teaching: March 2008 Archives

A vigorous debate between two faculty members dominated conversation about Marc Crépon's "What We Demand of Languages," an extended footnote to Derrida's Monolingualism of the Other.

I had been worried about arriving late to the Center for Communication Studies event, however Briankle Chang and Vernon Cronen were deep in discourse, ranging from the mistake of theology (not a feature of all religions), the influence of the Platonic opening, Aquinas' linkage of physics with the New Testament, to structuralism as the antidote to transcendentalism, and whether "topos" is a place that contains all topoi and all vocabularies or a place that can be talked about in infinitely many ways.

I always learn more from faculty interactions with each other than from monologistic pedagogy!

A colleague translated Crépon's article from French. Srinivas Lankala explains:

"Crépon summarizes Derrida’s argument, provides references to the argument that Derrida did not provide, and extends the argument to new areas:

• the question between what language is and what language means in terms of politics of nationalism or politics of identity
• the definition of identity
• the definition of the self

"One important thing called into question is the notion of a singular cultural identity: identity is formed in advance by language – the whole question of identity which cultural studies depends on, what post-colonial studies depends on, is nonexistent in that sense, it does not exist before language. Crépon extends Derrida’s proposition that the monolingualism of the other is not just his unique case of (to put it too simply) a French-speaking Jew in Algeria who is speaking French as the language of colonizer, this is one kind. Derrida goes beyond the particular to show that the idea of monolingualism is not simplistic. Crépon builds on the understanding that the colonized has no other language than that of the colonizer, but that all cultures are always colonized, because a culture comes into being through the question of naming, giving names, which is a function of language and calls language into being."

Naming sets Chang and Cronen off again (providing me descriptive data for "saying something," according to Chang). [Note: the provided link is not particular to the discussion, it merely invokes the complexity.]

It was suggested that "The point behind this extension of monolingualism is so that it is not understood as the empirical problem cultural studies tries to make it but rather a broader problem that applies to all of us: we all only ever speak one language and we never speak only that language." I am not familiar enough with cultural studies to know the (attempted?) formulation of this "empirical problem" - and I certainly won't speculate (although I am curious!)

Meanwhile, Lankala continues:

"What Crépon is doing to extend Derrida’s notion is to explore: how do we go beyond this situation, what do we do to go beyond this restrictive monolinuguaism that we all share? Derrida suggests the way beyond is to invent one’s language as one is speaking it. This is something Derrida associates with translation as a radical way to call language into question, to call identitiy into question. Not in the simple sense of from one source language to another, but a translation without sources, which only has a target language, which only has arrival; in its arrival it creates its own sources. This radical idea is what Crépon extends. How to invent new language to go beyond the monolingualism of the other that is a common situation for all."

The subsequent exchange between Cronen and Chang was much too quick to transcribe adequately, here are the main points that I think I can parse from the words I managed to capture.

Cronen questions the privileging of the speaker, the one who speaks, i.e., the one who names over "the responsiveness of the other." His argument is that there is no stability of language - any language - without a correspondence of action/response between the speech of one and the responsiveness of another. Cronen goes so far as to say that "the emphasis on naming is fundamentally misplaced" and poses "joint action" instead.

"Where," Chang asks, "does that joint come from" Joint, you already presuppose jointed, being joined. That is la langue, the package." Cronen illustrates by describing how a child learns language only through interaction. Chang concedes "two facts: we all have a father and a mother, and we speak," agree also with Cronen's emphasis on vision. Later, Cronen will characterize this vigorous exchange between them as a horror to those with a strict or narrow conception of dialogue, and Chang will call it "quotidian. We do this every day."

Hmmm. Yes. I am getting ready to "say something" (but certainly not everything! and guaranteed not yet well enough) by building on the use I made of their exchange to illustrate a distinction between representation and symbolism. After some more discussion on Derrida's emphasis on language, Lankala asserts, "The whole question of naming comes up because he’s talking of language as the force which calls culture into being, and culture is nothing but this whole process of naming."

• Lankala: Leaving Derrida’s book aside, how can one disagree that culture is nothing but naming? Culture means singular. The point exists because someone is naming someone else…. It exists because it is named as a culture….. [this is] "naming" properly understood; it is not making things ostensive.


• Cronen: Then what is [language]?


• Chang: [Language] allows us to call things out from their natural state, again. Not fixing a lexicon, it is about establishing presence.


• Cronen: [The] complexitiy [is] in the interactive process.


• Chang: No. Naming – we found the point of disagreement. Interaction makes no sense without naming having already taken place.

It is this "point of disagreement" that I will take up, eventually. First, here is the rest of my re-construction of the conversation. Lankala moves to another interesting question:

"the relationship that Crépon makes between language and how language is appropriated in movements seeking nationalism or defining identity. [Crépon uses a] completely opposite definition of what language should mean from the way language is generally used in more mainstream cultural studies tradition, [which is] as the language of the colonizer or language of the oppressed without calling into question or breaking apart what language actually is, what its function is in defining that movement or culture, where is it from. [Derrida and Crépon’s] move goes one step beyond the relationship between language-culture to discuss the functional role of language in creating a culture….."

What ensues is a discussion of how forced multilingualism can lead to monolingualism (e.g., the case of India), and problems of language being misconceived as a possession - the "mother tongue," as if language exists outside of/beyond the "me," which returns us to the beginning assumptions of appropriation (for identity construction: of "self", "culture," "nation," etc.)

• Cronen adds that promise is "linked to the notion that meaning is not just a presence but a pointing-into the future" (drawing on William James).
• Chang: A promise never promises anything, nothing but another promise. This is why it is linked to time, the future; that’s why they smuggle in Kant (law) and Kafka, how can they assemble these ideas together?!
• Cronen: Dewey [also, with his notion of] ends in view, not fixed. Using my vocabulary, [there is] always a punctuality, not a destination, [there is] always opening up, even when we think we’ve fulfilled ... still [there] opens up a new horizon of possibility
• Chang: If fulfilled, [a promise] is not a promise any more, it is not promising.

Finally the giants (!) relented enough (!) to let us peons into the fray. :-)

I mentioned the ideas I'm working on regarding interpretation as a way to keep promising, to keep language and meaning in motion. George asked about the use of the term, "political." Ellen brought in the notion of "power."

The entire 90 minutes rocked!

Received via email, March 21, 2008:

"I understand you're using my book in your course this semester. May I ask how you're using it? Colleges all over are adopting my book for a wide range of classes, and I try and see how it's used.

If it's a major part of a class, perhaps I could stop by and talk to your students.

Best wishes
John Elder Robison"

Hi John,

I am glad you contacted me.

How did you find out that I'm using your book?!

I like the idea of you coming to the class. I need to think about how and when. The course is "group dynamics" - we are studying ourselves going through stages of group development, which means self-reflection and interpersonal communication skills are crucial. The Aspergian way of stating the obvious (i.e., what you observe, think, and feel) is a trait that I admire and find immeasurably useful in groups who seek to understand relationships among themselves (say, within the group of students and me in this course) and between them/ourselves and others (e.g., people in other classes at UMass; people who aren't in college; or people in college in other countries).

The first idea that comes to my mind - if this seems good to you? - is to have you read and respond to some of the public conversation that I've structured through the use of weblogs (I have one for teaching, and each student has created one for certain assignments). If that goes well, then you could come to the class in person...

What do you think?

"If your students have blogs on this tell me where they are and I'll look."

I wrote about your book for the first time today, in the blog I use for teaching. Students will probably not do their homework and respond until next Sunday or Monday, but there are many links to their work/writing so far if you want to get a sense of how things are developing: Why are you writing sideways?

Hi John,

A friend read the same link I sent you and said it is "thick." I know. The links to student blogs are way at the end, when I'm writing about the various cultural terms that they analyzed. (Or you can wait until they post replies to that blogpost and then follow the links.)

Class was not well attended yesterday (first day after spring break) but half-a-dozen students had read your book completely and others were a third of the way into it. They really wanted to talk about it! Obviously they benefited and were excited. I will post some pictures from notes I wrote on the board and send you that link when it's ready.

steph

"Steph,

Your use of my book in this context is unlike any other application I've seen to date. And that's interesting to me. And I do agree, the blog entry is "thick."

I have talked to parents, people on the autism spectrum, special ed teachers, psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists, and many other sorts of specialists.

You, however, stand distinctly apart from all those folks.

You wrote:
Robison's tendency was to answer "with whatever I had been thinking." This is not so different, in my mind, from people who simply say the first thing that comes to mind. Neither response involves any anticipation - there is no forward-in-time quality of considering how the thing one says might lead to a certain kind of outcome, be it as mundane as a polite social interaction or as intense as a long-term relationship. And then, even within the range of possible responses that one might choose among, hoping that they might lead to the outcome you want (or at least one that you dimly perceive or otherwise don't outright dislike), you can still get it wrong.

To me, the interesting phrase there is: Neither response involves any anticipation

To have anticipation, I think one must have a grasp of what the autism shrinks call Theory of Mind, or the recognition that other people have their own unique thoughts.

I am very focused, and very driven. In many cases, I enter into exchanges with other people with some goal in mind. That goal may be to buy, sell, learn, teach, etc. It could be almost anything. However, even though I may have such a goal clearly in mind, I may still answer with whatever I am thinking about.

For me, there may not be a clear and strong connection between the stream of words I address to a person, and my overarching goal in the ongoing interaction with that person. Yes, while that response is happening, I still retain an anticipation; an overall goal for my dealing with the person. It's just that the actual spoken words may not take me closer to the goal; indeed, they may take me farther away.

As a child, that was a nearly insurmountable problem as I described in the book. As an articulate and mentally agile adult, it's usually something I can recover from in the ongoing stream of conversation.

I see new twists to this stuff every day. Very interesting.

Best wishes
John"

UMass will host an extraordinary event in early April: Landscapes of Violence. I approach it with two trajectories, one from the Dialogue under Occupation conferences (DUO 1 in Chicago, 2006; DUO 2 in the West Bank, 2007). The "dialogue" of the DUO conferences is still
"young" (as in, "new" for us in conversation with each other), but I remain hopeful that we academics and activists will be the ones to learn to talk soldiers and politicians toward other tactics. If not us, who?

I am not sure if this event in December, "States of Exception, Surveillance and Population Management: The Case of Israel/Palestine," is directly related to - or an outgrowth of - the work of DUO II participants, but the content certainly overlaps. Perhaps there is a dialogic trajectory we can build?

In considering the upcoming UMass conference, am also considering the students in the Group Dynamics course I'm teaching. Several of them mentioned concerns with a recent string of threats on campus (three messages, found in three different locations on different days, with similar content). Of course many in the campus community were affected by the shootings at Virginia Tech ... this instances are not comparable to the systemic and horrible repetitions of violence being played out among Palestinians and Israelis (or, arguably, among Colombians - with/against FARC and/or the paramilitaries and between Colombia and Venezuela) - but these are the touchpoints of violence in the lives of young U.S. Americans with which we must work.

Writing and Violence, April 20, 2007
We are Virginia Tech, April 21, 2007
"a matter of language", April 26, 2007

The first-year students' College Writing CourseWiki has a record of student reactions to a bomb scare last fall. These were captured serendipitously as a coincidence of the day's assignment with the threat of violence.

At least one student in this semester's Group Dynamics course is vocal about hating politics (i.e., "I hate politics"), and seems intent (evidence of argumentative rhetoric?) to make sure (evidence of nonverbal behaviors?) that the product designed by this semester's course doesn't "go" in that direction...I am sure he is not the only one who feels this, even if he is the most forthcoming about it. What a tension to resolve, isn't it? The world we live in is brutal, even if - here at mostly-cushy UMass - we are protected and insulated from having the day-to-day violence in our faces . . .

Which way will this bit of public (!) feedback be read?

1. "these awkward scenarios Steph likes to impose on us."


2. "these awkward scenarios Steph likes to impose on us."


3. "...despite these awkward scenarios Steph likes to impose on us?"

Now, THAT is a beautiful example for an in-class test!