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Re: to read or not to read... (fwd)
I sent this at 8 a.m. but it appears to have been mis placed somewhere
between here and wcenter. Here it is again. If it shows up yet another
time I appologize and urge you to ignore it.....
--stephen
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 08:08:47 -0500 (EST)
From: Stephen Newmann <newmann@msmary.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <wcenter@ttacs6.ttu.edu>
Subject: Re: to read or not to read...
Cynthia, I have not seen the Branagh version of Hamlet. Nonetheless, I
think your comparison of this film to the current concerns with conference
presentations is awkward. Two elements you have left out of the
comparison are beauty and motivation. Shakespeare's language is beautiful
enough that even the uninitiated are moved to listen to it and to "work"
at understanding it. You imply that it is ok for conference presenters to
put the effort of making their ideas understood onto the audience. I
don't think that is a reasonable expectation. I can read the professional
journals for free--they circulate in our department regularly and we carry
them in our library. But I have to pay big bucks to attend a conference.
I expect to "enjoy" the presentations I attend. I can read a journal
article at "leisure" taking time to look up difficult language and to
think about it as I "work" at understanding the ideas offered. I have no
opportunity to do that when a "paper is read" at a conference. The forum
of the conference is nothing like the forum of the journal. One type of
presentation is appropriate to the journal but is inappropriate to the
conference presentation. I don't think it matters how versed the audience
is in the technical language of the field. I have watched foreign films
in languages I do not know and have reveled in the beauty of the sounds of
the words and phrases. I have never seen the beauty of words like
hegemony, and problematize. Words like "Four score and seven years
ago..." conjur all sorts of imagery that can be useful in augmenting an
idea, saving the speaker lots of need to "create" a scene. I doubt
"hegemony", or many other technical terms, do that. I think the
conference is the place to "test" ideas and the best way to do that is to
put those ideas forth in as straight forward a manner as one can--in
language that is clear and that does not raise the side issues of speakers
motives. I'm not suggesting that ideas be "dumbed down" to the level of
the least prepared of the members of an audience. I think conference
presenters might profit from a semester of public speaking which includes
a little audience analysis.
*====================================================================*
| Stephen Newmann |
| Department of Rhetoric & Writing VOICE: (301) 447-5367 |
| Mount Saint Mary's College E-MAIL: NEWMANN@MSMARY.EDU |
| Emmitsburg, Maryland USA 21727-7799 |
*====================================================================*
--stephen
On Sun, 23 Mar 1997, Cynthia Haynes wrote:
> I recently saw Kenneth Branagh's new film HAMLET. It was long and the
> Shakespearian language difficult to follow (unless Jack Lemmon or Billy
> Crystal were speaking :). But, ohmigosh...what an incredible film, what
> stunning performances! My partner, Jan Holmevik (who is Norwegian), found
> it almost impossible to follow most of the time, though he was equally
> enthralled with the film. He is completely fluent in English, but when it
> comes to Texan-ese and Shakespeare...well, suffice it to say I had to
> translate some things during the film. All this to say that it seems
> rather analogous to the discussions on delivery at conferences, especially
> the language issue and format issue.
>
> To those of you who cringe at terms like 'problematize' and 'hegemony' I
> want to ask this: What would your reaction be to a student in a tutoring
> session who claimed that she didn't understand some of what her teacher
> says in class, and that she didn't understand some terms in her reading
> assignments?
>
> To those of you who expect conference presentations to be clear,
> interactive, and brief, I want to ask this: What kind of 'thinking'
> protocols (and reading protocols) are you demanding, and what is at stake
> in your demand/desire?
>
> To those of you who prefer 'moving' presentations to the kind of
> presentation you would prefer to read in a journal instead, I want to ask
> this: By what standard of 'value' are you measuring what moves us, and to
> what end is our having been moved as opposed to our having been exposed to
> ideas and thinking packaged as 'writing' a preferable experience at a
> conference?
>
> I realize (and hope) that these questions belie my own ambivalence about
> possible answers. My (perhaps) clear, interactive, and brief answers
> would be something like this: I would try to foster in the student an
> attitude of hunger for learning new terms. I would explain how
> interpretation and audience issues are part of a vast array of 'reading
> protocols' that rely on often divergent assumptions about reading and
> writing. And...I would remind myself as I tutored her, that what moves me
> is something of a different register than what 'moves' a field of theory
> forward, or what moves classroom and tutoring practices forward...though I
> firmly believe 'both' registers of movement (pathos and progress) are
> necessary and vital to our lives, I am conflicted about how pathos enters
> the scene of assessment.
>
> Here's the interactive part...<please respond here>
>
> So -- rather than intoning that 'something is rotten in Phoenix'...could
> we wrestle with the apparitions of 'problematizing' and 'hegemony' without
> suffering the slings and arrows OR taking arms against a sea of conference
> presentations?
>
> As Ophelia says...
>
> "My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
> That I have longed long to re-deliver;
> I pray you, now receive them."
>
> And Hamlet replies...
>
> "No, not I; I never gave you aught."
>
> Ophelia:
>
> "My honour'd lord, you know right well you did;
> And with them words of so sweet breath composed
> As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,
> Take these again; for to the noble mind
> Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind."
>
>
> Verily,
>
> Cynthia Haynes
>
> _____cynthiah@utdallas.edu______
> _____http://wwwpub.utdallas.edu/~cynthiah/_____
> _____Lingua MOO_____http://lingua.utdallas.edu______
> University of Texas at Dallas, School of Arts & Humanities
> PO Box 830688-Mail Station JO 31, Richardson, Tx 75083
> Tel: 972-883-6340 - Fax: 972-883-2989
>
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>