hairy

Roland Barthes is famous for his concept of "the death of the author," an idea with which I am in violent disagreement. The basic idea (read about it ) is that a work can be considered totally in isolation from its author at least partly because it is impossible to reach inside the author's head and figure out exactly what the author's intentions were. The implication is that when attempting to interpret an author's work (or that of a painter sculptor etc.) no legitimate insights can be gained by referencing the author's life and putative character. A friend of mine mentioned "the death of the author" in passing which set me off. I hereby reproduce my emailed rant with some minor edits: "The death of the author and all that sort of that thing."Bleh. Barthean bullshit. I never bought into the idea that text can be ripped away from its creator. Text isn't "autonomous"; it's always connected to something some context. Why wouldn't it be? I always found it highly inconsistent when the PoMo crowd would say. "It's all about structures and power dynamics," implying that a given text hints at a mass of shifting interconnections.. then in the same breath proclaim that there is absolutely no connection between the text and its author. You can't have it both ways. Either text is always "in context" or it's decontextualized and if it's in context then part of that context includes the text's provenance. This has major implications in a field like scriptural hermeneutics. Quite often some religious scholar or pastor will pipe up with the thought that our modern interpretations of scripture may have veered too wildly from the original intentions of the authors. A specific example of this is the "genre mistake" that comes from interpreting say the Genesis accounts of creation as literal historical journalistic fact. The consequences of such decontextualization are real: fundamentalism often supported by a naive literalism that ignores the possible intentions of the ancient writers can lead to bigotry and violence. We see this all over the place these days. So I call bullshit on Roland Barthes who seemed unwilling to fathom the possibility that humans are capable of more than just bracketing-- they can also use their native empathy and imagination to try and put themselves in the shoes of the authors they read.* Are they guaranteed to succeed? Of course not. But a bloke like Barthes doesn't even want to try and that attitude bespeaks a silly absolutism. Another example: let's say an author constantly returns to the theme of child molestation. While I'd agree that we shouldn't assume that the author was him/herself molested (English majors often pretend to be amateur psychotherapists dammit and they're usually partial to Freud) it should be obvious that the author has some sort of fixation on the molestation theme. Doesn't this fixation hint at a possible line of inquiry for the reader to pursue? Shouldn't a seeker of truth try to find out more about the author's personal life in order better to understand where the author is coming from?On top of all this. "the death of the author" is bad metaphysics in my view. Buddhism says there's no fundamental self but this stance is only superficially in agreement with the idea of authorlessness. What Buddhism is actually trying to say is that personality manifests continuity but that this continuity is not indicative of any solid permanent core. There's no Kevin-ness holding Kevin together (just aggregates propelled in the same direction by karma) but at the same time it's possible to see that Kevin is a discernible Kevin-stream (if that's not too urinary an image). By the same token. Barthes goes wrong in my opinion when he refuses to acknowledge the discernibility of author-streams of the ways in which the author him/herself is reflected or echoed in a given work and the ways in which that author-stream flows through other works by the same author. Anyway there's me on the death of the author. If context matters then the author is without a doubt part of a work's context.__________*This is my nod to Husserl and the field of phenomenology. (the technical term coming from the Greek is êpoché often pronounced by speakers of American English as "eh-poh-kay") involves the setting aside of one's own prejudices preconceptions and predilections in order to make room for the above-mentioned empathetic outreach that allows one to imagine and experience to a high degree the lifeworld of the Other whether that Other be a religious Other or a cultural Other etc. I'm not fully in the phenomenological camp (bracketing remains for good reasons a controversial topic) but I do strongly believe that we often say "put yourself in my shoes" because to a large extent it's possible for us to do so. Empathy is part of being fully human; lack of empathy is generally the mark of the sociopath._ John B,Great comment. Thanks. I agree that the thrust of the Barthean concept is "there are no privileged perspectives," i e. the naive reader's take on a work is no more or less legitimate than the author's. My problem with this stance is its self-contradictory nature: from what authoritative perspective is "There are no privileged perspectives" being uttered?* It's a PoMo move toward relativism but relativism is just another form of absolutism because it steamrollers all perspectives to the point that they all have the same value. This feels intuitively wrong to me. For example: if someone were to tell me after reading the Old Testament that they felt the Book of Job was actually about anal sex. I'd tell them to stop smoking crack. I'm unwilling to assign their perspective equal status with other more thoughtful ones. By the way-- I think Miles Davis had some dazzling Zen moments in his short life. Kevin*If the claim is meant to be taken seriously it's authoritative which implies that it comes from a privileged perspective. So much PoMo is a recipe for meaninglessness when we so obviously live in a variegated field of meaning. I entered the study of literature after a lengthy term as a science student so I think my take on it is more practical. PoMo criticism is essentially a more useful model for me to apply than some supposed essentially unprovable authorial intent. I don't know which perspective is more "true" and I don't really care. When I read a text my interest is in what that text can do for me essentially. T. E. Lawrence may have been gay but he hasn't written any works on anal sex. (There may be some suggestive passages (heh) but I really haven't looked) The gay perspective isn't very useful to me. I think and until someone shows me a relevance to passages in the text (the previously unnoticed buttsex dissertation) this biographical detail is unimportant. Now. I can take this fact as a clue and try to find support in the text about anal sex. But if there is nothing well-supported in the text it is not a claim I'll write about. Likewise if someone told me the Book of Job was about buttsex. I would ask them which passage specifically was concerned and consider it carefully. If the evidence was lacking. I would support your assertion that crack was smoked. If they did however show me the verse about penises and assholes. I would say that they were onto something. Intent has a little more import in religious works though because there is (sort of) a specific single truth. Likewise. Feynman's LECTURES IN ELEMENTARY PHYSICS have a specific (and mathematically provable) truth to communicate. Authorial intent should be considered for these truths and if the intent is not clear well it is a failure of the writer to make himself clear. That's not to say that these can't be given a PoMo reading because there can be more said perhaps things of interest other than those intended truths. As a writer the one thing I have noticed is that I say a lot of things which are very true that I never intended to say every time I write. John B,Thanks again for the comment. You wrote:"Now. I can take this fact as a clue and try to find support in the text about anal sex. But if there is nothing well-supported in the text it is not a claim I'll write about."I thought about this for a bit because it sounds quite sensible. But my question would be: what constitutes "evidence" and/or "support"? This is a sticky problem because most literature isn't written to be taken literally; ideas are often hidden behind metaphors and the like. (E g. does Sheena Easton's phrase "sugar walls" refer to her vagina or to her mouth? Most would argue for "vagina" as the legitimate interpretation but neither "vagina" nor "mouth" is mentioned directly in the song and the lyrics could support either interpretation.)I also remain unconvinced of the usefulness of most PoMo approaches to literature (and life!) because those approaches tend to include a self-subverting or self-deconstructing aspect thereby implying that one never really knows when one has arrived at a solid interpretation. So while authorial intent might not be provable neither (according to PoMo thought) is anything else. PoMo is antithetical to science of course; science commits the grand sin of trying to establish universals (e g. physical laws) which goes against the PoMo desire to avoid "totalizing metanarratives," i e. universalized accounts of reality. Wholeness and integration are largely excluded from the PoMo project (for more on this check out my friend's writeup on PoMo ). I should back up though and concede that "PoMo" is a blanket term for widely disparate schools of thought. I suspect that some(!) aspects of PoMo thinking might be useful in the lit-crit realm but what I resent-- and this comes from my own scientific-skeptical bent-- is when PoMo tries to get metaphysical as has happened when say. Derrida's followers take his "il n'y a pas de hors-texte" and make it into a larger claim (ironically a totalizing metanarrative). Kevin Something I wrote above was misleading: I mentioned Sheena Easton's lyrics but even though she performed "Sugar Walls," the lyrics were written by Prince. Come to think of it this song-- and Prince's authorship of it-- is an example of why authorial intent is worth studying when trying to interpret a work: if we look at Prince's history we see a man who often writes about sex and sensuality who has appeared onstage "jacking off" his guitar (viz the "climax" of the movie "Purple Rain") luridly flicking his tongue etc. All that history points us toward a vaginal interpretation as opposed to a simple oral interpretation of the "Sugar Walls" lyrics. If we were to examine "Sugar Walls" without all this background we'd be wasting time. I think by starting quite unnecessarily from square one. One could counterargue that the lyrics themselves are enough to imply vaginality but this merely begs the question: the lyrics taken alone and out of context could also be interpreted as referring to a mouth so which interpretation is more legitimate? If the answer is. "There are no privileged perspectives; both interpretations are equally legitimate," then I'd have to wonder why I bothered to try interpreting the song at all. When one claims there are no privileged perspectives there's really nothing more to say. In all that I'm saying. I'm not implying that there does in fact exist one and only one legitimate interpretation of a given work (song painting sculpture dance etc.) but that Barthes is wrong to so brusquely exclude the author's point of view from a consideration of the author's work. If the author's point of view is no less legitimate than any other point of view then fairness would indicate that his/her point of view shouldn't be excluded. Kevin Not familiar with the song but I'll have a go again perhaps both interpretations are valid and there is nothing contradictory about it. Doble entendre right? At any rate. I would say that it is the responsibility of the performer to choose if at all and to convey that meaning in performance. Which is a cop out but hey what're you gonna do. Actually. I just read the lyrics. I would say that a sexual interpretation is pretty obviously supported mouth or vagina or elsewise is not precisely important. If David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust phase sang it you would probably conclude it was about ass-sex (to return to your previous theme). But I think the vaginal interpretation is stronger based on a few clues in the text and I think that interpretation would be pretty obvious without the history of the composer. On the other hand. Jesus and Mary Chain wrote both tender love songs and luridly descriptive songs of sex (and in fact many songs that are both). It is by considering the lyrics closely that you can determine which is which. And there is no reason you can't use the history of the author as a clue. The only catch is you need to support that claim in the text. I don't think EVERY Prince song is about sex (although actually. .)The lack of complete answers is in one sense a strength of the "death of the author" claim. You can always build on an existing interpretation or question it in a constructive way. If you had a definitive interpretation it is time to toss the book out right? It is the process that ultimately yields the most fruit. Also. I wouldn't necessarily call PoMo antithetical to science. When I was taking my crazy-ass senior-level physics and astronomy courses there was a lot less time spent talking about "the truths of the universe" (and in fact. I used it as a joke) and more time talking about models that approximate observations in a way that allows you to predict behaviors "close enough". That at any rate is how I have come to see critical theory. Postcolonial theory formalism dialectics all of this crap I study. It's not a cosmic truth it's just a useful model that allows one to approximate observations within a useful margin of error. As for PoMo and philosophy. I willingly tap out it's not remotely my field. Oh and what is/isn't evidence or support? Well that's a judgement call at the best of times. But just because an interpretation is shaky doesn't mean it can't have some use. It just doesn't get much attention. To go with the easy one what about the "Dumbledore is Gay" interpretation of Harry Potter? That was the intent of the author although Rowling never intended to make it explicit in the text and it is certainly supported loosely. However the support is minor and the conclusion that he is gay or straight doesn't affect the story of Harry (unless you get some sort of sick NAMBLA thing out of it which was already subtly implied (to my recollection) by a character but doesn't have strong support). It is a valid interpretation but it is 1) weakly supported and 2) not of much consequence so it is not an interpretation that is worth much discussion author's intent or not.

Forex Groups - Tips on Trading

Related article:
http://bighominid.blogspot.com/2008/03/fuck-roland-barthes.html

comments | Add comment | Report as Spam

Roland Barthes is famous for his concept of "the death of the author," an idea with which I am in violent disagreement. The basic idea (read about it ) is that a work can be considered totally in isolation from its author at least partly because it is impossible to reach inside the author's head and figure out exactly what the author's intentions were. The implication is that when attempting to interpret an author's work (or that of a painter sculptor etc.) no legitimate insights can be gained by referencing the author's life and putative character. A friend of mine mentioned "the death of the author" in passing which set me off. I hereby reproduce my emailed rant with some minor edits: "The death of the author and all that sort of that thing."Bleh. Barthean bullshit. I never bought into the idea that text can be ripped away from its creator. Text isn't "autonomous"; it's always connected to something some context. Why wouldn't it be? I always found it highly inconsistent when the PoMo crowd would say. "It's all about structures and power dynamics," implying that a given text hints at a mass of shifting interconnections.. then in the same breath proclaim that there is absolutely no connection between the text and its author. You can't have it both ways. Either text is always "in context" or it's decontextualized and if it's in context then part of that context includes the text's provenance. This has major implications in a field like scriptural hermeneutics. Quite often some religious scholar or pastor will pipe up with the thought that our modern interpretations of scripture may have veered too wildly from the original intentions of the authors. A specific example of this is the "genre mistake" that comes from interpreting say the Genesis accounts of creation as literal historical journalistic fact. The consequences of such decontextualization are real: fundamentalism often supported by a naive literalism that ignores the possible intentions of the ancient writers can lead to bigotry and violence. We see this all over the place these days. So I call bullshit on Roland Barthes who seemed unwilling to fathom the possibility that humans are capable of more than just bracketing-- they can also use their native empathy and imagination to try and put themselves in the shoes of the authors they read.* Are they guaranteed to succeed? Of course not. But a bloke like Barthes doesn't even want to try and that attitude bespeaks a silly absolutism. Another example: let's say an author constantly returns to the theme of child molestation. While I'd agree that we shouldn't assume that the author was him/herself molested (English majors often pretend to be amateur psychotherapists dammit and they're usually partial to Freud) it should be obvious that the author has some sort of fixation on the molestation theme. Doesn't this fixation hint at a possible line of inquiry for the reader to pursue? Shouldn't a seeker of truth try to find out more about the author's personal life in order better to understand where the author is coming from?On top of all this. "the death of the author" is bad metaphysics in my view. Buddhism says there's no fundamental self but this stance is only superficially in agreement with the idea of authorlessness. What Buddhism is actually trying to say is that personality manifests continuity but that this continuity is not indicative of any solid permanent core. There's no Kevin-ness holding Kevin together (just aggregates propelled in the same direction by karma) but at the same time it's possible to see that Kevin is a discernible Kevin-stream (if that's not too urinary an image). By the same token. Barthes goes wrong in my opinion when he refuses to acknowledge the discernibility of author-streams of the ways in which the author him/herself is reflected or echoed in a given work and the ways in which that author-stream flows through other works by the same author. Anyway there's me on the death of the author. If context matters then the author is without a doubt part of a work's context.__________*This is my nod to Husserl and the field of phenomenology. (the technical term coming from the Greek is êpoché often pronounced by speakers of American English as "eh-poh-kay") involves the setting aside of one's own prejudices preconceptions and predilections in order to make room for the above-mentioned empathetic outreach that allows one to imagine and experience to a high degree the lifeworld of the Other whether that Other be a religious Other or a cultural Other etc. I'm not fully in the phenomenological camp (bracketing remains for good reasons a controversial topic) but I do strongly believe that we often say "put yourself in my shoes" because to a large extent it's possible for us to do so. Empathy is part of being fully human; lack of empathy is generally the mark of the sociopath._ John B,Great comment. Thanks. I agree that the thrust of the Barthean concept is "there are no privileged perspectives," i e. the naive reader's take on a work is no more or less legitimate than the author's. My problem with this stance is its self-contradictory nature: from what authoritative perspective is "There are no privileged perspectives" being uttered?* It's a PoMo move toward relativism but relativism is just another form of absolutism because it steamrollers all perspectives to the point that they all have the same value. This feels intuitively wrong to me. For example: if someone were to tell me after reading the Old Testament that they felt the Book of Job was actually about anal sex. I'd tell them to stop smoking crack. I'm unwilling to assign their perspective equal status with other more thoughtful ones. By the way-- I think Miles Davis had some dazzling Zen moments in his short life. Kevin*If the claim is meant to be taken seriously it's authoritative which implies that it comes from a privileged perspective. So much PoMo is a recipe for meaninglessness when we so obviously live in a variegated field of meaning. I entered the study of literature after a lengthy term as a science student so I think my take on it is more practical. PoMo criticism is essentially a more useful model for me to apply than some supposed essentially unprovable authorial intent. I don't know which perspective is more "true" and I don't really care. When I read a text my interest is in what that text can do for me essentially. T. E. Lawrence may have been gay but he hasn't written any works on anal sex. (There may be some suggestive passages (heh) but I really haven't looked) The gay perspective isn't very useful to me. I think and until someone shows me a relevance to passages in the text (the previously unnoticed buttsex dissertation) this biographical detail is unimportant. Now. I can take this fact as a clue and try to find support in the text about anal sex. But if there is nothing well-supported in the text it is not a claim I'll write about. Likewise if someone told me the Book of Job was about buttsex. I would ask them which passage specifically was concerned and consider it carefully. If the evidence was lacking. I would support your assertion that crack was smoked. If they did however show me the verse about penises and assholes. I would say that they were onto something. Intent has a little more import in religious works though because there is (sort of) a specific single truth. Likewise. Feynman's LECTURES IN ELEMENTARY PHYSICS have a specific (and mathematically provable) truth to communicate. Authorial intent should be considered for these truths and if the intent is not clear well it is a failure of the writer to make himself clear. That's not to say that these can't be given a PoMo reading because there can be more said perhaps things of interest other than those intended truths. As a writer the one thing I have noticed is that I say a lot of things which are very true that I never intended to say every time I write. John B,Thanks again for the comment. You wrote:"Now. I can take this fact as a clue and try to find support in the text about anal sex. But if there is nothing well-supported in the text it is not a claim I'll write about."I thought about this for a bit because it sounds quite sensible. But my question would be: what constitutes "evidence" and/or "support"? This is a sticky problem because most literature isn't written to be taken literally; ideas are often hidden behind metaphors and the like. (E g. does Sheena Easton's phrase "sugar walls" refer to her vagina or to her mouth? Most would argue for "vagina" as the legitimate interpretation but neither "vagina" nor "mouth" is mentioned directly in the song and the lyrics could support either interpretation.)I also remain unconvinced of the usefulness of most PoMo approaches to literature (and life!) because those approaches tend to include a self-subverting or self-deconstructing aspect thereby implying that one never really knows when one has arrived at a solid interpretation. So while authorial intent might not be provable neither (according to PoMo thought) is anything else. PoMo is antithetical to science of course; science commits the grand sin of trying to establish universals (e g. physical laws) which goes against the PoMo desire to avoid "totalizing metanarratives," i e. universalized accounts of reality. Wholeness and integration are largely excluded from the PoMo project (for more on this check out my friend's writeup on PoMo ). I should back up though and concede that "PoMo" is a blanket term for widely disparate schools of thought. I suspect that some(!) aspects of PoMo thinking might be useful in the lit-crit realm but what I resent-- and this comes from my own scientific-skeptical bent-- is when PoMo tries to get metaphysical as has happened when say. Derrida's followers take his "il n'y a pas de hors-texte" and make it into a larger claim (ironically a totalizing metanarrative). Kevin Something I wrote above was misleading: I mentioned Sheena Easton's lyrics but even though she performed "Sugar Walls," the lyrics were written by Prince. Come to think of it this song-- and Prince's authorship of it-- is an example of why authorial intent is worth studying when trying to interpret a work: if we look at Prince's history we see a man who often writes about sex and sensuality who has appeared onstage "jacking off" his guitar (viz the "climax" of the movie "Purple Rain") luridly flicking his tongue etc. All that history points us toward a vaginal interpretation as opposed to a simple oral interpretation of the "Sugar Walls" lyrics. If we were to examine "Sugar Walls" without all this background we'd be wasting time. I think by starting quite unnecessarily from square one. One could counterargue that the lyrics themselves are enough to imply vaginality but this merely begs the question: the lyrics taken alone and out of context could also be interpreted as referring to a mouth so which interpretation is more legitimate? If the answer is. "There are no privileged perspectives; both interpretations are equally legitimate," then I'd have to wonder why I bothered to try interpreting the song at all. When one claims there are no privileged perspectives there's really nothing more to say. In all that I'm saying. I'm not implying that there does in fact exist one and only one legitimate interpretation of a given work (song painting sculpture dance etc.) but that Barthes is wrong to so brusquely exclude the author's point of view from a consideration of the author's work. If the author's point of view is no less legitimate than any other point of view then fairness would indicate that his/her point of view shouldn't be excluded. Kevin Not familiar with the song but I'll have a go again perhaps both interpretations are valid and there is nothing contradictory about it. Doble entendre right? At any rate. I would say that it is the responsibility of the performer to choose if at all and to convey that meaning in performance. Which is a cop out but hey what're you gonna do. Actually. I just read the lyrics. I would say that a sexual interpretation is pretty obviously supported mouth or vagina or elsewise is not precisely important. If David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust phase sang it you would probably conclude it was about ass-sex (to return to your previous theme). But I think the vaginal interpretation is stronger based on a few clues in the text and I think that interpretation would be pretty obvious without the history of the composer. On the other hand. Jesus and Mary Chain wrote both tender love songs and luridly descriptive songs of sex (and in fact many songs that are both). It is by considering the lyrics closely that you can determine which is which. And there is no reason you can't use the history of the author as a clue. The only catch is you need to support that claim in the text. I don't think EVERY Prince song is about sex (although actually. .)The lack of complete answers is in one sense a strength of the "death of the author" claim. You can always build on an existing interpretation or question it in a constructive way. If you had a definitive interpretation it is time to toss the book out right? It is the process that ultimately yields the most fruit. Also. I wouldn't necessarily call PoMo antithetical to science. When I was taking my crazy-ass senior-level physics and astronomy courses there was a lot less time spent talking about "the truths of the universe" (and in fact. I used it as a joke) and more time talking about models that approximate observations in a way that allows you to predict behaviors "close enough". That at any rate is how I have come to see critical theory. Postcolonial theory formalism dialectics all of this crap I study. It's not a cosmic truth it's just a useful model that allows one to approximate observations within a useful margin of error. As for PoMo and philosophy. I willingly tap out it's not remotely my field. Oh and what is/isn't evidence or support? Well that's a judgement call at the best of times. But just because an interpretation is shaky doesn't mean it can't have some use. It just doesn't get much attention. To go with the easy one what about the "Dumbledore is Gay" interpretation of Harry Potter? That was the intent of the author although Rowling never intended to make it explicit in the text and it is certainly supported loosely. However the support is minor and the conclusion that he is gay or straight doesn't affect the story of Harry (unless you get some sort of sick NAMBLA thing out of it which was already subtly implied (to my recollection) by a character but doesn't have strong support). It is a valid interpretation but it is 1) weakly supported and 2) not of much consequence so it is not an interpretation that is worth much discussion author's intent or not.

Forex Groups - Tips on Trading

Related article:
http://bighominid.blogspot.com/2008/03/fuck-roland-barthes.html

comments | Add comment | Report as Spam

Roland Barthes is famous for his concept of "the death of the author," an idea with which I am in violent disagreement. The basic idea (read about it ) is that a work can be considered totally in isolation from its author at least partly because it is impossible to reach inside the author's head and figure out exactly what the author's intentions were. The implication is that when attempting to interpret an author's work (or that of a painter sculptor etc.) no legitimate insights can be gained by referencing the author's life and putative character. A friend of mine mentioned "the death of the author" in passing which set me off. I hereby reproduce my emailed rant with some minor edits: "The death of the author and all that sort of that thing."Bleh. Barthean bullshit. I never bought into the idea that text can be ripped away from its creator. Text isn't "autonomous"; it's always connected to something some context. Why wouldn't it be? I always found it highly inconsistent when the PoMo crowd would say. "It's all about structures and power dynamics," implying that a given text hints at a mass of shifting interconnections.. then in the same breath proclaim that there is absolutely no connection between the text and its author. You can't have it both ways. Either text is always "in context" or it's decontextualized and if it's in context then part of that context includes the text's provenance. This has major implications in a field like scriptural hermeneutics. Quite often some religious scholar or pastor will pipe up with the thought that our modern interpretations of scripture may have veered too wildly from the original intentions of the authors. A specific example of this is the "genre mistake" that comes from interpreting say the Genesis accounts of creation as literal historical journalistic fact. The consequences of such decontextualization are real: fundamentalism often supported by a naive literalism that ignores the possible intentions of the ancient writers can lead to bigotry and violence. We see this all over the place these days. So I call bullshit on Roland Barthes who seemed unwilling to fathom the possibility that humans are capable of more than just bracketing-- they can also use their native empathy and imagination to try and put themselves in the shoes of the authors they read.* Are they guaranteed to succeed? Of course not. But a bloke like Barthes doesn't even want to try and that attitude bespeaks a silly absolutism. Another example: let's say an author constantly returns to the theme of child molestation. While I'd agree that we shouldn't assume that the author was him/herself molested (English majors often pretend to be amateur psychotherapists dammit and they're usually partial to Freud) it should be obvious that the author has some sort of fixation on the molestation theme. Doesn't this fixation hint at a possible line of inquiry for the reader to pursue? Shouldn't a seeker of truth try to find out more about the author's personal life in order better to understand where the author is coming from?On top of all this. "the death of the author" is bad metaphysics in my view. Buddhism says there's no fundamental self but this stance is only superficially in agreement with the idea of authorlessness. What Buddhism is actually trying to say is that personality manifests continuity but that this continuity is not indicative of any solid permanent core. There's no Kevin-ness holding Kevin together (just aggregates propelled in the same direction by karma) but at the same time it's possible to see that Kevin is a discernible Kevin-stream (if that's not too urinary an image). By the same token. Barthes goes wrong in my opinion when he refuses to acknowledge the discernibility of author-streams of the ways in which the author him/herself is reflected or echoed in a given work and the ways in which that author-stream flows through other works by the same author. Anyway there's me on the death of the author. If context matters then the author is without a doubt part of a work's context.__________*This is my nod to Husserl and the field of phenomenology. (the technical term coming from the Greek is êpoché often pronounced by speakers of American English as "eh-poh-kay") involves the setting aside of one's own prejudices preconceptions and predilections in order to make room for the above-mentioned empathetic outreach that allows one to imagine and experience to a high degree the lifeworld of the Other whether that Other be a religious Other or a cultural Other etc. I'm not fully in the phenomenological camp (bracketing remains for good reasons a controversial topic) but I do strongly believe that we often say "put yourself in my shoes" because to a large extent it's possible for us to do so. Empathy is part of being fully human; lack of empathy is generally the mark of the sociopath._ John B,Great comment. Thanks. I agree that the thrust of the Barthean concept is "there are no privileged perspectives," i e. the naive reader's take on a work is no more or less legitimate than the author's. My problem with this stance is its self-contradictory nature: from what authoritative perspective is "There are no privileged perspectives" being uttered?* It's a PoMo move toward relativism but relativism is just another form of absolutism because it steamrollers all perspectives to the point that they all have the same value. This feels intuitively wrong to me. For example: if someone were to tell me after reading the Old Testament that they felt the Book of Job was actually about anal sex. I'd tell them to stop smoking crack. I'm unwilling to assign their perspective equal status with other more thoughtful ones. By the way-- I think Miles Davis had some dazzling Zen moments in his short life. Kevin*If the claim is meant to be taken seriously it's authoritative which implies that it comes from a privileged perspective. So much PoMo is a recipe for meaninglessness when we so obviously live in a variegated field of meaning. I entered the study of literature after a lengthy term as a science student so I think my take on it is more practical. PoMo criticism is essentially a more useful model for me to apply than some supposed essentially unprovable authorial intent. I don't know which perspective is more "true" and I don't really care. When I read a text my interest is in what that text can do for me essentially. T. E. Lawrence may have been gay but he hasn't written any works on anal sex. (There may be some suggestive passages (heh) but I really haven't looked) The gay perspective isn't very useful to me. I think and until someone shows me a relevance to passages in the text (the previously unnoticed buttsex dissertation) this biographical detail is unimportant. Now. I can take this fact as a clue and try to find support in the text about anal sex. But if there is nothing well-supported in the text it is not a claim I'll write about. Likewise if someone told me the Book of Job was about buttsex. I would ask them which passage specifically was concerned and consider it carefully. If the evidence was lacking. I would support your assertion that crack was smoked. If they did however show me the verse about penises and assholes. I would say that they were onto something. Intent has a little more import in religious works though because there is (sort of) a specific single truth. Likewise. Feynman's LECTURES IN ELEMENTARY PHYSICS have a specific (and mathematically provable) truth to communicate. Authorial intent should be considered for these truths and if the intent is not clear well it is a failure of the writer to make himself clear. That's not to say that these can't be given a PoMo reading because there can be more said perhaps things of interest other than those intended truths. As a writer the one thing I have noticed is that I say a lot of things which are very true that I never intended to say every time I write. John B,Thanks again for the comment. You wrote:"Now. I can take this fact as a clue and try to find support in the text about anal sex. But if there is nothing well-supported in the text it is not a claim I'll write about."I thought about this for a bit because it sounds quite sensible. But my question would be: what constitutes "evidence" and/or "support"? This is a sticky problem because most literature isn't written to be taken literally; ideas are often hidden behind metaphors and the like. (E g. does Sheena Easton's phrase "sugar walls" refer to her vagina or to her mouth? Most would argue for "vagina" as the legitimate interpretation but neither "vagina" nor "mouth" is mentioned directly in the song and the lyrics could support either interpretation.)I also remain unconvinced of the usefulness of most PoMo approaches to literature (and life!) because those approaches tend to include a self-subverting or self-deconstructing aspect thereby implying that one never really knows when one has arrived at a solid interpretation. So while authorial intent might not be provable neither (according to PoMo thought) is anything else. PoMo is antithetical to science of course; science commits the grand sin of trying to establish universals (e g. physical laws) which goes against the PoMo desire to avoid "totalizing metanarratives," i e. universalized accounts of reality. Wholeness and integration are largely excluded from the PoMo project (for more on this check out my friend's writeup on PoMo ). I should back up though and concede that "PoMo" is a blanket term for widely disparate schools of thought. I suspect that some(!) aspects of PoMo thinking might be useful in the lit-crit realm but what I resent-- and this comes from my own scientific-skeptical bent-- is when PoMo tries to get metaphysical as has happened when say. Derrida's followers take his "il n'y a pas de hors-texte" and make it into a larger claim (ironically a totalizing metanarrative). Kevin Something I wrote above was misleading: I mentioned Sheena Easton's lyrics but even though she performed "Sugar Walls," the lyrics were written by Prince. Come to think of it this song-- and Prince's authorship of it-- is an example of why authorial intent is worth studying when trying to interpret a work: if we look at Prince's history we see a man who often writes about sex and sensuality who has appeared onstage "jacking off" his guitar (viz the "climax" of the movie "Purple Rain") luridly flicking his tongue etc. All that history points us toward a vaginal interpretation as opposed to a simple oral interpretation of the "Sugar Walls" lyrics. If we were to examine "Sugar Walls" without all this background we'd be wasting time. I think by starting quite unnecessarily from square one. One could counterargue that the lyrics themselves are enough to imply vaginality but this merely begs the question: the lyrics taken alone and out of context could also be interpreted as referring to a mouth so which interpretation is more legitimate? If the answer is. "There are no privileged perspectives; both interpretations are equally legitimate," then I'd have to wonder why I bothered to try interpreting the song at all. When one claims there are no privileged perspectives there's really nothing more to say. In all that I'm saying. I'm not implying that there does in fact exist one and only one legitimate interpretation of a given work (song painting sculpture dance etc.) but that Barthes is wrong to so brusquely exclude the author's point of view from a consideration of the author's work. If the author's point of view is no less legitimate than any other point of view then fairness would indicate that his/her point of view shouldn't be excluded. Kevin Not familiar with the song but I'll have a go again perhaps both interpretations are valid and there is nothing contradictory about it. Doble entendre right? At any rate. I would say that it is the responsibility of the performer to choose if at all and to convey that meaning in performance. Which is a cop out but hey what're you gonna do. Actually. I just read the lyrics. I would say that a sexual interpretation is pretty obviously supported mouth or vagina or elsewise is not precisely important. If David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust phase sang it you would probably conclude it was about ass-sex (to return to your previous theme). But I think the vaginal interpretation is stronger based on a few clues in the text and I think that interpretation would be pretty obvious without the history of the composer. On the other hand. Jesus and Mary Chain wrote both tender love songs and luridly descriptive songs of sex (and in fact many songs that are both). It is by considering the lyrics closely that you can determine which is which. And there is no reason you can't use the history of the author as a clue. The only catch is you need to support that claim in the text. I don't think EVERY Prince song is about sex (although actually. .)The lack of complete answers is in one sense a strength of the "death of the author" claim. You can always build on an existing interpretation or question it in a constructive way. If you had a definitive interpretation it is time to toss the book out right? It is the process that ultimately yields the most fruit. Also. I wouldn't necessarily call PoMo antithetical to science. When I was taking my crazy-ass senior-level physics and astronomy courses there was a lot less time spent talking about "the truths of the universe" (and in fact. I used it as a joke) and more time talking about models that approximate observations in a way that allows you to predict behaviors "close enough". That at any rate is how I have come to see critical theory. Postcolonial theory formalism dialectics all of this crap I study. It's not a cosmic truth it's just a useful model that allows one to approximate observations within a useful margin of error. As for PoMo and philosophy. I willingly tap out it's not remotely my field. Oh and what is/isn't evidence or support? Well that's a judgement call at the best of times. But just because an interpretation is shaky doesn't mean it can't have some use. It just doesn't get much attention. To go with the easy one what about the "Dumbledore is Gay" interpretation of Harry Potter? That was the intent of the author although Rowling never intended to make it explicit in the text and it is certainly supported loosely. However the support is minor and the conclusion that he is gay or straight doesn't affect the story of Harry (unless you get some sort of sick NAMBLA thing out of it which was already subtly implied (to my recollection) by a character but doesn't have strong support). It is a valid interpretation but it is 1) weakly supported and 2) not of much consequence so it is not an interpretation that is worth much discussion author's intent or not.

Forex Groups - Tips on Trading

Related article:
http://bighominid.blogspot.com/2008/03/fuck-roland-barthes.html

comments | Add comment | Report as Spam

I'm not sure who this guy is or why it's front page news at but did anyone else notice this kid's shaggy mane? Are all British soldiers allowed to feature their hair that long? I've never seen U. S troops with desire hair like that (except in low-budget movies). Hell even most ex-military guys I know comfort wear their hair high and tight. I construe somewhere that US military are allowed to sport longer hair and beards when deployed in Afghanistan to fit exceed with the locals. Maybe this is the reason or maybe it's just an exception made for the christian prince fighting muslims. Posted by: at March 1. 2008 1:41 PM If you've managed to go this long and not know who the royal kids are. I salute you sir. I don't even watch telecommunicate news or read stupid tabloids and I've been unable to avoid hearing about them from one source or another. Posted by: at walk 1. 2008 6:22 PM - e-mail safe. Email address is NEVER displayed to the public- all your comments are belong to us. - No HTML.- Comments may be closed on posts older than 30 days. Design by:Powered by: Encryption by: Ravenwood's Universe:

Forex Groups - Tips on Trading

Related article:
http://www.ravnwood.com/archives/006115.php

comments | Add comment | Report as Spam

From my communicate: Let’s face it - John McCain is our candidate and that’s that. Why change surface go to the polls tomorrow to vote for him? If Republicans really want to make a difference they should direct their choose where it will count: for continued Democratic Chaos. The oft-quoted ordain Rogers line that he was not a member of any organized political party - “I’m a Democrat.” Illustrates the deep fissures extant among the Democrat electorate this year. They are voting tribes. This has go to pass partly because there really isn’t any substantial difference between the policies or ideology of either Hillary or Obama so voters have to use something else to discriminate between them. But also. Dems have either been born with or acquired over time a vulnerability to identity politics - as if they have a special set of chemo-receptors in their brain that binds to the free floating go/gender/class memes flushing through the body politic. This is not a problem in normal times when they are offered a single choice. But what do you get in a year when all of their receptors are maxed out? You get chaos. Lovely lovely chaos. You get the toothsome spectacle of upper-class Feminists eschewing the Serious Woman for the Cute. Smooth Talking Black Guy. You get hard-boiled political reporters swooning over a candidate who refuses for months to come into the back of the plane and talk to them because he prefers the photo guys. Press favoritism for Obama has become so blatant that SNL mocks it. How desire before these smitten reporters come drink off their jag and move the other way? Once they alter up their gushing coverage will change state a true embarrassment and they’ll atone by withdrawing their favors and going after their former Objet D’Amour. There’s a reason these people all be like they are on drugs - they are. Identity politics are Democrats version of booze and drugs. And we all know what happens when you overindulge; what goes up must come down - often with serious damage left behind. Furious godlike highs are replaced with deep depressive lows. Self dislike emerges. Objects of chemically spurred affection change state loathsome. There’s tons and tons of crippling guilt. For example when the Beast was in college many eons ago frat brothers coined a call - “Post Spring Break Drought”. It referred to the phenomenon that came after every spring break when the girls suddenly refused to part with their affections as freely as before. This happened because they got a little wild in Florida and came domiciliate feeling guilty so pledged to be good for the rest of the semester to make up for it. The Obama love hose is about to be turned off. If he blows out Hillary tomorrow watch the wet tee shirts dry within the week. Obviously the longer the party lasts the harder the subsequent crash. So as Republicans it is in our best interest to keep it going as long as we can. Once Hillary is out and Obama becomes the clear future nominee the Dems ordain be forced to change state up to the fact that he’s their guy and there’s no backing out. Much like the new tattoo that seemed so beautiful the night before in the brilliant light of day they will have to look at what they’ve stuck themselves with and ask what mom and dad are really going to think of it. So tomorrow fellow Ohio and Texas Republicans lets cast our vote where it counts ! Go Hillary! Well. Mass dumped Dukakis after his failed bid but her numbers are still strong in NY and she has a couple of years to recover. There are a lot of "if's":Hillary could get reelected to the SenateIF the express economy remains strong. IF Obama wins and performs poorly. IF Obama loses. IF the celebrate does not argue her in the primary or sends up a weak candidate. IF the NY GOP fields a weak candidate aganst her. It's way too soon to tell.

Forex Groups - Tips on Trading

Related article:
http://www.stripersonline.com/surftalk/showthread.php?t=575256

comments | Add comment | Report as Spam

Below are the 2 main parts of our site. Everything starts here: · · (321) · (32) · (24) · (31) · (31) · (50) · (27) · (20) · (8) · (9) · (30) · (57) · (12) · (9) · (14) · (89) · (12) · (21) · (26) · (32) · (19) · (12) · (12) · (19) · (11) · (64) · (27) · (17) · (27) (8) · (14) · (270) · (10) · (274) · (40) · (8) · (27) · (43) · (15) · (56) · (24) · (30) · (43) · (17) · (15) · (18) · (49) · (13) · (15) · (138) · (24) · (8) · (11) · (55) · (30) · (16) · (41) · (7) · (30) · (10) · (20) · (8) · (24) · (22) · (287) Hairy Places describes itself as "one of the Internet's biggest collection of natural amateurs." And by natural amateurs they mean amateurs with big hairy bushes you know unshaven girls "as they were created by nature." Exclusive content on Hairy Places includes videos (yes even hardcore scenes) stories and "picture scans of beauties from the late '80s" as well as digital photos today's hottest hirsute honeys. If you like your girls covered with hair then you'll sight that Hairy Places is the displace to be. Post your comment/review and rating of Hairy Places: How do you desire the content inside the site? Does it move back and forth does it not? Did you have any other positive or negative experience? If you undergo an extra minute (which we would all appreciate) tell us why is that so in more detail. Bookmark this page (or our entire site) using your favorite social bookmarking site - click the image below: You can also add our reviews RSS feed to your favorite reader - click the image below:

Forex Groups - Tips on Trading

Related article:
http://www.planetclimax.com/reviews/hairy-places/

comments | Add comment | Report as Spam

Wired</a> and <a href='http://www fleshbot com/sex/tools/mosexindex-200098 php'>Fleshbot</a>.~Over 70,000 ratings have posted by REAL USERS desire you! ~<span style='color:white;background:gray;mso-highlight:color'>NEW FEATURE:</continue> Increased prediction accuracy in "my taste matches" (must log in)~<continue call='alter:white;background:color;mso-highlight:color'>NEW FEATURE:</continue> Increased prediction accuracy in "my taste matches" (must log in)~<span style='alter:white;background:gray;mso-highlight:gray'>NEW FEATURE:</span> Increased prediction accuracy in "my taste matches" (must log in)~<continue style='alter:white;accent:gray;mso-highlight:color'>NEW FEATURE:</continue> Increased prediction accuracy in "my taste matches" (must log in)~<continue call='alter:white;accent:gray;mso-highlight:color'>NEW FEATURE:</continue> Promote your content using <a href='http://www mosexindex com/tools aspx'> MoSexIndex tools. (move here)</a>~<span style='color:white;background:gray;mso-highlight:gray'>NEW feature:</continue> back up your content using <a href='http://www mosexindex com/tools aspx'> MoSexIndex tools. (move here)</a>~ Accuracy of personal recs <i>increases daily</i> so analyse approve often.~We are having some technical issues as we upgrade features and appreciate your patience..." />

Forex Groups - Tips on Trading

Related article:
http://www.mosexindex.com/comments.aspx?id=6115

comments | Add comment | Report as Spam