phenomenology: October 2007 Archives

"Erotic chaos and chaotic eroticism." The little green man embellished my summary of Open Secret, performed by the incomparable Wire Monkey.

The chaos of modern living was most marked in the second piece and in the middle of the second act: we are "bodies against steel" intoned various voices as the dancers gyrated and collided with each other, tossing about, torn from embraces, and thrown back at each other by their own as well as external forces. The sheer pleasure of being embodied was on display all evening, the joys of capability bursting against limitations imposed by - in, and through - the aftermath of mass industrialization. Emotion permeated every motion: agonies and ecstasies evoked despite the insistence that "there is no translation."

"Don't go back to sleep," we are implored - both at the beginning and the end of the show.

"It is one thing to read in medical school that the ideal doctor-patient-interpreter 'seating configuration' is a right triangle, with the patient and interpreter forming the hypotenuse, and another to recollect the diagram in a roomful of gesticulating Hmong toward the end of a twenty-four-hour shift" (272). The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down.

Interpreters face similar dilemmas when they move from the training ground to the field of independent practice. :-)

When a patient refused surgery for stomach cancer, "I had expected the resident to move heaven and earth to bring in a decent interpreter. instead, I found him in the Preceptor Library, his head bowed over four articles on poorly differentiated gastric adenocarcinoma" (273).

Interesting on several levels: that there was not an interpreter to begin with and/or that the point of crisis invokes the need/desire for interpreters. Also because we see Fadiman's priority (communication with the patient) in contrast with the resident's (learn more about this medical condition).

"At Harvard, all first-year students are required to take a course called "Patient-Doctor I" (significantly, not "Doctor-Patient I") in which they learn to work with interpreters, study Kleinman's eight questions, and ponder...conundrums..." (271)

Fadiman's commentary is on the primary of the doctor's role/personhood instead of the patient's. I am, of course, curious what the students are taught about working with interpreters.

Footnote, p. 266 on "sensitive bicultural interpreting" (photocopy).

"A middle-aged man in Merced, hospitalized for an infection, was asked by an interpreter who was filling out a routine nursing admission form whether he wished, in case of death, to donate his organs. The man, believing that his doctors planned to let him die and take his heart, became highly agitated and announced that he was leaving the hospital immediately. The interpreter managed to calm him and assured him that the doctor's intentions were honorable. The man stayed until his recovery a few days later, and a sympathetic hospital administrator, anticipating similar misunderstandings with other Hmong patients, fought successfully to have the organ donor box removed from the admission form." (264)

The way this passage is framed is fascinating. Did "the interpreter" ask the question, or did the interpreter interpret a question from the form that the hospital asked? Fadiman presents this in a common sense style, but this is a quagmire for interpreters at the level of theory and practice. When & how are we actors in the situation - as in agents with responsibility and accountability for outcomes - and when are we the ("neutral" or "passive") conveyors of other's actions/intentions? How does one distinguish these levels of interaction, when, why, and on the basis of what criteria? Did the interpreter violate the standard code of ethics about not giving opinions or mediate in a culturally-appropriate way? Had the interpreter erred in the presentation/delivery and needed to correct a misunderstanding that they had caused? The problem-solving of the administrator is also remarkable; such accommodations in order to prevent that kind of institutional/cultural clash are rarely undertaken, let alone accomplished.

Fadiman generated a list of "what ifs" that she presented to one of the health care providers, who "was less interested in the Depakene than in the interpreters. However, he believed that the gulf between the Lees and their doctors was unbridgeable, and that nothing could have been done to change the outcome. 'Until I met Lia,' he said, 'I thought if you had a problem you could always settle it if you just sat and talked long enough. But we could have talked to the Lees until we were in blue in the face - we could have sent them to medical school with the world's greatest translator - and they would still think their way was right and ours was wrong'" (259).

The conflation between "interpreter" and "translator" is problematic, even though this is a common sense combination. Technically, interpreters deal with spontaneous language production and reproduction (in speech or sign language), while translators deal with written texts (with the luxury of time for research and thoughtful consideration of parts in relation to the whole). In this context, the assumption may be between "interpretation" as tending toward paraphrase and/or the metaphorical, with "translation" invoking an attitude of literality (as if direct, exact equivalents ever exist).

I will have to engage Briankle again. He was so intense about my stance in favor of "dialogue" against "dialectic" during my comps defense. At the time I had no one to back up my perception of the ways I had heard/read the term "dialectic" in use. Now I discover that none other than Raymond Williams articulates my point:

the ordinary version of ‘the dialectic’, which can so easily be abstracted as features of a theoretically isolated (determining) situation or movement…” (Marxism and Literature, p. 88).

It may well be that my learning of the concept of "dialectic" from exposure to its use in contemporary academic discourse within the discipline of communication has limited my own comprehension, with "meaning" gleaned from situations and contexts that may left gaps in any ideal or intended definition. I also may have misheard, misread, and misunderstood the nuances that gave me the overwhelming sense of cop-out: "dialectic" as a reference to things in relation always leading to a variant of the same ol' outcomes, a way to acknowledge the-impossible-way-things-are-and-we-can-do-nothing-about-it. I recognized this attitude overtly in Williams' description of "the ordinary version of 'the dialectic,'" as a "retreat to an indifferent emphasis on the complexity of cultural activity" (119), the "(resigned) recognition of the inevitable and the necessary" (118) that Williams' defines as "the true condition of hegemony...effective self-identification with the hegemonic forms" (emphasis in original, 118).

While Briankle defended the originary and ideal sense of "dialectic," I was critiquing a contemporary formation. "Formations," says Williams, "...are most recognizable as conscious movements and tendencies (literary, artistic, philosophical or scientific) which can usually be readily discerned after their formative productions" (119), and "...formations; those effective movements and tendencies, in intellectual and artistic life, which have significant and sometimes decisive influence on the active development of a culture, and which have a variable and often oblique relation to formal institutions" (117).

I assume he was aware of this distinction in our frames of reference and was pushing me to recognize and say it. Maybe he thought I was just somewhat off my rocker. It would surely not be the first time my angle was skewed!

Captain Laurel (and Crew Kent) received first spray ever on the Peep Hen, approximately 09:30 in a riptide with winds at 15-17 knots. (Note: the dodger caught about half the spray.) Eventually, in the lull between upchucks, Crew Kent put in a first reefing (partial) and - some thirty minutes later - a second reefing (nearly complete). Winds from the (north?)west whipped the waves to about five or six feet at max. We spent quite a while hove to while Crew decorated the port side of the boat.

We had multiple adventures during my mere twenty-four hour stint. I realize I severely lack situation awareness, which - at this point in my sailing career (!) is hardly surprising. My focus on the current command is clear and I think I am quick (or as quick as I can be, given whatever obstacles/incompetencies present themselves). Nonetheless, I was aware, on several occasions, of operating in a vacuum: following orders with no comprehension of their relevance, sometimes without cognizance of their urgency. Things can change so fast in a small boat on the water! Sailing involves, as discussed with Megan (Shore Support/Limosine Service) on the ride back after the Crew Change, a blend of adrenalin that is felicitous and adrenalin that is decidedly not.

Defining the boundary between the happy and unhappy kinds of adrenalin is tricky, but range of awareness and degree of perception are definitely involved. For instance, our initial magnificent sail from the boat ramp took us toward a certain (closed) drawbridge. When the Captain, having turned the boat toward shore as if circling around, said, "It's time for the anchor," I knew the anchor needed to be dropped now. As I fumbled with the chain/cleat, I experienced my mind as if it was insulated, enclosed within a bubble of non-knowledge. After the anchor caught (90 feet of line!), I took stock of the speed of outgoing tide and strength of the wind and realized uh oh! how dire the situation was (had been). We were only 100 yards upriver from several stone pylons supporting a bridge that was quite low enough to snap the mast like a toothpick. We were, in fact, already safe: the adrenalin rush which then surged through me was an almost pleasant aftereffect.

Felicitous adrenalin describes (for me!) those moments when skill and teamwork is necessary but risk is not imminent. Since the potential of risk is always present (particularly while sailing), what I mean is, one has to mess up before threat is actualized. Adrenalin from peak performance and coordinated action against challenging conditions is happy. (I choose "felicitous" as an homage to J.L. Austin, whose (1962) famous work on the performative capacity of language to actually "do things" (not just describe them) includes this distinction: "Performatives cannot be true or false, only felicitous or infelicitous" (a truncated overview of speech-act theory from Dr. Andrew Cline's dissertation, chapter two).

The moments that I enjoy best, though, are not thrilling at the visceral level of survival (e.g., danger, injury) nor the emotional satisfaction of smoothly-enacted top teamwork. My favorite experiences are the calm moments after the rush, when the wind dies down, the water becomes flat, and the beauty of the landscape overwhelms the senses. There is no more alive perception than this experience of being with the universe. The Back River near the mouth of the Connecticut in the Long Island Sound is one of these gorgeous places. The stars last night, from our anchorage behind Griswold Point, were breathtaking. Sometimes such vistas impress insignificance - oh how tiny and infinitesimally unimportant this solitary lifetime; yet after adrenalin enlivens every bodily process, consciousness of timespace is more unified and expansive. Rather than one speck "in" (and therefore separated from) the universe; I am an integral component "of" its vast complexity.

I made a faux paux the other day, responding to Martí Cabré. S/he (as I plunge headlong into another one!) copied a photo I took of an art installation in Istanbul last summer. I was curious. The photo is evocative and in fact reminded me of the struggle some of my juniors are having letting go of being told in order to risk reaching out on their own terms. When I clicked through to see Martí's post, I discovered text in a foreign language and - for some reason - assumed the language was French. I am not sure why, as I do have a passing familiarity with Spanish; had I looked I would probably have made that (just as egregious an) error. At least, my good friend the Wanokip tells me, French and Catalan are both Latin languages.

What I realized, heart-in-mouth, was that I did not "look." My eyes glanced over the unfamiliar script and bounced off, catching no friction. What would have held me was not (in this instance) any quality inherent to the language or the medium (internet computer screen). I was in a hurry. My mind was multitasking, not inattentive but distracted, cast in multiple directions.

Martí kindly provided a synopsis in English:

I was frustrated because my server could not access the blogs area. Everything was fine but the blogs. And I had things to say. I had a need.

So this made me thought about the fragility of communication (the title). We are used to communication in one way (like in TV) where the bond with the viewer is based on the constant stimuli. This is similar to some Internet contents and specifically blogs, where the voidness of the contents is concealed by the amounts of smalltalk.

I try to write things with some sense so some feedback is needed with the readers, to keep learning myself about what I write. It is too complex to be one-way. I need the other side. And if I write sporadically this bond is weak. And if my server does not allow me access to writing, a frustration arises.

This is the content of the text. And, of course, it relates as a metaphor of human communication and your image was perfect.

When I first clicked through to Martí 's site, I was guilty of my own dependence upon "communication in one way": I needed English. (Is this similar to my students expressing the need for oral - not written - instruction?) Certainly I appreciate the desire for feedback, for interaction, for engagement with the complexity of learning ourselves and learning more about subjects of interest. Just this morning, Jose and I discussed leadership as feedback that helps a person adapt...good teachers invest in giving feedback that enables students to adapt.

Martí included links to information about Catalan. Another commenter just provided some sources concerning Esperanto in response to a recent post: No Mother Tongue? Is this an example of (quantum level) relative synchronicity?!

Catalan, language: wikipedia entry
Catalan, people of: wikipedia entry
famous Catalans: wikipedia list

Esperanto, university program website: Esperanto ĉe la Universitato de Roĉestro
Estimated number of current speakers from Ethnologue (which describes Esperanto as "a language of France).
Hoss suggests: "A good scholarly starting point is "Esperanto: Language, Literature and Community" by Pierre Janton." I found a review in Esperantic Studies Number 4 Spring 1994.

Rhona Trauvitch complicates the usual equation that the first language learned establishes cultural ways of thought. Her spoken English rarely evinces signs indicative of a non-native user, although the trace of an accent suggests she did not learn English in the U.S. or United Kingdom.

We spoke after our professor promised to make her famous. Stephen introduced us to the thought of Matteo Bartoli, the figural teacher of Antonio Gramsci.

"Bartoli says all languages are the result of sociocultural conflict. Words are in competition with one another; words and languages are grammatical structures in competition with each other and cannot coexist: language is a battleground. There is always conflict between languages, and conflict within languages. Conflict conflict conflict, that's what language is and what language is about. Words are always vying for position in language. [Bartoli] does not mean disembodied words, but that what we are doing in language is deciding 'what will be the word for this? what will resonate?'" {From notes typed during lecture.]

Bartoli called his work neolinguistics, and then spatial linguistics. His phrase, "pattern of irradiations" caught my attention. Whatever the limitations of mathematical thinking (particularly its assumptions of permanence and predictability), physics is an amazing metaphor for human relations. Why irradiation not radiation? My own simplification: Radiation is the (natural) medium; irradiation the (man-made) use/effect. The term is applied in risk communication regarding food safety, industry (e.g., manufacture of foam, insulation, jewelry/gemstones), and medicine. Specificallly, irradiation refers to a process of ionizing radiation intended for a purpose, explicitly in contrast with the normal backdrop of daily exposure to background radiation.

In the context of this graduate seminar, Language as Action and Performance, Bartoli's combination of geography with language use is a revolutionary conception of how language makes human interrelations visible. The patterns of linguistic survival illustrate material conquest, yet - even more so - when one stops using the mother/native tongue, abandoning the cultural language in favor of the dominating language of power, then one has truly conceded to colonization. Ouch.

We spent some time discussing solutions (from Gramsci's view, linking with Bakhtin and Burke) to the dilemma of needing to learn the language(s) of power in order to work within them to preserve one's own heritage language(s) and the worldviews and wisdoms they contain. During class discussion, Gramsci's abhorrence of Esperanto was raised. His objection is rooted in the fact of Esperanto's formal rules: its refusal to accommodate innovation - the natural flexibility of languages to adapt and grow in accordance with human experiences. Rhona's moment of inspiration was describing Esperanto being "born a dead language." Her logic was comparing its rigidification to the stale preservation of languages no longer spoken - preserved only in ancient texts.

This particular session was one of the best to date. The subjectivity of my read is based largely on the subject matter: grasping ways of conceiving of languages (specifically when, how, and where they are used, by whom) as a way of mapping power relations and imagining how the continued use of diverse languages is a necessary and vital corrective to entrenched hegemony.

~~~~~

Rhona presented Flying Through Walls: Magical Realism in Literature and Advertisements this past April at Cross-Over Arts: Intermediality, a seminar in Puebla, Mexico that she attended with colleagues from the Comparative Literature Department at UMass Amherst. She placed 91st in her age/gender class in a 10km Road Race in Athens, 2005.

Professor Stephen Olbrys Gencarella is (among numerous accomplishments) a co-signer of a letter to Lingua Franca in defense of Folklore, co-author of Working with Tradition: towards a partnership model of fieldwork, and is a member of the editorial board for Liminalities: A journal of performance studies. Stephen describes his pedagogy in The Ivory Tower, Apathy, and the Art of Citizenship (available as a pdf from Best Practices).