Shhhh, it’s a secret! (and also some rambling)

Hi friends! I’m really sorry I can’t be there with you for this discussion, but I can’t wait to read all of your posts. You’ll have to fill me in after class.

So I actually really enjoyed this week, like my mind wasn’t as blown as it could be because I think about this a lot. Maybe it’s the writer in me, but it always bothers me how we can’t have thoughts we don’t have words for because we understand things through language, which is circular and finite. But anyways, it’s quotes and question week so I won’t ramble anymore.

As you know, I love poetry and e. e. cummings melted my brain the first time I read him (in middle school at some point). Right, now no more rambling... I’ve always love this poem and I think the line “here is the deepest secret nobody knows” does a good job of summing up deconstruction. For me deconstruction is this great secret that explains how language works and how we put it together to make our world, and the beauty of it is that it can never be fully understood.

Would you look at that! Natalie posted an actual picture. No quote. Incredible. I felt like this painting  (Salvador Dali’s Melting Watch) does a good job of representing both the way our minds melt because of this concept, but also the freeing nature of deconstruction. Found at: https://m6tlik.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/salvador-dali-clocks.jpg

Quotes & Questions post info

What makes certain lines from a text jump off the page and fill you with interest and curiosity? Why do some passages carry more meaning and significance than others?

For example, Roland Barthes tells us:

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.
― Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author

This idea, that there is no Great and Powerful Author behind every text that we read, that the writer of a text has no special authority (see how the word author works there?) over our reading of that text, was a little mind-blowing when Barthes first proposed it. But it's an awesome, liberating idea - one that acknowledges our power and freedom as readers to not just interpret but also create a text as we read and understand it. In short: there's a lot to discuss about this passage, isn't there?

Book and tablet photo by Engin_Akyurt on Pixabay.com

On the Fridays that you don't have paragraphs due, we'll have what I call Quotes and Questions. Your responsibility will be to post a quotation that seems to merit in-depth discussion OR a question that you think we all need to consider about our recent readings - one that will enrich our thinking or help us consider the texts we've discussed in a useful way.

As with the paragraphs, we will both post them here and read them aloud in class.

You are required to give your post two labels 1) the name of the theory for the day (they are listed below in my labels on this post), and 2) Quotes & Questions. If you are posting a quotation, you must give a correct citation for it (line numbers for poetry; page numbers for prose). You do not have to post anything other than your quote or question - no elaboration is required here unless you choose to offer some.

Although you are not required to post an image in your Quotes & Questions posts, you are highly encouraged to include one that illustrates the idea expressed (if you do, please be sure to credit the image source, as in your paragraph posts).