File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_1998/lyotard.9805, message 9


Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 21:06:13 -0700
From: hugh bone <hughbone-AT-worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re:  Lyotard and Drama


Julie Manning Brovkin wrote: 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Hi, Julie,

See the UCSB link posted earlier today re: Le Differend.  It  is
excellent in leading you through key statements of Le Differend. 
However, there is much more. 

Reading Le Differend it occurred to me that Lyotard
explains how language makes us human and more or less controls 
1)What we can say, 2) What we can ask, and 3) How we listen.

The way we use language, which comes to us unasked, and readymade,
determines the way we communicate with each other. 

It is key to our ideas of justice and (what concerned him much)
our sense of obligation.

Also, words are only a part of language.  Consider languages
of the senses, as body language, audio and and visual arts of music,
painting, etc. which communicate without words.  

Movies and opera, normally use words of course, but need visual and
audio modes of expression; scenery, props, sound-tracks.  In the early
days of movies the words were only subtitles.

For Lyotard, silence was a phrase, a communication.  

The Post-Modern Condition has a lot to say about
knowledge as a commodity controlled by institutions, expecially those
of higher learning.  Particularly the wealthy institutions (and
individuals) who pay for the accumulation of knowledge/technology.

Knowledge is power i.e. those who have it make decisions which determine
the actions of those who lack it.
 
Narratives of religion, reason, the Enlightenment etc.
have become relatively impotent in any confrontation with
post-modern knowledge/power exercised by global moguls who determine
the way the world works.

Other participants on the list can probably help you with info re:
Lyotard's specifi works on art and esthetics.

Best,

Hugh Bone
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A couple of questions, very elementary, as I am just starting a thesis
which
> treats theatre in light of Lyotard's views on narrative:
> 
> 1.  Lyotard in a later work suggests that he put too much importance on his
> early examination of narrative.  Narrative is not the catch-all, he says
> (horribly paraphrased, of course).  Does he really discard it like he says he
> does?
> 
> 2.  If various discourses are completely separate language games, then how can
> one come to something resembling coherence, as in a theatrical performance where
> the "language games" of set, lights, sound, actor training, and the
> individuality of each audience member all come to bear simultaneously?
> 
> 3.  I am newly venturing into the jungle of literature, and I could use a few
> pointers.  Who are the persons currently writing most on Lyotard (dare I say
> specializing)?
> 
> 4.  If you were to apply Lyotard's ideas of little narrative to the genre of
> theatrical performance, what conclusions would you draw?  I'm not asking you to
> do my thesis for me, I'm looking, really, for problems and arguments to applying
> Lyotard to theatre.
> 
> Thanks!!


   

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