STUDENTS' RESPONSES TO J. HILLIS MILLER AND JOAN W. SCOTT
With Miller, what seems to ring bells is simply the idea that the written word, far from being an impediment to memory and human progress (as ol' Plato would have it), actually possesses its own kind of power--and in an sense, its own kind of life. The metaphors tell all: letter as "virus," as "worm," as a "detached" entity, one "liberated," with a "universal power to make new selves" and "dislocate souls." (Seth Warren)
The letter creates the self . . . that's powerful and exciting because now we can envision the reader--the poor, helpless (and hapless) slave to words being violently created and formed by what Plato would call stagnant and dead script, as if first there were a text on a desk, and an empty chair, and then suddenly a breeze flipped open the pages and in a flash--a reader appeared! (Seth Warren)
I liked Miller's point that Derrida, Hardy, and Kafka were not aware of each other's writings. That each writer conceived these theories on his own and expressed the same concepts in different ways--this added a certain amount of legitimacy to their claims. I think it also says something for strains of common human understanding breaking through generations of thinkers. (Reed Haslach)
If letters give rise to ghosts, as Miller says, then is e-mail just a conversation between phantoms? (Natasha Breen)
To debate whether or not poststructurualism can be used for political purposes seems silly--obviously, it already has been. For that matter, most methods of literary theory/criticism can have political agendas, or at least further them unconsciously. (Julie Wroblewski)
I really like how Scott structured her argument--outlining poststructuralist theory and then bringing in an example. Perhaps we could do something similar on the website. I really like the idea of bringing social issues into the website along with literary ones. The relation of these theories to modern life is what interests me most. (Natasha Breen)
What next?