File spoon-archives/seminar-13.archive/postco-virtuality_1997/97-04-23.111, message 44


From: TABRON-AT-BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 12:46:59 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Diaspora


>On Sun, 16 Mar 1997, donna matahaere wrote:
>
>> 
>> Yes but words do leak and metaphors have power. It is just not possible to
>> contain meanings and if we do then I think we can start to talk about what
>> is being privileged. My example of intra-diaspora was not simply an
>> historical period Bruce but also part of the postcolonial present of
>> settler communities. Why are you uncomfortable?
>
>i agree - and yes this has always been a place to start examining and
>re-examinining my (inevitable, but necessarily self-conscious) complicity
>within structures of meaning making, power etc. what is the source of
>discomfort? the source of "guilt", even - the source of anger and
>confusion.
>
>
>but we can take that anywhere, and like Bruce suggested earlier, make the
>"word" work to justify almost anything .
>
>so let's have more conflict, i say!:-)
>
>Radhika

Hi Radhika and Donna,

While wholeheartedly supporting conflict, :-) I'm not sure that addresses
Bruce's point, which was that, certainly, overdetermination is a fact of
linguistic life, and yet from an analytical or critical point of view a word
that means everything means nothing. "Diaspora" needs to mean something
describable, even if the description is very complex, otherwise it's just a
buzzword.

I'm NOT comfortable locating my own "guilt" or "discomfort" and writing
critically or analytically from there, because that's psychoanalysis, not
literary studies.

So I for one would still like a stab made at what "diaspora" means -- I think
it would be very useful and interesting.

Judith Tabron

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