Body Politic

"Nature is only the raw material of culture, appropriated, preserved, enslaved, exalted, or otherwise made flexible for disposal by culture in the logic of capitalist colonialism. Similarly, sex is only the matter to the act of gender; the productionist logic seems inescapable in traditions of Western binarisms. This analytical and historical narrative logic accounts for my nervousness about the sex/gender distinction in the recent history of feminist theory. Sex is 'resourced' for its re-presentation as gender, which 'we' can control. It has seemed all but impossible to avoid the trap of an appropriationist logic of domination built into the nature/culture binarism and its generative lineage, including the sex/gender distinction" (Haraway 198).

"Is there a connection between this state of mind--the Cold War mentality, the attribution of all our problems to an external enemy--and a form of feminism so focused on male evil and female victimization that it, too, allows for no differences among women, men, places, times, cultures, conditions, classes, movements?" (Rich 221)

"But for many women I knew, the need to begin with the female body--our own---was understood not as applying a Marxist principle to women, but as locating the grounds from which to speak with authority as women. Not to transcend this body, but to reclaim it" (Rich 213).

"Every person is at the center of his world, and circumambient space is differentiated in accordance with the schema of his body. As he moves and turns, so do the regions front-back and right-left around him" (Tuan 41).

Haraway, Donna. "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective." Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991. 183- 201.

Rich, Adrienne. "Notes Towards a Politics of Location." Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose, 1979-1985. New York: Norton. 210- 231.

Tuan, Yi-Fu. "Body, Personal Relations, and Spatial Values." Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1971. 34-50.

Synecdoche, New York

Okay. So ultimate theatre/reading experience in the form of a film? Maybe. Trip into madness – definitely? I recently watched the film Synecdoche, New York, and I have still—after about ten days—been digesting it and thinking about it. I have already told several people about my experience of watching it, which was basically sheer laughter. I felt like I was experiencing hysteria, or possibly some other form of neurosis, as I was watching the film. Having said that, you might think I thought it was awful, but in fact, I thoroughly enjoyed the “film” in that it provided a very nice phenomenological experience. In fact, it was in many ways a wonderful cap to the past two years of my academic career.

One of the reasons I decided to finally rent the movie was because of this article by Hermione Hoby from Guardian about Synecdoche, New York the film as the postmodern novel. I was intrigued by the title, and Hoby’s analysis of it is all the more intriguing. She starts by stating that: “A few days ago I airily declared to a colleague that cinema never really did it for me, not as much as fiction, in any case. I'd always rather read a novel than watch a film. That snooty belief in the superiority of the written word has been as happily shaken up as my boggled brain itself since I emerged from a screening of Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York.” She goes on to talk about a Q & A after the screening in which many people asserted that Kaufmann was influenced by such-and-such novel only to be told no. Hoby continues, “Likewise, these perceived novelistic borrowings are most likely just that - perceived: any good piece of art probably reminds a million people of a million different things.” And I had the same sort of response. The fact that this so psychological and cerebral lends itself to this extreme multivalency in which the film radiates and reverberated everywhere.

For another review/resource to talk about the film, I checked out my friend’s blog and his entry on the film from a while ago. I think what he was to say is quite true: “Unfortunately, and I know how elitist this sounds, most people don't like movies because they don't respect them as a living, breathing thing, and Synecdoche, New York is nothing if not that.” The film is that—“a living, breathing thing.” Its essence smacks you in the face when you watch, and my own reaction to the film echoes his reading of the film. “When I recommend it, I'm recommending it not as a film, but as an experience that no two people will receive in the same way. It's kind of a miracle that it exists at all, and if you like movies, you should see it.” I sort of felt the same way when I read Ulysses…that this book was all about experience and that trying to control that experience or mold it into someone else’s reading would be detrimental because the whole point is to have that original, untainted (if there can be such a thing) experience.

Here’s a trailer for the film:

Old Notes

I was going through some old notes for Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook when I came across this recycled phrase on my notepad that never found its way into my paper: “Why can’t we say something like this—we are people, because of the accident of how we were situated in history, who were so powerfully part—but only in our imaginations, and that’s the point—with the great dream, that now we have to admit that the great dream has faded and the truth is something else—that we’ll never be any use” (51). This line comes from Anna who is debating with Molly over issues such as gender equality and the fall of the Communist Party in the late 1950s. The book, of course, deals heavily with these issues, and yet, so many of its queries and commentary on 1950s British society could apply to so many other countries and times. How effective is a philosophy like socialism when it counteracts its positive impact by its very underpinnings and workings? This is something Anna has to come to terms with throughout novel as she evaluates how effective her work has been for the CP.

I like this quote a lot though, even though it never found its way into my paper. I guess one reason why was because this quote didn't really impact the second-wave feminist reading of the text that I was going for. However, I think one reason I copied it out was because I was reading this novel during the election season last year. I always think about my own reason for existence and the effective-ness my life has had on people around me. And it seems that at least in this renunciation made by Anna to Molly that they both have to admit their own redundancy, something that people struggle with all that time I think. How much of our life is accident or chance and how much "written"/fated? And is that what truly distinguishes humans from so many other species and even intra-species--that we are nothing more than accidents who think more of themselves. Just some thoughts to ponder...

What will we be known as? Or using office hours productively!

I just had one of the most fascinating conversations about postmodern theory with the most unlikely of people--my favorite librarian who specializes in government and military history. I stopped by to inquire about getting my old summer job again. Then, one thing led to another, I was already late for my office hours, and I decided to stay and continue talking to her about this most interesting topic we arrived at. After the witty banter and catch-up, she sort of posed this odd question that took me a while to answer: "In the future what age will the 20th century be known as?" I was kinda stuck on the answer. She continued with some great speculation and started to explain her reasoning. She mentioned how in all the centuries before use there were some many adjectives and qualifiers to describe the time: Augustan, Victorian, Renaissance, Neolithic Era, etc. And then she got to the point of mentioning the reason, which was she never understood why we ("English majors") came up with postmodernism. Why not just have a new word altogether. Of course, I then got onto my spiel about Grand Narratives, explained some stuff about capitol letters and lower case letters. Ultimately, she stumped me yet again with semantics that I had not really put together.

"It would seem that every age or time period were modern if you in it in the present moment so using modernism as a designations seems strange."

Of course, I started to draw on some pop culture references and mention words like technological age or post-industrial as a good qualifier. And yet, at the same time were seemed not necessarily to really be talking time periods but rather about the concept of experience. (One of my newly discovered favorite imaginative and intellectual wandering topics.) She posed a rather great question that made us both laugh, "How do I know my desk is in my office if I am not in there?" I immediately thought of Toy Story having just mentioned it was one of the few VHSs that I have left. And yet it so true. And all this ultimately got me to think about last night's Contemporary American Lit course and our discussion of Adrienne Rich's "Diving Into the Wreck."

I was so completely ready to call the book of myths patriarchy. Patriarchy is fueled off of adventure and exploration; it is how a man is made. And patriarchy is where the name of woman does not exist. For the name of woman cannot exist in patriarchy, for in patriarchy man creates the name of woman. Man names. Woman is named. I was working up this great speech that I left undelivered for class about how the book of myths feature women merely as props for male fantasies and how myths are romantic and adventurous and, yet, woman becomes nothing more than a prop or creation of man within them. And how, of course, Rich would want to associate myth with patriarchy because she wants to unmask the myths that patriarchy has, have, and will continue to perpetuate within society.

That is why the experience of Rich and the experience of reading her poetry is so interesting and fascinating. Of course, everything will be modern for someone in the present moment, just how every person can only see through there own eyes and there own experiences. Azar Nafisi said that it is when we accept difference and attempt to embody difference--to immerse ourselves in the lives of the Other--do we truly appreciate and understand our own culture. We know ourselves much more than we let on, and it is only through an understanding of others--walking in someone else's shoes--that we can truly learn or experience something unique.