Winter 2018

Spivak – arguing for translation that perpetrates minimal violence thru an understanding of the rhetoric of the original language/author.

• Avoiding neocolonial construction of the text
• Translator’s complete “surrender” to the text itself: translation is the most intimate act of reading. Rhetoric disrupts logic

Government as representation not authority?

• We need a collective body to help us understand that we are in relation to each other
• Is individual conscience meaningless without collective conscience?
• Aloneness is made legible by the possibility of togetherness
• Thoreau – government should be actively passive, like the mirror, not like the wooden gun (structurally similar but functionally very different)

Writing without a thesis?

• Thesis bends the text to meet the thesis (you follow your own argument instead of following the text)
• Quotes: use if they support, ignore if they contradict
• Is a thesis-oriented paper just a selective misreading of the text?