{"id":12626,"date":"2026-04-08T13:38:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T17:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/?page_id=12626"},"modified":"2026-04-08T18:05:48","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T22:05:48","slug":"rhetspring2026april08","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/engl6166spring2026\/rhetspring2026april08\/","title":{"rendered":"April 8th:  Jacques Derrida\u2019s Positions"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Plan for the Class<\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:post-content -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>Remember when philosophy was easy?<\/strong><!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Mention the\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kanopy.com\/en\/uncc\/product\/4934319\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Derrida documentary<\/a><\/strong> on Kanopy <!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Not available through UNC Charlotte\u2019s account but available through the Charlotte-Mecklenburg library\u2019s Kanopy account<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item \/--><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item \/-->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Let\u2019s figure Derrida out\u2026<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Roland Barthes Readings<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>&#8220;Death of the Author\u201d on <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/canvas.charlotte.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/canvas.charlotte.edu\/\">Canvas<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Barthes, Roland. \u201d Novels and Children\u201d from <em>Mythologies<\/em> on <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/canvas.charlotte.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/canvas.charlotte.edu\/\">Canvas<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Let\u2019s also talk about your\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/engl6166spring2026\/assignmentsspring2026\/#rhetproject\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Rhetoric\/al Projects<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item \/--><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Derrida\u2019s\u00a0<em>Positions<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>The three interviews shouldn\u2019t be considered a totality of Derrida\u2019s ideas; nor should we think all of deconstruction is answered. As he was quoted in his obituary, \u201cdeconstruction requires work\u201d; therefore, its meaning can\u2019t be handed to you.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Terms to Define<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>I think the following terms need to be defined, so we\u2019re all (somewhat) on the same page. This discussion is our introduction to Derrida, but his influence will be felt for quite some time:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Phenomenology_(philosophy)\">Phenomenology<\/a><\/strong>: the study of the structure of experience; reflection of consciousness.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Existentialism\">Existentialism<\/a><\/strong>: the idea that human (individual) existence comes from experience, that of the individual.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Structuralism\">Structuralism<\/a><\/strong>: studying culture as a system made up of identifiable connections that are all related to a grand structure, an overarching paradigm.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Post-structuralism\">Post-Structuralism<\/a><\/strong>: well, this is structuralism \u201cdeconstructed.\u201d Theories question the objectivity and stability of systems, especially the fixed meaning of language. What? Refer to p. 41 in <em>Positions<\/em>.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Linguistic terms<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Grammatology#Deconstructionism\">grammatology<\/a><\/strong>: writing doesn\u2019t reproduce speech (the window pane theory); instead, everything to do with writing constructs\/affects meaning.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Phoneme\">phoneme<\/a><\/strong>: basic (smallest) unit in a language that builds words. (think phonetic\u2026<em>do re mi<\/em>)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Grapheme\">grapheme<\/a><\/strong>: words, punctuation, numbers\u2013they don\u2019t carry meaning themselves<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Absolutist\/Monolithic Critiques<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>logocentrism: the Western assumption that \u201cthe word\u201d is the superior conveyor of meaning, one that has an identifiable in an ideal form.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Diff%C3%A9rance\">diff\u00e9rance<\/a><\/strong>: 1) \u201cthe systematic play of differences, of the traces of differences, of the spacing by means of which elements are related to each other\u201d (p. 27) 2) \u201creference to a present reality [or meaning] [is] always deferred\u201d (p. 29)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Trace_(deconstruction)\">trace<\/a><\/strong>:\u00a0Because the meaning of a sign is generated from the difference it has from other signs, especially the other half of its binary pairs, the sign itself contains a trace of what it does not mean.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>transcendental signified<\/strong>: the first cause or zero point\u2013absolute origin.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>psychologism<\/strong>: mathematical concepts and\/or truths are grounded in, derived from or explained by psychological facts or laws.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>phonologism<\/strong>: the study of sounds in a system of language.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/diacritic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/diacritic\">diacritical<\/a><\/strong>: marks on letters; from the dictionary: <em>a mark near or through an orthographic or phonetic character or combination of characters indicating a phonetic value different from that given the unmarked or otherwise marked element<\/em>.<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=RFm9ClqlGuo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=RFm9ClqlGuo\">Like the dot over the i&#8230;<\/a><\/strong>Thanks, Lacy!<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Now, we just need to figure out where to go next. If I haven\u2019t already, let me mention my approach to Derrida and, more importantly, teaching Derrida.\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/english.fsu.edu\/faculty\/aaron-jaffe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Maybe one of my mentors can help us out\u2026<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Maybe we ought to watch the\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=H0tnHr2dqTs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">School of Life video on Jacques Derrida<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading -->\r\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>More Context for Derrida<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Knoblauch\u2019s last chapter is <strong>\u201cDeconstructive Rhetoric,\u201d<\/strong> which we&#8217;ll get to in 2 weeks, but here&#8217;s a preview:<\/p>\r\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\r\n<li>\u201c\u2026<strong>deconstructive rhetoric<\/strong> valorizes irreverence and critique, the powerful mischief of play\u2026.deconstructive rhetoric can subvert hegemonic ideas or institutions while lacking the energy and determined commitment, the confident sense of agency, necessary to sponsor (or even envision) change for the better.\u201d (p. 199\u2013<em>Discursive Ideologies<\/em>)\r\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\r\n<li>Are we surprised there\u2019s no concise way to articulate this perspective?<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>In the New Media class, I preview these aspects of Derrida:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 95: logocentrism: \u201cthe reliance on fixed <em>a priori<\/em> transcendental meanings\u201d<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>phonocentrism: \u201cthe priority given to sounds and speech over writing in explaining the generation of meaning\u201d<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>\u201c\u2026privileging speech relies on the untenable idea that there is direct access to truth and stable meaning.\u201d<\/strong><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 96:\u00a0<em>diff\u00e9rance<\/em>\u2013difference and deferral<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 97:\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Arche-writing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>arche(i)writing<\/em><\/a>: \u201cWriting is always already part of the outside of texts. Texts form the outside of texts. Texts are constitutive of their outsides.\u201d<\/strong><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 98:\u00a0<strong>\u201cDeconstruction seeks to expose the\u2026.unacknowledged assumptions\u201d of texts, which \u201cinclude those places where a text\u2019s rhetorical strategies work against the logic of its own assumptions\u201d<\/strong><!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Technology example: The field of Composition, which has a long history of attempting to create a liberatory pedagogy (or pedagogy of liberation), has uncritically embraced communication technologies that force students, teachers, schools, and parents to get on the conveyor belt of planned obsolescence\u2013we need to buy (and upgrade) these items in order to participate in education.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Therefore, student loan debt combines with personal debt in order to keep us \u201cplugged in.\u201d\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=R706isyDrqI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Apple\u2019s Macintosh 1984 commercial<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(Irony here because many people go into debt chained to Apple products and other consumer goods).<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 101: \u201c\u2026since words do not refer to essences, identity is not a fixed universal \u2018thing\u2019 but a description in language\u201d<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>From Barker, Chris and Emma A. Jane.\u00a0<em>Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice<\/em>. 5th ed., Sage, 2016.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Discussion Questions\/Points<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Derrida list several homonyms\u2013words that sound alike but have different meanings (p. 40 and 42). Let\u2019s consider some English words:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>eight\/ate<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>band\/banned<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>beaut\/butte<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>bight\/bite\/byte<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>brows\/browse<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>whose\/who\u2019s<\/li>\r\n<li>marriage\/freedom<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Derivatives of cat?<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>cat, catsup, Catawba, catch<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Parles\/z-tu\/vous fran\u00e7ais? Espa\u00f1ola? Italiano?<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>chat, g\u00e2teau, cake<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>gato \/ gatto<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/121\/2023\/11\/Velvet_2022September_Paws.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/121\/2023\/11\/Velvet_2022September_Paws.jpg\">gattina nera<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>What about cognates across Italian and English? (Beware of false friends!)<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>federazione\u2013&gt;federation<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>stazione\u2013&gt;station<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>folcloristico\u2013&gt;????<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>preservativo\u2013&gt;????<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/songmeanings.com\/songs\/view\/70343\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The linearity of Bob Dylan.<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u201cForget the dead you\u2019ve left, they will not follow you\u201d (\u201cBaby Blue\u201d)<\/p>\r\n<p>Two Sentences:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>The institution of education is concerned with the development of children into productive adults.<\/li>\r\n<li>Education develops children into productive adults.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Looking Closure at Derrida\u2019s Interviews<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>It strikes me as ironic (at first) that a theorist as loquacious as Derrida has only a paragraph introduction for these republished interviews. Then again, I think about what an\u00a0<em>introductory<\/em>\u00a0is and how it\u00a0<em>frames<\/em>\u00a0a text. Introductions and the opposite, conclusions, bookend a text, which reproduces the idea\u2013that Derrida works against\u2013that the physical book, the writing between the covers of a book is the complete story. Therefore, the introduction and conclusion aren&#8217;t well defined, and &#8220;What is held within the demarcated closure may continue indefinitely&#8221; (Derrida 13).<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Of course, I still would like more of an \u201cIntroduction\u201d! Derrida does give us some context in that short introduction when he identifies that \u201cthese three interviews\u2026.form\u2026the gesture of an active interpretation,\u201d which are \u201carrested here\u201d (p. vii).<\/p>\r\n<p>On the meaning of &#8220;economy&#8221;:<\/p>\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p>Money replaces things by their signs, not only within a society but from one culture to another, or from one economic organization to another. That is why the alphabet is commercial, a trader. It must be understood within the <strong>monetary moment of economic rationality<\/strong>. The critical description of money is the faithful reflection of the discourse on writing. In both cases an anonymous supplement is substituted for the thing. (300)<\/p>\r\n<p>Derrida, Jacques. <em>Of Grammatology<\/em>. Translated by Gayatri Spivak. Johns Hopkins UP, 1997.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Money is a measure of value that (relatively) fixes valuation. Therefore, we can put a price on things and order them according to value. The alphabet allows us, by analogy, to (relatively) fix meaning in the form of words. After all, don&#8217;t we value the following the same:<\/p>\r\n<p><strong>\u201cImplications\u201d Interview with Henri Ronse<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 5: Concerning the three texts he cites, \u201cAll these texts, which are doubtless the interminable preface to another text that one day I would like to have the force to write, or still the epigraph to another I would never have the audacity to write\u2026\u201d<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>I think\u2026I propose\u2026that this statement might be a way of acknowledging, if not the arbitrariness of beginning and ending one\u2019s writing, then the situation of writing within a deconstructive context: Whatever words writers put down differ meaning, so wouldn\u2019t that also mean different topics could begin (or end\u2026or come in the middle) of a text?<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 6: \u201cwhat is dead wields a very specific power.\u201d<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>And, as Bob Dylan tells us, \u201cForget the dead you left \/ they will not follow you\u201d (\u201cBaby Blue\u201d)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 8: \u201cFirst,\u00a0<em>diff\u00e9rance<\/em>\u00a0refers to the (active\u00a0<em>and<\/em>\u00a0passive)\u2026deferring by means of delay, delegation, reprieve, referral, detour, postponement, reserving\u2026.What defers presence, on the contrary, is the very basis on which presence is announced or desired in what represents it, its sign, its trace\u2026\u201d<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 10: ontico-ontological<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>ontico: pertaining to real<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>ontological: the study of being<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 13-14: \u201cwriting does not begin. It is even on the basis of writing\u2026that one can put into question the search for an\u00a0<em>archie<\/em>, an absolute beginning, an origin. Writing can no more begin, therefore, than the book can end\u2026<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 14: \u201cTo risk meaning nothing is to start to play, and first to enter into the play of\u00a0<em>diff\u00e9rance<\/em>\u00a0which prevents any word, any concept, any major enunciation from coming to summarize and to govern from the theological presence of a center the movement and textual spacing of differences.\u201d<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p><strong>\u201cSemiology and Grammatology\u201d Interview with Julia Kristeva<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Let\u2019s start off by thinking about the different meanings of \u201cmetaphysics\u201d:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Modern, non-empirical inquiry into the nature of existence.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>I should also point out this interview was first published in\u00a0<em>Information sur les sciences sociales<\/em>. How would you define \u201csocial sciences\u201d?<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 17: \u201cAll gestures here are necessarily equivocal.\u201d<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 19: \u201c\u2018everyday language\u2019 is not innocent or neutral. It is the language of Western metaphysics.\u201d<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>pp. 19-20: \u201c\u2018transcendental signified,\u2019 which in and of itself, in its essence, would refer to no signifier, would exceed the chain of signs, and would no longer itself function as a signifier.\u201d<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 20: On translation\u2026\u201dWe will never have, and in fact have never had, to do with some \u2018transport\u2019 of pure signifieds from one language to another, or within one and the same language, that the signifying instrument would leave virgin and untouched.\u201d<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 24: <span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>Goal of deconstruction<\/strong><\/span>\u2013\u201cLike the concept of the sign\u2013and therefore semiology\u2013<span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>it can simultaneously confirm and shake logocentric and ethnocentric assuredness<\/strong><\/span>.\u201d<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>\u201ctransform concepts, to displace them, to turn them against their presuppositions, to reinscribe them in other chains, and little by little to modify the terrain of our work and thereby produce new configurations.\u201d<\/li>\r\n<li>What are examples of &#8220;ethnocentric assuredness&#8221;? {freedom, clothing, marriage, etc.}<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 24: Kristeva asks, &#8220;What is the gram as a &#8220;new structure of nonpresence&#8221;?<\/li>\r\n<li>pp. 26: Derrida: &#8220;It is a question, rather, of producing a new concept of writing. This concept can be called gram or differance. The play of differences supposes, in effect, syntheses and referrals which forbid at any moment, or in any sense, that a simple element be present in and of itself, referring only to itself.<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 31: &#8220;&#8216;meaning is an intelligible or spiritual ideality&#8230;&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 32: &#8220;Language is determined as expression&#8211;the expulsion of the intimacy of an inside&#8230;&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p><strong>\u201cPositions\u201d Interview with Jean-Louis Houdebine and Guy Scarpetta<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>&#8220;&#8230;aims at showing that there is not on single history, a general history, but rather histories different in their type, rhythm, mode of inscription&#8211;intervallic, differentiated histories.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 63: &#8220;&#8230;we cannot consider Marx&#8217;s, Engels&#8217;s, or Lenin&#8217;s texts as completely finished elaborations that are simply to be &#8216;applied&#8217; to the current situation&#8230;.These text are not to be read according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/hermeneutics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>hermeneutical<\/strong><\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/exegesis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>exegetical<\/strong><\/a> method which would seek out a finished signified beneath a textual surface.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>pp. 66-67: A concept in the process of constituting itself first produces a kind of localizable effervescence in the work of nomination&#8230;.It is this fringe of irreducibility that is to be analyzed.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 71: On naming&#8230;<br \/><!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>&#8220;Taking into account the fact that a name does not name the punctual simplicity of a concept, but rather a system of predicates defining a concept, a conceptual structure centered on a given <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/predicate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>predicate<\/strong><\/a>&#8230;.Therefore, extraction, graft, extension: you know that this is what I call, according to the process I have just described, <em>writing<\/em>.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>\u00a0<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Deconstruction<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Let\u2019s try to deconstruct, if possible, the following passage from the preface of Ashley Montagu and Floyd Matson\u2019s\u00a0<em>The Dehumanization of Man<\/em>:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>It neither kills outright nor inflicts apparent physical harm, yet the extent of its destructive toll is already greater than that of any war, plague, famine, or natural calamity on record\u2014and its potential damage to the quality of human life and the fabric of civilized society is beyond calculation. For that reason this sickness of the soul might well be called the \u201cFifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.\u201d Its more conventional name, of course, is dehumanization (p. xi).<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Barthes&#8217; &#8220;Death of An Author&#8221;<\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>I have two translations of an important part of Barthes&#8217;s text. The first is from the copy, translated by Richard Howard, I put on Canvas, and the other is from Barthes&#8217;s <em>Music-Image-Text<\/em> (1977), translated by Stephen Heath:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>We know that a text does not consist of a line of words, releasing a single &#8220;theological&#8221; meaning (the &#8220;message&#8221; of the Author-God), but is a space of many dimensions, in which are wedded and contested various kinds of writing, no one of which is original: the text is a tissue of citations, resulting from the thousand sources of culture. (p. 4, Howard translation)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single &#8220;theological&#8221; meaning (the message of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash.&#8221; (p. 146, Heath translation)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>What else can we say about this essay? How about <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azlyrics.com\/lyrics\/redhotchilipeppers\/deathofamartian.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">&#8220;Death of a Martian&#8221;<\/a><\/strong>?<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 2: &#8220;The author still rules in manuals of literary history, in biographies of writers, in magazine interviews, and even in the awareness of literary men, anxious to unite, by their private journals, their person and their work; the image of literature to be found in contemporary culture is <strong>tyrannically centered on the author<\/strong>, his person, his history, his tastes, his passions.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 4: The author&#8217;s &#8220;hand, detached from any voice, borne by a pure gesture of inscription (and not of expression), traces a field without origin\u2014or which, at least, has no other origin than language itself, that is, the very thing which ceaselessly questions any origin.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 4: &#8220;Quite the contrary, the modern writer (scriptor) is born simultaneously with his text; he is in no way supplied with a being which precedes or transcends his writing, he is in no way the subject of which his book is the predicate; there is no other time than that of the utterance, and every text is eternally written here and now.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 5: &#8220;Once the Author is gone, the claim to \u201cdecipher\u201d a text becomes quite useless. <strong>To give an Author to a text is to impose upon that text a stop clause, to furnish it with a final signification, to close the writing<\/strong>.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>To impose upon a text&#8230;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 5: &#8220;this is because the true locus of writing is reading.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Remember, there is no distinction (for us) between reading and interpreting. Even stop signs are interpreted&#8230;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 6: &#8220;we know that to restore to writing its future, we must reverse its myth: the birth of the reader must be ransomed by the death of the Author.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 6: &#8220;The reader has never been the concern of classical criticism; for it, there is no other man in literature but the one who writes.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>I assume Barthes believes men and women and trans and non-binary individuals can be authors.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Barthes on Rhetoric<\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Previously, I assigned two books from Barthes but have settled on &#8220;Death of an Author&#8221; and the essay &#8220;Novels and Children,&#8221; which comes from the book <em>Mythologies<\/em>, a compilation of essays he wrote and published in 1957 (1972 is when the English translation came out).<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>What can Barthes teach us about rhetoric? He has an example on p. 136, and on p. 150, he identifies what he means by &#8220;<em>rhetoric<\/em>&#8220;:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>&#8220;a set of fixed, regulated, insistent figures, according to which the varied forms of the mythical signifier arrange themselves&#8230;.It is through their rhetoric that bourgeois myths outline the general prospect of this pseudo-physis which defines the dream of the contemporary bourgeois world.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Some other words to define:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>physis<\/strong>: nature From Greek: the material we can sense in the cosmos.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>anti-physis<\/strong>: what we can&#8217;t sense (but we think we do)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>pseudo-physis<\/strong>: ideologically real<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Barthes&#8217;s <em>Mythologies<\/em><\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>A few terms to define from the preface:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>bourgeois<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/bourgeois\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">characteristic of the middle class<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>petit-bourgeois<\/strong>: <a href=\"http:\/\/dictionary.cambridge.org\/us\/dictionary\/english\/petit-bourgeois\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">belonging to the lower middle class<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>semioclasm<\/strong>: the destruction of signs (that, specifically, aren&#8217;t useful).<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>sublimate<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/sublimate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">(via psychoanalysis) to modify an impulse (e.g., libido) into a more culturally appropriate action or activity<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Key quotations from the preface:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 9: First theoretical framework is &#8220;an ideological critique bearing on the language of so-called mass-culture.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Second theoretical framework is &#8220;a first attempt to analyse semiologically the mechanics of this language.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 11: Barthes&#8217;s motivation for <em>Mythologies<\/em> is &#8220;a feeling of impatience at the sight of the &#8216;naturalness&#8217; with which newspapers, art and common sense constantly dress up reality which&#8230;is undoubtedly determined by history.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 11: &#8220;myth is a language&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 12: a paraphrase of a paraphrase: things repeated are culturally significant.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 12: &#8220;I cannot <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/countenance\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"countenance (opens in a new tab)\"><strong>countenance<\/strong><\/a> [definition #3] the traditional belief which postulates a natural dichotomy between the objectivity of the scientist and the subjectivity of the writer, as if the former were endowed with a &#8216;freedom&#8217; and the latter with a &#8216;vocation&#8217; equally suitable for spiriting away or sublimating the actual limitations of their situation. <strong><span style=\"color: red\">What I claim is to live to the full contradiction of my time, which may well make sarcasm the condition of truth.<\/span><\/strong>&#8220;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":4} -->\r\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">&#8220;Novels and Children&#8221;<\/h4>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Those of you joining the New Media class in the fall will probably revisit my <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/conferences\/seacs2021\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2021 SEACS presentation<\/a><\/strong>, which eventually became the short article <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/theseacs.org\/convergences\/#archive\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/theseacs.org\/convergences\/#archive\">&#8220;The Ethos of Motherhood: Nominating Amy Coney Barrett and Kamala Harris&#8221; in <em>Convergences<\/em><\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Barthes identifies gender reproduction in <em>Elle<\/em> magazine&#8217;s decision to photograph female novelists alongside their children. He argues this is what patriarchy\u00a0(unconsciously&#8230;although many would easily argue this is overt sexism) expects: Women can work, but they have to fulfill their &#8220;natural&#8221; role as mothers.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p><strong>Nancy Pelosi, first Madame Speaker of the House<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Take a look at these images of Nancy Pelosi and the fact that she had been surrounded by children when she took over the position of Speaker of the house (1\/4\/2007):<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/speaker-of-the-house-nancy-pelosi-waves-the-speakers-gavel-news-photo\/72924750?uiloc=thumbnail_more_from_this_event_adp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Gavel Raised High<\/a><\/strong> (Getty Images)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/washington-united-states-surrounded-by-children-house-news-photo\/72929266\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Another image<\/a><\/strong> (Getty Images)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ww2.hdnux.com\/photos\/10\/03\/12\/2110113\/13\/628x471.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">On House floor with grandchildren<\/a><\/strong> (Chronicle)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ww4.hdnux.com\/photos\/10\/03\/12\/2110119\/16\/628x471.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Holding baby on House floor<\/a><\/strong> (Cook)***<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/members-of-the-110th-congress-raise-their-right-hands-and-news-photo\/72925002\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Search results page<\/a><\/strong> (Getty Images)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>What might Barthes say about the choice of children surrounding her? From where does female power come?<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Notice the background when <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/photos\/john-boehner-takes-over-january-5-2011?family=editorial&amp;phrase=John%20Boehner%20takes%20over%20January%205,%202011&amp;sort=mostpopular#license\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">John Boehner takes over as Speaker of the House, 2011<\/a> <\/strong>(there used to be more readily available online). Then,\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/newly-elected-speaker-of-the-house-paul-ryan-republican-of-news-photo\/494816906\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Paul Ryan takes the gavel, 2015<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>***Yes, there is a picture of Boehner holding a baby when he takes over as Speaker, and there are pictures of children in the audience when Ryan takes over. But to not recognize the OVERWHELMING presence of children during Pelosi&#8217;s first time taking over as Speaker of the House is willfully ignoring the gendered message that was just as obvious to Barthes in the 1950s.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Of course, times have changed, which is why during the 2016 presidential campaign, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GsxbCplcfHI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hillary Clinton avoided being associated with children<\/a><\/strong>&#8230;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading -->\r\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Next Week\u2019s Reading<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>We have three more class meetings. Next week, we&#8217;ll get back to Knoblauch and discuss Ch. 4 and 5. Make sure you&#8217;ve nailed down your topic for your\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/engl6166spring2026\/assignmentsspring2026\/#rhetproject\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Rhetoric\/al Project <\/a><\/strong>due in 3 weeks.<\/p><!-- \/wp:paragraph --><!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 52: An interesting aside&#8230;&#8221;(When I try to decipher a text I do not constantly ask myself if I will finish by answering <em>yes<\/em> or <em>no<\/em>, as happens in France at determined periods of history, and generally on Sunday.)&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 56: Scarpetta citing On Grammatology&#8211;&#8220;The word &#8216;history&#8217; doubtless has always been associated with the linear consecution of presence.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 57: \u201cThe metaphysical character of the concept of history is not only linked to linearity, but to an entire\u00a0<em>system<\/em>\u00a0of implications (teleology, eschatology\u2026a certain type of traditionality, a certain concept of continuity, of truth, etc.)\u201d<\/li>\r\n<li>pp. 57-58: On Althusser&#8217;s critique of Hegel&#8217;s idea of history<br \/><!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>&#8220;&#8230;aims at showing that there is not on single history, a general history, but rather histories different in their type, rhythm, mode of inscription&#8211;intervallic, differentiated histories.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 63: &#8220;&#8230;we cannot consider Marx&#8217;s, Engels&#8217;s, or Lenin&#8217;s texts as completely finished elaborations that are simply to be &#8216;applied&#8217; to the current situation&#8230;.These text are not to be read according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/hermeneutics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>hermeneutical<\/strong><\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/exegesis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>exegetical<\/strong><\/a> method which would seek out a finished signified beneath a textual surface.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>pp. 66-67: A concept in the process of constituting itself first produces a kind of localizable effervescence in the work of nomination&#8230;.It is this fringe of irreducibility that is to be analyzed.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 71: On naming&#8230;<br \/><!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>&#8220;Taking into account the fact that a name does not name the punctual simplicity of a concept, but rather a system of predicates defining a concept, a conceptual structure centered on a given <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/predicate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>predicate<\/strong><\/a>&#8230;.Therefore, extraction, graft, extension: you know that this is what I call, according to the process I have just described, <em>writing<\/em>.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>\u00a0<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Deconstruction<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Let\u2019s try to deconstruct, if possible, the following passage from the preface of Ashley Montagu and Floyd Matson\u2019s\u00a0<em>The Dehumanization of Man<\/em>:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>It neither kills outright nor inflicts apparent physical harm, yet the extent of its destructive toll is already greater than that of any war, plague, famine, or natural calamity on record\u2014and its potential damage to the quality of human life and the fabric of civilized society is beyond calculation. For that reason this sickness of the soul might well be called the \u201cFifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.\u201d Its more conventional name, of course, is dehumanization (p. xi).<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Barthes&#8217; &#8220;Death of An Author&#8221;<\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>I have two translations of an important part of Barthes&#8217;s text. The first is from the copy, translated by Richard Howard, I put on Canvas, and the other is from Barthes&#8217;s <em>Music-Image-Text<\/em> (1977), translated by Stephen Heath:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>We know that a text does not consist of a line of words, releasing a single &#8220;theological&#8221; meaning (the &#8220;message&#8221; of the Author-God), but is a space of many dimensions, in which are wedded and contested various kinds of writing, no one of which is original: the text is a tissue of citations, resulting from the thousand sources of culture. (p. 4, Howard translation)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single &#8220;theological&#8221; meaning (the message of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash.&#8221; (p. 146, Heath translation)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>What else can we say about this essay? How about <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azlyrics.com\/lyrics\/redhotchilipeppers\/deathofamartian.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">&#8220;Death of a Martian&#8221;<\/a><\/strong>?<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 2: &#8220;The author still rules in manuals of literary history, in biographies of writers, in magazine interviews, and even in the awareness of literary men, anxious to unite, by their private journals, their person and their work; the image of literature to be found in contemporary culture is <strong>tyrannically centered on the author<\/strong>, his person, his history, his tastes, his passions.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 4: The author&#8217;s &#8220;hand, detached from any voice, borne by a pure gesture of inscription (and not of expression), traces a field without origin\u2014or which, at least, has no other origin than language itself, that is, the very thing which ceaselessly questions any origin.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 4: &#8220;Quite the contrary, the modern writer (scriptor) is born simultaneously with his text; he is in no way supplied with a being which precedes or transcends his writing, he is in no way the subject of which his book is the predicate; there is no other time than that of the utterance, and every text is eternally written here and now.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 5: &#8220;Once the Author is gone, the claim to \u201cdecipher\u201d a text becomes quite useless. <strong>To give an Author to a text is to impose upon that text a stop clause, to furnish it with a final signification, to close the writing<\/strong>.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>To impose upon a text&#8230;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 5: &#8220;this is because the true locus of writing is reading.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Remember, there is no distinction (for us) between reading and interpreting. Even stop signs are interpreted&#8230;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 6: &#8220;we know that to restore to writing its future, we must reverse its myth: the birth of the reader must be ransomed by the death of the Author.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 6: &#8220;The reader has never been the concern of classical criticism; for it, there is no other man in literature but the one who writes.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>I assume Barthes believes men and women and trans and non-binary individuals can be authors.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Barthes on Rhetoric<\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Previously, I assigned two books from Barthes but have settled on &#8220;Death of an Author&#8221; and the essay &#8220;Novels and Children,&#8221; which comes from the book <em>Mythologies<\/em>, a compilation of essays he wrote and published in 1957 (1972 is when the English translation came out).<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>What can Barthes teach us about rhetoric? He has an example on p. 136, and on p. 150, he identifies what he means by &#8220;<em>rhetoric<\/em>&#8220;:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>&#8220;a set of fixed, regulated, insistent figures, according to which the varied forms of the mythical signifier arrange themselves&#8230;.It is through their rhetoric that bourgeois myths outline the general prospect of this pseudo-physis which defines the dream of the contemporary bourgeois world.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Some other words to define:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>physis<\/strong>: nature From Greek: the material we can sense in the cosmos.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>anti-physis<\/strong>: what we can&#8217;t sense (but we think we do)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>pseudo-physis<\/strong>: ideologically real<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Barthes&#8217;s <em>Mythologies<\/em><\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>A few terms to define from the preface:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>bourgeois<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/bourgeois\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">characteristic of the middle class<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>petit-bourgeois<\/strong>: <a href=\"http:\/\/dictionary.cambridge.org\/us\/dictionary\/english\/petit-bourgeois\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">belonging to the lower middle class<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>semioclasm<\/strong>: the destruction of signs (that, specifically, aren&#8217;t useful).<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>sublimate<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/sublimate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">(via psychoanalysis) to modify an impulse (e.g., libido) into a more culturally appropriate action or activity<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Key quotations from the preface:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 9: First theoretical framework is &#8220;an ideological critique bearing on the language of so-called mass-culture.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Second theoretical framework is &#8220;a first attempt to analyse semiologically the mechanics of this language.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 11: Barthes&#8217;s motivation for <em>Mythologies<\/em> is &#8220;a feeling of impatience at the sight of the &#8216;naturalness&#8217; with which newspapers, art and common sense constantly dress up reality which&#8230;is undoubtedly determined by history.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 11: &#8220;myth is a language&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 12: a paraphrase of a paraphrase: things repeated are culturally significant.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 12: &#8220;I cannot <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/countenance\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"countenance (opens in a new tab)\"><strong>countenance<\/strong><\/a> [definition #3] the traditional belief which postulates a natural dichotomy between the objectivity of the scientist and the subjectivity of the writer, as if the former were endowed with a &#8216;freedom&#8217; and the latter with a &#8216;vocation&#8217; equally suitable for spiriting away or sublimating the actual limitations of their situation. <strong><span style=\"color: red\">What I claim is to live to the full contradiction of my time, which may well make sarcasm the condition of truth.<\/span><\/strong>&#8220;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":4} -->\r\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">&#8220;Novels and Children&#8221;<\/h4>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Those of you joining the New Media class in the fall will probably revisit my <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/conferences\/seacs2021\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2021 SEACS presentation<\/a><\/strong>, which eventually became the short article <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/theseacs.org\/convergences\/#archive\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/theseacs.org\/convergences\/#archive\">&#8220;The Ethos of Motherhood: Nominating Amy Coney Barrett and Kamala Harris&#8221; in <em>Convergences<\/em><\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Barthes identifies gender reproduction in <em>Elle<\/em> magazine&#8217;s decision to photograph female novelists alongside their children. He argues this is what patriarchy\u00a0(unconsciously&#8230;although many would easily argue this is overt sexism) expects: Women can work, but they have to fulfill their &#8220;natural&#8221; role as mothers.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p><strong>Nancy Pelosi, first Madame Speaker of the House<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Take a look at these images of Nancy Pelosi and the fact that she had been surrounded by children when she took over the position of Speaker of the house (1\/4\/2007):<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/speaker-of-the-house-nancy-pelosi-waves-the-speakers-gavel-news-photo\/72924750?uiloc=thumbnail_more_from_this_event_adp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Gavel Raised High<\/a><\/strong> (Getty Images)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/washington-united-states-surrounded-by-children-house-news-photo\/72929266\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Another image<\/a><\/strong> (Getty Images)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ww2.hdnux.com\/photos\/10\/03\/12\/2110113\/13\/628x471.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">On House floor with grandchildren<\/a><\/strong> (Chronicle)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ww4.hdnux.com\/photos\/10\/03\/12\/2110119\/16\/628x471.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Holding baby on House floor<\/a><\/strong> (Cook)***<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/members-of-the-110th-congress-raise-their-right-hands-and-news-photo\/72925002\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Search results page<\/a><\/strong> (Getty Images)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>What might Barthes say about the choice of children surrounding her? From where does female power come?<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Notice the background when <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/photos\/john-boehner-takes-over-january-5-2011?family=editorial&amp;phrase=John%20Boehner%20takes%20over%20January%205,%202011&amp;sort=mostpopular#license\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">John Boehner takes over as Speaker of the House, 2011<\/a> <\/strong>(there used to be more readily available online). Then,\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/newly-elected-speaker-of-the-house-paul-ryan-republican-of-news-photo\/494816906\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Paul Ryan takes the gavel, 2015<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>***Yes, there is a picture of Boehner holding a baby when he takes over as Speaker, and there are pictures of children in the audience when Ryan takes over. But to not recognize the OVERWHELMING presence of children during Pelosi&#8217;s first time taking over as Speaker of the House is willfully ignoring the gendered message that was just as obvious to Barthes in the 1950s.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Of course, times have changed, which is why during the 2016 presidential campaign, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GsxbCplcfHI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hillary Clinton avoided being associated with children<\/a><\/strong>&#8230;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading -->\r\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Next Week\u2019s Reading<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>We have three more class meetings. Next week, we&#8217;ll get back to Knoblauch and discuss Ch. 4 and 5. Make sure you&#8217;ve nailed down your topic for your\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/engl6166spring2026\/assignmentsspring2026\/#rhetproject\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Rhetoric\/al Project <\/a><\/strong>due in 3 weeks.<\/p><!-- \/wp:post-content --><!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 52: An interesting aside&#8230;&#8221;(When I try to decipher a text I do not constantly ask myself if I will finish by answering <em>yes<\/em> or <em>no<\/em>, as happens in France at determined periods of history, and generally on Sunday.)&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 56: Scarpetta citing On Grammatology&#8211;&#8220;The word &#8216;history&#8217; doubtless has always been associated with the linear consecution of presence.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 57: \u201cThe metaphysical character of the concept of history is not only linked to linearity, but to an entire\u00a0<em>system<\/em>\u00a0of implications (teleology, eschatology\u2026a certain type of traditionality, a certain concept of continuity, of truth, etc.)\u201d<\/li>\r\n<li>pp. 57-58: On Althusser&#8217;s critique of Hegel&#8217;s idea of history<br \/><!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>&#8220;&#8230;aims at showing that there is not on single history, a general history, but rather histories different in their type, rhythm, mode of inscription&#8211;intervallic, differentiated histories.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 63: &#8220;&#8230;we cannot consider Marx&#8217;s, Engels&#8217;s, or Lenin&#8217;s texts as completely finished elaborations that are simply to be &#8216;applied&#8217; to the current situation&#8230;.These text are not to be read according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/hermeneutics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>hermeneutical<\/strong><\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/exegesis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>exegetical<\/strong><\/a> method which would seek out a finished signified beneath a textual surface.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>pp. 66-67: A concept in the process of constituting itself first produces a kind of localizable effervescence in the work of nomination&#8230;.It is this fringe of irreducibility that is to be analyzed.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 71: On naming&#8230;<br \/><!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>&#8220;Taking into account the fact that a name does not name the punctual simplicity of a concept, but rather a system of predicates defining a concept, a conceptual structure centered on a given <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/predicate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>predicate<\/strong><\/a>&#8230;.Therefore, extraction, graft, extension: you know that this is what I call, according to the process I have just described, <em>writing<\/em>.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>\u00a0<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Deconstruction<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Let\u2019s try to deconstruct, if possible, the following passage from the preface of Ashley Montagu and Floyd Matson\u2019s\u00a0<em>The Dehumanization of Man<\/em>:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>It neither kills outright nor inflicts apparent physical harm, yet the extent of its destructive toll is already greater than that of any war, plague, famine, or natural calamity on record\u2014and its potential damage to the quality of human life and the fabric of civilized society is beyond calculation. For that reason this sickness of the soul might well be called the \u201cFifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.\u201d Its more conventional name, of course, is dehumanization (p. xi).<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Barthes&#8217; &#8220;Death of An Author&#8221;<\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>I have two translations of an important part of Barthes&#8217;s text. The first is from the copy, translated by Richard Howard, I put on Canvas, and the other is from Barthes&#8217;s <em>Music-Image-Text<\/em> (1977), translated by Stephen Heath:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>We know that a text does not consist of a line of words, releasing a single &#8220;theological&#8221; meaning (the &#8220;message&#8221; of the Author-God), but is a space of many dimensions, in which are wedded and contested various kinds of writing, no one of which is original: the text is a tissue of citations, resulting from the thousand sources of culture. (p. 4, Howard translation)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single &#8220;theological&#8221; meaning (the message of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash.&#8221; (p. 146, Heath translation)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>What else can we say about this essay? How about <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azlyrics.com\/lyrics\/redhotchilipeppers\/deathofamartian.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">&#8220;Death of a Martian&#8221;<\/a><\/strong>?<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 2: &#8220;The author still rules in manuals of literary history, in biographies of writers, in magazine interviews, and even in the awareness of literary men, anxious to unite, by their private journals, their person and their work; the image of literature to be found in contemporary culture is <strong>tyrannically centered on the author<\/strong>, his person, his history, his tastes, his passions.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 4: The author&#8217;s &#8220;hand, detached from any voice, borne by a pure gesture of inscription (and not of expression), traces a field without origin\u2014or which, at least, has no other origin than language itself, that is, the very thing which ceaselessly questions any origin.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 4: &#8220;Quite the contrary, the modern writer (scriptor) is born simultaneously with his text; he is in no way supplied with a being which precedes or transcends his writing, he is in no way the subject of which his book is the predicate; there is no other time than that of the utterance, and every text is eternally written here and now.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 5: &#8220;Once the Author is gone, the claim to \u201cdecipher\u201d a text becomes quite useless. <strong>To give an Author to a text is to impose upon that text a stop clause, to furnish it with a final signification, to close the writing<\/strong>.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>To impose upon a text&#8230;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 5: &#8220;this is because the true locus of writing is reading.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Remember, there is no distinction (for us) between reading and interpreting. Even stop signs are interpreted&#8230;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 6: &#8220;we know that to restore to writing its future, we must reverse its myth: the birth of the reader must be ransomed by the death of the Author.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 6: &#8220;The reader has never been the concern of classical criticism; for it, there is no other man in literature but the one who writes.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>I assume Barthes believes men and women and trans and non-binary individuals can be authors.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Barthes on Rhetoric<\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Previously, I assigned two books from Barthes but have settled on &#8220;Death of an Author&#8221; and the essay &#8220;Novels and Children,&#8221; which comes from the book <em>Mythologies<\/em>, a compilation of essays he wrote and published in 1957 (1972 is when the English translation came out).<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>What can Barthes teach us about rhetoric? He has an example on p. 136, and on p. 150, he identifies what he means by &#8220;<em>rhetoric<\/em>&#8220;:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>&#8220;a set of fixed, regulated, insistent figures, according to which the varied forms of the mythical signifier arrange themselves&#8230;.It is through their rhetoric that bourgeois myths outline the general prospect of this pseudo-physis which defines the dream of the contemporary bourgeois world.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Some other words to define:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>physis<\/strong>: nature From Greek: the material we can sense in the cosmos.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>anti-physis<\/strong>: what we can&#8217;t sense (but we think we do)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>pseudo-physis<\/strong>: ideologically real<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Barthes&#8217;s <em>Mythologies<\/em><\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>A few terms to define from the preface:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>bourgeois<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/bourgeois\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">characteristic of the middle class<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>petit-bourgeois<\/strong>: <a href=\"http:\/\/dictionary.cambridge.org\/us\/dictionary\/english\/petit-bourgeois\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">belonging to the lower middle class<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>semioclasm<\/strong>: the destruction of signs (that, specifically, aren&#8217;t useful).<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>sublimate<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/sublimate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">(via psychoanalysis) to modify an impulse (e.g., libido) into a more culturally appropriate action or activity<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Key quotations from the preface:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 9: First theoretical framework is &#8220;an ideological critique bearing on the language of so-called mass-culture.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Second theoretical framework is &#8220;a first attempt to analyse semiologically the mechanics of this language.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 11: Barthes&#8217;s motivation for <em>Mythologies<\/em> is &#8220;a feeling of impatience at the sight of the &#8216;naturalness&#8217; with which newspapers, art and common sense constantly dress up reality which&#8230;is undoubtedly determined by history.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 11: &#8220;myth is a language&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 12: a paraphrase of a paraphrase: things repeated are culturally significant.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 12: &#8220;I cannot <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/countenance\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"countenance (opens in a new tab)\"><strong>countenance<\/strong><\/a> [definition #3] the traditional belief which postulates a natural dichotomy between the objectivity of the scientist and the subjectivity of the writer, as if the former were endowed with a &#8216;freedom&#8217; and the latter with a &#8216;vocation&#8217; equally suitable for spiriting away or sublimating the actual limitations of their situation. <strong><span style=\"color: red\">What I claim is to live to the full contradiction of my time, which may well make sarcasm the condition of truth.<\/span><\/strong>&#8220;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":4} -->\r\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">&#8220;Novels and Children&#8221;<\/h4>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Those of you joining the New Media class in the fall will probably revisit my <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/conferences\/seacs2021\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2021 SEACS presentation<\/a><\/strong>, which eventually became the short article <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/theseacs.org\/convergences\/#archive\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/theseacs.org\/convergences\/#archive\">&#8220;The Ethos of Motherhood: Nominating Amy Coney Barrett and Kamala Harris&#8221; in <em>Convergences<\/em><\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Barthes identifies gender reproduction in <em>Elle<\/em> magazine&#8217;s decision to photograph female novelists alongside their children. He argues this is what patriarchy\u00a0(unconsciously&#8230;although many would easily argue this is overt sexism) expects: Women can work, but they have to fulfill their &#8220;natural&#8221; role as mothers.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p><strong>Nancy Pelosi, first Madame Speaker of the House<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Take a look at these images of Nancy Pelosi and the fact that she had been surrounded by children when she took over the position of Speaker of the house (1\/4\/2007):<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/speaker-of-the-house-nancy-pelosi-waves-the-speakers-gavel-news-photo\/72924750?uiloc=thumbnail_more_from_this_event_adp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Gavel Raised High<\/a><\/strong> (Getty Images)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/washington-united-states-surrounded-by-children-house-news-photo\/72929266\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Another image<\/a><\/strong> (Getty Images)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ww2.hdnux.com\/photos\/10\/03\/12\/2110113\/13\/628x471.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">On House floor with grandchildren<\/a><\/strong> (Chronicle)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ww4.hdnux.com\/photos\/10\/03\/12\/2110119\/16\/628x471.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Holding baby on House floor<\/a><\/strong> (Cook)***<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/members-of-the-110th-congress-raise-their-right-hands-and-news-photo\/72925002\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Search results page<\/a><\/strong> (Getty Images)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>What might Barthes say about the choice of children surrounding her? From where does female power come?<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Notice the background when <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/photos\/john-boehner-takes-over-january-5-2011?family=editorial&amp;phrase=John%20Boehner%20takes%20over%20January%205,%202011&amp;sort=mostpopular#license\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">John Boehner takes over as Speaker of the House, 2011<\/a> <\/strong>(there used to be more readily available online). Then,\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/newly-elected-speaker-of-the-house-paul-ryan-republican-of-news-photo\/494816906\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Paul Ryan takes the gavel, 2015<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>***Yes, there is a picture of Boehner holding a baby when he takes over as Speaker, and there are pictures of children in the audience when Ryan takes over. But to not recognize the OVERWHELMING presence of children during Pelosi&#8217;s first time taking over as Speaker of the House is willfully ignoring the gendered message that was just as obvious to Barthes in the 1950s.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Of course, times have changed, which is why during the 2016 presidential campaign, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GsxbCplcfHI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hillary Clinton avoided being associated with children<\/a><\/strong>&#8230;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading -->\r\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Next Week\u2019s Reading<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>We have three more class meetings. Next week, we&#8217;ll get back to Knoblauch and discuss Ch. 4 and 5. Make sure you&#8217;ve nailed down your topic for your\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/engl6166spring2026\/assignmentsspring2026\/#rhetproject\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Rhetoric\/al Project <\/a><\/strong>due in 3 weeks.<\/p><!-- \/wp:post-content --><!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 42: &#8220;&#8230;the hierarchy of dual oppositions always reestablishes itself.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 44: &#8220;Since this conflictuality of <em>diff\u00e9rance<\/em>&#8230;can never be totally resolved, it marks its effects in what I can the text in general, in <span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>a text which is not reduced to a book or a library<\/strong><\/span>, and which can never be governed by a referent in the classical sense&#8230;by a thing or by <span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>a transcendental signified that would regulate its movement<\/strong><\/span>.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 101, note 13: &#8220;&#8230;<em>diff\u00e9rance <\/em>(the process of differentiation) permits a differentiated accounting for heterogeneous modes of conflictuality, or, if you will, contradictions.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 45: &#8220;The supplement and the turbulence of a certain lack fracture the limit of the text, forbidding an exhaustive and closed formalization of it, or at least a saturating taxonomy of its themes, its signified, its meaning.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 49: \u201c\u2018<em>thought\u2019 means nothing<\/em>.\u201d<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 44: the irreducibility of texts.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 52: An interesting aside&#8230;&#8221;(When I try to decipher a text I do not constantly ask myself if I will finish by answering <em>yes<\/em> or <em>no<\/em>, as happens in France at determined periods of history, and generally on Sunday.)&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 56: Scarpetta citing On Grammatology&#8211;&#8220;The word &#8216;history&#8217; doubtless has always been associated with the linear consecution of presence.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 57: \u201cThe metaphysical character of the concept of history is not only linked to linearity, but to an entire\u00a0<em>system<\/em>\u00a0of implications (teleology, eschatology\u2026a certain type of traditionality, a certain concept of continuity, of truth, etc.)\u201d<\/li>\r\n<li>pp. 57-58: On Althusser&#8217;s critique of Hegel&#8217;s idea of history<br \/><!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>&#8220;&#8230;aims at showing that there is not on single history, a general history, but rather histories different in their type, rhythm, mode of inscription&#8211;intervallic, differentiated histories.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 63: &#8220;&#8230;we cannot consider Marx&#8217;s, Engels&#8217;s, or Lenin&#8217;s texts as completely finished elaborations that are simply to be &#8216;applied&#8217; to the current situation&#8230;.These text are not to be read according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/hermeneutics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>hermeneutical<\/strong><\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/exegesis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>exegetical<\/strong><\/a> method which would seek out a finished signified beneath a textual surface.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>pp. 66-67: A concept in the process of constituting itself first produces a kind of localizable effervescence in the work of nomination&#8230;.It is this fringe of irreducibility that is to be analyzed.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 71: On naming&#8230;<br \/><!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>&#8220;Taking into account the fact that a name does not name the punctual simplicity of a concept, but rather a system of predicates defining a concept, a conceptual structure centered on a given <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/predicate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>predicate<\/strong><\/a>&#8230;.Therefore, extraction, graft, extension: you know that this is what I call, according to the process I have just described, <em>writing<\/em>.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>\u00a0<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Deconstruction<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Let\u2019s try to deconstruct, if possible, the following passage from the preface of Ashley Montagu and Floyd Matson\u2019s\u00a0<em>The Dehumanization of Man<\/em>:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>It neither kills outright nor inflicts apparent physical harm, yet the extent of its destructive toll is already greater than that of any war, plague, famine, or natural calamity on record\u2014and its potential damage to the quality of human life and the fabric of civilized society is beyond calculation. For that reason this sickness of the soul might well be called the \u201cFifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.\u201d Its more conventional name, of course, is dehumanization (p. xi).<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Barthes&#8217; &#8220;Death of An Author&#8221;<\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>I have two translations of an important part of Barthes&#8217;s text. The first is from the copy, translated by Richard Howard, I put on Canvas, and the other is from Barthes&#8217;s <em>Music-Image-Text<\/em> (1977), translated by Stephen Heath:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>We know that a text does not consist of a line of words, releasing a single &#8220;theological&#8221; meaning (the &#8220;message&#8221; of the Author-God), but is a space of many dimensions, in which are wedded and contested various kinds of writing, no one of which is original: the text is a tissue of citations, resulting from the thousand sources of culture. (p. 4, Howard translation)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single &#8220;theological&#8221; meaning (the message of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash.&#8221; (p. 146, Heath translation)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>What else can we say about this essay? How about <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azlyrics.com\/lyrics\/redhotchilipeppers\/deathofamartian.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">&#8220;Death of a Martian&#8221;<\/a><\/strong>?<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 2: &#8220;The author still rules in manuals of literary history, in biographies of writers, in magazine interviews, and even in the awareness of literary men, anxious to unite, by their private journals, their person and their work; the image of literature to be found in contemporary culture is <strong>tyrannically centered on the author<\/strong>, his person, his history, his tastes, his passions.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 4: The author&#8217;s &#8220;hand, detached from any voice, borne by a pure gesture of inscription (and not of expression), traces a field without origin\u2014or which, at least, has no other origin than language itself, that is, the very thing which ceaselessly questions any origin.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 4: &#8220;Quite the contrary, the modern writer (scriptor) is born simultaneously with his text; he is in no way supplied with a being which precedes or transcends his writing, he is in no way the subject of which his book is the predicate; there is no other time than that of the utterance, and every text is eternally written here and now.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 5: &#8220;Once the Author is gone, the claim to \u201cdecipher\u201d a text becomes quite useless. <strong>To give an Author to a text is to impose upon that text a stop clause, to furnish it with a final signification, to close the writing<\/strong>.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>To impose upon a text&#8230;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 5: &#8220;this is because the true locus of writing is reading.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Remember, there is no distinction (for us) between reading and interpreting. Even stop signs are interpreted&#8230;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 6: &#8220;we know that to restore to writing its future, we must reverse its myth: the birth of the reader must be ransomed by the death of the Author.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 6: &#8220;The reader has never been the concern of classical criticism; for it, there is no other man in literature but the one who writes.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>I assume Barthes believes men and women and trans and non-binary individuals can be authors.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Barthes on Rhetoric<\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Previously, I assigned two books from Barthes but have settled on &#8220;Death of an Author&#8221; and the essay &#8220;Novels and Children,&#8221; which comes from the book <em>Mythologies<\/em>, a compilation of essays he wrote and published in 1957 (1972 is when the English translation came out).<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>What can Barthes teach us about rhetoric? He has an example on p. 136, and on p. 150, he identifies what he means by &#8220;<em>rhetoric<\/em>&#8220;:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>&#8220;a set of fixed, regulated, insistent figures, according to which the varied forms of the mythical signifier arrange themselves&#8230;.It is through their rhetoric that bourgeois myths outline the general prospect of this pseudo-physis which defines the dream of the contemporary bourgeois world.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Some other words to define:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>physis<\/strong>: nature From Greek: the material we can sense in the cosmos.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>anti-physis<\/strong>: what we can&#8217;t sense (but we think we do)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>pseudo-physis<\/strong>: ideologically real<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Barthes&#8217;s <em>Mythologies<\/em><\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>A few terms to define from the preface:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>bourgeois<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/bourgeois\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">characteristic of the middle class<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>petit-bourgeois<\/strong>: <a href=\"http:\/\/dictionary.cambridge.org\/us\/dictionary\/english\/petit-bourgeois\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">belonging to the lower middle class<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>semioclasm<\/strong>: the destruction of signs (that, specifically, aren&#8217;t useful).<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>sublimate<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/sublimate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">(via psychoanalysis) to modify an impulse (e.g., libido) into a more culturally appropriate action or activity<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Key quotations from the preface:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 9: First theoretical framework is &#8220;an ideological critique bearing on the language of so-called mass-culture.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Second theoretical framework is &#8220;a first attempt to analyse semiologically the mechanics of this language.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 11: Barthes&#8217;s motivation for <em>Mythologies<\/em> is &#8220;a feeling of impatience at the sight of the &#8216;naturalness&#8217; with which newspapers, art and common sense constantly dress up reality which&#8230;is undoubtedly determined by history.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 11: &#8220;myth is a language&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 12: a paraphrase of a paraphrase: things repeated are culturally significant.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 12: &#8220;I cannot <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/countenance\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"countenance (opens in a new tab)\"><strong>countenance<\/strong><\/a> [definition #3] the traditional belief which postulates a natural dichotomy between the objectivity of the scientist and the subjectivity of the writer, as if the former were endowed with a &#8216;freedom&#8217; and the latter with a &#8216;vocation&#8217; equally suitable for spiriting away or sublimating the actual limitations of their situation. <strong><span style=\"color: red\">What I claim is to live to the full contradiction of my time, which may well make sarcasm the condition of truth.<\/span><\/strong>&#8220;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":4} -->\r\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">&#8220;Novels and Children&#8221;<\/h4>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Those of you joining the New Media class in the fall will probably revisit my <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/conferences\/seacs2021\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2021 SEACS presentation<\/a><\/strong>, which eventually became the short article <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/theseacs.org\/convergences\/#archive\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/theseacs.org\/convergences\/#archive\">&#8220;The Ethos of Motherhood: Nominating Amy Coney Barrett and Kamala Harris&#8221; in <em>Convergences<\/em><\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Barthes identifies gender reproduction in <em>Elle<\/em> magazine&#8217;s decision to photograph female novelists alongside their children. He argues this is what patriarchy\u00a0(unconsciously&#8230;although many would easily argue this is overt sexism) expects: Women can work, but they have to fulfill their &#8220;natural&#8221; role as mothers.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p><strong>Nancy Pelosi, first Madame Speaker of the House<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Take a look at these images of Nancy Pelosi and the fact that she had been surrounded by children when she took over the position of Speaker of the house (1\/4\/2007):<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/speaker-of-the-house-nancy-pelosi-waves-the-speakers-gavel-news-photo\/72924750?uiloc=thumbnail_more_from_this_event_adp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Gavel Raised High<\/a><\/strong> (Getty Images)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/washington-united-states-surrounded-by-children-house-news-photo\/72929266\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Another image<\/a><\/strong> (Getty Images)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ww2.hdnux.com\/photos\/10\/03\/12\/2110113\/13\/628x471.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">On House floor with grandchildren<\/a><\/strong> (Chronicle)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ww4.hdnux.com\/photos\/10\/03\/12\/2110119\/16\/628x471.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Holding baby on House floor<\/a><\/strong> (Cook)***<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/members-of-the-110th-congress-raise-their-right-hands-and-news-photo\/72925002\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Search results page<\/a><\/strong> (Getty Images)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>What might Barthes say about the choice of children surrounding her? From where does female power come?<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Notice the background when <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/photos\/john-boehner-takes-over-january-5-2011?family=editorial&amp;phrase=John%20Boehner%20takes%20over%20January%205,%202011&amp;sort=mostpopular#license\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">John Boehner takes over as Speaker of the House, 2011<\/a> <\/strong>(there used to be more readily available online). Then,\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/newly-elected-speaker-of-the-house-paul-ryan-republican-of-news-photo\/494816906\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Paul Ryan takes the gavel, 2015<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>***Yes, there is a picture of Boehner holding a baby when he takes over as Speaker, and there are pictures of children in the audience when Ryan takes over. But to not recognize the OVERWHELMING presence of children during Pelosi&#8217;s first time taking over as Speaker of the House is willfully ignoring the gendered message that was just as obvious to Barthes in the 1950s.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Of course, times have changed, which is why during the 2016 presidential campaign, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GsxbCplcfHI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hillary Clinton avoided being associated with children<\/a><\/strong>&#8230;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading -->\r\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Next Week\u2019s Reading<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>We have three more class meetings. Next week, we&#8217;ll get back to Knoblauch and discuss Ch. 4 and 5. Make sure you&#8217;ve nailed down your topic for your\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/engl6166spring2026\/assignmentsspring2026\/#rhetproject\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Rhetoric\/al Project <\/a><\/strong>due in 3 weeks.<\/p><!-- \/wp:post-content --><!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 42: &#8220;&#8230;the hierarchy of dual oppositions always reestablishes itself.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 44: &#8220;Since this conflictuality of <em>diff\u00e9rance<\/em>&#8230;can never be totally resolved, it marks its effects in what I can the text in general, in <span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>a text which is not reduced to a book or a library<\/strong><\/span>, and which can never be governed by a referent in the classical sense&#8230;by a thing or by <span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>a transcendental signified that would regulate its movement<\/strong><\/span>.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 101, note 13: &#8220;&#8230;<em>diff\u00e9rance <\/em>(the process of differentiation) permits a differentiated accounting for heterogeneous modes of conflictuality, or, if you will, contradictions.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 45: &#8220;The supplement and the turbulence of a certain lack fracture the limit of the text, forbidding an exhaustive and closed formalization of it, or at least a saturating taxonomy of its themes, its signified, its meaning.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 49: \u201c\u2018<em>thought\u2019 means nothing<\/em>.\u201d<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 44: the irreducibility of texts.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 52: An interesting aside&#8230;&#8221;(When I try to decipher a text I do not constantly ask myself if I will finish by answering <em>yes<\/em> or <em>no<\/em>, as happens in France at determined periods of history, and generally on Sunday.)&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 56: Scarpetta citing On Grammatology&#8211;&#8220;The word &#8216;history&#8217; doubtless has always been associated with the linear consecution of presence.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 57: \u201cThe metaphysical character of the concept of history is not only linked to linearity, but to an entire\u00a0<em>system<\/em>\u00a0of implications (teleology, eschatology\u2026a certain type of traditionality, a certain concept of continuity, of truth, etc.)\u201d<\/li>\r\n<li>pp. 57-58: On Althusser&#8217;s critique of Hegel&#8217;s idea of history<br \/><!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>&#8220;&#8230;aims at showing that there is not on single history, a general history, but rather histories different in their type, rhythm, mode of inscription&#8211;intervallic, differentiated histories.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 63: &#8220;&#8230;we cannot consider Marx&#8217;s, Engels&#8217;s, or Lenin&#8217;s texts as completely finished elaborations that are simply to be &#8216;applied&#8217; to the current situation&#8230;.These text are not to be read according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/hermeneutics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>hermeneutical<\/strong><\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/exegesis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>exegetical<\/strong><\/a> method which would seek out a finished signified beneath a textual surface.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>pp. 66-67: A concept in the process of constituting itself first produces a kind of localizable effervescence in the work of nomination&#8230;.It is this fringe of irreducibility that is to be analyzed.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 71: On naming&#8230;<br \/><!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>&#8220;Taking into account the fact that a name does not name the punctual simplicity of a concept, but rather a system of predicates defining a concept, a conceptual structure centered on a given <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/predicate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>predicate<\/strong><\/a>&#8230;.Therefore, extraction, graft, extension: you know that this is what I call, according to the process I have just described, <em>writing<\/em>.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>\u00a0<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Deconstruction<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Let\u2019s try to deconstruct, if possible, the following passage from the preface of Ashley Montagu and Floyd Matson\u2019s\u00a0<em>The Dehumanization of Man<\/em>:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>It neither kills outright nor inflicts apparent physical harm, yet the extent of its destructive toll is already greater than that of any war, plague, famine, or natural calamity on record\u2014and its potential damage to the quality of human life and the fabric of civilized society is beyond calculation. For that reason this sickness of the soul might well be called the \u201cFifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.\u201d Its more conventional name, of course, is dehumanization (p. xi).<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Barthes&#8217; &#8220;Death of An Author&#8221;<\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>I have two translations of an important part of Barthes&#8217;s text. The first is from the copy, translated by Richard Howard, I put on Canvas, and the other is from Barthes&#8217;s <em>Music-Image-Text<\/em> (1977), translated by Stephen Heath:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>We know that a text does not consist of a line of words, releasing a single &#8220;theological&#8221; meaning (the &#8220;message&#8221; of the Author-God), but is a space of many dimensions, in which are wedded and contested various kinds of writing, no one of which is original: the text is a tissue of citations, resulting from the thousand sources of culture. (p. 4, Howard translation)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single &#8220;theological&#8221; meaning (the message of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash.&#8221; (p. 146, Heath translation)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>What else can we say about this essay? How about <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azlyrics.com\/lyrics\/redhotchilipeppers\/deathofamartian.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">&#8220;Death of a Martian&#8221;<\/a><\/strong>?<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 2: &#8220;The author still rules in manuals of literary history, in biographies of writers, in magazine interviews, and even in the awareness of literary men, anxious to unite, by their private journals, their person and their work; the image of literature to be found in contemporary culture is <strong>tyrannically centered on the author<\/strong>, his person, his history, his tastes, his passions.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 4: The author&#8217;s &#8220;hand, detached from any voice, borne by a pure gesture of inscription (and not of expression), traces a field without origin\u2014or which, at least, has no other origin than language itself, that is, the very thing which ceaselessly questions any origin.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 4: &#8220;Quite the contrary, the modern writer (scriptor) is born simultaneously with his text; he is in no way supplied with a being which precedes or transcends his writing, he is in no way the subject of which his book is the predicate; there is no other time than that of the utterance, and every text is eternally written here and now.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 5: &#8220;Once the Author is gone, the claim to \u201cdecipher\u201d a text becomes quite useless. <strong>To give an Author to a text is to impose upon that text a stop clause, to furnish it with a final signification, to close the writing<\/strong>.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>To impose upon a text&#8230;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 5: &#8220;this is because the true locus of writing is reading.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Remember, there is no distinction (for us) between reading and interpreting. Even stop signs are interpreted&#8230;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 6: &#8220;we know that to restore to writing its future, we must reverse its myth: the birth of the reader must be ransomed by the death of the Author.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 6: &#8220;The reader has never been the concern of classical criticism; for it, there is no other man in literature but the one who writes.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>I assume Barthes believes men and women and trans and non-binary individuals can be authors.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Barthes on Rhetoric<\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Previously, I assigned two books from Barthes but have settled on &#8220;Death of an Author&#8221; and the essay &#8220;Novels and Children,&#8221; which comes from the book <em>Mythologies<\/em>, a compilation of essays he wrote and published in 1957 (1972 is when the English translation came out).<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>What can Barthes teach us about rhetoric? He has an example on p. 136, and on p. 150, he identifies what he means by &#8220;<em>rhetoric<\/em>&#8220;:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>&#8220;a set of fixed, regulated, insistent figures, according to which the varied forms of the mythical signifier arrange themselves&#8230;.It is through their rhetoric that bourgeois myths outline the general prospect of this pseudo-physis which defines the dream of the contemporary bourgeois world.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Some other words to define:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>physis<\/strong>: nature From Greek: the material we can sense in the cosmos.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>anti-physis<\/strong>: what we can&#8217;t sense (but we think we do)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>pseudo-physis<\/strong>: ideologically real<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Barthes&#8217;s <em>Mythologies<\/em><\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>A few terms to define from the preface:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>bourgeois<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/bourgeois\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">characteristic of the middle class<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>petit-bourgeois<\/strong>: <a href=\"http:\/\/dictionary.cambridge.org\/us\/dictionary\/english\/petit-bourgeois\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">belonging to the lower middle class<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>semioclasm<\/strong>: the destruction of signs (that, specifically, aren&#8217;t useful).<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>sublimate<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/sublimate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">(via psychoanalysis) to modify an impulse (e.g., libido) into a more culturally appropriate action or activity<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Key quotations from the preface:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 9: First theoretical framework is &#8220;an ideological critique bearing on the language of so-called mass-culture.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Second theoretical framework is &#8220;a first attempt to analyse semiologically the mechanics of this language.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 11: Barthes&#8217;s motivation for <em>Mythologies<\/em> is &#8220;a feeling of impatience at the sight of the &#8216;naturalness&#8217; with which newspapers, art and common sense constantly dress up reality which&#8230;is undoubtedly determined by history.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 11: &#8220;myth is a language&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 12: a paraphrase of a paraphrase: things repeated are culturally significant.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 12: &#8220;I cannot <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/countenance\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"countenance (opens in a new tab)\"><strong>countenance<\/strong><\/a> [definition #3] the traditional belief which postulates a natural dichotomy between the objectivity of the scientist and the subjectivity of the writer, as if the former were endowed with a &#8216;freedom&#8217; and the latter with a &#8216;vocation&#8217; equally suitable for spiriting away or sublimating the actual limitations of their situation. <strong><span style=\"color: red\">What I claim is to live to the full contradiction of my time, which may well make sarcasm the condition of truth.<\/span><\/strong>&#8220;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":4} -->\r\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">&#8220;Novels and Children&#8221;<\/h4>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Those of you joining the New Media class in the fall will probably revisit my <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/conferences\/seacs2021\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2021 SEACS presentation<\/a><\/strong>, which eventually became the short article <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/theseacs.org\/convergences\/#archive\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/theseacs.org\/convergences\/#archive\">&#8220;The Ethos of Motherhood: Nominating Amy Coney Barrett and Kamala Harris&#8221; in <em>Convergences<\/em><\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Barthes identifies gender reproduction in <em>Elle<\/em> magazine&#8217;s decision to photograph female novelists alongside their children. He argues this is what patriarchy\u00a0(unconsciously&#8230;although many would easily argue this is overt sexism) expects: Women can work, but they have to fulfill their &#8220;natural&#8221; role as mothers.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p><strong>Nancy Pelosi, first Madame Speaker of the House<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Take a look at these images of Nancy Pelosi and the fact that she had been surrounded by children when she took over the position of Speaker of the house (1\/4\/2007):<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/speaker-of-the-house-nancy-pelosi-waves-the-speakers-gavel-news-photo\/72924750?uiloc=thumbnail_more_from_this_event_adp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Gavel Raised High<\/a><\/strong> (Getty Images)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/washington-united-states-surrounded-by-children-house-news-photo\/72929266\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Another image<\/a><\/strong> (Getty Images)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ww2.hdnux.com\/photos\/10\/03\/12\/2110113\/13\/628x471.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">On House floor with grandchildren<\/a><\/strong> (Chronicle)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ww4.hdnux.com\/photos\/10\/03\/12\/2110119\/16\/628x471.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Holding baby on House floor<\/a><\/strong> (Cook)***<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/members-of-the-110th-congress-raise-their-right-hands-and-news-photo\/72925002\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Search results page<\/a><\/strong> (Getty Images)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>What might Barthes say about the choice of children surrounding her? From where does female power come?<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Notice the background when <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/photos\/john-boehner-takes-over-january-5-2011?family=editorial&amp;phrase=John%20Boehner%20takes%20over%20January%205,%202011&amp;sort=mostpopular#license\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">John Boehner takes over as Speaker of the House, 2011<\/a> <\/strong>(there used to be more readily available online). Then,\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/newly-elected-speaker-of-the-house-paul-ryan-republican-of-news-photo\/494816906\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Paul Ryan takes the gavel, 2015<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>***Yes, there is a picture of Boehner holding a baby when he takes over as Speaker, and there are pictures of children in the audience when Ryan takes over. But to not recognize the OVERWHELMING presence of children during Pelosi&#8217;s first time taking over as Speaker of the House is willfully ignoring the gendered message that was just as obvious to Barthes in the 1950s.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Of course, times have changed, which is why during the 2016 presidential campaign, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GsxbCplcfHI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hillary Clinton avoided being associated with children<\/a><\/strong>&#8230;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading -->\r\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Next Week\u2019s Reading<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>We have three more class meetings. Next week, we&#8217;ll get back to Knoblauch and discuss Ch. 4 and 5. Make sure you&#8217;ve nailed down your topic for your\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/engl6166spring2026\/assignmentsspring2026\/#rhetproject\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Rhetoric\/al Project <\/a><\/strong>due in 3 weeks.<\/p><!-- \/wp:post-content --><!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 41: \u201cOne of the two terms governs the other\u2026or has the upper hand. To deconstruct the opposition, first of all, is to overturn the hierarchy at a given moment.\u201d<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 42: &#8220;&#8230;the hierarchy of dual oppositions always reestablishes itself.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 44: &#8220;Since this conflictuality of <em>diff\u00e9rance<\/em>&#8230;can never be totally resolved, it marks its effects in what I can the text in general, in <span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>a text which is not reduced to a book or a library<\/strong><\/span>, and which can never be governed by a referent in the classical sense&#8230;by a thing or by <span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>a transcendental signified that would regulate its movement<\/strong><\/span>.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 101, note 13: &#8220;&#8230;<em>diff\u00e9rance <\/em>(the process of differentiation) permits a differentiated accounting for heterogeneous modes of conflictuality, or, if you will, contradictions.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 45: &#8220;The supplement and the turbulence of a certain lack fracture the limit of the text, forbidding an exhaustive and closed formalization of it, or at least a saturating taxonomy of its themes, its signified, its meaning.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 49: \u201c\u2018<em>thought\u2019 means nothing<\/em>.\u201d<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 44: the irreducibility of texts.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 52: An interesting aside&#8230;&#8221;(When I try to decipher a text I do not constantly ask myself if I will finish by answering <em>yes<\/em> or <em>no<\/em>, as happens in France at determined periods of history, and generally on Sunday.)&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 56: Scarpetta citing On Grammatology&#8211;&#8220;The word &#8216;history&#8217; doubtless has always been associated with the linear consecution of presence.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 57: \u201cThe metaphysical character of the concept of history is not only linked to linearity, but to an entire\u00a0<em>system<\/em>\u00a0of implications (teleology, eschatology\u2026a certain type of traditionality, a certain concept of continuity, of truth, etc.)\u201d<\/li>\r\n<li>pp. 57-58: On Althusser&#8217;s critique of Hegel&#8217;s idea of history<br \/><!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>&#8220;&#8230;aims at showing that there is not on single history, a general history, but rather histories different in their type, rhythm, mode of inscription&#8211;intervallic, differentiated histories.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 63: &#8220;&#8230;we cannot consider Marx&#8217;s, Engels&#8217;s, or Lenin&#8217;s texts as completely finished elaborations that are simply to be &#8216;applied&#8217; to the current situation&#8230;.These text are not to be read according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/hermeneutics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>hermeneutical<\/strong><\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/exegesis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>exegetical<\/strong><\/a> method which would seek out a finished signified beneath a textual surface.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>pp. 66-67: A concept in the process of constituting itself first produces a kind of localizable effervescence in the work of nomination&#8230;.It is this fringe of irreducibility that is to be analyzed.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li>p. 71: On naming&#8230;<br \/><!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>&#8220;Taking into account the fact that a name does not name the punctual simplicity of a concept, but rather a system of predicates defining a concept, a conceptual structure centered on a given <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/predicate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>predicate<\/strong><\/a>&#8230;.Therefore, extraction, graft, extension: you know that this is what I call, according to the process I have just described, <em>writing<\/em>.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>\u00a0<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Deconstruction<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Let\u2019s try to deconstruct, if possible, the following passage from the preface of Ashley Montagu and Floyd Matson\u2019s\u00a0<em>The Dehumanization of Man<\/em>:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>It neither kills outright nor inflicts apparent physical harm, yet the extent of its destructive toll is already greater than that of any war, plague, famine, or natural calamity on record\u2014and its potential damage to the quality of human life and the fabric of civilized society is beyond calculation. For that reason this sickness of the soul might well be called the \u201cFifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.\u201d Its more conventional name, of course, is dehumanization (p. xi).<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Barthes&#8217; &#8220;Death of An Author&#8221;<\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>I have two translations of an important part of Barthes&#8217;s text. The first is from the copy, translated by Richard Howard, I put on Canvas, and the other is from Barthes&#8217;s <em>Music-Image-Text<\/em> (1977), translated by Stephen Heath:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>We know that a text does not consist of a line of words, releasing a single &#8220;theological&#8221; meaning (the &#8220;message&#8221; of the Author-God), but is a space of many dimensions, in which are wedded and contested various kinds of writing, no one of which is original: the text is a tissue of citations, resulting from the thousand sources of culture. (p. 4, Howard translation)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single &#8220;theological&#8221; meaning (the message of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash.&#8221; (p. 146, Heath translation)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>What else can we say about this essay? How about <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azlyrics.com\/lyrics\/redhotchilipeppers\/deathofamartian.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">&#8220;Death of a Martian&#8221;<\/a><\/strong>?<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 2: &#8220;The author still rules in manuals of literary history, in biographies of writers, in magazine interviews, and even in the awareness of literary men, anxious to unite, by their private journals, their person and their work; the image of literature to be found in contemporary culture is <strong>tyrannically centered on the author<\/strong>, his person, his history, his tastes, his passions.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 4: The author&#8217;s &#8220;hand, detached from any voice, borne by a pure gesture of inscription (and not of expression), traces a field without origin\u2014or which, at least, has no other origin than language itself, that is, the very thing which ceaselessly questions any origin.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 4: &#8220;Quite the contrary, the modern writer (scriptor) is born simultaneously with his text; he is in no way supplied with a being which precedes or transcends his writing, he is in no way the subject of which his book is the predicate; there is no other time than that of the utterance, and every text is eternally written here and now.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 5: &#8220;Once the Author is gone, the claim to \u201cdecipher\u201d a text becomes quite useless. <strong>To give an Author to a text is to impose upon that text a stop clause, to furnish it with a final signification, to close the writing<\/strong>.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>To impose upon a text&#8230;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 5: &#8220;this is because the true locus of writing is reading.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Remember, there is no distinction (for us) between reading and interpreting. Even stop signs are interpreted&#8230;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 6: &#8220;we know that to restore to writing its future, we must reverse its myth: the birth of the reader must be ransomed by the death of the Author.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 6: &#8220;The reader has never been the concern of classical criticism; for it, there is no other man in literature but the one who writes.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>I assume Barthes believes men and women and trans and non-binary individuals can be authors.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Barthes on Rhetoric<\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Previously, I assigned two books from Barthes but have settled on &#8220;Death of an Author&#8221; and the essay &#8220;Novels and Children,&#8221; which comes from the book <em>Mythologies<\/em>, a compilation of essays he wrote and published in 1957 (1972 is when the English translation came out).<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>What can Barthes teach us about rhetoric? He has an example on p. 136, and on p. 150, he identifies what he means by &#8220;<em>rhetoric<\/em>&#8220;:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>&#8220;a set of fixed, regulated, insistent figures, according to which the varied forms of the mythical signifier arrange themselves&#8230;.It is through their rhetoric that bourgeois myths outline the general prospect of this pseudo-physis which defines the dream of the contemporary bourgeois world.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Some other words to define:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>physis<\/strong>: nature From Greek: the material we can sense in the cosmos.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>anti-physis<\/strong>: what we can&#8217;t sense (but we think we do)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>pseudo-physis<\/strong>: ideologically real<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":3} -->\r\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Barthes&#8217;s <em>Mythologies<\/em><\/h3>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>A few terms to define from the preface:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>bourgeois<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/bourgeois\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">characteristic of the middle class<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>petit-bourgeois<\/strong>: <a href=\"http:\/\/dictionary.cambridge.org\/us\/dictionary\/english\/petit-bourgeois\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">belonging to the lower middle class<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>semioclasm<\/strong>: the destruction of signs (that, specifically, aren&#8217;t useful).<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong>sublimate<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/sublimate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">(via psychoanalysis) to modify an impulse (e.g., libido) into a more culturally appropriate action or activity<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Key quotations from the preface:<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 9: First theoretical framework is &#8220;an ideological critique bearing on the language of so-called mass-culture.&#8221;<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Second theoretical framework is &#8220;a first attempt to analyse semiologically the mechanics of this language.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list --><\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 11: Barthes&#8217;s motivation for <em>Mythologies<\/em> is &#8220;a feeling of impatience at the sight of the &#8216;naturalness&#8217; with which newspapers, art and common sense constantly dress up reality which&#8230;is undoubtedly determined by history.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 11: &#8220;myth is a language&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 12: a paraphrase of a paraphrase: things repeated are culturally significant.<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>p. 12: &#8220;I cannot <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/countenance\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"countenance (opens in a new tab)\"><strong>countenance<\/strong><\/a> [definition #3] the traditional belief which postulates a natural dichotomy between the objectivity of the scientist and the subjectivity of the writer, as if the former were endowed with a &#8216;freedom&#8217; and the latter with a &#8216;vocation&#8217; equally suitable for spiriting away or sublimating the actual limitations of their situation. <strong><span style=\"color: red\">What I claim is to live to the full contradiction of my time, which may well make sarcasm the condition of truth.<\/span><\/strong>&#8220;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":4} -->\r\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">&#8220;Novels and Children&#8221;<\/h4>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Those of you joining the New Media class in the fall will probably revisit my <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/conferences\/seacs2021\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2021 SEACS presentation<\/a><\/strong>, which eventually became the short article <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/theseacs.org\/convergences\/#archive\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/theseacs.org\/convergences\/#archive\">&#8220;The Ethos of Motherhood: Nominating Amy Coney Barrett and Kamala Harris&#8221; in <em>Convergences<\/em><\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Barthes identifies gender reproduction in <em>Elle<\/em> magazine&#8217;s decision to photograph female novelists alongside their children. He argues this is what patriarchy\u00a0(unconsciously&#8230;although many would easily argue this is overt sexism) expects: Women can work, but they have to fulfill their &#8220;natural&#8221; role as mothers.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p><strong>Nancy Pelosi, first Madame Speaker of the House<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Take a look at these images of Nancy Pelosi and the fact that she had been surrounded by children when she took over the position of Speaker of the house (1\/4\/2007):<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/speaker-of-the-house-nancy-pelosi-waves-the-speakers-gavel-news-photo\/72924750?uiloc=thumbnail_more_from_this_event_adp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Gavel Raised High<\/a><\/strong> (Getty Images)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/washington-united-states-surrounded-by-children-house-news-photo\/72929266\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Another image<\/a><\/strong> (Getty Images)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ww2.hdnux.com\/photos\/10\/03\/12\/2110113\/13\/628x471.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">On House floor with grandchildren<\/a><\/strong> (Chronicle)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ww4.hdnux.com\/photos\/10\/03\/12\/2110119\/16\/628x471.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Holding baby on House floor<\/a><\/strong> (Cook)***<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/members-of-the-110th-congress-raise-their-right-hands-and-news-photo\/72925002\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Search results page<\/a><\/strong> (Getty Images)<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>What might Barthes say about the choice of children surrounding her? From where does female power come?<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Notice the background when <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/photos\/john-boehner-takes-over-january-5-2011?family=editorial&amp;phrase=John%20Boehner%20takes%20over%20January%205,%202011&amp;sort=mostpopular#license\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">John Boehner takes over as Speaker of the House, 2011<\/a> <\/strong>(there used to be more readily available online). Then,\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/newly-elected-speaker-of-the-house-paul-ryan-republican-of-news-photo\/494816906\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Paul Ryan takes the gavel, 2015<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>***Yes, there is a picture of Boehner holding a baby when he takes over as Speaker, and there are pictures of children in the audience when Ryan takes over. But to not recognize the OVERWHELMING presence of children during Pelosi&#8217;s first time taking over as Speaker of the House is willfully ignoring the gendered message that was just as obvious to Barthes in the 1950s.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:list -->\r\n<ul><!-- wp:list-item -->\r\n<li>Of course, times have changed, which is why during the 2016 presidential campaign, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GsxbCplcfHI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hillary Clinton avoided being associated with children<\/a><\/strong>&#8230;<\/li>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\r\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading -->\r\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Next Week\u2019s Reading<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>We have three more class meetings. Next week, we&#8217;ll get back to Knoblauch and discuss Ch. 4 and 5. Make sure you&#8217;ve nailed down your topic for your\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/engl6166spring2026\/assignmentsspring2026\/#rhetproject\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Rhetoric\/al Project <\/a><\/strong>due in 3 weeks.<\/p><!-- \/wp:post-content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Plan for the Class Remember when philosophy was easy? Mention the\u00a0Derrida documentary on Kanopy Not available through UNC Charlotte\u2019s account but available through the Charlotte-Mecklenburg library\u2019s Kanopy account Let\u2019s figure Derrida out\u2026 Roland Barthes Readings &#8220;Death of the Author\u201d on Canvas Barthes, Roland. \u201d Novels and Children\u201d from Mythologies on Canvas Let\u2019s also talk about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":598,"featured_media":0,"parent":12423,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-12626","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P2HAOx-3hE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/598"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12626"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12636,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12626\/revisions\/12636"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}