Meanwhile, speaking of policy, of which Trump has none, J.D.
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Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: on last edited by
@wdlindsy I forgot about that guy! There was also a school of criticism based in Estonia, before the Russians went in and conquored that land. I remember liking what they had to say, buy the humanities was in the full (intolerant) grip of the French literary philosophers of the time.
It's funny what sticks with us. This book has influenced my whole life! High time to go back and read it. It's not an easy read.
Orality and Literacy (New Accents) https://a.co/d/7JnudiM
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm on last edited by
@KarenStrickholm Yes, the French theorists conquered the field, for sure. Thanks for the link to the Walter J. Ong book. It's not one I've read, though his name is familiar to me, though only vaguely.
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RealGravitasreplied to William Lindsey :toad: on last edited by
@wdlindsy Listening to TFG, Vance, and the guys that support them, often makes me ponder what men are for. ️
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Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: on last edited by
@wdlindsy It really caused a shift in my understanding of human communication and how it actually shapes our perception and consciousness. He explores orality, then the transition into literacy. Most intriguing to me were his thoughts on the next great transition, from literacy to the moving image. That's what we're in now, he asserts. Fascinates me.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm on last edited by
@KarenStrickholm A good point, the shift in understanding of communication and how it shapes our perception and consciousness. French theory has been good on that point, I agree: Ceci c'est pas un pipe is, at one level, so simplistic and almost banal that the big point it's making is easy to overlook initially — namely, that the signifier and signified are not literally the same thing. Recognizing that opens up whole new vistas on communication, seems to me.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to RealGravitas on last edited by
@CWilbur Touché. And that makes me think of a brilliant line from Toni Morrison's novel Beloved,
“Clever, but schoolteacher whipped him anyway, to show him that definitions belonged to the definers—not the defined."
Only some of us get to be the definers, and when we the defined get out of our places, the definers get violent.
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Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: on last edited by
@wdlindsy Amidst all that theory, what attracted me to literature most of all is the power and enchantment of storytelling. That pleasure, decouple fr9m going down the deconstructionist road, was/is frowned upon by these literary critics. I do think they overlook and devalue the primal draw of story.telling Can't we have both? Do you know what I mean? Not sure I'm expressing that observation very well.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm on last edited by
@KarenStrickholm I'm with you on that point, the power and enchantment of storytelling. My Ph.D. work focused on history (in the field of theology), and I chose history as my focus because it is, quite literally, story.
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Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: on last edited by
@wdlindsy BTW we have a lot in common academically. My PhD dissertation was supposed to be about the relationship to divinity in the works of women writers in early medieval Spain, when Christians, Jews and Moors lived together in relative peace and harmony. Only problem was I was having trouble finding texts by women in that period. But those works existed all over the rest of Europe so it stood to reason they were somewhere. Intersection of 3 languages and 3 religions... Such a rabbit hole!
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm on last edited by
@KarenStrickholm Really fascinating topic. I think right away of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, who was, of course, post-medieval — but she illustrates the problem of finding women's voices in that culture for a long time. I also think of Teresa of Avila, who had conversos blood and may have been hounded by the Inquisition for that reason. I also think of Tariq Ali's series of novels about the co-existing Jewish, Muslim, and Christian cultures of Spain — and then what happened to that arrangement.
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Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: on last edited by
@wdlindsy Yes, that's the world. Remembering I also liked Berceo, but he was a dude. And, El Libro de Buen Amor, a Chaucer-like frame story, saucy as well. Around 1200? When I left academia, I went into the corporate world, so it's pretty foggy. I don't know those novels though, will check it out, thanks!
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Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: on last edited by
@wdlindsy What was your focus?
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm on last edited by
@KarenStrickholm I did a Ph.D. in historical theology at Toronto School of Theology/St. Michael's College, with a focus on the modern period. My dissertation work was on a leading but now forgotten figure of the social gospel movement, Shailer Mathews.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm on last edited by
@KarenStrickholm Those are new names for me. Glad to know of them, so that I can learn more!
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Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy A scholar studying a scholar philosopher, furthering the inquiry, love it! Seems per Wikipedia he was prolific.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm last edited by
@KarenStrickholm Yes, he was a prolific rider who had a strong sense of the importance of shaping public discourse from the standpoint of the social gospel values espoused. That movement fell by the wayside as the 20th century got underway, especially after World War I. There were aspects of it that were naïvely progressivist, naïve, in the sense that they believed progress was ineluctable. But I think it still had something important to offer and deserves to be studied.
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Elizabeth S.replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @KarenStrickholm Not a scholar, but I'm enjoying listening in to this conversation. In high school it appeared to me that to major in English would mean having to dissect everything in a clinical way and I wanted reading to be fun, so I got a BA in European history. (A choice probably founded on my early love of cobalt blue and gold art in the medieval galleries at the Met, where we were taken as children.) (As I say, not a scholar!)
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Elizabeth S. last edited by
@jinglepostman @KarenStrickholm What you have to say is wonderful, scholar or no scholar! And there are all kinds of scholars in the world, after all. I loved literature and reading, and when I did my B.A. in English, I fully anticipated going on to do graduate work in that field, but the professor in college I most admired daunted my enthusiasm by telling me the field was glutted with graduates. And I hve to say that studying literature academically also daunted my enthusiasm.
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Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @jinglepostman Now I read randomly. Sometimes dive into an author, read everything. Enjoy low brow mysteries by stealth subversives (ex. Charlaine Harris's True Blood). Novels that explore society (ex. Alison Lurie, David Lodge). Feature magazine and newspaper writing. Veer into moving media (ex. TV news, BBC series, reality TV (Shetland, Love After Lock Up). In worst of my medical battle, I only stared at walls. How about you all?
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm last edited by
@KarenStrickholm @jinglepostman Same with me. I binge-read David Lodge's hilarious academy send-up novels and one or two about the absurdity of his Catholic tradition's insistence that the rhythm method was the way for him and his wife to go. And I read Charlaine Harris' novels right through, too, since she's from the corner of south Arkansas and north Louisiana where I grew up. Love the Shetland series, though it can be dark.