On Reading, Part IV: Structuralism

This is a continuation of my series on literary criticism and Biblical hermeneutics. You can find the previous pieces of the series here: I. Old Historicism, II. New Criticism, III.1. Reader Response, III.2. Reader Response Cont'd., IV. Mimeticism.

I realized I never finished this series, and that means I never got to some of my favorite schools of criticism, including the school I myself now claim to belong to. That school is still down the road a bit, but for today, we can stop and consider Structuralism.

This school, it seems to me, shares a lot of affinities with Wittgenstein's Language Game theory. Essentially, the argument of Structuralists is that the text derives its meaning from its membership in its textual world (generally, in criticism, we would be talking about membership in the literary canon). For example, to understand Shakespeare, we must understand the broader literary frontier that his works access — Greek mythology, the Bible, contemporary stories, political intrigues, and so on. Without any of theses, Shakespeare's brilliance would be muted. But, according to Structuralist theory, much like Reader Response, this “sharing” is bidirectional. Shakespeare informs the Greek poets. Virginia Woolf informs Shakespeare (and I do not mean just Judith). In some odd sense, might we even say blogs, like this one, take part in a conversation with Shakespeare? Yes, we might.

This may sound odd, problematic or even — if we apply it to the Bible — heretical. However, the key recognition of Structuralist theory is language's existence as a constructed framework which is meaningless without the meaning instilled intra-framework. Our understanding of the language of the Bible is influenced by our understanding of the Bible, which is influenced by our understanding of the language of the Bible. For example, when interpreting 1 Corinthians 14, I proposed that we look to the English word “idiot” to understand the Greek word ἰδιοτης, for the English word itself derives its meaning from the thirteenth century interpretation of the Greek. That's not to say it is right, but it is an important undercurrent, to say the least. We cannot approach the Bible with a blank slate, if we could, it would be impervious to interpretation.

Even if we wish, rightly, to stay true to the Biblical text, we must recognize that our present theological contributions change in some real sense the Biblical text, perhaps as much as our theology is influenced by the Bible. Outside of any contextual framework, the Bible would be meaningless, just as Shakespeare is only sensible to someone who knows English and has grasped at least a few conventions of Elizabethan or Jacobean culture. Without divine intervention, certainly, this should be a serious alarm for the Biblically oriented theologian. In this, Structuralism offers not only a proper critique of our understanding of language, but also serves to call us back to humility as part of a critical language game, and, further, to remember that we should never see ourselves as members of the church, properly reformed, but always part of the church ever reforming.

Tim Russert Dies at 58

One of the few really good journalists of this era has died today. Tim Russert, by the estimation of pretty much everyone on both sides of the aisle, was a journalist's journalist. His work was, whenever I encountered it excellent — well researched and fair. His reporting was an encouragement to strive for excellence. It is a sad day for the nation, as one of the real keepers of the Fourth Estate has passed away.

How sad too, for his family, particularly right after a celebratory vacation for his son's graduation from college.

Photo Milestones

I put cameras through their paces. My last camera, a Sony DSC-H1 12x superzoom, has taken well over 23,000 pictures in the last two years or so that I've owned it. I made the jump to a Canon DSLR about six months ago, and my EOS 40D has now served up 6,400 images of its own. Even my iPhone has taken 305 pictures during its last year of service. In all, iPhoto catalogues 43,715 photos and 276 movies for me.

I was talking to a friend who spent years as a film photographer and he remarked what a milestone it was to pass 5,000 photos on a camera back in the film era. It is amazing to think just how different things are now. I have a jar of old film that never was developed because of the cost of developing 35mm or APS film (especially the latter). Now, it hardly costs anything to take pictures. I've been taking most of my shots as of late in Raw so that I can submit them to a stock photography seller who said he would try to sell them for me. Assuming my camera lasts just 100,000 shutter cycles with me saving every image in an approximately 10mb Raw file that is then stored on my primary hard disk and an external backup drive (courtesy of Time Machine), I figured the total cost of taking and storing photos comes out to just over a penny a shot. That's with the photos backed up even! Remember how much double prints used to cost?

A penny per shot, camera wear and tear included, and almost all of that very small cost is from the cost of storing the photos. What a marvelous era it is to be a shutterbug!

Requiem to Sharper Image

The Sharper Image is dead, it seems. That's too bad. For all the bad press they have gotten, I rather liked them.

An example is worth recalling. A few years ago, I received as a gift a little iPod speaker dock that performed a light show to the music. Shortly thereafter, I misplaced the AC adapter and after months of searching, gave up and wrote the Sharper Image's customer service, asking if they sold replacement parts. They informed me that they could not sell the AC adapter to me — but they'd send me one for free. And they did; rather quickly even, as I recall. They even apologized that I had lost my adapter!

The Sharper Image always had some interesting gadget for sale. I'll miss that. Alas, poor Sharper Image, I did not know thee well enough.

Focus! Must focus!

It's a nice, peaceful rainy night. I'd really like to be reading — indeed I was while the Internet was down earlier (courtesy of the storm, I suppose). The problem is that I have a bunch of exams to grade that are in an online testing program, and they need to be done by June 1. My mind does not want to focus on these short answer exams at all tonight, but I must keep trucking along.

A few more for tonight, at least. Otherwise tomorrow will be painful…

Back from the Ozarks

Well, I went down to the Ozarks with my family and we had really perfect weather, particularly as compared with today — a day which consisted of at least three different thunderstorms, two of which produced hail. The weather, as I said was great, and it was just delightful to be on Table Rock Lake again. I gave my camera a work out taking nearly 2,000 photos. I haven't been able to download them yet, however, because my hard drive is rather full and I don't want to push it to the max. So, I have taken to cleaning my drive at the moment. We'll see if I can scrounge up some space.

Over

Well, I have been quiet on here for weeks as I tried to survive the ever crazier scheduling of the semester, but as of Wednesday, I turned in my final project, a paper entitled “May Good Win Out in Glory: Towards a Barthian Exegesis of Genesis 22,” which served to wrap up the semester.

I'll perhaps write more about the end of the semester soon. I do hope to return to my regular posting schedule of the past over the next few days as I decompress and catch up on everything.

Groups

This week looks really, really crazy. In part, it looks crazy because I have tons of group meetings all week for final projects. I have no less than three different group projects in motion right now! Of notable interest today is my group for Marriage and Family — we met today to film our project. We opted to do a video project, so we arranged a set and did some acting today. The project still has a way to go, but it feels good to have the video all on tape now at least.

Gas Musings

So, I was standing at the pump the other night, putting nearly forty dollars worth of gas into my little VW Bug. Next to the current cost is a little sign about how I could receive 5% cash back for my gas purchases with the Shell MasterCard. I've noticed Conoco-Phillips has a similar ad on their pumps as well. Admittedly, as prices go up, such an offer sounds enticing, and not necessarily a bad idea, given that I was already paying at the pump with my (non-rewards) credit card.

The problem with this card, like most rewards cards — at least the ones that actually offer decent rewards for something other than air travel — is that they are typically tied to one retailer. I am not a particularly loyal gas purchaser, so a card that offers a 5% rebate at Shell does me little good when I'm at Phillips 66. And vise versa.

I have no particular conclusion to draw from this, mind you. That was just my thought process as the gallons rolled in and the dollars rolled up.

But, I did come to one conclusion. Gas prices are not high enough. The pump was having trouble, so after I pulled in, I had to walk inside before it would agree to start. I then filled up an almost empty tank. During this entire process, another car waited behind me for my pump, and during that entire period of time, the driver let that car idle. That's right, he burnt $3.50 gas for the better part of ten minutes, as he waited while I went inside, stood in line, talked to a clerk, went back out and filled up my car. i hope he did not proceed to complain about the price of gas when he filled up his tank.

Earthquake

I was just awakened by an earthquake. 5.4, centered in West Salem, Ill, about 130 miles from here.

Update (10:42 CDT): They downgraded it to 5.2, but we just had a fairly large, estimated 4.5, aftershock. This is the first noticeable aftershock after a series of 1.5-2.5 magnitude shocks. What a morning… They are also forecasting severe storms today