Borges’ story “The South” is difficult to understand upon first glance. After reading it, I honestly did not grasp its meaning or the message it was attempting to transmit. I needed to read it a second time in order to pick up on more details, but I also needed to inquire more about the author and the cultural context in which this story was written. Borges is an Argentinian writer and given that Juan, the protagonist, is also an Argentinian national (born and raised in Buenos Aires, although a man of German descent), there seems to be an important reflection about Argentinian culture and identity. Furthermore, I believe Borges was inspired to write this story after his near death experience. It seems that something from his personal experience triggered in him a need to tell this story. The story begins with Juan rushing home to open and read his copy of Arabian Nights when he suffers a head injury. His experience in the hospital is described as a very negative experience, even comparing it to hell. Nurses are strapping him to the bed and shaving his head. Juan did not want to die this way and in the process, travels in his mind to the south of Argentina (in the countryside). This moment of travel in the story is very significant; Juan is drawn to the countryside for a reason that is not immediately clear to the reader. Is there something special in the south that Juan must experience before death? There is a sharp contrast in setting between the scene described in the hospital (hell) and the scene described in the countryside (peace and tranquility, heaven-like). This symbolic contrast emphasizes Juan’s deep affinity to the countryside as opposed to the city. When in the countryside, Juan goes to a bar where he meets two gauchos. I had no idea what this was, but Wikipedia tells me that they are a very important symbol of Argentinian nationalism and culture. Juan gets into a fight with one of them and after being challenged to a “knife dual” outside, he accepts the challenge despite knowing that he will not be able to survive. But death here is defined as liberation. For Juan, “this is the death he would have dreamed or chosen”. Although I am not familiar with Argentinian culture, it appears to me that Juan’s praiseful representation of the south and his pejorative depiction of the city is not at all what one would expect. It is generally Buenos Aires that is considered as being an emblem of Argentinian culture and the south as being uncivilized (this makes me think of Williams’ “Culture is Ordinary”). Only Buenos Aires seems to be associated with Argentinian culture, but as Juan’s journey illustrates, culture is ordinary. Death ironically liberates him from a culturally constructed identity. Although gauchos were once viewed negatively, they are regarded very highly in Argentinian culture today (googling “gauchos” tells me this). The fact that Juan must symbolically retreat where the gauchos are as a way to liberate himself suggests that one must recognize his or her past/origins to move forward in the present and construct a culturally stable identity. Perhaps it is in the countryside where lie the origins of Juan’s true identity and not between the pages of the Arabian Nights.

Guha 

This article had a very interesting take on how history is viewed in the eyes of the reader. I think one of the main aspects of the article is the manipulative description of the people who revolt and of their actions. As the author explains by giving examples of some of the metaphors used to describe these people as: “they break out like thunder storms, heave like earthquakes, spread like wildfires, infect like epidemics” which clearly gives the sense of a rebellion that is done without thinking, in a very wild and “natural” way (in a negative sense of the word), as uncivilized, more reflexive rather than intentional and conscious. The reading starts off by stating that there is a misconception that peasant revolts arise with a lack of consciousness on the part of that group of people. Or as Guha puts it “insurgency is regarded as external to the peasant’s consciousness and Cause is made to stand in as a phantom surrogate for Reason”. In fact, Guha wants to show that this is not so and that there is in fact a precursor to the revolt, that there is often an originating mobilization that does not include violence.

The author explains the reason why this kind of representation of the revolts is possible by talking about the three discourses that are used when talking about these events: primary, secondary and tertiary:

Primary: – almost always official (originated with bureaucrats, soldiers, sleuths, people who were directly employed by the government, or people not officially working for the government but with personal interest in supporting the government.
Secondary: -uses primary source as material but this material is transformed due to the time gap between the discourse and the event. Although supposed to be less biased and has more perspective, this is not usually the case.
Tertiary: – considered as “further removed in time” as it looks at events from the third person perspective. As discussed in the article: “This literature is distinguished by its effort to break away from the code of counterinsurgency. It adopts the insurgent’s point of view and regards, with him, as ‘fine’ what the other side calls ‘terrible’, and vice versa. It leaves the reader in no doubt that it wants the rebels and not their enemies to win”

This hierarchy is inherently flawed when adopted to analyze history. Primary sources are coming from the elite of society and thus, do not shed any light on the perspective of the “peasant revolts”. In addition, all negative discourse and misconceptions regarding peasant revolt is passed off as the most accurate information. It is not until we get to a tertiary level, before we start to get a sense of the standpoint of the so called other side. By that time, this information is passed off as nonsense and deemed fictitious and borderline propagandist. In today’s time, it is all about media control and what is allowed to be exposed to the public eye and what is not.

Spivak 

The concept of the subaltern is very intriguing. Specifically, I had never thought to analyze history in such a critical way. Attempting to look at history through the lens of those who were oppressed and deemed inferior provides a different perspective of past events. Too often we are provided with reports detailing the happenings of the elite in society – information that seems to lack a connection with the masses. Instead, we should be hearing from those who are oppressed and deemed inferior. Colonialism has been discussed through history from a specific lens, one that stands to reinforce the Western society’s so called positive influence on the world. However, as a people we must ask ourselves how accurate is the history that is presented to us? Who gives a voice to the “other” side? Delving into this field of literature and historiography lends itself to the idea that accounting for all parties involved in the historical events of the world is essential to grasping a full understanding of the events that have shaped the past. Giving a voice to, as Spivak suggests, “the masses”, allows one to see history from the perspective of the majority as opposed to the perspective of a significant, elite minority. The idea here is that the focus be on non-elites. That is, subalterns are the agents of political and social change, not politically elite figures. The impact of this literature on the world of today and of the future is invaluable. With all the change occurring in the world (take for example the Arab Spring), we must be cognizant of how we view reform and more importantly, how we interpret for future generations. But can the subaltern give a voice to the masses without entering the realm of the dominant discourse? If not, would this then mean that the subaltern, once given access to the dominant discourse, can never speak for all subalterns?

Edward Saïd’s Orientalism is one of the most foundational texts in postcolonial theory. Saïd argues that the notion of the “Orient” was initially a European construction. He explains that historically, the Orient was not defined according to its ontological characteristics but instead based on preconceived notions and ideas advanced by Europeans (that the Orient was a strange and exotic place etc.) in order to justify colonization and the domination of the Orient. In other words, Europeans had invented the concept of the Orient in such a way to assert the superiority of Western culture to all other cultures. Even though such ideas are false, they were perpetuated over time via European journalists and scholars who visited, studied and wrote about the Orient. According to Saïd, it is through such pejorative discourse that the European culture had defined and empowered itself.

This argument highlights; however, that contrary to what the European culture posited, the Orient has a history, a tradition, a culture and thus, is part of a reality that cannot simply be constructed for personal gain. As Saïd would say, the Orient is not “an inert fact of nature,” it has been consciously created by man. Therefore, one cannot come to study or understand the Orient without taking into account everything surrounding this culture, such as the relationship of power between Orient and Occident. But since the Orient has always been “Othered” by the Western world, a true discourse on the Orient has never really existed. Ironically, the discourse on the Orient is rooted in the Western world. For this reason, we should not accept such discourse since Oriental identity is purely founded upon relations of power.

As cliché as it may seem, Saïd is insinuating the idea that power is knowledge. In this case, since the Western world possesses power, it is only them who claim the right to construct knowledge. This inverted cliché suggests that the knowledge that we acquire is often times simply a construction. When a French historian travels to Lebanon, the story he tells about the history of Lebanon is nothing more than a construction that he transmits based on what he sees. He will thus transmit the history of Lebanon for a French audience but what he will write will be imposed on Lebanese people as a reality. This is precisely the problem since a simple story has now become an imposed reality. Nonetheless, it is important to remember that since knowledge is a construction, it is also constantly changing. Although Saïd is a scholar, he will never fully become rooted in the Western world, but rather always remain between both worlds. He sees how the Western world constructs the Orient and vice versa.

One of the problems that arise is that people from the Orient may actually begin to believe the definition that the Western world makes of them to the point where they integrate this erroneous discourse and refuse their own identity. This is sometimes the case in France where minorities of Algerian or African descent will no longer recognize their cultural roots to avoid social exclusion. This is nonetheless a manifestation of power since the dominant discourse imposes itself on a victim and this person will no longer identify with him or herself but instead, simply disappear in the vast majority. The possibility of hybridity is thus completely refused since only the Western discourse is considered as veritable.

But although there are many Western texts that discuss the Orient, these texts should never be considered as being natural or absolute. We should always be skeptical and mindful of Western constructions of the Orient. If we think of the plethora of wars that have occurred in the Middle East, for example, I would argue that these wars have never been at all about peacekeeping (especially when the US is involved). The latter is simply being used as a pretext to justify the domination and appropriation of resources of these countries. Just like the Western world has mythicized the Orient in order to mask a desire for colonization, it continues today to find whatever reasons it can to justify imperialist aims. This is why Saïd’s work is so influential: the implications and questions that it raises continue to be very pertinent today.

In “What is an Author?”, Michel Foucault looks closely into the relationship between author and text and the way in which the text points to this “figure” (101). Therefore, it seems to him that this relationship is of great importance.  To introduce the theme, he cites Beckett who states: “What does it matter who is speaking?” (101). For Foucault, this statement illustrates the ethical principles of contemporary writing or what he calls “écriture” (101).  He mentions two keys rules pertaining to contemporary writing. First, writing has freed itself from expression because it only refers to itself. He compares writing to the ways in which a game unfolds: it breaks through its own rules and creates space where the “writing subject” disappears. Second, there is a relationship between writing and death. Foucault mentions this in order to underscore the old tradition emphasized in the Greek epic or Arabian tales that seeks to prevent death and perpetuate the idea of immortality of the hero. On the other hand, Foucault explains how in western society, the tradition of perpetuating death has been totally transformed where the writer sacrifices life. Examples such as Flaubert, Proust and Kafka are all cited to show how western writers have their authors die and thus, writing as defined earlier by Foucault results in death.

Foucault then questions the idea of work. He wonders: what is a work? Isn’t it simply what an author has written? He uses the examples of the Marquis de Sade. Thanks to Wikipedia, notice that the word “sadism” is derived from his name, which should give you a hint of what kind of a writer he was. The point is that Sade was not considered to be an author due to his scandalous nature, which raises the question about the status of his work and whether or not all written forms can be considered as works. Foucault further discusses the notion of writing (écriture) and claims that writing is not concerned with the act of writing or indication but should allow us to eschew references to the author and situate his absence (104). Another issue that Foucault raises is the question of the author’s name. He cleverly point out that one cannot simply use an author’s name as a simple reference since it will bias a reader’s point of view about a specific literary work. For example, when hearing the name “Plato”, we will automatically be inclined to linking this name to one of Plato’s famous works and thus lose the specificity of the actual text we are reading.

Foucault goes on to cite four characteristic of the “author-function”. First, since discourse was originally an act that could be placed in the “bipolar field of the profane and the sacred” (108), the author-function served to punish those responsible for transgressive discourse. Second, the author does not affect all discourses universally: we tend to question the author of literary texts but not so much scientific texts. Third, there is a problem of how to attribute a particular text to an author, especially when dealing with literary texts that have not yet been attributed to an author. The danger is that readers will often construct the author according to the criteria that they find pertinent. Finally, Foucault states that the “author” doesn’t uniquely refer to a real individual, but perhaps to an alter ego and functions much more like a narrator.

For Foucault, the author is not an infinite source of meaning, but rather an ideological product that is part of a larger system of beliefs that limits and restricts meaning. Despite agreeing with Barthes that the author-function may soon disappear, he does recognize that since there will always be a system of constraint that exists, absolute freedom cannot fully be attained. But to an extent, I don’t see this as being very problematic since we need to consider authorial intention. If absolute freedom were allowed, then there would be nothing limiting what we say about a text. I don’t know if I accept that all interpretations of a text can be considered as legitimate since this would literally devalue the author entirely, which for me doesn’t seem right.

I will use this opportunity to mainly discuss the character of the grandmother and the ending of the story. I am unsure of the general impressions of most readers when considering the grandmother, but personally, I found her to be quite superficial and manipulative. She doesn’t strike me as this harmless “lady” that she appears to be. Her cry out for Jesus at the end of the story made me quite sick, not because I have anything against religion, but because it did not feel genuine at all. From the beginning of the story, she seems to create a lot of negative energy. She mentions that there is a killer on the loose and instead of sharing the real reason why she doesn’t want to go to Florida (she wants to go to Tennessee instead), she simply scares the family about alleged reports of this killer. She even hides the cat in the car knowing that Bailey doesn’t want her to bring it. Even when the family takes the wrong turn to go to the plantation, Bailey was initially skeptical but she found a way to manipulate him into going, precisely through telling the children interesting stories about it and making them want to go.

It’s also hard to ignore the countless references of the grandmother as a lady-like figure. She seems to consider herself as a very classy person and constantly makes references to “back in the day” when people were more respectful and trustworthy. So it’s pretty easy to get sucked in to her discourse and be convinced that she is a moral and honorable individual. These moments to me were seen as red flags, especially near the end. And by the way, has the grandmother never watched an episode of  Criminal Minds. Her religious discourse is not going to help prevent the Misfit from shooting her or her family members. It was evidently an epic failure of reading the behavior of a criminal. I know that was random, but it needed to be mentioned. Now, if we think of the end, the grandmother’s narcissist attitude becomes more evident. She seems to be solely concerned with herself and apathetic towards the well being of her family. She immediately says: “I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady!” (131-132), thus showing that she is uniquely concerned about herself. Of course, some people would say, well, she does scream “Bailey Boy, Bailey Boy”, but does she really try to help her son? There is an ambiguity about her (her behaviors contradict one another), which makes it hard to decipher who she really is.

The end posed a lot of problems for me. I am unsure what to make of it. The grandmother is not someone that we seem to admire very much, but she is not painted as being a terrible human being either. But one quickly notices that she is not at all as perfect as we would think. Her supposed connection with the killer at the end of the story can be seen as a moment of metamorphosis where she becomes completely selfless. But one cannot forget that this only happens because she is in a situation where she needs to save her own life, thus we question the credibility of this moment. Knowing O’Connor’s religious background, she would interpret the end as a key breakthrough in the grandmother’s character since she comes to empathize with the Misfit prior to her death. In a way, she dies with no real regrets.

But although the Misfit states: “She would’ve been a good woman … if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life” (133), his last words regarding the killing of the grandmother are: “It’s no real pleasure in life” (133). This is deeply contradictory and we wonder what it really means? Has the grandmother’s newfound grace possibly affected the Misfit? Personally, I don’t buy this religious interpretation and I feel O’Connor is simply using the story as a religious motive. For me, it is the first part of this quote that most strikes me and that merits the most attention. It’s quite symbolic in the sense that the grandmother only seemed like a good woman and if everyone hadn’t always bought into it (like the Misfit, not to say that he is not a sadistic psycho), then maybe her true colors would have actually came out. For me, I remain skeptical about the grandmother and not very convinced neither by her “magical transformation” nor her divine influence on the killer.

Hooks

My initial impressions after watching the film Paris is Burning was that it aimed to showcase the lives of black drag queens in the 1980’s in New York City. Considering that there was a lot of footage of black drag queens participating in balls, it seemed as if it was a film that celebrated this culture. Although many different drag queens were interviewed throughout the film, the focus seemed to always be on the actual balls and the black men performing their roles as drag queens. Therefore, I personally didn’t get the feel of a documentary since many times, the element of serious was missing. I believe this to be very important given that the film is not only about black drag queens but also about the hardships that many of them faced due to poverty and being excluded from their families. For this reason, I sympathize with Bell Hooks’ claim that the “televised images of black men in drag were never subversive; they helped sustain racism and sexism” (146).

Essentially, Hooks believed that the image of black men dressed up as drag queens were in fact disempowering, giving way to public misogyny and reinforcing everyone’s power over black women. Her key argument was that black men who participate in drag, whether they are gay or straight, did so in order to oppose a stereotypical representation of heterosexual black manhood. Nonetheless, she argues that such “subversive images” are altered because they actually express their fantasies of being upper class white women. In other words, the portrayal of oneself as a white woman becomes a “racialized fictional construction of the feminine” (147) that reaffirms patriarchal and colonialist views of black men as disempowered minorities. To be completely honest, I did not pick up on this the first time I watched the film. Although there were moments where I heard more closely about their hardships, these scenes would quickly fade out into images at the balls and clubs. So after watching particular scenes the second time around, it really became clear to me many of the problems that Hooks shared about the film. In fact, my initial impressions of the film clearly prove her point. If the film were intended to express the struggles of black drag queens at the time, the film should not have felt celebratory and glamorizing the first time around. One moment that caught my eye in Hooks’ text was when she mentioned how when watching the film, many people laughed even in the serious parts of the film, illustrating the inability of the film to connect with the audience on a deeper level.

The film is often described as being a powerful portrait of the lives of minority black drag queens, but when watching the film, there is nonetheless a distance vis-à-vis the actual struggles. Hooks cleverly points out that we do not know much about the families of the interviewed drag queens nor do we ever get a real sense of their hardships. It almost seems as if it is masked behind the fantasies of these black men who are always playing the role of the Other. Many of them often mention how they simply do not feel like they are men and that they feel more free when dressing up as drag queens. But Hooks makes a good point, what is the veritable image being projected of themselves when dressing up as drag queens? Is it a portrait of black gay pride or does it simply reflect the desire of being the Other, notably the glamorized white woman? This is not to say that drag does not succeed in disrupting gender norms and in freely creating one’s own identity (see Butler below), but it can also be seen as reinforcing divisions of race and class.

My personal impression is that the drag experience for these black men did not always appear liberating. Many times, it felt like a spectacle since many of their struggles were not addressed in the film. They were rather and literally masked by the glamorization of drag and of the ball world. But one could argue that Hooks’ point of view is just as misleading since she too is analyzing drag culture from the outside. Therefore, although it may appear that Livingston has portrayed drag culture in a certain way, this is not to say that this is what drag culture really means for these black men. What does being a drag queen truly mean for the identity of these men? Considering they have no real family, this experience may provide them with a sense of community. I guess what I am trying to say is that the film provides us with a viewpoint about drag culture seen from the eyes of Livingston, but this does not necessarily encompass everything. The camera is not always on and it is Livingston who chooses what to include and what not to include in her film. Due to the complexities surrounding drag culture and the many questions it raises, one cannot fully reduce the experiences of black drag queens to one film and by extension, to one unique reflection or critique.

Butler

Butler questions the interpellation or hailing of the subject put forth by Althusser in that she does not believe it to be capable in designating stable identities but rather reflects upon the possibility of the subject to refuse the law and the conformity that imposes itself on us. She explains that this can happen through “parodic inhabiting of conformity that subtly calls into question the legitimacy of the command, a repetition of the law into hyperbole, a rearticulation of the law against the authority of the one who delivers it” (122). Therefore, subjects occupy a certain ambivalence because the interpellator relies on the subject in order to maintain his role of power. In other words, there is a kind of reciprocity in that the interpellator cannot impose his power without the presence of the subject. There is thus a form of subversion that takes place since paradoxically, the subject gains a form of agency due to its symbiotic relationship with the interpellator.

Butler goes on to discuss ambivalent drag. She posits that Hooks’ claim that gay male drag is misogynistic assumes that drag is purely associated with male homosexuality and makes “male homosexuality about women” (127). According to this logic, “heterosexual desire is always true, and [homosexual] desire is always and only a mask and forever false” (127). In other words, Hooks failed to consider the possibility that gay male drag could just be a genuine form of pleasure and desire as opposed to a displacement and appropriation of women.

This seems to raise the question whether or not gender is simply a performance? Gay drag queens are projecting themselves as women but in male-bodies and thus are performing femininity despite being male. It seems for Butler that gender and by extension masculinity and femininity are social constructions based on culturally dominant norms. Therefore, viewed in this light, drag becomes very significant since it challenges such dominant norms and the notion that sex implies gender. Although conventional norms tell us how a male and how a female should behave, drag seems to illustrate that gender is not at all predetermined but instead a perpetual learning process, which ruptures the male/female binary. It can thus be seen that in the film Paris is Burning, contrary to Hooks’ assumptions, drag seems to subvert traditional gender roles by proving the possibility of movement from one role to another. Through drag, gender is performed and is no longer seen as misogynistic but rather revolutionary. This is precisely what creates the ambivalence since heterosexual norms are questioned through an imitation of heterosexual activity by gay male drag queens.

The problem

Although I can see how Butler’s point regarding the role of drag in subverting traditional gender norms makes sense, it is nonetheless contradictory in itself. It is true that gay male drag queens can redefine traditional gender roles by performing as women in male bodies and thus, give a new meaning to what gender means. In fact, we really begin to question that biology is the sole reason why we think of men as men and women as women. We are inclined to doing so precisely because in many societies, sex determines gender. Nonetheless, one cannot help but overlook the fact that in the process of achieving to subvert these gender roles, they paradoxically act within the norms of heterosexual society. Acting like a woman can be seen as a form of conformism since femininity as performed in drag is after all just another gender role determined by conventional/dominant norms. I guess this is slightly what Hooks is getting at when she claims that drag culture glamorizes the white heterosexual culture. How does one then categorize such a form of subversion? Is drag truly subversive or does it simply perpetuate the very stereotypes that it seeks to refute?

It is no surprise that the most important phrase in this reading, repeated several times, is when Williams states that “culture is ordinary”.  But of course, like most texts we read, we wonder: what does that mean? This means, according to Williams, that “every human has its own shape, its own purposes, its own meanings. Every human society expresses these, in institutions, and in arts and learning” (4). He believes that a culture has two aspects: the known meanings and directions and the new observations and meanings. Therefore, one can deduce that there are things that remain fairly static in a culture (known meaning and directions; tradition for example) and things that are constantly evolving and changing (new observations and meanings). Moreover, he explains the two ways in which culture is defined: a whole way of life and the arts and learning. Although some writers only consider one of these definitions, Williams believes that both are significant. For example, when we consider an individual to be very cultured and well-educated, we are thinking of the arts and learning whereas when we ask someone about their culture or where they are from, we are clearly referring to a whole way of life. The two meanings thus make very much sense depending on the context.

Where things get interesting is when Williams discusses the two senses of culture, mainly because he refuses to recognize them.  First, he explains the distinction being made between cultivated people and ordinary people. He uses his personal experience in a teashop in Cambridge to explain how these “cultured people” attempt to exclude all those who they felt were not cultured on the basis of their trivial differences of behavior or the variations of their speech habits. Williams says although we cannot stop them, we can ignore them (5). Second, he discusses those who are culture-vultures. He refers to these people as highbrows and superior prigs who reject any culture that is not part of the upper class. Evidently, Williams is strongly opposed to this form of exclusion. This is precisely why he believes that culture is ordinary; culture cannot be limited to one group but is rather accessible to everyone. For Williams, culture has not at all grown from the upper class or elite groups but rather from the working class and what he calls “the masses”. His view on culture further implies his support for the working class and his disagreement with Marx’s view that we live in a “dying culture, and that the masses are ignorant …” (8). Williams believes that the way of life of the working class, by its “emphases of neighborhood, mutual obligation, and common betterment …” (8) is in fact the best foundation for the future of English society.

Although what Williams raises is a pertinent question in cultural studies, is an “ordinary” culture truly possible? Or will elitist attitudes always search to produce the distinction between “cultured” and “uncultured” people? The fact of the matter is, William’s idea that culture is ordinary emphasizes and makes clear, whether one wants to recognize it or not, that culture is found in the commonplace and not in the exceptional. Whether or not those of the upper class are willing to come to terms with this is a completely different story.

Benjamin’s essay discusses the role of technological reproduction in determining aesthetic experience, specifically looking at the effects of film and photography in altering our perceptions of art. In a way, he sees technological reproduction as a means of creating new art, contributing thus to the loss of the aura of a work of art. Benjamin defines the aura as “[a] strange tissue of space and time: the unique apparition of a distance, however near it may be” (23). In other words, the loss of the aura would mean that our perception towards the work of art changes due to the influence of new technologies.

Benjamin begins by stating that the work of art “has always been reproducible” (20). This basic fact leads him to question the extent to which technological reproduction has influenced not only our perception of art, but also the artistic process. He argues that technological reproduction modifies the way in which we perceive all known works of art and thus, this modifies their effect. Benjamin also interestingly mentions how it [technological reproduction] had also “captured a place of its own among the artistic process” (21). As a result, the reproduction of art via technology imposes itself as a new form of art, thus posing a problem for the original or traditional form of art.

This brings us to the problem of authenticity. Benjamin explains that the number one thing lacking in the reproduction of art is “the here and the now of the work of art – its unique existence in a particular place” (21). He explains that in technological reproduction, the work of art loses its full authority because of two reasons. First, the reproduction process is more independent of the original than manual reproduction. Second, technological reproduction can displace a copy of the original to other situations or contexts that are otherwise inaccessible to the original. Therefore, the presence of the original work is crucial for authenticity since the latter is “the quintessence of all that is transmissible in it from its origin on, ranging from its physical duration to the historical testimony relating to it” (22). He explains the difference between the images seen by the naked eye compared to the images reproduced by photography. Evidently, the images taken by a photo can be reproduced whereas the images seen by the naked eye are unique and “escape natural optics altogether” (21).

It appears nonetheless that for Benjamin, it is the reproduction of these works of art that destroys their “aura”. I can understand this distinction when dealing with classic works of art like the Last Supper in that seeing this painting in real life is much different than simply finding the image on Google. However, is it really important that all objects be authentic? The reason I ask is because we live in a world where virtually everything is reproduced and where the original in many cases has been forgotten. Media constantly reproduces the reality and produces something new for example. What is produced often has nothing to do with the truth. Moreover, reproduction and authenticity becomes problematic when thinking of other contemporary examples such as religion. For example, Islam, as interpreted by some of its extreme followers, does not seem to correspond to the authentic word of God found in the Quran. In some cases, the Quran seems to have been reproduced and used as a means for justifying violence. I believe this is what Benjamin meant when he was talking about the politicization of art.

There was no shortage of entertainment in reading the back and forth between Searle and Derrida. Although the debate started with Derrida’s critique of Austin’s work regarding the notion of communication, it quickly turned into a battle between Derrida and Searle. Searle published a reply to Derrida’s critique of Austin in which he was ill pressed to suggest that Derrida was somehow attacking Austin. However, Searle only came to this conclusion due to his misreading of Derrida’s original work. Ironically enough, it was in his original work that one of Derrida’s main points was the “necessarily possibility” of such misreading. That is, that one can never be sure of one’s intended message.

Basically, what Austin views as “failure” or “infelicities”, Derrida views as a “possibility”. He believes that language should not be viewed from a unique perspective since this excludes a large part of communication. Derrida introduces the notion of iterability to emphasize the ways in which repeating utterances over and over again in various contexts can come to create different meanings and interpretations. Without iterability, we would be unable to question the meaning of these utterances. According to Derrida, by labeling speech acts as “parasitic”, Austin is assigning a pejorative identity to certain speech acts while considering others as “normal”. In other words, one cannot view the speaker’s discourse as possessing absolute power but rather as indeterminate and polysemous.

Responding to Searle’s accusations that he was attacking Austin, Derrida replied with “Limited Inc. a b c …” in which he broke down Searle’s misreading in order to show how things can be taken out of context to suggest a meaning other than what they were intended to convey. Poignantly, Derrida used this technique to creatively discuss the idea of “citationality”. That is, text can always be taken out of context, and placed in another context, outside the author’s control. Essentially, Derrida is explaining that his intent was never meant to attack Austin, but merely to discuss his theory of speech acts. This really underscores the idea behind the intention inherent in language and how it can easily be misinterpreted. Nowhere does Derrida claim that intentionality plays no role in meaning and communication; he simply does not regard it with a great degree of importance. Although Derrida recognizes the speaker’s intention, he cleverly points out that the intentions attached to the utterances of the speaker become ambiguous and unimportant once they are delivered since the speaker is no longer in control of them. Viewed in this light, Derrida is not attacking the notion of intentionality but is rather questioning its omnipresence in a speech act.

Interestingly enough, I got the impression that Searle’s reply to Derrida was emotionally charged, rather than backed by logic. In fact, Derrida, in discussing his debate with Searle, suggested that there is an “ethical directive that one actually read and engage with the work one is attempting to critique”, and that Searle failed to do this. As a result of this, many have actually suggested that to label the back and forth between Searle and Derrida as a debate is actually a misnomer. Frankly enough, I would have to agree – it never seemed evident that Searle, like Derrida points out, engaged in the discussion. Two sides have to engage with each other for a debate to exist; Searle was attacking his idea of what he believed Derrida to be saying rather than what Derrida actually wrote.

In How to do things with words, Austin introduces several concepts to explain his view on how utterances that he names performatives affect actions in the world. His primary belief is that sentences with truth-values (meaning they can be true or false), although they exist, do not constitute the large range of utterances we encounter on a day-to-day basis. He gives many examples of utterances known as performatives that are neither true nor false (Ex. “I do”). The words “I do” indicate that we are doing something, namely marrying and that such an act is described by “saying certain words”. This is precisely what Austin means by performative utterance; these are utterances that are not meant to describe and thus, have no truth-value (cannot be true or false). They are rather deemed felicitous or infelicitous. Moreover, these utterances are not merely sentences that are spoken, but they serve to perform a particular kind of action. Like in the example cited above, the words “I do” are uttered not only as an “outward and audible sign” (166) but signify the act of marriage. Austin explains that when such acts go wrong or fails, like in the case of marriage or betting, the utterance is then not false but unhappy.

The idea of a performative quite simply put is that the things we say are often transformed into action. We make things happen by using words. When, for example, a man and a woman are declared husband and wife, the individual marrying them has used a particular utterance that is not simply descriptive but that performs an act by displacing the man and woman from simply being a couple to being a married couple. Thus, this utterance is a felicitous speech act since the couple has legitimately been married (the act is sincere and is conventionally accepted). Such an act can nonetheless in many instances be considered null or void. If as a joke, I pronounce my two friends as husband and wife since they are always acting like lovebirds, this is infelicitous; I have not actually married them. Although the act is achieved, it is considered a lie or is insincere so the act is void or without effect. According to Austin, all utterances are naturally performatives. In other words, by saying something, we are always doing something. Performatives are not merely utterances that create action but as Austin suggests, create social realities. But do these performatives truly create realities in all contexts? Is it only the speaker being considered? Who exactly establishes felicity?

Austin asks one among 3 interesting questions that I will address: “How widespread is infelicity?” He claims that infelicity is an “ill to which all acts are heir which have the general character of ritual or ceremonial, all conventional acts: not indeed that every ritual is liable to every form of infelicity (but then nor is every performative utterance)” (168). It seems that the message that he is trying to convey is that performatives are prone to infelicity. We can deduce that when a performative is regarded as a conventional act or procedure, it will be deemed as improper or infelicitous. Nevertheless, Austin recognizes that not all performatives are prone to infelicity. I am nonetheless confused here. I thought that one of the conditions for felicity is that social conventions are followed. But given that we live in a society that adheres to a set of standard rules and conventions, would this mean that in applying the notion of performative within our social constructs, we are merely victims of an infelicitous existence? It also seems that the notion of an accepted conventional procedure is questionable since it is difficult to define what is accepted. For example, the utterance “I divorce you” said three times constitutes a divorce in certain Islamic practice; however, this is not unanimously accepted. It is thus interesting to posit that performatives can be socially contested thereby invalidating the performative act. As a result, Austin’s claim that all utterances are natural performatives suddenly becomes questionable in that they do not always seem to enact the subject into action. However, how does one classify the speech act “I divorce you”? Is it a felicitous or infelicitous act? Can the receiving side (the woman in this case) even determine the success of the performative act or is it only the man? Evidently, this is where things become problematic, which means this is a good place to stop … for now at least.