MS 190: Authorship is the course website for the Fall 2006 Media Studies senior seminar at Pomona College in Claremont, California.
bell hooks is a sweet name
Submitted by Ikura on 13 September 2006 - 2:16pm.
So bell hooks is here talking about post-modernism and the "black folks" place within it. It would seem that in this post-modern era, where we can have dead authors and readers that write the texts they just read, having specific racial identities that are also authors may have little place amoung the dead. There are two sides to this. Going back to Barthes, we can see that eliminating the identity of the "black" author, makes the work stand on its own without the context of black history and ideals. However, this doesn't work at all when a black author decides to write a work dealing with black issues. Sure, erasing the identity of the author lets the issues in the book stand, unbaised, yet, when dealing with issues or ideas about black culture or black ideals and coming from a black person, well, I would say it is most important that the reader keeps in mind WHO is writing the text, and more importantly, WHY?
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i don't know, man
that stuff about who is writing the text and why sort of puts a bad taste in my mouth. it's the sort of thing my conservative-radio-listening uncle says whenever i mention just about anything to him. "hey den, the armed forces misplaced 530 million dollars. cool, huh?" "well, mario, where did you read that? it could be islamo-fascist propaganda, or the homosexual agenda." the first concern should always be whether the information is accurate. the washington post is always taking heat for actually reporting the news. they'll report something, everyone will denounce them, then a few months later we'll find out they were right. i mean, they reported on the secret cia prisons over a year ago, and no one's admitted it until now. try listening to any talk radio show. i know it's hard, but it's sort of educational. it's always the same thing: "so and so is a good democrat/republican -- we can trust him!" or "this guy attended student rallies in the 60s -- he's a communist, throw him in jail!" it's just a way of drawing attention away from the information that the communist in question is trying to convey. everything is a sham.
:-*
I definitely see the point
I definitely see the point made by the first comment, that concentrating on the author more than the information is problematic. Assuming that, I think it is still very important to consider the WHY. Why is the text being written? In other words, what is the context? Marchessault writes, "...the work of art cannot be divorced from the the context of its reception" (87). Even last week, Foucault discussed power dynamics and the author-function, which was all about context. I don't think I would do away with the idea of the author in most circumstances, but if I did (in order to give more attention to the material) I still would feel the need to provide context (the parts of the individual author that are actually relevant and not just distracting.) Maybe the WHO isn't completely essential, but the WHY is.
WildCherry15