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R. Bontil
R. Bontil
TEXT TWO
Jean: To start, can I say to you both how much I have enjoyed reading and rereading your work for
this interview for the twenty-first anniversary issue of Women. It's been both a journey back into the
past but also a voyage of discovery and surprise. You began, at different moments, as feminists and
socialists, both teachers of literature, who turned to psychoanalysis to understandwhat?
femininity, women's oppression, questions about subjectivity and sexuality that Marxist and other
theories did not address or couldn't explain?
So can I begin by asking each of you what that turn towards psychoanalysis meant for you then, and
how you see it nowand indeed the changes of the last twenty, even forty years? Could we start
with you, Juliet, since you in a sense pioneered this move, i.e., making the connection between
psychoanalysis and feminism.
Juliet: It was life-changing for me; it directed the rest of my working life until today and still is
ongoing. It was revelatory, I thinkthough I started by reading people who were not revelatory to
me at all, phenomenological anti-psychiatrists like R. D. Laing, and then some Melanie Klein,
whom I found completely bewildering, and only after that read Freud. I went to the British Museum
Library, as it then was, at the beginning of one summer vacationI was teaching English
intending to read a few of his papers on femininity, and I came out at the end of the summer having
read twenty-three volumes. I went every day and read every day, right the way through. I still think
it's undoubtedly the intellectual foundation of my subsequent workwhich doesn't mean that Marx
and things before that were not of course extremely important. And literaturewhen I trained as an
analyst I surprised myself, lying on the couch, how much literature was part of my bloodstream.
Jean: I definitely want to come back to the question of literature later on, but I wondered whether
you, Jacqueline, would like to talk about this.
Jacqueline: Well, I was intrigued that you said the turn to psychoanalysis was in order to
understand femininity, or what Marxism left out, and all that's true. In fact, the turn to
psychoanalysis for me was intensely personal, but in a way it was also political. I'd got caught up
with early feminism in Oxford, and the protests around the Cowley industrial estate over childcare,
and had been very attracted by those forms of militancy, but I also felt that something was missing
from the kind of political identity that offered youit was too assertive, it was maybe too
masculine, although I don't think I would have said that then, but it was too confident and I was
feeling anything butI was feeling very shaken and unsettled and unsure as an undergraduate.
Then I went to Paris and started reading Freud, because it was suggested to me that I should do so
for a project I was involved in. And like Juliet I couldn't put it down. I didn't get quite as far as you
quite as fast but I found it completely life-transforming, and I felt as if it was the discourse that I
needed in order to understand various things in my family, various things about myself, and I felt
also, although I don't think I could have expressed it quite like this, that politics needed
psychoanalysis if it was not to adopt too stiff a form of rhetoric about itself and its capacity and its
powers.
In relationship to literature, I have always thought and still think that there are two places in the
culture where you can say outrageous thingslike, if you're a woman, 'I don't think I'm a woman',
or if you're a man, 'I don't think I'm a man'without being carted off. And one is literature and the
other one is psychoanalysis. They are the places where you can speak something dissolute and
scandalous and impossible and unmanageable, and it's contained by a form of writing or a form of
speechit's what you're meant to be doing in a strange way. So I think literature and
psychoanalysis are intimately related for me.
(Mitchell, Juliet , Rose, Jacqueline and Radford, Jean (2010) 'Psychoanalysis, Politics and the
R. Bontil
TEXT THREE
The research manifests as a whole-context, comparative study of the diversity and placement of
visual media types in the urban landscapes of Shibuya, Tokyo and Camden, London. As my
research interests connect to visual aspects of new multimodal technologies and literacies, I wanted
to utilise a method that would both answer the research questions and use new visual technologies. I
believe educational researchers working in the area of new digitally influenced communication
practices should begin to make use of new media in the research methodology. Only in this way can
educational research be undertaken in better connected ways. These wishes, the comparative nature
of my research questions and the heavy time constraint of this project (preventing me from flying to
Japan) led me to collect data using Google Street View images of the two landscapes. Street View is
one part of the Google search engine's online maps. The maps provide 360 horizontal and 290
vertical photographic images taken from city streets. Street View maps can be viewed by dragging a
pegman and navigating with horizontal and vertical arrows displayed in the top right-hand corner
of each photograph and on the road, which is highlighted by a horizontal line. There is also a zoom
function providing close-up images. Google launched the service in May 2005 and maps are
presently available of some major cities in the West and Japan. The ostensible purpose of Street
View from the point of view of the creators, Google, is about new ways of mapping and navigation
which is apparent from the site's emphasis on offering directions each time you search for a
location.
In order to compare Tokyo and London's landscapes, I copied Street View images using the
computer's print screen function without cropping and pasted them together using Photoshop to
form a static, two-dimensional montage of two similar-sized inner-city areas. I developed the idea
through my interest in exploring the visual mode in the city from the perspective of early childhood
education. I began to imagine the visual components a young child would see walking through the
streets. I was further drawn to the idea by Grimshaw's (2001) definition of montages as using
radical juxtaposition and violent collision of different elements in order to suggest new connection
and meanings (p. 11). I hoped that by taking found images and placing them in a new space I
would be able to find new connections and meanings to my research questions. Further, I believe
the montages validate a need for good research images to contain complexity, record associations
and relationships (Collier, 2001, p. 38). It is worth mentioning here my awareness that because I
am using photographs of the visual mode in the urban landscapes which were originally taken by
Google for a different purpose and recreating them for a new use, in a new space, there are multiple
layers involved in the research process, all of which play on the visual mode. What this ultimately
means is that my representation of the city spaces is different than if I had undertaken the research
within the urban spaces first-hand and creates a unique relationship between the representation of
visual mode in the urban landscape and the actual experience.
Although there were unforeseen challenges resulting from the use of Street View, such as
differences in the times footage was taken and the incomplete mapping of many areas making the
selection of sample areas challenging, I feel a level of methodological error is inevitable if
researchers are to avoid fixed, preconceived expectations of what it will be possible to achieve by
using visual research methods in a given situation (Pink, 2001, p. 32). Freedom to experiment is
what will allow visual research methods to evolve away from most photographs in journals and
newspapers which confirm our beliefs and are taken by the photographer with that rather than the
discovery in mind (Adelman, 1998, p. 148). As long as adequate consideration is given to ethics,
visual analysis, planning, data collection, editing, exhibition and descriptive image communication
components (Chalfen, 1998) this margin of error seems to justify potential findings from
spontaneity in image-based data collection and analysis.
(Yamada-Rice, D. (2011), New media, evolving multimodal literacy practices and the potential
impact of increased use of the visual mode in the urban environment on young children's learning.
Literacy, 45: 3243. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-4369.2011.00578.x
R. Bontil
TEXT FOUR
The history of reflections about what art history is and how it might best be done, about how art
works and what art is, is long and distinguished. I do not propose to review it here. Nor do I
presume to suggest a definition of what art is or how it may come to be. My concern is more
limited. I want to make a proposal about the nature of art history, which may seem outrageous to
those who see themselves in the tradition of the critical historians of art, or to those who believe
art history has the elevated status of philosophy, or to those who think the discipline is ultimately a
branch of history more generally, but I will make it nonetheless. My proposal is very simple. Far
from being a rigorous pursuit, art history certainly since its founding fathers in the modern era,
Vasari and Winckelmann, and undoubtedly in the surviving ancient sources who were their
inspiration (Pliny, Vitruvius, Lucian, Philostratus, even Pausanias) is nothing other than ekphrasis,
or more precisely an extended argument built on ekphrasis. That is, it represents the tendentious
application of rhetorical description to the work of art (or to several works or even to whole
categories of art) for the purpose of making an argument of some kind to suit the authors prior
intent. Not everything that results from ekphrasis is art history, but that series of uses of
interpretative description, which attempt to make a coherent argument on broadly historical or
philosophical lines, is definitely art history. The particular rules governing the making of
description and its appropriations have changed radically over the centuries from (say) Philostratus
to Vasari to Riegl to T. J. Clark to suit the particular intellectual contexts and social aspirations of
those writing about art in these different worlds. And the kinds of results or findings required by
different periods (and sometimes different scholars) from such description have also changed. Some
find that art can reveal artists, others that it can indicate social history or underlying cultural
reflexes, others still that it implies very little at all beyond itself. But my proposition is that
whatever the particular agenda or argument art history is ultimately grounded in a method
founded on and inextricable from the description of objects. I hope this is not controversial.
A number of issues follow methodologically from placing description at the centre of the enterprise.
First, we must be clear about what we mean by description. Here I take an extremely open-ended
view: any account of an object from the most hardcore formalist analysis (Riegls work is
exemplary here, and that of his followers in the Second Vienna School), to a floridly evocative
description (what Panofsky somewhat dismissively called attention to the sensuous aspects of art),
to a highly complex analysis of deeper meanings and symbolic networks (the high-point of
Warburgianism), from the mere mention of an object to its dismissal, from encomiastic praise to
vituperative attack all these and everything in between constitute ekphrasis, and hence may make
up the descriptive basis for the practice of art history (see plate 1). The reason such accounts are
ekphrasis, and hence the bedrock of art history, is that all these descriptions conspire to translate the
visual and sensual nature of a work of art into a linguistic formulation capable of being voiced in a
discursive argument. The act of translation is central. We conduct it with such ease. And yet the
conceptual apparatus into which the object has been rendered, and its transformation from a thing
that signifies by volume, shape, visual resonance, texture into one that speaks within the structures
of grammar, language, verbal semiotics (call it what you will) and can be appropriated to numerous
kinds of argument or rhetoric, are quite simply vast. In fact, they are so vast that the truly
responsible viewer might balk at the prospect of so falsifying the object by the act of its verbal
rendition. Or, as in Lucians brilliant dialogue On the Hall (De domo) might rise to the challenge
of creating through verbal artistry a description (descriptive fiction?) which at least attempts to rival
or to emulate the range of emotive, formal and textural resonances evoked by the object described.
(Ja Elsner (2010), Art History as Ekphrasis, Art History, Vo. 33, Issue 1, pp10-27).
R. Bontil
TEXT FIVE
EASILY INFLUENCED
At primary school
They called me posh
Said I spoke proper
Must have dosh
My dads a postieWere not flush!
Do yer know what I mean?
At Babington
I was exposed
Hung out with
Whoever I chose
Finished my sentences
With innit to close
DyerknowwhatImean?
In Leeds
They called me fairy
Cos I was southern
And they were lairy
Im from the midlands
I aint from Hackney!
Dyerknowwhatamean?
So to blend in
I became contrary
To my home town
Mum thought it scary
I dropped my aitches
Said, Iya lovey!
Jaknowhamean?
Even now
Im easily led
Its bare good now
Not dead
Cant get these hiphopisms
Outta my head
Jamean??
Kay Quilter
Kay Quilter is a PGCE (M) Secondary English student at The University of Leicester. This is her
first published poem.
(English in Education Vol.44, No.2, 2010)
R. Bontil
TEXT SIX
Plecnd de la premisa c iubirea este o semnificaie (Liebe ist nur ein Wort) datorat mitologiei i
artelor, Aurel Codoban merge mai departe pe urmele acestei inepuizabile semnificaii urmnd
efectul modelator al filozofiei asupra iubirii. Filozofia occidental a dorinei nu a abordat iubirea
doar ca afectivitate i nici ca simplu epifenomen al sexualitii poate i din cauz c, din perspectiva
ei strict, iubirea apare ca ambigu, ntruct nu este supus fiinei ci devenirii, i impur, din
moment ce presupune dou principii, sufletul i corpul. ,Iubirea devine n Occident o form a
dorinei metafizice, a dorinei de Absolut, a dorinei de a fi Absolutul i datorit participrii
complice a filozofiei" spune Aurel Codoban care gsete mai multe tipuri ale iubirii constituite
fiecare n funcie de filozofia timpului, evolund dinspre pasiune nspre vanitate, de la puterea
sentimentului la sentimentul puterii, de la comunicare la corp: iubirea-agap, iubirea-pasiune,
iubirea-senzualitate, iubirea-seducie (iubirea romantic) i corporeismul (iubirea postmodern).
Spre deosebire de iubirea sentimental-erotic greco-roman (de care, din pcate, autorul nu se
ocup dect ca referin) unde sentimentul domina plcerea erotic, n iubirea-pasiune, ,modelat"
de contextul religios i cultural al Occidentului medieval de la finele secolului al XII-lea, dorina
este cea care declaneaz sentimentele i plcerea. Aprut n contextul aristocraiei occitane ca o
repercusiune a cretinismului (deranjeaz ordinea social i moralitatea cretin prin alegerea
personal a partenerului) i, mai ales, sub influena culturii trubadureti, modelul iubirii-pasiune
este mitul lui Tristan i al Isoldei: ,iubirea reciproc nefericit" (Denis de Rougemont), o iubire a
iubirii bazat pe un ,dublu narcisism", pe o fals reciprocitate, o iubire unde fiecare l iubete pe
cellalt pornind de la sine. Iubirea ca experien imaginar, aadar. Opunndu-se comunitii i fiind
o opiune individual, iubirea-pasiune are ca raiune dorina (,Solitudinea n dorin este prealabil
n mentalitile occidentale solitudinii n fric sau ur a individualismului modern"), n timp ce
sexualitatea nu mai este un gaj al alianei bazate pe nrudire, ci devine strict un domeniu al
subiectivitii. Ca filozofie a dorinei, iubirea-pasiune este o form deviat prin cretinism a
doctrinei platoniciene, arat Aurel Codoban. Dac la Platon sufletul dorea moartea corpului pentru a
se autodepi i a obine unirea cu transcendena, interesul iubirii-pasiune pentru obstacol arat mai
degrab preocuparea pentru intensitatea afectiv absolut dect pentru Absolutul transcendenei,
anticipnd astfel imanena divinitii, ,moartea lui Dumnezeu": ,Iubirea-pasiune vestete imanena
care coboar sacrul din ceruri pe pmnt i face din cellalt singura divinitate la ndemn." n
iubirea-pasiune iubit este nsi iubirea. []
Al treilea model ontologic, n limitele cruia gndim astzi, dup cum afirm Aurel Codoban, i care
contureaz un alt tip de iubire este cel psihanalitic, formulat de Freud: nu exist realitate, totul e
fantasm. Realitatea lui Platon devine la Kant cunoatere i interpretare la Freud. De data aceasta,
mitul iubirii este, firete, Oedip. Anticipat de Hegel i formulat apoi de Nietzsche, ,moartea lui
Dumnezeu" schimb raportul ontologic: ,Transcendena negativ, goal nlocuiete mai mult sau
mai puin, niciodat ns complet, transcendena plin, pozitiv a cretinismului. n consecin,
anumite aspecte ale substituirii transcendenei cu imanena devin, din implicite, explicite:
nihilismul, divinizarea Celuilalt, sacralizarea imanenei vieii, sacralizarea sexualitii." Iubirea
romantic apare ca o ,identificare proiectiv cu cellalt", unde nu o calitate anume seduce subiectul,
ci ,calitatea nsi a diferenei", cum spune Lvinas. Iubirea romantic i datoreaz seducia
alteritii. Dac ontologia modern propunea un subiect gata constituit care tinde spre ceva care i
lipsete, omul fiind astfel o creaie a nevoilor sale, subiectul se definete aici prin propria dorin
pornind ns de la cellalt: ,Dorina este dorina relativ la dorina altuia, pentru c omul constituit
ca subiect din neant, lipsit n chip fundamental de Fiin, dorete s fie fiina care lipsete altcuiva,
fiina pe care dorina celuilat l instaleaz n existen." Sexualitatea devine astfel un mod de a
concura din nou subiectivitatea individual. Iubirea romantic este iubirea de a fi iubit.
Dac n iubirea-pasiune era vorba despre suflet, eul era de altundeva, referina era realitatea, iar
dorina spontan, n iubirea-senzualitate cunoaterea era relativ fiind implicate att sufletul ct i
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corpul, eul era un altul, iar dorina era mediat; acum realitatea i cunoaterea snt relative la ceea ce
comunicm, corpul este important, altcineva constituie eul, iar dorina incontient i nemplinit i
constituie singur att subiectul ct i obiectul. Corporeismul (iubirea postmodern) este efectul unui
pluralism al gndirii i al eu-lui, schimb codajul sufletesc i nlocuiete sentimentele cu senzaiile
(,sufletul simea sentimental, corpul simte senzual"), dei opoziia nu iese din sfera fantasmaticului.
Corpul simte, are/este limbaj i preia comunicarea; corpurile snt diferite i i caut ,corpul
pereche". Dup ce a luat locul preotului, psihologul este acum nlocuit de sexolog. Ducnd lucrurile
i mai departe dect psihanaliza, sexologia a teoretizat imanena sexualitii: corpul ca ,ultim
instan a metafizicii", dar, incapabil de mrci identitate eseniale, un semnificant absolut.
Nencrederea n realitatea durabil a sentimentelor a transformat sexualitatea n propriul ei semn,
devenind un simulacru: procrearea a fost nlocuit cu ,obligaia orgasmului": ,Iubirea ia locul
datoriei morale, iar plcerea erotic ia locul iubirii." Iubirea este acum necesar, neaprat reciproc
erotic i repetitiv, adic contingent, confluent (Giddens) i tranzient. Sfritul unui tip de
comunicare nseamn, n fond, amurgul iubirii ca dorin metafizic: plcerea este acum Absolutul,
iar dorina devine ,dorin de plcere absolut". Iubirea postmodern nseamn iubirea iubirii
corpului.
(Chivu, Marius (2005), V place dragostea?, Romnia Literar, No. 25)
TEXT SEVEN
n viaa mea, verbul a citi a fost mult mai important dect verbul a tri, mrturiseai ntr-o carte.
n ce mprejurri, n ce ambian v-ai apropiat de lumea crii, de literatur?
ntr-un interviu pe care l-am dat la nceputul anilor 90 lui Virgil Podoab am povestit o ntmplare
care rspunde acestei ntrebri i care a reprezentat un eveniment crucial al adolescenei mele.
Aproape m jenez s repet, att de des, acea povestire extraordinar care a fost citat. Este vorba de
felul n care am intrat prin efracie pe la 13- 14 ani ntr-un ir de camere umplute cu muni de cri
nali pn n tavan, crile bibliotecii dezafectate ale Episcopiei Greco-Catolice din Oradea, i de
felul n care am devenit intelectual epuiznd acei muni. Dar lectura a fost de-a lungul vieii mele nu
numai un instrument de cunoatere i o form de a plonja n adncul culturii, ci i un mijloc de a m
sustrage realitii pe care mi era greu s o suport. Intram n cri am mai scris asta ca ntr-o ap
pe malul creia mi lsam, ca pe o hain de care m dezbrcam, viaa. Iar n acest sens lectura
semna cu un drog, era ca i cum a fi luat un somnifer ca s adorm i s pot visa ceea ce citeam.
De altfel, au existat cri ale marilor scriitori care mi-au lsat senzaia c le-am trit, nu c le-am
citit.
Dup 1977, n urma cutremurului, ne-am mutat la ar i am descoperit nu numai miracolele legate
de roadele pmntului, pe care le produceam noi nine, dar i ranii btrni, o lume pe care n-o
tiam dect teoretic i care, n tulburtoarea ei autenticitate, a fost n stare s concureze lumea din
cri i s devin izvorul unor alte cri, scrise de noi. Lectura, ca scut mpotriva realitii, a fost
nlocuit de natur, ca scut mpotriva realitii, ceea ce a reprezentat nu numai o binecuvntare, ci i
o form de maturitate.
(Ana Blandiana,
R. Bontil
TEXT EIGHT
Este pactul autobiografic slbit de strategia idealizant a autorului de a se pune pe el nsui ntr-o
lumin
sau
o
postur
favorabil,
de
a
capta
bunvoina
cititorului?
Un cititor e ntotdeauna flatat c autorul vrea s-i capteze bunvoina i tie foarte bine c nimeni nu
poate s prezinte despre sine o imagine cu adevrat negativ. Vrsta omului, de Michel Leiris,
debuteaz cu un autoportret sistematic depreciativ, depreciere care apare dintr-o dat ca o precauie
fa de cititor (nu trebuie s v temei de mine, sunt un nimeni) i ca un ocol pentru a suscita, n
ciuda a orice, admiraia (Ct luciditate!). Pactul autobiografic stabilete ntre autorul unui text i
cititorul su o relaie interpersonal, similar aceleia pe care o au dou persoane n viaa real.
Cineva i se confeseaz: eti curios de a surmonta zidul aparenelor, dar tii foarte bine c mai exist
o aparen pe care o vei vedea: aceea pe care cellalt o pstreaz pentru el nsui. Dar aceast
aparen e realitatea sa: e procesul de edificare a persoanei sale, a istoriei i valorilor sale. Depinde
de tine s l apreciezi dup cum doreti. E libertatea fiecruia. Dac asta te stnjenete, nu e pentru
c l bnuieti pe cellalt de rea-credin sau de artificiu. E pentru c mrturisirea celuilalt te trimite
la propria ta interioritate, la propria ta istorie: ce-ai putea spune dac ai lsa garda jos, dac te-ai
pune n aceeai postur ncreztoare? Citim viaa altora pentru a ne lrgi experiena proprie, ceea ce
nu se poate realiza n absena unei comparaii. n strfundul pactului autobiografic, exist ipoteza,
poate nspimnttoare, a reciprocitii. La limit, cineva care se confeseaz, te sfideaz s-l imii:
este postura lui Rousseau din finalul preambulului Confesiunilor, cnd i interzice cititorului s l
judece nainte de a-i fi dezvluit n public confesiunea! Suspiciunea care nconjoar pactul
autobiografic are, n parte, drept cauz nelinitea pe care cititorul o ncearc fa de istoria sa
personal. [...]
Exist, din ce n ce mai efervescent, mai paradoxal i mai contradictorie, i o literatur
autobiografic a blogurilor. Cum ai caracteriza pactul autobiografic convertit n discursul virtual al
internetului?
n anii 1999-2000, intrigat i fascinat, am petrecut un an pentru a observa ceea ce se numeau atunci
cyberdiaritii pe internet n limba francez, i aceast investigare, redactat ea nsi sub form de
jurnal, a fost publicat n cartea mea Drag ecranule (2000). n octombrie 1999, existau 68 de
jurnale pe internet, dublate numeric un an mai trziu. Abia n anul 2003 au aprut blogurile i, odat
cu ele, creterea exponenial a jurnalelor online. Practic, toate jurnalele erau inute sub pseudonim,
ceea ce permitea autorilor s duc o via dubl, crendu-i, sub numele lor nou, o reea de prieteni,
ei nii cyberdiariti. i rspundeau, se interpelau de la un jurnal la altul, pn n momentul n care
hotrau s se ntlneasc n viaa real. Am numit acest lucru intimiti de reea. O alt noutate:
jurnalele online sunt publicate i citite n ritmul n care sunt scrise, de la o zi la alta, ceea ce nu se
ntmplase niciodat nainte n istoria jurnalului personal. O alt noutate, n sfrit: retrocronologia,
faptul c trecutul survine dup prezent, se afund dedesubtul lui, n loc s-l precead, aa cum se
ntmpl n jurnalele tiprite; el e repede exilat n stadiul de arhiv, descurajnd relectura.
Ubicuitate, instantaneitate, concizie: e tirania prezentului. Aadar, triumful jurnalului i eclipsa
autobiografiei. Desigur, poate s existe un site personal unde se afieaz interesele i realizrile
autorului. Dar se va pune, oare, o autobiografie de trei sute de pagini online, pe internet? Hrtia are
nc zile frumoase de trit.
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