Gates, Canon, and the Norton Anthology

This video is a February 27, 1997 interview of Henry Louis Gates Jr., Nellie McKay, and Jamaica Kincaid. As discussed in class and noted in AIT, Gates and McKay are co-editors of the Norton Anthology of African-American Literature. Kincaid is an African-American author whom is included in the anthology.

This interview was taken shortly after the Norton Anthology was released. I found it interesting to hear Gates and McKay talk about the process of creating the work. When asked how they decided which writers to include, they note that the African-American literary tradition is still quite young and that many of those who are most adept are still alive. But still most of the choices were easier to make. Many of the relevant works had already been incorporated into other anthologies – it was just a matter of locating and compiling them. Gates and McKay are aware that they have effectively defined the African American canon with the anthology.

Another interesting topic that arises in the interview pertains to the exclusivity of the African American canon. Some writers wanted to be excluded because they feared being labeled as an African American writer only. Gates and McKay assert that this is not the case and to be considered and African American writer and an American writer are not mutually exclusive.

Kennan and Chomsky

George Kennan:
"Public opinion, or what passes for public opinion, is not invariably a moderating force in the jungle of politics. It may be true, and I suspect it is, that the mass of people everywhere are normally peace-loving and would accept many restraints and sacrifices in preference to the monstrous calamities of war. But I also suspect that what purports to be public opinion in most countries that consider themselves to have popular government is often not really the consensus of the feelings of the mass of the people at all, but rather the expression of the interests of special highly vocal minorities — politicians, commentators, and publicity-seekers of all sorts: people who live by their ability to draw attention to themselves and die, like fish out of water, if they are compelled to remain silent."

The sound byte

It seems to me that while George Kennan is often remembered as a major foreign policy architect for the United States, his policy of Containment was not followed by the United States beyond the presidency of Truman. Rollback in Korea and certain military actions in Vietnam and Cambodia seem to me to be major violations of Containment. This sound byte explains some of Kennan's concerns which sound very much like the ideas of Noam Chomsky. Both Kennan and Chomsky warn of the strong influence a small minority have on the decision to go to war especially in the United States. George Kennan's ideas on foreign policy evolved over time and I think it would be beneficial for students to pay attention to much of what Kennan said about war and American diplomacy in his later years.

The Chipko Movement

This is a video that recounts the Chipko Movement. The Chipko Movement began in India in 1974 in which activists following Gandhian non-violent resistance to prevent deforestation in Uttarakhand by the Indian Forest Service.

This video is particularly interesting becuase it is form the point of view of the women activists who tell the story from their first-hand experience. Their resistance eventually led to a national law prohibiting cutting of trees above 1000m.

The Chipko movement, while not originally a conservation movement, represents one the first organized environmentalist actions in the developing world. In addition, the Chipko movement is said to have coined the term "Tree-hugging" for the way the activists would block loggers from cutting the trees. (See image)

Allan Bloom on Nietzsche

In 1983 Allan Bloom gave a lecture at Boston College on the importance of Nietzsche in American society. Bloom focused his lecture on how Nietzsche language has become integrated into all aspects of American life. Without knowing the philosophy taxi drivers, janitors, and etc. can be heard using the dark language of Nietzsche. He makes a joke that all the students that enter his office having psychotic breakdowns all start quoting Nietzsche. Bloom is most interested in how America has managed to completely morph Nietzsche's dark viewpoints on the modern democratic man to fit into the American ideals. The Deconstructionism of Nietzsche has allowed America to make his idea of Nihilism into a way to happiness. Americans say to believe in his theory of the chaos unconscious mind but also believe that science can understand the unconscious which is a complete contradiction to Nietzsche's philosophy. The lecture was given 5 years before he published The Closing of the American Mind but many of the points that he would further explore and define are brought up in the lecture. Bloom often refers to his students no longer having any really opinions or beliefs. They esteem to abstract morals, feel what they are told to feel, and do not question what is going on around them. Bloom often brings up his enjoyment of bringing up questions or assigning readings purely to gage the reactions it causes within the students. He has slowly witnessed the bow within us that is strung together by the conflicting ideals of Christianity and Classical Greeks allowing man to shot beyond what he know now disappear within his students. The lecture is very interesting but rather long so you will need to have some free time to listen to it. 

You can download it here: http://www.archive.org/details/AllanBloomNietzscheLecture

Whose Dome Is It Anyway?

http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/1996/4/1996_4_28.shtml

In the article "Whose Dome is it Anyway?" Alex Soojung-Kim Pang explores the duality of Buckminster Fuller's Geodesic dome. While Fuller is well known for his "Spaceship Earth" ideals of sustainability and environmentalism, and his dome is often associated with communes or other types of alternative housing, his Geodesic dome has firm roots in the military. Though Fuller was a liberal leaning, environmentalist, he felt his working with Marine Corps could help spread the dome as "a tool for victory in both war and peace, a high-tech product for combat areas that could also be made into mass-produced factories, power systems, schools, and hospitals and parachuted into friendly but impoverished Third World countries to create First World industrial powers overnight." Intriguing to see the wide variety of roles the geodesic dome has taken on in the US.


Additionally:
http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/buckminster-fuller/146
Very interesting video that touches on Richard Buckminster Fuller's life and career. It contains lots of different seemingly credibly people speaking about Fuller and his work, as well as several clips of Bucky himself talking. Doesn't go into a great deal of depth, but provides interesting overview of his career as well as many images of his work.

Ludwig Wittgenstein.

While not technically an American, he was brought up in class, and I am therefore going to assume he is fair game. Ludwig Wittgenstein was a fascinating thinker and a prodigy by all standards. His thoughts on language are shockingly complicated because they are so eerily simple--language unnecessarily complicates things. In class, we mentioned his idea of the "fruit fly in the bottle;" in this scenario, we are the fruit fly, and language is the bottle, though which we are forced to see the rest of the world in a warped way that is particular to the bottle. It is, of course, undeniable that although language brings us together as a means of communication, it is a hindrance in that we must label things in order to communicate. Wittgenstein, through this argument, is able to belittle philosophy as being almost entirely irrelevant, based solely on a misunderstanding of language. After grappling with the idea for a while, I came to realize that he was right--philosophers endlessly debate the meaning of life, love, happiness, and power, discussions which would all be pointless if we were able to settle on a universal and truthful definition of each of those words.
Derek Jarman's 1993 film Wittgenstein is a thought-provoking medley of short sketches which show Wittgenstein at many different stages of his life, and follow the trajectory of his philosophy of linguistics, among other of his many intellectual triumphs. While it is rather long and extremely biographical, the sketches of Wittgenstein at Cambridge are useful in attemptig to understand the specifics of his philosophy, and how we should interact with it.

Susan Sontag: Camp Art and Postmodernism

by Katherine Hayes


American intellectual and author Susan Sontag was born in New York City in 1933. Sontag began writing at a time in American history when high and low class was converging. The political and intellectual climate of the 1960’s and 1970’s allowed her to cultivate her ideas and demonstrated her talent for addressing the social changes of the time. This time period reflected a change in American culture and thought. The radicalization of the college students and protest of the Vietnam War allowed for a more liberal media. Even during these more liberal times Sontag came under criticism for a visit to North Vietnam. Her sympathetic portrayal of the North Vietnamese people earned her criticism from groups that supported the war. Similarly, Sontag earned criticism after publishing her views on the September 11th attacks. During her career as an intellectual and writer Sontag became a kind of celebrity. The cultural climate of New York City at this time introduced Sontag to the leading intellectuals of the world at this time. Sontag was educated at the University of Chicago and Harvard. It was at the University of Chicago that she met her husband, Philip Rieff. Sontag and Rieff divorced in 1958 after the birth of their son David. It may have been because of her marriage and child that Sontag’s career did not begin until she was thirty. Her career began with a work of fiction entitled The Benefactor. Although Sontag is mainly thought of as an essayist, she thought of herself primarily as a writer of fiction. One of Sontag’s most famous works is her collection of essays entitled Against Interpretation, published in 1966. This collection was enormously popular around the world. Sontag offered a new way of viewing art that strayed from the traditional interpretation. She believed that people needed to focus on the individual art and its contents rather then the usual interpretations of high art. This allowed for the appreciation of “lower class” forms of art. Sontag focused on what the art was rather than focusing on what the art meant. Sontag’s criticism of the way people viewed art is perhaps her most defining and popular idea. Although Susan Sontag died in December 2004, her ideas survive in today’s culture. 1

In 1964 Sontag published Notes on Camp in the Partesian Review. This essay has become one of her best-known pieces of work. It is contained in her collection of essays, Against Interpretation. Sontag centers her argument around fifty-eight bullet points. Each bullet point can be seen as mini-theses about camp. In the essay Sontag gives new meaning to the term camp. As a result of her essay, Sontag helped to make the appreciation of camp socially acceptable.

Sontag defines camp by stating, “Camp is a certain mode of aestheticism. It is one way of seeing the world as an aesthetic phenomenon. That way, the way of Camp, is not in terms of beauty, but in terms of the degree of artifice.”2 Sontag’s definition of camp and the essay itself brought the appreciation of camp into mainstream thought. Liam Kennedy states, “In the culturally saturated, affluent society camp offers a survival of style. Camp is not mass culture, rather it is an aesthetic lens through which to view mass culture, and a highly discriminating lens at that.”3 Before this essay appreciation of camp art was almost nonexistent. A person who enjoyed camp art would be ridiculed by their peers for their poor taste in art. However, with this essay camp the appreciation of art as a legitimate art form. Sontag bases much of her argument on personal taste. Notes on Camp also had a profound effect on the careers of many artists and filmmakers, most notably Andy Warhol.




His campy style of art became socially acceptable and gained mass appeal after the publication of this essay. Today, Warhol’s art continues to be one of the defining examples of camp. In addition to addressing the tastes of all people, Sontag also addressed the campy tastes of gay men. She states “ 51. The peculiar relation between Camp taste and homosexuality has to be explained. While it’s not true that Camp taste is homosexual taste, there is no doubt a peculiar affinity and overlap…So, not all homosexuals have Camp taste. But homosexuals, by and large, constitute the vanguard and the most articulate audience of Camp.”4 This essay was written during a time of sexual revolution in the 1960’s. Sontag sees the gay men of this time, especially in New York City, being one of the most important groups in the camp art world. While the appreciation of camp art is not shared by all people of this group, Sontag helped to make camp art an important part of culture.5


In her essay Sontag gives the reader some examples of what she thinks is camp.

4. Random examples of items which are part of the canon of camp:

Zuleika Dobson

Tiffany lamps

Scopitone films

The Brown Derby restaurant on Sunset Boulevard in LA

The Enquirer, headlines and stories

Aubrey Beardsley drawings

Swan Lake

Bellini's operas

Visconti's direction of Salome and 'Tis Pity She's a Whore

certain turn-of-the-century picture postcards

Schoedsack's King Kong

the Cuban pop singer La Lupe

Lynn Ward's novel in woodcuts, God's Man

the old Flash Gordon comics

women's clothes of the twenties (feather boas, fringed and beaded dresses, etc.)

the novels of Ronald Firbank and Ivy Compton-Burnett

stag movies seen without lust6



The idea of postmodernism developed during the 1970’s. The turmoil of the 1960’s had led to a redevelopment of modern culture. Postmodernism was developed as a reaction to modernism. Elements of postmodernism are most often seen in art, architecture, and literature. Camp is an important part of postmodern culture. Angela McRobbie states “…since the mid-1960’s camp has also provided a momentum for the creation of postmodern culture, where the boundaries of high and low art are irrevocably blurred and where camp detaches itself from the subcultural world of the gay scene and enters into mainstream, roaming free in the field of popular entertainment, while retaining an affectionate attachment to gay culture.”7 Sontag’s essay on camp is an important piece of postmodern culture. One of the main points of this essay is that it is not important why a person views something as art. The persons individual choice in taste is important to postmodernists. However, postmodernists do not need to see art as a part of the larger picture. They are able to look at art for what it is itself and not for the message it is trying to send society. Postmodernists do not look at the big picture as a whole; rather they look at many small things that comprise the larger picture. Susan Sontag is an important part of postmodernism. Although the term developed after her essay Notes on Camp it was an ideal way of describing Sontag’s views.8



This video is an interesting interview between Sontag and Philip Johnson. They are touring the Seagram building in New York City. Philip Johnston helped to design this building. The Seagram building is a classic example of modern architecture. It was completed in 1958 and was one of the most expensive building projects of the time. The Seagram building is one of many buildings that featured modern architecture in New York City at this time. It is interesting to see Sontag interview Johnson because her work has become one of the greatest examples of postmodernism. Modern architecture stands in contrast to the camp styles of art that Sontag writes about. Modern architecture features a very minimalist uniform design, while camp art is often the exact opposite. Sontag states that “25. The hallmark of Camp is the Spirit of extravagance. Camp is a woman walking around in a dress made of three million feathers…Gaudi’s lurid and beautiful buildings in Barcelona are camp not only because of their style but because of what they reveal-most notably in the Cathedral of the Sagrada Familia- the ambition on the part of one man to do what it takes a generation, a whole culture to accomplish.”9 While the Seagram building contains extravagant materials in its interior, it does not possess any of the fun qualities of camp. The Cathedral of the Sagrada Familia however stands in stark contrast to the Seagram building. The Cathedral is one of the best examples of Camp architecture.

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This clip features an interview with Susan Sontag and Filmmaker Agnes Varda. This is a good example of a 1970’s era TV show. In this clip Sontag speaks about film and the reality of film. She argues that in film people are perceived the way the director wants them to be seen rather then they way they actually would act in society. This is an important idea for Sontag and it ties into her ideas about camp. For Sontag the realness of a character is important. This is an important idea in camp art. Camp art is traditionally very real. Also, camp art is imperfect by nature and focuses on they way everyone sees something, rather then just one persons idea of how something should be seen.

Susan Sontag became a major cultural icon during the 1960’s and remains an icon today. She was able to transform culture in a way that no other author did with her essay Notes on Camp. This essay proved to be one of the defining examples of her career. With this essay Sontag was able to unite high and low culture. It is clear from the essay that Sontag believes that a person can appreciate both high and low forms of art. This essay made it socially acceptable to enjoy camp works of art. With this essay Susan Sontag helped to bring about a new definition of art and helped to bring postmodern ideas to mainstream society.



Works Cited

Kennedy, Liam. Susan Sontag Mind As Passion. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997.

McRobbie, Angela. Postmodernism and Popular Culture. New York: Routledge, 1994.

Rollyson, Carl E. Susan Sontag the making of an icon. New York: W.W. Norton, 2000.

Sontag, Susan. Against Interpretation And Other Essays. New York: Picador, 2001.