historical text for many years, and Godwin’s ambitious attempts to rival Hume would play a major role in dictating his own unique form and style. Fermanis argues that Godwin was sceptical of Hume’s approach of and wished to be seen in a different light, which was the primary motivation of Godwin’s promotion of ‘individual’ history, rather than the notion of ‘mankind as a mass’, which constituted a common theme of Hume’s work. Godwin’s endorsement of ‘individual history’ manifests itself in the romanticism of his character portrait of Oliver Cromwell located within the historical narrative. This incorporation of Cromwell imbues History... with an autobiographical voice, while Godwin is conscious to eschew the cloying sentimentality that raised the ire of critics commenting of his earlier biographical studies.
Dr. Fermanis’ primary source of reference in her exploration of the rhetoric and form of Godwin’s representation of Britain’s history is his novel Mandeville, as well as his biographical studies of both the ‘common man’ (The Lives of Edward & James Phillips, written about his nephews), and luminous figures such as William Chaucer (The Life of Chaucer), all published before History… . These works were themselves thinly disguised historical works hiding under the veil of the biography, and were roundly excoriated by critics as being highly emotive and nothing more than ‘speculative biographies’. Fermanis posits that the sting felt by such criticism would play a significant role in shaping his historical work later in his career; History… is subsequently far more conservative than Godwin’s biographical studies, with much of the research conducted by Godwin personally rather relying on secondary sources. Godwin also relegates the more sentimental aspects located within to the footnotes section (some of which go on for more than an entire page), while the main body of text is composed in a strictly factual, detached style – the direct antithesis of traditional literary form.
Dr. Fermanis also points out the posthumous role played by Godwin’s predecessors, namely David Hume, in formulating his approach to historical literature. Hume’s six-volume History of England was Britain’s standard historical text for many years, and Godwin’s ambitious attempts to rival Hume would play a major role in dictating his own unique form and style. Fermanis argues that Godwin was sceptical of Hume’s approach of and wished to be seen in a different light, which was the primary motivation of Godwin’s promotion of ‘individual’ history, rather than the notion of ‘mankind as a mass’, which constituted a common theme of Hume’s work. Godwin’s endorsement of ‘individual history’ manifests itself in the romanticism of his character portrait of Oliver Cromwell located within the historical narrative. This incorporation of Cromwell imbues History... with an autobiographical voice, while Godwin is conscious to eschew the cloying sentimentality that raised the ire of critics commenting of his earlier biographical studies.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Dr Porscha Fermanis and William Goldwin
Dr Porscha Fermanis argues for the inclusion of historical writing into discussions of history, in her paper ‘History, Psychology and Romance in William Godwin’s History of the Commonwealth (1824-28)’. It observes the boundaries between history and literature, and although the literariness of the text is Dr Fermanis’ focus, she believes Godwin’s historical writing in the romantic period paints a more comprehensive picture of the times.
The history of 17th century is very important for definition in the 19th century as Godwin began writing his History in 1822 – the era of the Great Reform Act, parliamentary reform and emancipation. Godwin long rejected the political parties of the commonwealth, believing that they were essentially repeating the same arguments of previous republicans and monarchists.
History is the mode for some of Godwin’s other writing on political justice, but moving away from the philosophical, he is more concerned with motive, cause and effect. Fermanis states Godwin’s belief that all knowledge can be reduced to probability. He accuses Hume of over-identifying at the expense of impartiality, and repudiates him for the use of specific historical actors instead of noting more generic experiences.
Prior to his History of the Commonwealth (1824-28), Godwin had experimented with historical biographies, writing one on his completely unknown nephews - The Lives of Edward & James Philips – and another, bolder work, The Life of Chaucer. Bold in that it was neither a social nor political history, but was in fact a history of the possible, which was consequently attacked on the basis of being speculative. Godwin espouses a historiography of presence and wants to make the reader feel he is ‘there’ with the character, and criticizes other authors who neglect this attention to presence.
Godwin’s History morphed from a two- into a four-volume history of the Commonwealth that had the author anxious very early on to assert himself primarily as a historian. It is in this endeavour that he becomes much more conservative compared to his previous experiments. Godwin takes matters very seriously, conducting copious amounts of primary research, rather than relying on the research of others before him, believing that the primary sources and eyewitness accounts will give a more accurate portrayal of the feeling of the times. He is also very clear about his difficulty with sources, for example, about Cromwell much is unknown. Despite this, he is aware of Cromwell’s charisma and models him as a kind of romantic, heroic figure; however, rejects sentimental, ‘affective’ moments when it comes to Cromwell’s final demise.
In Volume 4 of the History, radicalism remains thwarted and the republican moment continues to be denied. Godwin ends his History with the limitations of historical writing, and the rejection of the sentimental ending. He combines different models of history, drawing on sources that helped to shape the novel and in turn demonstrating the shift from Enlightenment philosophy to romantic psychology - two approaches Godwin attempts to reconcile in his History of the Commonwealth.
Refracted Modernism
In addressing the complicated issue of Refracted Modernism, Dr Tony Voss was asked by the Cambridge History of South African Literature department to look at three writers, which in itself was difficult because of the consequential exclusion of other equally notable writers, and calls into question the notion that a useable past also denotes an unuseable past.
Modernism, as an idea, originated in Europe and America, but as it spread throughout the world, was refracted. The concept was taken up and then adapted from country to country. None of the South African writers that Voss speaks about conformed to the conventions of modernism because South Africa had a different frame of reference, yet all writers invoked a certain edge to what they had to say.
Voss’ guidelines were to write about two white authors and one black, with two who wrote in English and the other in Africa’s postcolonial language, Afrikaans. This led to a somewhat eclectic grouping of writers Roy Campbell, H.I.E Dhlomo, and N. P. Van Wyk Louw who have been included together only once before in the publication Poets in South Africa.
Roy Campbell (1901-1957), a white South African, lyrical poet, satirist and devout Catholic, made his name as a young man while abroad and was much celebrated upon his return to South Africa. He was a modernist of a distinctive time with the 1930s being the high point of his career. He had a tense relationship to South Africa, continually returning only to leave again due to the burdens of living there. He even published a journal that was quite critical of the living conditions, specifically, of the serf.
H.I.E. Dhlomo (1903-1956) was a black South African who used literature as a means for his people that would endure. He had a varied career as a playwright and poet, later becoming a librarian, and then a journalist and broadcaster. Dhlomo’s journalism is a series of prose poems giving an idea of the African experience of the 20th century. His 1940s poetry harks back to the language of the Victorian era as he explores the idea of writing in English as an African. Voss distinguishes between here between European modernism in Africa (Campbell) and African modernism in Africa (Dhlomo).
N. P. Van Wyk Louw (1906-1970) was a white South African who celebrated writing in Afrikaans and believed Africa to be the centre of the world. Most of what he wrote can be aligned with a sense of African nationalism and his style parallels strong militant political poems. Despite being disappointed in his country for various reasons – the main being apartheid – he never turned away from his people, and always argued for a universal literature.
The writers are received differently in modern times, with Dhlomo not really having a place, due to the dispersion of his Zulu audience. Louw however, is very much a presence especially for Afrikaans speaking people, with annual lectures on his work. If you are a poet today you must determine yourself in relation to Louw.
In regards to modernism, Campbell drew a degree of inspiration from Europe, which informed on his African modernism, however overall, he rejected the concept and would not classify himself as modernist. In South Africa, it is not so much about modernism, as it is about literature.
Latour on Critique
Things and objects have had for some time a separate and distinctive relationship. Things have been assigned a privileged status based on their complicated qualities and complex artisanal or intellectual connections while more technical and scientific objects have been taken for granted as commodity and consumption items, and therefore disregarded in the realm of discussion and debate. An object has been designated as a matter of fact and hence not questioned, while a thing is a matter of concern, debate and critique. ‘Things have become things again’ because a number of things have to participate in the gathering of an object, and so this reciprocal and cohesive relationship entails that things are both a matter of fact – the actual object – and a matter of concern – the gathering. A thing can now be described as both an object in the public arena and the ensuing issues related to said object, which are to be debated and discussed within a gathering or body of people. “A world of objects, unconcerned by any sort of [gathering] has come to a close. Things are gathered again.” (p236)
The realist attitude that Latour celebrates acknowledges that matters of fact are “totally implausible, unrealistic, unjustified definitions of what it is to deal with things.” He seeks to abandon outdated social theories in favour of a new critical attitude “launched with the tools of anthropology, philosophy, metaphysics, history, sociology to detect how many participants are gathered in a thing to make it exist and to maintain its existence”. He celebrates a realist attitude in which the word criticism is spun in a positive and more inclusive way.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
2nd Attempt: THIS KIND OF RUCKUS RESPONSE
( Under the guidance of my supervisor I am working on a response to version 1.0's This Kind Of Ruckus. I posted my first attempt earlier on the blog and now here is my second attempt. My challenge has been writing analytically and without opinion, i am also exploring what I mean when I say 'political performance')
Innovative Political Performance?
Why This Kind Of Ruckus isn’t a Ruckus
There are certain expectations I have for performance, let alone performance that claims to be innovative and political. As an artist who is also exploring similar themes to collective Version1.0, I was excited to read a flyer advertising their latest work This Kind of Ruckus.
“This Kind of Ruckus explores the forming and wrecking of relationships, patterns of control, and cycles of abuse. Drawing upon recent high-profile sexual assault scandals, accounts of relationship violence, and the subtle violence implicit within most relationships, this is confronting, unsettling and powerful theatre from Version 1.0, the acclaimed makers of Deeply Offensive and Utterly Untrue.”[i]
Now having seen the show twice (once in Sydney, late 2009 then again during the Adelaide Fringe, early 2010) I am frustrated. I am frustrated on many levels; as an audience member, as a young woman, as an artist, as a student, as a feminist and as an individual who has experienced the violence V1.0 claims to discuss in this work.
There is a lot to be said for a collective that attempts to address such controversial themes, this is important for contemporary performance to move forward and resonate with its spectators. There is something, though, in TKOR’s execution and collective energy (or lack of) that leave a lot to be desired and makes their choices for the piece questionable. In response to this performance I must actively critically question what a performance is to be “political”? And, how is TKOR an unsuccessful “political” work?
“A performance about power, control and violence in intimate relationships. The work explores sexual violence in a range of spheres – from the realm of the domestic, to the judicial system, to the media and popular cultural attitudes, to the recent spate of sexual assault scandals in the sporting arena…”[ii]
To be political is to engage in the relationship between those with power and the powerless. A political performance needs to question social and cultural hierarchies; it should empower victims and criticize aggressors, it can undress and redress current issues by confronting prejudice, violence and morally corrupt behaviour. Political performance can open up a forum for discussions about change and equality. Works should be inclusive not alienating, showing people and things with cultural and social intelligence, aiming to remove bias yet maintain focus on stereotypes, figureheads and systems that hold political problem.
The structure of the show itself is a series of repeated actions. The cast performs fractured (I assume) ‘football’ actions; they negotiate a quiet cheerlead grasping red pom poms at the front of the stage, they line up and execute footballer’s warm ups and training. An abstracted nightclub dance is repeated throughout the show where male performers attempt to dance with female. They jump up and down side-by-side together moving towards the audience. The female performers become increasingly intoxicated off cans of VB that are lined up side-stage on a table,they appear as if ‘cool down’ drinks for the athletes of a game.
There is a scene of a marriage counsellors session where a male and female player navigate conversation whilst another female player enters the audience and sits looking back onstage whilst counselling the two. The show uses verbatim text from unknown (to the audience) sources. Rape is introduced in a variety of ways; through a monologue delivered at the front of the stage by a female performer casually addressing the rest of the cast, rape is made physical in a drunken dance between a male and female performer, there is also another moment where female performers desperately try and pick up an excess of clothes whilst a male performer tells a story of a gang rape he witnessed his friends commit.
The show concludes with a quote from footballer Matthew Johns. Two male’s stand centre stage,one announces the famous ‘apology’ and the other slaps him on the back saying. ‘Well done mate… Now, on with the show...’ As if purely re-enacting this moment does anything to comment on how embedded these attitudes are in a male dominated mainstream culture. TKOR perpetuate this hierarchy because; thematically it is not clear whether the performers are hyper-real caricatures or performing realism, there style is not coherent, therefore any intent or meaning described in their website blog or in their program is lost. There are moments of dynamic action and text that conjure meaningful sensation but they do not survive the incongruity of stylistic choice.
The shows sound track is an incessant repetitive thumping of a beat that splinters the work into what could almost be called chapters, but not really. There is the constant of media in the show, a video projection that is meant to mimic sporting footages live close-ups that “…magnifies the detail of physical actions and offers new perspectives on fine emotional detail, shedding new light on the minutiae of these human behaviours.”[iii] The media, in this case really only highlights the lack of cohesion between the chosen imagery of sexual violence and what the work claims to explore.
The set for the show is a bubble wrap curtain that divides the space parallel to the audience, as performers disappear behind it and create ghostly figures reminiscent of alcohol-fuelled bleariness. Throughout the work a heavy red curtain of the theatre stage is drawn across the space bringing the performers to the edge of the stage where they sit and participate in storytelling of run ins with the police, a rape and their own interpersonal relationships. These moments are offensive as they seem to serve no purpose but to attempt to bring humour to these parts of the show without irony.
The artists do not discuss the ‘recent spate of sexual assault scandals in the sporting arena…’. Merely presenting actions and text without cross-examination is not discussion. There is an opening and shutting of two worlds (the theatre curtain) that is incongruous, considering there has been no solid definition between the two spaces and their meaning. Time that is spent in front of the main curtain also includes the audience, where two of the female performers point and converse; “…imagine fucking 12 of these guys in a row…. you haven’t got the balls.”
The three female and two male performers continuously swap roles in abstracted scenes of violence. (Always heterosexual and always with the man in power.) These ‘power plays’ are presented but never shift, violent action is placed in front of the audience and, then, it’s almost as if the performers creep away from it.
Gender is split painfully into traditional roles, without this choice being made ironically. The two men are given all the power and, if this is a deliberate reflection of a patriarchal society then, it wasn’t clear. This isn’t successful political work, because I didn’t believe the performers really knew what they were questioning and whom they were pointing a finger to. Is this also what political performance must do? By ‘pointing a finger’ perhaps I mean addressing clear targets (eg. The footballers, the media, the sporting industry etc. ) in which to question and essentially give some responsibility to. TKOR as a theatre work had ideas that were in their beginning stages, and, because of the style of the work; a mix of task-based action and realism, actions became immature and contrived.
“…Perhaps unsurprisingly , it’s been a dark and difficult work to make. The question we keep having to grapple with is why this and why now? Didn’t 70s feminist theatre comprehensively address sexual violence? Does this work need to be revisited by Version 1.0? Looking in the newspaper on a daily basis, with the ever-multiplying number of awful events, has demonstrated the urgent need for performance to return these themes.”[iv]
If Version 1.0 is asking ‘why this and why now?’ Then TKOR didn’t answer, its lack of narrative failed to open up a forum for further discussion because they did not make clear who and what exactly the show is analysing. Of course there is an urgent need for performance to return to these themes and it is, slowly.
This work fails because it gets lost in the performance of the action instead of keeping in mind, and in energy, the greater purpose of a political work, striving for affect, change and the creation of forums, both actual and artistic. A collective might start with an agenda and then lose it in the process of making a work of this nature. It is shows like this that ride the importance of the voice they are claiming to give to women and victims of violence.
As a community of Australian art makers we need to stop making work that is elitist and unapproachable. Stylistic choice is imperative for a work to be successful and its political intentions clear. As a stylistic choice perhaps realism has produced an actor-centric work unable to generate critical inquiry. For a show describing itself as politically innovative it did not take any real risks.
It felt like a work performed by much older players using some stories that belonged to a younger generation that wasn’t acknowledged. And aren’t we, the youth, the ones who can change the socio-political climate? I feel it isn’t effective to perform your bird’s eye view of contemporary mainstream violence; I became confused by the work using realism to perform highly common experiences, in it’s abstraction, V.1.0 has made the violence of their work foreign.
There was no real cohesion about an argument, no through line or gesture for betterment. Actions are thrown out and repeat themselves without building or changing. We, the audience, don’t need answers spelt out for us, it is in what questions are posed and how. I am left asking myself what this show is really about. Wondering, if this is really ‘a political work’ therefore a ‘show for the masses’. How can you charge $40 a ticket?
If, to quote Australian’s Sydney theatre critic John McCallum in that the growing power ofdocumentary theatre is to do with “the power of bearing witness and testimony” then This Kind Of Ruckus falls short. I just can’t help but come to the conclusion that This Kind of Ruckus is a work that had already given up the fight before opening night.
[i] From flyer for TKOR Adelaide Fringe Season 2010
[iii] http://www.versiononepointzero.com/Online program note by David Williams and Sean 2009
[iv] From program for TKOR Adelaide Fringe Season 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Responding to Latour on Critique
“...things have become Things again...” p236
Within the context of Latour’s Matters of Fact, Matters of Concern, I understand the above quote as referring to a re-conception and new direction for critique. While the common practice of critique had traditionally assumed a distinction between matters on fact (objects, or facts) and matters of concern (things, or fairies) as two mutually exclusive ontologies, Latour proposes a third category; that of the fair (p243). As our experiences are defined subjectively, it is not fair to discount the “rich and complicated qualities of the [/someone else's] celebrated Thing” (p233). This shift in attitude is what has allowed “things [to] become Things again”.
What is the realist attitude that [Latour] celebrates
Latour criticises the tradition where by ‘realists’ “have picked and chosen, and, worse, [...] have remained content with that limited choice” (p244) the aspects that they consider as comprising ‘reality’. This selective gaze, he argues, is destructive. Rather, “a multifarious inquiry[...] to detect how many participants are gathered in a thing to make it exist and to maintain its existence” (p246) is, in contrast, both more constructive, and productive.
Latour
I'm a bit out of the loop on last week's discussions, but thought that since everyone has been addressing the 3rd & 4th questions (after talking through 1 & 2 in class), that I'd have a brief stab at the first 2 instead. My apologies if I'm reiterating what you've already done!
Through his writing on critique, Latour airs his concerns about the direction that critique will take in future. The article has been motivated by reaction and his "worry," for the future of critique, in light of the discovery that his own work has been used to support claims that not reflect the intent that drove his original writing. He is worried, because this very act has problematised an identification of the distinction between ways of thinking that formerly appeared as opposing forces; "what's the difference between deconstruction and constructivism?" (232) What is the future of critique if reappropriation can be performed to such an extent that one theory can serve to argue its counterpart?
In this sense, Latour's concerns seem to align themselves with the ideas of innovation in the arts, exploring the idea that 'it's all been done before' and within the constraints of the medium, can work to justify or deliver an outcome that assumes a plethora of existing approaches. If you think about pop music, it seems more and more to be about taking riffs, bass lines, melodies that work and giving them new definition to create a completely different meaning from the one that originally sold it. It's a kind of manipulation, but if it works, and Latour admits that in his case it did, what comes next? What is the consequence of exploiting critique to spin notions of fact?
See you soon!
Through his writing on critique, Latour airs his concerns about the direction that critique will take in future. The article has been motivated by reaction and his "worry," for the future of critique, in light of the discovery that his own work has been used to support claims that not reflect the intent that drove his original writing. He is worried, because this very act has problematised an identification of the distinction between ways of thinking that formerly appeared as opposing forces; "what's the difference between deconstruction and constructivism?" (232) What is the future of critique if reappropriation can be performed to such an extent that one theory can serve to argue its counterpart?
In this sense, Latour's concerns seem to align themselves with the ideas of innovation in the arts, exploring the idea that 'it's all been done before' and within the constraints of the medium, can work to justify or deliver an outcome that assumes a plethora of existing approaches. If you think about pop music, it seems more and more to be about taking riffs, bass lines, melodies that work and giving them new definition to create a completely different meaning from the one that originally sold it. It's a kind of manipulation, but if it works, and Latour admits that in his case it did, what comes next? What is the consequence of exploiting critique to spin notions of fact?
See you soon!
Latour on Critique – responses
An object can be described as a gathering of things that is widely accepted. A Thing, by its origins and definition, is an idea debated in parliament and forum. This form of discourse allows an object to become solidified and tangible. When Latour argues “things have become Things again” (p.236), he means that the nature of critical thinking may have to leave accepted truths and move on to reestablishing the basis of theory, as a way of looking at objects and therefore debating things. The brief example of the Twin Tower’s reconstruction in New York City (p.236) brings forth the public debate of what the Towers actually mean, and how they are defined.
The realist attitude is “a realism dealing with […] matters of concern, not matters of fact” (p.231). Prior to his offering, Latour claims that matters of fact are only a minor portion of “states of affairs” (p.232). In other words, critical writing has not yet dealt with many ideas and this is the next challenge associated with critique.
things have become things again...
I'm still not quite sure of this phrase but it keeps taking me to a book i read last year called Crowds and Power by Elias Canetti. In particular Canetti's discussion of 'unmasking.' He argues that if we continue unmasking 'all the leaves of the tree will start to look the same' (apologies for the lack of reference but i haven't got the book within reach). I feel this statement echoes the argument that 'things things have become things again.' By unmasking things based on their facts as opposed to the world of concern i feel like Latour is arguing the world diminishes. The process of unmasking as i'm using it i feel is aptly described by Klara's post when she describes the search for 'ultimate truths' removed from the concerns of the object.
realist attitude celebrated...
"reality is not defined by matters of fact" (Latour quoted in an earlier post by Milana). I agree with Milana in that i feel this assertion is a key concern that provokes Latour's celebration of the realist attitude. The other reference that appears to feature heavily in people's responses is the move toward appreciation of the objects concern as opposed to its matters of fact. The only way i feel able to to shed further light in this area is to consider this attitude in the field of performance studies. Perhaps it is plausible to contrast two readings of an object on stage. For example a recent production i collaborated on worked intensely with underwear as an object in performance. To read this according to 'matters of fact,' the underwear could be studied for its positioning in the space, its material qualities, its motion through time etc. To read this object through matters of concern may lead to a reading that focuses on how the object of underwear was in relation to the other objects on stage. What conditions brought this object to its place in the parliament of objects on stage? Perhaps this is too much of a break from Latour considering he was levelling an argument on critique itself. However it seems to me to read performance according to matters of fact is a futile exercise whereas critique based on matters of concern appear to provoke more fruitful readings.
Latour - Matters of Fact, Matters of Concern
1) Latour's problem is that there has become too big a rift between that of "objects" and "things". There is a division between that of science and technology and that which is “cradled in the respectful idiom of art, craftsmanship and poetry”. Social scientists have tried to explain objects so horribly that they might as well not bother. Yet by breaking down these boundaries things can become things again.
2) The realist attitude that Latour champions is to look at the thing through a matter of concern rather than a matter of fact. Philosophers pick and choose what they want to look at when that should actually be creating a better picture to understand their matters of concern. It is not always possible to explain things through matters of fact.
2) The realist attitude that Latour champions is to look at the thing through a matter of concern rather than a matter of fact. Philosophers pick and choose what they want to look at when that should actually be creating a better picture to understand their matters of concern. It is not always possible to explain things through matters of fact.
Latour on Crtitique
“…things have become Things again,…” Why?
An object according to Heidegger is an empty mastery of science and technology and a Thing is a gathering place of a rich set of connections. A coke can is just an object it is a matter of fact, it is a can of soft drink. Whereas a handmade jug is a Thing because it is a meeting place of matters of concern. Who made the jug? Why did they make the jug? How did they make the jug? For whom did they make the jug? Where did they get the material? How did they learn to make the jug? Although, can’t similar questions can be asked of a can of coke?
I believe this is what Latour is getting at. Today every thing (or object) is no longer taken as a simple object that is a matter of fact. The matter of fact seems too simple, too truthful to be the truth. People are searching for deeper meaning in everything, for the truths hidden behind what were once the ultimate truths but now seem to be just the ‘very politicised, polemicised facts’, chosen to take precedence over all the matters of concern that sustain their existence.
What is the realist attitude that Latour celebrates?
The realist attitude that Latour celebrates is an attitude that returns to empiricism. Critique has become extreme in its current form. Every critic is moving further and further away from facts whereas really critics should be moving closer to them. Rather than debunking matters of fact we should be protecting and caring for matters of concern. The many examples of conspiracy theories in the article suggest that he sees these conspiracy theorists as the extremists of theory who are so removed from empiricism and debunking all facts that nothing seems to exist anymore, that there are no truths anymore. He is celebrating a realist attitude that would assemble facts to understand matters of concern rather than debunk them; to multiply and strengthen, rather than subtract and weaken.
Dr. Tony Voss Seminar Response
Dr. Tony Voss’ seminar was about his newly written chapter for the Cambridge History of South African Literature called ‘Refracted Modernisms’. Whilst Voss spoke mainly about the three writers he wrote about, Roy Campbell, N. P. Van Wyk Louw and H. I. E. Dhlomo, he briefly touched upon some issues he had with the title of his chapter and the idea of refracted modernisms. Voss did not choose the title of the chapter rather he was approached by the editors of the collection and was asked to write about three writers who would fit the bill, so to speak. In the end he chose the above mentioned three due to linking themes considered to be ‘modern’ which all appeared in their literary works. These two themes were religion and the exotic. So for instance Van Wyk Louw wrote a poem titled Heilige Petrus (Saint Peter) and Campbell wrote: ‘And God will smile to see/ The peace of many shadows on my soul’ (‘Shadows’, 1916)
Voss described a refracted modernism as a modernism that begins somewhere and changes when it gets somewhere else. So the modernism in South Africa is a refracted version of the original modernism begun in Europe. However, Voss seemed to struggle with the idea of a refracted modernism, or that these writers were even modern, even in a refracted sense. At first he spoke that the writers he was dealing with engaged with two different modernisms. That Campbell was a white South African who wrote in a European modernist style. The when he spoke about Dhlomo he mentioned that he wrote in an African modernist style (this apparently being a refracted style of the original European modernism.) Then he moved on to mention many of the aspects of these writers works that is very unmodern. So for example Van Wyk Louw wrote that “the Human comes out in the national…there is no general person” whereas modernism considers that there is a ‘general person’. He then went on to mention that modernism is a break with the past however most of these writers kept reconnecting with the past. Finally towards the end he questioned whether modernism in the colonial world was a belated form of modernism or a different form of modernism? I would like to add to this query; is it a modernism at all?
When asked are you even convinced that these writers were modernists at all even in a refracted sense, Voss answered that he wasn’t convinced. What this seems to question is the existence of refracted modernisms. How alike to the original modernism does a refracted modernism have to be to still be considered a modernism? Perhaps these refracted modernisms in fact aren’t modernisms but the beginning of maybe postmodernism? Or should they be considered to be individual –isms of their own? Is speaking of refracted modernisms the influence of colonial language, trying to tie the –isms of Western Europe’s colonial lands to the dominant -ism back then; another way of colonising the colonies?
Latour on Critique
When Latour posits “things have become things again”, he is referring to the entrance of the inanimate ‘object’ into the public arena, and its subsequent transformation into the malleable, amorphous ‘thing’. Such a transformation is important from a critical standpoint, because it renders the once concrete ‘object’ susceptible to critique and the influence of external forces. Latour provides an etymological basis for this emphasis on semantic distinction by tracing the roots of the word ‘thing’ to its denoting of ancient parliaments, to illustrate the association of the term with the concepts of dialogue and the gathering. A gathering, by its very definition implies the presence of multiple voices, and it is this event that plays a significant role in triggering the evolutionary process that transforms the ‘object’ into the ‘thing’.
The realist approach, as espoused by Latour, is a new type of empiricism; one that also occupies itself with matters of concern, rather than focusing exclusively on matters of fact. The Enlightenment fostered a milieu whereby the impetus of critique was aimed at debunking those phenomena which were unable to be supported by science, and now matters of fact, have in turn, been ‘eaten up by the same debunking impetus.’[p232] As a result, Latour challenges the critical mind to embrace implausibility in order to remain relevant in the contemporary age.
The realist approach, as espoused by Latour, is a new type of empiricism; one that also occupies itself with matters of concern, rather than focusing exclusively on matters of fact. The Enlightenment fostered a milieu whereby the impetus of critique was aimed at debunking those phenomena which were unable to be supported by science, and now matters of fact, have in turn, been ‘eaten up by the same debunking impetus.’[p232] As a result, Latour challenges the critical mind to embrace implausibility in order to remain relevant in the contemporary age.
Latour On Critique.
Latour On Critique.
Bruno Latour’s article is lamenting the current state of critique and critical discussion. He argues that critique, in particular, his critical theory, should be used to “emancipate the public from prematurely naturalised facts.” [1]Latour believes, however, that critique is now being used to create a climate of “instant revisionism.”[2] It seemed to me that Latour is arguing although critique should be used as a way of discussing and challenging pre conceived notions; it should not be used to tear down new concepts before they have a chance to be established. As a contemporary example he points to climate change sceptics, who criticize the scientific validity of climate science, arguing that any uncertainty in the science is proof that climate change is not occurring or is not the result of human actions. Inaction is the result. Similarly with critical discussion, Latour argues that the current approach of “instant revisionism means it cannot move forward unless a new approach is adopted.
Latour argues that the key to moving critique forward it to adopt a realist attitude. He makes it clear that he is not calling for the adoption of an attitude, which assumes, even for the purpose of discussion, that the topic or theory at hand is a matter of fact. Rather he suggests that, for the purpose of productive critical discussion, the realist presumes that the topic at hand is a matter of concern. The realist allows the subject to become an object that is to be considered. It is a more concrete approach to critical thought. This is, I believe what Latour means when he writes about things becoming things again[3]. Upon adopting Latour’s realist attitude, critique can be used, not to deconstruct the matter at hand, but as a tool to construct a new way of engaging with the matter of concern.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Latour on Critique
Latour seeks to break down the boundaries between the Thing and the object. Moving away from Heideggers’ notion of a celebrated thing, an object “cradled in the respectful idiom of art, craftsmanship and poetry”. Using the examples of a handmade jug and a can of Coke, Latour shows that Heidegger’s mistake is not to have treated the jug too well as a celebrated thing, but rather to draw a distinction between the two objects (or things) based on a crass prejudice. Latour says that the objects of philosophers are never complicated enough. They are not made through a complex history of new, real ad interesting participants in the universe. With this in mind, I assume that the ‘gathering’ process in ‘thinging and thing’ is the creating of a network of meaning to a prescribed object.
The realist attitude for Latour, is a necessity to bring back the relevance of the critical mind. Latour calls for a realism dealing with matters of concern, not matters of fact. He notes his mistake as viewing the critique of matters of fact as only possible by moving away from them and directing one’s attention toward the conditions that made them possible. The realist attitude is the addition of reality to these matters of fact, rather than the subtraction.
The realist attitude for Latour, is a necessity to bring back the relevance of the critical mind. Latour calls for a realism dealing with matters of concern, not matters of fact. He notes his mistake as viewing the critique of matters of fact as only possible by moving away from them and directing one’s attention toward the conditions that made them possible. The realist attitude is the addition of reality to these matters of fact, rather than the subtraction.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Latour On Critique
Latour On Critique
1. Latour discusses Heidegger’s ‘thing’. He says ‘a thing is, in one sense an object out there and, in another sense, an issue very much in there…. At any rate a gathering(pg 233).’ Latour argues that this same word thing designates matters of fact and matters of concern. Hence, ‘The thinging of the thing.’ Latour says “Things have become things again, objects have re entered the arena, the Thing, in which they have to be gathered first in order to exist later as what stands apart.” It seems Latour has a habit of putting words in italics in order for them to become concepts. Perhaps it is in understanding what Latour means by a gathering that reveals this thinging?
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