Artfully Inarticulate

Reading Log: "A Genuine Attempt to Engage with the Critical Material" in 150-250 words per artfully inarticulate piece. "Authored" by Stacey Aspinall, but also, of course, open to interpretation.

[hollowglow]

"His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself which these dead had one time reared and lived in was dissolving and dwindling"

James Joyce, “The Dead" (via hollowglow)

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Reading Log Reflection

Scholarly Writing, Creative Writing and Critical Theory in Dialogue

The fact that we were required to maintain a form of critical response to the readings encouraged me to consider my own position as an author of texts. Instead of passively absorbing texts, I actively responded to the readings, adding dimension to the course material. 

The form I chose was a blog format, and I considered this choice in my introduction found on my blog. I stated: “The blog form presupposes anonymity; online space is a forum that allows for relative anonymity, but conversely, also provides the opportunity for endless self-disclosure (for better or worse). The internet lends itself well to discussions of authorship, identity and literary accountability. Thus, here I am: a disembodied voice, existing immaterially yet decisively within this ambiguous space.” The form was relevant to our discussions of authorship, and in retrospect I see that this choice demonstrates the role of technology in authorship, a theme that came up in the readings in the second half of the course.

Before this course, my experience of academic writing had always remained separate from creative writing. The first critical essay I read in an English class was in first year, and at the time it was a tedious and frustrating process; the way that a 35-page essay argues follows certain conventions that I was not previously aware of. I was used to reading literature itself. Now, however, I recognize and discern the key points in a critical essay, and am able to distill this information in a way that is manageable.

In addition, I can draw connections between critical theory, literature and creative writing practices. The boundaries I had encountered before have been contested, leading to a more thorough understanding of authorship. Critical essays can be poetic in their style, and inversely, poetry can position the reader to contemplate critical theory. The role of the reader is integral to shaping the meaning of a text; readership and authorship both create meaning. I have been a reader, and an author, and these two roles remain intrinsically tied together. In fact, they are inseparable.

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New Followers

http://dislocations.tumblr.com/

http://ponderbox.tumblr.com/

I seem to have gained a few followers lately. Thanks for following this blog! It's interesting to me that these writings may be gaining a broader audience than that of my english seminar class.

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Theory, Practice and Project Rebuild

Sachiko Murakami: “Project Rebuild” (http://projectrebuild.ca/)

IN THEORY AND PRACTICE:

“You are invited to move into any of the poems on the site, and renovate them as you will. Your new poem will then join the front page neighbourhood,” reads the website for Project Rebuild. The use of the word “move” into the poems evokes a sense of action and movement, rather than passive reading of this poetry. 

The rebuild project investigates the politics of space and how housing conditions are tied to poverty and oppression in Vancouver. The construction of these houses acts as a metaphor for the human construction of language, “What is poem but a rental unit of language?” The poems in this project are made available online and anyone can edit them, thus producing a collaborative venture. The results include a disruption of form as well as the creation of a dialogue between the original text and the altered texts. The meaning is altered in each case, opening it up to varied interpretations. Thus, the authorial voice is opened up to the addition of other voices, and the collection of text that results is made available online, to form a network of text. 

The “In Practice” section of this blog response is somewhat irrelevant in this example. I set up the “In Theory, In Practice” format for this blog in the first half of the course, when there was a distinct boundary between the theories, and their application. However, as the material we have looked at has progressed from those original (rather dry) critical essays, increasingly it seems that the pieces themselves are more engaging. So, in this example, Project Rebuild weaves poetry, theory and reader participation. The reader can apply theory, through actually engaging with the project and authoring an altered poem to add to the final product.

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Seán Burke: “Epilogue” to The Death and Return of the Author: Criticism and Subjectivity in Barthes, Foucault and Derrida (1998)

IN THEORY:

“The digital” has been a recurring theme in my investigation of authorship throughout this course, because technology really does shape how we consider both texts and authors. Burke writes about hypertexts, texts that do not form a single sequence and can be read in various orders - online, the reader can choose to discontinue reading documents to consult other related material - this form results in a paradigm shift. This concept can be tied to our earlier discussions of collaboration, particularly the discussion of internet memes and the democratization of new media - these new online forms of reading and authoring texts form this paradigm shift.

Interiorization vs. Exteriorization is a major debate - whether digital technology (such as hypertext) is internalized into our consciousness to shape how we think, or are they exteriorizations of the way our minds already work?

IN PRACTICE:

I argue for exteriorization - that hypertext reflects how we already think. It is successful because it reflects tendencies and capabilities that humans already possess- furthermore, these have been developed by people, thus they were imagined before they were implemented. Humans had to have the pre-existing ability for our minds to process informations in this way, otherwise, I would argue, hypertexts would be unintelligible. 

- Stacey

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The Tolerance Project (Week 11)

Rachel Zolf: “The Tolerance Project: Projection of the Intimate into the Historical” (http://jacket2.org/article/tolerance-project)

IN THEORY:

The Tolerance Project is a collaborative MFA thesis project with many social and political implications - as Zolf said on her website,

“While I appreciate the range of these takes on The Tolerance Project’s poetics, for me this is primarily a collaborative conceptual-performance project, a queer-in-more-ways-than-one response to how desire is constrained and regulated in the US, an examination of the governmental functions of docility (partly under the guise of tolerance discourse), the self-regulating “conduct of conduct” that occurs under the sway of institutional and repressive state apparatuses not only at the border but within the academic industrial complex or even the hospital, where I may not be allowed to visit my partner if she’s sick, or on the street where queer (mostly trans) sex workers get killed every day for sport. Suffice it to say that for me The Tolerance Project is not simply a set of poetic gestures; it has had daily real-world implications, so its lived material aspects are as important as its conceptual and poetic facets.”

The title of this article - “Projection of the Intimate into the Historical”, is apt because the word Projection resonates with the project’s goals. Zolf’s takes on the norms and conventions of the academic institution, as well as other institutions, and challenges these parameters to break down boundaries. Thus, the poetry is projected - it is enlivened with these very real social goals and through an unconventional, bold approach while maintaining a skeptical attitude towards the very institutions she is working within.

IN PRACTICE:

A bizarre yet entertaining example is another poet who has published work online. 

http://www.steveroggenbuck.com/

http://livemylief.com/

https://twitter.com/steveroggenbuck

He dropped out of his MFA program, and decided to pursue blogging full-time (livin’ the dream). I believe what he calls his writing “post-ironic,” using the current conventions of online writing, social media and meme culture, and incorporating elements of irony in order to subvert the intended meaning of the writing. He uses twitter, facebook, youtube, image macros, etc. to create strange juxtapositions of words and images as well an to interact with a group of followers he has cultivated online. It’s weird, and its confusing, and I’m not sure if I “get it”, or if I’m supposed to.

- Stacey

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Collaboration, Part 2 (Week 10, Thursday):

Heather Hirschfeld: “Early Modern Collaboration and Theories of Authorship,” PMLA 116.3 (2001): 609-622

&

M. Thomas Inge: “Collaboration and Concepts of Authorship,” PMLA 116.3 (2001): 623-630

IN THEORY:

Hirschfield ocuses on collaboration and its role in shaping texts, comparing manuscript culture to print culture. Manuscripts are created manually by one or more people, sort of like a hand-written letter which is circulated and undergoes changes, rather than being printed and mechanically reproduced in identical copies. Manuscripts involved collaboration; various authors added revisions, corrections, comments, etc. to form an ongoing discourse. “Texts were inherently malleable, escaping authorial control” (612). This form was not author-centered, like print culture. Other examples of early modern collaboration include collaborative female writers, as well as early modern drama which involves “actors, annotators, revisers, collaborators, scribes, printers, and proofreaders in addition to the playwright” who all played a role in shaping the text. 

Inge also emphasizes collaboration, as opposed to the romantic myth of the individual author as solitary genius, “There has seldom been a time when someone did not stand between author and audience in the role of a mediator, revisor or collaborator” (624). Many people influence the production of a book, and each person has a distinct impression in shaping the resulting text. The process of publishing a book itself can therefore be seen as a collaboration, and while the author may be considered the central creator, the influence of others is undeniable.

IN PRACTICE:

In my presentation, I positioned the internet as an online collaborative space, that involves audience interactions, allowing for participatory authorship. The internet is a collaborative space that opens up new forms of communication and collaboration. In addition, internet memes democratize media, fostering creativity- the authors of memes are not as important so much as the content, invention and creativity they reflect. This is an example of authorship being destabilized, and of the process and politics of publishing (that Inge discusses) being broken down.

Back to memes - here are some examples of my personal favourites:

http://www.quickmeme.com/Socially-Awkward-Penguin/

http://fyeahenglishmajorarmadillo.tumblr.com/

http://fyeahartstudentowl.tumblr.com/

- Stacey

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Collaboration Part 1 (Week Ten, Tuesday)

Robert L. Carringer: “Collaboration and Concepts of Authorship,” PMLA 116.2 (2001): 370-379

IN THEORY:

Carringer uses the example of an Alfred Hitchcock film, Strangers on a Train (1951) to illuminate concepts of poststructuralism and auteur criticism. Auteur theory is the idea that films represent the individual director’s personal creative vision, despite the collaborative process of producing the film, the auteur’s creative vision is evident. This theory has been criticised because of this emphasis on the authorial role of the director minimises the collaborative reality of crafting a film. Film studies, however, tends to emphasis individual cinematic authorship.

IN PRACTICE:

Film is an obvious example of collaboration; it’s hard to imagine an entire moving being produced and created with a singular author (unless it is some sort of special solo project, in which case it wouldn’t reflect the norms of movie-making and would be an exception to the rule). Even just filming a minor scene involving a few characters that lasts under a minute takes hours and hours of preparation. A few years ago, the David Cronenburg film A History of Violence came to my hometown to shoot a minor scene. I went to visit the set and watched as they set up the lights, made changes on set, coordinated extras - and finally shot the scene over, and over, and over again. This would have been impossible without a knowledgeable and skilled team of people to work in collaboration with each other.

Lisa Ede and Andrea A. Lunsford: “Collaboration and Concepts of Authorship,” PMLA 116.2 (2001): 354-369

IN THEORY:

Ede and Lunsford investigates the status of authorship within academic institutions. The line, “We scholars in English studies, it appears, are often more comfortable theorizing about subjectivity, agency and authorship that we are attempting to enact alternatives to conventional assumptions and practices,” speaks to the conventions within the academic sphere, including the avoiding of collaborative scholarly writing. 

IN PRACTICE:

This is seen especially within my studies as an English major. I have never endeavoured to create a collaborative essay; it has simply never occurred to me, because it is so ingrained within our consciousness that writing is a solitary activity, and when it comes to authorship of essays, anything that is not explicitly my own idea must be cited in order to avoid accusations of plagiarism. An essay might be a synthesis of concepts and ideas, but ultimately the responsibility and agency must be on an individual author. 

- Stacey

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Who Can Write?

Armand Garnet Ruffo: “Archie Belaney, 1931” (Grey Owl: The Mystery of Archie Belaney, 1996)

IN THEORY:

This piece calls into question the practice of cultural appropriation - and how to determine if and when it becomes inauthentic, morally condemnable and fraudulent. Archie Belaney wrote a response to accusations of inauthenticity as a result of his heritage, which people thought had been misrepresented. The line, “To explain -  why I can write -” demonstrates him defending his stance as an author, and the use of the word “can” suggests the idea that he is arguing against those who state he can’t write - that his work appropriating Native culture was unjustified. Belaney states that he does in fact have a ghost writer, in a sense: “the other side of myself,” a line which evokes the performative aspects of identity, which is not fixed or absolute but rather is influenced by various factors.

IN PRACTICE:

Cultural appropriation can be problematic, or it can be a way of encountering other values and belief systems and incorporating them into your worldview in order to create an varied, polyphonic and intertextual epistemology.

In response to the issue of appropriation of Native culture, I’m going to focus on aesthetic appropriation which I think is problamtic, taking cultural meaning and reducing it to the visual, while losing the original context. 

Here is a link to an article that looks at various reactions to clothing store Urban Outfitters and their appropriation of Native culture (particularily Navajo used to label styles of clothing) used in order to market clothing items to the masses, which is both offensive, as well as illegal:

http://ca.jezebel.com/5848715/urban-outfitters-navajo-problem-becomes-a-legal-issue

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Silent Stories and Spoken Stories

Tues: Thomas King: “The Truth About Stories” (2003) (listen online)

IN THEORY:

This material was on the course syllabus for a class in Postcolonial Literature I took last year; we were advised to purchase and read the book that was printed (transcribed from the Massey Lecture series), as well as access the podcast online to listen to it in oral format.

For this class, however, we listened to it, which did have an effect on how I interpreted this text. It calls into question how we can “read” an oral text, conventions of storytelling, and how subtle cues such as tone of voice, emphasis of certain words, pauses and pace, etc. all add a performative elements to the text that is absent, or imagined, in printed text, which consists on words on a page to be absorbed rather silently. Apart from looking at the form in which stories are delivered, Thomas King also looks at how the stories we choose to tell shape our society, stating “The truth about stories is that’s all we are.” This line has stuck in my head ever since I read the book roughly a year ago.

IN PRACTICE:

The most relevant example that comes to mind is one tied to technology, social media and the use of text in everyday interactions. It seems as though increasingly people are communicating with each other through text, whether it is in the form of messages written on facebook, emails sent, and of course, the most frequent - texts sent on cell phones.

There have been countless debates over these modes of communication, and their percieved benefits as well as the potential social risks that accompany using technology as a social crutch. This trend can be connected to King’s reflection on storytelling, and also to how oral storytelling is more textured or layered due to its use of vocal inflections, and the expressive act of speaking out loud as opposed to the dull, flat reading of a silent text. When we read a text message, immediacy is gained, but social interaction itself becomes dull, flat, silent. Cause for concern? Maybe this a story we need to start considering.

- Stacey 

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Sophie McCall: “‘Where is the Voice Coming From?’: Appropriation and Subversions of the ‘Native Voice’” from First Person Plural: Aboriginal Storytelling and the Ethics of Collaborative Authorship (2011)

IN THEORY:

McCall investigates similar concerns that were seen in Arias’ “Authoring Ethnicized Subjects...”, involving the voice of the subaltern subject who must struggle against a dominantly recognized discourse in order to write. In particular, McCall writes about the role of translator in shaping and forming the “Native voice.” There are 3 competing constructions of the “Native voice” but I think what is key to focus on is that it is a construction. Mediators intervene, to impose limits, expectations, and to translate Native narratives. Appropriation is an integral concern: who can stake a claim of ownership over these stories? Do they belong to a particular lineages of storytellers, clans or people or can the material be freely appropriated and interpreted by various other voices to create a collaborative history? 

IN PRACTICE:

I am not sure where I found the link to this piece, but it seems relevant to this discussion of authorship and the debated idea of authors “possession” of narratives. It is an article published on The Onion.com, and is therefore highly satirical, so it is best read with this kept in mind, as I feel this piece may be potentially offensive. But it does bring up questions of authorship, appropriation, cultural and social stereotypes, through the use of satire (and manages to poke some fun at Creative Writing Majors at the same time).

http://www.theonion.com/articles/ask-an-elderly-black-woman-as-depicted-by-a-sophom,29855/

- Stacey

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It seems that this blog has been neglected lately. I am doing the readings and considering them, and writing responses, but I haven't properly edited any posts yet so they are all on my computer in various stages of completion. I will update soon! The serial aspect of blogging has got to be the most challenging, and admittedly the way I have kept the second half of this blog is not quite ideal.

More posts to come, soon.

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Subaltern Speech and Silence

Arturo Arias: “Authoring Ethnicized Subjects: Rigoberta Menchú and the Performative Production of the Subaltern Self,” PMLA 116.1 (2001): 75-88

IN THEORY:

This essay looks at the production of truth in texts, and the perceived responsibility of the author to voice “truth.” However, the concept of truth is problematized, and revealed to be a complicated concept, through the example of Rigoberta Menchu’s testimonio. The subaltern subject encounters a contradiction in the quest to write about their experiences in an authentic way - in order to communicate their position as a subject in opposition to the dominant discourse, they must actually adopt the literary conventions of the dominant, thus enacting the power relations inherent in writing. In order to make their experience accessible to a wider public with whom they aim to create a dialogue, the subaltern must encounter the dominant modes of communication. Thus, the vital question arises, “Can the subaltern speak?” 

IN PRACTICE:

In these responses, I have been looking at both literary examples and pop culture examples. For this particular essay, it has been difficult to find a true, widespread cultural example of an individual who exists on the fringes of society, so to speak, or just outside of the dominant discourse. The whole idea of pop culture consists of a dominant, mass-recognizable field of discourse. Therefore, my example for this response will be a counter-example: it will be mainstream pop culture in general, which would reflect the lack of formal space for subaltern subjects to share their experience.

- Stacey

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I'm going to include a link to a piece I wrote for The Ontarion, as it seems timely and relevant to our discussions of authorship - after all, technology allows us to publish at our own discretion the details of our lives, allowing us to be authors and cultural producers - to sometimes strange results.

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The poetics of progress: Feminist theories explored formally

Daphne Marlatt and Betsy Warland: “Two Women in a Birth” (Double Negative, 1988)

“two women in a birth” utilizes stream-of-consciousness style, drawing on modernist tendencies to create a dream-like and fragmented piece of writing. The typical use of a pre-established form is disrupted. The piece references the myth of the archetypal heroic male, emphasizing his gender through repetition of the pronoun “his.”

The line “bleak obstacle-boundary space” may be in reference to the writing space - the place in which language performs - the blank page, though it is uncertain what is being referred to. The narrator or narrative voice finds substance in emptiness, shown in the line “we stood in the middle of nothing and it was full.”

Later is the line “birthed into subject,” an obviously female metaphor for identity formation, that tends to recur in the feminist pieces we have looked at lately. The woman is birthed into subject, but is she birthed into author?

The poem ends with her leaving, exiting the empty, barren desert.

As seen in the writing style as well as in the subject matter, she seems to reject the “masculine” associated logic, order and rationality in favour of a more intuitive and immediate style (once again, echoing gynocentric ideals and rejecting phallogentricism). The piece writes (forges) its own form.

The last line exemplifies that she is looking for a space to inhabit: she inhabits herself. 

Note: I think a piece like this that weaves poetry and theory so closely merits a close reading, to explore how the argument is crafted through form and precise use of language. The reading responses are supposed to be critical but even just reading this piece requires critical acuity, so thats why I chose close reading in this case.

- Stacey

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The New Language - Writing from the female body

Trinh T. Minh-ha: “Commitment from the Mirror-Writing Box” from Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism (1989)

IN THEORY:

This essay discusses the challenges of writing as a woman and also from a postcolonial perspective.  Egotism is seen as a disastrous - writing yourself, for yourself, is seen as distinct from writing about “yourself, your body, your inner life, your fears, inhibitions, desires and pleasures” (29). 

The essay also takes the position that “literature remains completely dominated by the sovereignty of the author.” Author is not dead, according to Minh-ha; writing involves a reflection of self, and the writer is godly or priestly in nature (29). 

Part three of the essay discusses how the body is part of the self, and you cannot separate bodily existence from thought or cognition. This argues against phallogocentrism, which privileged men’s writing as universal, intellectual and transcendent and separate from bodily concerns. This binary opposition is refused. There is a discussion regarding the metaphor of the womb in connection to creative process of producing writing and art. Women’s writing needs to be corporeal, a “linguistic flesh.” 

IN PRACTISE:

Interestingly, in this paragraph in the Minh-ha essay, Anais Nin is mentioned - a writer whose name came into my head as I was reading earlier parts of this essay. I have an awareness of Anais Nin’s writing and what she does but haven’t actually read anything by her. After locating some of her writing online, thanks to the magic and the immediacy of the internet ( http://seriesofhopes.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/nin-anais-delta-of-venus.pdf ) her work seems to be an apt example of these principles at play. 

First of all, as a disclaimer: I just read the introduction! I didn’t read the actual, um, material... though I’m not sure that theres any justification for bashfulness regarding erotic literature written in the 1940‘s, in our post-Fifty Shades of Grey world.

Anyway, some key quotes I found in the introduction in which Nin discusses being commissioned to write the erotic material:

“But did anyone ever experience pleasure from reading a clinical description? Didn't the old man know how words carry colors and sounds into the flesh?”

“I had a feeling that Pandora's box contained the mysteries of woman's sensuality, so different from man's and for which man's language was inadequate. The language of sex had yet to be invented. The language of the senses was yet to be explored.”

Nin reflects on writing about sexuality according to the taste of another, noting that her distinct voice was still present, which can be connected to the emphasis on uniquely female bodily writing:

“In numerous passages I was intuitively using a woman's language, seeing sexual experience from a woman's point of view. I finally decided to release the erotica for publication because it shows the beginning efforts of a woman in a world that had been the domain of men.”

The emphasis on female bodily writing has some issues for me. Not all experiences are strictly bodily experiences. Some are more abstract, psychological, internal. I can have a thought and that thought can not reference a strictly bodily experience, instead it can be composed of intellectual ephemera and observations. Not everything is felt or and not all thoughts show emotive sensitivity. In fact, aligning female writing with these gynocentric traits may actually be limiting to women’s writing, if woman wants to step outside of the constraints of her body through literature: where does that leave her? Perhaps this is the very question that these critics want me to end up at.

- Stacey

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Writing the Anxiety of Female Authorship in the Bell Jar

Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar: “Infection in the Sentence: The Woman Writer and the Anxiety of Authorship” from The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the 

Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (1979)

IN THEORY:

The Anxiety of Authorship is experienced by female writers when attempting to create a literary work. As the act of writing does not occur in isolation, writers revisit the history of literature, looking to their predecessors for inspiration and guidance. However, the female writer, when looking into the literary past, finds herself conspicuously absent. The female author sees blanks in history, where women were excluded from literary production and/or publication. As a result, the woman experiences fear and fragmentation, attempting to develop her own voice, while lacking any former voices or authorities to draw upon. There is no clearly defined space for her and her writing to inhabit, thus causing disunity and chaos that results in the individual author experiencing anxiety.

IN PRACTICE:

An example of this is seen in Sylia Plath’s The Bell Jar. As a female writer and academic, Plath was ambitious and accomplished. However, some authorship anxiety is seen in the character Esther Greenwood in The Bell Jar. 

The Gilbert and Gubar essay focuses on patriarchal medical discourse that depicts woman as perpetually ill, sick with various ailments; hysteria, anorexia, agorophobia, claustrophobia, amnesia are all typified as “female diseases.” Some of these concepts regarding sickness and anxiety are also seen in The Bell Jar, which focuses on Plath’s descent into mental illness, thus enacting the stereotype. Esther is a young female writer working at a woman’s magazine (“Mademoiselle”, which would later become “Elle”) because this was a socially accpeted outlet for woman’s writing. However, she experiences distress and anxiety at this job - when they try to take her photo to publish alongside her author’s bio, she has an extreme emotional reaction, perhaps anxiety experienced as a result of her image being used in a this popular publication with a focus on beauty, fashion and artifice while she harbours ambitions to be taken seriously as a literary figure in the male-dominated academic environment. She experiences disunity as she finds herself unable to determine which life path to take:

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.  From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked.  One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor [...] beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.  I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose.  I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.” Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Chapter 7 

Throughout the novel, Greenwood plummets into an extreme depression. She experiences various visceral illnesses, such as violent food poisoning, and bleeds profusely after attempting to engage in intercourse. Esther exemplifies the archetypal “sick woman” and her sickness can, in part, be attributed to the “Anxiety of Authorship.”

- Stacey