Theory As/About Literature

This is a notepad for items related to a class I am teaching (it is also a place to play with different themes, code, etc).

[litcrittheory]

Just started, Christopher B. Patterson’s Open World Empire: Race, Erotics, & the Global Rise of Video Games (NYU Press 2020). I love the opening line: “If literature was the artistic expression of empire throughout the age of colonization, and cinema was empire’s main force of ideological reshaping throughout the era of American military dominance (with its Hollywood endings and its Anglo-American standards of beauty and heroism), then video games are the main artistic expression of empire today, the open word empire” (1).

[litcrittheory]

I am tempted to teach this essay by Nicholas R. Jones without the essay to which it responds, because it is a rich enough text to stand on its own. Work by scholars working on Spanish and Portuguese-speaking* world has often been a way for me to refresh my perspective of my own field.

* normally, I would put Lusophone but I have run into scholars deliberately avoiding it so until I know more, I am using Portuguese.

Text for Jones, Nicholas R. “Debt Collecting, Disappearance, Necromancy: A Response to John Beusterien.” Early Modern Black Diaspora Studies: A Critical Anthology. Palgrave Macmillan (2018) 216.

“ Africa to me—as I invoke Alexander Dumas’s romantic yet contested maxim ‘Africa begins at the Pyrenees’—begins in Iberia. The top-down rejection of Africa is an old phenomenon. Barbara Fuch’s *Exotic Nation[: Maurophilia and the Construction of Early Modern Spain* (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009)] immediately comes to mind, which problematizes the passage and critiques how Spain has been viewed by the rest of Western Europe as ‘African,’ or somehow befriend and oriented at mixed as a ‘Muslim’ Spain. The Africa that begins at the Pure red is also a sub-Saharan Africa that white Christian cultural elites have a keen interest in exorcising, along with all the typical Muslim baggage they want to discard. And nowadays, that old move is reinfused with a new vigor because the Africa that starts in the Pyrenees now is really about an Iberia that is actually diverse, not homogenous, and is very much sub-Saharan thanks to recent displacements of huge amounts of people. My point here is that this new move to reject Iberia’s internal *black* Africanness reconnects with older moves to reject the sub-Saharan African world. The powers that be have ‘de -Africanized Spain,’ to engage [Antumi] Toasijé’s [in “The Africanity of Spain: Identity and Problematization,” *Journal of Black Studies* 39.3 (January 2009): 348-355, 348-349] framework, not merely to ‘Europeanize’ itself—a concept Toasijé presents, but does not develop fully— due to, in part, and existential crisis. To be clear, I suggest we must problematize the arguemebt of Spain’s ‘de-Africanization’ of its past, present, and future lives *not* to collide with the country’s apparent depersonalization of its black migrants and immigrants who suffer from the racist myths the Spanish government has catapulted against its black populations. Spain’s empire is biting (it) back. What I find interesting about Spain’s ‘de-Africanization’ has much to do with the nation grappling with the memory of its colonial and (en)slaving past that now, in our present times, has to recognize the return—the voracious biting back—of a visible sub-Saharan African presence.”

[litcrittheory]

Early Modern Black Diaspora Studies

This edited volume brings together Early Modern Studies and Black Studies, two fields that traditionally had little to say to each other. It

Going through Smith, Jones and Grier’s Early Modern Black Diaspora Studies: A Critical Anthology (Palgrave Macmillan 2020)for Early Modern Drama class I am teaching this semester.

[litcrittheory]

Related to our conversation about dandyism today, here’s Solange’s 2012 video Losing You. Director Melina Matsoukas features “sapeurs,” aka the Societe des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Elegantes (the Society of Tastemakers and Elegant People). How do you see this subculture related to colonial roots (specifically the French imperial ones Barthes notes in “Myth Today”)? What does it mean for a music video to set a U.S. singer in Cape Town, South Africa surrounded by members of a Congolese fashion subculture?

If we think about Barthes’ point about intertextuality, how is this text (i.e. the video) interacting with other texts in the culture(s) that produced it?

If you are interested in reading more on Dandyism and race, I highly recommend Dr. Monica Miller's Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity (Duke University Press, 2009).

FMI on la sape:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/26/fashion/papa-wembas-influential-fashion-style.html?mcubz=1&_r=0

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/fop-art-gentleman-of-the-bacongo/?mcubz=1

FMI on the RISD exhibit: 

http://risdmuseum.org/art_design/exhibitions/23_artist_rebel_dandy_men_of_fashion

Also possibly of interest, the menswear consulting website Street Etiquette (which was featured in the exhibit, Rebel/Artist/Dandy): http://streetetiquette.com/about/

[litcrittheory]

Rugged Ivy: Free & Easy’s February Issue

A friend of mine works at the US office of Japanese men’s magazine Free & Easy, and recently alerted me to the February issue, whose theme is “rugged Ivy.” For the hardcore Iv…

For my visualization today, I turn to the now out of print magazine, Free and Easy, a men’s magazine from Japan. I am tempted to call it fashion, but in many ways it is anti-fashion: it focuses on how items of made (emphasizing craftsmanship, sourcing of materials, labor) and although it turns to arguably conservative styles (Ivy, Dad, 70s, etc), there is often something different in how this is done. I became interested in this “heritage” subculture for men, which included grooming, reading, and other issues. In some ways, it is political in what forms of consumption and labor are privileged. I am also interested in how this trend works in Japan in particular: where U.S. popular culture is idealized (and often reproduced on antique machines, etc),  yet now has North American audiences looking to Japan as a means of understanding/accessing this culture.Stores such as the Real McCoy in Tokyo offer clothing designed after those created for Vietnam-era soldiers, factory workers, etc. But these are sold at high prices and are located in expensive areas of the city. It is also a very male-centered culture. As someone who has looked for herself on forums and in stores, there is little directed towards women, even though the Japanese market makes it easier to find things in my size. In the U.S., I sometimes get “cred” in certain heritage stores if I dress in brands associated with this style, moreso than if I came in a more traditionally “feminine” outfit.

[flipseason-blog]

William Faulkner’s A Rose For Emily is structured in a very unorthodox fashion. It is told completely out of chronological order, jumping back and forth through the years like a tale of time travel. It begins at the funeral of the protagonist, but suddenly backtracks 30 years. It then jumps about 5 more years ahead, and then skips back to her funeral…and this is all within the first few pages. Proper reading of this text requires intense focus. I myself had to read over it three times just to organize the plot. 

[immoveablefeast-blog]

I attempted through this visualization to track the emotional development of Delia Jones, the protagonist of Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat”. In the visualization, I included, in chronological order, every key plot point having to deal with Delia in relation to her abusive husband, Sykes, eventually culminating to the latter’s demise. I chose to omit Sykes bringing home the rattlesnake because I believe Delia’s reaction to it was not one of Sykes’ actions ultimately contributing to her indifference toward his death – Hurston had already made it clear that Delia had an unsympathetic disposition through her and Sykes’ prior encounters (events 1-3 all occurred before the snake was brought home). 

[a-stupendouscollectortimemachine]

A Rose for Emily

A Rose for Emily tells the story of a peculiar wealthy and locally famous recluse Emily Grierson. In the story, we are shown her decaying physical and mental condition due to the not only the death of her father, but her inability to make proper connections with others. From her youth, her father turned down several prospective suitors for her, leading to ultimately grow old alone with only her house servant as company. It shows the effects of such loneliness and lack of self care on the woman; failing hygiene, her degrading psyche and desperation to find affection and love by any means necessary. It also shows the role and unfortunate fate of many wealthy women, left to their riches and void of human connection when it comes to their families stringent and exclusive lifestyles. Other characters, such as the “Tobe” the house servant and Homer Barron, Emily’s fiancé who was homosexual, act as the kind of roles people played in such times.

[a-stupendouscollectortimemachine]

A Rose for Emily

A Rose for Emily tells the story of a peculiar wealthy and locally famous recluse Emily Grierson. In the story, we are shown her decaying physical and mental condition due to the not only the death of her father, but her inability to make proper connections with others. From her youth, her father turned down several prospective suitors for her, leading to ultimately grow old alone with only her house servant as company. It shows the effects of such loneliness and lack of self care on the woman; failing hygiene, her degrading psyche and desperation to find affection and love by any means necessary. It also shows the role and unfortunate fate of many wealthy women, left to their riches and void of human connection when it comes to their families stringent and exclusive lifestyles. Other characters, such as the “Tobe” the house servant and Homer Barron, Emily’s fiancé who was homosexual, act as the kind of roles people played in such times.

[medievalpoc]

Hold My Mead: A Bibliography For Historians Hitting Back At White Supremacy

On September 6, 2017, medieval historian David Perry published an article in the Pacific Standard remarking on how medievalists can counter the use of medieval history by White Supremacists. The piece hit home for many classicists as well; a field which has also grappled with the appropriation of antiquity by white supremacists. What follows is a bit of an outline of the articles written in the past year which explain the state of the problem and provide some steps towards countering this abuse of the historical record. I have never seen the medieval and ancient worlds as two different realms and thus this short bibliography melds the two together in hopes that we can see each fields efforts to combat this problem.

[medievalpoc]

The Dumpster Summer of Racism in Medieval Studies

In case anyone was wondering, this is the summer that the sh*t finally hit the fan in certain academic margins and centers, a.k.a. the Dumpster Summer of Racism in Medieval Studies (thanks Dorothy Kim <3). 

Tumblr in the summertime is notorious for a reason, and I decided that instead of answering the same five asks you’ve seen endless permutations of over the last several years, I instead spent as much time as I could (between coping with chronic illness and disability issues) helping individual professors, medievalists, digital humanities peoples and others struggling in the margins in this specific field to bolster their syllabi and powerpoints with some viscerally significant art. I’ve also been spending a lot more time on Twitter and Facebook, since a ton of medievalists have been grouping there to try and Do Something about what’s been going on.

The reason being that medieval studies as a discipline has been harboring white supremacists of various stripes and literal Nazis for decades, and now that our sociopolitical apocalypse is much harder for even the privileged to ignore (especially on college campuses), the time has come to either declare Nazis unwelcome or align your self and/or department with white supremacy.

It’s also a time where the shamelessly ignorant misappropriation of European/centric histories is coming under both a spotlight and a magnifying glass. {For those who enjoy arguing about “Eagle” versus “Raven”; considering I’ve seen and documented hundreds of images to compare the two, and the online shop that sells the cosplay shield (on the left, being brandished ignorantly by the actual scum of the earth) lists it as ‘eagle’ and has a completely separate design for “raven”, I’m still fairly satisfied these are intended to be the same. If, however, I see some compelling evidence that points to definitive ravenness, I’d more than willing to have that conversation which is *honestly the same one*, more or less.}

Not only have more medievalists and classicists been speaking out in ways that are definitive and accessible, but unfortunately the backlash has intensified as well.

[article at The Guardian]

However, for me to see this many people stepping up to really make an impact on how most see and think about the past has been incredibly heartening for me personally, and I can only see it getting louder from here.

The Public Medievalist has an incredible series on Race, Racism, and the Middle Ages here, with a special subseries on antisemitism and its legacy. (I do still owe them an article, but my health has been….well. terrible.)

Sarah Bond has been contributing to Forbes with various articles on both classical and medieval art. Dorothy Kim has been sharing a petition to keep what happened at IMC Leeds (a medievalist conference) whose topic was “Otherness” this time, from happening again. Jonathan Hsy has been curating an incredible Medieval Studies and Race crowdsourced bibliography, which many of you who seek specific article topics should check on often!

There is a ton more going on and many talented people making it all happen, and you can bet I’ll continue doing what I can to support, aid, abet, promote, explain, and do my own thing as well.

And if I might be so bold, I’d love to quote (bestsellingauthorandtwotimeHugoAwardWinner) N.K. Jemisin on a similar community clusterf*ck referred to as RaceFail ‘09:

But here’s the thing.  A lot of people I’ve met in the past year — clarification; a lot of white people — seem to think the “fail” part of RaceFail lay in the fact that it occurred at all. […]

To which I say: bullshit. 

If we didn’t need RaceFail, then why did it occur?  The angry questions that it raised didn’t emerge from a vacuum; they’ve been here all along, and had in many cases been expressed already.

This is Medieval Studies’ RaceFail, and it’s About Effing Time.

[medievalpoc]

Helen Young and I are very much on the same page when it comes to the similarities in what has gone on in medieval studies this summer and similar circumstances in fandom, SFF literature, video gaming, and I’d add in various forms of activism as well. Definitely check out “Medievalfail”, guestposted by Young on In the Medieval Middle.

Ignorance is not an excuse. Habit is not a justification. We would not accept these from our students (‘I didn’t know the assignment was due, I’m not used to coming to class’), why on earth would we accept them from ourselves? Consider who has been positioned as ‘an outside attacker’ in past months (and years): medievalists of color and their allies. Dorothy Kim, a woman of color, has been the target of most harassment. Don’t tell me it’s because she’s the most vocal. We were on a panel together two years ago where I and another white scholar talked about race and medievalism and Dorothy didn’t. She was the only one who got trolled.

It’s not just that the ideas are new and challenging, it’s that they are coming from people who are habitually understood as not belonging in medieval studies because of our field’s history of propping up and perpetuating white supremacy.

I would again point out that medieval studies as a discipline is currently accumulating a great debt to @nkjemisin, who is managing to terraform the entirety of SFF with her fiction while at the same time galvanizing an academic discipline in which white supremacy has been left to ferment for far too long with her *nonfiction*. Many academics are learning from those who have already been exposed to certain specific horrors that racists have felt entitled to subject the most marginalized people of our society to for far too long.

It does however enrage me that the pattern of vicious attacks on Black women, both interpersonal (threats, etc et) and institutional (the whole Rabid Puppies travesty), are almost cast as “blazing a trail” that others can somehow learn from. It’s a fine line between respecting and listening to Black women as experts on their own experiences, and expecting them to use their trauma for your benefit. As I’ve found myself repeating almost ad nauseum recently, if you find yourself “confused” by ideas like these, try applying the amazing concept of CONSENT to it and you’ll find yourself a lot LESS confused.

As the unholy trinity of harassment (death threats, doxxing, and stalking) works its way up the various ladders of relative privilege, and overt white supremacy reveals its putrid head from where it has long been entrenched and coddled in the halls of our institutions of culture and higher learning, i think everyone needs to ask themselves why some targets have been more acceptable than others.

Not only that, time is revealing that the people who habitually harass and threaten others online (and elsewhere), are not the minimized cultural outsiders we often cast them to be, but are often elected lawmakers, people’s bosses, or a student in YOUR medieval studies class who is tolerated despite constantly spouting fascist beliefs and genocidal catchphrases.

This infographic may also be helpful while navigating MedievalFail: The Dumpster (Fire) Summer of Racism in Medieval Studies.

[theeprodigalson-blog]

John G. has this belief that the literary canon is “imaginary.“ This belief ensues the notion that because there is not a general body of texts that have been agreed upon, there is no canon. However, I disagree. Shakespearien texts have flooded our education systems for many years. It’s almost as if every critical literary course requires a reading by Shakespeare; Shakespeare is the canon.

[litcrittheory]

I like how this clearly responds to our discussion. As a side note, there is a long history of Shakespeare in U.S. schools, and an even longer one for constructions of British nationalism. 

[litcrittheory]

A quick note

Two reminders for the posts so far: remember to 

Remember to use a hashtag so we can all find your posts,

Aim to tie the response explicitly to a text or discussion from the class. 

[nationalbook]

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.

Italo Calvino, with 14 reasons to read classic literature. (via nationalbook)

This expression cleverly explains the longevity some novels have regarding their presence in literary canons. Scholars return to them again and again because there is always more to be found. There are only so many books that have such an astounding amount to offer critics and casual readers alike. When a book like this comes along, the acclaim of the work long outlasts its author. Only through the assessment of these or similar criteria should a work be hailed as a classic.

(via immoveablefeast)

This is another solid example of how to approach the Commonplace Book Assignment. One thing to keep in mind: this response adheres strongly to a New Criticism perspective, so as we go forward, think about other schools of thought would respond to these ideas, especially when we turn to Post-Structuralism, New Historicism, and Reader Response.

[macrolit]

No two persons ever read the same book.

Edmund Wilson, critic, born on this day in 1895 (via macrolit)

Based on the several different types of literary theories and criticisms that are available to be used as lenses, I found this quote insanely true and unexpectedly profound. The lens one decides to read a work through is based on the intellectual ideas that they subscribe to, the cultural ideas that that they identify with, and objectives they have. Regardless that though, just on a human level, everyone is different and perceives everything differently. For example, just being in a classroom where we discuss works, I hear a new perspective that had never occurred to me quite often. 

(via hystrangeas)

This is a good example for this assignment. The quotation is clearly tied to our course and by reposting from another Tumblr blog, relates to some issues of excerpting fragmentation, and digital sources that we will discuss later in the semester.

[litcrittheory]

I am thinking about our discussions of how much do we think of authors (their historical context, biographies, possible intentions) when we look at a piece of art. As much as I am wary of Eliot’s ideology (expressed in the essay we read, other non-fiction pieces, as well as in much of his work), I do take pleasure as a reader in poems like “Prufrock” and as a scholar, I find his work rewarding in its formal complexities. Here is audio of him reading his own poem. Does his voice (and the personality it evokes) shape influence your reaction to the poem (as opposed to the other reading we heard on Tuesday or reading the poem to yourself)?

[litcrittheory]

Canon making and how it shapes worldview