On Conclusions
In thinking more about Latour–and, in a general sense, a number of the readings that we’ve done throughout the semester–there’s a point that the classroom discussion never got to that I think is an interesting one. As we move away from deconstruction as a reductive process, as we multiply the vantage points from which approach each text, what happens to the idea of conclusion? And by conclusion I mean the subjective assignment of meaning to a text/parts of a text–the fact. Does it still fit into this model of an essay that we’ve created? I kept on mulling over the Crash assignment that dealt with race in the movie, and how it doesn’t work because it reduces and because it encourages (almost demands) rote response. And I thought about the clear advantages of addressing instead how the movie simultaneously deals with race, urban sociology, the police as an institution, and countless other “angles.” But as we named vantages from which to analyze, there was no discussion of what would be the endgame of this stockpile. Because it seems like, an interpretation/meaning–maybe even a fact–could be produced after this rigorous process of investigation. Not only an interpretation, but an interesting one. But at the same time, there seems to exist some hesitance in terms of being conclusive in this way, a way that reduces this process of investigation to a single statement. And I understand how this conclusion, this process of forming a thesis, excludes, other meanings (viable meanings) from entering into the frame of the essay. It is linear and prescriptive in a way that turns analysis into something that it’s not (i.e, static). Still, I also can’t shake the feeling that this rigorous investigation is also one-step shy of a finished product. Lingering with me is the thought that something else could be done with it. As I was reading the most recent Ulmer essay/assignment (”Kubla Honky Tonk”), I was taken by the way in which he could conceive of the mystory both as a labyrinth and as an allegory of sorts. It would seem (and this is something I want to get to in next week’s presentation) that the simultaneity of these two things (labyrinth and allegory) reconciles the concern to the fact, the wandering to the conclusion, in such a way that the one does not preclude the other. And this was an idea that I found myself drawn to: that the stockpiling of sources and angles and threads doesn’t single out the assignment of meaning/fact as a reductive process but rather ensures that meaning is made responsibly, that it takes into account enough factors that its purpose becomes one of substance. And I don’t think Ulmer was treating this idea of allegory as a fixed and final conclusion. It was simply one conclusion that came along the way, a conclusion that functioned almost as a suggestion, an invitation for other readers/observers to form other conclusions.
And perhaps this anxiety is all born out of a certain old-fashioned-ness, a clinging to the deconstructive essay as it’s something that I’ve grown familiar with/comfortable in. Nonetheless, I can’t help but think that there’s a way to salvage what is intellectually stimulating and productuve about deconstruction, about meaning assignment, about conclusion while simultaneously places these ideas within a framework the aim of which isn’t reduction but multiplication. And I think Ulmer approaches these ideas–namely meaning and wandering–in a way that begins to alleviate some of this anxiety that I’ve been experiencing.
Also, an interesting article about Lil’ Wayne and New Orleans students (http://oxfordamericanmag.com/content.cfm?ArticleID=390&Entry=CurrentIssue) that my friend wrote recently. I think it’s especially interesting in that Wayne is characterized as a shape-shifter, an intellectual wanderer/meaning un-fixer, in a way that seems consistent with a lot of the pedagogy we’ve been dealing with. He kind of creates new hip-hop by refusing to recycle methods (by refusing to let meaning become predictable through familiar medium/method). At the same time though, there are a few brief but close readings of some of his songs that do a little work of deconstruction, assigning meaning from, perhaps, a study of cadence alone. And I think there’s a quality to his work that lends itself to such thinking. It becomes okay, in a certain sense, because we realize it’s just one interpretation of many that will emerge from this song/his body of work. So I guess Lil’ Wayne and Gregory Ulmer, together, are constructing a pedagogy that eases my mind a little bit. Unexpected, but certainly pleasant.