I really enjoyed this article not only for its content but also because of the fluidity of the words. I had never read Minh-ha's work but had heard wonderful things about her writing. The way she writes, although for an academic purpose, sounds almost poetic. I didn't feel stressed when reading this piece. It especially spoke to me on issues of language and identity. Even though I am not visibly marginalized, I am a minority in Canada based on my language and heritage. I have felt this marginalized not so much while I was living in the National Capital but more so in my hometown when I was growing up.
The author begins her by writing about language and it is not 'It' that travels but the 'I' that carries a few fragments of it as we travel. We take bits and pieces of our pasts and move forward in forming our own identity. She explains that language "is the site of return and the site of change" in that it changes its rules as it goes. I see language as part of the self. I often feel challenged and conflicted with my identity as a Francophone. I cherish my mother tongue very dearly however it has become increasingly difficult to preserve it as I move around the country and encounter new people who do not share this same language. This is especially true of my current situation here in Newfoundland. I feel as though I have left part of my language back home, even back in Ottawa and have only taken certain pieces of this identity with me. I feel as though I have done this because I fear not being understood. I also feel as though what I have taken with me and use (not very often) is not personal but like what Minh-na writes of exiled writers= choice of tales no longer belong to them as individuals. I speak not for myself but for my 'people'. (Now I realize that this article is speaking of 'others' in terms of races and ethnicities and that my Francophone identity perhaps does not compare but it is somewhat along the same lines of what she is describing.)When I go back to the origin of my language, I feel like a stranger because I have not spoken it for a significant amount of time and have not tried hard enough to preserve my individual identity. I hear it in my dialect and as I search for my words because I can only think of them in English.
Minh-na also argues that as you come to love your new ‘home’, it is thus implied, you will immediately be sent back to your old 'home' where you are bound to undergo again another form of estrangement. (13) So she is saying that once you become comfortable in new surrounding whatever that may be, you can then be your true self once again. However it is difficult to go back to your old self in a new setting I think. Although you may value your identity and your language for example, part of you feels displaced and misunderstood. This often results in performing a variation of your true identity to ‘fit in’. Once you become fully comfortable, it risky to bring forth your true identity. Isn’t it? A trivial example of this is a personal intimate relationship. When you first meet or start a new relationship, very often we do not feel at ease being ourselves in this new and uncertain environment. Once the relationship is more stable and you feel "at home", bits and pieces of your original self begin to show. This is not always a positive thing as it can result in rejection from the partner. So in relation to what the author is discussing, those who are exiled, the experience (…) is never simply binary (…), [It is] hard to be stranger and hard to stop being one.
Finally, I want to bring up the significance of her idea that by assimilating or conforming the self can get lost. This is something I’ve been bringing up all throughout the semester in my posts during the semester. I’ve been working through the idea of knowing who I am. In writing these pieces I have come to the realization that in the past I have often worried too much about what others thought and tried to conform to what was/is considered ‘normal’ cultural practices. But as I think I’ve mentioned before, in assimilating myself, I felt as though parts of the ‘real me’ had faded away. It was until I reminded myself of my true identity that I started to accept the fact that I was not going to conform to ways of dressing, or speaking or consuming for example. However, and I want to end on this, as Minh-na reminds us, "to strive for likeness to the original - which is ultimately an impossible task - is to forget that for something to live on, it has to be transformed. So I have learned that I do not want to conform but, in order for my true ‘self’ to live on, it has to change in the process. I cannot be who I was 10 years ago for example. This means embracing my new surrounding and taking bits and pieces that will not completely disrupt my identity but make only make it richer.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
On Not Speaking Chinese. Postmodern Ethnicity and the Politics of Diaspora (Ien Ang)
This article demonstrates that the "unevenly scattered imagined community of the diaspora itself cannot be envisioned in any unified or homogeneous way." Ang hopes to get away with this self-empowering indulgence of her ethnic privilege, by moving beyond the particulars of her mundane individual existence (544) In essence the author is trying to illustrate how, in this case, ‘Chineseness’ ( or any other label for that matter) is a label who makes everything the same but in reality its meanings are not "fixed and pre-given, but constantly renegotiated and rearticulated, both inside and outside China in this case (or any other country). In sum, Ang aants to unravel some of the possibilities and problems of the cultural politics of diaspora.
The first idea that I wanted to point out was her brief discussion of Stuart Hall’s politics of self-representation and how it is not an establishment of an identity per se but a strategy to open up avenues for new speaking trajectories. For some reason it made me think of my partner who is Greek. The two of us often use our ‘labels’ to define the differences between us; my partner is Greek and I’m French Canadian. He also uses his Greek identity as a way to justify the need to go to Greece to supposedly to find his roots. The problem with this is that he is only Greek by origin and by name. He does not speak the language nor does his family (except for his grandfather) and he does not adhere to any practices or traditions. The only time that they have demonstrated this ‘identity’ to me was the very first time I visited them in their hometown for Easter. At Easter dinner they followed an old Greek tradition of a game of breaking eggs. My partner was shocked that his mother had prepared it and said: "of course because you’re here, we decide to actually be Greek. We’ve never done this before." I'm trying to think of what this story I have just recall means in terms of politics of self-representation. If it's not an establishment of a specific identity, what exactly is it? Is he not satisfied or conflicted by his too stable and uneventful identity as a Canadian? Why does he choose to sometimes really promote his Greek identity and then other times, make it seem like it's not of significant importance.
The second point I found significant in this article was when she quotes from the memoir of Ruth Ho which spoke to the contradictions and complexities in subject positioning. Ho says: "Are the descendants of German, Norwegian and Swedish emigrants to the USA, for instance, expected to know German, Norwegian and Swedish?"(556) I immediately thought of it as a double standard and that by not having such expectations of European emigrants, we are expecting more ‘authenticity out of those who are ‘visible’ minorities. I agree with Ang when she says that it this double standard is "an expression of the desire to keep Western culture white". I also think that the idea the politics of diaspora trying to keep non-white or non-Western elements from entering our culture is somewhat true. It is interesting that we are perplexed when a ‘visible’ minority does not speak their language of origin or practice cultural traditions and accuse them of being inauthentic but yet we do not want that authenticity to infiltrate itself into our ‘white culture.’
The first idea that I wanted to point out was her brief discussion of Stuart Hall’s politics of self-representation and how it is not an establishment of an identity per se but a strategy to open up avenues for new speaking trajectories. For some reason it made me think of my partner who is Greek. The two of us often use our ‘labels’ to define the differences between us; my partner is Greek and I’m French Canadian. He also uses his Greek identity as a way to justify the need to go to Greece to supposedly to find his roots. The problem with this is that he is only Greek by origin and by name. He does not speak the language nor does his family (except for his grandfather) and he does not adhere to any practices or traditions. The only time that they have demonstrated this ‘identity’ to me was the very first time I visited them in their hometown for Easter. At Easter dinner they followed an old Greek tradition of a game of breaking eggs. My partner was shocked that his mother had prepared it and said: "of course because you’re here, we decide to actually be Greek. We’ve never done this before." I'm trying to think of what this story I have just recall means in terms of politics of self-representation. If it's not an establishment of a specific identity, what exactly is it? Is he not satisfied or conflicted by his too stable and uneventful identity as a Canadian? Why does he choose to sometimes really promote his Greek identity and then other times, make it seem like it's not of significant importance.
The second point I found significant in this article was when she quotes from the memoir of Ruth Ho which spoke to the contradictions and complexities in subject positioning. Ho says: "Are the descendants of German, Norwegian and Swedish emigrants to the USA, for instance, expected to know German, Norwegian and Swedish?"(556) I immediately thought of it as a double standard and that by not having such expectations of European emigrants, we are expecting more ‘authenticity out of those who are ‘visible’ minorities. I agree with Ang when she says that it this double standard is "an expression of the desire to keep Western culture white". I also think that the idea the politics of diaspora trying to keep non-white or non-Western elements from entering our culture is somewhat true. It is interesting that we are perplexed when a ‘visible’ minority does not speak their language of origin or practice cultural traditions and accuse them of being inauthentic but yet we do not want that authenticity to infiltrate itself into our ‘white culture.’
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Cultural Identity and Diaspora (Stuart Hall)
Hall is trying to theorize identity as constituted not outside but within representation and hence of cinema, not as a second-order mirror held up to reflect what already exists, but as that form of representation which is able to constitute us as new finds of subjects, and thereby enable us to discover places from which to speak. (245)
2) Presence Europeene which is the site of colonialist. This presence includes issues of power and how the Europeans have positioned black in visual representation in dominant discourse. When I took Women Racism and Power in my undergrad, I remember our professor bringing in products from the supermarket such as sauces and couscous boxes. I wasn’t too sure why at first but she made us realize the power that we (dominant) have in representing the "other" in visual images. The products she brought were from the President’s Choice line called Memories of... As we can tell from the images below, those who have designed the packaging have chosen to use a woman who appears to be of Asian descent to represent memories of Shanghai and then we find a man on a camel to represent Kashmir. Not only do we the dominant have the power to represent the other’s identity through these constructed images but we are putting them out there to be consumed. If you put this sauce on your food, you will have experienced Shanghai for example. Just as I am writing this, I realize how absurd it is.
Stuart Hall’s essay speaks of cultural identities and representations which in this context he speaks of through "Third" cinemas produced within the Carribean culture. Hall begins his essay by describing two types of cultural identities. The first is a collective identity which implies a shared history by race or ethnicity and that it is stable. It symbolizes ‘one people’ which is assumed to the truth and the essence. This first type of identity is often seen through visual arts and cinemas which he calls ‘resources of resistance and identity, with which to confront the garmented and pathological ways in which that experience has been reconstructed withing the dominant regimes of cinematic and visual representation of the West.’(236) He is implying that they (the other) needs to take back their identity and make their own as it has been for too long told through dominant discourses. This is something I have often reflected on during the time of my undergraduate degree in History. I made two observations. The first was that what was told in the articles and text books that were assigned for a course was often reflective of the views or background of the professor. Secondly and most important, were the uneasiness I felt when I read a history textbook about the British Empire for example. The book was to tell the history of the British Empire and colonialism from the British or dominant perspective and the voices of those who were colonialised were silenced as it too often the case. This specific text book was even published by a prestigious British university press. Why couldn’t we have read something written from the perspective of the marginalised. Why the subjectivity? In hindsight, I think this uneasiness contributed to my decreasing interest for the field of history as I completed my academic terms.
The second identity that Hall speaks of is one that is unstable, that implies sameness but difference at the same time. It recognized that "there are also critical points of deep and significant difference which constitute ‘what we really are’; or rather – since history has intervened – what we have become."(236) In this sense, I think this type of identity encourages the recognition that identities are not fixed, there are not eternal as Hall states. When I read this section I kept coming back to my thoughts on Troubling Women’s Studies and how the authors were arguing against the founding mothers’ fear of letting go of the past as this might jeopardize Women’s Studies true identity; so a burning desire to keep its true and first identity.
To come back to Hall’s discussion, when speaking of this similar yet different identity he states that identity is something, that it has a history but is not fixed, that difference matters. He also notes that language depends on difference as Derrida spoke of. So identity can be different and differ basically. This theory helps disturb the "classical economy of language and representation" and to Hall it helps them (Caribbeans) to "rethink the positioning and repositioning of Caribbean cultural identities in relation to at least three ‘presences’."
To come back to Hall’s discussion, when speaking of this similar yet different identity he states that identity is something, that it has a history but is not fixed, that difference matters. He also notes that language depends on difference as Derrida spoke of. So identity can be different and differ basically. This theory helps disturb the "classical economy of language and representation" and to Hall it helps them (Caribbeans) to "rethink the positioning and repositioning of Caribbean cultural identities in relation to at least three ‘presences’."
Those three types of dominant presences he refers to are as such:
1) Presence Africaine which is the site of the repressed. This presence implies that what once was is no longer as it has changed. Therefore it is important to acknowledge the past but understand that they cannot do as the West has and is doing, that is, representing Africa as the same as it was years ago.
2) Presence Europeene which is the site of colonialist. This presence includes issues of power and how the Europeans have positioned black in visual representation in dominant discourse. When I took Women Racism and Power in my undergrad, I remember our professor bringing in products from the supermarket such as sauces and couscous boxes. I wasn’t too sure why at first but she made us realize the power that we (dominant) have in representing the "other" in visual images. The products she brought were from the President’s Choice line called Memories of... As we can tell from the images below, those who have designed the packaging have chosen to use a woman who appears to be of Asian descent to represent memories of Shanghai and then we find a man on a camel to represent Kashmir. Not only do we the dominant have the power to represent the other’s identity through these constructed images but we are putting them out there to be consumed. If you put this sauce on your food, you will have experienced Shanghai for example. Just as I am writing this, I realize how absurd it is.
3)Presence Americaine also known as the New World which is the site of cultural confrontation. Hall describes this presence as an empty place where many cultures meet and collide. This is seen in America and here in Canada. We have a melting pot in the USA and here in Canada the so-called mosaic of cultures which is said to be more focused on integration rather than assimilation - this could be a whole other debate as I think we are just as guilty of assimilation as the USA. We claim to welcome and include all cultures yet we have displaced First Nations of their land and have tried to assimilate everyone.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Things to do with Shopping Centres (Meghan Morris)
This is how I feel about this article: WHAT?!?! Morris' article is very dense and wordy. It is full of covoluted ideas that I feel were just thrown up onto a piece of paper. After second read, I have not made much more sense of it than I had the first time.
Morris wants to discuss issues for feminist criticism that emerge from a study she's doing of the management of change in certain ‘sites’ of cultural production involving practices regularly, if by no means exclusively, carried out by women. (11) So this seems like one of the main focus of her article, amongt what I think is "too many" otheres. I am unsure about how she implies that women do all the shopping and what is involved with it. I am not denying that women do not practice generally but it is excluding the increasing number of men who perform those tasks. What does that say about normatised gender roles?
The project which she discusses is looking a differences in shopping centers to see how particular centers "produce and maintain (…) ‘a unique sense of place’—in other terms, a myth of identity.
Exploring common sensations, perceptions, and emotional states aroused by them (…) and on the other hand, battling against those perceptions and states in order to make a place from which to speak other than that of the fascinated describer. (14) By analyzing it from a feminist perspective she claims that we can see how it allows for the possibility of rejecting, what we see and refusing to take it as given.
What is especially significant and seen as a contribution of this article, is the fact that she acknowledges that her article is not meant for ‘ordinary’ women but more for academics, students etc…but that this not mean that it condescends women shoppers either. She raises the issue of theory being in the every day. Theory doesn’t always imply academia for as she says, those who conceive of shopping centers also do theory as they theorize the conception of the shopping center on consumers (in this case, women).
Since I had a difficult time understanding how this article was meant to speak of sites of remembrance, I want to work with this idea of theory and who and why people do it. I remember talking about this in another class last semester and thought it was quite interesting since theory is something I seem to struggle with. I think we were speaking of bell hooks’ idea of how children make the best theorists because they have not yet been educated and exposed to our daily social routines and norms. What was key for me in this article was the discussion on how we, ‘ordinary people’ as Morris would say, practice theory without ever knowing it or labeling it as such. I often found it hard to theorize when I had to do it, but in reality we do it in our every day lives without even realizing it. For example, we are constantly theorizing our memories. We remember them differently and question what we really observed or experienced. By doing this we are deconstructing and reconstructing our memories, sometimes to make us feel better but other times to make sense of what is happening in our lives at the present time. If you think about it, it is actually a very postmodern thing (i.e. Derrida) but only this is done in our personal lives and not in literary texts. I have come to realize that some of us keep personal journals and oftentimes (I know I do) we go through them years later and analyze and ‘theorize’ how we handled certain situations and how we now make sense of it or how we would of handled it better. So we should be encouraged to use ‘theory’ in whichever way we understand it to inform our practice and work towards new understandings of our lived experiences.
Morris wants to discuss issues for feminist criticism that emerge from a study she's doing of the management of change in certain ‘sites’ of cultural production involving practices regularly, if by no means exclusively, carried out by women. (11) So this seems like one of the main focus of her article, amongt what I think is "too many" otheres. I am unsure about how she implies that women do all the shopping and what is involved with it. I am not denying that women do not practice generally but it is excluding the increasing number of men who perform those tasks. What does that say about normatised gender roles?
The project which she discusses is looking a differences in shopping centers to see how particular centers "produce and maintain (…) ‘a unique sense of place’—in other terms, a myth of identity.
Exploring common sensations, perceptions, and emotional states aroused by them (…) and on the other hand, battling against those perceptions and states in order to make a place from which to speak other than that of the fascinated describer. (14) By analyzing it from a feminist perspective she claims that we can see how it allows for the possibility of rejecting, what we see and refusing to take it as given.
What is especially significant and seen as a contribution of this article, is the fact that she acknowledges that her article is not meant for ‘ordinary’ women but more for academics, students etc…but that this not mean that it condescends women shoppers either. She raises the issue of theory being in the every day. Theory doesn’t always imply academia for as she says, those who conceive of shopping centers also do theory as they theorize the conception of the shopping center on consumers (in this case, women).
Since I had a difficult time understanding how this article was meant to speak of sites of remembrance, I want to work with this idea of theory and who and why people do it. I remember talking about this in another class last semester and thought it was quite interesting since theory is something I seem to struggle with. I think we were speaking of bell hooks’ idea of how children make the best theorists because they have not yet been educated and exposed to our daily social routines and norms. What was key for me in this article was the discussion on how we, ‘ordinary people’ as Morris would say, practice theory without ever knowing it or labeling it as such. I often found it hard to theorize when I had to do it, but in reality we do it in our every day lives without even realizing it. For example, we are constantly theorizing our memories. We remember them differently and question what we really observed or experienced. By doing this we are deconstructing and reconstructing our memories, sometimes to make us feel better but other times to make sense of what is happening in our lives at the present time. If you think about it, it is actually a very postmodern thing (i.e. Derrida) but only this is done in our personal lives and not in literary texts. I have come to realize that some of us keep personal journals and oftentimes (I know I do) we go through them years later and analyze and ‘theorize’ how we handled certain situations and how we now make sense of it or how we would of handled it better. So we should be encouraged to use ‘theory’ in whichever way we understand it to inform our practice and work towards new understandings of our lived experiences.
Monday, March 17, 2008
"Remembering Well": Sexual Practice as a Practice of Remembering (Kate Bride)
First, let me just say that I am feeling somewhat uneasy writing about an article that was written for the one of who marking this assignment. I know it's part of the course and it's also part of academia to review your "peers'" but I just thought I would get that off my chest before I go into the article. I also struggled with some of the ideas presented in the article -- mostly because of queer studies ideas and theory as I am not very familiar with them.
At first, I was not sure how the idea of public gay sex could be understood as a practice of remembering those who have died from AIDS. I fell into the all too easy and "normative" assumption that it would be disrespectful to engage in sexual activity at a site of rememberance. As I went further into the article, reading about "appropriate displays of rememberance" and curing "innapropriate behavior", I began to think about how our behaviors are overly dictated by what is deemed "normal". This is not a new insight but it was good to revisit the idea. When I read "normative notions of private and public behaviors", I asked myself the following questions: What are considered normal private and public behaviors and, with the issue of public gay sex, would it be considered as deviant is it was public heterosexual sex? Is it deemed innapropriate behavior because it is in public - do we feel as threatened by the behaviors when they are out of sight?
I found interesting that "the CAP initiative- to "clean up" innapropriate behaviors, to force out 'undesirable'- is just one of the ways that discourses about public space not only regulate particular behavior but also, work to 'erase differences and to limit the forms of expression we have available to us'."(Bride, 52) We too often stay embedded in sameness or try to conform to be the same. Many of 'us' are afraid of being different, often by fear of not being socially accepted. We are often measuring ourselves "in relation to" something. We find ourselves judging those deemed out of the norm, especially those who are strangers to us - it has been made easy to do so, "normal" even. When I lived in my hometown and even in the first few years in a large city, I found myself worrying about being different, about not fitting in and judging those who acted against what was deemed normal. I probably still do it from time to time but I have come to embrace difference moreso than being like everyone else.
At first, I was not sure how the idea of public gay sex could be understood as a practice of remembering those who have died from AIDS. I fell into the all too easy and "normative" assumption that it would be disrespectful to engage in sexual activity at a site of rememberance. As I went further into the article, reading about "appropriate displays of rememberance" and curing "innapropriate behavior", I began to think about how our behaviors are overly dictated by what is deemed "normal". This is not a new insight but it was good to revisit the idea. When I read "normative notions of private and public behaviors", I asked myself the following questions: What are considered normal private and public behaviors and, with the issue of public gay sex, would it be considered as deviant is it was public heterosexual sex? Is it deemed innapropriate behavior because it is in public - do we feel as threatened by the behaviors when they are out of sight?
I found interesting that "the CAP initiative- to "clean up" innapropriate behaviors, to force out 'undesirable'- is just one of the ways that discourses about public space not only regulate particular behavior but also, work to 'erase differences and to limit the forms of expression we have available to us'."(Bride, 52) We too often stay embedded in sameness or try to conform to be the same. Many of 'us' are afraid of being different, often by fear of not being socially accepted. We are often measuring ourselves "in relation to" something. We find ourselves judging those deemed out of the norm, especially those who are strangers to us - it has been made easy to do so, "normal" even. When I lived in my hometown and even in the first few years in a large city, I found myself worrying about being different, about not fitting in and judging those who acted against what was deemed normal. I probably still do it from time to time but I have come to embrace difference moreso than being like everyone else.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Portraits of Grief: Telling Details and the Testimony of Trauma (Nancy K. Miller)
Miller highlights the "Portraits of Grief" project done by the New York times after 9/11 and speaks of the significance of remembering through portraits.
Source:http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIoz94tjkY7omw0ypizON8nltTyKMtwFlhziBV2Z6SrLIyp-Wo_S9QBj9tGqtgvO8L_5t_H3ZTd9U8cKw3HW78khtFZIjtBOPMGzcASvN5125WO5h4hyphenhyphenlp1-YGQ0gSgZt_nfagFk269ui_/s400/pog_430_749.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.timreilly.com/2001/11/new-york-times-portraits-of-grief.html&h=400&w=230&sz=24&hl=en&start=4&tbnid=2qFhrM4ZkkDmVM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=71&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dportraits%2Bof%2Bgrief%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den
In a sense, as Miller explains, we focus on the small happy things to deal with the BIG loss that comes with death because it is not as difficult to cope if the remembrance is done is small steps and fragments.: In the case of 9/11 it was fitting to remember the small details as a way of situating the loss within a bigger loss. The nation was in mourning and feeling a great loss. In choosing to remember the individuals and the telling details of their lives, it without a doubt must have make the grieving process easier.
Click on the following link to see some of the portraits: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/national/portraits/index.html
Miller believes that the Portraits’ appeal is as a "snapshot of lives interrupted as they were being actively lived, rather than in the traditional obituary form."(114) As we can see from the two photographs below, an obituary is rather plain and states the facts and barely anything more. There is barely a story; a name, age, names of survivors etc...are given but nothing much more than that. The exception in this case is if the person represented in an obituary is young, where as Miller says, there lives were interrupted, cut too short. We do not observe that in most older people’s obituaries. So a portrait differs in that it includes a photograph but also an anecdote which according to Miller, is able to carry both life and death, past and present. It is a way of "representing what makes an individual life a life, [which simple words are often] unable to convey its emotional truth."(115)
Source:http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIoz94tjkY7omw0ypizON8nltTyKMtwFlhziBV2Z6SrLIyp-Wo_S9QBj9tGqtgvO8L_5t_H3ZTd9U8cKw3HW78khtFZIjtBOPMGzcASvN5125WO5h4hyphenhyphenlp1-YGQ0gSgZt_nfagFk269ui_/s400/pog_430_749.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.timreilly.com/2001/11/new-york-times-portraits-of-grief.html&h=400&w=230&sz=24&hl=en&start=4&tbnid=2qFhrM4ZkkDmVM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=71&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dportraits%2Bof%2Bgrief%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den
A portrait is meant to or often represents something good. I found it interesting when she stated that the "desirable anecdote for the Portraits of Grief we might say is narrative DNA. The DNA opens the lock of identity, if only we supply the right "reference sample"."(116) If only we supply the right reference sample? I feel as though this statement implies that by providing chosen and specific information or narrating that person’s identity we are not being entirely truthful. Is does not bring the essence of who that person might have been but only what we want to remember or others to remember them by. Should we believe that portraits and anecdotes tell the whole truth? Is there something left unsaid? I believe so. I agree when she argues that "details provide not so much the "whole truth" that we swear by in court, but the partial, emotional, perhaps literary, truth of what makes the person you love special to you." I wonder why we care so much about how our loved one are represented whether after death or still living. What is important is how you see them and how their identity appreciated by you. Only you can only truly know what that person was or is about. It’s not a few paragraphs listing all their good qualities and a smiling picture of them that will reveal their true and essential identity. However, I do see the significance of using such methods to remember and deal with loss.
In a sense, as Miller explains, we focus on the small happy things to deal with the BIG loss that comes with death because it is not as difficult to cope if the remembrance is done is small steps and fragments.: In the case of 9/11 it was fitting to remember the small details as a way of situating the loss within a bigger loss. The nation was in mourning and feeling a great loss. In choosing to remember the individuals and the telling details of their lives, it without a doubt must have make the grieving process easier.
Finally, Miller states that the codes of idealization in the Portraits of Grief make the expression of certain kinds of feelings taboo in the public domain."(121) I think that by making those portraits so public, it almost ends up taking away all the negative things you could remember about a person or persons. "Photographs also become portals to speak to the dead, (...) when survivors convert the images into texts, they bring their personal grief into the open and create new narratives.
I believe that we only remember good memories and choose to remember that way. But what if we also remembered the flaws in those portraits? Would that change the feelings or the process of dealing with loss and grief? "Is the suppression of ambivalence in the portraits and comparable forums - along with other emotions tinged with negativity, like anger and resentment - really the best way to carry out and represent the process of memorialization?" Like we discussed in class last week, we choose to repress some memories or your unconscious does it for you in order to protect you. But choosing to repress them might also be a way to follow the normative discourse that has been built around processes of grieving and acknowledging loss. I have a problem with that. I honestly think that we should be able to represent, remember those we have lost in an honest way, true their identity and not by a mere single moment captured in one photograph or anecdote. Whether that is possible in the broader context of society, that’s a whole other ball game.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Collecting Loss (Carol Mavor)
Carol Mavor speaks of holding on to old photographs and clothing as sort of a bric-a-brac-cluttered world which has been largely overlooked, even when it reaches a space of manic collectomania because it has been naturalized as part of feminine culture. (112)
She seems to be saying that the way we narrate or interpret a photograph reconstructs our lives : "living does not easily organise itself into a continuous narrative. It is only after we have lived through cycles of our lives, in recollection, in photographs, that a narrative comes through."(115) This seems very plausible as many photographs in our possession are ones that we do not hold a current memory of because we were too young at the time. In viewing and going over photographs and memorabilia we interpret and assign a narrative to them on our own or through what has been recounted to us by those who took the picture or were there at the time. By editing family albums to represent certain times and emotions we construct our history and truths.. Sort of like a "general covering over that perpetuates dominant familial myths and ideologies" (we mask pain and reality by "posing’) This is what I wrote about in my previous post.
The feeling I got when reading her work was that a family album to her portrays sadness and loss which I think is kind of depressing. As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, I love pictures and albums ( I have them every where in my house), but to me, it is a way of remembering good times or perhaps not so good and reflecting. I do not feel like I’ve lost something by looking at moments’ passed and gone. I’d rather think of it as a good time that was had and now I’ve moved on, but it will always be part of my memory. "Every photograph is a record of a moment forever lost - snapped up by the camera and mythically presented as evermore."(119)
Mavor also sees tearing or cutting a photograph as a violent act which I am unsure about. I can see it as true in the sense of if it being out of spite; for example tearing up a picture of an old partner at the end of a relationship. These ravished photographs indicate loss and untold stories. But in any photograph I think lies an untold story; it's a moment in time that is fixed on a piece of paper.
She seems to be saying that the way we narrate or interpret a photograph reconstructs our lives : "living does not easily organise itself into a continuous narrative. It is only after we have lived through cycles of our lives, in recollection, in photographs, that a narrative comes through."(115) This seems very plausible as many photographs in our possession are ones that we do not hold a current memory of because we were too young at the time. In viewing and going over photographs and memorabilia we interpret and assign a narrative to them on our own or through what has been recounted to us by those who took the picture or were there at the time. By editing family albums to represent certain times and emotions we construct our history and truths.. Sort of like a "general covering over that perpetuates dominant familial myths and ideologies" (we mask pain and reality by "posing’) This is what I wrote about in my previous post.
The feeling I got when reading her work was that a family album to her portrays sadness and loss which I think is kind of depressing. As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, I love pictures and albums ( I have them every where in my house), but to me, it is a way of remembering good times or perhaps not so good and reflecting. I do not feel like I’ve lost something by looking at moments’ passed and gone. I’d rather think of it as a good time that was had and now I’ve moved on, but it will always be part of my memory. "Every photograph is a record of a moment forever lost - snapped up by the camera and mythically presented as evermore."(119)
Mavor also sees tearing or cutting a photograph as a violent act which I am unsure about. I can see it as true in the sense of if it being out of spite; for example tearing up a picture of an old partner at the end of a relationship. These ravished photographs indicate loss and untold stories. But in any photograph I think lies an untold story; it's a moment in time that is fixed on a piece of paper.
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