Brain Drain Blog

Archive for March, 2007

FOUCAULT
Michele Foucault seems to be an obvious lens through which to view?the faculty?readings at the?College of Saint Rose English Symposium. Sex was in the air – everywhere – although the act itself wasn’t specifically taking place (as far as I know).

Foucault says:

According to the new pastoral, sex must not be named imprudently, but its aspects, its correlations, and its effects must be pursued down to their slenderest ramifications: a shadow in a daydream, an image too slowly dispelled, a badly exorcised complicity between the body’s mechanics and the mind’ complacency: everything had to be told. (1652)

To determine virtue, deviation from virtue was categorized and discussed ad nauseaum by the 17th century Catholic clergy. Preoccupation in the name of censorship fostered discourse, bringing?deviancy to the forefront of the mind. And now for a fine example…

FOOT LICKERS
Captain Dan Nester read his personal essay on foot licking. The story goes like this:?Nester’s ex girlfriend from way back, Anna, confessed to Nester on their third date that a night guard?paid ten bucks to?lick her toes at work.?For years, Nester has been turning this situation over in his head, categorizing the act as fetishism, prostitution, pondering the deviancy, or not. Eventually?he?uses?the technique on?his wife’s?feet as they lay on the couch at opposite ends. He does this to annoy her and it works. At the point where?she kicks him in the?nose and he gushes blood, I laughed so hard that I choked on?a potato chip and had to leave the room. You’ll have to ask him about the rest.

Foucault and Foot Licking
Did Anna feel the need to confess because she felt?”foot licking on the sly” was erotic and thus virtueless? Who knows. One thing is clear. Nester wrote from the perspective of one who is now talking about this fetish in an analytical fashion, categorizing the desire as deviant and yet fascinated by it all the same. The very thing he has been taught to?classify outside of?”normative” is now an obsession. Poor guy.

7 FOOT SEX
Doug Butler read about a 7 foot tall piece of art stored in his house. The story goes like this: The?painting features the larger-than-life image of his artist friend’s self portrait. She is?wearing a sequin bikini standing along side her lover. He’s?wearing?a Speedo. The art doesn’t fit anywhere in his house other than the main living room wall. It resides there for several months. All the while, knowing that he has this depiction of sexuality prominently displayed, the narrator wonders what people will think of him.?Abhorring window treatments, he fills his picture windows with plant life to avoid an arrest?for indecent exposure,?corrupting the?children attending school across the street. His ways of dealing with visitors and their reactions is truly funny stuff.

Foucault and 7 Feet of Sex
Although it isn’t part of our assigned reading, this reminds me of Foucault’s comparison of the Panopticon prison to our social structure. Butler writes from the point of view of a person who is self policed because?he is?never sure who is watching. There could be nobody in his house, or even at his window, and yet the presence of a sexual depiction in art makes him wholly self conscious.

SIGNIFICANCE
So, as a result of all this Catholic categorization and policing of sex, are we really so sexually repressed as a nation? Has this oppression quieted our discourse or desire? As Foucault says:

Never have there existed more centers of power; never more attention manifested and verbalized; never more circular contacts and linkages; never more sites where the intensity of pleasure and the persistency of power catch hold, only to spread elsewhere.

Some?talk?about how we shouldn’t lick feet for sexual gratification (or otherwise). According to?Dan,?we shouldn’t offer them for the licking either. Others say we shouldn’t display sex in our living rooms. According to Doug,?if?we do,?we should certainly shield our guests from it by drinking tea in the kitchen.??

To apply?Foucault’s theory?to?Doug and Dan, we see that the?sexual premise of their writing claims certain behaviors?must be?repressed. Meanwhile, writing about?various aspects of sexuality?has rallied attention?around their ponderings. This, in turn, has produced a discourse at the symposium, here in my blog, and soon to be in class (and maybe even in those segregated bathrooms in Albertus Hall). Each author has become a center of power, publicly sharing their sex with an audience. How freakin’ weird is THAT! Thanks to Foucault, we now know what?Doug and Dan?are REALLY doing, even if they don’t realize it themselves.

(Am I going to be expelled for this?)

According to Michel Foucault in The History of Sexuality, the analysis and discourse performed in?an attempt?to control and suppress sex are the very forces that?give power to the topic.

.
<–oppression
leads to
obsession–>
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In Religious Practice:
Foucault says that classification of sexual behavior and thought, in order to regulate its restriction, brought about a discourse that never existed prior.?Breaking through the silence and addressing sex could have been a good thing had it been approached differently. Unfortunately, to place judgement on people via Christianity’s religious categories of deviance?produces a dangerous?symptom of this type of discourse. To?oppress and classify?heightens the awareness of deviant behavior, and that awareness gives power to its existence. (Here I?say “deviant” in terms of what the church considers sinful versus virtuous.) We study which behavior is decidedly wrong, bringing it to the forefront of our consciousness. This exposure certainly explains the existance of sexual deviants?sometimes known as priests. (Here I?say “deviants” in terms of those who seek pleasurable behavior at the expense of another.)

As?Practice of a Nation:
Beyond religion, the?state too focuses on sex and categorizes behaviors. Population studies, with effects as imposing as religion,?promote a respectful?family life.?A respectful?family life?produces?a respectful?national citizenship, resulting in economic and political gain. This may be true in a general sense, but there are instances where this ideology?has little relevancy to the state of affairs in America today.?

A Silly Scenario?where Foucault? Falls Short:
In his first term as president select, George W. Bush?pushed health coverage for federal workers to include Viagra,?but not birth control.?The?hypothetical outcome of this strange (one could say “idiotic”) thinking?would produce?a population of walking erections pulsing with libidinal energy?in close proximity to?a?population of fertile wombs. I think the bastard’s plan was to send all congressional women home pregnant, requiring that they check their shoes at the door on the way out. But that’s just me.?

This is what happens when church and state get tossed into the blender. Religion and government regulation do not mix in regard to sex. Viagra certainly does nothing to promote?strong family units where they don’t already exist. Foucault’s logic,?as it applies to the state, doesn’t fit this scenario because not all men are married, and not all men are heterosexual. Religiously speaking it fails as well. Bush was promoting an unnatural sexual energy for men, elevating their urges and casting their thoughts into a sinful realm. (Perhaps those who were struck with heart attacks were simply facing the same heavenly punishment homosexuals experienced with AIDS?- NOTE: I say this with the utmost sarcasm.) It’s not like?Bush added a marriage clause to the allowance of distribution. March on ye Christian Soldier…

In Favor of Foucault:
To consider social categorization and the implications of the practice, one can move beyond the topic of sex.?

THE CASE: Two years ago, in the New York?Second Circuit Court of Appeals, I heard a case against the NYS Police Department. A person suffering from depression attempted to end?her life but, before?she died, she had a change of heart and called the police.?Because the police were involved, they classified the call under the Mental Hygiene Law as an “arrest.”??Lawyers argued, using the Americans with Disabilities Act, that a systemic?replacement?of “arrest”?with “custody” would better serve without the stigma.

THE INJUSTICE: With the help of medication, the woman has since overcome her depression. Unfortunately, she?has not?overcome the label. When applying for a job, she cannot legally avoid the application question, “Have you ever been arrested?” Appearing in background checks, it has hindered her progress.?The judges were quick to say that?mental health arrests?are different than criminal arrests.?When the judges were asked if, in her shoes, they would be lying to say, “No, I have never been arrested,” they saw the point. Additionally, for her to correct those who assume?her record is?criminal divulges?medical information that, by law, is?supposed to be shielded by doctor/patient confidentiality. I was floored when the defence said on behalf of the State Police?that computer systems would require an inconvenient amount of updating and the programs were not easily adjusted system-wide. The people within the system seemed unwilling to change categorization procedure and were angry over the inconvenience.?

I find this example of classification as a?limitation of language?more pertinent than Foucault’s use of Jouy (see below).?There is no question of this woman’s innocence,?and yet?the consequences of her label have effected the rest of her life.

THE OUTCOME: This woman and many people like her are now persecuted by the law that is supposed to protect. The panel of 3 judges believed that?”arrest”?was a term worthy of examination. They deliberated for several weeks. Although they agreed that?”arrest” isn’t applicable, their verdicts contradicted each of the others in the areas of how and why. Because there was no consensus on the issue, this woman suffers the same plight she did?prior to?arguing her case. In my estimation, these judges?saw the case as nothing more than an intellectual and philosophical exercise, without consideration of the?impact they had on living, breathing people. The system failed and the judges were…

Speaking of Idiots:
Foucault’s example of Jouy,?the simple man from Lapcourt (Is he making this up?), is one of?mimicry.?Jouy exchanges spare change for caresses from a young girl?, a practice?he’s seen?take place?in the village square.?Foucault says that to categorize his?motivation as “deviant” is wrong while the behavior itself is not. If Jouy doesn’t have the sense God gave a?puppet –> to adhere to the rules of society, condemning him for having desire does seem unfair.?

This leads to a more serious question of Foucault’s thinking. Are caresses simply caresses, or is Foucault falling into the trap of code-speak. One can imagine what a game of “curdled milk” entails and yet Foucault labels it?”petty” (1656). I don’t see this as inconsequential. In fact, it makes me not like Foucault. In the acceptance of this?behavior as the basis for his theory, is?Foucault implicating the girl for?being?an “alert” child (1657) and for selling her wares? (I can speak in code too, Foucault.) It certainly sounds like it. Foucault seems more concerned in the label and study of the man while the village game of curdled milk is discarded. There is something very wrong with this line of classification too.

 

A Research Proposal:

In Anne Bront?’s novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, the character of Helen Graham challenges the inequality of gender in society. This inequality, at worst, fosters abuse and the silent oppression of women while, at the very least, it reproduces the same oppressive social system from generation to generation. Helen?s debate at the Markham house addresses this societal reproduction. The role of the mother in the raising of a child is dependant upon the gender of the child. For boys, learning from experience is most valued. For girls, virtue is attained through the sheltering of their innocence. Helen believes in moderation for either gender, particularly since experience has taught her well and made her no less virtuous. As Helen?s full story unfolds, Gilbert Markham and the audience of the novel are educated about the horrors that can exist if societal expectations of women remain unchallenged. Because Helen remains moral regardless of the experiences she faces and is rewarded with love and happiness in the end, Bront? demonstrates that to break from those aspects of tradition that foster vice, abuse and inequality can and must be a success.

The social values and customs of the early 19th Century are of importance to study because remains of those gender imbalances are still present in society today. To understand where gender inequality fails and reproduces oppression for women can help to pinpoint ways in which it can be remedied. Historic trends provide commentary through literature, allowing for study of causes and effects of this division. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall provides such a social commentary as it is the first novel of its kind to reveal the harsh reality of those women who suffered the worst of oppression at the time.

Materials regarding this line of inquiry are present in JSTOR. A cursory search provided three pertinent points of reference and more surely exist. The first is ?Cultural Reformation and Cultural Reproduction in Anne Bront?’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall? by Russell Poole, the second is ?Feminism and the Public Sphere in Anne Bront?’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall? by Rachel K. Carnell, and third is ?The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: Narrative Silences and Questions of Gender? by Carol A. Senf. As for the application of theory, The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism provides a wealth of information.

Theoretical application can move in several directions. Feminism is an obvious lens through which the novel can be viewed. Gayle Rubin speaks of women as a social gifts for societal connection. For the women in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, consideration of societal connections is of high important as mothers are continually concerned with their daughters? acceptance of socially respectable gentlemen. To move just outside the feminist realm, Franz Fanon speaks of being defined in relation to ?other.? Although this novel does not deal with racism, it does deal in the oppression of women as they are defined by men. Women, like Fanon?s description of black men, are imprisoned within the nature of their bodies by social structures outside their own being. Additionally, Althusser is applicable. As a Marxist, he speaks of repressive and ideological state apparatuses such as religion, school, family, laws, and political systems which have a cyclical effect on the reproduction of society. These apparatuses reproduce gender roles and class distinctions in addition to the reproduction of labor Althusser discusses. Because Helen moves, as a woman, beyond the limitation of class distinction when she marries Gilbert, she contradicts those apparatuses doubly.

Again:

Why must women carry the shame of violation when men are guilty of committing the crime?

I can’t depart from?this nagging question. Lucy, her life changed forever, still won’t talk. She?can?do no more than survive, engaging with the culture of the time, marrying a man for protection,?giving up her land,?and doing it all at the expense of her “self.” I?had hoped?Coetzee would provide?the reason for?her burden of silent shame, something?beyond his provocation of the reader to?ponder the practice.?(Alliteration abounds.)

I consulted JSTOR and stumbled?upon Reading the Unspeakable: Rape in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace?by Lucy Valerie Graham. (Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 29, No. 2. (Jun., 2003), pp. 433-444.)

Graham?finds that while Coetzee?could?be categorized as a?male-author questioning the practices of rape discourse, unable to escape the trap of ambivalence, she instead believes that “not only is his reticence self-reflexive, it also leaves a certain responsibility with the reader” (434).

(That’s what I said.)

Although Graham’s focus is on Coetzee’s effort to use silence in order to question silence, what particularly interests me is?her investigation into?women’s silence?as present in?life, lit and art.?Particularly in?life, “place and time” are everything.

Disgrace points to a context where women are regarded as property and are liable for protection only insofar as they belong to men. As a lesbian, Lucy would be regarded as ‘unowned’ and therefore ‘huntable’ and there is even a suggestion that her sexuality may have provoked her attackers. Lucy insists that in South Africa, ‘in this place, at?this time’,? the violation she has suffered cannot be a public matter, and her refusal to report the crime may represent a rather extreme refusal to play a part in a history of oppression.

I find this only partly true. Life and culture certainly dictate the circumstances in which reporting such a thing matters. In a legal system unable to accurately?locate a stolen car, there is no purpose. In addition to the inability, if we?assume that the?justice of law enforcement?reflects the culture described above,?they will do nothing more than turn a blind eye. Such a refusal of help would do no more than trivialize the act, further negating Lucy’s worth in their eyes and her own as well. On these?points, I agree. What I can’t agree with is that Lucy’s silence is?a “refusal to play a part in a history of oppression.” Staying on the farm? Yes.?That is?obvious resistance against the forces trying to run her?off.?Keeping silent??That is?oppression in?its own right.?

Graham says this is not the sole reason why Lucy’s?account isn’t present in the novel. As for lit and art,?the “unspeakable act” is classically?left as such:

Although sexual violation was common enough subject matter in classical art, the violence of the act was both obscured and legitimised by representations that depicted sexual violation in an aesthetic manner. (440)

“Legitimised” is the word that?strikes me. To leave?details to the imagination is one thing, but to leave them so vague as to be blind to the wrong doing is, well, a disgrace. (Sorry.) Graham brings to light?Coetzee’s knowledge of this tradition.?Coetzee uses examples of actual art and lit to emphasize the need to read?beyond it’s limitations, something his character David eventually begins to do.

After the farm attack,?David finds?a reproduction of Poussin’s?The Rape of the Sabine Women… and asks: ‘What did all this attitudinizing have to do with what he expected rape to be: the lying of a man on top of a woman and pushing himself into her?’.

Men carrying women off in public, women cowering in submission, rioting in the streets under the dominant male in a red cape says nothing directly about the actual horrific act of rape. To seek the meaning behind the painting doesn’t gratify?David’s expectations.?He would be more satisfied with an internet bondage site?depicting?male power?and female submission. Taking?pornography into account,?it has only one purpose.?The?imagery created, if particularly horrific,?is solely for the pleasure of those who wish to dominate or enjoy being dominated, not as forms of expression for those who are victims.

As?Graham points out, David is wrapped up in another, more prominent example of art legitimising the act:

Thinking of Byron who ‘pushed himself into” and possibly raped ‘countesses and kitchenmaids’, Lurie speculates that from where Lucy stands?’Byron looks very old fashioned indeed.’ Here is a critique of the Romantic/humanist posturing that obscures, even justifies, forsaking ethical responsibility in the realm of life. And yet David, scholar of Romanticism, is left ‘attitudinizing’when he excuses his violation of Melanie Isaacs as an act motivated by Eros. (441)

David’s?speculation is interesting here. He knows that the art falls short in depicting the horror his daughter experienced. Coetzee shows?David’s smallest sliver of enlightenment through?his changing interpretation of art, providing?the reader?with the power to see the clues as David does.?Enlightenment has little effect here.?To present her trauma, even if she had the desire, Lucy still has no imagery short of?the failure of pornography,?nor useful language as she dances around the loaded term “rape.”?(Hello, Saussure.)

I admire?Coetzee’s creativity and desire to challenge tradition and culture, using the lack of realistic?representation?in art to speak out against the very lack in question. (Hello, Derrida.)?Okay, so Coetzee?wants?the reader?to question life, and art as reflection of that life, at once.?To parallel?the effect of this technique?with Lucy’s ineffectual use of silence or “oppressed truth”?to combat oppression, it doesn’t appear that it will get us very far. As readers, we’re left to question without the benefit of a solution.

I still?want an answer to my particular?query. How does being a victim of violence translate to shame in any culture, not just in Africa? We?continually see examples of peacekeeping by attempted assimilation and/or separation, yet the shame produced by violation of “body and being”?still exists.?(Hello, Fanon.) To take this stance means the power of culture is too strong to change. It must be toppled and rebuilt. (Hello, Rubin.) To change who has political power is not enough. Oppressive and ideological state apparatuses continue to survive the change. (Hello, Althusser.) So, when do we get to read a theorist who has all the answers?

PS:?Pardon my very narrow approach to Lucy’s experience, without further exploration of the complicated layers of race and gender relationships. I just couldn’t fit all that in. Seriously, read the criticism I cite. It’s worth it.

—— Fun with Observations ——

I’m still hanging with Derrida. It’s all a bunch of chaotic and?shifting centers of understanding bumping up against one another. We don’t have the perfect tools of observation and theory?to get it right. Like a Rubik’s Life Cube, we spin the different combinations until, we hope, one cube twists into place along side another and?aligns in harmony. We just can’t seem to harmonize one side, let alone the whole darn thing. My?Rubik’s theory is broken too. Even if?the individual cubes?are considered centers, they all revolve around one central point,?and harmony is dependant upon separation of?color… unless you break with the traditional cube?and use the one to the right.?It’s?a perfect example of seeing people rather than color, and yet it does nothing to solve the problem of abusive?power.

So, we return this week to J. M. Coetzee’s novel, Disgrace, and?the lower-than-snake-shit-in-the-track-of-a-wagon-wheel main character, Dr. Lurie…

DAVID AS COLONIZER
David is the epitome of a colonizing political force, defining women?in terms of?”other.”?He sees them as uncivilized?and ignorant sexual beings?until,?once conquered by his desire, they benefit from the experience of knowing him. ?Melanie is complicit in this sordid experience only to the extent that?African citizens were robbed of their homeland during apartheid, or Native Americans?lost their?Great Turtle Island. They were all manipulated and conquered. David is but one player of many in a long social history of oppressing women. His type is the catalyst for the trials they face.

David’s point of view?resembles?remnants of racial opinion in America, at the very least. He is speaking with Lucy after she has been raped, telling her:

Either you stay on in a house of ugly memories and go on brooding on what happened to you, or you put the whole episode behind you and you start a new chapter elsewhere. Those, as I see it, are the alternatives. (Coetzee 155)

This smacks of the sentiment prevalent in the South after Lincoln’s freeing of the slaves. Yes, we know you’ve been used to our benefit. You have been raped of your culture, your identity, your religion, your language, your parents, your wives, your husbands, your children,?your health… But can’t you just get over it and move on??Oh, you can stay here and brood for the rest of your life,?OR you can go back to Africa. Those are your two options, as we see it. This same attitude seems prevalent in the relationships between David and all his women – his daughter included.

LUCY AS A COMMODITY
When?David’s daughter Lucy is raped, her sense of being is forever changed. Only when it happens to “one of his own” does David try to protect her from men no different than himself. Still, she decides to stay on the farm, regardless of?the debilitating?fear that she will be violated again. She says in regard to her transgressors:

I think I am in their territory. They have marked me. They will come back for me … what if that is the price one has to pay for staying on? Perhaps that is how they look at it; perhaps that is how I should look at it too.

This idea of payment in terms of a sex/gender system is discussed in?Gayle Rubin’s theory?”The Traffic in Women.”

Women are given in marriage, taken in battle, exchanged for favors, sent as tribute, traded, bought, and sold … Women are transacted as slaves, serfs, and prostitutes,?but also simply as women. (Rubin 1673)

First off, Lucy’s acceptance of her role as payment suggests the strength of social structures oppressing women in Africa. To keep the life she creates and loves, she considers the cost as imposed by these men. It is also possible that these men didn’t take payment of their own accord. David?alludes to?Petrus’ involvement, which?seems to be substantiated when Petrus confidently claims the power to protect Lucy from a recurrence. If this is true, has Lucy?become a commodity for trade – as a woman? Has Petrus offered the sex/gender of?his neighbor?for his own personal gain? We can only suspect at this point, but I thinks it’s a pretty good hunch. He is a man with two wives, after all, and?what they mean to him is “pay, pay, pay.” Pretus won’t acknowledge that Lucy is the one who pays the highest price. She may be poisoned with HIV and has no idea yet?if AIDS is in her future. If so, will she even have a future in a country so limited in health care.

A side note that deserves further examination:
The sex/gender role is played out between two men and a woman. In light of Lucy’s sexual preference, does this deepen the wound?

LUCY AS BEING
Lucy’s decision to stay on the farm, regardless of the?danger,?lays claim on her being?much in the same way that?Fanon returns to Negritude.?

I defined myself as an absolute intensity of beginning. So I took up my Negritude, and with tears in my eyes I put its machinery back together again. What had been broken to pieces was rebuilt, reconstructed by the intuitive lianas of my hands. (Fanon 138)

Negritude embraces both the French meaning of black and derogatory Martinique meaning of?”nigger.”?Those who accept this inclusive definition?empower themselves?to redefine their own meaning. (As Dr. Phil says, we cannot change that which we do not acknowledge.) Lucy also embraces the duality?of her being,?encompassing who she was before as well as who she?is?after transgressions were commited?against her. This?provides no comfort in the face of being violated, as Fanon too experiences, but to relinquish that sense of?being, to retreat?and accept?the identity of victim as imposed by another,?would allow only for absolute?defeat.?

OBLIGATORY RANT
Interestingly, David is such a goddamn baby when he loses an ear. Lucy has her very soul damaged, questioning whether or not it exists, and she is still far braver than her wuss-ass father. This book might redeem itself yet… but?will it tell us WHY women?bear the shame of violation when it is men who are committing the crime?

by?J. M.?Coetzee

Reading around the blogs, its always interesting to see?what other people find outrageous or dysfunctional. I?don’t get?why?Professor David Lurie is?so shocking as a character. I need guidance from you good wholesome folk. I know I’m far too desensitized.

For five years I lived on the road with a?band?who had little respect for their wives and girlfriends… but enough ego to highly respect themselves every morning, afternoon and night. Don’t get me wrong, not everyone on the music scene was this way, but the numbers were high. It was fun as hell, wild, crazy, fast, loose and free. Rules need not apply.?And when I wasn’t chugging in the RV from Legends Lounge, Las Vegas to some joint in Pocatello, Idaho (Who Da Ho??I ain’t Da Ho.?You Da Ho.)?I was flying with some pretty twisted pilots and flight attendants leading double lives. Who?could trace what they did in different time zones? None of them made apologies for it. In fact, as retirees, they still long for those days. This is why I don’t find the good professor so intrigueing. I’ve known him personally on far too many levels.

So let’s get down to it. As for theoretical references,?this line?caught my eye.

His temperment is fixed, set. The skull, followed by the temperment: the two hardest parts of the body. (Coetzee 2)

This sentence is preceeded and followed by evaluative comments on temperment (appearing 5 times in?the lower?half of page 2). Lurie’s sense of being is fixed, set. Recall?Fanon. The mind, in conjunction with the body, is being. This is not to be mistaken with identity. Identity is imposed in relation to/supplement of “other.” Being is who you are before that happens.

Lurie holds?fast to?that sense of being, even under pressure from?the commitee. When the members try to impress upon him the importance of his remorse, he tries to impress upon them that he has none to offer. Who is worse here? Sure, this guy Lurie is a sexual deviant, but at least he’s honest. The Commitee, representative of a societal norm, is just as wrong in this case. They are willing to sell Lurie’s?remorse to the public, as long as Lurie makes it saleable, and shove Lurie’s predatroy behavior under the rug.

When we talk of power struggles,?consider this line about Melanie:

She?is too innocent for that, too ignorant of her power.

Um, of course he had been praying on her ignorance. At least here he comes straight out and recognizes it. If he doesn’t allude to her power, letting her in on the secret, he can continue to use her.

Twisted.

Is anyone else missing pages 130-131 in the handout? With this omission in mind, the following is what I’ve gleaned from our reading:

COLONIALISM’S DOMINO EFFECT
That?colonialism instills the idea of other is nothing new. This topic has been addressed in literature since the time of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” and probably before. Thanks to the English Empire, the Irish, American Indians and Negros (to use Fanon’s term)?have all fallen prey to definitions such?as savage, uncivilized cannibals?. What is most distressing about Fanon’s piece, published in 1952,?is that the European cultural lens of the past has?been perpetuated with?such?longevity.

I analyzed my heredity, I made a complete audit of my ailment. I wanted to be typically Negro?- it was no longer possible. I wanted to be white – that was a joke. And when I tried, on the level?of ideas and intellectual activity, to reclaim my negritude, it was snatched away from me. Proof was present that my effort was only a term of the dialectic.?(132)

His vigorous and varied forms of retaliation only temporarily appease him. Holding fast to reason, anger, and negritude only fail him. To read Fanon’s piece, it’s difficult to know how to break the cycle.

COPING MECHANISMS
Fanon challenges Sarte, “friend of the colored peoples” (133),?who seeks to identify and?simultaneously block the source of the experience of being black, forgetting that “the Negro suffers in his body quite differently from the white man” (138).?The color of his skin?makes Fanon?a third party to his own his body (110),?fully and dysfunctionally aware of how he is seen through white eyes. Unlike a discrimination against the Jews, a Jew can become invisible in a sea of white. A?person with black skin is never afforded that luxury. While racial descrimination?requires the constant rebuilding of his identity, he returns finally?to a previous alignment with negritude, what Sarte describes as “the root of its own destruction … a transition and not a conclusion” (133).

Negritude?needs further explanation. It is the appreciation for all that being black encompasses, including history, culture and destiny. It not only strives to recognize the black colonial experience, it also attempts to redefine it. The?term, proudly coined?by Aim? C?saire, embraces the French meaning “black” as well as the derogatory Martinique term “nigger.” Likened to the Marxist view, C?saire is said to equate white men with capitalism and black men with the labor force. To see the structure of racism in this light, it is easy to connect?Althusser’s reproduction of labor,?and thus racism, as a self perpetuated machine.

PERPETUATED BY SURVIVAL
Sadly, Fanon sees no end to the cycle. He identifies the?fear of a realized black identity under the more fearful blue eye of a white society and points out that?one way to?break with the cycle is to explode.?Refusing to be anything other than whole, Fanon continually forces himself to see who he is as a whole, refusing to see a lack or to suffer the fate of an amputee (140). Embracing Negritude one more time, he cannot see himself without acknowledging who he is in the face of his own history.

CONNECTION
Interestingly, C?saire was not only a politician in Martinique at the time Fanon had returned?there, he?also wrote?”A Tempest,” a 70′s modernization of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” Both deal with the residual questions and issues of colonization.

Keva and I have a strong affinity for “A Tempest” since acting it out last semester. I still have the?prop we beat our audience with. Props rule.

READING
To?wrap my head around a concept, I allow my?mind?full immersion. This is how I first?attempt understanding. Sometimes I let?it wash over me twice.?When?the final spin cycle stops,?I am pretty successfully brainwashed. So yes, at this stage I?am complicit in allowing theory to use?me.?I let it shape my view so I can better see what the theorist saw when composing their thoughts. Not to worry. This is a temporary state. My?mind tends to get dirty again fairly soon.

WRITING
Once brainwashed, I have a new lens with which to?view the world – with an entirely new, if not foreign, perspective.?At this stage, I no longer allow theory to?wag the dog. It’s fun to do Rubinesque readings of my wedding or draw parallels between a theorist and Star Trek villains. (I think I’m generally still dizzy from the spin cycle,?having?a good time?while high?on trace detergent.) This is the last chance to play with?free association?before getting down to business.?

CONVERSATION
I’m not interested in pulling this stuff out at cocktail parties, but I do find it difficult to refrain in my classes from connecting dots?between my classes,?picking and presenting?bits in Theory, Modern Poetry, Victorian Lit and Fiction Writing… I also like to?offer?tasty bites to my husband over coffee, saying things like, “Did you know that, as a lawyer,?you’re?part of the oppressive state apparatus? That is SO not cool.”

GROUP WORK
Placing class discussion under the category of group work, I find this most helpful in?discovering theoretical?contradictions or failings. My greatest problem is my inability to ask?good questions of the text, leaving me unable?to discover where?shortcomings lie until issues are brought up?in class or raised on blogs. I could be standing smack dab in the middle of a contradiction and still looking for it.

HOW TO REACH GREATER UNDERSTANDING
What I already do:
I have a variety of tricks to root myself more deeply in what I’m trying to learn. In Norton, the introduction is always helpful. I’ve also stuck my nose in Barry’s book. I do a quick search for “.edu” sites hosting additional info on the theorist too. In?all, I’ve?learned where theorists fit into the historical context, where their?main influence comes from, and how their ideas?impact the world.

What I’d like to do more of:
Commenting on classmates’ blogs after class discussion is?a far better?excercise of?my more complete knowledge, particularly since my own posts are generally half-formed ideas and tinkerings. I?will even go so far to say that I’d be willing to change gears, contrary to my original opinion, posting to my blog after the class discussion. Had we taken this approach from the start, it would have been helpful in pulling together the theory carnival. This way we wouldn’t be high fiving each other saying, “Yeah, I saw that too!” only to find that?our self-derived information was erroneous and spreading like a nasty virus.