agreed. and there is nothing superior about an academic reading, just different.
ken
On 6/10/12 4:19 PM, Anunoby, Ogugua wrote:
--My Dear Ken,All I have tried to do is make the point that one product (literature in this instance) may serve different needs because of differences in consumer groups' objectives. I am not sure that with literature, one group' objectives may be certainly superior to another's. I hear you.oa
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kenneth harrow [harrow@msu.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2012 9:55 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series -
hi ogugua
you are right that there is a big difference in the way academics in the field of literature read, and are trained to read a book, and the public that reads it for pleasure. i don't think anyone ever wrote for academics. why would they? but lots of writers are part of small enclaves, writing specialized kinds of poetry or prose of interest only to small communities of readers.
is there anything wrong with that? the same is true of art and film; i don't see why all lit has to be for the masses; why all film has to be commercial film aimed at a great profit.
and we all know that if the publisher or film producer pumps vast sums into the production of those works, the works have to obey formulae that guarantee a return. ogogua, why berate us scholars in literature for this, using terms like "splitting hairs" or "sophistry"? we are people trying to use our best thinking to work through ideas, at times complex, at times linked to other disciplines like philosophy or political science or social science, or language studies, or psychology, etc, so as to better interpret cultural texts.
we don't jump on physicists for using a non-popular discourse to communicate their work; why expect literary scholars or cultural scholars to be different?
ken
On 6/6/12 8:31 PM, Anunoby, Ogugua wrote:--There are academic and non-academic "users" of literature and their appreciation of literature is seldom informed by consonant objectives. It seems to me that there are more of the latter than the former. It is the former who tend to split hairs on language complexity, sophistry, style, and technicality. For the former, literature must evidenee a complex mastery of the manipulation of verbiage. For the latter, what matters is that the writer's work is good reading including entertaining and edifying. Does this explain why writers who are not especially interested in writing for academic audiences are more likely to enjoy wider readership and make a better living albeit sooner by writing?
oa
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kenneth harrow [harrow@msu.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2012 5:35 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series -
hi ogugua, if you want to broaden out the understanding of the term "experience" to this extent, we will have little to quibble about. my only further point is that these "experiences" have to be mediated through words, through language, for us to have literature....
the mistake of the non-academic reader is often not to see the language, but only that to which it refers, as if it were transparent. like someone who looks at a painting and sees the scene, but not the brushstrokes, not the composition, not the choices of colors. the mistake is to say, this is great because it is just what the world is like, and thus not realizing that it is a construction of a world. if it is the "experience" of that world that is being rendered, then i suppose we are on the same page.
another example: seeing a scene in a movie, but not noticing the camerawork, the editing, the narrative structure, etc.
these pieces of a text, which i am evoking in film or art or literature, these are the "words" with which palm oil has its digestive business.
ken
On 6/6/12 2:52 PM, Anunoby, Ogugua wrote:--The phenomenon of experience is better understood as broad rather than narrow. It is an encounter that may be dreamed about, felt, imagined, observed, perceived, read about, or undergone among others. It does not have to be real in the sense that it was lived practically. It may be a mental, physical, psychic, psychological, or spiritual thing. It is part of or all of an individual's total cognition in my opinion.oa
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Chidi Anthony Opara [chidi.opara@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2012 9:11 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series -
--"dear chidi
what if it isn't an experience, but something you imagine; something you dream of, something you fear based on interior movements of your soul, and not like anything you ever knew; what if, what if? how far can we permit literature to go, without the rule of "should" driving it? how would it be if we had a rule that literature should Not be about experience? can't we imagine such a requirement, write a story about a past you never knew? imagine a utopia, a dystopia, a totally different world; or an experience plumbed to such depths that it transforms into another universe, like the beginning of david lynch's Blue Velvet where he goes so closely into the grass that a chopped off finger appears? what about surrealist art, what about Chien d'andalou, what about the Palm Wine Drinkard and the television handed ghost, what about ben okri's crazy cast of characters, what about shakespeare's green world, what about what about. all words. and maybe, it is words freeing us from the heavy bondage of experience that makes the whole enterprise worthwhile. maybe that literature that says, here is what life means is precisely the literature we all should flee from, since it reduces our world to a narrow road of Reality that ignores its own foundations in Fantasy. real experience versus twins seven-seven. thank god for twins seven-seven. what about death-experiences instead of life-experiences. what about post-death experiences, instead of bio-life experiences?"-----Prof. ken"Dear Prof. Ken,Experience in the context in which I meant it, is different from the narrower context to which you are clinging to. To me, experience in a broader context ranges from what one encounters physically to extra sensory perceptions and on to receptions from secondary sources.
Any or all of these would form the background of any literary work; words would only act as the conveyor of message(s) of such literary work.------CAO.Publisher At PublicInformationProjects
From: kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu>
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, June 6, 2012 5:11 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series -
dear chidi--
what if it isn't an experience, but something you imagine; something you dream of, something you fear based on interior movements of your soul, and not like anything you ever knew; what if, what if? how far can we permit literature to go, without the rule of "should" driving it?
how would it be if we had a rule that literature should Not be about experience? can't we imagine such a requirement, write a story about a past you never knew? imagine a utopia, a dystopia, a totally different world; or an experience plumbed to such depths that it transforms into another universe, like the beginning of david lynch's Blue Velvet where he goes so closely into the grass that a chopped off finger appears? what about surrealist art, what about Chien d'andalou, what about the Palm Wine Drinkard and the television handed ghost, what about ben okri's crazy cast of characters, what about shakespeare's green world, what about what about.
all words. and maybe, it is words freeing us from the heavy bondage of experience that makes the whole enterprise worthwhile. maybe that literature that says, here is what life means is precisely the literature we all should flee from, since it reduces our world to a narrow road of Reality that ignores its own foundations in Fantasy.
real experience versus twins seven-seven.
thank god for twins seven-seven.
what about death-experiences instead of life-experiences. what about post-death experiences, instead of bio-life experiences?
ken
On 6/5/12 9:45 AM, Chidi Anthony Opara wrote:--"Literature is about words, about eating them with palm oil, which makes the enterprise tasty".
-----Prof. Ken HarrowThe words (whether or not eaten with palm oil) should depict life experiences which the author(s) feel compelled to narrate.--------CAO.Publisher At PublicInformationProjects
From: kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu>
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2012 2:19 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series -
i would like to get into this thread when i have a second. all i can say is that literature is not, for me, about life. it is about words. it is words, words we need to reflect upon. unless "life" means something more than lived experience or social realities, then it limits too much what words can do.
as for making reading a pleasure, that too can be interpreted in two ways. pleasure comes from any good intellectual engagement, but some come easily, some with great work, difficulty, which many would not call pleasure.
to simplify my comment, it might not seem obviously pleasurable to work through a difficult poem, an obscure poem, a poem whose references to life are far from obvious, but ultimately it is that working through that ultimately gives us the most, the best of what the author can do with words.
putting words together into obscure references might be thought of as generating the ambiguities, and depths of proverbs.
literature is about words, about eating them with palm oil, which makes the enterprise tasty.
about eating proverbs.
now, what's that mean?
ken
On 6/5/12 6:52 AM, Akin Alao wrote:
> Its equally incumbent on the writer of literature to discharge the
> burden of effective communication to make reading a pleasure.
>
> AA
>
> On 6/5/12, Anunoby, Ogugua<AnunobyO@lincolnu.edu> wrote:
>> Literature for me is about life. A work of literature is usually the
>> writer's view of some aspect of life that they know, have experience of, or
>> wish to share or bring attention to. People write because they believe that
>> they have a good story to tell. A writer is less likely to write if the
>> writer does not believe that their story is worth telling.
>> The assumption therefore that every writer is seeking acceptance is exactly
>> that- an assumption that one hopes is as believed to be. That a writer
>> desires that their work be read is not to say that the writer is necessarily
>> seeking acceptance. Every writer knows that their work may be read and not
>> appreciated by the reader.
>> When a writer is incapable of publishing on their own, the writer is at the
>> mercy of publishers who decide whether or not the literary work sees the
>> light of day. It is probably more the case therefore that it is publishers
>> who seek acceptance of a writer for reasons that are not hard to imagine.
>> All who have written and relied on publishers to publish their work have
>> experience of their publisher asking them to change this or that for market
>> acceptance reasons. Book publishers are after all profit seeking
>> businesses.
>> Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" was not worth publishing until Heinemann
>> Publishers came along. Heinemann shared Achebe's belief that his story was
>> well worthy of telling and sharing with the world. That Achebe was not
>> deterred by rejection is veritable evidence that Achebe truly believed that
>> his story was worth telling and sharing with the world. The rest as they say
>> is history.
>> It is not much different in the music recording/publishing business. The
>> Beatles' music for example was rejected by Decca Records. Decca at the time
>> was perhaps the world's largest music recording/publishing company. EMI
>> thought different. The rest as they say again is history.
>> Acceptance of a writer and their work must be gratifying to the writer.
>> Acceptance has its benefits to a writer. Acceptance is however not the
>> consuming reason for most writers' decision to write. Writing benefits from
>> criticism. This is however no reason for the arrogance that causes critics
>> to disparage writers they believe write for one this audience when they
>> critics, believe that the writer should be writing for another. The critic
>> should write their own book. Its critics more than writers therefore who are
>> consumed by acceptance of a writer. Having written, a writer is just happy
>> that they have.
>> All writing begins as one or more thoughts and ideas in the head/mind of the
>> writer following some experience or realization. The writer processes and
>> tumbles the thoughts and ideas until the mixture becomes a compound and
>> ultimately a story which hopefully, will be an interesting story for someone
>> or other out there after the story is told. Most writers are like teachers.
>> They believe that they have a story will educate, edify, inform, and change
>> or expand perspectives. This helps to explain why people write even when
>> they know that they would be misunderstood, cause offence, and/or disagreed
>> with.
>>
>> oa
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
>> [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ikhide
>> [xokigbo@yahoo.com]
>> Sent: Monday, June 04, 2012 8:42 PM
>> To: USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com; Ederi@yahoogroups.com
>> Cc: krazitivity@yahoogroups.com
>> Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series -
>>
>> "If the Negro, or any other writer, is going to do what is expected of him,
>> he's lost the battle before he takes the field. I suspect that all the agony
>> that goes into writing is borne precisely because the writer longs for
>> acceptance--but it must be acceptance on his own terms. Perhaps, though,
>> this thing cuts both ways: the Negro novelist draws his blackness too
>> tightly around him when he sits down to write--that's what the antiprotest
>> critics believe--but perhaps the white reader draws his whiteness around
>> himself when he sits down to read. He doesn't want to identify himself with
>> Negro characters in terms of our immediate racial and social situation,
>> though on the deeper human level identification can become compelling when
>> the situation is revealed artistically. The white reader doesn't want to get
>> too close, not even in an imaginary recreation of society. Negro writers
>> have felt this, and it has led to much of our failure.
>>
>> Too many books by Negro writers are addressed to a white audience. By doing
>> this the authors run the risk of limiting themselves to the audience's
>> presumptions of what a Negro is or should be; the tendency is to become
>> involved in polemics, to plead the Negro's humanity. You know, many white
>> people question that humanity, but I don't think that Negroes can afford to
>> indulge in such a false issue. For us, the question should be, what are the
>> specific forms of that humanity, and what in our background is worth
>> preserving or abandoning."
>>
>> Read the rest
>> here.<http://m.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/06/ralph-ellisons-favorite-protest-novel/258066/>
>>
>> - Ikhide
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa
>> Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
>> For current archives, visit
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>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa
>> Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
>> For current archives, visit
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>> http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
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>
-- kenneth w. harrow
distinguished professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
east lansing, mi 48824-1036
ph. 517 803 8839
harrow@msu.edu
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