We Dead Cool
bel hooks

I found this engaging because of the ideas about education and ownership of education.  I consider ownership to be an important notion in many aspects of society – hooks suggests later in the chapter that segregated schools may serve black males better, and I augment that with the caveat that such proposed institutions should be instigated and led by the Black community; for if segregated schools then serve a white curriculum to Blacks (do I hear racist alarms ringing?) …

 … Lets put those alarms out by asking if the “one size fits all” curriculum works for these Black kids?  … works for these underclass kids?  Works for the gifted and talented?

 So the issue becomes muddied – leadership of educational systems with design of curriculum.  Perhaps my background in technology can move this forward.  Consider that Amazon can not only remember what you ordered, since 199x, what you paid for it, and what you looked at as an alternative, but have for some time been using their e-marketing technologies to try and second-guess what you might want to buy, and put these items in a prominent position before you.  Is the underlying technology so different to educational issues?  I remember in 1983 inputting my personality into a computer system and it proposing three jobs for me, the first one was a “computer programmer”, a career path I have followed for nearly thirty years.  If the technology was around to do that thirty years ago, surly we can create systems to design effective curriculum for individuals, track their progress, deliver resources and activities to develop them, report progression and finally suggest when they are ready for summative assessment, awards & qualifications.  I remember in 1971 (primary school, upper juniors) using a student driven colour coded reading system, going from red, green, and blue through to gold and silver as the texts became denser and more challenging.  I was especially engaged by this system (enough to remember it nearly 40 years later), and lament why we* have not yet provided freely** available educational resources tailored to the individual and designed to expediate their learning journey.

 * pick: Edge Hill University, QCA, DfES, DFCC, UK Govt, EU, UN, the world?

** come one, education should be free?  Why all the hang ups about intellectual property around generic educational materials – I can see issues around commercial systems, but I consider the majority of health and education training should be in the public domain.  I appreciate that universities might have paid to develop the materials, but every university must recognise that in the UK their income is from the general population, whether it be via student fees or support funding from government.  Ask a student if they want the stuff that they have used, are using and will use made publicly available, and I’d be interested in the response.

Our reading this week was taken from bel hooks’ (always lowercase) ‘We Real Cool’. This is an uncompromising and strident book, which laments the racist legacy that has resulted in the destructive, misogynistic and violent identities assumed by black boys in the USA under the guise of ‘cool’. hooks important contribution to education theory, especially in texts like ‘Teaching to Trangress’, is the idea of elucidating personal experience in academia, as a prerequisite for learning to occur, articulated within the framework of race and feminism. Much of her work, then and now, stems from her belief in the value of lived experience as the ground for the production and exchange of knowledge. 

We began with a discussion about segregation, in particular the idea of racially segregated schools. This quickly moved on to a debate about forms of segregation that already exist in schools, especially though wealth. Parallels with the black experience were made with the experience of white working class children, especially boys. Questions were raised about the control and authority that exists in the current schooling system that may give rise to the kinds of experience that hooks describes; the English public school system were thought to be very problematic in this respect.

The contempt for middle class values expressed in hooks’ reading of black male attitudes was compared to the distain found in deprived English schools. Jesse Jackson’s more positive vision was offered as a contrast to this, although the bleak picture painted by hooks was thought to resonate with a dismal state of affairs in the UK. The concept of an underclass was discussed, and the very serious, intractable character of this issue.

We contrasted and compared other marginalised groups from our experience, such as disability and ‘special needs’ pupils, and their struggles and the social pressures that are brought to bear on them.

We discussed Freira’s ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ and its similarities to hooks’ work. 

Our reading group resumes on the 15 January, 12.30 -1.30pm in the library, and will continue on alternate Thursdays throughout the spring term. All welcome.

Chapter 3: ‘Schooling Black Males’, pp. 33-45. This week’s session will take place on Thursday 18th December in Group room 3 in the LRC at Ormskirk, 12.30-1.30pm. Lunch provided, all welcome.

As regular blog readers will have gathered from the previous posts, our discussion last week provoked a vigorous debate on the pros and cons of the comic book as a medium for documentary purposes, and its contentious status as a novel (albeit qualified by the graphic prefix). I’m inclined to agree with some of the previous posts who have argued for the appropriateness of this singular medium in conveying specific ideas, especially those for which other more familiar media have been found wanting; Spiegelman’s Maus is a case in point: it remains for me one most powerful accounts of the Holocaust. Similarly, Joe Sacco’s account of occupied territories in Palestine offers a unique insight into lived experience in that situation.

 As for the comparison to the literary novel, I’m not sure how fruitful it is to compare art forms outside of specific contexts, especially when canonical literary texts are posited as the high water mark of a universal cultural tide. It may well be that Kafka would have written a better work had he been a middle class Iranian girl under religious and political subjugation in Tehran in the 1980s; but he wasn’t, and Satrapi was. Instead I would ask, as Raymond Williams might, what were the socio-cultural conditions that provided her with the opportunity and wherewithal to produce and publish the work in this particular form, and what were the subsequent cultural forces that drove it to such prominence that we find ourselves reading and debating it?

 For me a more helpful and contemporary comparison from the UK art world might be Tracy Emin’s ‘Why I never became a dancer’ (1995), a political-autobiographical work which exploits the language of its medium – video – extremely effectively to convey the struggles and specificities of her adolescent sexual identity.

 It’s also worth pointing out that, unlike the literary novel, the graphic novel is a medium in infancy, with relatively few ‘serious’ authors. The term itself is little more than a decade old, and designed to ameliorate a middle-class market that would shun productions described as comic books. More recent critical writers like Andreas Huyssen use the term image-text, which, despite apparent clumsiness, does open up a new space for the medium. It’s also a medium that continues to be marginalised (even now Maus is more likely to be found in bookshops grouped with science fiction or children’s picture books). While this has obvious drawbacks it does allow for a political publishing space that author-artists like Sacco can exploit, one that’s often ‘under the radar’ of mainstream censors. This might go some way to account for perhaps the most interesting question that remains for me, which is: why do authors use this laborious medium to deal, often autobiographically, with social issues of great magnitude?

 There were other interesting points raised in the reading group discussion on Persepolis: its likeness to Brecht’s drama in its forthrightness and its immediacy; its filmic qualities, and a discussion about what spaces that might be left for reader interpretation in her otherwise explicit image sequences.

 I’ve a few additional references: Rosalyn George (2007) Girl’s in a Goldfish Bowl (Sense) is a good read on girl’s friendships and power groupings in schools; Keiji Nakazawa’s (2007) Barefoot Gen (Last Gasp) which is about children surviving the 1945 Hiroshima bombing; Slavoj Žižek (2008) In Defence of Lost Causes, where he discusses Foucault’s work on the Iranian Revolution, which offers an insight into Foucault’s thinking that would have otherwise have eluded me; finally, (it’s not often I get to say this, so please indulge me) there’s my own new book Documentary Graphic Novels and Social Realism (2008, Peter Lang Publishing)…

Next reading: bell hooks (2004) We Real Cool Black Men and Masculinity. Chapter 3: ‘Schooling Black Males’ (pp.33-45). December 18, 12.30-1.30pm, LRC Ormskirk, Lunch provided, all welcome.

 Jeff

This posting is a response to the comments left by Mary, Fiona and Nick on my previous posting about graphic novels.

First, I would like to say that my original posting was of course meant to be provocative because I feel I am too often reticent about pinning my colours to a particular mast for fear of controversy or of appearing to hold opinions that are subjective and/or unsupported by reference to three secondary sources: a monograph, a journal article and a website – you know the drill. For once I wanted to put my opinion out there, and the devil be damned.

So, having hurtled headlong across the Rubicon, I am willing to defend my argument.

As a rejoinder to Mary’s question ‘can’t the image be as ambiguous and as versatile in its interpretation as language?’ I would answer, no. It is my wholly subjective opinion that language is more slippery than a physical image. The old saying is that a picture paints a thousand words: this is usually used to suggest the primacy or superiority of the image over the written word; however, I believe this succinctly describes the image’s shortcomings. I am going to talk about the Mona Lisa again: supposing we had two people who had never before seen the portrait and we showed one of them a 1,000 word literary description of it (not a direct description, but a description that sought to imaginatively provoke a sensual response in the reader) and to the other we showed the portrait itself. Then, if we asked them both to draw a sketch of it, I would wager that the person who had read the description would draw a much more personal response to the artwork than the second person who, in my wager, would slavishly try to reproduce da Vinci’s work; thus, the imagination of the second person has been limited by exposure to the image.

In response to Fiona, I will admit to the apparent self-contradiction…but then Walt Whitman has a very good line about self-contradiction…only kidding, even I am not as arrogant as Whitman. However, I take your point but would restate the response to Mary in the previous paragraph that I do not believe an image allows as much scope for reader agency and I would add that I believe the musical arts require a more extra-ordinary level of interpretative skills than the average person possesses, whereas reading does not. Ok, I admit that when someone hears ‘The Ride of Valkyries’ then an image is evoked in their head (probably a scene from Apocalypse Now) and that when they hear the Largo from Dvorak’s New World Symphony then they reach for the toaster, but I would also argue that the vast majority of people (me included) are insensitive to the actual musical structures (the art of the artwork) because they do not have sufficient musical education to appreciate them. This is generally not the case with a piece of literary art because almost everyone in our society is sufficiently educated to appreciate the written word and its subtleties (even a child will laugh at a pun, but they won’t laugh at the musical harmonic/modal jokes of Thelonious Monk or Wynton Marsalis).

Finally (phew!), in response to Nick, I think the previous two paragraphs deal with (but obviously will not satisfactorily answer) some of the points you raise in the first part of your posting. However, I take issue with your final two points: 1) your use of Stephen King as an example; 2) your foregrounding of story.

I do not believe that Stephen King is a literary author. Yes, I know, I am being an elitist, eurocentric, academic snob…but someone has to be, and pretty soon we shall be extinct (‘no more postings!’, I hear your cheer).

If you have read King’s On Writing you will know that even Stephen King does not believe that Stephen King is an author of literary note. If I recall correctly, he even refers to himself as a hack. So, perhaps his writings will not lose so much impact if they are transferred into the graphic genre as would, for example, the writings of Virginia Woolf or Marcel Proust.

This brings me to your final point, your foregrounding of story. I do not believe that story is the be-all-and-end-all of literary art; indeed, in some of the most widely appreciated examples of literary art, story is practically a complete irrelevance (see, Mrs. Dalloway, Ulysses, A la Recherche du Temps Perdu). Indeed, this last text is a six volume novel in which practically nothing happens of any note whatsoever.

Ok, enough from me.

Kindest Regards,
Damien

This is a long one, so you might want a cup of tea…

I found last week’s discussion of Persepolis very interesting. I have not been a fan, or even a reader of graphic novels in the past and, to be honest, I don’t see that changing. However, this does not mean that I do not appreciate that some people really enjoy them and that the authors and artists associated with the production of these texts are highly skilled.

The main issue I have with them is that they trade under the name of novel and, in so doing, seek to secure for themselves and their readers a parity with literary novels and their analysis. I cannot agree that graphic novels are works of art of the same order as the literary novel. They are different, that much is obvious, but in my opinion they lack the depth, scope and artistry of the truly literary text. A controversial claim, I know, but what use is art if it does not divide opinion?

I would challenge any adherent of the graphic novel genre to produce a text that stands alongside the greats of literature: Ulysses; One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; On the Road; Pale Fire; To Kill a Mockingbird; The Great Gatsby…

I believe that what makes literary art special is that it, alone amongst almost all the arts, demands intense creativity not only of the artist, but also of the reader, whilst simultaneously not requiring extraordinary training or skill on the reader’s part.

The visual arts present the reader/audience with a physical image (realist, impressionist or abstract) – this image cannot be altered no matter how much analysis it is subjected to. The musical arts necessitate the reader to possess finely honed skills in order to be able to conceptualise, frame, and interpret its nuances and style – but again, the notation on the musical score cannot be changed. The literary text, however, will provoke and suggest as many different images as there are people reading it. All of the settings and characters of a literary text will be different for each and every reader, whereas the Mona Lisa will always be the Mona Lisa, and Beethoven’s 5th will always begin with the same da da da daaaa…

I know people can say that Ulysses will always begin with ‘Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead…’, but my point is that the ability to read is so ubiquitous, and that the language is generally so accessible yet its definitive meaning so elusive, that this small phrase can be envisaged in almost unlimited ways. The words ‘stately’, ‘plump’ and ‘stairhead’ will conjure so many different meanings to different readers, as will the performance of the action, ‘came’, in conjunction with these words, that the reader is required to create the image.

Now, if Joyce had provided a picture with this phrase, then the opportunity for reader-creativity would have been reduced to almost zero, because the image would have been pre-scribed. The picture would have revealed exactly what Buck Mulligan looked like; it would have revealed the manner of his action, and it would have provided the setting (which the reader doesn’t discover until later in the text, which then forces them to go back and re-imagine the action).

Therefore, to conlcude this long, meandering, solipsistic posting, in my opinion graphic novels diminish the opportunity for the reader to create, they diminish interpretative freedom, and their sparsity of text restricts the opportunity for linguistic versatilty and ambiguity: these are the very qualities that make the novel a great art form (the best art form in my opinion) and therefore that is why I believe these pictorial texts do not warrant the classification of novels.

I’m off to pack up my soap box, and will hopefully see you all next week. If not, then have a pleasant holiday full of novelty…you see what I did? Linguistic ambiguity; no picture could have done that!

To help contextualise this week’s text, the graphic novel Persepolis, Ian Philips has sent two documents for us to read which are linked below. One is an interview with Satrapi, the other persepectives on the political situation in Iran. We will meet to discuss this over lunch (provided) in Group Room 3 in the LRC at Ormskirk at 12.30 this Thursday 4th December. All welcome.

satrapi-interview

brothers-in-arms