While studying for my colloquium has been exhausting, I've never been more in love with language, books, and words, than I am right now-- which is a good thing considering I'll be talking about just that with three professsors for two hours tomorrow. It's a little bit more complicated than that--but not much. My concentration and my colloquium topic, entitled "The Limits and Possibilities of Language," are basically exploring the many properties of language--its function as a tool for expression, as well as opression; its place in politics, in community, in the formation of both personal and national identity. I'm interested in the power of words to manipulate and deceive, as well as their power to evoke, to be beautiful. I'm looking at how language opperates in literature, how authors use it's conventions and often break them to explore deeper questions about meanings, values, society, and history. I look at language as performance, at the way playwrights have wresteled with language on the page as well as in the space of the stage. I look at how we use language to define ourselves, and how others can use it to define us, too. I look at what happens when people occupy a space in which languages compete for dominance--in families, in school rooms, in colonial remnants. I study all of these things through the long lens of history-- from Homer, to Aristotle, to Shakespeare , to Joyce, as well as the lenses of many disciplines: anthropology, literature, political science, biography. I also examine language outside of texts--in my experiences studying in South Africa, home to eleven national languages, or teaching adult reading and writing classes at the Fortune Society in Queens, a center for adults who have been incarcerated. I look at current politics, at the constantly evolving world of social media. Every article I read, every conversation I overhear--it all seems to be saturated with the topics I've concentrated on in the past four years. It's a little overwhelming to be thinking about narrative and symbolism and empowerment and politics and identity all the time, but its also exciting, and it's exciting to be excited about something so complex yet also as simple as a single word.
In the next few weeks I'll probably put my mind to other tasks: taking photos, making my bed, cooking meals that are more than just variations on the egg. I anticipate a lot of hanging out. But pretty soon my book shelf will be calling to me again--Barthes and Bolano sit staunchly, peering out from behind stacks of less-intimidating short story collections, anthologies, and periodicals, refusing to be overlooked. I've ignored them for some time now, but I'll offer them my bed and my Friday night and I know they'll take me back. Sometimes words are the only thing I've got-- I couldn't ask for better companions.
