A text of Borges is always hard to approach. And this is not an exemption. This story has so many elements that make hard to select some of them to talk about. I will try. I think that one of the main points in the story is the reference to The Arabian Nights. This book, which was found almost by chance in an old bookstore of Buenos Aires, it is one of the main characters of the story. It was precisely the hurry about reading this book the responsible of the accident that Juan has in the stairs. The abstraction of being reading this book took him to the hospital’s experience. This experience is linked to the dreams –or nightmares- about the images of the stories of this book. We can thin here in a process of “getting into” the story that is reading, or in the opposite way, how what he/we read(s) gets into out mind.

Other aspect of the story that for me is very interesting is the relation between Juan (the grandson) and Johannes (the grandfather). At the beginning of the story says that Johannes died in a very “romantic” way but we never know how it was. The constantly use of the last name instead of his first name make the illusion that we are not sure who is the story about. Only at the end of the story the name of “Juan” is said and we know that we are talking about the grandson and not the grandfather. Anyway, during the story there are many references to the physical similarities of both characters (especially about the bear). And again, we don’t know if Juan dies or not. We assume he did because of his conditions. But in a Borges`s story there is never a close ending.

Finally, I would like to refer to the doubt about if the “last part” of the story is a dream or not. I think that one of the clues for this point is this sentence: “Mañana me despertaré en la estancia, pensaba, y era como si a un tiempo fuera dos hombres: el que avanzaba por el día otoñal y por la geografía de la patria, y el otro, encarcelado en un sanatorio y sujeto a metódicas servidumbres”. After that, he goes back to talk again about a dream: “Alguna vez durmió y en sus sueños estaba el ímpetu del tren”, and then, I think we get lost about the “reality” of the story. And I think this is precisely one of the reasons that make this story so interesting. It is hard to define what we are talking about.

I have a last question. Why “El Sur” with capital letter?

I think that Spivak`s text is a very interesting reading of the work that have been doing by the subaltern group studies. In a very “polite” tone, is proposing to change the focus of this kind of studies. Turn them from exposing the “Indian” and “objective” point of view, to use the theoretical tool of the deconstruction. Spivak quote often the text of Guha to show in which way the Indian historian is reproducing the same critic that he makes to British historians. Guha speaks about the self-consciousness of the peasant rebels something that is very related, according to Spivak, with the Marxism. According to Spivak, Guha`s ideas would lead to a “inevitably objectify of the subaltern and be caught in the game of knowledge and power” (207). This means that whilu you try to show “what actually happened” from the “Indians point of view” you are sentencing to the subaltern to be a saturated category.

It is at this point where appear one of the main issues of the “subaltern studies”. What is the relation of the subaltern studies with the subaltern? This is the relation of the observer with the observed. And that, in the end, is one the biggest issues in this kind of theoretical discussions. Because we know that the group of subaltern studies are not the peasants rebels of the XIX century, not just for being “Indians” you became “the voice” of what was muted by the Empire. And this is very interesting when Spivak talks about the case of women. The concept “subaltern” has, in some way, the same characteristic than the concept of “class”. Many things can be in. And just a few can be out. So, the notion of “subaltern” it is not actually a very specific category. It is defined by the opposition with the “hegemonic” group. Hence, distinctions like gender, race and ethnicity are hard to manage under this big name of “the subaltern”.

Many things pointed by Guha would sound quiet obvious now a days. But, if it’s obvious, is because he (they) said it and was took into account. In my opinion, this is a text related to theory of history (hence, very important to be read here). It is a text of theory of history especially because the main discussion is about the historiographic discourse of the British historians (or what was understood by a historian) in the XVIII-XIX century about the insurgencies in India. His first argument is to point that there is no neutrality or objectivity (something that is fully accepted today) in the sources that are used by this historians, and of course, their text aren’t either. Guha shows that the vocabulary used by the British to refer to the rebellions is full of words that express their dislike of the situation. In many of the examples he gives we can find expressions like “fanatics”, “breaking the established order”, etc., concepts that reflect the point of view of the empire. Thus, we assist to the appear of the “prose of counter-insurgency”, where the the historiographic text is much more than a simple “tale” of “what happened”. It is actually a judgment and a sentence to the “rebels”.

Now, why would be important to read this text in a class like this? I think that history and literature share many things, and of them is precisely the act of reading texts/sources. Precisely, what Guha is doing is an act of reading. He is re-reading (critically) the text that were presented as the official version of what “actually happened” during the insurgencies. What he is realizing is that “their own” history was written by the empire who conquer them, not by themselves. And also, that most of the references they have about this kind of issues were legated by the empire. Pointing this out, Guha presents the importance of re-reading from a postcolonial point of view. This would mean that is important to read literature and theory (and of course history) as discourses touches by the domination. The colony is still there, and is important to see it. Only in that way you can re think your own identity, literature and history, by yourself.

Said

Orientalism it is one of those text that are part of the intellectual canon in humanities nowadays. This text had a huge impact in the critical and cultural studies in general because propose an idea that still today is hard to understand (and to believe) for many people. This is a text abut the power of culture. And also, about the power of a hegemonic culture, the “Western Culture”. The main point of this text is the “Orientalism”, not “the Orient” as the author points at the beginning of his book. The main issue is to present how did “the west” represented and appropriated “the east”. “Orientalism” is a name that was selected from the people in the west to talk about “the other” who was not them.

I found a very interesting idea at the beginning of this text that I really like. The issue that “orient” would not be an idea. Every time we speak about representations and the ways that a dominant culture represents another one, we usually think that we are facing some kind of “idea”.  There is, in this case, a “real” reference for “the Orient” that we can’t say doesn’t exist. The thing is that the link between “Orientalism” and “Orient” is a relation made by the strength of power of “the west”.

I would like to stop in one final point. The notion of author. Even when it is not the main topic of his discussion, Said refers to this problem in a few pages. He says nowadays there are some discussion about the relation of text and context. He cites the case of philosophy where many scholars just say “Locke”, “Hume”, etc., without taking into account the context where these authors were involved. For his argument, this idea doesn’t work. If we split the text to its author and context we miss the relations of power (the main topic in his text) that are under them. So, he ends this point saying that “investigations must formulate the nature of that connection in the specific context of the study, the subject matter, and it’s historical circumstances” (15).

Foucault

It is impossible to read this text and not recall Barthes’s text “Death of the Author”. Foucault mentioned it without name when he says “criticism and philosophy took note of the disappearance –or death- of the author some time ago” (103). But, here, the issue is not if the author is dead or alive, the main issue is, as the title says, “What is an Author?” Even when this may sound obvious, we must know what an author is before we kill him.

I don’t think that Foucault is “against” the figure of the author. He starts saying first of all that this is a very complex concept and the there are big varieties depending when we use the word. For him, the author doesn’t mean “the final signification” of a text. It is important to say that Foucault doesn’t use the word “text” very often, as Barthes does, he prefers to use one of his favourite concepts, discourse. In Foucault’s argument, author is not the meaning, there is, in same way, “something” that it is “out” of the text and whose functions are related to the existence modes and the circulation of the discourses. So, the author is not “someone/thing” that pre existed the text, the author is just a function, not a meaning.

For me was very interesting the distinction he makes between any author of a book, and those authors who created a tradition. Authors like Freud and Marx allows a wide variety of perspectives and reinterpretations. And every time reading may be reinterpreted. The case of the science discourse is quiet difference, as he pointed. If we read and re-read Galileo we are not going to be able to transform our era and the way we understand our time and life. But we do can rethink our time if we re-read Marx’s texts.

In the middle of my reading I made a pause and thought about two things. First, I hated the grandmother. Second, I was wondering what was going to write about. For that moment, I only could say “I like it”, but nothing else. Then, I finished the story and sadly my first impression was not that different (I hated the grandma a little bit less). I didn’t know what to write about this very particular story.    Lets start with the title. Didn’t tell me much about the story. Actually, at the beginning I thought that may be was a kind of love story. Of course, after the first paragraph I realized that I was wrong.

Maybe I could start with all the things that there are not in the story and I was guessing why them were not there. First of all the location. We know where this particularly “family” will go, but we don’t know where are them at the initial moment. Where are they at the very beginning of the story? Why are they moving? Why Bailey does wants to go to Florida and doesn’t hear to his mom? (I’m not saying that he should, but he never says why he doesn’t want to go to Tennesse) Also, we don’t know where do they have the accident (if it was a real accident, I have some doubts about it). Another thing that don’t appear in the story are some names. Especially, woman’s names. The two adult woman are only named by their relation to their sons/daughter. One, is “the grandmother” and the other one is “The children’s mother”. This character doesn’t speak more than 10 words in the whole story.

In this ocean of things that are-not-there, there is someone that is there every time, the grandmother. She is that kind of character made to be hated, in some way. At least, I hated her. She put them in the situation. She lied about the panel of the house in order to make the “uneducated” kids to ask to see the house. She knew that them will behave like that when she said that. And when she realize that she was wrong, that the house was not there, she didn’t say anything. After she was killed Misfit said: “She would be a good woman (…) if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life” (133). It is hard to find a good man. But also, I think we can read “man” as “man and women”. Where some “good” character in the story?

hooks

Paris is Burning is indeed a controversial film. Every film related to “subaltern” or “non-dominant” culture, it is, in same way. That’s why it’s very interesting the reading of the film made by hooks. Especially, because he felt identifies with this kind of film for being a black and lesbian woman. As she said literally in her text, her first feeling about the film was disappointment. She was much exited about it, but the film didn’t reach her expectative. For me, her text is closer to a film critic text than to a criticism text. Her main concern, in my opinion, was the role of the director, Livingstone. We may say that hooks didn’t like a white/lesbian making a film like this, but, if she was exited about the film maybe this one was not the main reason because she didn’t like the film.

Her claim is about the role played by the director in the film. For hooks, Livingstone is an “outsider” in the world of ballroom, she definitely is. But, How does she approach to this case? That is hook’s problem. She says that Livingstone is trying to “not be” in the film, when of course, she is. The film try to have an effect of the eye watching what’s going on in this particular event without asking the role of the observer. Livingstone, and I agree with hooks about this, is not taking account her presence in the scene. She is interfering in the event that she is presenting to her audience. It is possible that someone “from the outside” doesn’t affect at the time he/she looks. In addition to that, jooks didn’t like, actually, what she saw in the film. She felt that balls were reproducing the paradigm of supremacy of the man/white/straight and “whiteness” in general. I think this is important to make a distinction between the “queer/scholar world” and the rest of the “queer world”. Being a black gay doesn’t mean to hate “whiteness”, doesn’t mean, necessarily, that they are subverting the established order. I think in most of the cases that is the “purpose” that scholars related to queer studies try to give to this kind of groups, but doesn’t mean that it’s like that.

Butler

On the other hand, Judith Butler goes deep about the analysis of this film. She rejects the idea that “just for been a drag you must be subversive”. She is more concerned about the unstable categories of “been a man” and “been a woman”. For her, the situation is much more complicated. When the man is dressed like a woman, he is not trying to “be” a woman. He is in a more complex situation that can not be reduced to the dichotomy man/woman.

She says a few interesting film about the different categories that we can find in the balls. The main concern of hooks was the “idol” figure of white woman. But, that one is just one category among the others. Then, appear some categories like “the army man”, the “Eyve League student”, etc. The main reflection is based on the concept of “the norm” and the “symbol” of this representation.

For Butler, this film is not about the misogyny of black gays. For her, it is, in some way, the coexistence of both spheres. The world of the balls and “the rest of the world”. According to her, the main idea is about appropriation of dominant culture. But, is not an appropriation in order to keep subordinated to it, it is a way of resisting to this exclusion.

It is very interesting for me the idea of legitimacy that is under both texts and the film. Who speak for the one who are in the film? Do they do it by themselves? They are selected, interrogated and edited by the film maker, Livingstone in this case, then, they are shown, in a cinema, and the, their “behaviour” (like if they were animals) is commented and critiqued by “others”. It is interesting, also, that all the “voices” that we hear outside the film are lesbian voices. In same way, we can say that are intellectual lesbians who are discussing about black/gay/poor issues. Why them? What give them the legitimacy to speak, show, and critic the other group?