Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: ABIOLA IRELE FACEBOOK GROUP

hi toyin
i thought our concern was to avoid the cult of the personality, not the reference to the work of the individual. people have singled me out not only for praise but for criticism or worse. that's the price i pay for sticking my  nose up, over the border, and being noticed by others.
at times i make comments on sites, and wish i could do so anonymously. at times i use my name because i don't want to be afraid of the consequences. and to be sure, people will dismiss what i write, at times, saying, oh, that's harrow, and attribute to me a whole set of values, which i might not even be aware of or agree with. but no matter, once you speak out, you are fair game.

i do agree with you to this extent: we should try to defend our ideas, not on the basis of our supposed stature, but on their own merits. that means, ideally, entering into a discussion, a dialogue, and there is no sin of ego necessarily tied to that. doing it anonymously may be one way, but not the only way and maybe it avoids the real ideal here, which is dialogue/discussion, not simply disembodied ideas.

is there another good side to this? if people know my work, they can situate what i am saying within a larger body. we do that as scholars all the time: we cite marx, knowing more than just the line we are citing, and can frame his work within the larger oeuvre and larger context. ideally the two, text and context, author and times, are seen as needed to contextualize and make sense of what we are analyzing.
that's ok, right?
and to be sure, this is not the same as biographical criticism, which went out of style way back in the 1950s.

now--to take the ego out of soyinka might be a bit tricky, but that's another question
ken

On 12/27/13 2:50 PM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju wrote:

I have a question.

The tradition of knowledge  Chidi and Kenneth Harrow operate in is based on the primacy of human individuality.

How is this demonstrated?

You are both authors.

Your books boldly carry your names on the covers.

Why must you do that?

Why not insist on anonymous publication, if you want to focus on the ideas and eclipse  the idea maker, as Chidi is suggesting?

Why not practice that principle, Kenneth Harrow, if  you see the focus on the author, in the tradition that has become central in the concept of canonical figures in cognitive and cultural history,  as equivalent  to worshipping  people as  superior beings rather than focusing on ' ideas and writings as the central objects of study and inspiration'?

Ifa literature, the European Gothic cathedrals, the Hindu Upanishads, and a good number of the greatest works of humanity,  are presented in terms of the principle of anonymity, so it can be done.

Chidi has websites that boldly carry his name as author.

Kenneth Harrow's  site at his university carries his name.

Kenneth Harrow's  CV presents the entire trajectory of his distinctive work with phenomena over decades, a CV that is unique to him.

The CV presents how he and he alone has engaged with those phenomena, along with foregrounding  the most significant dates dates in his career.

The CV is not a presentation  of Kenneth Harrow's ideas but of his personal history in the world of ideas and the institutions where they are studied.

Central to scholarship on any cultural creator is the biographical relationship between persona and creation.

Thus, scholars study poetry and thought  as well as the lives of  poets and thinkers, demonstrating the interrelationship  of creator and creation.  

Gentlemen, how can you be deeply part of   a culture of individuality, a culture that foregrounds individual agency and personality in the creation and ascription  of knowledge and make the claims you are making?

Please help me out.

thanks

toyin 

On Fri, Dec 27, 2013 at 3:49 PM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:

hi chidi and toyin
i agree with your reservations, especially since soyinka is still alive! the trick is to honor him for his work, not worship him as a superior being. there must be a way to make that distinction and carry on with soyinka's ideas and writings as the central objects of study and inspiration.
ken

On 12/27/13 4:07 AM, Chidi Anthony Opara wrote:

Honestly Toyin, I have not seriously thought of alternative approaches. I will however favour approaches that do not allow the personality of the messenger to obscure the message. I detest personality cults.

CAO.

On Thursday, 26 December 2013 19:04:18 UTC+1, tovadepoju wrote:

i find this intriguing, Chidi

'to espouse the ideas these notable figures propagated'

can you suggest alternative approaches?

On Thu, Dec 26, 2013 at 5:19 PM, Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Toyin,

Don't you think that if we continue to establish groups like the "Wole Soyinka Society" yahoo group and this, we will just end up building personality cults? Do we have to establish these groups to be able to espouse the ideas these notable figures propagated?

CAO.

On Thursday, 26 December 2013 17:04:37 UTC+1, tovadepoju wrote:

If i might comment while awaiting your explanation, to the best of my knowledge, the question of the central forces behind history has  been contentious in philosophy and various world views.

One may describe  two contrastive poles in relation to this idea in terms of  the centrality of human agency and the contrastive idea of the centrality of transpersonal, non-human agents or principles, and a meditating position in terms of a dialogue between those two views.

From St. Augustine's pioneering City of God, to Hegel, Marx, Arnold Toynbee, Karl Popper and other thinkers, to various religions and world views, this question resonates, and may be described in terms of the basic ideational map I have presented.

thanks

toyin 

On Thu, Dec 26, 2013 at 3:54 PM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <tovad...@gmail.com> wrote:

Please clarify, Ibrahim

I would like to understand you better

On Thu, Dec 26, 2013 at 2:24 PM, Ibrahim Abdullah <ibdu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Do u really need to evoke Marx re the centrality of human agency in history? This is high school stuff not even HS 101.
---

On Dec 26, 2013 2:12 PM, "Oluwatoyin Adepoju" <tovad...@gmail.com> wrote:

An Irele sentence

'For if, as Karl Marx has observed (in The Holy Family), human beings are the real source of history and not an impersonal principle, it is the myriad forms of exchange and transactions between peoples and races, either in situations of conflict or, as is more often the case, as strategies of accommodation to each other, that have everywhere and over the ages determined the evolution of our world.'

A quintessential Irele paragraph, in the range of knowledge it is resting on, its evocation of vast possibilities, while remaining a precise expression of a specific idea or ideas, constitutes a research project. 

 http://aaas.osu.edu/events/distinguished-lecture-series-feat-professor-francis-abiola-irele-cultural-encounters-and-afri

Distinguished Lecture Series feat. Professor Francis Abiola Irele: "Cultural Encounters and the African Experience"

On Thu, Dec 26, 2013 at 1:17 PM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <tovad...@gmail.com> wrote:

Exploring Abiola Irele 

Abiola Irele is one of the great writers in all history.

His ideas resonate across cultures in time and space. 

Let us come together to study this great thinker and writer.

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--   kenneth w. harrow   faculty excellence advocate  professor of english  michigan state university  department of english  619 red cedar road  room C-614 wells hall  east lansing, mi 48824  ph. 517 803 8839harrow@msu.edu

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--   kenneth w. harrow   faculty excellence advocate  professor of english  michigan state university  department of english  619 red cedar road  room C-614 wells hall  east lansing, mi 48824  ph. 517 803 8839harrow@msu.edu

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