Orientalism, a literary criticism theory by Edward Said, attempts to explain the relationship between the East in the West as depicted in academia. It maintains, among other things, that "scholarship is sometimes informed by racism and intellecutals have been complicit in the administration of imperial power". Rather than giving an honest depiction of the East in literature, oftentimes fantasies are projecteted onto the East by Western authors.
We as a class were told to watch Indiana Jones in light of this new information on Orientalism. The result was a heartened discussion about the idea of Indiana Jones (and Speilberg by virtue of directing the film) promoting racist stereotypes about the East to a largely ignorant American audience. Could this be racist propaganda that we blindly take in?
A comment was posed in class about the stereotypes in Indiana Jones (chilled monkey brains, anyone?) perhaps being funny because the audience "knows" that they aren't true. To this, I respond as follows. As a future teacher, I'm of the opinion that I cannot assume anything about the knowledge that my students or peers may have. Doing so may mean that we start on uneven footing with the class, which is not good at all. In quite the same way, we as a nation (sorry for the overarching generalizations, but they are necessary to promote my rampant idealism...) cannot assume that the audiences watching the Great White Indy saving the world are aware of stereotypes being untrue or offensive. Whenever humor is at the expense of another's culture, it's not funny. Sorry.
Not that Indiana Jones is exactly the peak of "scholarship" or anything, but the social implications of Orientalism must be noted. Francis Bacon said that knowledge is power. If this quote is to be assumed to be true, then it also can be said that when scholarship is being dictated by racist ideas, to be powerful is to be racist. The downfall of the social sciences is that their followers/proponents can fall into the rut of "I have an advanced degree and have written many lengthy and verbose papers so I must know everything" and not bother to inform themselves with research on different ways of life being lived before writing about them. This is scary for a couple of reasons.
First, again working off of the Bacon quotation, the power structure that we have rests on the idea of higher education. When we read texts without at least talking about the -ism implications, we leave the power structure of -isms and ignorance intact. Without questioning the intention, or at least the message of a text, we leave the underlying messages be, "camouflaging the social network in which texts are embedded". Second, particularly in the field of education, not questioning these things in texts teaches people in school to not question them either. We are essentially promoting generations upon generations of people to be content with a power structure in which being an intellectual means being above self-reflection and critique.
Ghandi said that we should be the change that we wish to see in the world. This means not only being a part of big things like the Tiaenthaem Square protest but also acknowledging the biases of popular or admired texts. Including "time-honored" traditions like Indiana Jones.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Stagnation in "A Wild Sheep Chase"
*Author's note: This blog started out with a direction, but its ending goes in various directions. "A Wild Sheep Chase" doesn't provide a poor girl with many answers to work with. Thus follows...Stagnation in "A Wild Sheep Chase"
Stagnant. According to www.freedictionary.org (my favorite dictionary due to its free-ness), stagnant is defined as showing little or not sign of activity or advancement and not developing or progressing. As the title of this blog suggests, stagnation plays a fairly large part in Murakami's novel. There can be several aspects of the novel that give the reader the idea that the novel is not moving, not going anywhere worth being. These aspects include the presence of time and the attitude that Boku takes on his life.
Time isn't a focal point for this novel; it doesnt provide transitions for the novel, it moves back and forth and changes perceptions with the different character viewpoints, and the reader is often unsure of their orientation in time when following Boku. Time here is stagnant. Not moving. Boku seems to be content with this lack of movement and activity. In the text, he says that he finds himself looking for new ways to remain supremely bored. Boku is also given a month deadline to find this sheep or suffer "dire consequences" (quotations are in order because the consequences are unnamed, yet are presented as most fearsome...), yet he doesn't mind taking his time on with accomplising things - he goes to movies, continues to drink, and reads what he himself terms as the "most useless tomes" of an "intellectual's required reading" (p. 284). Boku doesn't mind (if I may employ the cliche) wasting time.
It appears as both universal time itself as well as Boku's inner clock are not moving. Stagnant.
Clearly this is not the case. Despite the lack of time references and Boku's adversion to stepping out of his box, time continues to go on. New events and places are shown to the reader and Boku continues to come into contact with different people, all who have an impact on him. Boku doesn't want to change his personality, but cannot but help to do so when he is put into contact with these different events (going up North, meeting the Sheep Man, etc.). I would like to focus on Boku's unwillingness to acknowledge the passage of time. Does a person's unwillingness to come to terms with the movement of time make time itself stop?
No.
Time and the world will continue to move. Just because a person wants things to remain changeless doesn't mean that they will. They never do. Furthermore, without having the passage of time explicitly marked, the reader can still see the passage of time in other ways. Boku often sits out of life too much, but just because he wants time to stand still doesn't mean it will. Eventually, he's going to have to get past his idea that time will stand still just because he doesn't know whatelse to do with the world around him.
Stagnant. According to www.freedictionary.org (my favorite dictionary due to its free-ness), stagnant is defined as showing little or not sign of activity or advancement and not developing or progressing. As the title of this blog suggests, stagnation plays a fairly large part in Murakami's novel. There can be several aspects of the novel that give the reader the idea that the novel is not moving, not going anywhere worth being. These aspects include the presence of time and the attitude that Boku takes on his life.
Time isn't a focal point for this novel; it doesnt provide transitions for the novel, it moves back and forth and changes perceptions with the different character viewpoints, and the reader is often unsure of their orientation in time when following Boku. Time here is stagnant. Not moving. Boku seems to be content with this lack of movement and activity. In the text, he says that he finds himself looking for new ways to remain supremely bored. Boku is also given a month deadline to find this sheep or suffer "dire consequences" (quotations are in order because the consequences are unnamed, yet are presented as most fearsome...), yet he doesn't mind taking his time on with accomplising things - he goes to movies, continues to drink, and reads what he himself terms as the "most useless tomes" of an "intellectual's required reading" (p. 284). Boku doesn't mind (if I may employ the cliche) wasting time.
It appears as both universal time itself as well as Boku's inner clock are not moving. Stagnant.
Clearly this is not the case. Despite the lack of time references and Boku's adversion to stepping out of his box, time continues to go on. New events and places are shown to the reader and Boku continues to come into contact with different people, all who have an impact on him. Boku doesn't want to change his personality, but cannot but help to do so when he is put into contact with these different events (going up North, meeting the Sheep Man, etc.). I would like to focus on Boku's unwillingness to acknowledge the passage of time. Does a person's unwillingness to come to terms with the movement of time make time itself stop?
No.
Time and the world will continue to move. Just because a person wants things to remain changeless doesn't mean that they will. They never do. Furthermore, without having the passage of time explicitly marked, the reader can still see the passage of time in other ways. Boku often sits out of life too much, but just because he wants time to stand still doesn't mean it will. Eventually, he's going to have to get past his idea that time will stand still just because he doesn't know whatelse to do with the world around him.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
"A Wild Sheep Chase" is SUCH a wild goose chase...
First, before I do anything, may I say that "A Wild Sheep Chase" has to be one of the weirdest books I've ever read. The jury's still out as to whether this is a good or a bad thing...I find myself really intrigued by the book. I do have to admit, though, that logic and reason do rule my life. Stepping out of the box of realism is a difficult thing for me to do, but it is almost essential to understand Murikami's text.
The discussion in class has been leaning toward the dichonomy of Reason and Logic vs. Surrealism. We should know better than to set up dichonomies now; the whole first day was spent tearing apart the West vs. Nonwest dichonomy, which one could then generalize to all dichonomies in general. But whatever. That is neither here nor there.
What is normal? Such a typical philosophical question that I almost cringe to ask it. But, it really is pertinent in this discussion. Murakami works to blur the normal/abnormal, conscious/dream line immensely. This brings up a weird connection of the philosopher and math man Decartes and, of course, the Matrix with Mr. Keanu Reeves. Both this thinker and this film attempt to look at conscious/dream dichonomy and make it more confusing for everybody involved.
The Matrix operates under the assumption that machines have taken over the world and are controling human brain power, using the energy produced by dreams to power themselves and their bleak world. Decartes maintains in the first of his six "Meditations of First Philosophy" that the senses can be deceptive. He uses the example of dreaming, saying that in his dreams, he goes to the most fantastic of places and does the most fabulous things. He wakes up, sure that the dream was real; it was so vivid! How does he know that the dream isn't real life, and that the mundane things we do during the day are the dreams? "As I consider these matters more carefully, I see so plainly that there are no definitive signs by which to distinguish being awake from being asleep." (Decartes 28). The truth is, how can we know? No claims can be made about the validity and "realness" of dreams vs. reality.
Murakami pushes those boundaries in his own way as well. Rather than assume this fantastical search for a sheep to be real, I would rather consider it to be a dream. He tests the boundaries of his readers' imaginations by getting them to consider the oddest combination of objects. Who's to say that Murakami's the weird one though? Who's to say that my blogging here is the real thing? Perhaps I'm just getting real life started as I pull on my pjs and jump into bed for 8 hours of conquests and talking animal sidekicks. Imagination - Murikami would approve.
The discussion in class has been leaning toward the dichonomy of Reason and Logic vs. Surrealism. We should know better than to set up dichonomies now; the whole first day was spent tearing apart the West vs. Nonwest dichonomy, which one could then generalize to all dichonomies in general. But whatever. That is neither here nor there.
What is normal? Such a typical philosophical question that I almost cringe to ask it. But, it really is pertinent in this discussion. Murakami works to blur the normal/abnormal, conscious/dream line immensely. This brings up a weird connection of the philosopher and math man Decartes and, of course, the Matrix with Mr. Keanu Reeves. Both this thinker and this film attempt to look at conscious/dream dichonomy and make it more confusing for everybody involved.
The Matrix operates under the assumption that machines have taken over the world and are controling human brain power, using the energy produced by dreams to power themselves and their bleak world. Decartes maintains in the first of his six "Meditations of First Philosophy" that the senses can be deceptive. He uses the example of dreaming, saying that in his dreams, he goes to the most fantastic of places and does the most fabulous things. He wakes up, sure that the dream was real; it was so vivid! How does he know that the dream isn't real life, and that the mundane things we do during the day are the dreams? "As I consider these matters more carefully, I see so plainly that there are no definitive signs by which to distinguish being awake from being asleep." (Decartes 28). The truth is, how can we know? No claims can be made about the validity and "realness" of dreams vs. reality.
Murakami pushes those boundaries in his own way as well. Rather than assume this fantastical search for a sheep to be real, I would rather consider it to be a dream. He tests the boundaries of his readers' imaginations by getting them to consider the oddest combination of objects. Who's to say that Murakami's the weird one though? Who's to say that my blogging here is the real thing? Perhaps I'm just getting real life started as I pull on my pjs and jump into bed for 8 hours of conquests and talking animal sidekicks. Imagination - Murikami would approve.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Revisited
After this exposure to Salman Rushdie's work, I have come to realize just what an active, political figure he was/is in today's world. Now, I don't know what any of his personal issues with Indian culture and religious traditions (perhaps that is, after all, the reason for his writing), but the fact remains that he gives a strong message to the world about the ramifications of politics and religion.
It would be interesting to look at the philosophical traditions that Rushdie has looked at as well. Philosophers like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche easily collaborate what Rushdie says in both his political essays and works of fiction. Truth that claims to be absolute makes a wide claim, especially in today's world which continues to get smaller and smaller. Both of these philosophers advocate a world that operates in shades of gray instead of black and white, which Rushdie strongly advocates for.
The makeup of the world of Kahani has various threads of stories that continue to grow and change. They each benefit from one another, combining themselves into different ways and ideas, just as people learn from one another and can change their ideas and perceptions of the world based on their own unique experiences. Humanity starts out from the same source but as life happens, they develop into their own unique persons. Not to symbol hunt, but Rushdie's fundamental world view also makes up his fantasy world, Kahani.
However, the most interesting question that Rushdie brings up indirectly (and was also brought up in class as well...) would have to be this: Is magical realism right? Does the world have magic in it? To this , I respond as follows. Rushdie would say, not suprisingly, that each person can choose to experience the magic of the world or not. He would also say that if we allow ourselves to be open to it, the world can have magic interwined in with the difficulties of life. Again, not to be cliche, but the choice belongs to each individual.
It would be interesting to look at the philosophical traditions that Rushdie has looked at as well. Philosophers like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche easily collaborate what Rushdie says in both his political essays and works of fiction. Truth that claims to be absolute makes a wide claim, especially in today's world which continues to get smaller and smaller. Both of these philosophers advocate a world that operates in shades of gray instead of black and white, which Rushdie strongly advocates for.
The makeup of the world of Kahani has various threads of stories that continue to grow and change. They each benefit from one another, combining themselves into different ways and ideas, just as people learn from one another and can change their ideas and perceptions of the world based on their own unique experiences. Humanity starts out from the same source but as life happens, they develop into their own unique persons. Not to symbol hunt, but Rushdie's fundamental world view also makes up his fantasy world, Kahani.
However, the most interesting question that Rushdie brings up indirectly (and was also brought up in class as well...) would have to be this: Is magical realism right? Does the world have magic in it? To this , I respond as follows. Rushdie would say, not suprisingly, that each person can choose to experience the magic of the world or not. He would also say that if we allow ourselves to be open to it, the world can have magic interwined in with the difficulties of life. Again, not to be cliche, but the choice belongs to each individual.
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