Getting a bit behind with my duties now, as the term nears its end and the several courses I am running all start to build up and snowball together.
Last year, 'Exploring the Subject' was well reviewed by students but the essays were not as strong as the attention had been in the classroom, therefore this year I have been emphasising the essays more and briefing about them often, trying to show that they are integral, not a chore 'bolted on' to the course or to be only considered at the deadline.
Another problem last year was the amount of students who actually read the set texts and were prepared to respond to them were few, and though this is improved this year it still means I default to Lecture-mode rather than really conducting a 'Seminar'.
Nevertheless I also see that I should tailor the texts more carefully mixing more introductory material with challenging texts- if I get the chance next year to run this course again. I certainly think it's a useful component for any undergraduate art and design degree to make serious and inventive considerations about the History and Theory of 'The Subject' in a group and write a short essay on the theme.
I also think a course like this could be a bit longer as there is so many rich ideas to consider and this would allow for more group activities and student input.
It's another weekend packed with teaching responsibilities but I will try to post a Blog that glosses the Jacqueline rose text (on Lacan and Feminine Sexuality) before the Tuesday session, but hope to spend most ogf this final session together talking about your essays.
Saturday, 21 November 2009
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
Flat People
Following our last session I came away with an interesting set f connections concerning the contemporary subject. i.e. you can trace through the idea of the 'Clone' in Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go' who seems to have a diminished relationship with life and passions, and then see a connection with the quotes from Maupassant and Flaubert used by Julian Barnes (below) in his LRB review, then add to that, not only Dennis Potter's 'Karaoke' character -for whom identity has become something already made (we just sing a little line of difference on top) but also, going all the way back to our VERY FIRST quote from Charles Taylor's 'Sources Of The Self' which I will quote again here as a way of taking the Blog and the course full circle, from beginning to end.
" It has frequently been remarked by psychoanalysts that the period in which hysterics and patients with phobias and fixations formed the bulk of their clientele, starting in the classical period with Freud, has recently given way to a time when the main complaints centre around “ego loss”, or a sense of emptiness, flatness, futility, lack of purpose, or loss of self-esteem." (Taylor, Charles. 1989 Sources of the Self p.19)
I suppose this line of thoughts might be best used to answer the question on the 'enduring possibility of the Subject' or the one about the Subject in the age of 'Yahoo, facebook etc. (read 'consumerism and technology').
Oh!, and here's yet one more connection, just noticed in Nicolas Bourriaud's Altermodern catalogue essay:
"In the view of Bernard Stiegler [...] capitalism functions through the channeling of desires; yet, he adds, 'desire underwent a downward tendency', forcing the system to 'exploit instinctive impulses', all real passions having disappeared among alienated individuals who had lost control of their own lives."
" It has frequently been remarked by psychoanalysts that the period in which hysterics and patients with phobias and fixations formed the bulk of their clientele, starting in the classical period with Freud, has recently given way to a time when the main complaints centre around “ego loss”, or a sense of emptiness, flatness, futility, lack of purpose, or loss of self-esteem." (Taylor, Charles. 1989 Sources of the Self p.19)
I suppose this line of thoughts might be best used to answer the question on the 'enduring possibility of the Subject' or the one about the Subject in the age of 'Yahoo, facebook etc. (read 'consumerism and technology').
Oh!, and here's yet one more connection, just noticed in Nicolas Bourriaud's Altermodern catalogue essay:
"In the view of Bernard Stiegler [...] capitalism functions through the channeling of desires; yet, he adds, 'desire underwent a downward tendency', forcing the system to 'exploit instinctive impulses', all real passions having disappeared among alienated individuals who had lost control of their own lives."
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
Barthes tonight, Next week and how to end the course...
Hi, thanks for much improved attendance this week. Next week is the last week of the seminar course and I'm afraid we have got behind with our readings.
I also regret that we have not spent enough time hearing your ideas and responses. I blame myself partly for being worried that the session will not achieve its potential if I don't fill it with 'delivery', but I also think that either smaller class sizes or a longer course would give us what the English call 'elbow room' to get to know everyone better and develop the important speculative conversation that SHOULD arise from anything titled 'seminar'.
At least I hope that the sessions you have attended, the handouts, the nblogs and exchanges with your peers will give you the grounds for making essays which are genuinely informed and engaged with the theme of The Subject and that you can take care to compose your essays so that they produce something of lasting value to you and to the debate.
Tonight's Barthes text proves to be still rich in its assertions, even if it can now be perhaps historicised as a 'classic' postmodern text. It's a wonderful investigation of writing by a writer, but its aims are much wider as it aims to deconstruct the 'Author' function in the broadest sense and as it applies to every artifact valued as of cultural significance. It would be wonderful to put all our mythological assumptions about e.g. the paintings of Van Gogh through this essay -as a kind of grinder - and see how or view of Van Gogh might be changed as a result!
We also managed to mention at least a few other important literary works not referred to by Barthes, including: Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, W.G Sebald's Austerlitz, and Dennis Potter's TV drama Karaoke.
Next week there are two texts we can try to look at (though time is certainly short. I'm ashamed to ay they are on 'Female Sexuality' (Jacqueline Rose) and the 'Queer' Subject (Judith Butler). ashamed because it seems I left these themes til last and almost left them out, but I believe I proceeded through the choice of texts in way that was meant to build a dynamic and historical line of thought which would culminate in these two texts.
Obviously we will be able to use them to discuss Gender, and Sexuality (referred to in the Silverman essay too), but they can also expand Barthes' notion of the Performative (not to be confused with 'Performance') Subject as well as introduce us to ideas of 'the body' that have been on the edge of the seminar but not yet really confronted. I will do my best to write a short gloss of each of the outstanding texts here on this blog and refer to them at least at the start of next week's session.
Just for interest's sake here is a little coincidental quote about the Subject as a body drawn from Hilary Mantel's review of a new book on hypochondria:
"Some of us, mostly men, regard our bodies as machines, and service them when they begin to grate and creak, or when they spluter to a halt by the roadside. Some treat their bodies like lovers, to be flattered and indulged, second-guessed and placated in the hope that they will thrive. All of us treat them as other; they are not our essential selves, they are what we drag around with us, a suitcase or steamer trunk with dubious, ever-shifting contents, a piece of luggage we didn't pack ourselves."
We must really hear from you and your essay ideas next week THE FINAL WEEK OF 'EXPLORING THE SUBJECT' 2009. Please bring a sketch, bullet points or outline and maybe a few images to illustrate if possible. DON'T BE AFRAID. Last year I had a terribly empty session after all these weeks of hard work because students simply felt intimidated enough by the fear of presentation to make them stay away -a great waste of a valuable opportunity.
We are all at the seminar to support each other and exchange ideas and time is so short that the spotlight won't be on you and your ideas for very long and you will certainly gain form the experience. It really doesn't matter how developed or undeveloped your essay project is, I guarantee it will be worth airing it next week, and once others know what you are interested in they will have a chance to discuss it wth you, if not in the seminar itself them informally afterwards.
Going through the ideas is also a nice way of reviewing the course, gong back to the essay questions, booklist etc. so please attend, encourage others to attend, and prepare a little to share with the group. Then we can celebrate that the end of the course is nigh and go off to complete our essays as a response to these weeks of rich content and concentration.
I also regret that we have not spent enough time hearing your ideas and responses. I blame myself partly for being worried that the session will not achieve its potential if I don't fill it with 'delivery', but I also think that either smaller class sizes or a longer course would give us what the English call 'elbow room' to get to know everyone better and develop the important speculative conversation that SHOULD arise from anything titled 'seminar'.
At least I hope that the sessions you have attended, the handouts, the nblogs and exchanges with your peers will give you the grounds for making essays which are genuinely informed and engaged with the theme of The Subject and that you can take care to compose your essays so that they produce something of lasting value to you and to the debate.
Tonight's Barthes text proves to be still rich in its assertions, even if it can now be perhaps historicised as a 'classic' postmodern text. It's a wonderful investigation of writing by a writer, but its aims are much wider as it aims to deconstruct the 'Author' function in the broadest sense and as it applies to every artifact valued as of cultural significance. It would be wonderful to put all our mythological assumptions about e.g. the paintings of Van Gogh through this essay -as a kind of grinder - and see how or view of Van Gogh might be changed as a result!
We also managed to mention at least a few other important literary works not referred to by Barthes, including: Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, W.G Sebald's Austerlitz, and Dennis Potter's TV drama Karaoke.
Next week there are two texts we can try to look at (though time is certainly short. I'm ashamed to ay they are on 'Female Sexuality' (Jacqueline Rose) and the 'Queer' Subject (Judith Butler). ashamed because it seems I left these themes til last and almost left them out, but I believe I proceeded through the choice of texts in way that was meant to build a dynamic and historical line of thought which would culminate in these two texts.
Obviously we will be able to use them to discuss Gender, and Sexuality (referred to in the Silverman essay too), but they can also expand Barthes' notion of the Performative (not to be confused with 'Performance') Subject as well as introduce us to ideas of 'the body' that have been on the edge of the seminar but not yet really confronted. I will do my best to write a short gloss of each of the outstanding texts here on this blog and refer to them at least at the start of next week's session.
Just for interest's sake here is a little coincidental quote about the Subject as a body drawn from Hilary Mantel's review of a new book on hypochondria:
"Some of us, mostly men, regard our bodies as machines, and service them when they begin to grate and creak, or when they spluter to a halt by the roadside. Some treat their bodies like lovers, to be flattered and indulged, second-guessed and placated in the hope that they will thrive. All of us treat them as other; they are not our essential selves, they are what we drag around with us, a suitcase or steamer trunk with dubious, ever-shifting contents, a piece of luggage we didn't pack ourselves."
We must really hear from you and your essay ideas next week THE FINAL WEEK OF 'EXPLORING THE SUBJECT' 2009. Please bring a sketch, bullet points or outline and maybe a few images to illustrate if possible. DON'T BE AFRAID. Last year I had a terribly empty session after all these weeks of hard work because students simply felt intimidated enough by the fear of presentation to make them stay away -a great waste of a valuable opportunity.
We are all at the seminar to support each other and exchange ideas and time is so short that the spotlight won't be on you and your ideas for very long and you will certainly gain form the experience. It really doesn't matter how developed or undeveloped your essay project is, I guarantee it will be worth airing it next week, and once others know what you are interested in they will have a chance to discuss it wth you, if not in the seminar itself them informally afterwards.
Going through the ideas is also a nice way of reviewing the course, gong back to the essay questions, booklist etc. so please attend, encourage others to attend, and prepare a little to share with the group. Then we can celebrate that the end of the course is nigh and go off to complete our essays as a response to these weeks of rich content and concentration.
Monday, 16 November 2009
Barthes, Writing, and The Subject.
Hi,
for those who attended last week they would have colected the reading Roland Barthes 'The Death of the Author from his book 'Image, Music, Text'.
If you weren't there it's such a classic text it should be easy to get hold of in the library or online (it's also found in anthologies.)
It's also a short text and relatively easy to digest. This evening I want to use it, firstly to continue our investigation of ideas of the Subject (this time through writing and language -though we have experienced similar Structuralist approaches to the Subject already).
Secondly, we can use this text to perhaps loosen-up our own concerns about our essay writing.
I come back repeatedly to the essay because I want to stress the essay is not an external or add-on component of our seminar but always integral, always on our mind as the outcome of our conversations.
Last week we heard from a few students, their initial thoughts, and I believe that airing ideas in this way -however undeveloped, helps build confidence in them and invites helpful comments from myself and your peers.
But to quickly turn to the Barthes essay, it is such a classic that you may be familiar with it, nevertheless, as I say, it does refer specifically to recent considerations of the Subject. It also posits the way in which literature and its writing have come to influence our idea of the subject (perhaps particularly in the references to Proust and to Greek theatre).
Our relationship with God is even called into question by our approach to writing which Barthes calls an 'anti-theological activity', and he also refers to 'Performativity' (which we will also see in Judith butler) and the speed, moment or 'event' of writing - and of reading.
As it is a short but very rich text we can work through it together in the class.
We will also use the session to review our progress, discuss essays and essay writing, and consider literature in general as an influence on the subject.
I conclude this post with a relevant quote, Julian Barnes writing in from the current issue of 'The London Review of Books' (volume 31, number 21, p.28)
"What Mariolle discovers is that the modern woman is not able to love as deeply as her predecessor: she is able to attract, entrap and seduce, but even in intimacy there is a final witholding of heart and body - which, of course, becomes a source of further power. And this change in women, Mariolle decides, is the fault of literature. As he puts it to Lamarthe
In the days when poets and novelists exalted women and made them dream ... they sought and believed they found in their lives the same things that their hearts responded to in books. today you eliminate all the poetic trappings in order to reveal nothing but disillusioning realities. And when there's no love left in books, my dear fellow, there's no love in life.
This complaint against literature from within literature is very French; it also directs us back to an earlier and more famous such complaint, that in Madame Bovary, Emma is the typical reader of those romantic books which make women dream and give their hearts expectation -though look where it got her. Indeed, Flaubert's novel deals in precisely the sort of disillusioning realities' Mariolle is now complaining about."
These thoughts relate to one of the original quotes I placed on the first Blog posts concerning the literary 'type' Oblomov (see 'Older Posts' below) " Oblomov hmself is not sure he is a person. He thinks he may be a type, and that is what he is usually taken to be. Early in the novel he looks at his fabulously slovenly servant and thinks 'well, brother, you're more of an Oblomov than I am' - as if he has read the book and recognised himself. "(Michael Wood's review of ‘Oblomov’ by Goncharov LRB August 2009 p. 8.).
But we could also use it to pick up our promised discussion of Ishiguro's novel 'Never Let Me go' in which the literary clone characters seem to have lost much 'human' feeling.
for those who attended last week they would have colected the reading Roland Barthes 'The Death of the Author from his book 'Image, Music, Text'.
If you weren't there it's such a classic text it should be easy to get hold of in the library or online (it's also found in anthologies.)
It's also a short text and relatively easy to digest. This evening I want to use it, firstly to continue our investigation of ideas of the Subject (this time through writing and language -though we have experienced similar Structuralist approaches to the Subject already).
Secondly, we can use this text to perhaps loosen-up our own concerns about our essay writing.
I come back repeatedly to the essay because I want to stress the essay is not an external or add-on component of our seminar but always integral, always on our mind as the outcome of our conversations.
Last week we heard from a few students, their initial thoughts, and I believe that airing ideas in this way -however undeveloped, helps build confidence in them and invites helpful comments from myself and your peers.
But to quickly turn to the Barthes essay, it is such a classic that you may be familiar with it, nevertheless, as I say, it does refer specifically to recent considerations of the Subject. It also posits the way in which literature and its writing have come to influence our idea of the subject (perhaps particularly in the references to Proust and to Greek theatre).
Our relationship with God is even called into question by our approach to writing which Barthes calls an 'anti-theological activity', and he also refers to 'Performativity' (which we will also see in Judith butler) and the speed, moment or 'event' of writing - and of reading.
As it is a short but very rich text we can work through it together in the class.
We will also use the session to review our progress, discuss essays and essay writing, and consider literature in general as an influence on the subject.
I conclude this post with a relevant quote, Julian Barnes writing in from the current issue of 'The London Review of Books' (volume 31, number 21, p.28)
"What Mariolle discovers is that the modern woman is not able to love as deeply as her predecessor: she is able to attract, entrap and seduce, but even in intimacy there is a final witholding of heart and body - which, of course, becomes a source of further power. And this change in women, Mariolle decides, is the fault of literature. As he puts it to Lamarthe
In the days when poets and novelists exalted women and made them dream ... they sought and believed they found in their lives the same things that their hearts responded to in books. today you eliminate all the poetic trappings in order to reveal nothing but disillusioning realities. And when there's no love left in books, my dear fellow, there's no love in life.
This complaint against literature from within literature is very French; it also directs us back to an earlier and more famous such complaint, that in Madame Bovary, Emma is the typical reader of those romantic books which make women dream and give their hearts expectation -though look where it got her. Indeed, Flaubert's novel deals in precisely the sort of disillusioning realities' Mariolle is now complaining about."
These thoughts relate to one of the original quotes I placed on the first Blog posts concerning the literary 'type' Oblomov (see 'Older Posts' below) " Oblomov hmself is not sure he is a person. He thinks he may be a type, and that is what he is usually taken to be. Early in the novel he looks at his fabulously slovenly servant and thinks 'well, brother, you're more of an Oblomov than I am' - as if he has read the book and recognised himself. "(Michael Wood's review of ‘Oblomov’ by Goncharov LRB August 2009 p. 8.).
But we could also use it to pick up our promised discussion of Ishiguro's novel 'Never Let Me go' in which the literary clone characters seem to have lost much 'human' feeling.
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
ATTENDANCE? -Last night. Essays, and towards the end of the seminar.
Last night attendance was poor, which surprised me as the previous week I felt we ended on a high note and felt we may have deepened the commitment to the seminar.
Perhaps there was some other important event taking place? Hopefully students will return next week and stay on-board for the last few sessions.
We are turning towards the close of the seminar now and so talking and thinking about our essays. some students seem to run a mile from this issue but it is really just an opportunity to form a response to what is taught rather than passively accept it.
Each new generation of students builds their responses to these materials and through their responses goes on to become the next generation of artists, teachers and experts. For this reason, undergraduate essays are crucial in beginning to assert your own opinions and positions and find your own voice.
Furthermore, if we start sketching and discussing the essay early enough it becomes less a mountainous chore (it's only 2,000 words) and more of a slowly accumulating project (if we give our tasks plenty of time in which to emerge, then time does some of the work for us I find).
The programme is supposed to be a seminar not a lecture series, and so, every opportunity to hear students' responses is welcome. Last night, partly aided by reduced numbers I must say, we did manage to start hearing about students' choice of questions and way to possibly answer them.
Ideally we will hear from everyone and ideally all students should be able to contribute ideas to each other's project in a seminar atmosphere of mutual support and interest.
The other thing we did last night was to briefly gloss the texts by Equiano and Fanon. Really these chats can only open a few more windows into the texts, and, as I have said before, I highly recommend going back to the texts following such a discussion as doing so produces a surprisingly fruitful new encounter with the text and develops understanding and confidence about just what reading really means and how you can use it (CRUCIAL!!)
At the end of the session I gave out a handout on Saussure (re last week's discussion of Structuralism) and a handout of the famous Barthes text 'The Death of the Author' to help us discuss Writing and the Subject next week.
Next week I think we will start with a thorough REVIEW of the course (so please look down through the whole blog, including clicking on 'OLDER POSTS' at the very bottom of the Blog below). We can hear a little more about students' essay progress etc. and discuss the Subject Writing as raised by Barthes.
Perhaps there was some other important event taking place? Hopefully students will return next week and stay on-board for the last few sessions.
We are turning towards the close of the seminar now and so talking and thinking about our essays. some students seem to run a mile from this issue but it is really just an opportunity to form a response to what is taught rather than passively accept it.
Each new generation of students builds their responses to these materials and through their responses goes on to become the next generation of artists, teachers and experts. For this reason, undergraduate essays are crucial in beginning to assert your own opinions and positions and find your own voice.
Furthermore, if we start sketching and discussing the essay early enough it becomes less a mountainous chore (it's only 2,000 words) and more of a slowly accumulating project (if we give our tasks plenty of time in which to emerge, then time does some of the work for us I find).
The programme is supposed to be a seminar not a lecture series, and so, every opportunity to hear students' responses is welcome. Last night, partly aided by reduced numbers I must say, we did manage to start hearing about students' choice of questions and way to possibly answer them.
Ideally we will hear from everyone and ideally all students should be able to contribute ideas to each other's project in a seminar atmosphere of mutual support and interest.
The other thing we did last night was to briefly gloss the texts by Equiano and Fanon. Really these chats can only open a few more windows into the texts, and, as I have said before, I highly recommend going back to the texts following such a discussion as doing so produces a surprisingly fruitful new encounter with the text and develops understanding and confidence about just what reading really means and how you can use it (CRUCIAL!!)
At the end of the session I gave out a handout on Saussure (re last week's discussion of Structuralism) and a handout of the famous Barthes text 'The Death of the Author' to help us discuss Writing and the Subject next week.
Next week I think we will start with a thorough REVIEW of the course (so please look down through the whole blog, including clicking on 'OLDER POSTS' at the very bottom of the Blog below). We can hear a little more about students' essay progress etc. and discuss the Subject Writing as raised by Barthes.
Sunday, 8 November 2009
Fanonism
It would be wonderful to have time to view 'The Battle of Algiers' and 'Hidden (Cache')' as complements to drawing attention to the work of Frantz Fanon.
The short time of the seminar however will only allow us to rapidly gloss this text and I must leave students to follow these possibilities up in their own time if they are sufficiently interested.
However, I can assure you that should you do so it will be a very rewarding journey into the rich archive available to us today in terms of cultural history and the overlap between contemporary art and contemporary politics.
The Fanon text seems in a way dated because of some its terminology and because of the way its positions seem so graphically expressed in terms of a polarised racial milieu.
What is really rewarding however is to hear how this brilliant young man manages to think racial tensions in terms of cultural and psychological influences rather than any 'essential' or 'biological' argument.
In his intelligent analysis of extremely sensitive and volatile political tensions Fanon explains and explicates the complexities of the black subject in a postcolonial era, i.e. as someone now inhabiting both 'white' and black' fields of experience and attempting to negotiate this while avoiding neuroses.
Part of Fanon's technique is an ironic tone which sometimes make his scathing examples sound like his own opinions when in fact he is expressing commonly held position which he is trying to break down by asking it to face up to its underlying delusions and fears which propagate misguided images of The Other. and in many respects his essay is aimed at the 'negrophobic' white audience, asking it to rationalise its own fears and images of racial difference.
As a 20th century thinker it is significant that much of Fanon's argument is aimed at technologised media (e.g. children's comics) as a significant cultural influence on the development of the subject.
His application of Freudian psychoanalysis is innovative and creative (as was Lacan's last week) and, in carving his own method from Freud's principles he artfully appropriates psychoanalysis for non-European aims. In the process he simultaneously negates and effectively disgraces Jung as a Euro-centric racist.
We will do our best to gloss the text and illustrate these points in the time available. I realise it is a long and difficult text but the many points it raises profound and useful to compare with today's continuing debates and tensions regarding multi-culture, nation-ality, and the postcolonial Subject.
We can also at least introduce the themes in the films referred to above and see if it is effective to compare Fanon's text with that of Olaudah Equiano (see below)
Regarding Equiano -plus considerations of the course content and timetable etc.
The several courses I am running simultaneously across the University begin to 'snowball' at this point making 'part-time' teaching very much a 7-day-week. It is only this (Sunday) morning that I could get back to considerations of 'Exploring The subject' (though of course, by definition, it is never far from my mind).
Though last week's session again turned into a bit of a lecture it nevertheless seemed to work in producing interest in commitment in our theme and in learning in general.
If nothing else the tutor's role can be to ensure greater interest and energy in exploring the archive (research) and forming responses (writing, discussion, practices etc.) -whatever the content of a particular seminar or lecture might be.
'Snowballing' is an effect of any enthusiastic pursuit and it's true that the amount of content set out for this seminar quickly dobkes and re-doubles itself as one text and one conversation throws up further content and references. For this coming Tuesday's session I handed out reflections on Lacan and Hitchcok and also readings of Frantz Fanon and Olaudah Equiano.
I also highly recomended viewing of 'Hidden (Cache') by Michal Haneke (showing this morning at the Renoir cinema followd by a discussion) and 'The Battle of Algiers ') both related to 'Hidden' and to my set texts in very interesting ways.
The underlying theme of the seminar for this wek appears to be the 'racial' or 'racialised' Subject, colonialism and postocolonialism and their affect on the subject and the idea of the Subject. I have had time to re-view the wonderful text of Equiano, an 18th Century slave who became progressively liberated and educated to the point where he was able to mix with the high levels of english society and write and publish this eloquent memoir.
In re-reading the text I quickly realised that it is equally useful to us in considering how reflection, memoir, writing, language, narative, as well as liberty, human rights, 'wonder', science, magic, religion, technology and knowledge all play their part in our history of the Subject.
I wil go on to prepare a response to the Fanon text and Blog about this again before Tuesday's session. However, I can predict that there is already enough material in the Equiano text to create a generous and rewarding discussion and help answer some of our essay questions.
Incidentally, for those who wondered WHEN they should look at the BLog, I believe that by becoming a 'Follower' of the blog you can receive automatic announcements that a new post has been posted.
For now, please see the films suggested if possible (this, as well as the readings, can be conducted very productively in groups) and I hope you enjoy readng the tragic, painful but immensely read-able dynamic narrative of Equiano, and prepare some responses (I seem to have overlooked the allocation of this text to a particular reading group this week).
As I say, I wil Blog again about the Fanon text (which is far more 'knotty', difficult and less ingratiating but nevertheless an important sourrce for these debates).
We should also insist that this week we set aside a good part of the session to hear more from you about your practices, and essays and any other good or bad things you have to share about the seminar.
Though last week's session again turned into a bit of a lecture it nevertheless seemed to work in producing interest in commitment in our theme and in learning in general.
If nothing else the tutor's role can be to ensure greater interest and energy in exploring the archive (research) and forming responses (writing, discussion, practices etc.) -whatever the content of a particular seminar or lecture might be.
'Snowballing' is an effect of any enthusiastic pursuit and it's true that the amount of content set out for this seminar quickly dobkes and re-doubles itself as one text and one conversation throws up further content and references. For this coming Tuesday's session I handed out reflections on Lacan and Hitchcok and also readings of Frantz Fanon and Olaudah Equiano.
I also highly recomended viewing of 'Hidden (Cache') by Michal Haneke (showing this morning at the Renoir cinema followd by a discussion) and 'The Battle of Algiers ') both related to 'Hidden' and to my set texts in very interesting ways.
The underlying theme of the seminar for this wek appears to be the 'racial' or 'racialised' Subject, colonialism and postocolonialism and their affect on the subject and the idea of the Subject. I have had time to re-view the wonderful text of Equiano, an 18th Century slave who became progressively liberated and educated to the point where he was able to mix with the high levels of english society and write and publish this eloquent memoir.
In re-reading the text I quickly realised that it is equally useful to us in considering how reflection, memoir, writing, language, narative, as well as liberty, human rights, 'wonder', science, magic, religion, technology and knowledge all play their part in our history of the Subject.
I wil go on to prepare a response to the Fanon text and Blog about this again before Tuesday's session. However, I can predict that there is already enough material in the Equiano text to create a generous and rewarding discussion and help answer some of our essay questions.
Incidentally, for those who wondered WHEN they should look at the BLog, I believe that by becoming a 'Follower' of the blog you can receive automatic announcements that a new post has been posted.
For now, please see the films suggested if possible (this, as well as the readings, can be conducted very productively in groups) and I hope you enjoy readng the tragic, painful but immensely read-able dynamic narrative of Equiano, and prepare some responses (I seem to have overlooked the allocation of this text to a particular reading group this week).
As I say, I wil Blog again about the Fanon text (which is far more 'knotty', difficult and less ingratiating but nevertheless an important sourrce for these debates).
We should also insist that this week we set aside a good part of the session to hear more from you about your practices, and essays and any other good or bad things you have to share about the seminar.
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