“Spinoza’s ethics has nothing to do with a morality; he conceives it as an ethology, that is, as a composition of fast and slow speeds, of capacities for affecting and being affected on this plane of [Nature]” (125).

–”you do not know beforehand what good or bad you are capable of…what a body or a mind can do, in a given encounter, a given arrangement, a given combination (125).

–Deleuze, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy

 
 
M 02-Nov          Ceremony     (through p.186 )            (Jessica Brousseau & Phil Cafaro)

 
W 04-Nov          Ceremony     (through end)            (Eric Roe & Jake Jacob)

 
F 06-Nov      No class (away at conference)
                     Due: Blog entry (Friday this week)
 
 

 
 
 
 

Resp 5: Myth and Experiential Narrative in Ceremony
500 words min., 10 points; due W 11-Nov (deadline TBA)
Review assignment criteria here — also remember extra credit opportunity…
 
note: read instructions closely — three main tasks/objectives.
 

“Languages are more or less thick; certain amongst them, the most social, the most mythical, present an unshakeable homogeneity..: woven with habits and repetitions, with stereotypes, obligatory final clauses and keywords, each constitutes an idiolect or more exactly a sociolect.”
 
— “the antidote of myth would be the extreme pole or rather the region—airy, light, spaced, open, uncentred, noble and free—where writing spreads itself against the idiolect, at its limit and fighting it” (168).

Roland Barthes, “Change the Object Itself: Mythology Today” (1971). Image-Music-Text

 
Prompt:
Choose one Laguna “story” (myth) that Silko includes—

e.g. “Thought Woman,” Ceremony (frame); drought/rain; “Spider Woman” and “Gambler”; Fly & Hummingbird; Gallup Ceremonials; “Shush” / Bear; Coyote (Ck’o'yo magician) and Big Fly; Descheeny and captive girl; Witchery; Mountain Lion & T’seh; Sunrise offering.

 
— use this story to understand an historically specific experience in the novel’s diegesis/plot, not in mode of belief but expression (life).     review: Apparatus

 
First, briefly discuss affect that you intuit (third mode) from reading the aesthetic figures and the myth together (novel expression); describe the objective experience/situation in particular and concrete terms, avoiding generalization and abstraction. What is this experience? (focus should be specific, within Tayo’s overall narrative/s)

Tip: review your last Reading Response; likely need to describe experience in affective terms to greater extent (embodied exp., subjective, feeling but not “sentimental” or cliché emotion).

 
 
From this, address key question: how does this relation of myth and experience “negotiate” or “mediate” 1) {the past, culture, tradition} and 2) {historical situation or event, individual’s circumstances and identity}?
In contemporary terms, perhaps helpful to think of myth as “interface” for understanding subject’s (Tayo’s) “situation.”

Tip: review notes on “loss,” beyond single individual; on nature (esp. “the land”) and Nature; on “good/bad” (ethics) over “Good and Evil” (morality); on memory/forgetting, presence/absence, and reconfiguring these binaries.
Also see additional quotes from Barthes, below.

 
 
Finally, consider in relation with other “storytelling”:

either a form of narration within the novels
(e.g. Nick Carraway, metafictional Kurt Vonnegut, anonymous Jazz narrator)

or a story with which you are familiar, in “mode of belief” (from personal experience/knowledge):
e.g. parables/fables, religious/spiritual narratives, Greek mythology

Beyond compare/contrast (which is fine to limited extent), discuss the relation of narrative and experience, from this perspective — particularly what you’ve learned from Silko, in terms of expressing affect through aesthetic figures and “stories” (myths).
Speculate how we might apply your insight(s) in our experiment–not in the mode of belief (avoiding judgment), but concerning experience (Life).

After all, we are not passive receivers inheriting myths (and values) but active producers of culture and knowledge.

I am interested in the intersection between poetry and history. How does history make its path in a poetic work?
We rarely see history in a literary text since it is so hard to deal with. Perhaps poetry does not know how to say or utter history. …History simply smothers and squashes.
Yet some books show that one can remain poetic in the very midst of history. (110)

–Hélène Cixous, “Poetry, Passion, and History” (1985)

 
M 26-Oct     Jazz     (Chp. 6-10, pp.137-229)            (Tahara Franklin)

 
W 28-Oct      Silko: Ceremony      (Intro + through p.37)           (Laura Hampson)

 
F 30-Oct     Ceremony     (pp.38-85)            (Maria Tamayo)

 
                     Due: Response 4 (deadline: 11:59pm)

Resp 4: Imagining Experience through Jazz
500 words, 10 points; due F 30-Oct (deadline TBA)
Review assignment criteria here.
 

“To have only the value of knowledge is not to have the value of life, or love.” (64)

–Hélène Cixous, “Grace and Innocence” (1982)

 
Choose an historically specific experience from the novel
(for example, from general categories of “loss,” “desire,” “freedom,” “alienation/isolation,” parentage/progeny relation — but do not generalize, stereotype, re-situate in present day, etc.)

 
Option 1

 
First, briefly define (”explain”) the experience either in the mode of belief or of reason (rational mode/knowledge).
Present one textual illustration that aptly supports your definition.

 
Next, discuss the same experience, but in terms of what you intuit from your reading (from the novel’s expression); describe this in more detail than the first definition, showing an attempt at working with the aesthetic mode. As always, provide the key figures from the novel that enable your understanding, and discuss figures in form+content terms (considering both dimensions).

Major tip/reminder: remember to consider “affect” and “lived” or “embodied” experience…

 
To conclude, speculate about your new understanding — either in terms of the novel (function/effects? significance?); or of consequence (”what changes?” new perspective?). In any case, explicitly describe the qualities (”benefits”?) or implications of this mode for working with the novel, as you’ve experienced thus far.

 
 
Option 2

 
Having selected a specific experience, examine this in both Jazz and Ceremony together — focusing upon a respective character from each, with this perspective on experience.

 
Discuss an understanding of this experience through an intuitive reading of the novels’ expression. Not necessary to simply compare/contrast the characters; rather, describe the unique aspects of your respective examples toward an illustration of the aesthetic mode, providing specific figures (support).

 
To conclude, consider your new intuitive description of this experience against one (or both) of the modes of judgment (belief/morality, reason/knowledge)–with which you might contrast, if you’d like. Overall, address the key difference(s) and the implications/value of attempting this mode for working with literature and understanding experience.

 
 
Note: contact me (soon/Mon.) with questions; subsequently I will add/elaborate the prompts if necessary.