So I was struggling with a paper topic for my colonial class. Two possible projects had been shot down by the profe and I was thinking, "Dang." This morning I needed to poop, a not too uncommon occurrence (academic speak!). Being one who rarely takes a grizz without something to nourish my synapses, I took Colonial Latin America. Mark A. Burkholder & Lyman L. Johnson eds. 5th ed. with me to the john. On page 69 I read the heading "Black Participation in the Age of Conquest" and thought to myself, "Que guay," no, I didn't really think that, but I wanted to throw that in there. So I read about Juan Garrido, a free black man that was with Cortés in México but who also participated in the conquests of Cuba and Puerto Rico. I then did a google book search for Garrido in Cartas de Relación and Díaz del Castillo's book as well, no mention of Garrido. So I'm on to something cool here. A recent article I found talks about how the rather well known presence of free blacks and slaves in the conquest is fading (mostly tha part about free blacks). So I'm going to do the ghost thing again and talk about how, although the Archive of the Indies does contain documents about Garrido (A letter he wrote to the king), many of the chronicles that are read, published and republished today fail to mention any presence or participation of free blacks. Good stuff I think. The Colonial era is hard for me because it's so much about history and documents, but I have to write about it in a more literary style. Interestingly enough, my papers as of late have taken a historical turn. That has to do more with the topics I choose than anything. Still, I think that the inclusion of historical context is important and can't be left behind. The formalists can eat it!
9 comments:
Oh I'll eat it all right!
Sorry Ben but I'm leaning more and more toward writing about texts and not writing about extratextual discourse. I guess I'm sick of presentations where after I can only think "What the nuts? Did they even talk about a text?" I'm not sure about your side of this fat country but it seems like the saturation of cultural studies is beginning to wane over here (though my colleagues are still doing it (maybe it's wishful thinking on my part)). Though I am very interested in culture and society and their connections with literature I just can't bring myself to emphasize them over the text. On the other hand, I don't feel qualified to be a critic of either culture or literature. I'm just the greatest grad student... for me to poop on! (your frank discussion on feces has inspired this comment).
Mac, I don't think you're a pure formalist. At least your M.A. thesis isn't. As far as the textual analysis goes, I think that's more important as well, however it seems as if about half my classes have a cultural studies bent. I didn't even think about that before. One class in particular was notorious for including a ton of texts and saying very little about them. That was the class in which my paper took "a historical turn."
In the colonial class I had a topic that would have been textual analysis and it got shot down because it "didn't fit the course." This is my third attempt to come up with something for colonial so I'm just going with what I can. I guess it's a cultural studies paper, but oh well. I also don't feel qualified to say much, maybe grad school is just a cover while I look for work in other industries...for me to poop on! I'm glad Conan will be back soon.
We just had a visiting professor from France (though he is of Argentinean birth) and he was really dumbfounded about the way literature departments in the US seem to be forgetting about literature. Here at rutgers there is actually a "Cultural Studies" program and so it seems to me that if you are going to go that way you should dive in full force and not lollygag in literature.
I wouldn't ever say that I'm a pure formalist either. Perhaps a deformalist (coined by Mac, patent-pending). I think however that formalism is ironically refreshing these days. It seems more straightforward and it provides a more firmer base for a critique, thinks I. I do like to look at theory and history and biography, etc. to enrich the reading but since I can't go further than that, I don't.
You should talk about the ghost of the Malinche and how that has turned into Paz's pinche and chinga (pardon my mexican) and 'la llorona' and cultural production and Rulfo and the absence of the Black man (except for in Cabeza de Vaca's story, including the film adaptation and historical readings, etc.) Ok. I now need to write about the confusion of subject and object in Juan L. Ortiz's poetry as a way to baptize himself in the landscape and erase any sense of dicotomy and the traditional definition of 'nature'
Colorin colorado...
Here there is an entire department that is called The Department of Culture and Theory. They recently hosted a conference that just seemed crazy to me. I read some of the abstracts and I didn't even understand them.
I think the best approach to criticism is a close reading. Right now I have a class on Los pasos perdidos and intertextuality. It's been sort of interesting but the majority of the students don't focus enough on the novel in their presentations. Yesterday we got a brief historical overview of Surrealism as a movement and then only a few comments on the novel. I'm presenting on music and romanticism and I want to make brief points about the extratextual referents and then analyze their significance for the protagonist. I guess it will be a hybrid of new criticism and intertextuality.
Hey dudes, nice academic discussion there. Very professional. I am currently (procrastinatingly) writing a paper on a novel written in Spanish by a Jakaltek Maya as part of a greater pan-Mayanist project, which requires the inclusion of a great deal of extra-literary material.
That said, I think that cultural studies can be valuable if they don't forget the text. I think of the stuff I write as a culturally-informed close reading. I agree with Mac that if you're going to do literature, write about literature (or film). You can take cultural things out of it, but there has to be detailed, concentrated, close-reading based analysis, otherwise it's just spouting off theories and angry elitist intellectual jargon telling me why I can't like Maria Candelaria or why I should auto-flagellate because I'm a unitedstatesian. Ok, that last part was an emotional knee-jerk, but I do think that without close reading, it's not worth reading...(like that?!)
About colonial stuff, that's why I love the colonial period, because it's so history-based. (BEGIN DIGRESSION: While the Spanish did a lot of crappy (understatement) stuff, I still find their stories interesting and the non-sh---y things they did (build cities, form new cultures, develop arts and literature, etc) are in many ways very admirable. END DIGRESSION). You get to look at a lot of texts that wouldn't be so appropriate with 20th century literature because hist and lit were so intertwined back then. That isn't to say that 20th century stuff doesn't have a historical basis, but now we consider our histories as separate from fiction, to a certain extent (cue Hayden White). The fields have diverged and will are not going to be reconciled any time soon.
That sucks that your prof shot down your previous colonial paper ideas. What were they? I like that Burkholder and Johnson book. It's a really good source. I actually need to reread it and delve deeper into the historical side of colonial Lat Am to know how to orient my dissertation and all that. Anyway. LONG POST!
PS I was actually reading the Burk & John book on the john over christmas. how ironic is that?
Matt, the Burk & John book is really a good read. I used it in Dr. Brown's class. I went to his office to ask him about some good books on early Mexico and he gave me some old editions of Coe's books on the Mayans and Early Mexico!!! That was a great day.
So you're already looking into a dissertation topic, that's great! Me too, but mine makes me nauseous.
I really sort of miss Latin American Studies. I enjoy the histories and even the politics (sometimes). I think Allen Christensen's Humanities of Latin America class was one of my best classes ever. Another one was Dr. Stalling's class on Film Noir and 20th Century Spanish Lit. I've been considering leaving academia, maybe I'll write about it soon to fill everyone in. When I start to get serious about it, I remember those classes (as well as a few other ones, the Borges seminar was wonderful too!) and then I get a bit melancholy. Who would leave that behind? The reality is already such though, that, is already behind, and I can't step in the same river twice.
Still, in the other field I'm considering, there is very little room for a Latin Americanist...I should have been born thirty years earlier.
But where do Arrested Development Studies fit into all this?
Couldn't tell you Paul, but I'm sure there is a banana stand in Newport Beach that will generate funds for an Arrested Development Fellowship.
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