I'm only now getting to read last week's texts; my best friend's father passed away and my time has mostly been targeted towards supporting him.
I was fascinated by NourbeSe Philip's "distrust" of language, and it opened my eyes to systemic biases engraved into the english language that I had previously been unaware of. Relating to the It's fascinating that the poet is able to repurpose and reappropriate tools of oppression (language) for the sake of art and resistance. A great strenght emerges from using vehicles of pain - linguistic wounds - to express oneself artistically.
I'll admit I was shocked at the confrontational stance of the interviewer. Could anybody fill me in on the context of this interview? I felt frustrated at the opposition they constantly dressed between NourbeSe Philip's work and so-called "accessible work". Even though the discussion is focused around the biases of language itself, the interviewer seems blind to the problematic nature of such a framing. To label some kind of art as more "accessible" than others is not only to presume incompetence on the part of the public/receptor, but it also imposes in itself an imaginary barrier in front of the work that scares off people. Labelling something as "innacessible" is exactly what makes it so.
I was fascinated by NourbeSe Philip's "distrust" of language, and it opened my eyes to systemic biases engraved into the english language that I had previously been unaware of. Relating to the It's fascinating that the poet is able to repurpose and reappropriate tools of oppression (language) for the sake of art and resistance. A great strenght emerges from using vehicles of pain - linguistic wounds - to express oneself artistically.
I'll admit I was shocked at the confrontational stance of the interviewer. Could anybody fill me in on the context of this interview? I felt frustrated at the opposition they constantly dressed between NourbeSe Philip's work and so-called "accessible work". Even though the discussion is focused around the biases of language itself, the interviewer seems blind to the problematic nature of such a framing. To label some kind of art as more "accessible" than others is not only to presume incompetence on the part of the public/receptor, but it also imposes in itself an imaginary barrier in front of the work that scares off people. Labelling something as "innacessible" is exactly what makes it so.
I was about to post on the blog about NourbeSe Philip's interview, but than I saw this post and noticed that we had remarked on similar aspects of it so here I am instead. I too felt as if the interviewer did everything in his power to paint Philip's work as so complicated that it addressed only the elite, and frankly it shocked me as well. I had in mind that an interview such as this one should have presented Philip's work to do it justice, and I don't feel like this is the case here. In any case, it made me want to know more about her work perhaps just out of spite for the interviewer, whose tone I too resented. I agree as well that the word 'inaccessible' in itself, repeated so many time might be what instills in the mind that Philip's work might be complex. Having an 'authority' proclaiming it as such legitimized its reputation as 'complex and abstract'.
ReplyDeleteThe whole point of the text was much more interesting and I felt it was drowned in a way in the interviewer's insistance that Philip's work is complicated.
The idea of the distrust of language is so fascinating, indeed. It is often interesting and however very sad to read on the history of language in both French and English, especially when it comes to the reasons why languages are the way they are today. I don't know much about the particular situation which NourbeSe Philip's talks about, however I have tried to educate myself about feminism and grammar in the French language. For example, I have recently learned that the word 'autrice' was once accepted as a word in French, but that it no longer is because the men who developed our grammar decided that it was not a role that women should take on in society. Interestingly enough, you will nonetheless find that words such as 'spectatrice' are still used frequently in French because it was something that women could do in a passive manner.