Literary and Cultural Theory, 2013

The reading that I found most interesting from this week’s set was Lacan’s “Seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter’”. This is undoubtedly because I really enjoy literature and Edgar Allan Poe is one of my favourite American authors; it had been years since I read “The Purloined Letter” so I grabbed a copy of it from the library to re-fresh my memory, and what I enjoyed the most was getting to read Lacan’s seminar on it after reading it, as I had never been exposed to it before. Significantly, to me, this seminar is such an excellent example of what I am always struggling to do when writing a paper in grad school; establishing this sound link between the work of literature and whatever it is that we call theory  (when I was completing my undergraduate degree, the framework of my literature papers, both for Spanish and English courses, always consisted of my thesis, the corresponding supporting arguments, and the integration of outside secondary sources, but these were articles on the texts that themselves incorporated theory, but the application was never initiated by me; however, I do believe that while I was writing these papers, I was obviously putting together my own implied “theory”; I just didn’t always pause to think about school of thought it belonged to).

However, having read Lacan’s seminar, I feel like I have a good model of what I should at some point be able to do; it is very well-integrated with Poe’s story and Lacan carries out a thought-provoking analysis that he lays out in a manner that to me seemed reminiscent of a litigator’s argument in court; he pretty much walked us through the plot of the story and pulled out instances and examples that he essentially used as evidence to advance his arguments. I also thought that what the introduction highlighted was also very key and very interesting, especially the discussion on how the crux of the problem lies in the ambiguity of the term “letter” in Lacan’s analysis, because I believe that this notion is absolutely central to the way one reads Lacan’s work. Is a typographical character or is it an epistle? I also don’t think that that we should view it simply as a rationalization that the story is told to us as a police mystery; I believe that this is rather indicative of the overarching idea that messages belong to the fluid dimension of language and they cannot always be taken at face value. Just as Lacan explains, the dialogue between the police prefect and Dupin, being played out as between a deaf man and one who hears, demonstrates that an act of communication may “give the impression at which theorists too often stop: of allowing in its transmission but a single meaning, as though the highly significant commentary into which he who understands integrates it, could, because unperceived by him who does not understand, be considered dull” (47). I think that while obviously the type of analysis that Lacan lays out here lends itself very well to an author like Poe whose prose always contains a type of mysterious play and boundary-blurring, this is a valuable perspective to employ when reading several other types of works of literature as well.

I rather know Deleuze through his book Difference and Repetition, where he states that repetition is a vertical axis. One is determined vertically, meaning that any manifestation is different in its actualisation. In A Thousand Plateaus, the very interpretation of the beginning gives us a certain view on Deleuze and Guattari philosophy. They state it very clearly : “We are no longer ourselves. Each will know his own. We have been aided, inspired, multiplied.” This relation established between the two authors acts as an image, as model for the text problematisation. The two authors are not different entities, but rather the passage between them. If they are no longer subjects, the text itself does no longer have subject, or object. Consequently, the text becomes rather an emanation, a relation of mediation. In this respect he talks about text as a rhizomatic structure. This structure means umpredictability. The rhizomatic text is for Deleuze and Guattary, an antianalogy (it does not have an end or a determinable origin), an antigenealogy (the text does not have a genetic structure, one can not pin down an origin, because the Origin does not belong to our understanding). For example Goethe always saw the text as the origin of something that needs to be found. On the contrary for Deleuze, the book is rather like a fascicular root, it does not have unity, because unity supposes an origin. All we have is fragments. But Deleuze fragments are different. Their fragmentarily structure is cohesive. In that respect the concept of the body without organs would be a more clear image. The body without organs is an intensity. In other words behind the visible body there is an other one, the original one that is invisible. But since that origin of the body can not be grasped, the body becomes a structure of intensities without subject or object. The body without organs is not Lacan’s “corps morcele”, it is rather an absolute dis-centralized body, cohesive in its fragmentation. The concept of plateau explains the text itself and states that the text is a multiplicity that operates through a few principles. On the one hand they talk about the principle of connection. Each text presupposes different coding (political, economical, social etc.) which has an infinite power of reproducibility. According to the principle of heterogeneity, a text is incapable of mixing their elements. The text is not homogenous. Also a text is not the multiple of something, it is only diversity. They do not talk about a unity in diversity, the text remains only diversity. Traditionally speaking, the sens of the subject was in its object, which presupposed a relation, but that relation means defining an origin, or if the origin is always invisible we can no longer talk about a commun ground of the subjects, but rather about a division. These assumptions trace back to Heidegger for whom the text was not an unity, because we don’t have access to it. All we have are fragments of that unity. In Derrida’s view, the fragment presupposes the whole. It is not Deleuze and Guattari’s case. For them the world is an absolute decentralization. The asignified rupture states the idea that we do not function according to various determinations, but rather on correlations. This is a post-Hegelian idea present in Benjamin’s philosophy as well. The plateau is rather an in between. Every plateau can be grasped or departed from different directions. The critic that I bring to Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy is that the very doctrine that there is no doctrine at all, is already a doctrine. It is also a myth.

I rather know Deleuze through his book Difference and Repetition, where he states that repetition is a vertical axis. One is determined vertically, meaning that any manifestation is different in its actualisation. In A Thousand Plateaus, the very interpretation of the beginning gives us a certain view on Deleuze and Guattari philosophy. They state it very clearly : “We are no longer ourselves. Each will know his own. We have been aided, inspired, multiplied.” This relation established between the two authors acts as an image, as model for the text problematisation. The two authors are not different entities, but rather the passage between them. If they are no longer subjects, the text itself does no longer have subject, or object. Consequently, the text becomes rather an emanation, a relation of mediation. In this respect he talks about text as a rhizomatic structure. This structure means umpredictability. The rhizomatic text is for Deleuze and Guattary, an antianalogy (it does not have an end or a determinable origin), an antigenealogy (the text does not have a genetic structure, one can not pin down an origin, because the Origin does not belong to our understanding). For example Goethe always saw the text as the origin of something that needs to be found. On the contrary for Deleuze, the book is rather like a fascicular root, it does not have unity, because unity supposes an origin. All we have is fragments. But Deleuze fragments are different. Their fragmentarily structure is cohesive. In that respect the concept of the body without organs would be a more clear image. The body without organs is an intensity. In other words behind the visible body there is an other one, the original one that is invisible. But since that origin of the body can not be grasped, the body becomes a structure of intensities without subject or object. The body without organs is not Lacan’s “corps morcele”, it is rather an absolute dis-centralized body, cohesive in its fragmentation. The concept of plateau explains the text itself and states that the text is a multiplicity that operates through a few principles. On the one hand they talk about the principle of connection. Each text presupposes different coding (political, economical, social etc.) which has an infinite power of reproducibility. According to the principle of heterogeneity, a text is incapable of mixing their elements. The text is not homogenous. Also a text is not the multiple of something, it is only diversity. They do not talk about a unity in diversity, the text remains only diversity. Traditionally speaking, the sens of the subject was in its object, which presupposed a relation, but that relation means defining an origin, or if the origin is always invisible we can no longer talk about a commun ground of the subjects, but rather about a division. These assumptions trace back to Heidegger for whom the text was not an unity, because we don’t have access to it. All we have are fragments of that unity. In Derrida’s view, the fragment presupposes the whole. It is not Deleuze and Guattari’s case. For them the world is an absolute decentralization. The asignified rupture states the idea that we do not function according to various determinations, but rather on correlations. This is a post-Hegelian idea present in Benjamin’s philosophy as well. The plateau is rather an in between. Every plateau can be grasped or departed from different directions. The critic that I bring to Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy is that the very doctrine that there is no doctrine at all, is already a doctrine. It is also a myth.

There is this place at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia called El Jardín de Freud (Freud’s Garden).  It is close to Humanities and Sociology buildings, so the majority of students that spend their time there are from Human Sciences. It is a green and wide zone where there are some trees and a grey and rusty bust of Freud. When I was studying there, I always found a lot of students hanging out, reading books, chatting, having lunch, playing football, baseball, smoking cigarettes, or some weed, or getting drunk there.  Sometimes, there are some students that talk about Freud. Sometimes they speak well about him; sometimes not. Sometimes, after weed takes effect and some hallucinogenic mushrooms lead the train of thought, they defend him even more, and better.

While I was reading his Interpretation of dreams (1900) I can not deny that I felt a little like in Freud’s Garden at Universidad Nacional: some things sounds logical, some others very “high”; some sounds like drunk thoughts, others like poetry. Actually,  if  I think about the incredible and magic project or “interpretation of dreams” some things have to sound very wear, unusual, “mushrooming”, I suppose. Well, and if we think that maybe some cocaine should affect the precise method of analysis of Freud, we should probably thank to God (I am not sure if I can say something about God when I talk about Freud because I probably will be interpreted as a narcissist, egocentric, uncanny… student) that maybe this great man sniffed one line or two of cocaine only for “medical and research purposes”.

Beyond the drug experience, the idea of create the possibility of read what is in the mind of other people is very interesting, but reading what is hide behind the dreams is really amazing. I mean, if we read him closer, I think his idea is closer to fiction to psychology.  And if we read him very close we can see some characteristics on his style that reminds a lot of fiction. For instance, I like how he recompiles the train of thoughts that let him to question the botanical dream and the concept of “dream-thoughts” it is like a fiction piece. Actually, that reminds me Virginia’s Woolf beginning of Mrs. Dalloway (1925). Also, I can see a connection between his job and Luis Buñuel film Un chien andalou (1929) that Molly Lewis presented last Saturday on the frame of “Metamorphoses” Conference (thanks Gaby and Anne Claire!). However, I think Bruno explained better this idea in his post (check “Psychoanalysis and narrative” in this blog).

Just to add something to Mr. Bruno, I really think that Freud style shows the process of writing, re-writing, drafts, notes… he created a work and you can see how his thought was developed thanks to this writing process. In my profound ignorance I see a writer more than a psychoanalyst, actually. Even, we can read how literature is important in his job. A lot of his examples (Oedipus, Electra, The Sandman…) are linked with Literature because, perhaps, he found an echo in Literature that was impossible to find in other Humanities or sciences.

Ironically, from the diverse theorists that we have read for this Theory Class, this is one where you can actually see that Literature is an important presence of his work. I do not know how to express it, but I really think that maybe if you do not know Euripides or Shakespeare, maybe if you read Freud you can get interested on Literature. I do not if you felt the same with Bourdieu, Saussure, Fish. Or Derrida (ayayay, Derrida…). For me, as a reader, this is what I am looking for in Literature: a door to make connections with other Literatures, a possibility to discover characters, story, situations that make me think about how life is always elusive but we can never stop trying to catch her and interpret her (I say her because I relate the term “life” with word in Spanish vida that is a word that belongs to the feminine gender in Spanish, but maybe I am taking the risk of being interpreted as a chauvinist, “baguette-centric”, repressed… student (if you want to get in deep about the over interpretation on Freud and “baguette-centric culture” check in this blog “Is it sex…? Is it dream…? No, it’s Freud!” post by the mysterious trinity974)), even if we try, as the very Freud tried.  Actually, I am not quite sure if the purpose of sociological or philosophical or literary theories that we have read in this class are so close to Literature than Freud’s. Anyway, is really helpful to find that Freud as a reader found in Literature some devices that help him out to develop his ideas. Is not what are we looking for as students, readers, writers? Maybe I am wrong. Maybe this walk through Freud’s Garden is affecting me.

To finish this walk for Freud’s Garden, there is something that is bugging me. It is the power disguised of writing. Yes, Freud is amazing, creative and developed his theories based on his own method, but, what could ever happened if Freud would have not written these experiences? As human beings, would we be able to create a similar theory? And, what about all these indigenous, african, aboriginal, asian… cultures that developed their own interpretation of dreams but did not wrote it.  Is not valid their knowledge because it was not written on paper but transmitted orally? What made Freud so important during the last century? Is not related with the idea that he is an European and we, as a “westerners” are completely cloud for our narcissism, delusions of grander, paranoid androidism? Is not the idea that a society sold us the perfect delusion that a dream has to be interpreted for not criticizing the establishment but discovering that is you and your sexuality the problem, that you as an individual have to solve the problem of yourself, is not Governments fault, but yours and only yours? Wow… this Freud mushroom is getting better!

There is this place at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia called El Jardín de Freud (Freud’s Garden).  It is close to Humanities and Sociology buildings, so the majority of students that spend their time there are from Human Sciences. It is a green and wide zone where there are some trees and a grey and rusty bust of Freud. When I was studying there, I always found a lot of students hanging out, reading books, chatting, having lunch, playing football, baseball, smoking cigarettes, or some weed, or getting drunk there.  Sometimes, there are some students that talk about Freud. Sometimes they speak well about him; sometimes not. Sometimes, after weed takes effect and some hallucinogenic mushrooms lead the train of thought, they defend him even more, and better.

While I was reading his Interpretation of dreams (1900) I can not deny that I felt a little like in Freud’s Garden at Universidad Nacional: some things sounds logical, some others very “high”; some sounds like drunk thoughts, others like poetry. Actually,  if  I think about the incredible and magic project or “interpretation of dreams” some things have to sound very wear, unusual, “mushrooming”, I suppose. Well, and if we think that maybe some cocaine should affect the precise method of analysis of Freud, we should probably thank to God (I am not sure if I can say something about God when I talk about Freud because I probably will be interpreted as a narcissist, egocentric, uncanny… student) that maybe this great man sniffed one line or two of cocaine only for “medical and research purposes”.

Beyond the drug experience, the idea of create the possibility of read what is in the mind of other people is very interesting, but reading what is hide behind the dreams is really amazing. I mean, if we read him closer, I think his idea is closer to fiction to psychology.  And if we read him very close we can see some characteristics on his style that reminds a lot of fiction. For instance, I like how he recompiles the train of thoughts that let him to question the botanical dream and the concept of “dream-thoughts” it is like a fiction piece. Actually, that reminds me Virginia’s Woolf beginning of Mrs. Dalloway (1925). Also, I can see a connection between his job and Luis Buñuel film Un chien andalou (1929) that Molly Lewis presented last Saturday on the frame of “Metamorphoses” Conference (thanks Gaby and Anne Claire!). However, I think Bruno explained better this idea in his post (check “Psychoanalysis and narrative” in this blog).

Just to add something to Mr. Bruno, I really think that Freud style shows the process of writing, re-writing, drafts, notes… he created a work and you can see how his thought was developed thanks to this writing process. In my profound ignorance I see a writer more than a psychoanalyst, actually. Even, we can read how literature is important in his job. A lot of his examples (Oedipus, Electra, The Sandman…) are linked with Literature because, perhaps, he found an echo in Literature that was impossible to find in other Humanities or sciences.

Ironically, from the diverse theorists that we have read for this Theory Class, this is one where you can actually see that Literature is an important presence of his work. I do not know how to express it, but I really think that maybe if you do not know Euripides or Shakespeare, maybe if you read Freud you can get interested on Literature. I do not if you felt the same with Bourdieu, Saussure, Fish. Or Derrida (ayayay, Derrida…). For me, as a reader, this is what I am looking for in Literature: a door to make connections with other Literatures, a possibility to discover characters, story, situations that make me think about how life is always elusive but we can never stop trying to catch her and interpret her (I say her because I relate the term “life” with word in Spanish vida that is a word that belongs to the feminine gender in Spanish, but maybe I am taking the risk of being interpreted as a chauvinist, “baguette-centric”, repressed… student (if you want to get in deep about the over interpretation on Freud and “baguette-centric culture” check in this blog “Is it sex…? Is it dream…? No, it’s Freud!” post by the mysterious trinity974)), even if we try, as the very Freud tried.  Actually, I am not quite sure if the purpose of sociological or philosophical or literary theories that we have read in this class are so close to Literature than Freud’s. Anyway, is really helpful to find that Freud as a reader found in Literature some devices that help him out to develop his ideas. Is not what are we looking for as students, readers, writers? Maybe I am wrong. Maybe this walk through Freud’s Garden is affecting me.

To finish this walk for Freud’s Garden, there is something that is bugging me. It is the power disguised of writing. Yes, Freud is amazing, creative and developed his theories based on his own method, but, what could ever happened if Freud would have not written these experiences? As human beings, would we be able to create a similar theory? And, what about all these indigenous, african, aboriginal, asian… cultures that developed their own interpretation of dreams but did not wrote it.  Is not valid their knowledge because it was not written on paper but transmitted orally? What made Freud so important during the last century? Is not related with the idea that he is an European and we, as a “westerners” are completely cloud for our narcissism, delusions of grander, paranoid androidism? Is not the idea that a society sold us the perfect delusion that a dream has to be interpreted for not criticizing the establishment but discovering that is you and your sexuality the problem, that you as an individual have to solve the problem of yourself, is not Governments fault, but yours and only yours? Wow… this Freud mushroom is getting better!