In-Class Question #4

Do all readers have authority to interpret text or do scholars have greater authority based on their greater expertise?

For some texts, yes. Especially if its a historical text or a text in another language than the one the reader knows.  We all have some authority for certain things based on our personal inventories.  For example, I have authority with texts written by 21-year-old caucasian girls from the subburbs of America.  I might be able to interpret this type of text better than my English professors to a certain extent.  I might not, however, be able to compare it to similar writings of the past because I haven’t studied them or had the opportunity or time to do so to the extent that my professors have.

So what about the Bible?  The Bible is supposed to be accesible to everybody of all nations, but I don’t think it really is.  I think that the nature of Christ exists outside of the Bible often, and those who are illiterate can still feel that faith without reading the Bible.  Scholars in this case, Biblical scholars, do have more authority over the Bible as a historical text. If we were to sit down and read the Bible front to back it wouldn’t make any sense.

In-Class Question #2

When interpretations arrive at a different meaning for a text, does this suggest that the meaning of the text is uncertain or that it has been read incorrectly by one or both parties?

When we first were given this questions, I though, “of course not, a variety of interpretations means a text is versatile.”  The only “incorrect” interpretation, which is pretty much an educated opinion, is one that was arrived at without any work, with lazy support, and without justification.
Just about any interpretation can be made about a text, but it’s not really worth considering if the interpreter doesn’t defend it.

Next we approached this question as if we were interpreting the Bible.  All the sudden, it matters if people arrive at different interpretations because the Bible, for Christians, is our instruction book for this life and the next.  But then again, the Bible is a written text just like any other written text, words on a page. written by humans.  The interpretation of the Bible though, especially in this country which was founded on Christianity, is crucial.  How the powers at be decide the Bible is interpreted can determine personal freedoms.  For example, if the majority this the Bible says homosexuality is wrong, then the laws will state that a man cannot marry a man and a woman cannot marry a woman.  I think its dangerous to jump to any conclusion about a text, but especially the Bible.

Ngugi & Postcolonial Lit

“Here then, is our main question: if there is need for a ’study of the historic continuity of a single culture’, why can’t this be African?  Why can’t African literature be at the centre so that we can view other cultures in relationship to it?” From On the Abolition of the English Department by Ngugi, Liyong, Owuor-Anyumba

The purpose of this essay, which we found out was written for Africans not Europeans, it seems is to demand that Africans study the African classics. Makes sense, right?  Literature is just one way to study cultures, and if a whole continent full of African students are studying European cultures, what will happen to their own identities? I read Devil on the Cross by Ngugi and did a pretty close study of it for a group presentation.  In this book Ngugi writes a long and somewhat confusing story about a gathering of the top theives and robbers meeting in a cave in Africa to argue why they think they are the best theif.  These characters are all African big-wigs that are European pawns, exploiting the poor peoples of Africa.  One character puts robots of white children in the window of his school to attract the rich African families to pay money for a less than great education.  This book I think was written for multiple audiences, but mostly for Africans.  I don’t think many of us realize that in other countries, they often study the same classics that we do exclusively.  I’d appreciate more requirements for world literature than what we have now.  I know at least I learned more important truths in my Postcolonial lit class than in med ren.