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Dictionary of Critical Terms, Installment # 003:
Term 001--Ebonics: As defined in Chapter 11 of Lois Tyson's Critical Theory Today;
"...double consciousness sometimes involves speaking two languages. Black culture lived at home sometimes includes the use of African American Vernacular English (AAVE, also called Ebonics or Black Vernacular English) (346)
In relation to language, the origin of the term is unclear. The word itself, ebonic, was used in an advertisement related to a dance in Iola, Kansas in 1934;
"Andy Kirk and his 12 Clouds of Joy: Enjoy that Hi-de-ho ebonic rhythm as only Andy can play it...3D's Nightclub" (Iola Daily Register, 3)
Another newspaper article (The Pittsburgh Courier, 12 April 1952) references the word as used by Nat D Williams in 1952: "according to some ebonic folks.."
Williams was a disc jockey so the word apparently has its origin from music.
In contemporary language modeling, the term is considered a hybrid of "ebony" and "phonics" and credited to Robert L. Williams of Washington University, as noted in Dorothy K. Williamson-Ige's 1984 Journal of Black Studies article, citing Williams and Rivers;
"Ebonics is defined as the linguistic and paralinguistic features which on a concentric continuum represent the communicative competence of West African, Caribbean and United States slave descendants of African origin. Ebonics includes the various idioms, patois, argots, ideolects and social dialects of these people." (Williamson-Ige, 22-23)
Further on, Williamson-Ige cites another scholar, E.A. Smith, with reference to other culturespeak;
"no one refers to English spoken by Indians as 'red English' or that of Chinese as 'yellow English..." (25)
The use of ebonics locally is what led to controversy in the Oakland school district involving the teaching of it in the classroom in 1996; (Los Angeles Times)
Iola (KS) Daily Register, 21 Sept 1934, Page 3
Pittsburgh Courier, 12 April 1952.
Tyson, L., African American Criticism, Critical Theory Today, Routledge, 2015
Williams, R. L. 1975 Ebonics: The true language of Black folks. St. Louis: Institute of Black Studies. (see link below)
Williamson-Ige, Dorothy K. “Approaches to Black Language Studies: A Cultural Critique.” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 15, no. 1, 1984, pp. 17–29. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2784114. Accessed 12 Apr. 2020.
Oakland school district, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-12-20-mn-11042-story.html
"...or the spoken quality of its language, gives a literary work a sense of its immediacy... In African American literature, orality is usually achieved by using Black Vernacular English and by copying the rhythms of black speech. “ (369)
Hiram Walker, the runaway slave in Ta-Nehisi Coates' antebellum novel, The Water Dancer, is forced to play a brutal game when he is captured and allowed to run again to see how far he can get before being recaptured;
"I would need all the assets I could manage. And so in my mind I began to call out the very anthems that Lem and I exchanged that last Holiday:
Going away to the great house farm
Going on up to where the house is warm
When you look for me, Gina, I'll be far gone." (Coates, 146)
The "great farm house" may represent a particular "patois" or "argot" of the vernacular of the antebellum Virginia tobacco farm slave; in Coates' terminology, the "Tasked," to separate them from the master, or "Quality." When he is captured again, suffering from an injured ankle, he shouts, this time, "out loud for all to hear;"
Going away to the great farm house
Going up, but won't be long
Be back, Gina, with my heart and my song. (148)
This enforces the Williamson-Ige definition of African-American Vernacular English from the term "ebonics" above with relation to its roots in West African, Caribbean and slave origin.
Tyson, L., African American Criticism, Critical Theory Today, Routledge, 2015
Coates, T., The Water Dancer, One World, NY, 2019
Term 003--Sissy: As defined in Chapter 4 of Lois Tyson's Critical Theory Today;
"Clearly, one of the most devastating verbal attacks to which a man can be subjected is to be compared to a woman. Thus, being a 'real' man in patriarchal culture requires that one hold feminine qualities in contempt." (Tyson, 84)
A trace of the origin of the term leads all the way back to the middle of the Nineteenth century but it came into predominate use around President Theodore Roosevelt's time, with an example in the short essay titled "The Boyhood of a Sissie," by Adam Beaseley, Having been tagged a "Sunday school monstrosity," the label had its advantages;
"...not a boy in all the school ever wanted to fight me. Who would fight a Sissie?" (Beaseley, 1193)
Beaseley admitted fearing everything from the bullies in the schoolyard to being alone in the dark, he was jealous of his own sister;
"But I had a sister two years younger, a bouncing tomboy, who was everything I ought to have been, and who despised me for liking too well to play with the girls." (1193)
It was acceptable for a young girl to be a tomboy but not for a boy to be weak and effeminate. He was "persecuted with kisses" and wouldn't even let his "manly" sister kiss him.
Tyson doesn't address the polar opposite of sissy, that being a "tomboy," the girl who usually in adolescence rejects feminine traits and acts more like "one of the boys." As C. Lynn Carr notes in her journal article for Gender and Society;
"As 'aberrant' girls or pseudo boys, tomboys are ambiguous entities, begetting ambiguous reactions in both the mainstream and academe. While tomboys are granted more social and parental acceptance than their 'sissy' counterparts due to tomboy display of socially rewarded masculine traits or behaviors, and/or beliefs that tomboyism is temporary, tomboy is also a pejorative label, implying gender deviance.” (Carr, 530)
Using case histories, Carr makes a strong argument for why girls want to be like boys as opposed to Beaseley's wimpy justification for not wanting to be a man. Evident from Carr, the tomboy may find a place in a patriarchal culture far more easily.
Tyson, L., Feminist Criticism, Critical Theory, Routledge, 2015
Beaseley, A., "The Boyhood of a Sissie," The Independent, Vol. LIII, No. 2718, 3 January 1901,
Carr, C. Lynn. “Tomboy Resistance and Conformity: Agency in Social Psychological Gender Theory.” Gender and Society, vol. 12, no. 5, 1998, pp. 528–553. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/190119. Accessed 19 Apr. 2020.
Term 004--Indeterminacy: As defined in Chapter 4 of Lois Tyson's Critical Theory Today;
“...indeterminate meaning, ... refers to ‘gaps’ in the text--such as actions that are not clearly explained or that seem to have multiple explanations--which allow or even invite readers to create their own interpretations.” (166)
Along with its counterpart, determinacy, it is a method by which reader response criticism opens the door for interpretation of a text beyond the meaning implied by the author. Citing this Wolfgang Iser theory, an actual distinction with respect to reader response can be found in Menachem Brinker’s comparison in Poetics Today of Iser to the aesthetician Roman Ingarden;
“In finding material for the removal of textual indeterminacies the reader draws on his own experience (in life and literature) in order to bring into existence a whole ‘world’ of represented objects. The concretization of the representational stratum is more clearly dependent on the personality and experience of the reader; the demands made upon the reader in connection with it are unique. Without meeting them partially at least, there is no way of turning ‘the work’ into an aesthetic.” (Brinker, 203)
Brinker refers to Ingarden’s concept of authorial intention, as found in Tyson (130) and calls him out, through Iser, for still showing the “influence of classical aesthetics.” It is then carried one step further by looking at the reader’s intention. Brinker’s strongest point is with the introduction of gestalt to define the process of indeterminacy;
“On the basis of a consistent ‘reading,’ i.e., a coherent organization of information given to the reader at various places, the reader will form various Gestalten. This construction will be linked to the rejections of alternative ‘readings’ and to the neglect of various aspects or materials which do not fit the chosen Gestalt. The continuation of reading may cast doubt on the validity of the Gestalt.” (206)
Gestalt is defined as the whole being more than the sum of its parts. This fits well into Tyson’s transactional process including the New Critic process of the “single best reading.”. (166)
Tyson, L., African American Criticism, Critical Theory Today, Routledge, 2015
Brinker, Menachem. “Two Phenomenologies of Reading: Ingarden and Iser on Textual Indeterminacy.” Poetics Today, vol. 1, no. 4, 1980, pp. 203–212. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1771896. Accessed 19 Apr. 2020.
Reflection:
The first two terms, ebonics and orality, are similar as they represent language not considered formal in a linguistics sense. Also known as “Standard American English,” it is considered the language of the nation and in some cases, in some states, the “official” language. Between linguistics and anthropology that isn’t always the case. One finds there are innumerable dialects, vernaculars, hoodspeaks and what is also classified as code-switching and code-mixing in everyday conversations. Modern literature demands a knowledge of all of the aspects and variations of language, from the military jargon of Going After Cacciato to the gang rap of My Pafology.
The third term, sissy, is almost self-explanatory as one of the chosen-four with my experience in the military. No tough guy wants to be called one and at the same time, no tough guy wants to be considered a representative of the patriarchal society in which he was raised. We are caught in the crossfire of an obsolete socially acceptable norm and the modern world with its cultural demands.
I found Beaseley’s short essay very funny but also very true, probably an early anti-patriarchal reaction to the Teddy Roosevelt bully pulpit of his day. If there was no place for sissies then, there is no place for name-callers today.
Number four, indeterminacy, has taken on new meaning throughout the intellectual world, from its roots in math equations and physics to finding solid ground in literary interpretation. Its value in reading with respect to the concept of gestalt gives a clear picture of something as important as the author’s intention, that being the reader’s intention. Not every writer is an omniscient narrator and even then, misreading the intent might reveal valuable new insight in the story.
O’Brien, T., Going After Cacciato, Bantam, 1978
Everett, P., Erasure, Graywolf Press, 2001
ENG303.1002
James L'Angelle
University of Nevada, Reno
Dr. A. Johnson
24 April 2020
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Dictionary of Critical Terms, #2
Free Association-- Drawing a close parallel to word association, the technique is used in psychoanalysis when shortcomings in hypnosis were discovered by Sigmund Freud. Initially, the psychoanalyst insisted to know what was on the patient’s mind but later realized;
“...insistence was unnecessary and that copious ideas almost always arose in the patient’s mind, but that they were held back from being communicated and even from becoming conscious by certain objections put by the patient in his own way.” (Parker, 183)
In a literary work, the actual analyst-patient interaction might be substituted, as in the case of Going After Cacciato for a soldier and his superior officer;
“Cacciato,” Doc repeated, “The kid’s left us, Split for parts unknown.”
The lieutenant did not sit up. With one hand he cupped his belly, with the other he guarded a red glow. There were no vital signs in the wrists or stomach.
Here the analyst is “Doc,” the corpsman for the unit and the patient is the Lieutenant stretched out comfortably on his rack;
“Paree?” The lieutenant said softly, “Gay Paree?” (O’Brien, 3)
The suggestion was “Paris” by the analyst and the patient associated it with the phrase “Gay Paree.” Not just once, the lieutenant, refers again to Paris as being gay as the conversation continues, then associates, “gone off to gay Paree--bare ass and Frogs everywhere, the Follies Brassiere.”` (5) The initial word association led to free association and a glimpse into the lieutenant’s perception of the capital of France becomes more clear. He equates it with some sort of lascivious lifestyle of the European nation and further uses a derogatory description of the French people.
Again, the lieutenant, who utters “Dreaming” when he is on The Railroad to Paris in Chapter 21, offers a long free association story from memory when Berlin informs him they are “Almost to Chittagong.” (134-35) The lieutenant then admits he’s been to “Benning and Polk and Seoul and Hong Kong, I seen it all..” but he doesn’t mention whether he’s ever been to Gay Paree. Nowhere in the novel is there an indication as to why the lieutenant harbored his narrow and rather bigoted attitude toward the French.
In her book Vietnam and Beyond, Tim O’Brien and the Power of Storytelling, Dr. Stefania Ciocia offers possible insight into the subconscious rationalization of the lieutenant’s word and free association;
"Paris also embodies a number of more general contradictions, as the city of the Enlightenment and of Terror; a symbol of sophistication and a den of debauchery; the most romantic place in the world, but also an aggressively sensual and sexual place, particularly in the Puritan American imaginary." (Ciocia, 79)
Not only do we observe the deconstructionist concept of contradiction in Ciocia’s interpretation, which she applies specifically to the lieutenant’s remark from above, but also Lacanian imaginary. By contradiction, the term “gay” has evolved in meaning from happy, cheerful in its earliest sense when such things as follies were synonymous with Parisian nightlife, to a completely different meaning in today’s culture. Lacan’s imaginary state might describe the lieutenant’s naive, home-schooled, Christian formative years that he would freely regress to if given the opportunity. The mission would grant Corson that very chance to return to a simpler imaginary stage of his life, away from the horrors and reality of his current predicament.
Third World- As Alfred Sauvy, the French anthropologist who first coined the term with similarity to the “Third Estate” of his own nation, once noted about the European opinion that American students were only interested in football and other amusements, said:
“My first impression of American colleges was good, the second was good, the third was good and I am sure all the rest will be too.” (The Shreveport Times, 1947)
A year later, Professor Sauvy addressed the United Nations on population with relation to the United States and the Soviet Union “for the prosecution of economic and military objectives.” (Wisconsin State Journal)
By September of that year, Sauvy had drawn a distinction of three separate groups in French culture: the primary producers (farmers, miners, fishermen), direct producers (factory and transport) and indirect (bankers, bureaucrats, professionals). (York Daily Record) It was becoming more clear how he derived the conclusion of the divisions of the various “worlds.”
We cannot comprehend the evolution of the term “Third World” without looking at the framework in which it was constructed, in other words new historical and cultural criticism. Sauvy’s worldview was one of an existential conflict between two polar forces, capitalism and communism. In that framework, a Geertzian thick description forces a detailed examination of, as Tyson explains;
“...birthing practices, ritual ceremonies, games, penal codes, works of art,” among other things. (Tyson, 274)
Sauvy was basing his observations of post-colonialism on Eurocentrism. It was clear that Sauvy intended to establish a new order of nations that fit into the needs of polar economic and military objectives. Those extended beyond the interests of the post-colonial emerging nations in a framework similar to the division of classes he observed in France. The result became the Third World nation, in effect, just a neo-global definition of colonialism. Outright ownership by the imperial enterprises became obfuscated when the borders were changed, but the conditions remained the same in the new nations. With independence came the rise of globalization, cheap labor in underdeveloped countries, saturated with world bank debt, corrupt infighting ethnic groups with armies and militias designed for 21st century combat.
Orientalism-- Long before Edward Said’s book came out with the same title, the word was used in phrases in a quasi-hyperbolic fashion as “sands of the sea” and “stars of heaven,” and known as an orientalism of expression. (Belmont Chronicle)
“The Lecturer then proceeded to define the boundaries of mechanical and chemical and of chemical philosophy; the difference between attraction generally and chemical attraction in particular; simple and compound chemical affinities, and the theory of definite proportions. It was a beautiful comment, he said on the text- ‘He weighs the hills in scales and the dust in the balance;’ this was no longer an orientalism, but a chemical truth.” (Bristol Daily)
Another reference to the definition can be found in an 1831 Nashville Banner newspaper article;
“What we seek is reason and argument; and we become impatient of this tone of magnificent inflation--this sort of western orientalism, which once prevailed throughout our country." (National Banner)
From the above uses of the term in the mid-1800s, it appears it meant either an embellishment, exaggeration. By late 1870, the meaning was gradually getting a new interpretation with regard to the Russo-Turkish conflict;
“I believe that he (Lord Beaconsfield) cannot, from the nature of his mind, regard the Eastern question from a purely English point of view. His judgement is warped by Orientalism.” (Northern Echo)
Here we first see the term used in a more Saidian fashion relating to attitude toward the East as viewed by a Western imperialist vision. The Harrisburg Telegraph reported in December of 1877 that “Orientalism appears again in the almost total seclusion of Russian middle-rank women within their own homes.” The term is linked to male chauvinism and sexism. The Berkeley Gazette reported in 1898 that Professor Bernard Moses rejected “a return to Orientalism” for Japan but it could not compete with the industrial rivalry of England and America, 43 years before the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Hiding in plain sight were all of the components for Edward Said’s book.
A column by J. Butterfield in the Vancouver Province relating to a review of a Madame Butterfly performance was critical of the fact that a real Japanese prima donna was brought in for the starring role. He complained under the subheading “Orientalism” she was “Hollywoodized,” in voice and mannerism and her operatic training was “Westernized.” (Vancouver Province) It was clear that not only was the Oriental viewed upon as being responsible for deceitful language, had the ability to warp judgement of the Western politician but was considered inferior industrially, a sexist and finally, accused of Western mimicry in order to placate the opera circle. It was still forty years before the publication of Edward Said’s book.
Reflection:
On free association, the term immediately resonated to Lieutenant Corson’s reaction to Cacciato going over the hill, and later to his recollection of his travels that excluded Chittagong. The result was paging again through the entire novel searching for similar reactions and there were probably more. However, when the Stefania Ciocia work was discovered, it made sense that someone else had noticed this rather glaring dialogue early on in the O’Brien novel and its implications. Much more could have been said on the association, regression and other aspects of Freud but it would have required several pages instead of paragraphs.
The term Third World proved especially interesting and following its etymology led to the bias read into it by its author, Alfred Sauvy. Nowhere was the term considered anything more than the semi-official term that has been so often used without an understanding as to how Sauvy arrived at the term. It was never meant to be what it means today as with so many other terms where meaning changes as time passes. Sauvy may have launched his multi-world concept with good intentions, but hidden in the meaning there appears dark reference to exploitation economically and militarily of underdeveloped nations.
Orientalism was never a term that struck a negative tone. Murder on the Orient Express was a 1934 romantic murder mystery by Agatha Christie that created imagery of adventure, excitement and faraway exotic appeal. Hercule Poirot became the French antithesis to Sherlock Holmes, but with a more sophisticated appeal. If word association could be brought into the reflection, Christie’s novel would be the immediate response to the term. The lure of the Far East has never struck a negative chord even if the Middle East doesn’t do the same. The word Orient has a fascinating appeal no matter who says otherwise.
Sources,
Free Association-
Parker, Robert D., Critical Theory, Oxford, NY, 2012
O’Brien, T., Going After Cacciato, Broadway Books, NY, 1978
Ciocia, S., Vietnam and Beyond, Tim O’Brien and the Power of Storytelling, Liverpool U Press, Liverpool, 2012
Tyson, L., Critical Theory Today, Routledge, NY, 2015
Third World-
Alfred Sauvy, The Shreveport Times, (AP), 09 October 1947, Page 16.
French Expert, Wisconsin State Journal, 28 May 1948, Page 3.
France 3 Classes, York Daily Record, 15 Sept 1948, Page 3.
Tyson, L., New Historical and Cultural Criticism, Critical Theory Today, Routledge, NY, 2015
Orientalism--
Orientalism of expression, Belmont (Ohio) Chronicle, 21 Nov 1889, Page 1.
Orientalism, The Bristol Mercury and Daily Post, 29 Dec 1829, Page 3
Western Orientalism, Nashville Banner, 21 March 1831, Page 3
Warped by Orientalism, Northern Echo, Durham, England, 28 November 1877, page 3.
Madame Butterfly, Vancouver Province, 06 April 1935, Page 8
Christie, A., Murder on the Orient Express, (Multiple Publishers) 1934
James L'Angelle
University of Nevada, Reno
Dr. A. Johnson, Professor
12 March 2020
Undecidability-
Found on page 245 of Lois Tyson’s Critical Theory Today, the term is in relation to the Deconstruction theory of Jacques Derrida. A professor of philosophy, Derrida refused to accept the phrase “in no uncertain terms” and created a dynamic system for finding the true meaning of a text, which became a completely new way to analyze literature. In order to better understand the term, it is useful to break it down into its root, prefix and suffix. It is also useful to place it into context of the era in which it arose with relation to Derrida, that being the interwar years of the last century. The first process is linguistic, the second is referred to as historicizing.
The root of the word is decision, defined as “a determination arrived at after consideration.” (MW) The definition leaves it to the researcher as to how that decision is to be reached, which methods are used. The two most relevant are deductive and inductive, or rather analytic and synthetic. The first draws a conclusion based on hypothesis, the second on observation. What if neither provides the results sought? What if the conclusions draw no method to make a decision? Then the research is directed toward the prospect of no conclusion, or undecided. This is precisely what Derrida discovered when he formulated his deconstruction theory regarding not just ambiguous text, but all text in general. It was based on some rather stark mathematical principles at the time related to indeterminate forms and the theory that the axioms of a system could not be used to prove the validity of that system. For literature it meant that no matter what the author might have intended, the actual meaning of the text was lost in the fog, obfuscated by the limitations of the language employed.
Onomatopoeia--
Found on page 40 of RD Parker’s Critical Theory with reference to Ferdinand de Saussure’s Structuralism, it represents the theory that word formation, creation, evolution is based on the sound it makes. A straightforward search provides only limited results. In order to get not just one of the thousands of takes on the word, the search is refined to the terms “onomatopoeia boas.” which yields references in an anthropological context related to Franz Boas. In his Handbook of American Indian Languages, Issue 1, Boas makes numerous references to the prospect of words imitating sounds. (Boas)
The particular issue is nearly 1300 pages, a monumental study that brings into account from the beginning linguistics and ethnology, following up with phonetics, changes and eventual mutation on page 996. This Boas attributes to uvularization, how the vowel across various tribes is-was pronounced, which probably led to the divergence in word-sound similarity. In light of Boas’ notations on mutation, it is difficult to accept the blanket assumption of Saussure’s interpretation on page 46 in Critical Theory as;
“ Onomatopoeia formations and interjections are of secondary importance, and their symbolic origin is in part open to dispute.” (Parker)
However, Saussure himself admitted in his Course in General Linguistics, on page 85 in Chapter III, titled “Static and Evolutionary Linguistics,” that;
“In a fortuitous state speakers took advantage of an existing and made it signal the distinction between singular and plural.” (Saussure 85)
In other words, Saussure acknowledged that word formation may not necessarily follow some structuralist hierarchy and was subject to the presence of a fortuitous state. To what ultimate degree a word was transformed from its similarity to an actual sound thus remains one of space-time, relativism and in the end, historicism.
Of course, the scope of tracing that actual transformation proved too broad an inquiry until Boas came out with his study on Native American tribes. In brief, de Saussure understood the ignorance of the individual with respect to linguistic rules, so new word formation, mutation and speech to writing formed words that did not bear a close resemblance at all to the sound.
Essentialism--
Two readings, both on 13 February 2020 related to the word, the first written by Diana Fuss titled Essentialism in the Classroom (Parker 145) and the second by Bell Hooks titled Essentialism and Experience (Parker 152). A search of the UNR library journals regarding definition of the word places it into some gender, racial, or psychological context instead of a standalone concept. The problem with that is the very bias related to experience that Fuss relates in her essay, classroom, is read into the journal articles. Hooks doesn’t seem to make a reasonable followup argument except for her reference to “marginalized groups” on page 152.
For some reason, authors in general feel the necessity to quote Aristotle to make a point, as if the long dead philosopher has some sort of monopoly on the interactions of modern groups, marginalized or otherwise. Certainly, Fuss mentions the Greek with his take on essence but overlooks his views on women and slavery, attributing his views as “classical.” (147) For the sake of progress, which might be the antithesis of essentialism, it would be wise to let the Greek lie in his grave and look for more innovative methods to examine the term.
The notion of a group marginalized, the “authority of experience,” the “dominant” groups, are brought out in Hooks’ essay but the lines appear vague. Who’s marginalized, who’s the authority, the dominant? If experience is cast upon a particular lot known as the “in-crowd,” then everyone can participate in the classroom discussion as representing some faction, some coalition, some supremacist cell or superior race.
Written by Billy Page and released by Dobie Gray in 1964, not quite making the top ten, “The ‘In’ Crowd” tells it all about who’s who;
“I'm in with the in crowd, I go where the in crowd goes
I'm in with the in crowd and I know what the in crowd knows
Anytime of the year, don't you hear? Dressing fine, making time
We breeze up and down the street, we get respect from the people we meet.” (In Crowd)
One might suspect by the very title that an individual has to be in the crowd to be somebody and the old “New Critics” might find some satisfaction in seeing the paradox in this. Even more interesting about the notion of essentialism as defined loosely in the two Parker essays is that of accepting that which furthers their position but ignoring what doesn’t.
The voice of “authority of experience” (153) draws differences between inclusion and exclusion. It ignores those who claim to represent a particular cultural background but may have little or no education at all in that culture. It’s all too easy just because someone is by race, or ethnic identity, black, Asian, white, or otherwise to be a spokesman for that group. Where would we categorize, if that’s the case, the author of Soul on Ice, Eldridge Cleaver, identified as a spokesman for the Black Panther movement in the 1960s, who stated;
“I became a rapist. To refine my technique and modus operandi, I started out by practicing on black girls in the ghetto...and when I considered myself smooth enough, I crossed the tracks and sought out white prey.” (MacKinnon 382)
The voice of experience, Eldridge Cleaver, representing the marginalized oppressed African-American, one voice conveniently forgotten. One cannot say that Cleaver didn’t represent his culture, he was just ignorant of his own place in it. The movement itself gradually faded away into the dustbin of history.
Experience in the classroom has its place just like everything else, it can contribute, it can be the source of divisiveness and animosity. It may or may not be the place to practice essentialism, and essentialism may be best left to Aristotle and go to the grave with him.
Sources
Undecidability-
Tyson, L.,, Deconstructive Criticism, Critical Theory Today, Third Edition, 2015, Routledge, NY (Pages 235-266)
Decision, MW, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/decision
Onomatopoeia-
Parker, RD, Critical Theory, “Course in General Linguistics,” de Saussure, F., (1916), Oxford Press, NY, 2012 (pages 37-48)
Boas, F., Handbook of American Indian Languages, US Govt Printing Office, 1911
https://books.google.com/books?id=WtcuAAAAYAAJ&dq=onomatopoeia+boas&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Saussure, Critical Theory, page 46.
De Saussure, F., Course in General Linguistics, Translated by Wade Baskin, Columbia U Press, NY, 1958,
Essentialism-
Fuss, D., “Essentialism in the Classroom,” Parker, RD, Critical Theory, oxford, NY, 2012 (Pages 145-151)
Hooks, B., “Essentialism and Experience (1994),” Parker, R.D., Critical Theory, Oxford, NY, 2012 (Pages 152-159)
‘In’ Crowd lyrics, https://www.songfacts.com/lyrics/dobie-gray/the-in-crowd
MacKinnon, C.A., Women’s Lives, Men’s Laws, Harvard Press, Cambridge, 2005
Reflection---
Undecidability was chosen because it was a word that separated itself on the page from everything else. I immediately thought of its application in the upcoming paper on Going After Cacciato and will be very valuable as a thesis in that paper. By the same token Onomatopoeia stood out in the de Saussure essay. The third, Essentialism, stemmed from the discussion on Thursday and the role of experience in the classroom. The responses showed a strong agreement that experience is valuable and has a place in education although I don’t think I could give a better definition of essentialism without far more research.
James L’Angelle
ENG303.1002
University of Nevada, Reno
Dr. A. Johnson
16 February 2020
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