Study Day: The Evaporation of the Original - Protocol of study day
Part 1. "Intertextuality in theory"
At the beginning of the study day, Pr. Stefan Leder started out with his presentation entitled "Ariadne’s thread in the labyrinth of intertextuality" (2.15-2.50), giving a survey of the broad field of intertextuality. He referred to Heinrich F. Plett’s concept of intertextuality. According to Plett, "Il n’est de texte que d’intertexte." (There is no text other than intertext.). Second, texts create texts. Third, signification resides in the intertext, as much as in the seemingly self-confined textual entity authored by an individual. Plett’s term "serialization" envisages texts to be in dialogue with other texts. A methodological approach to intertextuality should enable us to study textual interrelations systemically and thus transcend the traditional approach of comparing elements of contents. Plett approaches texts as autonomous sign structures, delimited and coherent, with deliberately correlated constituents. Intertexts presuppose immanent integrity of the text and structural relations between texts. Text referent is no external reality but only another text referent. After elaborating on material and structural intertextuality, quotations, aspects of application and functional modes, Prof. Leder continued to go into the concepts of transtextuality and intertextuality according to Gérard Genette, demonstrating the usefulness of the latter approach. Referring to the example of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, Prof. Leder explains the process of structural substitution from history to parable in ancient near Eastern, Jewish and Islamic folklore.
Hans Harder then raises the question whether in the case studies Prof. Leder introduced, rather than having "evaporated", the original is not still very much around. Prof. Leder conceded that the title of the study day (The evaporation of the original) constituted a provocation, given the signification of the text as intertext. Markus Höhne asked about intertextual paths, giving ethnography as an example and questioning the rules of intertextuality in literature studies. Prof. Leder replied that it is necessary to distinguish the method of reading and dealing with intertextuality. Asma Hilali pointed out that the individual experience by the author/reader with regard to intertextuality must be taken into consideration. Susanne Klien drew attention to the example of the classical Chinese poetry in Japanese intellectual circles in the 19th century, with veiled citations being a convention to make political allusion while evading censorship. Steffen Strohmenger pointed out the units of analysis "local" and "global", the dynamics between a closed unit and a wider context in anthropology, suggesting that a methodology closure of units may be useful. Prof. Leder then drew attention to the fact that the immanent analysis of a piece of text is very important, i.e. the study of a text without "looking outside." Katharina Schramm brought up the topic of the politics of intertextuality, raising the question of how to address texts when there are patterns of domination between them (e.g. colonial/postcolonial).Prof. Jürgen Paul then commented that the master narrative has been the response in terms of hierarchy of texts. Prof. Leder concludes by pointing out the different level of changes in the Joseph legend, stating that the author had the intention to give the best of all stories, isolating it by focusing no relations between God and the prophets.
In "Some remarks on Bakhtin’s ideas", Hans Harder (3.15-3.30) provided a summary of the three key points of dialogue and "metalinguistics": First, the dialogic nature of texts, i.e. texts as acts in a given context, the dialogic contact of a text with another text/context; second, texts as personal and individual, and third, the dialogic as a precondition for the human sciences. According to Bakhtin, the exact or natural sciences deal with voiceless things while the human sciences focus on subjects that cannot become voiceless, thus claiming the absence of one single truth. "I hear voices in everything and dialogic relations among them." (Bakhtin "Toward a Methodology, p. 169). Hierarchy, however, does not crop up in Bakhtin’s remarks. Boris Nieswand doubts Bakhtin’s claim about the exact sciences having objects without voice. Markus Höhne once more points out the artificial construction of the dichotomy between the natural sciences and the human sciences. Even if there is polyphony, the relations between author / reader are salient. Prof. Paul points out that the usage of polyphony may be different from the original meaning taken from the musical sciences, where it denotes different voices, but no single voice having the lead throughout the piece, all being in harmony.
In her presentation "History of Intertextuality with an example of a North African francophone novel", Asma Hilali (3.40-4.00) summaries the evolution of the concept of intertextuality after Bakhtin. She defines the concept as it appears with Julia Kristiva (1967), Roland Barthes (1973), Umberto Eco (1979). The she introduced the example of a North African novel "Women from Algeria in their apartment" written by Assia Djebar (*1936) between 1982-1985. Djebar took the depiction of Algerian women in a domestic environment as a motive for her novel, borrowing from paintings by Eugène Delacroix and Pablo Picasso. While in the Delacroix picture the women were presented as constrained, Picasso imagined the liberation of these women in his reworking of the painting, conceiving their contribution to the national resistance movement.This is an interesting example of the changing context, exceeding the purely textual, expanding to works of fine art.
Katharina Schramm commented on the significance of the wider historical and political context of the production of texts and art works. Nicolas Kosmatopoulos asked whether the influence of Franz Fanon could be detected in the Djebar novel. Prof. Paul stated that the equation of freedom versus violence could be taken to testify Fanon’s way of thinking.
Part. 2: "case studies"
F. Donath’s presentation "How to carry owls to Athens? Performing scriptural authenticity among Wahhabi Muslims in Mauritius" mainly dealt with the question how the notion of orthodoxy is created among Muslims in Mauritius. After giving a brief account of Muslims in traditional India (Ashraf/Aylaf) and the groups of Muslims missionaries active in Mauritius since the 1920s, he presented a Friday sermon hold in 5 languages as an example for intertextuality.In the discussions afterwards the following issues were addressed:
- the contradiction between the high level of knowledge of the preacher giving the sermon and displayed in it and his audience à the aim is to create the notion of educated-ness, not necessarily educated-ness as such
- the European influence
- the hierarchy of the applied languages
- which instruments of the concept of intertextuality are applicable to this very casestudy? What concept of "text" is used?
- the embedded-ness of the text into its social context
- Plett’s concept of "authoritative quotation" and its partial applicability to this case
- transnationalism and its influence on religious authority
- the emergence of new technologies and infrastructure which provide connection
- the preacher’s proficiency in all the languages used in his sermon
In her talk "Shifting patterns - common structures and motives in Central Asian craftsmen's texts" J. Dagyeli provided a detailed account of crafts’ or professionals’ textbooks, the risalât in Central Asia. After a brief introduction into the history of this genre of risalât, she focused on three kinds of intertextuality: intertextuality between the risalât and other genres (esp. the Koran), intertextuality within the risalât-genre and intertextuality between oral and written forms of risalât.
In the following discussion, J. Dagyeli was asked to specify in which sense she used "risalât" (meaning "treatises"). So she pointed out that this term was the self-designated name used by these texts. It was also made clear that the coherence of a risalât -text was less important than its connection to other texts of the same genre and to the context, that a risalât was not composed by its author, but made up of different, already existing textual elements. During the discussion the correctness of Bakhtin’s concept of epic was also doubted.
M. Abû Saïf presente d in his paper which was titled "Plurale Referenzialität in der Dichtung" and given in German the different kinds of relation which a poetic text had to other texts: quotation, imitation and adaptation. As an example, he presented Mahmoud Darwish, who uses references to the Bible – Jewish and Christian – in his poetry.
After the presentation, the context of Darwish’s poems, being the conflict in Palestine, was discussed. In the course of the discussion, several aspects were mentioned:
- The use of Aramaic in the German translation of the bible when the actual words of Jesus were supposed to be rendered against Darwish’s use of Arabic.
- The transfer of a religious formula from one people to another.
- The social motivation to use religious quotations.
- The neglect of the context in poetry in contrast to the importance of the context in prose.
- The danger of misunderstanding intertextuality as exchange of textual elements without taking the context into consideration.
- The transformation of the original meaning of a text within its new context.
The discussion eventually changed into the final discussion in the course of which the following issues were addressed:
- The author’s intention when writing an intertextual text and other influences.
- The philosophical dimension of de-ciphering a text via the intertext.
- The role of the reader.
- The limitation of Plett’s article.
- How to apply the theoretical insights gained.
- How to understand the interdependence of texts.
- The sign which is moved from one text to another and its meaningful- or meaninglessness.
- The media and the arts and its different ways of dealing with references.
- The verification or falsification of authoritative texts by using them in intertexts.
- The vital difference between preferentiality and intertextuality.
Susanne Klien - Elvira Wakelnig