Test Prep Class 2/17/2005

Sorry folks. I was unable to take notes during this class period because I was writing on the chalkboard the whole time. Please visit Brian and Nikole's websites for the notes from today's test review session. :O) Good luck on teh exam!

Brian http://rememory.blogspot.com
Nikole http://www.geocities.com/nikoledidier/index2.html

2/15/2005

Test on Tuesday the 22nd!!!! It will cover everything that we had said or done in class and the following readings: Yates Chapters 1-3, Ong chapters 1-3, and Kane Prologue and chapter 1. Read and review notes!!!

Remember, Salman Rushdie will be here on March 7th. If you have not gotten your tickets yet, DO SO IMMEDIATELY! They may already be gone.

ONG PASSAGES
*pg 15 "There is hardly an oral culture or a predominantly oral culture left in the world today that is not somehow aware of the vast complex of powers forever inaccessible without literacy, This awareness is agony for persons rooted in primary orality...We have to die to continue living." The stories of primal oral culturesencountering literate cultures are disappearing. There are hardly any preliterate societies which have not been exposed.

*****I just typed out all the rest of these notes and the internet connection was lost so I lost the notes....I will give the basic information.****

*pg 74 Discusses that we privlige speech over writing, or do we?

KANE
*pg 19-22 Discusses the shift from hunter-gatherer to agriculture as also a shift from state of harmony with Nature to an attempt to corral and subjugate it. Property, boundaries, fences.
pg 42-43 The story of the Caribou. Know it and how it relates to the oral culture's way of explaining phenomena and what it says about a literate culture's inability to understand some things.

Inventory your bedroom!!!!

Sorry this one lacks depth. :O(

2/10/2005

ONG'S 9 "Canonical" Ideas (these are in Ong pg 36-57)
*1. Additive rather than subordinative: think lots of "ands" linking action. PARATACTIC!
*2. Aggregative rather than analytic: use of epithets and cliches to help memory along.
*3. Redundant or 'copious': Saying the same thing over and over in order that the audience "get" it. After all, we are unable to "look up" an oral story.
*4. Conservative or traditionalist: Keeping knowledge in a story but changing the story in order to reinforce the information. Storytelling as didactic.
*5. Close to the human life world: analysis is connected to what is close to their lives. Plants, trails, weather.
*6. Agonistically toned: Conflict between people. Contests, oral people always fighting. Engaging each other.
*7. Empathetic and participatory rather than objectively distanced: writing and reading as isolating while oral culture is communal.
*8. Homeostatic: Sluffing off memories/knowledge that is no longer relevant. Living in the present.
*9. Situational rather than abstract: thinking concretely and with pragmatism. "Hammer, saw, hatchet, log" case study from Ong.

Flyting
We heard quite the insults from each other today ranging from the "Yo Mama" one-liners, to sibling tiffs and calling each other "botanists". Hannah had one that began, I think, "Disconnected, brain-affected..." that's all I remember, but it was a good one. Think about what your Top 100 Insults would be...:O)

KANE
Strong emphasis on Nature. Its music, its stories, and its lessons.
*pg 45 "The terms for a definition of mythtelling involve a concept of ecological patterns which elude, or should elude, human manipulation, and are therefore coded as sacred." This passage gets at the fact that there should be things in the world that humans cannot understand or control. These things are not clear because they should not be clear.
*pg 40 "The whole world seems alive with relationships we cannot see...Often it is better that something remain a mystery." This passage is very much connected to the one from page 45. Shown, Done, Spoken.
*pg 38 "To repel bees, you burn this leaf. To reduce fever, you place the inner bark of this tree on your forehead. You can fold this broad leaf into a drinking cup...losing an elder is like losing an entire library." There is practical information within the stories and conversations of the oral peoples. Connects to Ong's canonical idea #5 in that these people know things that they must know in their society and their environment.

Notes 2/8/2005

Engage the issues of orality and literacy!
Oral--> chirographic--> typographic--> electronic: we are back into the world of images (secondary orality)

Religion associated with the Book

Group Presentations: We are to become the world's leading experts on our cahpter in Kane. Each chapter is prefaced with a text. Your group should do an oral performatnce/interpretation of that text. Dnce it, sing it, recite it...but incorporate it. You have two responsibilities in your presentation 1) Be instructive 2) Entertain us!!!!

Language itself is a technology. Both pages 78 in Ong and 38 in Yates discuss the idea that writing destroys memory. Writing ruins people.

Books are dictatorial and imperialistic because they do not offer a dialect. "Truth" can only be acheived from a question and answer session. Books do not offer this as an option.

Every technology is a mixed blessing. There is good and bad. The use of the mind as a storage place for memories and stories can save lives as illustrated by the survivors of the Holocuast and the success of Scherezade in Arabian Nights.

Another Passage from Ong
*pg 33 "An oral culture has no texts." The definition of text to Ong is very dfferent than the definition of text that say Derrida or Saussure would give. In Ong's view, a text is something written down. In an oral culture this cannot happen.

A sentence on pg 20 about "verbomotor" was also brought up to illustrate that language does not conform to confining definitions. Different languages have different words for the same objects. Some languages have words for concepts, states of being, and expressions that we have no equivilant to match.

Kane Passage
*pg 34 "Myths in tehir original form- it wasa form very much like improvised music- opened their tellers to the proper subject of myth." Within myth and oral traditions we get the music of ordinary conversation. Rap artists do a similar kind of musical magic.

The calss now demonstates well know jingles. "Kleen King, Kleen King..." "Working together! First National Pawn!" :O)

Think memorable thoughts!!!! What is a memorable thought compared to a thought that is not memorable?

Notes 2/3/2005

Dr. Sexson recommends the "Memory Theater/Palace" for our memorization of the MSU Top 100. Construct the house that you grew up in, or live in now, and make associations between the contents of that space and each book in the bookmark. That which we remember best is that which is memorable. Make your visuals spectacular, grotesque, provocative, violent. Use your imaginations. The use of cabinets and drawers is somewhat helpful. Remember... "It's all in your drawers." Memorizations are due March 1st!!!

Why is geneaology interesting to some people? We generally don't like to read lists and lists of names, begat after begat. Why, then, do some people take such an interest in it? It is partially because the story of our families is OUR story. It is the story of where we came from.

The first appearance of writing was in bills and receipts, practical documents that were needed daily.

Nature is where myth comes from. Myth is the song that the Earth sings but that we cannot always hear.

Passages we liked in Ong
*pg. 14 Beth's Passage--> "Fortunately, literacy, though it consumes its own oral antecedents and, unless it is carefully monitored, even destroys their memory, is also infinitely adaptable. It can restore their memory, too. Literacy can be used to reconstruct for ourselves the pristine human consciousness which was not literate at all." Ong acknowledges that literacy is multifaceted. There are good sides and bad sides to it. Sometimes it can even restore something that a culture has lost.

*pg. 36 Wayne's Passage-->"Of course, all expression and all thought is to a degree formulaic in the sense that every word and every concept conveyed in a word is a kind of formula, a fixed way of processing the data of experience, determining the way experience and reflection are intellectually organized, and acting as a mnemonic device of sorts...in the sense in which the word 'sea' is not." Wayne made a connection between this passage and the 3rd Quartet of T.S. Eliot. Idea of returning to memory for meaning. We all have expereinces but miss the meaning initially, coming back to those expereinces through recollection allows us to find the meaning.

*pg. 43 Brian's Passage--> "An oral culture has nothing corresponding to how-to-do-it manuals for the trades...Trades were learned by apprenticeship..., which means from observation and practice with only minimal verbalized expression." In an oral culture, the education is hands on and practical. In this practice, there is a passing of knowledge from one generation to the next in the form of an exchange.

*pg. 75 Allison's Passage--> "As late as the European Renaissance, quite literate alchemists using labels for their vials and boxes tended to put on the labels not a written name, but iconographic signs, such as various signs of the zodiac and shopkeepers identified their shops not with lettered words but with iconographic symbols such as the ivy bush for a tavern, the barber's pole, the pawnbroker's three spheres." image precedes the word. Quite a lot has changed now though. Images seem quaint to us now.

Pictures can bring on iconoclasm in their power. Idolatry can come from it. A picture cannot do justice to God because God is beyond what is imaginable.

Umberto Eco essay Macs vs. PCs. Macs are Catholic computers, PCs are for Protestants.

Secondary Orality: The reintroduction to oral culture after immersion in the literate culture.

Notes 2/1/2005

There wasn't really a focused discussion of our textbooks today. Instead, we had a multimedia presentation with the goal of helping us in our Top 100 memorization. Dr. Sexson showed pictures of the books' covers and told interesting tidbits or read a good quotations from each book.

Harold Bloom, in his book The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages, argues that the books within the canon act as a guide to memory. It makes sense then that we are memorizing the "canon" of 100 books set forth by our Department as valuable.

To Re-member is something torn apart and put back together again.

After our multi-media presentation, Justin amazed us all with his memorization of the Top 100 books. His strategy? Put them in a story. I think it began with Lady Macbeth picking up the Bible, Moses parting the Red Sea and Don Quixote riding through. Really interesting, and quite impressive.

Notes 1/27/2005

The world wide web is much like a true web. There are links to other sites all over the place and it becomes a kind of "create your own adventure story" when you chose links. If you keep clicking on the links you find intereseting, you will likely end up in a very different place than you began. Finnegans Wake is written like hypertext.

Ong is a scholar of Communication technology.

The great secret of mnemonics is SIGHT. Example of a museum as the place where we have placed images of past things which will help us remember what has come before. The Muses hang out there. (See 1/18/2005 notes for Muses)

Bookcrossing--> go to the mall and leave your favorite book somewhere with a note that says "I have not lost this book, I am pssing it along to you. Go to www.bookcrossing.com so that I can keep track of who and where this book ends up." I registered! You should, too. Go to the above site. It's easy. According to the site, there are 139 books "in the wild" in Montana right now...only 3 in Bozeman.

Visit a truck stop and listen to the talk there about the weather, etc. You will hear cliches and formulas which are very oral in their pragmatism and reference to the "human life world".

Umberto Eco "MacIntosh vs PC" Because of its reliance on images, iconography, and ritual, Catholicism is closely tied to the Mac. while Protestantism due to its rejection of those ideas is closer to the PC. Brian and Sophie's website have a link to the essay. check them out.

"Anamnesis"- recollection. Comes from Plato's denunciation of writing as technology.

*Journal Entry- What are our writing culture presuppositions?*

Notes 1/25/2005

Important Dates
*February 22- Quiz #1
*March 1- Top 100 Memorization Due
*March 7- Salman Rushdie's speech 7:30 SUB ballrooms (get tickets now!)
*March 31- Quiz #2
*April 11 & 15- Group Presentations of Kane material
*April 21, 26, & 28- Individual term paper presentations and papers due
*May 1-Day for EJournal to be completed
*May3 12:00-1:50- Final Exam
See syllabus for more specifics. :O)

Kane supports the purity of the oral culture. Ong has a more balanced view of both orality and literacy and points out the advantages and disadvantages in both. However, while Kane leans toward orality, Ong leans toward literacy.

W.H. Auden "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?" Without writing, abstract thought and the shared technology and consciousness would not exist because the act of writing imposes structure and order on an incoherent jumble of what goes on in our heads.

Orality to literacy is an evolutionary necessity. Development of all disciplines needs writing. We take writing and reading for granted.

In a culture in which literature abounds, the rule of the law is written. The signature is all powerful while the spoken word is disregarded.

Marshal McCluin argues that "the medium is the message", meaning, that the way that one gets information will determine the meaning of the message. If I read Ong's text I will take a different meaning from it than if Ong were to read it to me or if I were to watch it on television.

An "apothogm" is a wise saying.

Wallace Stevens "A change of style is a change of subject."

Freidrich Schuller "The only thing worth having is accidents. Only in mistakes is there truth."

Ong argues that language itself is a technology. That it evolves and every step is inevitable and to be celebrated.

Memory of the soul--> Plato says that we all suffer from amnesia and we have forgotten that which we knew before we were born. We are not really "learning" in school, we are remembering that which we have forgotten and as we remember more and more, our wings from our angel days begin to come back.

Notes 1/20/2005

For our memory purposes, things that are most memorable are repellant and repugnant.

This semester we will discuss MEMORY, MYTH, ORALITY AND LITERACY.

ORALITY AND LITERACY
*Google the "orality and literacy debate" see what you find and respond to that information.
*Understand the Ong text and then challenge it. Find places where you think his argument fails to convince you. Use your Googled info to help you there.

MYTH
*Sean Kane- we need to hold him suspect because he so strongly believes in the superiority of orality yet is writing a book and is obviously a very literate guy. Is he too sentimental about oral culture?
*Literacy as contamination
*Wisdom of the Mythtellers is out myth text. Each group will have one chapter in it to explain to the class.
*Write a journal entry about childhood/pre-litarcy as an oral culture.

MEMORY
*We will attempt feats of memoy throughout the semester intended to impress your friends and confound your enemies. :O)

GROUPS AND TOPICS

Group 1- Maps chapter
Group 2- Boundary chapter
Group 3- Dream chapter
Group 4- Complementarity chapter
Group 5- Tradtion chapter
Group 6- Context chapter

Notes 1/18/2005

Oral v. Literate v. Illiterate
*Illiterate people operate within the same constructs as literate people, they just cannot read. Illiterate people do not exist in a primary oral culture.

*Literate people can read and they use
-chirographic: written (cave painting, Egyptian)
-typographic: print (deveolped 15th century)

*Oral people live within a speaking culture but have their own differences in
-dialect: the regional differences in speech

In a literate culture, what is the use of a written product?
*information
*history
*religious/moral
*communications
*propoganda
*writing as art
*entertainment
*instruction

In a literate culture, what is the use/form of an oral text?
*fable: generally has a moral, explanations for why things are the way they are. This is
also called an etiology.

*Riddles: turn the meaning upside down in order to cement the meaning in one's mind, it borders on spiritual essence. Examples seen in The Hobbit in Bilbo and Gollum's riddle flyting.

*Charms/Spells/Prayers: Magic, the essence of a spell is to have power over a thing through words.

*Story: the history of a people or culture, a sense of who we are.

The story in a literate culture is create by a solitary and silent author. The oral story is the product of a community. But, how ar these stories remembered orally?

How do we remember?
*repeating information
*elements of repetition (epithet)
*rhythm
*rhymes

Who is Memory?
*Memory's name in Greek mythology is Mnemosyne, the name from which we get mnemonic. She has 9 daughters who are the Muses. Know these names for Extra Credit on Quiz #1!

1. Calliope
2. Clio
3. Eratio
4. Enterpe
5. Melpomene
6. Polyhymnia
7. Terpsichore
8. Thalia
9. Urania

http://www.djo.ca/cbbMuses.html This website give a little description of each Muse's function.

Theories about the production of the Iliad
1. Homer was a genius who honed the story that was memorized by
subsequent poets.
2. The poem was constructed by a group (community) over a period
of many years.

Milman Parry favored the theory of oral production. Within oral training of bards/poets/scop, there are certain things to be learned that are later used in the construction of the poetry.
1. Complexes
2. Themes
3. Formulas - cliches, epithets. metrical word phrases used over and over to
keep the meter correct.

The oral storyteller composes within a community. These are the NINE THINGS YOU MUCST KNOW FOR THE QUIZ!!! Also see pages 36-57 in Ong.
*If the audience is different, the story should be different, too.
*Participatory interaction (the audience has a relationship with the teller)
*Repitition is built into the structure of the story
*Homeostatic: Pieces of the story that are no longer relevant get omitted over
time.
*Close tothe human life world: not terribly abstract themes or plots.
*Oral constructions additive not subordinative. Meaning that there is a strong
use of parataxis (the word "and" to link together events).
*Aggregative
*Conservative in information: there is a preservation of knowledge in the story.
The information is not original, the originality comes in the TELLING.
*Agonistic: tends to focus on conflict of interaction between human beings. Can be seen in "flyting".

Also, remember... Dog, Grapefruit, bottle of wine, toothpaste (crest), left shoe, eyebrow.

And Kori asks "Why are people in oral traditions liars?"

A new Blog!

Hello fellow Oral Traditions students. I decided that I would start posting my notes online. Since I have not been doing it since the beginning, please be patient with me as try to fill it all in. Thanks so much and remember to take your own notes, too! I can't guarantee that I have it all written down. :O)