diane,
From you last post, I see you saying that it is not history (as material
process in time) that is subsumed by culture, but a cultural creation
(text) that is historical that is subsumed by culture. Why the text is
"historical" is not clear. I assume the text is historical if for no other
reason than that everything is historical by definition since everything
exists in time. E.P. Thompson once asked, "As I understand you, history in
effect has no ontological existence in its own right, it's just a succession
of texts upon texts in an abstract Kantian temporality. Maybe a "nightmare
from which we should be trying to awake", as someone said, but definitely
devoid of any fixed reality in its own right.
From the perspective of what can happen in a "conversational site", culture
subsumes culture and nothing can be known about historical events in
themselves because we are all relatively situated, and the best or perhaps
the only approach to orienting the "conversation" is to open up many
different interpretations in the face of the impossibility of any certain
knowledge, any correct interpetation of any given text; the only possible
outcome being an understanding of why we might interpret a given text in a
certain way. And, as I understand you, this isn't a propadeutic, for on the
other side of this determination of how our reading is shaped, there is
still no possibility of a corrective lens that might bring history into
focus so we can see it for what it is . . .
i wonder if this is necessarily so and if this really constitutes a
productive way to orient the discussion here, since some of us pursue
practical activities among people who don't deal with texts in this sense at
all and our engagement with texts is meant to inform that practice whose
outcome is not simply the production of further texts but practical
liberations of various degrees and kinds (eg., education). It is in this
other space that I think the forces of history that issue forth in cultural
products and also the relations of power that mold our interpretations of
those products and coerce our acquiescence to those interpretations are felt
more keenly, more directly, and don't need to be ferreted out. Perhaps we
don't need to know why we interpret a given text in a certain way as much as
how what is contained in that text contributes to confronting/resolving the
practical problems that we confront. . In this practical space, it is my
experience that there are some interpretations that are historically (not
eternally) correct for articulating my understanding of the real historical
forces that condition and determine my practical activities and their
objects. . Some interpretations are adequate to the specific situation of
because they enable practice to achieve its objectives and practice verifies
their correctness. (here the link between pragmatists and marxists). Others
lead away, dissolve, fragment and dilute awareness without informing the
practice which is always moving ahead of the interpretation of its outcomes.
Thus I personally find the activity of engaging texts and discussions about
them, either on xmca or elsewhere, worthwhile insofar as it helps me clarify
concrete historical process and everything that shapes history as the
present, vacuous when it leads away from that object ; e.g., when the
historical dimension is dissolved into text and interpretation, into an
ethereal hall of mirrors in which there is nothing but reflection
compounded on reflections..
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong or out of place about
reflection on reflection and on how we orient ourselves toward historical
texts . It's just a matter of recognizing the scope of such an activity.
The British marxist historican, E.P. Thompson, drew a distinction between
the "intelligibillity of history" which concerns objective determination of
process and causality and is guided by a rigorously systematic dialogue
with historical materials, and the "significance" of history, which concerns
how we evaluate the past for our present purposes. Although changes in the
past's significance might lead people to seek historical intelligibillity
where they hadn't previously looked, it does not change the canons of
evidence and inquiry upon which that intelligibility is constructed. .
Bearing this distinction in mind might seems useful to me. The
substitution of history's signficance for its intelligibility was a hallmark
feature of Orwell's dystopia.
Perhaps I'm alone here in this perspective, sometimes it seems that way.
Paul H. Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: Diane Hodges <dhodges@ceo.cudenver.edu>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Friday, March 30, 2001 11:29 AM
Subject: history-text relations
>
> the notion of history-as-a-text is not to say that history IS a text,
> but that text is historical.
>
> what i mean to suggest is a way to initiate cultural historical
> questions, here, in a conversational site,
>
> where we are already engaging we texts. by considering the text as
> historical-cultural,
> we implicate ourselves as readers / interpreters of particular
> cultural-historical
> locations, the assumptions each of us bring to any reading.
>
> to pull these out more, as questions, and less as assertions or evidence
> of theoretical correctness, looking at the text as historical
> means digging into a deeper relation with narratives as reality-frames,
> where we each
> understand history as kinds of narratives -
> even experienced history unfolds as a narrative, in that it is not
> historically-experienced,
> but historically-recounted, narrated after the experience.
>
> there are more strands of difference in the ways narrative develop history
> than the ways history is a narration - ---- narrative histories describe
> more cultural diversity
> than assumptions about historical events - personal experiences are
> narrated into each of our individual locations and are part of the
> perspectives we bring to the texts that are
> read here: what i'm suggesting is way to elucidate these so that there is
> no correct
> interpretation to be sought,
> but instead, perhaps what can be opened is an opportunity for diverse
> experiences with text that are explicit, not embedded.
>
> perhaps i can let this sit with folks for a bit?
> and in the meantime i can offer a bit of writing about Jameson's text, as
> a way to provide an example of the kinds of reading that are enabled.
>
> diane
>
>
>
> **********************************************************************
> :point where everything listens.
> and i slow down, learning how to
> enter - implicate and unspoken (still) heart-of-the-world.
>
> (Daphne Marlatt, "Coming to you")
> ***********************************************************************
>
> diane celia hodges
>
> university of british columbia, centre for the study of curriculum and
> instruction
> ==================== ==================== =======================
> university of colorado, denver, school of education
>
> Diane_Hodges@ceo.cudenver.edu
>
>
>
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