Spivak cd/sd

How about the essay "Can the Subaltern Speak?" That's the only thing I've read by her, and consensus seems to be that it's a fair introduction to her work.

d

CLASSIC

http://scriptorium.iecat.net/imatges/Llibre%20Calculus%20gran.jpg

wrong spivak, the post structalist.

Yeah I know, but that book is always the first thing that comes to mind when I hear the name Spivak.

As you were.

I think I find the Calculus easier to follow than Spivak. She's come perilously close to winning the Bad Writing Competition a few times.

I love those "Bad Writing" awards. They're always basically saying, "Look at us! We're too stupid or lazy to even try to understand what the author is saying."

I googled them up and yeah some have that tone -- but the writing *is* bad in a conventional sense -- i.e. a real editor or some self-discipline could take these behemoth sentences, big words and all, and break them down into smaller ones which are more grammatically and logically palitable while making the same points.

http://www.miami.edu/phi/misc/badwrit3.htm

"The lure of imaginary totality is momentarily frozen before the dialectic of desire hastens on within symbolic chains." for example could be reworded and make more sense. This isn't about jargon but about grammar and avoiding run-ons of prepositions. ("on within"!?)

Try, e.g. "The dialectic of desire within symbolic chains will again move forward. But for the moment, the lure of imaginary totality is frozen." Still no "see dick run," but much better than before!

The notorious butler quote in this one makes perfect sense though, although again a good rewrite could turn it into a few shorter sentences to good effect.

http://aldaily.com/bwc.htm

"The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to
structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of
hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition,
convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into
the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of
Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects
to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure
inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the
contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power. "

Can become easily:

"The structuralist account concieved of capital structuring social relations in a relatively uniform fashion. But the move to theorizing 'hegemony' brought the question of temporality into structure, by emphasizing power relations as subject to repition, convergence, and rearticulation. 'Hegemony' becomes bound up with contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power. Thus, rather than Althusserian theorizing of structural totalities as objects, we have insights into the contingent possibility of structure."

Granted, there's one two many "contingent"s in there still. The second can be changed to "latent" without harm, I suspect. Or the former to "particular."

It was a bit of a chore to rewrite, I'll grant.

ahahaha! the guy who started that contest hates lord of the rings.

pr00f that he's fulla shit!

http://denisdutton.com/rings.htm

but lord of the rings is..well, just dumb.

For as much as I've taken from the engaging ideas and theories of various academics in the humanities, I don't think it's churlish to point out that a lot of their writing is impenetrable. Just because the ideas are complicated doesn't mean the writing has to be. Michael Berube is a great example of a cultural studies scholar whose writing is always lucid and lively. Unfortunately, he tends to be in the minority.

I think Spencer's laziness argument can go both ways. There's definitely laziness on the part of critics who dismiss all academic writing out-of-hand just because they don't want to take the time to understand something more complicated than your average NYer piece. But there's also a good deal of laziness on the other side, where it's easy to fall back on the stock jargon of whatever discipline you're in, rather than asking yourself whether you're saying something as clearly and elegantly as possible. I think that part of the problem also lies in the attitude that the writing is secondary to the ideas, which I've run into a lot during my time in grad school.

For what it's worth, I think Spivak's a more complicated case, since IIRC she's self-consciously changing registers in the Subaltern essay. Still, pleasure reading it ain't.

Krza OTM. The infamous NYT obit of Derrida was unfair.