[Xmca-l] Re: Re-search Testimonio and Hermeneutics

[Larry Purss]

I accidently sent the thread without the other paragraphs. I will continue:
     "Interpretation, then, is a complex and pervasive phenomenon. Yet how
complexly, how deeply does the literary critic conceive it in his
understanding?  We need to ask whether critics do not tend to equate
analysis with interpretation.  We need to ask whether the realistic
metaphysics and assumptions underlying modern criticism in most of its
forms do not present an oversimplified and even distorted view of
interpretation.  A work of [testimonio] is not an object we understand by
conceptualizing or analyzing it; it is a VOICE we must hear, and through
"hearing" (rather than seeing) understand.  As the coming chapters will
suggest, understanding is BOTH epistemological and an ontological
phenomenon.  Understanding of [testimonio] must be rooted in the more
primal and ENCOMPASSING modes of understanding that have to do with our
very being-in-the-world.  Understanding a [testimonio work, therefore, is
not a scientific kind of knowing which flees away from existence into a
world of concepts; it is an historical encounter which calls forth personal
experience of being here in the world"

I want to suggest there are overlaps between hermeneutic(s) and
testimonio.  Hermeneutics was [in]formed by German phenomenology and
existential philosophy. Testimonio is [in]formed by a different culture and
historical event questioning and transforming marginalized voices.
However, in this concrete event testimonio may also deepen hermeneutical
understanding and interpretation.  In particular the more encompassing
hybrid personal autobiography AND intersubjective "witnessing" VOICE as a
"unifying" third space.

The notion of re-search has me returning to hermeneutical ways of moving
between analysis and a more encompassing interpretation that includes
analysis but is not limited to analysis.
This is another tradition but may be relevant for others
Larry






On Thu, Jan 1, 2015 at 5:48 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> I am choosing to open another thread so that the focus does not shift from
> the specific notion of testimonio  towards hermeneutics in that other
> thread. However, I see significant overlaps with the more 'general' notion
> of hermeneutic(s) [multiple types of interpretation].  I am suggesting that
> the concrete specifics of the *third space* within testimonio may overlap
> with the more general re-search into the multiple types of interpretation
> that ENCOMPASS other historically situated events.
>
> I am going to write out three paragraphs from the introduction to Richard
> E. Palmer's 1969 book "Hermeneutics" and replace the word *literature* with
> the word *testimonio* to indicate how I am translating the concrete example
> of testimonio into the more general notion of literature. I am attempting
> to grasp the power and depth of *literature*.
>
> Far more than man realizes, he channels through language the various
> facets of his living - his worshipping, loving, social behaviour, abstract
> thought; even the shape of his feelings is conformed to language.  If the
> matter is considered deeply, it becomes apparent that language is the
> "medium" in which we live, and move, and have our being.
>
>