“What’s it like?” I ask.
“Remember that Indiana Jones movie?” replies Love’s minion deceptively robed in white, “That scene where the oriental pulls that other oriental’s heart out, and it’s still beating despite being removed form the very space that allows it to function and be functional and or be useful, depending on your own terminological propensity …”
I gasp wondering how one could make such a long convoluted sentence….and at the image…
“A bit like that, except I enjoy a more nuanced extraction, namely through the nasal passageway, since that is a far more obscure method and, more importantly, because it is forced to undergo massive constriction fooling you for one, for me especially enjoyable, moment, into believing that it may have obliterated itself, but then expands again when it hits the nostrils and spills out in a glorious burst of pain and carnage made all the worse by, and this is my specialty, the cord of raw nerve that refuses to break despite the assault inevitable of coming into open contact with the outside world, inexorably leading you to question the very purpose of Being and just then…”
Whoa, I think to myself, who was this minion’s English teacher?
The excerpt from my Tamburlaine paper is highly dubious but being worked over as we speak. Perhaps the central issue, as I see it, is the inaccurate deployment of the terms “universal” and “particular.” Although I meant “universal” in the sense of “absolute generality”––a crude version of Kant’s categorical imperative––“particular” remained an implied and rather misunderstood term.
I was also gently reminded that I need not wage an interstellar battle between Kierkegaard, Hegel and Tamburlaine in this paper. Although this is something like telling a depressed person to smile more (a line from Semenza), I’m trying to invoke the advice as much as possible.
And for no good reason, a picture of my baby nephew: (note the ‘36’ on his hoody; born Wu fan)
I doubt I will have the time or energy to write a post today, so allow me to share with you a piece of my Tamburlaine paper. This small section was written a while ago, in that state of immersion that I am attempting to return to now, and quite frankly, I am surprised by its energy.
Although assured of his own success and role, Tamburlaine exhibits a strange tension between his Scourge-ness and the awareness of himself as such. As a Scourge, his highest duty manifests precisely the moment he is completely enraptured with worldly desires; however, this immersion is always in tension with his awareness of being a scourge, or rather, a man who is called to be a scourge.
For Tamburlaine to “abrogate his particularity so as to become the universal,” he must immerse himself in worldly desires—which for the moment will be left vague—however, his particularity, the temptation, the break, is in Zenocrate who herself oscillates between being a particularity and a structural position in the Scourge’s larger universalizing sweep (Kierkegaard 83).
As Zenocrate pleas for her release, the tension between her structural role as to-be-empress of the East and her particularity that breaks Tamburlaine’s “telos in the universal” is placed in high relief (Kierkegaard 83). Tamburlaine’s response to her plea demonstrates the logic of this tension through both the obvious content and the formal construction of his speech. Genuinely insulted that Zenocrate and her company will not follow him, he replies, “not all the gold in India’s wealthy arms shall buy the meanest soldier in my train” (I, ii. 85-6). Insofar as his soldiers are aids to his role as Scourge they are indispensable and like his generals become a part of himself. Tamburlaine’s effort to woo Zenocrate immediately follows this declaration, and demonstrates a parallel logic but one that ruptures at speech’s end. Worth “more to Tamburlaine than the possession of the Persian crown,” Zenocrate is sought as a structural object that must “grace his bed that conquers Asia” (I, ii. 90-91, 37). That is, in his role as Scourge, Tamburlaine will become emperor and needs an empress, and as such she will be a part of Tamburlaine’s drive toward the universal. However, at speech’s close Tamburlaine offers himself to Zenocrate asserting, “this is she with whom I am in love,” a gesture that simultaneously ruptures Zenocrate’s merely structural value and Tamburlaine’s alignment with the universal; Zenocrate is made particular as his single choice for empress, and because the role is merely structural with respect to Tamburlaine’s responsibility as Scourge—it does not advance his telos in the universal—choosing her asserts his particularity and suspends his connection with the universal. The paradoxical oscillation in Tamburlaine’s relationship with Zenocrate can be better understood when contrasted with his martial relationships.
Immediately after Tamburlaine briefly suspends his universality by singling Zenocrate, he relegates her again to a structural element by using her as proof of his larger mission’s destined success. Seeking to win over Theridamas, Tamburlaine evokes both celestial imagery and the more grounded proof of his recently won spoils, including Zenocrate. “[S]ooner shall the sun fall from his sphere than Tamburlaine be slain or overcome” because “Jove himself will stretch his hand from heaven to ward the blow, and shield me safe from harm” (I, ii. 175-6, 179-80). His mission’s divine sanction manifests itself on earth in the “heaps of gold in showers” and the “Egyptian prize,” including Zenocrate whom “[Jove] sends” to be his “queen and portly empress” (I, ii. 181, 189, 185-186). Her particularity dissolves in her twofold structural function as the wife to “the monarch of the East” and as Jove’s assurance of Tamburlaine’s success (I, ii. 184). Zenocrate fills a vacant position and serves as a messenger, neither role invoking her particularity; she is simply a part of the martial spoils. Overcome by all this evidence, Theridamas agrees to join Tamburlaine whose joyous response further distinguishes Zenocrate from his generals.
“Thus shall my heart be still combined with thine, until our bodies turn to elements, and both our souls aspire celestial thrones” (I, ii. 234-236). The metaphor of cosmic ascendance links back to the divine sanction of Tamburlaine’s mission and also usurps Theridamas’ particularity in its universalizing sweep; the latter becomes the former’s appendage, a “partaker of [his] good or ill” (I, ii. 229). Theridamas never again breaks from or even challenges Tamburlaine, but like the other generals simply becomes the Scourge’s aid. At times, Zenocrate too is simply his aid, his “empress,” a structural role that necessitates nothing of her particularity.
As Bajazet and Tamburlaine prepare to meet each other at battle, their respective partners are placed to engage another theater of war, that of words. Zabina and Zenocrate, wearing their partners’ crown, trade insults and prophesy their potential futures as slaves. At this moment, Zenocrate becomes a pseudo-general, an aid to Tamburlaine by giving verbal battle to her structural counterpart Zabina. Moreover, Zenocrate defends herself against Zabina’s insults by foregrounding her connection and allegiance to Tamburlaine rather than invoking her own particularity; “Call’st thou me concubine, that am betroth’d unto the great and mighty Tamburlaine?” (III, iii. 169-170). Once her partner has secured victory, Zenocrate falls silent as her structural role is completed for the moment while Zabina mourns the loss with Bajazet. However, before and after her battle with Zabina, Zenocrate’s structural value is complicated, unlike Tamburlaine’s generals, and oscillates with her particularity.
Indeed, even as Tamburlaine places her next to Zabina, she is called to wear his crown “as if [Zenocrate] wert the empress of the world,” as the “vaunt of [Tamburlaine’s] worth;” however, these structural roles immediately follow his more problematic declaration that she is his “only paragon” (III, iii. 125, 130, 119). Although the speech in which these contradictions are housed serves to posit Zenocrate as Zabina’s structural equivalent, Tamburlaine’s “paragon” reference reveals a more nuanced image of his partner. If the word is used as a noun, then Tamburlaine sees Zenocrate as a model, complicating both Zenocrate’s structural role and the hierarchy of their relationship. She would simultaneously become an ideal, perhaps for her virginal status , and a creature that ruptures Tamburlaine’s heretofore adoration of war and—because his role as Scourge necessitates violence––his connection to the universal as a result. More likely, however, paragon is deployed as transitive verb that places Zenocrate as Tamburlaine’s parallel and rival; this is a double play, calling attention to her role as “empress” and her ability to rupture his mission, an ability predicated on her (mis)understanding of Tamburlaine’s actions as unethical. Zenocrate, in this reading, is not Tamburlaine’s ideal but rather a voice that questions the ethics of his actions, a voice that has power precisely because it is particular and not structural, a voice that is loved and loves.
Amidst the energetic drive to complete my Tamburlaine paper (finally), I reread both parts and found this gem of a quote:
“Villains, these terrors and tyranniesTamburlaine explains the central ethical paradox of his character here; his highest ethics comes at the moment he is absolutely unethical. That is, as the “scourge of God” his very duty is to kill, pillage, boast, and a myriad other activities that counter universal ethics. (I realize Nietzsche would dismiss this notion, but he will not figure into my discussion here) Of course, one could argue that Tamburlaine is merely delusional about his mission’s divine sanction, but the ease and extent of his victories coupled with the Early Modern politics that give rise to the play testify otherwise.
(If tyrannies war’s justice ye repute),
I execute, enjoin’d me from above,
To scourge the pride of such as Heaven abhors;
Nor am I made arch-monarch of the world,
Crown’d and invested by the hand of Jove,
For deeds of bounty or nobility;
But since I exercise a greater name,
The scourge of God and terror of the world,
I must apply myself to fit those terms,
In war, in blood, in death, in cruelty,
And plague such peasants as resist in me
The power of heaven’s eternal majesty.” (2.4.i. 146-158)
First, quite simply, Tamburlaine and his forces are invincible in both parts of the play. Marlowe extends himself to set up the ferocity, strength and magnitude of Tamburlaine’s enemies, only to have the (anti)protagonist destroy them in two lines. Much more important, however, is the historical situation at the time the play was written and the utopic (compensatory) gestures Tamburlaine’s character allows.
In the Early Modern world, the Ottoman Empire is plainly the dominant world force, both militarily and economically. The ‘Turks’ were enormously successful and expanding, thus terrifying Europeans with fears of both military domination and religious conversion to Islam. In this setting, Marlowe writes Tamburlaine in which the title character is a Persian (another Ottoman enemy—aside from Europe) that successfully, and easily, destroys the Turks. That is, although he is based on a real historical figure, Tamburlaine functions as the realization of the European fantasy desire to vanquish the Ottomans. European sectarian divisions and relative military weakness prevent them from posing a real threat, thus the narrative calls on Tamburlaine to be the “scourge of God,” whose slaughter and conquest of the Turks is ethical precisely because such violence is his mission. (Could we also say that his actions are ethical to an Elizabethan audience precisely because they are a compensatory realization of their own longings and fears? Would this then be a Nietzschian move, to locate ethics not in Kant’s categorical imperative but in the historical situation?)
..more tomorrow; I hope to make a link to the abstraction of war and an amazing conversation I had with a student about his experiences as a Marine on Iraq’s frontlines.
teaching dualism or inventoried pedagogy
“At a certain point, one loses the ability to distinguish between teaching and research; the dualism is a false one. Teaching at its best is a constant process of researching materials and ideas. Shared research is teaching.” ––Gregory Semenza, Graduate Study for the 21st Century
Although I am all for destroying false dualisms, it seems to me that the distinction between research and teaching is quite vivid in early teaching experiences, namely graduate school. Interestingly, a professor recently advised me to never put my teaching ahead of my research, saying (quite rightly) that the profession simply does not value one’s teaching nearly as much as the writing. At its best, the desire to be a good teacher is (in the professor’s words) a “good person’s problem,” because it is fueled by the desire to educate, share and make a difference in people’s lives. At worst, teaching becomes another excuse to avoid the exhausting work of research and writing. My motivation wavers between these two extremes and is always in conflict with an insecurity driven overachiever mentality, which does not allow for anything less than excellence in all endeavors/ projects. However, I have definitely begun to incorporate my own interests and areas of research into my classroom; unfortunately, that practice has left my class lacking direction. This monologue is an attempt to catalogue my own pedagogical practice, flush out the too unconscious frame and its attendant gaps.
I can broadly categorize my scholarly interests as Globalization studies grounded in issues of alterity. The impact of this broad focus (if it can be called a focus) in my classroom is simultaneously destabilizing and invigorating. Given a broad range of interests and concerns, there is too much material to taken in, make sense of, or even cover; this, in turn, can quickly deteriorate into a lack of orientation, of specific goals, and/or a general sense of disorganization. Conversely, laying out a field of sources, issues, and concepts can also be a wonderful way to garner student investment simply because they are forced to choose and make sense of the material according to their own predilections. I would like to believe that students enjoy the freedom and want to take charge of their own education; however, I also realize that Intro Comp is not an elective and is seen, at the outset, as a hoop to jump through. The logic of this pedagogical practice is grounded in my own (ongoing) experiences as a student/scholar; I teach how I learn.
The drive toward destroying the false dualism between teaching and research is complicated by differences in the level of commitment and ability between teachers and students. This is not an effort to create a crude hierarchy that places instructors as the talented and invested few who must somehow break through apathetic students. Rather, it is an attempt to think through the instructor/ student dynamic given certain conditions, at least as I have experienced them. Since I have already mentioned something of the tension in my class content, let me say something about specificities of the form and their connection to a difference in ability. Training in various fields has augmented a natural propensity to shift from the abstract to the specific and back again. Throughout my day, I constantly examine various situations or experiences as symptoms or effects of larger abstracted phenomena, while also observing the subtle contours and shifts that particular experience has on those same abstractions. I often do the same in my classroom. That is, I spend a great deal of class time laying out various abstract concepts or connections often leaving my students in the difficult position of seeing/ making the connection with their own lived experience.
Excuse me; my research is on the other line.
For those of you who follow this blog or my life closely, I apologize to you (and myself simultaneously) for not following through on the initiative I began only a week ago. However, this lack has conspired with, and is partly due to, a week’s worth of valuable experiences including a brief excursion up north with my family to produce the following exploration on the concept of “threshold.” My hope for this writing is that it will somehow balance both an attempt to reactivate my cognition and vent.
I have long noticed the concept of a threshold at work in my thinking and living, especially during those periods of steep decline. My general observations thus far can be summed up in a single sentence: only when I have hit my pain limit, and only then, I make changes that are definitive and long lasting. Martial arts practice began after a long period of pain during which I could not connect with any friend, or any person, and the realization that I was too much in my head––questioning Being and other trivial matters––to have any sense of the world around me. The PhD I am currently pursuing, my excision of certain people from my life, and too many other life decisions have all been shaped by periods of intense pain culminating in a final moment of rupture, an encounter with an internal threshold.
The broadest implications of this term, it seems to me, are found in its potential usefulness to explain revolutionary projects’ successes or failures. Without de-historicizing the specifics of any particular event, could we think of these events as markers of a reached limit? That is, the various Marxist revolutions or, more locally, the American Revolution, although vastly different and deeply mired in their own historical specificity, could also be thought in terms of a threshold, a point where the present situation simply becomes unbearable. Interestingly, the threshold––by my imprecise and implicit definition––functions internally and externally while affecting the individual and the collective. Simply said, my contemporary situation causes enough irritation that I act to change it; internal pain (violence as irritation) leads to external movement (violence as rejection of the situation as is). However, this internal—external dynamic occurs at the individual and collective level. I hesitate to assign a temporality to the individual/ collective dynamic because it cannot be reduced to a simple causal model––individual enlightenment leads to action, which leads to collective enlightenment/ action. Rather, we may begin to understand this dynamic (in the spirit of Foucault) as one that is reciprocally related––individual irritation interacts with other irritated individuals, spawning both individual and collective rupture. Perhaps.
A revolutionary project’s failure, or the lack of a project, in this model would simply be explained as insufficient irritation. That is, individually and collectively, internally and externally, people simply have not hit the threshold. Of course, this is far too easy an explanation without understanding the complex historical situatedness of any particular event that is, or could have been, a revolution. What were the particular grievances of the various groups that momentarily coalesce for revolution? How did (or didn’t) these irritations become powerful enough to hit the threshold? I would reject out of hand the notion of a universal threshold, understood as either a transhistorical entity or a singular meaning that can be applied to all peoples involved in an event. That is, because the threshold operates at the individual—internal level, the archival project must begin with the microscopic minutiae.
Although I am currently at several thresholds––or at least the approaching them rapidly––those real-phantom inhibitors commonly known as hope, social decorum and patience are preventing needed changes.
Viva la revolucion!
An ESPN special section detailing the work of an agency called "Right to Play" in Africa; certainly worth looking through the photos/ videos and article.
Although there is plenty here to critique and deconstruct, I have chosen to suspend that impusle briefly (at least for the first look through) so that I can see the larger benefits of this projet specifically and World Cup fever generally.
The unfortunate ephemerality of reading, especially in the context of grad school where you are constantly ingesting and (in theory) digesting, is that waiting one-day too long to write about a text will dissipate much of the impetus to write. Such is the case with my reading of Brent Edwards’ The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism. The text is nothing short of phenomenal for a number of reasons that I can only touch on, including of course the fierce elegance and eloquence that has won Edwards my ‘man crush’. In lieu of a class presentation like summary of main methods, arguments and stakes, allow me to engage in a kind of writing exercise. I have picked out three quotes, the first of which was random but incidentally pointed to a something I was trying to say during a recent discussion group meeting; I will offer them in the order they are found in the text and extrapolate from them; this is, mind you, an intellectual and writing exercise––be kind in your reading.
“To put it another way, the contradiction is that Maran, in employing the metaphor of the “recording instrument,” thereby speaks, and speaks as a black modern voice, figuring himself even as he claims with the same gesture to be silent” (92)First, this is a brilliant close reading by Edwards, made possible of course by his extensive archival and translation work. More importantly, the ‘recording instrument’ metaphor is a trope often engaged in encounters with the culturally Other, especially in those encounters made possible by an “expedition” away from the metropole. This particular encounter is especially problematic in the larger historical context within which it takes place, namely the search for and practice of Black internationalism. Such a project of solidarity is, obviously, subverted by a colonialist world-view that dismantles race consciousness in favor of a hierarchy that is based at once on geography and class. That is, a colonial subject is both spatially removed from the hubs of intellectual and cultural activity, while also class-ified as exploited without the privileged (revolutionary) role of a workingman.
More generally, the idea of “recording,” especially those private thoughts and phrases of the Other, is a prevalent and problematic trope in travel writing. I have in mind Said’s extensive and foundational critique of British travel writers who would venture out into her majesty’s empire and report back all that was already known; those savages are lucky to have us there to help civilize them. Edwards’ dismantling of the “recording” metaphor’s logic helps elucidate the false transparency with which travelers speak, a falseness that is enormously useful in locating the ‘metropole’ subject even while they ‘hide’ it. The travel narrative’s structure of address, its intended and unintended audience, the logical and cultural assumptions, and (my favorite site of interrogation) the terms used to structure their encounter with the other (e.g. savage), all play a crucial (if unintended) role in locating the metropole’s phantom subject.
“But in a complex dynamic between the craze for jazz and the desire for a feminized exoticism, shows were constructed around Baker precisely to make the point that she could represent a kind of universal feminine colonial other…..Baker’s body was the consummate “ideological artifact”….[and] served as the locus of a metonymic operation: balck, brown, and yellow bodies were all incarnated in the writhing limbs and “sculptural” gesture of Baker as interchangeable objects of colonial desire” (162).Here is an introduction (or re-introduction) of the metropole/ colony encounter within the metropole itself. Moreover this encounter is gendered and recorded (“incarnated”) on Baker’s body itself. Colonial literature’s propensity to gender the encounter with the Other is a well worn topic, one that finds interesting manifestation especially in the gendering of the land itself. The Americas were often portrayed as a naked (at least bare chest) woman waiting for “penetration,” a word that was often deployed to describe the process of interior land exploration. Similarly, Baker, in her metonymic role, performs this ‘nakedness’ as the colonial other ‘exposed’ or ‘unveiled,’ revealing of course what ‘we’ knew all along. That is, to return to the earlier metaphor, she ‘records’ the metropole’s (sensationalized) view of the colony and simultaneously affirms the ideological grounding of such a view through her eroticized performance. (Baker’s presence and project, of course, is far more nuanced than the rather dismissive reading I have given here)
“The most complex point in Banjo may be this suggestive double entendre (“Everybody’s Doing It”) that points both to sexuality and desire and to bodily exploitation in the modern capitalist system. “Selling black bodies” here has to do with gender and sexuality, not just race” (208).Appropriately, we arrive at the beginning. That is, we arrive at the primary logic driving colonial expansion, capitalism. However, this is a capitalist logic that finds myriad expression in gender, sexuality, and desire, all of which are recorded, represented and re-presented to the very system that spawns them. More clearly, the gendered erotica of land waiting to be “penetrated” is recorded and represented in literature, maps et al. These representations are re-presented to the metropole, in one form, as Baker’s body ‘sold’ as a performance whose foregrounding of the perverse metonymic colonial logic is subsumed in the desire it creates.
…too tired…
1) Zarqawi was killed but that will do absolutely nothing to stop or slow down the “insurgency” in Iraq.
2) Installed a window mount air conditioner in my room; it has a freaking remote control! I see in this remote (for an air conditioner that is meant for a small space) the presence of the stereotypical fat American sweating while sitting in a La-z-boy and turning the AC on full blast––using the remote of course, so that the one calorie that would have been used in getting up will not be.
3) A brief part of my last conversation with Kristine was about her paper on Brian Massumi’s work with art and poetics that don’t force your attention on them. Instead, the piece diffuses itself into a setting and opens a space for the passive engagement of multiple senses, their intersection and ultimate role in creating a kind of embodied memory and orientation. (This is a vulgar summation of work that I am not familiar with but am recounting from KFD’s synopsis).
Interestingly, that conversation was followed by an exploration of my music catalog, which consists of a wide range of material but mainly of downtempo electronic artists like Thievery Corporation. K’s reaction to my enthusiastic offerings was mixed, a visible struggle to take the music on its own terms as the politics of its appropriation by bourgeois hip bars and stores (Banana Republic) beat the beats into silence. Among other points, K said that her aesthetic sensibilities were simply not in line with the band’s uber-smooth style (too easily consumed) and favored more dissonant, ruptured textures.
Her critique, although far more nuanced, articulate and sophisticated, is one most people voice when asked about my primary musical groundings; “too mellow”, “can just fade into the background,” “I could sleep/ study to this,” “This a different track? Really?” or the most insulting manifestation, “I think I heard this at Banana.” What I found interesting in her commentary and what we linked to our earlier discussion of Massumi, is the music’s ability to fade into a setting, to be a background that doesn’t necessarily call for attention even while it helps shape the space. To point to the obvious for a moment, the music dictates one’s embodied orientation in a space, the feel of it, which in turn helps regulate other codes such as dress.
Most interesting, however, was the link between the music’s (non) call for a passive attention, a diffused awareness that privileges no single sense but an embodied orientation, and Zen. The latter, as I know it in relation to martial arts, emphasizes both an attention to the moment and what my teacher used to call “flood light consciousness.” That is, despite the metaphor, no single sense or object is privileged for the sake of another. Rather one is called to be aware and feel a given moment, a given space, so that perceptions beyond the basic senses come into one’s ken. I would assume that most have heard this, and dismiss it, in its Star Wars incarnation as Obe Wan’s sage advice to feel and use ‘the force.’ Despite my raw ignorance of Massumi’s argument’s details, let me venture two basic departures in Zen.
First, the call to be aware of the “moment” in Zen, although an embodied attention, also has a temporal component; place your attention in the here and now. Complicating this, lest one think that Zen masters do not care about the past or the future, is the broader meta-awareness needed to be in the here and now. That is, it’s not so much about what “time” you are thinking of but rather that you recognize that you are in that cognitive space; I am thinking of the past, but am doing it (thinking) in the present moment and because that is my present activity, I must be entirely focused on thinking of the past. Here, then, (note the play on words ;—) is the second of Zen’s departures.
In contradistinction to “flood light consciousness,” my teacher used the term “spotlight consciousness,” which for Zen means to be entirely focused on a particular. I leave “particular” purposefully vague because the object of one’s attention can range from washing dishes to questioning one’s being to being itself. (Kristine’s post on experiencing the self discusses this in more detail) To be entirely focused on a particular, to the exclusion of all else, is extremely demanding but equally rewarding. The challenge of living this, it seems to me, is the ability to recognize when either floodlight or spotlight awareness is necessary and being able to shift modes quickly.
to Be (here), or not to Be (now)
...my bed needs my body’s passive attention
I am strangely anxious about publishing the post below simply because this is a public space that both students and colleagues have access to. Regardless, I simultaneously swallow my nervousness and foreground it here to demonstrate that I pretend not to care what you think about how insane I possibly sound in the post below.
yours in human neurotic solidarity,
srt
Rwanda, Melancholia, Joy and Purpose
I apologize to my readers who were expecting another post yesterday on the ongoing reading and project work but I failed to mention an addendum this initiative; be open to the impromptu. That is, from far too much experience with the guilt and pain attendant in any deviation from a given plan, I have decided to include the unexpected in my plans. Yesterday, although I did not write my intended post, I had a wonderfully helpful, productive and simply fun conversation with Kristine; thus, in the great Western tradition of philosophy, I blame the woman for not being faithful in my promise. But I did get to eat from the knowledge tree.
While I am aware of my own hyper self-criticism, I notice that my writing has taken a turn for the worse. Actually, it has taken a Wile E. Coyote kind of leap into the canyon. There is a general lack of sophistication but more importantly, writing for the moment is not the aid to cognition it normally is. In lieu of brilliance, let me attempt a moment of transparency with all the idiosyncrasies and clouded insanity that make up my half articulate thoughts.
I showed Hotel Rwanda to both my classes today, which means that I had a double dose of the film’s beautiful, utopic melancholia. The film will function as a preface for our turn toward the international generally and Africa specifically. I have also narrowed the focus of our attention to language and its role in creating the self/ other binary that implicitly grounds too much violence in the world. These two turns, toward the international and toward language, were the substance of my introduction to the film, along with a brief Wikipedia article situating the 1994 genocide. My real desire was to say unequivocally, “If you don’t shed a tear during this film, you have no soul;” a thought that, for obvious reasons, never found expression.
The film is profoundly interesting to me for a myriad of reasons: its ability to launch me into a meta awareness of the human condition, to evoke a visceral reaction and the attendant investment from my students, and (perhaps at the intersection of the two prior feelings) its capacity to shift energetically my focus from the day-to-day minutiae to the larger telos of my scholarship. The tears, the empathy, feelings of powerlessness, admiration of human selflessness and the desire to articulate the only phrase that makes sense even as you recognize its utter banality and meaninglessness, “But they are just other human beings like you;” the film forces all this on me. I am thrown into a violent negotiation with my spirituality, attempting to understand the real-unreality of genocide, to engage a universal solidarity with the intensity of human suffering but hold it in tension with disengagement, an aloofness that dismisses it as an ultimate reality or end. I want to slap God and sit in meditation for several hours. The euphoria of seeing “the killers” gunned down by the Hutu army shocks me with my own immature humanity and my Gandhian/ Satyagrahan sensibilities scold me for it. Is that student crying? They better be.
Last semester, when I first showed this film in a class, I had to spread the viewing over three-days because of the short class period. After each day, I would see my students hurriedly pack up their bags, leaving me alone to dismantle the equipment and wonder if the film had no affect for them. In discussions about the film, many students admitted to tearing up and explained their rapid departure as a defensive move to prevent embarrassment. The conversations were so intense that I could feel the waves of panic, disgust and epiphanies as students discussed policy decisions that must evaluate the relative worth of each human life. Although the quality of papers improved only marginally, often parroting the critiques I offered, the investment in the conversation and the vehemence with which they wrote changed drastically. Teaching the film was, and is, a centering experience that allows an incredible alignment of pedagogy, scholarship and extra-academic idealistic aims.
I am running out of energy; writing about these experiences is emotionally taxing.
Let me say, however, that at the deepest state of melancholia is a profound joy that recognizes, and empathizes with, a core human experience that all have shared. In this joyous sadness is the seed of a renewed awareness of my place and role in the world, a renewed desire to be of some service. Sharing this sadness with my students, glancing through the same rusty frame onto the ever-jarring images of violent, ephemeral humanity to find the beautiful within it, is the most positive thing I can do.
There is a thin line between irony and stupidity; I crossed that line in my last post by announcing my desire to leave the autobiographical then writing a detailed personal account of my martial arts experience. In my defense, the post began as an attempt to ‘take inventory’ (Said’s phrase) of my pedagogical roots and trace their growth to my current classroom situation. With that said, let me continue on with that project.
I was so invested in that environment (the dojo) and its particular code of etiquette that I no longer know if it synchronized with or took over my personality, which itself balances a particular formality with casualness; learning that will take more introspective time than I care to allocate at the moment. What is obvious, however, is that these first pedagogical lessons significantly influence my teaching now.
As I have said in other posts, I attempt to make the classroom a safe-haven where the most poignant issues can be discussed without all the censoring required in everyday experience. This desire is obviously predicated on my own desire to discuss these issues and engage my students in the highest level of criticism/ deconstruction each can achieve given their ability to connect and my ability to communicate. However, for these discussions to be truly open and comfortable, I consciously strive to create an informal atmosphere marked most obviously by the tone and level of vocabulary used; showing Chris Rock specials and Family Guy episodes also contributes to this.
I stand at the intersection of the formal qualities of my classroom and its content, attempting to balance critical rigor and a casualness that disarms enough to bring real material to the surface.
Aside: I wonder if one could productively think of humor and informality in the classroom as a kind of archival pedagogy. That is, ‘casual pedagogy’ creates an atmosphere where students are more willing to both introspect and share opinions or experiences in discussions, making the classroom a sort of living collective archive. Although one would have to be careful not to envision students as flat surfaces to be read, the benefit could be a more engaged experience, a classroom that is simultaneously constructing and deconstructing.
In order to hold myself accountable and to strengthen the power of my promises, I am announcing the beginning of a two-month long initiative to post new writings five days a week. Although my previous month long trial was both successful and helpful, I found myself drifting far too often into biography; I enjoy writing about my life happenings and offering some analysis of them but I want to focus this initiative much more.
Mondays and Thursdays will be dedicated to writings on pedagogy both in terms of practice, i.e. my class successes and shortfalls, and theory. I am happy to say this will be greatly informed by discussions with Gwen, Justin V, and Cara as we venture to create service learning courses for the Fall and Winter semesters. These discussions, and my writings on them, should have the added benefit of acquainting me with the various strands of critical pedagogy and open a space to think through my place in relationship to those ideas.
Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays will be dedicated to reflections on current readings and projects. Saturday will be only real off-day because I teach all day Wednesday and usually spend much of that evening after classes checking my second class’ work. Regardless, on with the project!
The balance or tension between authority and openness is a crucial one within my pedagogical practice. During my tenure at my old martial arts school, I had the opportunity to teach classes for several years under the careful guidance of Sifu (head instructor/ Teacher). This first venture into a mass teaching setting (I had been a tutor for several years already) was initially an emotionally draining experience with far too many lows for the number of highs. I began helping with kids’ classes and quickly discovered how much energy it takes to motivate young children and be patient with early teenager attitude. The great benefit of this experience, however, was the ability to call forth a great deal of sincerely positive energy, despite whatever happened earlier that day. This early form of “professionalism” also formed what has become a guiding pedagogical principle; I must be what I want from my students: energetic, engaged, creative, focused et al. (I realize how hopelessly naïve or even silly this may sound to some of my colleagues; regardless, this has been a working principle that has garnered great results). A year before I left the Dojo, my daily schedule would normally include teaching several classes to both kids and adults (at separate times). At the peak of my investment in that particular environment, and under that particular teacher, I was one of the top 5 instructors for a school of nearly 500.
Teaching adults, much like the kids, required a great deal of energy and enthusiasm, but also an interesting balance between openness and a purposeful distance. For the kids, my playfulness and humor was always tempered with a firm disciplinary presence that is implicit in their perception; we were nothing short of superheroes. Adults, especially those with cars, houses, kids my age, and the like, had no such impression of us (instructors), except perhaps the knowledge that we were talented in the art. The respect had to be earned slowly; a part of this process involved creating a “fantasy,” a distance that did not engage in ‘get to know you’ conversation. During our teaching, we were instructors first, (highly talented and motivated) students second and always approached as authority figures; the formality of the environment, the detailed etiquette and ranking system all contributed to this.
To be continue tomorrow morning…
When warm bass lines or conversations with Aarthi won’t complete the inner vaccum left by a post book discussion buzz, I call on a melancholic reminesence of the only one who can call forth unconditional love from me…Summy.
Despite substantial cognitive breakthroughs and a reawakened desire to write, I have bare little to articulate in this space. Perhaps it is the abundance of material rather than the lack of it that has contributed to my recent stagnation. Given that this post is an off-the-cuff writing moment, let me briefly list some of the more interesting life happenings.
New roommate; one who is actually more anal about organizational logic and cleanliness than I am–Woo hoo. He actually arranged a plate of oranges into a square accented by apples at the midpoints to form a semi-pyramidal structure––we’re going to get along just fine.
Thinking through Service learning projects for the Fall and Winter semester in coordination with Gwen: leaning heavily toward an transgenerational archival project that would engage 3010 honors students and the Detroit senior community at Hannan House; debating the efficacy of using comedic material in this setting.
Despite three unresolved projects, including a Master’s thesis, I am feeling surprisingly good and engaged about my work; this, I realize, could be one of those strange manic moments in which the melancholic ground of Being is momentarily suspended, giving way to joy, purposiveness and the enigmatic rumblings of groundless love. Also, this could be me attempting to exercise an atrophying linguistic flair; either or.
And now, a pretty picture entitled, Shadows of thought: Ruminations on cosmic universality, sub-nuclear particularity and dinner.
