Beyond the abyss

"When we no longer pretend to abolish aporia, we turn to poroi: practical ways and means for proceeding through the uncertainties of the abyss or interstice" (John Nelson, in Poroi at U Iowa)

Okay then. Let's abolish it.

The aporia, the abyss of language, the would-be end of the trace which contains nothing. Derrida made us realize its existence and that we write (and write and write) to abolish it, to get "closer to reality" through more words (supplement). To add more extras to the DVD, to be "there" from the storyboard to the CGI to the opening night. Derrida told us it was impossible, and he said it over and over, because it was impossible not to repeat.

And then? And then?

I like Nelson's comment here because it tells me postmodernism is "over." Or, at least, postmodernism as a new theory, theory for theory's sake, has ended with his "When we no longer." Yes. Now that we "no longer" have to supplement because postmodernism has done its job, now we can move beyond it, past and through postmodernism to something else.

Ever since Derrida's work exploded the literary scene, people have been trying to label Kenneth Burke as a forerunner, an anticipator of postmodernism. Barbra Biesecker does this in her book; these, however, were attempts to keep Burke as part of cultural capital. If Burke was not postmodern, then he could not be "validly" studied, because "Modernism is so over." Reclaiming Burke as a pre-postmodernist meant he had value again.

But now postmodernity qua postmodernity is over, and although the deconstructionist theory informs what we do, it is not all we do. One can only say "the text is undecidable" so many times. The centre falls apart; it cannot hold--okay, great. But we Act like it holds, and we imagine a center in order to act. Nelson's quote above insists on this; despite the undecidability, the "interminable conversation" to use Burkeian "terms," we make decisions, make texts, inscribe each other, move one another around.

This is Burkeian territory we've returned to, the "practical" and the pragmatic. It's phenomenology informed by structuralism; it's linguistic and social and legal and religious all at once, because we act in a Scene that is all at once.

Is it modern? Is it Postmodern? Is it something else entirely? Does it matter?

What am I doing? What am I "professing"? Is it professing or prophecy when I study texts of warning? In Derrida's language, am I doing archaeology or eschatology? If I am no longer going to pretend I can abolish the aporia, and instead am going to focus on how others manage or negotiate the abyss, what can I write, and how can I write it?

Ever since we watched the first DVD of Lord of the Rings (for whatever reason ;) ), ever since Laura said that "Now we can watch a movie for hours on end" I've been thinking about fandom, about textuality and supplements. I've been watching pop culture manage the aporia and blogging it, going "hmm" at key moments. Rhetorical theory alone cannot tell me what I need, nor can literary theory, nor psychology nor sociology. My parallel structure I played with in my honors project began to think about mimesis (not poesis) as a necessity of rhetoric, but it didn't do enough to connect the literary, the textuality, with desire.

The most problematic concept in Burke is, for me, also the most illuminating. I am refering, of course, to "identification," to the act of "consubstantiation" two tiny little words that make me watch other people watching movies, read myself reading. Where does the author open up a possibility of identification? has been my line of inquiry for two years now, and it is helpful for thinking about the relationship between author and readers, author and the Scene, readers and the Scene.

Oh, but lurking back there is the problem, the one that would make Burke and essentialist if he answered it the way he seems to answer it: Why does the possibility of identification matter if the readers don't want to do it in the first place? How do we really know identification happens, and is it a learned reaction to text in general? Or is it, as Burke and others seem to suggest, inherent, a "mimetic drive" to combine the Self and Other into something Else? Is it, (oh, god) "Natural"?

How do you know? Dana keeps asking. Show me. The surface phenomena are there--the DVDs, the websites, the fanzines, the forums, the TV shows--all asking us to touch the text more, to be absorbed into it and the characters, but not just the characters, the production of the text. Texts are never given to us as autonomous wholes (Here! It's got borders! At Borders!) any more; instead, we are encouraged to see ourselves as co-authors, as participants, as consubstantial with the text, context, and subtext.

Is it "Midrash" come back to us in the land of the non-sacred? Can a vulgar text be Midrashic? What of the division of the sacred and profane (for certainly these texts are profane, completely touchable, dirtied by our common hands)?

Can you do a rhetorical analysis of a Midrash? Can the atemporal prophecy fit into a Pentad? How are we dealing with the aporia--or is the end of our pretending only present in academia? It's one thing to say "we" in a rhetoric journal, it's another to say it to the masses on a DVD.

What would a pop culture text look like if it acknowledged the aporia? Memento only acknolwedges it for its central character, who can never know the origin of his story--it does not tell us that our own reading of his story is itself incomplete, and many will not be able to draw the connection between the main character's memory problem and our own issues with remembering. After all, the DVD has "extras" which show us more, we always know more than the main character, we are always aware of the DVD's textuality. This awareness fools us into believing we've entered the center, we've touched the meaning, we know the text.

I meant for this to be a positive post, a nod toward my field, an appreciative nod that says "Yes, we can do this. We can show how to navigate the black hole; we can get beyond Derrida." I meant to talk about the field, about an article I want to write for Rhetoric Review about readers' contact and contract with a text. About why this matters for dystopian film, for scifi in general. But it's 3:35, and I have to leave the coffee shop where bad coffee shop music is playing.