March 16 Class Summary--Wai Chee vs. Reality

Class started out with a brief discussion about spring break, and surprisingly no one had thought about genre during the vacation.

Then our thoughts turned to Wai Chee Dimock, a Yale English professor taking the generic world by storm through thoughtfully-written essays (one of which we read in the beginning of the semester) and a growing Facebook group called "Rethinking World Literature."  ShaynaS asked Dimock about her decison to delve into/question genre, to which Dimock replied that she is a "close reader" and genre analysis allows her to stay close to the text while "reaching outward" and bringing many interesting, popular texts into the foreground.

Jrlewis ignited a discussion about the connections between literature, genre in particular, and biology (interestingly, the conversation quickly turned to an evolutionary developmental approach to literature, something akin to the use of taxonomy in the literary world).  Dimock found much in common between biological and literary classifying systems and discussed the way modern topics are truly only extensions of those discussed in ancient times.  Anne asked if Dimock received any criticism from biologists concerning the "scientific" terminology she used in her paper, Genres as Fields of Knowledge, and from there discussion ensued about whether or not texts are organisms and what defines something "living."  Jrlewis pointed out that both texts and biology involve growth (of ideas and organisms, respectively).  Sbg90 raised the point that texts are living when thought about as an extension of the life of an author and an integral part of the life of readers; texts cannot be isolated as inanimate objects because of their relation to the world.  Anne came to the conclusion that texts are living organisms because they cannot exist without those who read and write them, just as animals cannot exist without air.  Jrlewis drew another parallel to biology, pointing out that DNA is a text that must be read and decoded and has no meaning without a decoder.

The discussion then focused on Literary Kinds and the creation of our new syllabus for this quarter.  Dimock talked about the temptation to put works into generic "boxes," when what is really important is to study works and figure out why they do not fit into certain genres.  Anne brought up blogs, and suggested that they are a medium, not a genre.  I (teal) pointed out that blogs are a platform on which conversation and ideas are always building.  Dimock compared blogs to older forms such as poems and novels, stating that they both invited readers ("users") to comment and discuss.

Anne asked Dimock which texts she would use if she were to design a sci-fi-based course for the BMC English department, and Dimock discussed how she would begin with a divine comedy and pointed out that a key element of science fiction is human versus nonhuman interaction, raising the question of what it means to be human and using the "dubiously human" cyclops as an example. 

Anne raised the point that scientists have very little patience with literary/poetic language and vice versa, which Dimock thought to be natural because scientists might not pay at much attention to writing as humanists, whose writing is at times too contrived and "fancy." 

Anne described science fiction as a "thought experiment," alternating variables of the world as we know it through the use of imagination.  Dimock listed some works she would incorporate if designing the course, including The Man in the High Castle and The Grasshopper Lies Heavy.  Dimock defined reality as "what we take to be reality," and counter-reality as potentially being plausible or implausible.  Anne asked the class whether or not Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is "counter-reality," and a couple of students labeled it as science fiction because of the nonhuman elements of talking animals.  Aybala50 questioned whether, since the book is a dream, it could be reality since it is possible for anyone to have a dream such as that.

Anne wondered if dreams are really nothing more than a parodic version of reality, and spleenfiend noted that dreams are up to individual interpretation--individuals focus on the content that makes sense and can be related to the real world.  Aybala50 argued that dreams are a part of human nature, and humans are real, so aren't dreams considered "real?"  Rachelr asked if dreams were a reflection of what an individual subconsciously wants, and aybala50 mentioned God as an example of something that some people find real, while others do not.  Dimock discussed how to show something is real, it has to be shown that the contrary case is not.  Therefore, it is impossible to prove there is or is not a God.  Anne ended the conversation by defining reality as something we have agreed upon collectively through expectation and predictability.