In Limbo, or, The Protracted Death of the Novel: William Gaddis’s J R and the Precarious State of Postmodern Literature

Postponed access: the file will be accessible after 2021-05-15Eksperimentell postmodernistisk litteratur blir framleis møtt med skepsis og skuldingar om irrelevans, også av tonegjevande litteraturkritikarar som Fredric Jameson, som rangerer litteratur under resterande kunstarter i postmoderniteten. Denne masteroppgåva tek for seg dei særeigne kvalitetane til eksperimentell postmodernistisk litteratur med utgangspunkt i romanen J R (1975) av William Gaddis. Denne romanen særmerkast av å være skriven som ein samanhengande dialog, med berre sjeldne innslag av ei narrativ stemme som att på til forsømer den tradisjonelle deskriptive rolla til fordel for å berre være endå ei stemme i samtalemylderet. Dette gjenspeiler Jean-François Lyotards idear om den aukande ugyldigheita til metanarrativ. Med omsyn til dette illustrerer J R korleis romanen, som på det mest konservative presenterast i form av eit strukturert narrativ formidla av ein allvitande forteljar, kan fornyast til auka fleksibilitet for å holde relevans ved lag i postmoderniteten. Ved å presentere teksten så upartisk som mogleg, opnar den seg for ei rekke tolkingar slik at lesaren bidrar til kunstverkets skaparhandling. Lesehandlinga, som i dei mest tradisjonelle tilfella er ei passiv oppleving der forfattaren formidlar eit fullbyrda produkt til lesaren, skiftast her ut med ein dialektisk, aktiv prosess der lesaren og teksta inngår i eit gjensidig forhold. Vidare opnar den ekskluderande autoriteten til ei narrativ stemme for at mindre narrativ i teksten kan nærstuderast, mens større, meir eksplisitte narrativ kan sidestillast, ettersom dialogen ofte består av lange, tilsynelatande trivielle tema. Sjølve oppgåva er delt inn i fire deler. Første del giv ein oversikt over romanens kontekst, postmodernistiske preg og narratologiske særtrekk. Andre del tek for seg entropi, eit dominerande tema i romanen, samt dei ekstralitterære implikasjonane dette inneberer. Tredje del tek for seg dei filmatiske parallellane i romanen. Fjerde del tek for seg den singulære posisjonen til J R i litteraturhistoria; til tross for at Gaddis i aukande grad blir betrakta som ein av dei leiande postmodernistiske forfattarane, har han aldri fått merksemd hos eit større publikum utanom akademiske kretsar i motsetning til forfattarar som Don DeLillo og Thomas Pynchon. Eg vil derfor undersøke arven etter J R, om der er nokon, og parallellane mellom J R og Pynchons hovudverk, Gravity’s Rainbow (1973). Sjølv om J R tilbyr eit alternativ til den dominerande romanstilen, kan det være at romanen berre er eit unntak til regelen, noko som understrekast av romanens avgrensa lesekrets og den snarare indirekte enn direkte innverknaden til Gaddis.Engelsk mastergradsoppgåveMAHF-LÆFRMAHF-ENGENG35

Performativity, fabrication and trust: exploring computer-mediated moderation

Based on research conducted in an English secondary school, this paper explores computer mediated moderation as a performative tool. The Module Assessment Meeting (MAM) was the moderation approach under investigation. I mobilise ethnographic data generated by a key informant, and triangulated with that from other actors in the setting, in order to examine some of the meanings underpinning moderation within a performative environment. Drawing on the work of Ball (2003), Lyotard (1979) and Foucault (1977, 1979), I argue that in this particular case performativity has become entrenched in teachers’ day-to-day practices, and not only affects those practices but also teachers’ sense of self. I suggest that MAM represented performative and fabricated conditions and (re)defined what the key participant experienced as a vital constituent of her educational identities - trust. From examining the case in point, I hope to have illustrated for those interested in teachers’ work some of the implications of the interface between technology and performativity

Narrative, postmodernity and the problem of "religious illiteracy"

It is popular nowadays to claim not only that narrative is the most effective way to communicate religious knowledge but also that narrative provides the framework within which religious lifestyles and practices are meaningful. However, many today lack familiarity with the narratives of traditional religions. In other words, they suffer from ‘religious illiteracy’. This article considers the problem of how religion can become meaningful to such people. The view that religion can be divested of its outdated cultural accoutrements and presented in a form that resonates with postmodern secular culture is considered and found to be problematic. If acquiring a religion is like acquiring a culture, or a language, it seems unlikely that a deeper appreciation of a religious tradition will be facilitated by divesting it of its traditional cultural expressions. Moreover, the view that religious lifestyles should be emphasised rather than religious belief seems to be more a symptom of the problem of ‘religious illiteracy’ than a solution to it. The article concludes that both of these responses fail to provide a solution to the problem and that an alternative strategy is urgently required

Echeverría, J.: Telépolis.

Sin resume

How to Write a Proof: Patterns of Justification in Strategic Documents for Educational Reform

Writing strategic documents is a major practice of many actors striving to see their educational ideas realised in the curriculum. In these documents, arguments are systematically developed to create the legitimacy of a new educational goal and competence to make claims about it. Through a qualitative analysis of the writing strategies used in these texts, I show how two of the main actors in the Czech educational discourse have developed a proof that a new educational goal is needed. I draw on the connection of the relational approach in the sociology of education with Lyotard’s analytical semantics of instances in the event. The comparison of the writing strategies in the two documents reveals differences in the formation of a particular pattern of justification. In one case the texts function as a herald of pure reality, and in the other case as a messenger of other witnesses. This reveals different regimens of proof, although both of them were written as prescriptive directives – normative models of the educational world

Producing the docile body: analysing Local Area Under-performance Inspection (LAUI)

Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of the Office for Standards in Education (OfSTED), declared a 'new wave' of Local Area Under-performance Inspections (LAUI) of schools 'denying children the standard of education they deserve'. This paper examines how the threat of LAUI played out over three mathematics lessons taught by a teacher in her first year in the profession. A Foucauldian approach is mobilised with regard to disciplinary power and 'docile bodies'. The paper argues that, in the case in point, LAUI was a tool mediating performative conditions and, ultimately, the docile body. The paper will be of concern to policy sociologists, teachers, school leaders, and those interested in school inspection

Reading Videogames as (authorless) Literature

This article presents the outcomes of research, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in England and informed by work in the fields of new literacy research, gaming studies and the socio-cultural framing of education, for which the videogame L.A. Noire (Rockstar Games, 2011) was studied within the orthodox framing of the English Literature curriculum at A Level (pre-University) and Undergraduate (degree level). There is a plethora of published research into the kinds of literacy practices evident in videogame play, virtual world engagement and related forms of digital reading and writing (Gee, 2003; Juul, 2005; Merchant, Gillen, Marsh and Davies, 2012; Apperley and Walsh, 2012; Bazalgette and Buckingham, 2012) as well as the implications of such for home / school learning (Dowdall, 2006; Jenkins, 2006; Potter, 2012) and for teachers’ own digital lives (Graham, 2012). Such studies have tended to focus on younger children and this research is also distinct from such work in the field in its exploration of the potential for certain kinds of videogame to be understood as 'digital transformations' of conventional ‘schooled’ literature. The outcomes of this project raise implications of such a conception for a further implementation of a ‘reframed’ literacy (Marsh, 2007) within the contemporary curriculum of a traditional and conservative ‘subject’. A mixed methods approach was adopted. Firstly, students contributing to a gamplay blog requiring them to discuss their in-game experience through the ‘language game’ of English Literature, culminating in answering a question constructed with the idioms of the subject’s set text ‘final examination’. Secondly, students taught their teachers to play L.A. Noire, with free choice over the context for this collaboration. Thirdly, participants returned to traditional roles in order to work through a set of study materials provided, designed to reproduce the conventions of the ‘study guide’ for literature education. Interviews were conducted after each phase and the outcomes informed a redrafting of the study materials which are now available online for teachers – this being the ‘practical’ outcome of the research (Berger and McDougall, 2012). In the act of inserting the study of L.A. Noire into the English Literature curriculum as currently framed, this research moves, through a practical ‘implementation’ beyond longstanding debates around narratology and ludology (Frasca, 2003; Juul, 2005) in the field of game studies (Leaning, 2012) through a direct connection to new literacy studies and raises epistemological questions about ‘subject identity’, informed by Bernstein (1996) and Bourdieu (1986) and the implications for digital transformations of texts for both ideas about cultural value in schooled literacy (Kendall and McDougall, 2011) and the politics of ‘expertise’ in pedagogic relations (Ranciere, 2009, Bennett, Kendall and McDougall, 2012a)

The sustainable male: masculine ecology in the poetry of John Burnside

No abstract available