Goes looking for theory: Session 572: The Philosophical Example

BRuce Robbins introduces

the theme was langauge, literature and learning (not memorable) as Bruce Robbins introduces topic. See my point earlier in taking a break, I am wrong, the themes are as bland as NCA, wonder why all the digital humanities, and labor then.

interested in humanitariansim in cosmopolitianism motivates his interest in examples (would you do x to elminate Y) examples to escape uncertainty when you want to use uncertainty in decisions in time

are literary examples not grounded in the time of making decisions. (interesting that Robbins philosophy example is very rhetorical)

But he does not do a paper

France Ferguson (FF) is first up; Helen Small (HS) will be next, Jesse Rosenthal (JR) third

FF: What was I thinking? new title

Xpicks literary over philosophical, how are the differences told but the plan to do it, hesitating unable to do the promise, she becomes upset with how donald davidson use example

weakness of the will davidson Davidson mostly negative

will is weak against own best judgement unable to do what would be better, word is incontinent all the actions but not helpful would not use the aristotle terms ("acracia?).

acracia calls up extreme cases they violate expectation of rational behavior they are incomprehensble less in terms of evil than irrational compulsion; unpredicatable and predictable, not what davidson thinks

Davidson: not realize x is y, but not incontinence it:importance of the problem

not just doing wrong thing but knowingly doing the worse or for the worse even if you know the difference/ Weakness of the will distant the cases from rational delberation their protagonist cannot particpate the real world

Dantes inferno example: adultory Francesca actions and punishments linked, so better to forgo. But francesca resists. never asks what was she thinking. just one part of the example.

to seek incontinence as charactorological means she cannot make a choice. Davidson also beleives she cannot deliberate it was her character not the book; she does not know, because form of character not let her see it a problem

Davidson restricts incontinence eliminates the problem by commenting on an example.

in general this talk is about why Davidson essay on moral will is harms

problem as the problem: two different themes get confused: desire distracts from the good' 2.incontinent always picks beast over morality

model of rationality overrides a sense over the good, our individual sense of the good.

preserves the problem against our better judgement cannto figure out how causes outstrip the why

what was one thinking in a particular way, behavior cannot account for, (Robin Curoso examples) but also reaches a conclusion and acts in another way

inabliity to say what they were thinking what is special is the actor cannot know itself.

is to isolate situations on the agents self understaning and its failure. agents do not have good accounts for why they acted they way they did, they do not know what happens. make manifest actions cannot participate in controlled experment to choose between actions

what was I thinking is the problem of incointences

HS why literary examples in moral philosophy

more complex better real pysch conditions of making decisions; even i implausible, will allow deep reflection provide critical, the turn away from lieteray

what matters? literary criticism may not have much affect of how moral philosophy that needs to be literary

A. how use LX

canon of lit where pivot of moral thought, derived from realist work .

power of examples Oniel: hallmark of Wittegenstein examples Deliberate examples of completed example, than less completed examples

banal bad, tragic (are closer to liteary)

"trolly scenario" runaway trolly fork will kill 5 people but another person will die (or you)

footbridge example railway line; all 5 will die, unless a stranger is dropped down to stop

repellant alternative and defend on moral grounds; as narrative they can be realized; perversity of imaginations

fatman lead you out of a cave the case flood all will drawn can blast the man out of the cave kill the fat man to save others

no help will be instinctive not deliberative bernard williams moral choice is one too many (taste).

II no longer as wittgenstienian in literary, Williams superi Shame, not life but bad literature. will help philosopher of naive nominalism, relatavism,

classical antiquity what is conditional what is historically contingent: Aytical

since 1960s resistance of logical pos move away from moral philosophy

moral philosophy removed from intutitions, use literary to speak common sense to philosophy

literature principles and intuitions

literary philosohphers stand out

drawback imaginatively closed; we know what they choose distract from the idea that it is a choice; cultural txts conceal critical disagreements, dispute from the examples not concern with critical judgments; literary get in the way of philosophical; seperate out artificial from the describe is hard to really seperate the aesthetics

On What matters is the book to be looked at for how the literary example goes away

JR: BEing in the plot

copperfield witnes suffer but not askd.

david not act waits for the plot to act for him; moral action

give agency over to the plot; that stretches to our own" moral intuitionism, Bernard Williams a Feeling

MI: ethical example is used to explain the complexity decisions

trolleyology: our ethical decisions not by reason but by more by consensus and not known except for causistry; black box but do not know what is inside, feed it questions and answers and try to get example

infinite reiterations

would you turn it: deliberate where we draw line is let something happen versus making something happen

examples make us react against mostly always argue against action, they let the plot happen

Copperfield, difficult cases; plot unfold not take the action

narrative stories make us feel right, metalonaguages group around black box of intutionism

linguistics cant judge it till you are told the story we will find a shared ethical consensus. could have the same feeling but not call moral feeling

phil double: assume we will feel intuitive narrartive push, but we will interpret in a certain special way, they become argumeent based on their narrative movement

Kant's moral feeling an incentive for action. Whn K want to force awarness a faled ethical experience it is te feeling of what went wrong explains the feeling. Example makes it aware that the intuitionism is there, when an action is not to be taken

use causistry to figure out what we already know we have shared ethical knowledge we will get to it if we work hard enouf to get it. the moral truths that govern without reasons

intuitionism continues in our moral philosophy

ethical moral communis is our decisions, but as if we think as the anonymous one

doign somethign vs letting something happen, preferable to let this let this happen then not do anything

Copperfield the deferal may not be as passive 19th century novels; a switch of person/pubic when we defer to group/plot we defer to that which we are apart as opposed to our invididuality. Form a resolution/ consdquence of resolution.

instead of falling into embdeness to ind but individual fallend into embodiness the david move the lot move act

:: overall a panel about how the key folks of moral philosophy tend to use examples and the significance of the examples whether they are literary or not. a special genre of the moral example the trolly story is an example of letting plot happen to orient oneself to the moral intuitionism. need to re think ferguson, hard to hear but it is the inability to ever know why we acted the way we acted is what we cant get to with any of the examples (phil or literary) we use, Small examples of turn away from literary lost significance of the more, but there was an inaiders argument about the fate of moral reasoning after logical positivism.

Taking a break

Still not sure I get what MLA is. When I talk to folks many point out that MLA is primarily here for job market dynamics and they often do not come here unless they are interviewee or interviewer. I see some of this, but not as much because I am neither interviewer or interviewee. Though the twitter feed reminded grad students a room had been set aside for them to take a break and take a breath which might be a sign of its the job markets dynamics of the place

People are going to panels. Stars draw, of course, but the panel i was at this morning at 8:30 had 15 -20 folks in the audience and our panel over the lunch hour had ten or so. Nothing new here: a panel is a panel some better some worse. The one difference might be the way special themes or calls appear. Their are two clear foci of panels at MLA one set on digital humanities and another set on academic labor especially alternative academic labor than the tenure track. The panels seem to take these themes seriously, they do not seem to be "hooks" for panels but real attempts to grasp the idea (though again, some better or worse); it might be me, but NCA often seems forced on the level of the themes chosen.

I sense that MLA does fewer panels than NCA. MLA schedules 37 for example at 1:30 on the third day of the conference. I need to grab my NCA book for comparison. I also need to spend less time at NCA leg assembly and business meetings and more at the panels i am not responding to or presenting at, to get a better feel for the new and old at NCA.

THere is a very public/communal sense that this is the HUMANITIES writ large. This is its place where humanities gathers. It occurs to me how much communication is social science and also, very much so, a professional degree. I think we just assume that their are alt ac jobs for people that get PHDs in comm (or that getting a PHD in comm is not really what communication profession is about, maybe?) This is also manufactured by the way the Chronicle covers the conference, searching the program for insights on the present future trends. Maybe they define what the news is about MLA.

At the level of ideas i am not sure I see any "theoretical moves" that seem radically new as i flip through the panels (though I am by my self here and here only for a day and a little bit, so I might just be missing the buzz that is happening because of lack of networks.) and those new things might be buried in the internal logics of papers I am not seeing presented. Vitanza did talk to us about insects after our panel. maybe insects and other non human forms of life will be a big thing (though, i sense it is already happening and not being "revealed" here).

I guess the perception one has of MLA (if you are one with an intellectual history that includes the "theory" debates as I am ) is that MLA is where the big ideas are made public, a sort of unconcealment of the new. Maybe the new is academic labor and the digital humanities. Maybe these are the two big ideas that are driving/occupying the mind of the humanities (critical or not), though as Hawk and Rice have been noting on facebook, lots of digital done before MLA discovered the digital humanities, so maybe MLA is late to the party, but I wonder if it takes MLA recognition to makes it so.

MLA does seem more worldly (all those languages all those different worlds) but also more historical, probably an advantage of having literature compartamentalized by place and time; so many expertises (probably part of the fear about the crisis in education funding that is goign on here is a recognition that these expertises are not going to get replaced when they retire, maybe?) though if I were to count up I think I am seeing more north euro-am than african, asian, arabic but the african, asian arabic exist as well as some eastern and southern europe ' a couple of Romanian panels) exist in the program. They also get Canonicity writ large, e you still get your Faulkner and Milton and Conrad panels, maybe the Rhetoric version is of your Lincoln panel but I am reminded that Leff said such deep research doesnt really exist in our discipline, still very few rhetorical works done on what you would think are our canonical figures.

The book culture though is really different. Full exhibit room with all the big university presses and key corporate pressses. Over 100 pages of advertisements from book publishers in the program. including a 9 page index of authors advertised. books are good here, they are to be marketed promoted etc. maybe this is just a consumer market for books, but I think it is more than that. The Spivak panel I was at was about the Cambridge Postcolonial Literary History volumes. it marked an moment in the history of postcolonial theory/history in its canonicity as a two volume cambridge collection. There is a recognition that books matter for the humanities, I see how it structures ideas about what counts as scholarship and why humanities people might expect books for promotion and tenure.

I am going to go look at the books, big sale today.

Postcolonial LIterary History: Concepts and Permutations

This is all very messy needs to be edited

Speakers in the program: Ankhi Mukherjee (AM), Mariano Siskind (MS), Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (GCS).

more roundtable than papers. here is the write up in the program

"While literary theory has been central to the formation of postcolonial studies, many scholars in the field along with those in cognate areas such as comparative and world literature, have increasingly turned their attention to mapping literary history. This roundtable will focus on various issues in literary history from postcolonial, comparative, and other perspectives and will be aimed at graduate students and everyone interested in literary history generally."

Welcome to the panel roundtable, (Spivak is late, Ato Quayson tells the people that she will arrive).

Cambridge two volume postcolonial literary history, celebration. they are speaking on their different chapters. Forthcoming books, AM and MS both have books coming out. So things will take on a more presentation style as each talks of their chapters in the book.

AM: postcol life history Western literary canon, is a key prop of scenes of literature. for example: VSN, recalls how 20th century under the seas one of the first texts for reading.

vexed relationship in Parmuk's father's library

(Spivak appears a little late, but she arrives during AM's presentation)

Multiple Languages of the books in the libraries of postco memories of fiction

world literature aspiration, rendered communicable

Elliot five shelf book, operationalizes the canon, as a library of vetted works to cary out work of global dominance. the classics distill the meaning of civilization.

"recording experiences of humanity from barbarianism to civilization" books rendered interesting to the europe as well as books from europe.

narrator: but no arabic book.

My chapter is in five partss; "impossibility of the full undoing of the canon" (GCS) not tied to via universals but via textual economies (also refers to GCS).

Bhabba "contingent disorder of history" reading his library unpacking linked to benjamin's

renewal of existence of he matter of the book itself as world literature

>Five Sections: key books, apprsals of genres, english as global vernacular, postcolonial jane austin, resetting in postcolonial settings --canon as becoming, to value adjudication to the postco canon

--what does postcolonial might mean: refers to this idea of composite literary textual tradition a small change affected by empire. Use of English as foreign language, tropological engagement of colonialism, and migrancy.

not just vast of import of empire on culture, but unpredictable contact zones from the context of reading.

> passive consumption to repitition to autonous acts of literature and criticism. the child is unpredicable (Derrida)

II. Professor Spivak goes Second. MLA 1983 first used postcolonial panelist. She was part of panel while at Texas

People woot woot Spivak on the way to panel. literally woot woot

"I am part of the evidence of postcolonial literary history" spoken provocatively.

emphasizing English speaking and status of teacher. Derossio (Sp?) first nationalist poet tradition is teacher/ teaching is to mark him as an exception. 1970s Spivaks own work first excluded now evidence of existence in postcolonial literary history.

make an attempt to see the work as open ended, sometime contradictory, even as key texts established. authoritative source of the history of the vanishing present.

grammitization to sardinian can be put to any "transpose" historical grammer in Gramsic

always presupposes a choice, a cultural tendency, an act of national cultural politics [ the introduction to cambridge as a commonwealth as postcolonial] what is the best way to get them accepted, teh suitable means to be reached. a goal is to be reached, a political act.

All history as play of survival. I am a comparatists. Gramsci authority always opened up.

Diasporic as postco; a comparatist epistemological performance (subaltern is part of the performance); however wonderful of the text, we must remember nothing including digitization can capute the vanishing presence, the event escapes the performative.

dramatize the scene of struggle Context of formal; Settler, Migrancy

some not interested in postcolonial until immigrants into europe focuses on racism of the old masters.

move out of mere nationality to internationality migrancy (globalicities new work must be looked at ). Colonialism of french language means lots of pan frensh coloniliasm

not just france, imperialism shared invasion of language;

as we move from postco to glablized world a shifting of postco entities; linerar description of modernization not work, colonialism with bookended, look at how national forces are showing their forces once again; cultural politics in bulgaria and mexico, Nepal in south asian studies. Do not want to shift attention to Nepal or patronized or ignored, shift south asian studies to a new ways ASEAN and other places

audacity radiating globality; present much be delocated; local cultures overwhelemed is the key narrative but our project the ways in which globalized world not just produced by epeans and possessions, not core to periphery but from periphery to periphery, what links cites to shared subjection, ntwrks of trade and colonial power (other regional power, at least 8 different nations/states)

various empires and non empires to rethink the global in a decentered way, new lines of research in colonial histories new institutional connections, need good history of postcolonial

time for a new regionalism.

MS on magical realism

unhappy with two key discourses; writing against the belief of world literature practices of naturalization of mr universality. the key genre of world literature is too superficial.

the same can be said of mr of literary genre of poscolonialism. as well as latin americanisn of essentialist that majical realism is a latn american invention.

better to see mr in transition as a process from restricted to la specificity to universal form of particularism, as a post colonial universal

think global poscolin of mr as historical material process located and relocated from 1920s to 21 century. expands on last part of his chapter, deals with globalization of 100 years of Solitude

mr marked by relationship to avante garde in 20s. LA 1940-1970 concept signature of particularity of the region, to establish an aethstic-rhetoric indepnent of europe.

boom in LA lit and postco potential in light of cuban revolution.

Cuban Revolution and the continental imaginaries of emancipation during the 1960s in dialgue with antiimperialism. Literary field self determination of region

tension of myth and history key, cultural in most particular poses modern history and wounds on the peripheries.

everyone rocked by the time limits

the importance of the book is to do with narrative horizon visible universality of colonialist/postcolonial/capitalist forms of oppression

transition of boom to global expansion in material history reconstruction--after the publication in 67 how promoted and immediate success, first translation in italy, france england usa (1970) promoted explosion of magical realism in anglo postco world.

rushdie: 1975 had he read it, said not, was sent a copy to read. When i did read it, forever lost in the novel, unforgetable, we all remember when we read it. what struck me was the similarite he was descrbing from the world i was describing from: religion superstition and coloniliasm, and collosaal rich, poor, dictators and corruption that was called fantastic becomes natural

writers write 1982 celberity of ley readers mr become THE for undeveloped world easily translated, the expansion and abuse from this displacement of context of history prevents peopel form paying attention to global diffusion, no formalist debate about definition past, the critical challeng historicising its postcoloniality will be potential to show.

AQ the problem of not fully taking seriously the claim that world literature is also a seminar on world history. We tend to spatialize with the terms postcolonial periodization

spatilizing and time reveals complex critical diagnostic of postcolonial

two bookend 1492/1947

Sugar to Europe new world into capitalist economy.

1947 India and partition and Isreal formed

place making key similiarity: processes not just ruptures (Said) is key to postco.

what starts as chronicles become orientalism an internal logic and colonial rule. Marquiz 1982. "accurate" account like a fantasy.

instrumentalization of space/making for colonial governmentality.

CG involves condition of dispersal of populations

dispersal systematic for specific ends: to establish "muticulturalism" in certain political units.

nation as instrument of literary history

epochality? not sure I am hearing the concept correctly, grafting the idea around a nation.

quotes foucault so that true challenge of rhetorical devices that give historical salience to space making practices.

Talk time with audience: people are just riffing questions I think we are going to respond after all

Q to Spivak about China and Arab world

Q AM: VSN not canon, but incomprehension of the text.

Q GCS: radiality and regionalism link to pedagogy of area studies paradigm.

----

AM; respond was an anguished relationship was precisely what you ask about, it is a jerry built canon not good enuf.

GSC: China/Arab world relates to specificities of project, lots of others involved, rethinking this area to imagine the trade between calcutaa and kunming since 12th century. how have precolonial come back. how much learned focusing on subaltern section, to see not postcol but stuff in existence before colonial these are the forces are work n the new places coming up in the globe.

massive project needed to deal with this magnitude of the work to be done. we will learn how to describe globalization in new ways.

conclusions not there, in terms of teaching, how to hit mainstream is hard to imagine because we are dealing with new institutions for making this happen.

Rhetorical Historiography and Digital Humanities

Wysocki on memory starts the discussion.

2 questions: What are we obligated to memorialize? what are we obligated to memory in a world of external memory?

Steigler: media creates memories for audience more than creates publics.

but if only eternal memories cannot participate in transculture. must produce and consumer memory via texts to participate in co-constitution

II. rhetorical memory prior to print to ruminate on the coming of digital memory

architecture of memory. break things into "chunks" and "Images" placed into an architecture; move ons body through the architecture

process of systems: set it up, chose what to memory, put it in relationship to others, hunting with others things remembered to = invention

III Vignettes for current personal technology

a. off load memories ; to store, tag, mentally keep in chronological order

easy memory externalization consoles us that we have memories not experiences.

information management crisis with my life processes. therefore, we need structures for memory

b. free floating memories: memories without spaces. digital games, require internalize the game world's geography

--gaming experiences be expanded and narrativizes as drama.

games are memory spaces in need of memory

c. design of a building of memorial structures

impassible stairways, uneven floors; affective oriented. emotionally weighed, the are bodily memory systems.

use digital productions to raise questions of obligation about memory; based more on memory structures

Presentation 2: Digital Archives as Rhetoric: Hart-Davidson and Ridolfo

I. Do something with a collection of Samaritan texts at Michigan State

provide access; be culturally sensitive repository; online teaching, learning and research, be user centered design

huge textual diaspora of samaritan; more manuscripts than actually samaritans in the world

Phases of archival

a. stakeholder interviews

what kind of meta data; what kind of data

b. high fidelity mockups, interactive prototype

c. field research, usability testing

d. Prototpe; community centered metadata acquistiion tool

b. what people do with texts is the second part

they were interested in how "others" used the texts. scholars interested in Samaritans and Scholars interested in what Samaritans use the texts

"rhetorical perspective to the other"

II. Way we came to think about how our approach positionality working with other stakeholders. 3 groups from their own disciplinary/activitu

a. archivists/librarians b. scholars c. samaritan people

we were studying them? anecodte of the ways in which different

digital humanities relationship archvie

preservation and access not seperate in digital/ places for enacting cultural practices

one of the places of cultural survival.

A stain on the texts assumed the fault of preservation. the stain, was accounted for by a movement, be humble touch face/touch text, 1500 years of text use. working codex likely in someones home. so were from use.

transforming made, circulated, used by stakeholders.

tremendous human stakes. needed an "accurate account" store and maintain connections of uses over time

Artifacts in culture (Bhabba); bring artifact into archive = cultural violence, but, digital may allow less violence if digital decreases the tension between preservation and access

Presentation 3: J. Enoch Feminist Historiography and Digital Humanities

6 million in new digital grants

187 articles on feminist historigraphy none talk about digital humanities

reasons for meaningful identification

Ramsy and Sullivan exceptions

what makes them less interactive than one would suggest

FH: Recover forgotten women rhetors; work in local archives, smaller amounts of archival material

DH: archive canonical figures; Big data

are we divided in our work; one word to bring together "methodology" key term.

Feminist histoigraphy special issue of RSQ

digital tools bring on methodological moment (quote) new questions and answers.

Digital Archives

lots of places already exists for women's history. used to be dearth of archive, the archive means infinite expansion of possiblity

women's social movements example =. sea of data how to make sense of the information. Need a proactive method

2. digital tools and data mining.

data, code, empirical; deep listening

"the google way of tracking NGram Viewer

Lots of talk on Aspasia in the 1820s. fun tool "gateway drug"

act of forgetting is rhetorical substituting one memory for another

can use tools even if problematic, a renewed emphasis on feminist questions

how tools come into being, for what purpose, what priorities, goals/objectives = critical engagement of tool

3: multimodal scholarship

do it better, also differently. multimodal scholars produce full uses of different senses. Previous practices multimodal more public. digital history is to build by immersion not argument

Sharon Daniels Public Secrets. Women carcarated. women tell their stories in own voices with cell doors.

digital learning curve is great. refuse linear mode and take other moves. not experiment with alternative forms. method concern change methods we offer history more than how we research.

pull readers in, more than argument, is a moment of feminist connections/identification with multimodel scholarships; passionate attachments good.

Q; not alot of talk about digital divide nor much exploration of what an "archive is or does or the will to archive"