Can I just substitute an interpretive dance in place of a list?

[phalangingle]

Although I am generally of the opinion that I would never be a member of a club that would have someone like me as a member, I decided to give this a try.

Comments

[max_ambiguity]

Pssst...your LJ-cut didn't work.

Re: Softball

[phalangingle]

Yes. There are two that I particularly like. "Thick Description" and "Ideology as a Cultural System" are the two essays I would like to discuss

Re: Softball

[phalangingle]

While I think description provides an orientation to cultural analysis, I do not think it is a formalized program that can be said to succeed or fail. Geertz points out the importance of the structures of signification, but to his advantage, he does not attempt to make cultural structure into a 'God term.' In the cockfight essay Geertz provides a thick description of the imaginative universe in which the Balinese Cockfight is signified. Relations of society to nature, human to beasts, masculinity and honor, are all signified through the Balinese Cockfight. While an expansive imaginative universe is sketched out, there is still the question of how members, and various social groups, put these models into practice. For thick description to fully realize its potential, it must not only sketch out a model of culture (a composite account of the various signs, symbols, images, narrative forms, etc that circulate within the village) but also the putting of the model into practice

General opener

[knut_hamson]

Please define "theory." In your definition, please refer to Anzaldua, hooks, and Florence.

Re: General opener

[poldyb]

No! We simply must stop asking this. Especially of avowedly Marxist candidates like this.

Re: General opener

[knut_hamson]

I never saw you as Defender of the Marxists.

Re: General opener

[poldyb]

I am.

[phalangingle]

It depends on your interests and what kind of a book you are looking for

[phalangingle]

I wasn't trying to advocate for the text, only to highlight a few of the book's main points and indicate why it might be interesting

[phalangingle]

Goffman’s Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life aims to elaborate the dramaturgical dimension of social establishments. Performance is defined as “all the activity of an individual which occurs during a period marked by his continuous presence before a particular set of observers and which has some influence on the observers” (22). Observes do not have unmediated access to expressions of the individual self. Instead, observers only perceive the expressive equipment (body language, linguistic signs, etc) through which “expressions” of the subject are “expressed”. In Goffman’s terms this is the distinction between impressions given and those given off

[uberconfused]

I'd be interested in your take on Geertz' notion of culture as compared to Goffman's. Are they the same, different?

[northrop_fried]

Do you think Goffman's dramaturgical analysis reduces power relations to self-sustaining functions? In other words, could you assimilate Goffman's mode of analysis to a Gramscian critique?