Blog Post 1 ( Sorry Thought I published it )

The four articles we read for class, though challenging and at times incomprehensible to me, did provide some snippets that interested me and made me meditate on how I read as a scholar.  In summary of four articles, I believe they all led to the same premise of reading. That all forms of reading be it what was traditionally critical, uncritical, affect, and distant do stem from a similar root; therefore, critics must consider other forms of reading as a way to access literature. In addition, another aspect that stuck to me was the relationship created between the texts, media, etc.… that we analyze. It is not a simple connection between subject and object, us being the subject that “penetrates” the object but rather a fluidity between the work and the responses of the self. I am still unsure how to describe but that was an attempt.

Now with these summations, the works that most intrigued were those of Armstrong and Warner. With Warner it intrigued me how he presented his insights on how critical reading created a space where the critic could place themselves in the position of a revealer and antidote bringer of social ills. Armstrong states “Don’t read like Quixote, like Emma Bovary, like Ginny Weasley . . .  to quote another revealingly bland rallying cry: ‘Critical literacy means making one’s self present as part of a moral and political project that links the production of meaning to the possibility of human agency, democratic community, and transformative’” (14-15). To think about our reading as scholars, as critics, as a form of creating a means to social action illustrates what can at times be an idiocy of critical reading. Though valid in many aspects of our field, like we discuss in class Critical reading does not really solve the world’s problems nor has any empirical evidence that validates it as Armstrong suggests. Thus, to believe that critical reading is the only form of reading correctly is very narrow.

Another quote that brought insight to me was Warner’s thoughts as reading as a form of relationship.  The query of what if it is not true that “critical reading is the only way to suture textual practice with reflection, reason, and a normative discipline of subjectivity?” demonstrates that critical reading history stems from a history of reading that is vast and complicated. Warner continues “if we begin to understand critical reading as the coming-into- reflexivity of reading, but as a very special set of form relationships, then it might be easier to recognize rival modes of reading and reflection on reading as something other than pretheorectically uncritical” (16). This insight made me reflect upon my own reading and whether I have prescribed my other forms of reading as beneath me or not truly reading. In essence I have at times and feel a desire to change that within my own analysis of texts. Returning to the quote, the aspects of thinking of reading as “relationships” adds more depth to reading as a give and take between reader and text. The text becomes a partner in the production of insight instead of something to be ripped apart to get to some form of truism. In addition, as discussed in class it allows for readings such as the practice of repetition found in religious study to occur and be considered as valuable in the sphere of accessing work making me wonder how I can use aspects of affect, or repetition within my own work.

In regards to Armstrong, the aspects of bifurcation and erasure where extremely interesting. Though pretty hard to completely understand I did enjoy the aspect of these terms as palimpsestic. For example, the phrase “Thought is Erasure and cancellation is the principle of all symbol” (93) seems heavily insightful. If thought is the process of erasing and scratching out the thoughts that preceded before it, it demonstrates that reading and our analysis of works is in some shape or form, multiplictous. Though it may not be post structural it does make me wonder whether this type of reading is truly to be fully practiced and mastered. However, it is still interesting to think that our reading of something has been led to it by negations of other readings, emotions, and affect that exist to lead us to those thoughts.