Wayne Clayson Booth (is one of the most consistently interesting, but also one of the most consistently underestimated, critics of the latter 20th C. A rhetor and rhetorician, a philosopher, pluralist, literary critic, editor, and English professor, his driving theme was the rhetorical resources that encourage, obstruct, or refine agreement: and, therefore, belief, knowledge, and action.
In this site we overview a range of his books, engage his issues, and seek agreement about the value of his critical pluralism, not only for understanding texts, but also for understanding each other.
vrijdag 7 maart 2008
Booth: narratives
Een site (op basis van een cursus) rond het werk van Booth.
donderdag 6 maart 2008
Literary Study and the Social Order
by Stephen L. Tanner
Literary study used to be a repertoire of often compatible approaches (formalistic, biographical, psychological, philological, archetypal, moral, etc.). These approaches shared the fundamental assumption that authors are human beings capable, within broad linguistic possibilities, of describing and interpreting in meaningful ways to others the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual range of human experience. Movements in literary theory now come congealed with exclusionary ideological and anti-metaphysical woridviews that call into question human nature, agency, and communication. Before we continue the interminable but ever necessary debate regarding the relation of literary study--as literary study--to the social order, we need to confront more deliberately the full implications of postmodern literary-intellectual opinion for the social and moral order.
Turner: culture as performance
Victor Turner and Contemporary Cultural Performance
Graham St John (ed.) New York : Berghahn (Release date, April 2008)
Upon the 25th anniversary of his passing, this collection features contributions reflecting the wide application of Victor Turner's thought to cultural performance in the early 21st Century. From anthropology, sociology and religious studies to performance, cultural and media studies, Turner has had a prodigious interdisciplinary impact. The collection of 17 essays demonstrates that, in the face of challenges from poststructuralism and postcolonial studies, Turnerian ideas remain compelling with international scholars located in a range of disciplines illustrating how these ideas have been reanimated, renovated, and repurposed in studies of contemporary cultural performance and experience.
Contributions to this collection are grouped in four thematic sections: 'Performing Culture' covering new ritual, drama, media and reflexivity; 'Rites of Passage and Popular Culture' on popular 'transition' rites and popular investment in the ideas of Turner; 'Pilgrimage and Communitas' with contributions covering contemporary manifestations; and, 'Edith Turner' on her role in the Turnerian project.
Volume contributors address themes ranging from dark communitas and techno tribalism to liminal sports and the mediatisation of social dramas, from backpacking, shopping and protest pilgrimage to what Barbara Babcock calls the "gynesis" of Victor Turner's work. Applying, critiquing and reworking Turner's cultural processualism, with attention to such diverse themes as performing "sorry business" within the context of settler and indigenous Australian reconciliation, improvised ritual-theatre within a tertiary education context, pilgrimage to the Burning Man Festival in Nevada's Black Rock Desert, and recognition of the critical role of Edith Turner in the development of the Turnerian perspective, this collection demonstrates the broad and evolving appeal of the Turnerian project.
dinsdag 4 maart 2008
Every story... and cinema
Andrew Field in Culture Wars
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In this world (in our world) the whole of human history, every story, every epic tragedy, every personal anecdote has been appropriated by cinema. Anything that was once truthful has been borrowed and structured and given its own manipulatively emotive soundtrack. Even the most brutal, the most astoundingly awful genocides and holocausts have been appropriated and turned into a familiar narrative arc. Anything that once might have meant something to us has been taken from us and rendered meaningless by imposing on it a story we (fundamentally) already know.
Cultural Wars
Welcome to Culture Wars
'Some people can read War and Peace and come away thinking it was a simple adventure story. Others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper and unlock the secret of the universe.'
Lex Luthor, Superman
Conference Wales
The Narrative Practitioner: Developing Excellence in Research Education and Practice 23-25th June 2008
maandag 3 maart 2008
Call for Papers
Call for Papers: PHILOSOPHY AS LITERATURE
A Special Issue of “The European Legacy”
“The European Legacy,” published by Routledge, is the official journal of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas:
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/10848770.asp
The issue will feature a conversation on the relationship philosophy-literature with This special issue is scheduled for late 2009.
CALL FOR PAPERS:
Like novelists, historians or columnists, philosophers, too, are writers. They make sophisticated use of language, and employ – whether deliberately or not – specific rhetorical and stylistic devices, as well as certain repertoires of metaphors, images and symbols. As writers, philosophers also have to adjust their writing to specific audiences, tailor it to serve specific purposes, and strategically choose one genre over another, with all its rules, protocols, and constraints. In short, it is crucial for philosophers – if they are to persuade readers – to advance their ideas following certain aesthetic rules, rhetorical procedures and strategies of persuasion. This has led some authors to speak of “the literariness of philosophical texts” (Berel Lang) as something indistinguishable from the philosophical substance and relevance of those texts.
Deadline for submissions: January 1, 2009
Length: 6000 words.
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