(Dr. Simon Coleman)
I thoroughly related to, and enjoyed, Dr. Coleman’s article ‘But Are They Really Christian?’ Often I am left wondering what about the phenomenon of purity balls is based in Christianity, because there are only so many so many references to female purity that the Apostle Paul makes in his letters!
Since ethnographic work is my ultimate doctoral goal, I must grapple with many of the issues that Dr. Coleman laid out in this paper. This past semester was my first foray into the field of ethnographic work (pun not intended!). Having now read not only the classics by Malinowski, Evans-Pritchard, and Leach, but also having also read more contemporary ethnographic work by Taussig, Silverstein, and Basso, I am confronted with the notion that ethnographic work by its very nature is ‘othering’.
A primary driving factor behind my zeal to conduct ethnographic work amongst the sub-group of the Southern Baptist Convention that partakes of purity balls, and the purity movement at large as well, is that I would like to challenge this ethnographic tradition of ‘us-versus-them’. Having said this however, I wonder if it is even possible to do ethnographic work without this ‘othering’ mentality. It seems as if the relation between proximity/familiarity and objectivity is inversely proportionate. If an ethnographer – essentially, an observer – becomes one with the subject of observation, isn’t he or she then part of the subject and hence no longer an objective outsider? Can one truly evaluate with some modicum of objectivity the subject, if they are in fact part of the subject itself?
Furthermore, while I do agree with Dr. Coleman’s view that the ethnographer is not necessarily there to provide a ‘translation’ of an alien culture to the home audience, aren’t we all to some extent translators through our perceptions? We each perceive and process situations in a completely unique manner; these perceptions and processes are shaped heavily by our own cultural, societal, and religious engagements. To this end, everyone other than myself is an ‘other’!
On a personal note, within my own field of research, I have to consider my own position as a woman of a visible minority aiming to conduct ethnographic research about a predominantly Caucasian movement in the southern United States (not exactly a place known for its hospitality to non-Caucasian individuals). As an academic, is this a conversation that I should even be giving consideration to? In this relation of hierarchy and power, should I make an attempt to ingratiate myself into the subject of my study, or am I automatically separate based solely on my position on the ethnic and gender structures of power?
The school of structuralism as adopted by the fathers of ethnography may not stand in good stead any longer – translation and colonial imposition is no longer in fashion, after all. However, the seemingly scattered bottom-up methodology of modern apologetic ethnographic work will not make sense of the observed phenomenon outside of a string of rituals and traditions that lack meaning to the outsider! Does ‘getting off the verandah’ provide some solution to this astructural observation? And if participant engagement is the highway between imposed structuralism and detached observation, then how much of the ethnographer’s voice is included in the work?
How important is one’s unique ‘voice’ when constructing ethnography? Does a voice necessarily mean a pandering to one’s own cultural norms, or can one come through the words while still remaining true to the insider’s experience? Furthermore, does one maintain individual voices of the participants or can an ethnographer use composite characters to convey the gist of experience? What are the ethical implications behind combining the voices into one meta-narrative?
Dr. Coleman's articles were an eye opening read into issues that I have only recently begun to encounter in my career as an academic. It was heartening to know that there are others who are grappling with the same issues in the fields of ethnography and religion.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
12. Comentario
(Commentary)
Having read over my opus of Method & Theory blog entries in an attempt formulate a response to this week’s entry, I can safely say that I am more educated in the varied theoretical approaches to the study of Religion. Interestingly, I view this course now as more of an “Introduction to Religion” course than I ever thought I would!
Instead of approaching religion topically – that is, broken down by ‘religion’ itself, this course forced us to view religion from a position outside of religion proper. By using lenses such as ‘gender’, ‘myth’, ‘performance’ and ‘ritual’, I’ve been forced to answer what importance these aspects of religion bear on the actual existence of religion itself. Does (or can) religion exist outside of these? Or is it the coming together of these semantics that makes religion what it is essentially? I think this course helped me determine that while these features can be independently dissected, they are intrinsically tied to the nature of religion as we know it.
In the class where we discussed ‘The Invention of World Religions’ by Tomoko Wasuzawa, we were asked to consider how an Introduction to World Religions course might be alternatively taught. In retrospect of this course, I feel that the way in which this course has been taught, would be an ideal alternate to the religion-by-religion approach that has traditionally been adopted for introductory courses.
I enjoyed especially that we didn’t look at texts, but rather gained the tools on how to read texts for ourselves, regardless of our avenue of scholarship.
This course was especially helpful in allowing me to gain a fuller lexicon for my chosen realm of study. Reading scholars in areas such as ‘ritual’ and ‘myth’ have allowed me to develop a vocabulary specific to my academic and also, to explore the field from different methodological angles. For instance, I was forced to question what was the difference between studying religion from a feminist perspective versus studying religion from a historical perspective. Furthermore, the question of ‘proper’ methodology has also arisen – for instance, is there such a thing as a feminist methodology?
Having said this, I would have written my initial SSHRC proposal very differently today than I did in week three of the course!
In terms of the course’s structure, I found the blogging ritual quite fulfilling – it allowed me to flesh out my own thoughts prior to coming to the class. This preparedness allowed for a richer in-class discussion. The in-class discussions were often engaging and always entertaining – I was able to grapple with concepts from the perspective of my colleagues that I hadn’t even thought about previously. As well, having the focus put on our thoughts as opposed to the thoughts of the scholars before us, helped me understand that I am now planted firmly in academia, proper – no longer an undergraduate with no opinion, but rather someone who can contribute ideas to existing conversations in scholarship. This sense of autonomy over my academic endeavors was reinforced repeatedly throughout this course.
Much of what was discussed in the classroom has found its way sneaking its way into my out-of-classroom experience. This course has made me critical of loaded terms like ‘tradition’ – I find myself questioning texts and dissecting meaning, where once I took it for granted. The authority of the author is no longer something I take as a given – this course engaged us in active questioning of the layers of bias that one brings to a written work.
I think the best part of this class was that it was a surprise at the end of the semester to realize of the value of the previously seemingly directionless discussions. At the onset of this course, I could never have predicted how studying religion through these lenses would contribute to my knowledge base and to the conversations I would engage in with my peers.
That was also one of the great benefits of this course – the engagement with my peers that allowed me form strong bonds based on similar and differing opinions, varying areas of study, and sharing my research with others while learning about theirs in return. I’m excited to see, in the coming year, what type of research my peers and I will produce. The direction we take with our individual research and the voices we adopt to conduct that work, will no doubt have been influenced by the conversations that we’ve begun in this course.
Having read over my opus of Method & Theory blog entries in an attempt formulate a response to this week’s entry, I can safely say that I am more educated in the varied theoretical approaches to the study of Religion. Interestingly, I view this course now as more of an “Introduction to Religion” course than I ever thought I would!
Instead of approaching religion topically – that is, broken down by ‘religion’ itself, this course forced us to view religion from a position outside of religion proper. By using lenses such as ‘gender’, ‘myth’, ‘performance’ and ‘ritual’, I’ve been forced to answer what importance these aspects of religion bear on the actual existence of religion itself. Does (or can) religion exist outside of these? Or is it the coming together of these semantics that makes religion what it is essentially? I think this course helped me determine that while these features can be independently dissected, they are intrinsically tied to the nature of religion as we know it.
In the class where we discussed ‘The Invention of World Religions’ by Tomoko Wasuzawa, we were asked to consider how an Introduction to World Religions course might be alternatively taught. In retrospect of this course, I feel that the way in which this course has been taught, would be an ideal alternate to the religion-by-religion approach that has traditionally been adopted for introductory courses.
I enjoyed especially that we didn’t look at texts, but rather gained the tools on how to read texts for ourselves, regardless of our avenue of scholarship.
This course was especially helpful in allowing me to gain a fuller lexicon for my chosen realm of study. Reading scholars in areas such as ‘ritual’ and ‘myth’ have allowed me to develop a vocabulary specific to my academic and also, to explore the field from different methodological angles. For instance, I was forced to question what was the difference between studying religion from a feminist perspective versus studying religion from a historical perspective. Furthermore, the question of ‘proper’ methodology has also arisen – for instance, is there such a thing as a feminist methodology?
Having said this, I would have written my initial SSHRC proposal very differently today than I did in week three of the course!
In terms of the course’s structure, I found the blogging ritual quite fulfilling – it allowed me to flesh out my own thoughts prior to coming to the class. This preparedness allowed for a richer in-class discussion. The in-class discussions were often engaging and always entertaining – I was able to grapple with concepts from the perspective of my colleagues that I hadn’t even thought about previously. As well, having the focus put on our thoughts as opposed to the thoughts of the scholars before us, helped me understand that I am now planted firmly in academia, proper – no longer an undergraduate with no opinion, but rather someone who can contribute ideas to existing conversations in scholarship. This sense of autonomy over my academic endeavors was reinforced repeatedly throughout this course.
Much of what was discussed in the classroom has found its way sneaking its way into my out-of-classroom experience. This course has made me critical of loaded terms like ‘tradition’ – I find myself questioning texts and dissecting meaning, where once I took it for granted. The authority of the author is no longer something I take as a given – this course engaged us in active questioning of the layers of bias that one brings to a written work.
I think the best part of this class was that it was a surprise at the end of the semester to realize of the value of the previously seemingly directionless discussions. At the onset of this course, I could never have predicted how studying religion through these lenses would contribute to my knowledge base and to the conversations I would engage in with my peers.
That was also one of the great benefits of this course – the engagement with my peers that allowed me form strong bonds based on similar and differing opinions, varying areas of study, and sharing my research with others while learning about theirs in return. I’m excited to see, in the coming year, what type of research my peers and I will produce. The direction we take with our individual research and the voices we adopt to conduct that work, will no doubt have been influenced by the conversations that we’ve begun in this course.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
10. Tradición
(Tradition)
I read the topic for this week’s discussion and groaned internally. Nothing about Purity Balls, the ritual, is traditional – my academic work has nothing to do with traditional anything! After succumbing to the inevitable what-am-I-doing-in-grad-school malaise for a wee bit, I snapped right back and began really thinking about the act of tradition-inventing (sounds like an Olympic event doesn’t it?).
Eric Hobsbawn discusses three possible reasons for why traditions are invented. First, invented traditions establish social cohesion – they signify membership to a group; second, traditions – both invented and not – act to legitimize the institutions that they belong to; finally, traditions act as agents of inculcating beliefs and values into the membership of an institution (Habsbawm, 9). How interesting it is then, that inventing tradition actually has nothing to do with actually upholding tradition itself!
In terms of my own research, the Purity Ball ritual is an invented tradition that seeks to enforce sexual rules by tying to Christian history and tradition, when in fact this tie does not actually exist! Tying invention to tradition through history aims to set up a feeling of legitimacy. Almost as if having a history legitimizes the ‘tradition’ in a way that simply advocating for a new practice would not. It seems as if people will adhere to ‘tradition’ more religiously (!) than to rules that are newly set out.
A prime example of this tradition-vs.-edict discussion is the Catholic Church’s Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican in 1962. By formalizing change of practice into a 'traditional' council, the Church was able to pass off changing with the times as 'theological reform'. Hobsbawn concurs, "Inventing tradition is essentially a process of formalization and ritualization that is created by imposing repetition" (Hobsbawm, 4). The counter movement within the Church itself that resists the changes of Vatican II is a product of the membership's unwillingness to adhere to these invented traditions!
In similar fashion, the ritualization of Purity Balls is based on the Christian 'tradition' - supporters and organizers of these events tout it as keeping with Christian values and suggesting that it is a "the" American way - protecting the American nuclear family and promoting good Christian family values. By aligning itself with patriotism (somehow inherently American/Western) and religion (Evangelical Christianity), this ritual movement claims to be the "opposite of novel, [...] rooted in antiquity, and opposite of constructed, [...] so 'natural' as to require no other definition other than self-assertion" (Hobsbawm, 14).
This entire assertion is false – an ‘invention’ if you will! The ritual of protected a virgin’s purity is more anthropological than religious. A multitude of non-Western cultures deal with the ‘problem’ of sexual pollution brought about by unbridled female sexuality – including the Newari Buddhists of Nepal, the Tiyyars and Nayars of the Indian Malabar Coast, and the Etoro culture of the New Guinea Highlands . Much anthropological research has been conducted into the roots of sexual pollution, suggesting that a menstruating female who is capable of bearing a child without acknowledging its paternity is a threat to the order of the society. Hence, the focus on sex is actually about maintaining social order – or as the proponents of Purity Balls put it, ‘family’! Marriage removes the threat of societal disorder by assigning an offspring’s paternity to the mother’s husband. However, single, fertile, women still remains a threat to the social order. This issue is dealt with in a number of ways across cultures. For instance, in the Newari Buddhist tradition, the premenstrual girl is married to a belwa fruit – a husband-symbol. In a society where sexual roles are enforced directly, the threat of sexual pollution seems to be diminished greatly. Hence in the case of the Purity Ball ritual, this ‘tradition’ of Christian family values is merely an appropriated, rebranded mechanism for enforcing rules against what is seen as a threat to society – namely, sex.
Hobsbawm asserts that traditions are part of the superstructure, while routine is part of the base. I am forced to question the top-down mechanism of inventing tradition then. Is the routine for legitimate if it is supported by an overarching principle? Or should the practice on the ground be reflected by the structure at the top? If as Hobsbawm suggests, tradition trickles downward, then this implies that we are all products of our society. Interesting when contrasted against the view that society is a social construct!
On an unrelated note, this week’s blog was extremely hard for me to complete due to the lack of formulating questions. Perhaps I – like society – am in need of an (invented) tradition of boundaries to inform my direction of thought?
I read the topic for this week’s discussion and groaned internally. Nothing about Purity Balls, the ritual, is traditional – my academic work has nothing to do with traditional anything! After succumbing to the inevitable what-am-I-doing-in-grad-school malaise for a wee bit, I snapped right back and began really thinking about the act of tradition-inventing (sounds like an Olympic event doesn’t it?).
Eric Hobsbawn discusses three possible reasons for why traditions are invented. First, invented traditions establish social cohesion – they signify membership to a group; second, traditions – both invented and not – act to legitimize the institutions that they belong to; finally, traditions act as agents of inculcating beliefs and values into the membership of an institution (Habsbawm, 9). How interesting it is then, that inventing tradition actually has nothing to do with actually upholding tradition itself!
In terms of my own research, the Purity Ball ritual is an invented tradition that seeks to enforce sexual rules by tying to Christian history and tradition, when in fact this tie does not actually exist! Tying invention to tradition through history aims to set up a feeling of legitimacy. Almost as if having a history legitimizes the ‘tradition’ in a way that simply advocating for a new practice would not. It seems as if people will adhere to ‘tradition’ more religiously (!) than to rules that are newly set out.
A prime example of this tradition-vs.-edict discussion is the Catholic Church’s Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican in 1962. By formalizing change of practice into a 'traditional' council, the Church was able to pass off changing with the times as 'theological reform'. Hobsbawn concurs, "Inventing tradition is essentially a process of formalization and ritualization that is created by imposing repetition" (Hobsbawm, 4). The counter movement within the Church itself that resists the changes of Vatican II is a product of the membership's unwillingness to adhere to these invented traditions!
In similar fashion, the ritualization of Purity Balls is based on the Christian 'tradition' - supporters and organizers of these events tout it as keeping with Christian values and suggesting that it is a "the" American way - protecting the American nuclear family and promoting good Christian family values. By aligning itself with patriotism (somehow inherently American/Western) and religion (Evangelical Christianity), this ritual movement claims to be the "opposite of novel, [...] rooted in antiquity, and opposite of constructed, [...] so 'natural' as to require no other definition other than self-assertion" (Hobsbawm, 14).
This entire assertion is false – an ‘invention’ if you will! The ritual of protected a virgin’s purity is more anthropological than religious. A multitude of non-Western cultures deal with the ‘problem’ of sexual pollution brought about by unbridled female sexuality – including the Newari Buddhists of Nepal, the Tiyyars and Nayars of the Indian Malabar Coast, and the Etoro culture of the New Guinea Highlands . Much anthropological research has been conducted into the roots of sexual pollution, suggesting that a menstruating female who is capable of bearing a child without acknowledging its paternity is a threat to the order of the society. Hence, the focus on sex is actually about maintaining social order – or as the proponents of Purity Balls put it, ‘family’! Marriage removes the threat of societal disorder by assigning an offspring’s paternity to the mother’s husband. However, single, fertile, women still remains a threat to the social order. This issue is dealt with in a number of ways across cultures. For instance, in the Newari Buddhist tradition, the premenstrual girl is married to a belwa fruit – a husband-symbol. In a society where sexual roles are enforced directly, the threat of sexual pollution seems to be diminished greatly. Hence in the case of the Purity Ball ritual, this ‘tradition’ of Christian family values is merely an appropriated, rebranded mechanism for enforcing rules against what is seen as a threat to society – namely, sex.
Hobsbawm asserts that traditions are part of the superstructure, while routine is part of the base. I am forced to question the top-down mechanism of inventing tradition then. Is the routine for legitimate if it is supported by an overarching principle? Or should the practice on the ground be reflected by the structure at the top? If as Hobsbawm suggests, tradition trickles downward, then this implies that we are all products of our society. Interesting when contrasted against the view that society is a social construct!
On an unrelated note, this week’s blog was extremely hard for me to complete due to the lack of formulating questions. Perhaps I – like society – am in need of an (invented) tradition of boundaries to inform my direction of thought?
Sunday, November 9, 2008
9. Emoción
(Emotion)
Dr. Eric Jensen, in his book 'The Learning Brain' defines 'emotions' as "biologically driven, cross-cultural responses to environmental stimuli [...] Emotions are cross-cultural - the same all over the world. Feeling are a subset of all of our mind-body states (disappointment, hunger, hope, etc. There are hundreds of them!). Feelings are a learned response in the culture in which you grow up (the family, the peers, the community, etc.)"
Corrigan is in agreement with this defnition of ‘emotion’. He says, “Emotion is not theorized as an unconditioned, essential phenomenon, but as the aspect of human experience that is constituted in the ongoing, every day perfeormance of social life” (Corrigan 2004, 11). He goes on to assert that emotions are the result of a person’s engagement with complex social codes that govern aspects of a society (ex: authority, status, and relationality) and inter-personal relationships. Corrigan holds that an emotion is given meaning by a culture – that is, it is “made normative through “feeling rules” that dictate the proper linkages between social experiences and emotional states” (Corrigan 2004, 11). I disagree. I would dare assert that it is the expression of this emotion that is ruled by external forces (societal norms), not the emotion itself. Of course this means that for the purpose of my own writing, I am going to adopt a blatant disregard for emotion-feeling distinction and treat, like the early modern Spaniards, 'emotion' and 'feeling' as equivalent entities (Christian 2004, 39).
This week’s topic is a real treat for me as it provides me with the jargon that I will need to pursue my own field of research, while drawing on my education in the field of psychology. In response to the question of whether or not I can see myself applying an analysis of emotion to my field of research, the answer is simply yes. My study of the Purity Ball ritual and the psychology behind it would have not foothold in the study of religion, proper, if it weren’t for the emotional lens through which religion can now be studied.
To have emotion is inherently human. However, not all humans may come with the same set of emotions, or the same ability to experience emotions. For instance, those without a fully developed prefrontal cortex (i.e. psychopaths and children until the age of 18-21) are unable to comprehend or express certain emotions, like grief or empathy that most fully physiologically developed humans are capable of experiencing. That being said, for the most part, common emotions are universally recognizable. There are certain indicators of emotion that transcend cultural barriers, such as smiling when happy, crying in the face of high stress situations (both positive and negative), etc. So, if emotion is inherently human and humans are the performers of religious ritual, then aren’t emotion and religion inextricably tied? Like the expression of emotion itself though, this tie between religion and emotion can also take on many forms.
My research, as previously mentioned, deals primarily with psychology. This means that I deal with emotion on a very basic level – it is a very real part of my research and not a tangential aspect of my work. I see emotion as a product of psychology – both individual and societal. Hence, emotion to me is a valid lens of study for the religious performance. I don’t see it as non-empirical (I’m tempted to say ‘wishy-washy’) at all. Psychology shows us that humans have predetermined physiological wiring (hardware) that is built to experience certain emotion (software, if you will). This ‘hardware’ includes such things as neurons, neurotransmitters, hormone receptors and inhibitors, etc. The cues that trigger an emotional response may be societal, and hence subjective, but the structures are already in place to support the cues if and when they may arrive.
Coming to my own research into the ritual phenomenon of Purity Balls…
Partaking in this ritual offers the young female participants a sense of pride, a feeling of moral superiority, and a feeling of uniqueness. These emotions are contrasted starkly against those that are felt when a young girl ‘succumbs’ to sexual desires, because failing to uphold the conditions of the purity pledge comes with emotions of guilt, shame, failure, and a general letting down of one’s father, one’s god, and one’s community. While these visceral reactions are observable by me (an outsider), I am forced to wonder about the unobservable emotions that come into play during this ritual. It is these emotional experiences that I am most interested – the doubt (about the pledge itself), the fear (of failing to uphold the pledge’s stipulations), the feeling of being creeped out (at the notion of pretty much marrying one’s father and the incestuous connotations that this comes with). I also want to source out the emotions of the maternal figure in this ritual performance because there seems to no presence of a mater figure in this religious drama; this leads me to think that the maternal emotional narrative is not one that is endorsed by the religious organization that promotes the ritual of Purity Balls.
I supposed I’ve gone off a wee bit. My point is that emotion has a very real place in the aspects of religion that I am interested in. It’s not the ‘what’ of religion I seek – it’s the ‘why’. Therein lies therub emotion!
Dr. Eric Jensen, in his book 'The Learning Brain' defines 'emotions' as "biologically driven, cross-cultural responses to environmental stimuli [...] Emotions are cross-cultural - the same all over the world. Feeling are a subset of all of our mind-body states (disappointment, hunger, hope, etc. There are hundreds of them!). Feelings are a learned response in the culture in which you grow up (the family, the peers, the community, etc.)"
Corrigan is in agreement with this defnition of ‘emotion’. He says, “Emotion is not theorized as an unconditioned, essential phenomenon, but as the aspect of human experience that is constituted in the ongoing, every day perfeormance of social life” (Corrigan 2004, 11). He goes on to assert that emotions are the result of a person’s engagement with complex social codes that govern aspects of a society (ex: authority, status, and relationality) and inter-personal relationships. Corrigan holds that an emotion is given meaning by a culture – that is, it is “made normative through “feeling rules” that dictate the proper linkages between social experiences and emotional states” (Corrigan 2004, 11). I disagree. I would dare assert that it is the expression of this emotion that is ruled by external forces (societal norms), not the emotion itself. Of course this means that for the purpose of my own writing, I am going to adopt a blatant disregard for emotion-feeling distinction and treat, like the early modern Spaniards, 'emotion' and 'feeling' as equivalent entities (Christian 2004, 39).
This week’s topic is a real treat for me as it provides me with the jargon that I will need to pursue my own field of research, while drawing on my education in the field of psychology. In response to the question of whether or not I can see myself applying an analysis of emotion to my field of research, the answer is simply yes. My study of the Purity Ball ritual and the psychology behind it would have not foothold in the study of religion, proper, if it weren’t for the emotional lens through which religion can now be studied.
To have emotion is inherently human. However, not all humans may come with the same set of emotions, or the same ability to experience emotions. For instance, those without a fully developed prefrontal cortex (i.e. psychopaths and children until the age of 18-21) are unable to comprehend or express certain emotions, like grief or empathy that most fully physiologically developed humans are capable of experiencing. That being said, for the most part, common emotions are universally recognizable. There are certain indicators of emotion that transcend cultural barriers, such as smiling when happy, crying in the face of high stress situations (both positive and negative), etc. So, if emotion is inherently human and humans are the performers of religious ritual, then aren’t emotion and religion inextricably tied? Like the expression of emotion itself though, this tie between religion and emotion can also take on many forms.
My research, as previously mentioned, deals primarily with psychology. This means that I deal with emotion on a very basic level – it is a very real part of my research and not a tangential aspect of my work. I see emotion as a product of psychology – both individual and societal. Hence, emotion to me is a valid lens of study for the religious performance. I don’t see it as non-empirical (I’m tempted to say ‘wishy-washy’) at all. Psychology shows us that humans have predetermined physiological wiring (hardware) that is built to experience certain emotion (software, if you will). This ‘hardware’ includes such things as neurons, neurotransmitters, hormone receptors and inhibitors, etc. The cues that trigger an emotional response may be societal, and hence subjective, but the structures are already in place to support the cues if and when they may arrive.
Coming to my own research into the ritual phenomenon of Purity Balls…
Partaking in this ritual offers the young female participants a sense of pride, a feeling of moral superiority, and a feeling of uniqueness. These emotions are contrasted starkly against those that are felt when a young girl ‘succumbs’ to sexual desires, because failing to uphold the conditions of the purity pledge comes with emotions of guilt, shame, failure, and a general letting down of one’s father, one’s god, and one’s community. While these visceral reactions are observable by me (an outsider), I am forced to wonder about the unobservable emotions that come into play during this ritual. It is these emotional experiences that I am most interested – the doubt (about the pledge itself), the fear (of failing to uphold the pledge’s stipulations), the feeling of being creeped out (at the notion of pretty much marrying one’s father and the incestuous connotations that this comes with). I also want to source out the emotions of the maternal figure in this ritual performance because there seems to no presence of a mater figure in this religious drama; this leads me to think that the maternal emotional narrative is not one that is endorsed by the religious organization that promotes the ritual of Purity Balls.
I supposed I’ve gone off a wee bit. My point is that emotion has a very real place in the aspects of religion that I am interested in. It’s not the ‘what’ of religion I seek – it’s the ‘why’. Therein lies the
Sunday, November 2, 2008
8 - Exécution
(Performance)
Ritual and belief are two sides of the same, semi-permeable, coin. One influences the other, and the other in turn influences the one. However, neither is the other’s sole affector.
I tend to agree with Ronald Grimes in his statement that Catherine Bell is highly single-minded when blaming ritual theorist for constituting the object of their study. I tend to hold that all theorist do this, in varying ways and to varying degrees, with their own respective fields of interest. Like Grimes states, “All primary terms in all theories in all languages carry their own linguistic and cultural baggage” (Grimes, 128). This is why his earlier posed question of discovering a unit rather than importing one is of utmost importance (Grimes, 110). I wonder however, if Milton Singer – as Grimes touts him to have done – is truly successful in this discovering-over-importing process when it comes to ritual-theory, or if he simply imported a previously unimported, albeit already existent, notion when examining the role of performance in the context at hand, namely Indian cultural/religious society.
Similarly, nowhere in his article does Grimes challenge Clifford Geertz’s attribution of power to ritual, when it comes to generating an aura of factuality to religion (Grimes, 111). Geertz built on Singer, and Grimes – like any good theorist – built on Geertz. Like Grimes, Catherine Bell takes a pre-supposed stance to Geertz’s notion that ritual influences belief. Neither does she break down this assumption, nor does she challenge it. Grimes, while discussing Erving Goffman, states that “Social performance is ceremonial” (Grimes, 112). I am forced to question though, if this necessarily means that all ceremony is performative? Grimes answers this through a Goffmanian perspective when he states that all social interaction is performance because it is not only done, but also done to be seen (Grimes 112).
How, I wonder, does this engagement in a visually perceivable, socially engaging action impinge upon religious belief? In a discussion that I was having with a classmate a few weeks ago, she asked me if going to church every Sunday morning, making the ‘sign of the cross’, and consuming the Body and Blood of Christ, necessarily made one a Catholic? Her querying left me to wonder why rituals such as baking hot-cross buns on Easter aren’t considered endemic to the practice of Catholicism? Or why certain cultures thought it part of their Catholic faith to trot baked hams and roasted poultry to the parish church for the priest to bless on Christmas morning, while other cultures didn’t! When I posed this last question to the group of classmates at large, one responded that European Catholics were inculturated to exist in sharp contrast to the European Jews. The blessing of ham on Easter and Christmas was a symbolic ritual against the coinciding Jewish holidays of Passover and Hanukah. In cultures with no history of anti-Semitic sentiment, this symbolic ritual could not be found within the practice of belief.
The notion of enculturation begs the question: how much of ritual is belief-based and how much of it is culturally based? Furthermore, if a culturally based ritual becomes part of the opus of belief, then is it truly, as Geertz states, generative of the religion’s aura of factuality? Catherine Bell, in her argument against the circular nature of ritual theory, challenges this claim that ritual provides a privileged window on cultural meaning (Grimes, 124). Bell proposes to view what is generally thought of as ‘ritual,’ as mere social activity instead. This is easier said than done because at the ground level, practitioners of the faith inform theorists that a particular ritual – taking ham to church, for instance – is an intrinsic aspect of belonging to a particular faith tradition.
On the same question of ritual informing belief, I am forced to question if the absense of ritual negates the presence of faith? For instance, could one be considered Catholic proper, without the visible insinuations of belief such as going to Sunday Mass, consuming the Body and Blood of Christ, and making the ‘sign of the cross’? Alternatively, if ritual is the most indicative aspect of belief, what if one were to partake of all the aforementioned rituals, but believed in the use of contraception, believed in a woman’s right to choose abortion upon become unexpectedly pregnant, believed that clergy should be made up of members of all sexes, or believed any number of beliefs in direct contradiction to the set of ‘beliefs’ supposed to be held by all Catholics? Would partaking of the ritualistic aspects of the tradition, while simultaneous holding beliefs in direct opposition to the tradition, keep one within the boundaries of ‘practicing’ the faith?
Of Bell, Grimes asserts that she is most persuasive in showing that theory-making is inevitably a strategic activity (Grimes, 128). That is to say, the once revolutionary discovering-versus-importing activity has become just as structuralist as the traditional school of structuralism that ritual-theorists were resisting. In this case then, I agree with Bell’s position, as stated by Grimes, that “theory-making amounts to an act of domination insofar as it is an attempt to exercise power in the arena of cultural knowledge” (Grimes, 128).
Ritual and belief are two sides of the same, semi-permeable, coin. One influences the other, and the other in turn influences the one. However, neither is the other’s sole affector.
I tend to agree with Ronald Grimes in his statement that Catherine Bell is highly single-minded when blaming ritual theorist for constituting the object of their study. I tend to hold that all theorist do this, in varying ways and to varying degrees, with their own respective fields of interest. Like Grimes states, “All primary terms in all theories in all languages carry their own linguistic and cultural baggage” (Grimes, 128). This is why his earlier posed question of discovering a unit rather than importing one is of utmost importance (Grimes, 110). I wonder however, if Milton Singer – as Grimes touts him to have done – is truly successful in this discovering-over-importing process when it comes to ritual-theory, or if he simply imported a previously unimported, albeit already existent, notion when examining the role of performance in the context at hand, namely Indian cultural/religious society.
Similarly, nowhere in his article does Grimes challenge Clifford Geertz’s attribution of power to ritual, when it comes to generating an aura of factuality to religion (Grimes, 111). Geertz built on Singer, and Grimes – like any good theorist – built on Geertz. Like Grimes, Catherine Bell takes a pre-supposed stance to Geertz’s notion that ritual influences belief. Neither does she break down this assumption, nor does she challenge it. Grimes, while discussing Erving Goffman, states that “Social performance is ceremonial” (Grimes, 112). I am forced to question though, if this necessarily means that all ceremony is performative? Grimes answers this through a Goffmanian perspective when he states that all social interaction is performance because it is not only done, but also done to be seen (Grimes 112).
How, I wonder, does this engagement in a visually perceivable, socially engaging action impinge upon religious belief? In a discussion that I was having with a classmate a few weeks ago, she asked me if going to church every Sunday morning, making the ‘sign of the cross’, and consuming the Body and Blood of Christ, necessarily made one a Catholic? Her querying left me to wonder why rituals such as baking hot-cross buns on Easter aren’t considered endemic to the practice of Catholicism? Or why certain cultures thought it part of their Catholic faith to trot baked hams and roasted poultry to the parish church for the priest to bless on Christmas morning, while other cultures didn’t! When I posed this last question to the group of classmates at large, one responded that European Catholics were inculturated to exist in sharp contrast to the European Jews. The blessing of ham on Easter and Christmas was a symbolic ritual against the coinciding Jewish holidays of Passover and Hanukah. In cultures with no history of anti-Semitic sentiment, this symbolic ritual could not be found within the practice of belief.
The notion of enculturation begs the question: how much of ritual is belief-based and how much of it is culturally based? Furthermore, if a culturally based ritual becomes part of the opus of belief, then is it truly, as Geertz states, generative of the religion’s aura of factuality? Catherine Bell, in her argument against the circular nature of ritual theory, challenges this claim that ritual provides a privileged window on cultural meaning (Grimes, 124). Bell proposes to view what is generally thought of as ‘ritual,’ as mere social activity instead. This is easier said than done because at the ground level, practitioners of the faith inform theorists that a particular ritual – taking ham to church, for instance – is an intrinsic aspect of belonging to a particular faith tradition.
On the same question of ritual informing belief, I am forced to question if the absense of ritual negates the presence of faith? For instance, could one be considered Catholic proper, without the visible insinuations of belief such as going to Sunday Mass, consuming the Body and Blood of Christ, and making the ‘sign of the cross’? Alternatively, if ritual is the most indicative aspect of belief, what if one were to partake of all the aforementioned rituals, but believed in the use of contraception, believed in a woman’s right to choose abortion upon become unexpectedly pregnant, believed that clergy should be made up of members of all sexes, or believed any number of beliefs in direct contradiction to the set of ‘beliefs’ supposed to be held by all Catholics? Would partaking of the ritualistic aspects of the tradition, while simultaneous holding beliefs in direct opposition to the tradition, keep one within the boundaries of ‘practicing’ the faith?
Of Bell, Grimes asserts that she is most persuasive in showing that theory-making is inevitably a strategic activity (Grimes, 128). That is to say, the once revolutionary discovering-versus-importing activity has become just as structuralist as the traditional school of structuralism that ritual-theorists were resisting. In this case then, I agree with Bell’s position, as stated by Grimes, that “theory-making amounts to an act of domination insofar as it is an attempt to exercise power in the arena of cultural knowledge” (Grimes, 128).
Saturday, October 25, 2008
7. Mito
(Myth)
It might be fair to say that Wendy Doinger’s The Implied Spider is a survey in mythological methodology. Doniger asserts that the cross-cultural comparison of myths is “pragmatically possible, intellectually plausible, and politically productive” (4-5). However, this comparison comes with a caveat that I find most problematic – Doniger proposes to do all this mythological comparison sans methodological structure!
Undoubtedly, comparative work has merit. However, Doniger does not convince me of her astructural approach to comparison.
Perhaps my current studies in the issues of ethnographic method have made me partial to the structural approach, but I find that studies with no structure are messier, by far, than the inevitable outliers found in a structured comparison. In The Implied Spider, Doniger maintains that the best theory is unobtrusive. She argues that, like the rocks in an Irish stone wall, if a researcher “selects her texts carefully and places them in a sequence that tells the story she want to tell, she will need relatively little theory to explain why they belong together and what sort of argument they imply” (60).
This bottom-up method of careful (albeit random) selection is arbitrary. If a scholar is “arranging” the blocks to tell the story that he or she wants to tell, then isn’t the author’s authority and position questionable? Furthermore, this random selection provides a very busy palate from which the author is forced to pick a random pattern. Wouldn’t having some idea of what one is looking for provide some sort of direction (structure!) in which to focus – rather than a multi-focal smorgasbord of data that may or may not make sense at the end of the presentation?
The possibility of comparison between cross-cultural myths arises from, what Doniger argues, is the commonality of concerns from different cultures. “When we say that two myths from two different cultures are ‘the same’ we mean that there are certain plots that come up again and again, revealing a set of human concerns that transcend any cultural barriers, experiences that we might call cross-cultural or transcultural” (53). Doniger goes on to create a list of this ‘common human experience’ – sex, food, singing, dancing, sunrise and sunset, et cetera (53-54).
These shared experiences are the ‘spider’ that Doniger refers to in the building of myths (webs). The idea that no one subjective experience – i.e. Ali eating olives in Istanbul on March 13, 1976 while the sun was setting and the mosque prayers were ringing out in the street – can be accessed, is what makes these ‘spiders’ (experiences) implied. “I argue that we must believe in the existence of the spider, the experience behind the myth, though it is indeed true that we can never see this sort of spider at work; we can only find the webs, the myths that human authors weave” (61).
Not only does the spider metaphor come from a variety of sources, but also the lack of implication in use of the spider was very confusing to me! For instance, Doniger draws on such varied sources as Geertz and Obeyesekere, the Upanishads of the Hindu tradition, Kierkegaard, Shakespeare, linguists, and Jewish mythology. Doniger highlights this scattered sense of myth-collection, herself, when she says: “The spider is used as a metaphor for blind faith in the future. But we can use it as a metaphor for blind faith in the existence of spiders – or authors, or shared human experience, or the text” (63). This question of one’s faith in the text being shaken simply because the identity of the author cannot be ascertained, is one that was discussed extensively in class a few weeks ago. I believe that the general consensus was, that while authorial presence is important, there are certain instances in which the web matters more than the spider itself. I believe I’ve mentioned the Ramayana here before, but it bears repetition. While scholarship is consumed with figuring out whether or not the great seer Valmiki wrote the Ramayana, I am forced to question whether the mythological epic loses its potency simply because its authorial origin is unknown. Are the myths of good versus evil contained within the epic redundant merely because the spider is implied?
Doniger however, insists that an analysis of the pan-cultural meaning of a myth and its subjective application must include an appreciation for the historical contexts in which that myth is articulated. “Attention to cultural specificity is part of the Hippocratic oath of historians of religions, including mythologists” (43).
It might be fair to say that Wendy Doinger’s The Implied Spider is a survey in mythological methodology. Doniger asserts that the cross-cultural comparison of myths is “pragmatically possible, intellectually plausible, and politically productive” (4-5). However, this comparison comes with a caveat that I find most problematic – Doniger proposes to do all this mythological comparison sans methodological structure!
Undoubtedly, comparative work has merit. However, Doniger does not convince me of her astructural approach to comparison.
Perhaps my current studies in the issues of ethnographic method have made me partial to the structural approach, but I find that studies with no structure are messier, by far, than the inevitable outliers found in a structured comparison. In The Implied Spider, Doniger maintains that the best theory is unobtrusive. She argues that, like the rocks in an Irish stone wall, if a researcher “selects her texts carefully and places them in a sequence that tells the story she want to tell, she will need relatively little theory to explain why they belong together and what sort of argument they imply” (60).
This bottom-up method of careful (albeit random) selection is arbitrary. If a scholar is “arranging” the blocks to tell the story that he or she wants to tell, then isn’t the author’s authority and position questionable? Furthermore, this random selection provides a very busy palate from which the author is forced to pick a random pattern. Wouldn’t having some idea of what one is looking for provide some sort of direction (structure!) in which to focus – rather than a multi-focal smorgasbord of data that may or may not make sense at the end of the presentation?
The possibility of comparison between cross-cultural myths arises from, what Doniger argues, is the commonality of concerns from different cultures. “When we say that two myths from two different cultures are ‘the same’ we mean that there are certain plots that come up again and again, revealing a set of human concerns that transcend any cultural barriers, experiences that we might call cross-cultural or transcultural” (53). Doniger goes on to create a list of this ‘common human experience’ – sex, food, singing, dancing, sunrise and sunset, et cetera (53-54).
These shared experiences are the ‘spider’ that Doniger refers to in the building of myths (webs). The idea that no one subjective experience – i.e. Ali eating olives in Istanbul on March 13, 1976 while the sun was setting and the mosque prayers were ringing out in the street – can be accessed, is what makes these ‘spiders’ (experiences) implied. “I argue that we must believe in the existence of the spider, the experience behind the myth, though it is indeed true that we can never see this sort of spider at work; we can only find the webs, the myths that human authors weave” (61).
Not only does the spider metaphor come from a variety of sources, but also the lack of implication in use of the spider was very confusing to me! For instance, Doniger draws on such varied sources as Geertz and Obeyesekere, the Upanishads of the Hindu tradition, Kierkegaard, Shakespeare, linguists, and Jewish mythology. Doniger highlights this scattered sense of myth-collection, herself, when she says: “The spider is used as a metaphor for blind faith in the future. But we can use it as a metaphor for blind faith in the existence of spiders – or authors, or shared human experience, or the text” (63). This question of one’s faith in the text being shaken simply because the identity of the author cannot be ascertained, is one that was discussed extensively in class a few weeks ago. I believe that the general consensus was, that while authorial presence is important, there are certain instances in which the web matters more than the spider itself. I believe I’ve mentioned the Ramayana here before, but it bears repetition. While scholarship is consumed with figuring out whether or not the great seer Valmiki wrote the Ramayana, I am forced to question whether the mythological epic loses its potency simply because its authorial origin is unknown. Are the myths of good versus evil contained within the epic redundant merely because the spider is implied?
Doniger however, insists that an analysis of the pan-cultural meaning of a myth and its subjective application must include an appreciation for the historical contexts in which that myth is articulated. “Attention to cultural specificity is part of the Hippocratic oath of historians of religions, including mythologists” (43).
Sunday, October 12, 2008
5. Género
(Gender)
Elizabeth Clark writes that “‘[w]omen’s studies in religion,’ […] has appropriated the social history model, while ‘gender studies in religion’ has begun to adopt the hermeneutic paradigm” (Clark, 217). Ultimately, however, she holds that it is important to keep both models working together in order to produce an enriched picture in the historical study of religion.
Clark goes on to question the contextualization of women’s religious histories. One benefit that she sees of contextualizing this history is that it reveals ways in which women managed to overcome the confines of patriarchy in its various historical manifestations (Clark, 221). She states “attention to ‘real women’ has stimulated discussion of periodization” (Clark, 222). What this serves to do is locate women’s position within their contextual realm of time, place, culture and society. This contextualization is important in order to stave away from generalizing all males from all times and places, as patriarchal misogynistic, victimizers of women! Hence, Clark asserts that attention to women has enhances religious studies by suggesting new ways to think about agency and periodization (Clark, 223-24).
Another point that Clark puts forth is that the category of ‘woman’ allows for a much wider scope for discussion as opposed to the category of ‘gender’ (Clark, 233). This distinction between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ is addressed by Daniel Boyarin, who states that when we study gender, we are investigating the processes by which people are interpolated into a two-sex system that is made to seem as if it were nature – something has always existed (Boyarin, 117). Similarly, Clark issues that sex is considered the ‘raw material’ from which ‘gender’ is produced (Clark, 233). Most interesting is the statement in the Clark article that puts forth a definition for the ‘sex-gender system’ – it is defined as “the system of social relations that transformed biological sexuality into products of human activity and in which the resulting historically specific sexual needs are met” (Clark, 234).
This notion of the ‘normal’ is problematic because it removes onus from cultural conditioning and places blame for misogyny primarily on a natural phenomenon. Amy Hollywood, in her response to the Clark article, suggests that one way in which to overcome this problem of phenomenology is to as what roles these prescribed scripts play, or played, on the women upon whom they’re being imposed. That is, what effect did this naturalization of gender have on the worlds in which they were created? Hollywood asks if this naturalization was simply a dead metaphor or whether it was social and legally regulated in a normative manner (Hollywood, 249). Is this our question, as scholars, to ask however? Isn’t this simply going back to the discussion on context that arose in class last week? Is it within our power to ask these contextual questions or are merely running around in circles, chasing our tails? Perhaps, chasing our tales!?!
What intrigued me immensely was the emphasis on the ‘empirical’ that appeared in all the articles that were assigned this week. There seems to be a push from the feminist theorists to study women’s religious issues from as empirical a standpoint as that from which [men’s] religious issues have been studied in the past. It is interesting to note the empirical-hermeneutical dichotomy and how it manifests itself repeatedly along the gender-sex and male-female divides. Katherine Young addresses this transition from “normative underpinnings to the empirical study of world religions […] in comparative and historical frames” (Young, 17). She holds that this shift can often lead to a phenomenological stance from which to study feminist religion. While this may provide some solace from the hermeneutical study of the feminine in religions, it also comes with its own slew of problems. For instance, generalizing the ‘other’ in a classic case of insider- versus outsider-bias. Often, phenomenology leads men to be stereotyped meta-historical victimizers, misogynists, patriarchs, and controllers of the women ‘under’ them! Young questions whether both, phenomenologist and feminists, have something to unlearn about generalizations (Young, 33). This reminds me greatly of the paradox of teaching a first year World Religions course – are generalization, insider-unity, and stereotyping, a necessary evil of giving the study of women within religious history a fair shot?
David Kinsley argues that women’s studies poses certain problems for studying the history of religion because of the way in which it pits males against females in a starkly dichotomous manner. To this end, Kinsley states that “[c]ategorizing males as oppressors and women as victims can also lead to objectifying women as a category and blinding the historian of religions to women’s own voices, keeping him or her from hearing women as subjects” (Kinsley, 12), and hearing them rather, as victims, I might add! Rather, Kinsley proposes that scholars employ the hermeneutics of suspicion when studying women within a historically religious context. This lens questions the origin of the viewpoint, and seeks to look beyond the androcentric biases that may tinge historical work. In this way, women’s own voices will be discovered (Kinsley, 10).
This week’s readings were of particular interest to me considering my field of research. It was fascinating to read about the background of studying gender in the field of religious studies – it is a rich and often tumultuous background that I did not have much prior knowledge of.
Elizabeth Clark writes that “‘[w]omen’s studies in religion,’ […] has appropriated the social history model, while ‘gender studies in religion’ has begun to adopt the hermeneutic paradigm” (Clark, 217). Ultimately, however, she holds that it is important to keep both models working together in order to produce an enriched picture in the historical study of religion.
Clark goes on to question the contextualization of women’s religious histories. One benefit that she sees of contextualizing this history is that it reveals ways in which women managed to overcome the confines of patriarchy in its various historical manifestations (Clark, 221). She states “attention to ‘real women’ has stimulated discussion of periodization” (Clark, 222). What this serves to do is locate women’s position within their contextual realm of time, place, culture and society. This contextualization is important in order to stave away from generalizing all males from all times and places, as patriarchal misogynistic, victimizers of women! Hence, Clark asserts that attention to women has enhances religious studies by suggesting new ways to think about agency and periodization (Clark, 223-24).
Another point that Clark puts forth is that the category of ‘woman’ allows for a much wider scope for discussion as opposed to the category of ‘gender’ (Clark, 233). This distinction between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ is addressed by Daniel Boyarin, who states that when we study gender, we are investigating the processes by which people are interpolated into a two-sex system that is made to seem as if it were nature – something has always existed (Boyarin, 117). Similarly, Clark issues that sex is considered the ‘raw material’ from which ‘gender’ is produced (Clark, 233). Most interesting is the statement in the Clark article that puts forth a definition for the ‘sex-gender system’ – it is defined as “the system of social relations that transformed biological sexuality into products of human activity and in which the resulting historically specific sexual needs are met” (Clark, 234).
This notion of the ‘normal’ is problematic because it removes onus from cultural conditioning and places blame for misogyny primarily on a natural phenomenon. Amy Hollywood, in her response to the Clark article, suggests that one way in which to overcome this problem of phenomenology is to as what roles these prescribed scripts play, or played, on the women upon whom they’re being imposed. That is, what effect did this naturalization of gender have on the worlds in which they were created? Hollywood asks if this naturalization was simply a dead metaphor or whether it was social and legally regulated in a normative manner (Hollywood, 249). Is this our question, as scholars, to ask however? Isn’t this simply going back to the discussion on context that arose in class last week? Is it within our power to ask these contextual questions or are merely running around in circles, chasing our tails? Perhaps, chasing our tales!?!
What intrigued me immensely was the emphasis on the ‘empirical’ that appeared in all the articles that were assigned this week. There seems to be a push from the feminist theorists to study women’s religious issues from as empirical a standpoint as that from which [men’s] religious issues have been studied in the past. It is interesting to note the empirical-hermeneutical dichotomy and how it manifests itself repeatedly along the gender-sex and male-female divides. Katherine Young addresses this transition from “normative underpinnings to the empirical study of world religions […] in comparative and historical frames” (Young, 17). She holds that this shift can often lead to a phenomenological stance from which to study feminist religion. While this may provide some solace from the hermeneutical study of the feminine in religions, it also comes with its own slew of problems. For instance, generalizing the ‘other’ in a classic case of insider- versus outsider-bias. Often, phenomenology leads men to be stereotyped meta-historical victimizers, misogynists, patriarchs, and controllers of the women ‘under’ them! Young questions whether both, phenomenologist and feminists, have something to unlearn about generalizations (Young, 33). This reminds me greatly of the paradox of teaching a first year World Religions course – are generalization, insider-unity, and stereotyping, a necessary evil of giving the study of women within religious history a fair shot?
David Kinsley argues that women’s studies poses certain problems for studying the history of religion because of the way in which it pits males against females in a starkly dichotomous manner. To this end, Kinsley states that “[c]ategorizing males as oppressors and women as victims can also lead to objectifying women as a category and blinding the historian of religions to women’s own voices, keeping him or her from hearing women as subjects” (Kinsley, 12), and hearing them rather, as victims, I might add! Rather, Kinsley proposes that scholars employ the hermeneutics of suspicion when studying women within a historically religious context. This lens questions the origin of the viewpoint, and seeks to look beyond the androcentric biases that may tinge historical work. In this way, women’s own voices will be discovered (Kinsley, 10).
This week’s readings were of particular interest to me considering my field of research. It was fascinating to read about the background of studying gender in the field of religious studies – it is a rich and often tumultuous background that I did not have much prior knowledge of.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
4. Texto, Escribiendo
(Text, Writing)
In the opening pages of Chapter 7 in History, Theory, Text, Elizabeth Clark makes the assertion that texts become contexted through other texts of their generation. Specifically, she cites that scholars studying ancient material rely on such contextual sources to superimpose meaning upon a text itself (131-132). This broadening of structuralism in an effort to contextualize seems to be a function of studying the past; whereas, one could assert that when studying modernity, scholars are narrower in their focus - their structuralism becoming more confining rather than contextual. That is to say, a text of modernity is contextualized in itself, while a text of age is situated within a broader spectrum of texts that surround it.
On the question of authorship, Clark cites Foucault in questioning whether or not "authorship" necessarily equates "authority" (134). Separating the text from its author, as Foucault is wont to do, is problematic in my opinion because the author is a definite context through which the text has been situated. For instance, the Ramayana - an ancient Indian epic - is often attributed to Valmiki. While this cannot be wholly ascertained, this attribution is in part to answer the question of authorship that our time in history, at least, seems to crave an answer to! Foucault is quick to point out that in ancient times, great works of epic proportion were fine without an authorial context; I add that while that may have been so to a certain extent, our own contextual time of scientific leaning and 'proof' has warranted us the urge to question authorship. For, how can one assume - as a reader - complete onus for the context of a text? Isn't its original context - a major part of which is its author - pertinent in situating it within our body of understanding? Later in the chapter, Clark sources Mark Bevin in highlighting the divide between what is said and what is meant (141). Intentionality versus interpretation, I suppose!
Even before I got to the part on Interpretive Anthropology, I was going to refer to my Issues in Ethnography class and the similar issues that arise in it, week after week, regarding contextuality and the onus on the reader. When I got to the section on Geertz, I had a wee chuckle at the synchronicity of it all! Geertz is right in putting forth that fields like Anthropology cannot rely wholly on the rigid criterion of the natural sciences (145). By the 1960s in which Geertz was writing, the social sciences had come a long way since the early 20th century in which Bronislaw Malinowski worked with the Trobriand Islanders. In his trilogy on the Trobriand Islands, Malinowski was so fixated on following scientific methodology that he failed to situate the culture in its historical context – failing to mention the effects of colonization, war, foreign trade, and cultural degeneration on the culture! Malinowski felt that by inserting history into his ‘scientific’ work, he was providing too much extenuating material, which might then act to dilute the reader’s view of the ‘real’ culture at hand! Once again, from a structuralist perspective, this seems relatively unproblematic – a prescribed schema is used as a lens through which to view the subject, while all outliers are either manipulated to fit or ignored as irrelevant! Perhaps the best quote of this chapter is found on page 149: “An exuberant critique of interpretive anthropology is offered by literary theorist David Chioni Moore, who urges anthropology to “cut its (pure-)theory angst…and learn to love, at least in theory, interpretations.”
In the same way that anthropologist deal with the problem of being overly scientific, so too those who study religion struggle between being too contextual and being overly interpretive. I think we have an equal responsibility to interpret the text while still situating it within the context in which it was written.
In the opening pages of Chapter 7 in History, Theory, Text, Elizabeth Clark makes the assertion that texts become contexted through other texts of their generation. Specifically, she cites that scholars studying ancient material rely on such contextual sources to superimpose meaning upon a text itself (131-132). This broadening of structuralism in an effort to contextualize seems to be a function of studying the past; whereas, one could assert that when studying modernity, scholars are narrower in their focus - their structuralism becoming more confining rather than contextual. That is to say, a text of modernity is contextualized in itself, while a text of age is situated within a broader spectrum of texts that surround it.
On the question of authorship, Clark cites Foucault in questioning whether or not "authorship" necessarily equates "authority" (134). Separating the text from its author, as Foucault is wont to do, is problematic in my opinion because the author is a definite context through which the text has been situated. For instance, the Ramayana - an ancient Indian epic - is often attributed to Valmiki. While this cannot be wholly ascertained, this attribution is in part to answer the question of authorship that our time in history, at least, seems to crave an answer to! Foucault is quick to point out that in ancient times, great works of epic proportion were fine without an authorial context; I add that while that may have been so to a certain extent, our own contextual time of scientific leaning and 'proof' has warranted us the urge to question authorship. For, how can one assume - as a reader - complete onus for the context of a text? Isn't its original context - a major part of which is its author - pertinent in situating it within our body of understanding? Later in the chapter, Clark sources Mark Bevin in highlighting the divide between what is said and what is meant (141). Intentionality versus interpretation, I suppose!
Even before I got to the part on Interpretive Anthropology, I was going to refer to my Issues in Ethnography class and the similar issues that arise in it, week after week, regarding contextuality and the onus on the reader. When I got to the section on Geertz, I had a wee chuckle at the synchronicity of it all! Geertz is right in putting forth that fields like Anthropology cannot rely wholly on the rigid criterion of the natural sciences (145). By the 1960s in which Geertz was writing, the social sciences had come a long way since the early 20th century in which Bronislaw Malinowski worked with the Trobriand Islanders. In his trilogy on the Trobriand Islands, Malinowski was so fixated on following scientific methodology that he failed to situate the culture in its historical context – failing to mention the effects of colonization, war, foreign trade, and cultural degeneration on the culture! Malinowski felt that by inserting history into his ‘scientific’ work, he was providing too much extenuating material, which might then act to dilute the reader’s view of the ‘real’ culture at hand! Once again, from a structuralist perspective, this seems relatively unproblematic – a prescribed schema is used as a lens through which to view the subject, while all outliers are either manipulated to fit or ignored as irrelevant! Perhaps the best quote of this chapter is found on page 149: “An exuberant critique of interpretive anthropology is offered by literary theorist David Chioni Moore, who urges anthropology to “cut its (pure-)theory angst…and learn to love, at least in theory, interpretations.”
In the same way that anthropologist deal with the problem of being overly scientific, so too those who study religion struggle between being too contextual and being overly interpretive. I think we have an equal responsibility to interpret the text while still situating it within the context in which it was written.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
3. 2009-2010 SSHRC Proposal
In her article “Praying for a Godly Fumigation: Disgust and the New Christian Right,” Lynne Arnault points to two waves of conservative Christian political activism as the catalysts for the current neo-conservative state of the American evangelical movement[1]. One area in which the effect of this reclamation of tradition values is seen, is in that of gender roles. In particular, my research will focus on the objectification of young women by the patriarchal nature of their evangelical congregation, as highlighted in the rituals of Purity Balls.
The 1997 brainchild of Randy and Lisa Wilson, Purity Balls are elaborate social functions wherein girls, aged 4 to 19, pledge their purities to their fathers. The father, in turn, accepts his daughter’s purity by placing a ring on her wedding finger. He vows before god and the congregation to be the protector of his daughter’s chastity until the day she is married. Today, Purity Balls are prominent in 48 states in theUS Canada Alberta
My two-year MA research project will focus on developing a comprehensive analysis of the roots of this movement by the New Christian Right. My principal question will narrow in on why such a conservative, religious movement is gaining popularity in the otherwise secular landscape of 21st centuryNorth America . At the University of Toronto North America . Furthermore, a two year MA program affords me the chance pursue a collaborative degree with the Women & Gender Studies Department, as I believe that an interdisciplinary approach is crucial to studying and understanding a complex entity like the gender-based rituals of the evangelical movement. While no additional coursework is required for me to collaborate with the Women & Gender Studies Department, my major research paper will have to focus on an issue pertinent to the study of women and gender.
During this two year degree, I will be undertaking course work that will supplement my own research, including courses that explore ethnographic issues, and political discourses in the realm of religion. As well, as part of the Master’s program at the Centre for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto, students are required to show evidence of reading knowledge of one language of modern scholarship or a necessary source language. To this end I am currently focusing on French, as it is a vital language to posses in my field of research due to its prominence in modern scholarship.
My primary methodologies will be historical and theoretical. I intend on exploring the political and religious environs that gave rise to the late twentieth-century phenomenon of Purity Balls. Furthermore, I would like to investigate the symbolism that this ritual is rife with – including, but not limited to, girls as the owners of the means of sexual pollution, inherently incestuous undertones, and the absence of a matriarchal figure in the ritual itself. While I would eventually like to employ an ethnographic lens through which to study the topic of Purity Balls, I feel that a two year Master’s program is not time enough to explore the amount of detail that an ethnographic work would entail. By building a theoretical and historical foundation for the topic, I feel I am laying the groundwork for future ethnographic work on the subject. I believe that through my major research project, I will be able to contribute a critically unique perspective on a ‘traditionalist’ modern movement that is quickly gaining prominence in the North American consciousness.
The 1997 brainchild of Randy and Lisa Wilson, Purity Balls are elaborate social functions wherein girls, aged 4 to 19, pledge their purities to their fathers. The father, in turn, accepts his daughter’s purity by placing a ring on her wedding finger. He vows before god and the congregation to be the protector of his daughter’s chastity until the day she is married. Today, Purity Balls are prominent in 48 states in the
My two-year MA research project will focus on developing a comprehensive analysis of the roots of this movement by the New Christian Right. My principal question will narrow in on why such a conservative, religious movement is gaining popularity in the otherwise secular landscape of 21st century
During this two year degree, I will be undertaking course work that will supplement my own research, including courses that explore ethnographic issues, and political discourses in the realm of religion. As well, as part of the Master’s program at the Centre for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto, students are required to show evidence of reading knowledge of one language of modern scholarship or a necessary source language. To this end I am currently focusing on French, as it is a vital language to posses in my field of research due to its prominence in modern scholarship.
My primary methodologies will be historical and theoretical. I intend on exploring the political and religious environs that gave rise to the late twentieth-century phenomenon of Purity Balls. Furthermore, I would like to investigate the symbolism that this ritual is rife with – including, but not limited to, girls as the owners of the means of sexual pollution, inherently incestuous undertones, and the absence of a matriarchal figure in the ritual itself. While I would eventually like to employ an ethnographic lens through which to study the topic of Purity Balls, I feel that a two year Master’s program is not time enough to explore the amount of detail that an ethnographic work would entail. By building a theoretical and historical foundation for the topic, I feel I am laying the groundwork for future ethnographic work on the subject. I believe that through my major research project, I will be able to contribute a critically unique perspective on a ‘traditionalist’ modern movement that is quickly gaining prominence in the North American consciousness.
[1] Arnault, Lynne S. "Praying for a Godly Fumigation: Disgust and the New Christian Right." Global Feminist Ethics. Ed. DesAutels, Peggy & Whisnant, Rebecca. Lanham , MD
[2] Gills, Charlie. “Dad's your prom date: Wedding-like purity balls celebrate men as father-protectors.” Maclean’s Magazine. October 8, 2007 .
Sunday, September 21, 2008
2. Religión y Estudios Religiosos
(Religions and Religious Studies)
Both Jonathan Z. Smith and Tomoko Masuzawa address the 19th century’s need to classify religions into neatly labeled boxes. In The Invention of World Religions, Masuzawa traces the roots of this need to classify back to the 17th century when historians sought to “Europeanize” Christianity by proposing that the true history of Christianity, i.e. the religion of Europe, was not to be found in the Hebrew Bible, but rather in a Hellenic tradition (Masuzawa, xiii).
There was a dual purpose for this hellenization and aryanization of Christianity. Primarily, it was to distinguish it from the increasingly Semitic seeming tradition of Islam. Secondly, the ideals of empirical data were becoming progressively more widely accepted and expected. The ‘modern’ notion that most of the prized institutions of the West (i.e. science, art, rationality, democracy, etc) were of Greek origin conspicuously highlighted Christianity as the non-Hellenic anomaly among the Hellenic pedigree of the European heritage (Masuzawa, 18-19).
This focus on the scientific as the ideal is what characterized the 19th century. It was the 19th century that gave rise to the notion of ‘social sciences’ – that is, empirically studying those fields that had traditionally been viewed through a philosophical lens. Masuzawa holds that at the end of the 18th century, history was no longer a narration of morally and spiritually edifying tales of the past. Rather, for the first time, history had become the work of researchers, whose cardinal objective was to establish certain undeniable facts (or, truths) about the past (Masuzawa, 15). In his article Eastern Scripture Among the World’s Religions, Robert Van Voorst asserts that the 19th century saw European scholars begin a systematic enterprise of critically investigating religious traditions. These scholars became concerned primarily with context rather than with content - paying attention to proper translation rather than theology (Van Voorst, 2).
Smith states that the issue of classifying ‘religions’ arose in response to the “explosion of data” (Smith, 275). Tools such as first-hand missionary testimonies of foreign ‘religions’, ethnographic research, encyclopedias of religions, lexica, and handbooks were used to organize the empirical data regarding ‘religions’ (Smith, 275).
To classify a set of data causes it to become pigeonholed into that category rather than exist in its organic form. Unlike the data achieved in a Chemistry laboratory (where nonetheless human error is inevitable), the ‘data’ of human phenomena cannot be neatly boxed into groups with no outliers. For this very reason, applying the supposedly higher ideals of science to the traditionally philosophy-focused fields of human nature proves problematic.
In order to properly classify religions in the 19th century, certain basic schemes had to be employed. Masuzawa writes, “the ‘great’ religions of the world are often classified with binary, tripartite, or even multifarious divisions” (Masuzawa, 2). The basic divide in the binary schema was Christianity versus everything else. This ambiguous ‘everything else’ category was further broken down by Abrahamic traditions versus the other, more mysterious, ‘religions’. Masuzawa refers to this distinction as “prophetic religions” versus “wisdom religions” (Masuzawa, 3). Under the tripartite scheme of classification, religious traditions are broken down by geography: the Near East, South Asia, and the Far East. Furthermore, this schema seems to give credence to a racially divisive notion of ethnic difference (Masuzawa, 3). Additionally, religions that do not fit into this neat cookie-cutter diagram fall into the more minor categories of primitive, tribal, or basic religions (Masuzawa, 4). Apparently, a lack of written history equals a lack so of history in general, hence the term ‘primal’ for religious traditions that are pre-literate! Masuzawa asserts that the 19th century obsession with the primitive and the original is that it was also a turn away form the euro-centric and euro-hegemonic conception of the world – moving toward a more egalitarian and later delineation. The Van Voorst article holds on several instances that the presence of scripture is the binding feature of a religious tradition.
To empirically historicize the world’s religions, Smith outlines four basic assumptions that underlie the act of classification itself: 1) ‘Religion’ is a category that is imposed from the outside on a culture. 2) ‘Religion’ is thought to be a universally present human experience. 3) The characteristics of ‘Religion’ are universally apparent to everyone. And 4) ‘Religion’ as an anthropological, rather than a theological, category (Smith, 269).
To conclude I would like to bring up a point that is sort of highlighted in the Van Voorst article, that also came up in a conversation that I was having with a friend recently. That is, the idea and practice of categorization, while a 19th century development, has become a 20th - and 21st - century mainstay. These broad stroke categories are how we are thought about the world's religions, but also how we learn about the world in general. For instance, Hindus today refer to themselves as such - they may not be able to explain what that means or identify with a different type of "Hindu" but each Hindu is convinced of the banner under which he or she falls. An interesting example of this is the RLG205 - Introduction to South Asian Religions course - the professor for that course was constantly challenged because a practicing Hindu student in the class hadn't learned, or didn't subscribe to, what was being taught. Although there were often contradictory viewpoint, each practicing Hindu student was convinced that he or she was the 'real' Hindu! So, my point and question is this: while we are self-aware enough to acknowledge the categories that exist, how do we reformulate a schema that, while only a couple hundred years old, seems ingrained in our sense of (religious) self?
Both Jonathan Z. Smith and Tomoko Masuzawa address the 19th century’s need to classify religions into neatly labeled boxes. In The Invention of World Religions, Masuzawa traces the roots of this need to classify back to the 17th century when historians sought to “Europeanize” Christianity by proposing that the true history of Christianity, i.e. the religion of Europe, was not to be found in the Hebrew Bible, but rather in a Hellenic tradition (Masuzawa, xiii).
There was a dual purpose for this hellenization and aryanization of Christianity. Primarily, it was to distinguish it from the increasingly Semitic seeming tradition of Islam. Secondly, the ideals of empirical data were becoming progressively more widely accepted and expected. The ‘modern’ notion that most of the prized institutions of the West (i.e. science, art, rationality, democracy, etc) were of Greek origin conspicuously highlighted Christianity as the non-Hellenic anomaly among the Hellenic pedigree of the European heritage (Masuzawa, 18-19).
This focus on the scientific as the ideal is what characterized the 19th century. It was the 19th century that gave rise to the notion of ‘social sciences’ – that is, empirically studying those fields that had traditionally been viewed through a philosophical lens. Masuzawa holds that at the end of the 18th century, history was no longer a narration of morally and spiritually edifying tales of the past. Rather, for the first time, history had become the work of researchers, whose cardinal objective was to establish certain undeniable facts (or, truths) about the past (Masuzawa, 15). In his article Eastern Scripture Among the World’s Religions, Robert Van Voorst asserts that the 19th century saw European scholars begin a systematic enterprise of critically investigating religious traditions. These scholars became concerned primarily with context rather than with content - paying attention to proper translation rather than theology (Van Voorst, 2).
Smith states that the issue of classifying ‘religions’ arose in response to the “explosion of data” (Smith, 275). Tools such as first-hand missionary testimonies of foreign ‘religions’, ethnographic research, encyclopedias of religions, lexica, and handbooks were used to organize the empirical data regarding ‘religions’ (Smith, 275).
To classify a set of data causes it to become pigeonholed into that category rather than exist in its organic form. Unlike the data achieved in a Chemistry laboratory (where nonetheless human error is inevitable), the ‘data’ of human phenomena cannot be neatly boxed into groups with no outliers. For this very reason, applying the supposedly higher ideals of science to the traditionally philosophy-focused fields of human nature proves problematic.
In order to properly classify religions in the 19th century, certain basic schemes had to be employed. Masuzawa writes, “the ‘great’ religions of the world are often classified with binary, tripartite, or even multifarious divisions” (Masuzawa, 2). The basic divide in the binary schema was Christianity versus everything else. This ambiguous ‘everything else’ category was further broken down by Abrahamic traditions versus the other, more mysterious, ‘religions’. Masuzawa refers to this distinction as “prophetic religions” versus “wisdom religions” (Masuzawa, 3). Under the tripartite scheme of classification, religious traditions are broken down by geography: the Near East, South Asia, and the Far East. Furthermore, this schema seems to give credence to a racially divisive notion of ethnic difference (Masuzawa, 3). Additionally, religions that do not fit into this neat cookie-cutter diagram fall into the more minor categories of primitive, tribal, or basic religions (Masuzawa, 4). Apparently, a lack of written history equals a lack so of history in general, hence the term ‘primal’ for religious traditions that are pre-literate! Masuzawa asserts that the 19th century obsession with the primitive and the original is that it was also a turn away form the euro-centric and euro-hegemonic conception of the world – moving toward a more egalitarian and later delineation. The Van Voorst article holds on several instances that the presence of scripture is the binding feature of a religious tradition.
To empirically historicize the world’s religions, Smith outlines four basic assumptions that underlie the act of classification itself: 1) ‘Religion’ is a category that is imposed from the outside on a culture. 2) ‘Religion’ is thought to be a universally present human experience. 3) The characteristics of ‘Religion’ are universally apparent to everyone. And 4) ‘Religion’ as an anthropological, rather than a theological, category (Smith, 269).
To conclude I would like to bring up a point that is sort of highlighted in the Van Voorst article, that also came up in a conversation that I was having with a friend recently. That is, the idea and practice of categorization, while a 19th century development, has become a 20th - and 21st - century mainstay. These broad stroke categories are how we are thought about the world's religions, but also how we learn about the world in general. For instance, Hindus today refer to themselves as such - they may not be able to explain what that means or identify with a different type of "Hindu" but each Hindu is convinced of the banner under which he or she falls. An interesting example of this is the RLG205 - Introduction to South Asian Religions course - the professor for that course was constantly challenged because a practicing Hindu student in the class hadn't learned, or didn't subscribe to, what was being taught. Although there were often contradictory viewpoint, each practicing Hindu student was convinced that he or she was the 'real' Hindu! So, my point and question is this: while we are self-aware enough to acknowledge the categories that exist, how do we reformulate a schema that, while only a couple hundred years old, seems ingrained in our sense of (religious) self?
Sunday, September 14, 2008
1. ¿Cuál es Metodología?
(What is Methodology?)
Early in his article (5-6), Huntington outlines two research models upon which historical methodological investigation has traditionally been conducted: the philological, or text-critical, model, and the proselytic model.
The philological model draws on the branch of knowledge that deals with the structure, historical development, and relationships of languages. It makes use of all available resource materials in order to relate known historical events to one another. For instance, the philological model will often use multiple translations of a source to arrive at a median of meaning. Its aim is to define a coherent tradition for the continuum of texts, where meaning is trumped by material.
In comparison to the philological model’s rigorous methodology and attention to sources, the proselytic model is often seen as less rigorous in its methodology. It is uncritical and accepts historical accounts at face value, rather than digging further or questioning other sources. The existence of tradition is taken for granted rather than questioned. Often, this model is seen as the laissez-faire sister to the type-A philological model!
In a world where the scientific method trumps all, it is no wonder that Huntington asserts that the philological model is given scholarly preference over the proselytic model. I must insert here, my own thought on the idea of scientific methodology: while I am of the mind that nothing can replace tried-and-true, resource rich, research, there is something to be said for giving credence to tradition-based research; especially in fields of scholarship that deal with intangible entities such as history, anthropology, art, and time periods not currently available. Furthermore, while the philological method aims to emulate the scientific method of research in its rigour, it fails to take a stab at ‘meaning’ – because ultimately, isn’t the aim for doing research not for research’s own sake, but rather for the purposes of better understanding that which is being studied? Furthermore, I believe the two categories of methodology to be premature. That is, while they exist neatly in theory, the categories are more fluid in reality. Huntington concurs with this thought in his article (8-9) when he asserts that in order to maximize the work of literary predecessors, it is vital to dismantle the methodology used, use what is valuable to the present research, and move on. He believes that this is a necessary step that will ultimately “break the closed circle of dogmatic adherence to methodology” (9).
By blurring the lines between hard-and-fast methodology, Huntington believes that a fuller understanding will be reached. “Understanding of a distant text requires a step beyond translation and reconstruction of the context of its source, mode by mode, so as to describe and explore its particularity” (9). I use this sentiment as a segue into the Bynum articles.
Bynum corroborates Huntington’s notion that historically-inclined research must be multi-modal. She explains methodology as a means to achieving a goal (Holy Feast, 6). Ultimately however, Bynum leans toward the philological model’s end of the research spectrum in her belief that a historian’s job is to regurgitate fragments and piece them into a whole (Fragments, 14). Simultaneously, in accordance with a more proselytic viewpoint, she also holds that history itself is disproportionately reflective of those with greater access to means of communication and to raw power (Fragments, 17). For instance here, Bynum is critical of the positioning of the medieval woman within male created categories, and believes critical questioning to be the answer.
Later in In Praise of Fragments, Bynum addresses the methodology of historians and anthropologists in modern-day scholarship. In the past, historians used quantitative methodology as the cornerstone of research; today, however, literary theory and the study of anthropology has joined that methodology to provide a more rounded way of studying the past through our 21st century lenses.
The comedic, or ironic, stance that Bynum adopts in her writing of this article (and book) is a means of acknowledging that while she is a particular person at a particular moment in history, i.e. a female historian in the 21st century, she is attempting to comprehend the position of the medieval woman outside of the presupposed boxes created by medieval patriarchy or modern feminism. By seeking the truth in the fragments and, like Huntington suggested, letting go of the rest, Bynum seeks to find meaning to history (Fragments, 26).
In Introduction: Holy Feast, there were a couple of methodological aspects that I appreciated, as a reader. First, I liked that Bynum explains explicitly the extent and limits of her research for the purposes of that particular book. While see acknowledges that the scope of her research could go beyond the book, she sets up parameters within which to work thus preventing the reader from being disillusioned about the aims of the book itself. Secondly, Bynum provides reasoning for limiting her scope within the book. Finally, in this introductory chapter, Bynum points out the possible weak points within the research. By doing so, Bynum creates an opportunity to be self-analytical and possible reparation. This also creates a stepping-stone upon which further research can be jump-started.
I would like to conclude this week’s blog with a theme that I found recurring through the readings – the idea of branches, or limbs. Methodology seems to be like a robust tree from which a multitude of limbs grow, each with sub-limbs of their own. A researcher seems to have a plethora of forks in the methodological road – meaning versus interpretation, observation versus analysis, text-critical versus proselytic research, multi-modal versus uni-modal, tradition versus modernity…
Meaning is always meaning in the context of history, and history includes both the text and its various interpreters.I use Huntington's article as a springboard from which to analyze the readings for this week because his theories of methodology and historical research provided me with a comprehensive framework within which to situate my understanding of the subject at hand.~ "Methodological Considerations," Huntington (10)
Early in his article (5-6), Huntington outlines two research models upon which historical methodological investigation has traditionally been conducted: the philological, or text-critical, model, and the proselytic model.
The philological model draws on the branch of knowledge that deals with the structure, historical development, and relationships of languages. It makes use of all available resource materials in order to relate known historical events to one another. For instance, the philological model will often use multiple translations of a source to arrive at a median of meaning. Its aim is to define a coherent tradition for the continuum of texts, where meaning is trumped by material.
In comparison to the philological model’s rigorous methodology and attention to sources, the proselytic model is often seen as less rigorous in its methodology. It is uncritical and accepts historical accounts at face value, rather than digging further or questioning other sources. The existence of tradition is taken for granted rather than questioned. Often, this model is seen as the laissez-faire sister to the type-A philological model!
In a world where the scientific method trumps all, it is no wonder that Huntington asserts that the philological model is given scholarly preference over the proselytic model. I must insert here, my own thought on the idea of scientific methodology: while I am of the mind that nothing can replace tried-and-true, resource rich, research, there is something to be said for giving credence to tradition-based research; especially in fields of scholarship that deal with intangible entities such as history, anthropology, art, and time periods not currently available. Furthermore, while the philological method aims to emulate the scientific method of research in its rigour, it fails to take a stab at ‘meaning’ – because ultimately, isn’t the aim for doing research not for research’s own sake, but rather for the purposes of better understanding that which is being studied? Furthermore, I believe the two categories of methodology to be premature. That is, while they exist neatly in theory, the categories are more fluid in reality. Huntington concurs with this thought in his article (8-9) when he asserts that in order to maximize the work of literary predecessors, it is vital to dismantle the methodology used, use what is valuable to the present research, and move on. He believes that this is a necessary step that will ultimately “break the closed circle of dogmatic adherence to methodology” (9).
By blurring the lines between hard-and-fast methodology, Huntington believes that a fuller understanding will be reached. “Understanding of a distant text requires a step beyond translation and reconstruction of the context of its source, mode by mode, so as to describe and explore its particularity” (9). I use this sentiment as a segue into the Bynum articles.
Bynum corroborates Huntington’s notion that historically-inclined research must be multi-modal. She explains methodology as a means to achieving a goal (Holy Feast, 6). Ultimately however, Bynum leans toward the philological model’s end of the research spectrum in her belief that a historian’s job is to regurgitate fragments and piece them into a whole (Fragments, 14). Simultaneously, in accordance with a more proselytic viewpoint, she also holds that history itself is disproportionately reflective of those with greater access to means of communication and to raw power (Fragments, 17). For instance here, Bynum is critical of the positioning of the medieval woman within male created categories, and believes critical questioning to be the answer.
Later in In Praise of Fragments, Bynum addresses the methodology of historians and anthropologists in modern-day scholarship. In the past, historians used quantitative methodology as the cornerstone of research; today, however, literary theory and the study of anthropology has joined that methodology to provide a more rounded way of studying the past through our 21st century lenses.
The comedic, or ironic, stance that Bynum adopts in her writing of this article (and book) is a means of acknowledging that while she is a particular person at a particular moment in history, i.e. a female historian in the 21st century, she is attempting to comprehend the position of the medieval woman outside of the presupposed boxes created by medieval patriarchy or modern feminism. By seeking the truth in the fragments and, like Huntington suggested, letting go of the rest, Bynum seeks to find meaning to history (Fragments, 26).
In Introduction: Holy Feast, there were a couple of methodological aspects that I appreciated, as a reader. First, I liked that Bynum explains explicitly the extent and limits of her research for the purposes of that particular book. While see acknowledges that the scope of her research could go beyond the book, she sets up parameters within which to work thus preventing the reader from being disillusioned about the aims of the book itself. Secondly, Bynum provides reasoning for limiting her scope within the book. Finally, in this introductory chapter, Bynum points out the possible weak points within the research. By doing so, Bynum creates an opportunity to be self-analytical and possible reparation. This also creates a stepping-stone upon which further research can be jump-started.
I would like to conclude this week’s blog with a theme that I found recurring through the readings – the idea of branches, or limbs. Methodology seems to be like a robust tree from which a multitude of limbs grow, each with sub-limbs of their own. A researcher seems to have a plethora of forks in the methodological road – meaning versus interpretation, observation versus analysis, text-critical versus proselytic research, multi-modal versus uni-modal, tradition versus modernity…
“The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body.”~ 1 Corinthians 12 (New International Version)
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