Class Notes November 29 [Lusk]

Class Notes

November 29

Ellen. Some business. Happy to announce and early finalist has already been selected to come and talk. Fred Moten(sp?). A theorist of contemporary performance and queer studies. Stay tuned for dates. This class would be an ideal audience.  When more information arises, it will be posted onto oncourse.

Amy. Before we get started, I wanted to say a little bit about the comments on the posts. Ellen and I rotate on the response.

Ellen. Know that you can come to our offices anytime to talk about anything.

Amy. Let’s start with the ‘rereading’ to frame the rereading that we did. MY question is the culminating question, at the end she says let me sketch the scenario for this new story. This new story is the result from this rereading. What does she mean by this new story? What’s the value? How did she get there? MY question is a way to see if we can’t articulate her goals and achievements going from the end backward.  This is on page 183.  My question is what does she mean by a new story?

Whitney. She is talking about the rise of the novel.

Amy. What would be another way of saying new story.

Whitney. I think she wants to rewrite history to include women writers and less central novels to rewrite the way we view history.

Ming. Re-evaluation. Bottom of pg 183. I was interested in the way she made characterization a part of that but I didn’t understand that.  Am I wrong to think that is apart of this new story notion?

Amy. No. You’re dead on.

Derek.  Does it have something to do with how scholars find new themes or create new zeitgeist. Altering suddenly what everyone feels is hot. In a way it’s a new sense of narrative. She’s sketching a new narrative of how the next big thing might be constructed. That’s how I interpreted it.

Ellen. Reading is conservative versus rereading means reframing. This relates to the question of formation she brings up.

Amy. And through this process there becomes on of the things that opens up is the possibility of category-ship. The story you told yourself about the rise of the novel can change. She says here at the end of pg 184 “Reads passage.” So part of it is also, you have to then see why it’s a story and not fact is also she is articulating the constructive nature of it.

Derek. What do you mean by that?

Amy. Meaning if you can reread a novel and notice something different and a different. Then it’s true forever and always that a novel is about one thing.

Justin. But she doesn’t discredit the first reading. It just reaffirms it. It doesn’t disappear or negates it. The idea of an accumulation and not a subtraction.

Ellen. What is the difference when it comes to academic rereading. You read and reread for pleasure is different from doing so academically. That seems particularly useful for our purposes. So I think we should focus in on it. So what happens when one rereads anemically that makes critique that came before past readings possible. What do we need to bring to this process of academic rereading?

Andrea. In the last paragraph she sums it up as professional rereading is a public thing, while recreational is private. And at the beginning she talks about professional rereading is reading with a purpose. You have something in mind, or perhaps your open to a new idea to come to you from the reading.

Amy. Do you all have methods of rereading? How do you render that lens?

Ming. I feel like the people I’m talking to in my head grow in numbers. There is definitely more people in the audience in my brain, but when I’m reading for pleasure I’m the only audience.

Justin. It points to how my rereading has to change. My rereading has always been about reaffirming what I believed the first time around.

Ellen. So you’re speaking in terms of what is the take away from the argument.

Sara. I felt vindicated in reading that poem over and over again for her dissertation. It was also the things that I have reread the most is the Brecht we read in this class. Yet, each time I read it, it’s complex enough that I read it thoroughly and I have different ideas.

Justin. Have you ever tracked the rereadings?

Sara. I keep notes on how my thoughts evolve. I think there are eliminates of the stuplime and perhaps it’s a stuplime experience to reread it.

Amy. I don’t know if that’s stuplime.

Ellen. She accounts for that. Talking about how rereading is a hall of mirrors. That for her a reason to disregard the text from the teaching pile. At the point when the text is no longer yielding anything to you, means you should put it aside.

Derek. Say you have to. You have to work with that text and you’re faced with that situation of bouncing through the hall of mirrors, how do you make yourself see it fresh and come at it through a fresh angle?

Ellen. Isn’t that what she says? A purpose without a definite purpose? You have to compel someone. Perhaps 500 graduates. To me, it’s purpose driven. The purpose is you don’t know what the reading is. You are looking for something to grab on to. What kind of stories come from rereading. I’ve had the experience of teaching a text that I’ve read for the first time. Usually that’s a recipe for disaster. What I find interesting are not things that my students find interesting. It seems to me important to ask what the different kind of something’s are there. Start with what kind of reading is this that is different from the initial rereading.

Courtney. Fresh insights are generated by what is going on and who you are talking to in the past couple months. So coming at it new, is just a new insight on something. That seems interesting to me. That happened to me rereading Jackson.

Amy. Great. Let’s use this as a Segway What did you notice this time?

Whitney. I reread the Berlant, and for me something I noticed was the section headings.  It was pretty difficult for me to figure out what the argument was, but reading the section headings helped me realize that her argument is more about defining historical affects. For me the structure and headings.

Andrea. I reread David, particularly about transport. I recognized more her focus on sympathy. The new thing was this piece the second time through reminded me a lot of Eb whites essay a ring of time, he talks about some very similar things with spontaneity and that being opposed to theatricality.

Courtney. I reread the Roach, and what got me this time I almost couldn’t get passed his methods and noting he almost takes a full page to justify his choices of London and New Orleans. I kept noting the argument.

Jess. I reread the Artaud. And generally when I first read something I do a sloppy job. When I reread something it’s generally for an assignment or a paper and I’m looking for something. Like I’m hunting for something. But with this rereading I looked over the whole and got more of a macro sense. And I know when I read it for this class I was more interesting in finding the theory.

Ming. I reread States. He happened early on and I was so unfamiliar with Theory reading it was fun to bring in those other authors. Artaud was in their a lot because of all the metaphors. And it was also kind of fun to recognize some things that Is till find mysterious. Like the tendencies of performance theorist to assign agency to them. So it was fun to identify with things I was preoccupied.

Jenna. I reread Harris, which I struggled with on the first read in tracking through and terms. Which is why I chose to read it again and hoped it would be interesting. When I reread it there was a certain sense of a freedom with the more familiarity of terms. But now I didn’t have to latch on to something. I felt like I was able to comprehend the argument more clearly. I would like to read it again and hopefully I can find something again.

Justin. I reread Jackson. The first time I was focused on performativity and her definition and changing definition through out. And the second time through I pulled out her ideas of roles for cultural capitol as well as capital capital. But also with the theatricality and Davis and the sympathy empathy, and it not being a conscious choice.

Iris. I read Artaud. The first time I came across it I was reading it for content. I found it off-putting and it made me nervous. Going back a second time, I read it like he was a crazy man in a nursing home and that made me appreciate it so much more. I think I was unnerved by all the stuff he talks about and how he is anti-textual but seeing it as a manifesto, I could find a lot of magic and wonder in it that I didn’t before.

Derek. I read the Taylor article. And this time through I was having a more distant reading of it and less fully emotionally engaged topic and what she was talking abut. I found myself relating more to what I hadn’t noticed the first time through. Mainly the key words. And they all seem to relate to things that’ve happened recently. Like a small community of watchers being transfixed. She talks later about an archival impulse. It made me think of my own blogs. And she goes on about state control and ideology. Which from readings in other classes made me think of the first gulf war and cultural studies stuff. And then that in connection with her use of photography to control. And taking back that control from the state. And then finally she has thins thing about paying to participate. And that has to do with commodification.

Dorothy. I reread the Wheeler. The name change did effect my rereading of it. But reading her background, She is not a Hawaiian. And whether or not you can trust a polemic. This is pretty prevalent in fields I’m in. And I wonder if she agrees with it. And that kind of brings up my own acceptance with it.  It’s also interesting that it’s a reading about rereading.

Cody. I read Ngai This time I noticed I was much more interested in why she was choosing the works she did to talk about stuplimity. Before I was focused on trying to understand the words she was using. I would skip examples so I could understand what SHE was trying to say. This time I was more interested why she was only looking at Becket and Stein and why not use one of another language. How could looking at a medieval text and see how that stuplimity.

Sara. I read the Roach. Mostly because I read it three or four times before and I wanted to see how I would professionally reread something. And I guess what was most evident to me was the structure of his writing and in attempting to rewrite this. Roach really positions himself in the genealogy of performance studies. I could greater appreciate him calling forth names and positioning them with names in the present. The relationship he creates there.

Ellen. I want to say I did this to. I read the Berlant the Ngai the Davis the Dolan and the Hawaiian name. In keeping with the argument, juxtaposition suggests you’re looking for some kind of pattern or connection or link. That language and Berlant’s non-cathartic language. Berlant at the end has a very telling phrase she says__________  (Got lost and didn’t get) I was interested in their use of dramatic language. And both of them as theatrical examples. How can you talk about becket and not talk about becket as a playwright?

Dorothy. That reminded me of something that was in the Hawaiian article. The idea that there being things outside of your field of competence and thusly you don’t write them. That extreme specificity of academia. or you write about them as a playwright but you assume the play part is not integral to your dissection.

Amy. I read the Harris the Taylor the Artaud and the state. And what I was struck with was from the Jackson. What I was interested in was the way in which she reminds us to take a look at our own critical discipline and our own key terms and to question our own assumptions. And ask ourselves what am I leaving out? What am I not seeing? And that also, I thought was interesting in the way in which she takes about interdisciplinary identity. It shifts the perspective of them over there and them as us. And being cognicient of knowing your location in a certain genealogy. And the other thing I was taken with was again the fact that she starts with this dialogue and how that works persuasively. and I was taken with this in thinking about how we perform our scholarship through explanation and persuasion in groups that don’t agree with us. How do we not choke on our food and look embarrass and leave the room. But how do we find ways to speak across the disciplines and not get into hostile territory.

Ellen. Let’s talk about the Jackson. Did it spark any epiphanies? Was it helpful with a second go through? There were two chunks of texts in here that I thought were really useful. One is on page four. the end of the paragraph that ends mid page. “Scholarship looks interesting to some…….” All of these complaints seem to me implicit and complacent. The second moment, top of page 15 “In some performances its about doing. It’s about seeing…” It seems this is a way to make the subject impossible. TO me now it seems like a really helpful prompt. When you write your review. Talk about how it’s more real or less real. There is something particularly problematic about the reviews we looked at, they don’t embrace the defining paradox that are at the heart of the form itself. And that is profoundly unsatisfying. When you read a review of a show you’ve seen. It’s so frustrating seeing an account that neatly wraps up the experience you had in a number of stars or thumbs.

Dorothy. It made me think about the ideas in terms of openness. When you’re doing academic work not in the sense that it is a review, but you have to relay the point that you believe is true. You might change the way I view this point, but it’s not the point.

Ellen. I would say you have to argue something. Of course you have a reading and a series of responses, but to think about them in terms of what the keys are and in how they orchestrate something within you seems to me so much more fruitful. The theatre scene of Chicago may not be the most literary complex zone to look for reviews. But it was very telling. It certainly structures an audience. The only way to get around such thumbs up, thumbs down responses, which are really unthinking responses, is to have a culture of subjective. Don’t avoid saying things that are risky, but theatre is risky.

Amy. I’m glad you brought up that quote on four about the different methods of standards of evidence. I’m curious if we can deploy that thinking in terms of that reading we read. We have read text from a wide range of disciplinarians. Can you notice some of the disciplinary standards of evidence that fit for you or fault o fit?

Dorothy. I felt that way about Roach. I didn’t think it was a bad piece of writing. There was some things that were a little less able t convey the points he was using the examples he choice.

Amy. Was there a procedural flaw? Page four.

Ellen. This could also speak to her discussion of cross disciplinary.

Dorothy. Perhaps the naïve when it assumes a real historical reference.

Andrea. Our discussion of Bernstein and that the scriptive object.

Amy. Do you find in your disciplinary of you, is to find the standards of evidence. There are plenty of people in theatre scholarship who have no interest in it being theoretical.  Do you have a sense what is most important for your area/field? Or your future?

Dorothy. You should field obliged to go back and read the people you wrote about and agree with their opinions.

Ming. I Guess I Saw Jacksons project as “I’m situating this within the academic conversation’.  I’ve only read one text that argues for creative writing in those terms, and sort of appropriates theoretical language in the university. By and large its not really a concern that comes up in conversations I’ve had in my program. It was at the end of Jackson, I wondered if I should have to justify what I do to the forces that be. But if I had to, I think she’s a pretty good model for how to say this is why I deserve to be sanctioned in those terms.

Ellen. Jackson is not making a claim or performance and theater studies. And yet I believe you’re right to say that she is making a claim for it. This is a way to understand performance studies as a way of the American university. But I’m wondering what the rest of you may think what the claim may be of the particular worth of performance studies to universities. Why stick with it? Why have these attempts with a conversionary accounts in this field. 

Justin. I’ve seen performance studies displace theatre studies. IT’s not that performance studies isn’t finding a place at the table, it’s that its pushing it aside.

Ellen. Do you feel that Jackson was successful that she wants people at the table?

Justin. I think she overlooked that aspect, she didn’t question that would happen.

Courtney. What it does for me, is it gives me a place I can put the practical as someone from the English department. IT’s a balance between theory and practice.

Sara. As someone who wanted a PhD in performance studies. I think northwester is a good example who founded a performance studies department but then founded a new one that crossed that with theatre.  It’s an interesting conundrum because most performance studies are merging with Film and TV and forgetting theatre. After that process I felt that a certain number of us need to be the people who keep history and keep faith with history. So we can reel in these performance studies people.

Ellen. Rereading Jackson, what became extremely clear, although it’s clearly soft peddled in this argument. There is an interesting way in how she begins with this story, which may or may not be real, but everything she says here is a very loaded critique. So it’s a very delicate argument. And one side of it that was over delicate, that became clear to me upon rereading. It’s on page five. The initial quotation from John. About the divide between the laboring community and the intellectual community. The first time I read this, I didn’t give it too much thought. But it’s clear over the course of this argument that theatre and performance studies. That is a venue that can’t be touched. Her personal academic trajectory is performer and director and playwright and very polished academics. They are very interesting people. And one particular point she is making, the issue of class in the academy. The position of the artist inside the academy. They’re usually on contract. Not tenure. She lives that complexity the way most academics don’t. Ultimately that is what makes very distinct our theatre program. Art history does not have artists in it. but in theatre, when a practitioner gets Tenure the committee is made up of practitioners and artists.  One way to imagine the world of theatre and performance, is to say it’s heartbreaking and incredibly tedious and frustrating, but there has got to be another side of it as well.

Amy. Part of our job is to be intellectual citizens that can speak to people who don’t necessarily think like us. IT’s much easier to roll my eyes at people in my department who have no interest in what I do.  I don’t know what the right answer is, but I think it is a part of the job to not just go home rolling your eyes and drinking heavily. IT’s finding the language.