Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 21:55:33 -0500
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu>
Subject: Freire, Brecht, Shklovsky, Bhaskar, etc. (was Re: M-I: paulo


Gary wrote:
>I am myself specifically interested in the question of reflexivity and how
>this is interpreted in the post modernist world as something which is merely
>a stylistic device.  Thus the tv series Moonlighting (starring Bruce Willis)
>was famous for the touches where the actors addressed tha camera etc.  Monty
>Python also had some splendidly reflexive moments.
>
>But in Schlovsky and Brecht the original idea of reflexivity was to break
>the audience's excessive identification with the characters and to remind
>them that they were watching a play etc.  Somehow Brechtian ideas have
>become watered down into tiresome post modernist chic.
>
>Now what Freire's was attempting to do was to make his students aware of the
>totality within which they operated. this was of course also Schlosky and
>Brecht's intention.
>
>The key word of course it "totality".  when the postmodernists abandoned it
>for the local reflexivity inevitably became a matter of style.  There are
>possible links here with Bhaskar's notion o f the meta-reflexive
>self-totalizing situation, but I have to dash off to a bbq and this post is
>already sounding like a stream of consciousness rave.
>
>To sum up I think that one of Freire's enduring contributions will be has
>attempt to develop a pedagogic practice which would assist his students to
>develop an understanding of their position within a totality marked by power
>and domination.  As such his work is capable of being linked to other
>radical movements such as Brecht.  Moreover Bhaskarian Critical Realism
>provides us with a useful framework for exploring fully the notion of
>reflexivity and freeing it from the snares of post modernist aesthetics

I hope this thread won't die. (Aren't there more people on this list who
are interested in these questions? Please post your thought.)

It seems to me that Gary's distinction between localized self-reflexivity
that is reduced to a mere stylistic device and critical-realist
self-reflexivity that demands a comprehension of totality is very
productive. I would like to learn more from him and other people on this
point.

But isn't it still necessary to address the question Carrol posed, that is,
how the context of practice may determine its meaning and function?

Yoshie




     --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---