> Hmm. In fact, isn't this notion of blame and responsibility at the heart
of
> Foucault's Author Function: "Blame," "responsibility," understood as
> ideological effects bearing the felt force of ethical imperative-- and an
> essential part of Power's feedback loop?
With you there, Kent, but we have to _try_ to look after ourselves too,
which does involve 'owning up' but doesn't mean too that we should
internalise 'blame'.
God knows, I can be quite good at that myself.
Notice the self as an entity there? It does matter, we all have one.
I've only lately started realising that here.
Best
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "kent johnson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2001 10:24 PM
Subject: personae/ heteronyms
> David, some equally tentative thoughts inside yours below,
>
> >I think, Kent, and I'm very tentative on formulating this, that it's
> >something to do with knowing who to blame afterwards. That is to say, a
> >matter of owning up and responsibility.
>
> Hmm. In fact, isn't this notion of blame and responsibility at the heart
of
> Foucault's Author Function: "Blame," "responsibility," understood as
> ideological effects bearing the felt force of ethical imperative-- and an
> essential part of Power's feedback loop?
>
> But what if we were inside a literary culture where it was accepted and
> respected, as a matter of course, that any work may hide more regarding
its
> origins than its first denomination would denote? Where it was taken for
> granted that heteronymous works exist and freely circulate amidst works
that
> can be given an "empirical" and genetic ascription? Where attributional
> indeterminacy was welcomed into the very fabric of the reading experience?
> Where readers were ready and willing to abide within a kind of negative
> capability vis vis the authorship of a text? In this kind of milieu, I
> think, "responsibility" would move beyond being just the burden of
> authority, or "authenticity" the trademark of the Author's Name. The
> situation would (I suspect it would, anyway) be much more fluid and
> interesting.
>
> >I find, too, that the personae can run loose quite well enough without
>me
> >giving them their own keys to the house. It's not that I 'outlaw' a >free
> >rein to multiplicities, I just don't feel the need myself.
>
> Fair enough. But do you "blame" those who follow their need to create and
> present their writing inside imagined authorships? I take it you don't.
> (Thank you, say Kierkegaard, Pushkin, Pessoa, and the author of the Tosa
> Diary.)
>
> >It would be like, for instance, contributing to this list under a
> > >pseudonym. I couldn't do that, even tho' my surname minds me of a
> > >fungus.
>
> Heteronyms and e-mail pseudonyms are different things in kind, entirely.
And
> micology happens to be one of my hobbies: Boletellus betula (the
> Shaggy-stalked Bolete) is as close as I can come to Bircumshaw.
>
> From the top of Mount Bugs Bunny,
>
> Kent
>
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