Interdisciplinarity: The Undisciplined Discipline

Think about your own education, past, present and future (as you imagine it), with reference to Callahan’s distinction between content-based knowledge and rhetorical expertise (4) and the role of “intellectualism”. How do you see these forms of engagement balanced (or not) in your own schooling? How do you rate their importance to your training as a scholar? Do you agree with Callanan that “flexibility, creativity and curiosity” are “the first casualties of a disciplinary framework that demands expertise in a particular body of material (5)?

Casualties exist in essentially two varieties: fatal and non-fatal. After all, wars kill and maim alike. To apply this shading to Laura Callahan’s colourful language (as implemented in her article “Defining Expertise in the Interdisciplinary Classroom” ), I would agree that “flexibility, creativity, and curiosity” are “casualties” of a disciplinary framework that demands expertise in a particular body of knowledge, however, these victims ultimately survive. Despite their compromised state, they nevertheless endure and contribute to their fields of study. The ‘spirit of intellectual curiosity’ and the ‘goal of mastering a body of knowledge’ are, for me, by no means mutually exclusive, however I strongly feel that the pursuit of the latter [i.e., the ‘goal of mastering a body of knowledge’] greatly curtails the freedom of the former [i.e., ‘spirit of intellectual curiosity’]. Intense, focused pursuit of specific data in the context of a set of specific pedagogical parameters would necessarily limit a scholar’s range of motion, excluding questions and subjects which she may entertain. For example, one does not augment one’s knowledge of the lifecycles of insects by studying hippopotami (presumably). So, one must suspend one’s curiosity about hippopotami in order to devote time, energy and thought to, e.g., grasshoppers, praying mantises, and the like. Although the curiosity about hippopotami is sacrificed in the name of insect expertise, curiosity itself is not at all sacrificed. It is perhaps, injured, curtailed, quarantined, subjugated, etc., but it is not destroyed. If I may draw on a parallel, a colleague of mine (whom I hold in great esteem) gently criticized once that in tackling a breadth of ideas in my writing, I jeopardize exploratory depth of any one issue. She appeared to enjoy the food for thought, but was left unsatisfied with the meagerness of each ‘dish’. I agreed with her: breadth of coverage necessarily encroaches upon depth thereof, and vice versa. After all, there’s only so much ‘page’ to go around. I, too, wonder what would unfold if I devoted some effort to a sustained, focused, probing discussion on Topic Q. The distinction between ‘touching upon several intriguing issues’ and ‘more deeply probing a lesser amount of issues’ is congruent, for me, to the ‘spirit of intellectual curiosity’ and the ‘goal of mastering a body of knowledge’. Pursing a deep mastery of knowledge (i.e., a thorough treatment of an issue) will necessarily detract from an unfettered spirit of intellectual curiosity (i.e. a nebulous treatment of numerous interrelated notions), but focused expertise certainly does not eclipse that intellectual curiosity – indeed it relies upon it. If you’ll pardon the ‘lunacy’ of this metaphor, “flexibility, creativity, curiosity” do not undergo an ‘eclipsed’ by the demands of focused expertise, but merely undergo a ‘waning’ of sorts.

However is a focused, sustained investigation not THE telling sign of good academic writing? Does depth of knowledge not constitute good scholarship? Do we not need to read practically every word written on our topic in order to synthesize the vastness of data into a coherent, defendable, probing, academic standpoint? And what we don’t? Does forgoing a grounded standpoint and wandering from notion to notion, within and without our ‘topic’ not make us less of an intellectual? Gitlin argues that an ‘intellectual’ is NOT one who advances a totalizing discourse on knowledge from a removed perspective, but rather one who is instrumental in advancing the state of society (locally, and globally), essentially one who is an active agent for change. She construes the intellectual as one who transcends the compartmentalized, insulated parameters of their ‘area of study’ in order to become an intelligent, responsible, ethical citizen of the world. But what does social interaction, or interdisciplinarity really have to do with refining one’s intellect? Are intellectuals no longer permitted (expected?) to remain antisocially cloistered, removed from the ebb and flow of ‘practicality’ so as to effectively read, think, write, reread, rethink, rewrite, etc? The social dimension to Gitlin’s construction of the intellectual is interesting because it serves to remind us that we do not exist in a vacuum, that we are more than walking encyclopedias, and we do not pursue knowledge for its own sake, but rather for the welfare of our kind. How may we avoid the social dimension of intellectualism when our broader field is defined as the ‘humanities’. However, socially oriented or not, surely academics are expected to narrowly focus their efforts. Are we all not currently engaged in an arduous process, the fruit of which is mastery of our field of knowledge? Have we not consented to leading lives of rigorous academic austerity, lives of focus and discipline (and periodic pubbing)? Is not the name of our field of study itself a ‘discipline’? We all intend (on some level) to work hard and apply ourselves (with discipline!) in order to acquire and advance knowledge in our field. As graduate students, we are engaged in the pursuit of content-based knowledge in order to masterfully lord over our minute plots of intellectual real estate. This self-imposed yolk is a necessary aspect of being an academic, else our thoughts would stray and wander into the realm of Rambling, Ambiguity or Irrelevance (like most of my blog entries). In thinking of the tension between content-driven ‘discipline’ and ‘free reign’ interdisciplinarity, the image of a horse comes to mind. Unbridled, his travels are more expansive, covering vast regions, though his stays in each region is brief, and potentially unsatisfying. Once harnessed, however, he goes farther and faster toward any one destination. So, do we charge on towards our disciplinary findings, with little care for what we miss along the way, or do we meander aimlessly enjoying the interdisciplinary journey? Call me undisciplined, but I’ve always been partial to the scenic route. And it appears that I’m not alone.

According to Hugo Caviola, expertise ought to emphasize the PROCESS of interaction rather than the GOAL of synthesis (5). Furthermore, synthesis, for him, is personal, subjective, and individually meaningful. However in emphasizing the personal and the subjective, do we not draw dangerously near to intellectual relativism, pursuing opinion rather than knowledge? Surely, there are ‘personal syntheses’ which steer closer and further from ‘the facts’ than others. How do we classify them? Scholarship, humanities’ based or otherwise, is intrinsically tied to an evaluative process whereby the opinion of one individual is ranked against that of another against the backdrop of what we consider to be objectively true. Isn’t this the basis behind ‘peer review’? Giesler’s, in her exploration of the extent to which the academy “negotiates the terrain between experiential knowledge, various bodies of information, and the question of expertise” (388), advocates a dichotomy between context-based knowledge and rhetorical expertise. She appears to align well with Caviola in favouring ‘rhetorical expertise’. She brings our attention to a peculiar but prevalent “circularity” in academic pursuit: one takes interest in a specific subject matter due to personal, subjective factors, one then pursues ‘objective findings’, only to revisit one’s subjective concerns equipped with supposedly objective research. In this setting, content-specific knowledge is merely an intermediary between uninformed and informed subjective reality. One’s interest begins broadly, narrows, then broadens once again. This seems in alignment with the ‘hour-glass’ structure of all academic work: start broad, refine, then broaden once again – or so my Grade 13 English teacher told me. Callahan herself starts her essay quite broadly. She begins with the words of another individual, from another discipline. She quotes Mikhail Bakhtin, from ‘Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics’ as follows:

“The idea begins to live, that is, to take shape, to develop, to find and renew its verbal expression, to give birth to new ideas, only when it enters into dialogic relationship with other ideas, with the ideas of others.”

To employ another metaphor, an idea, once first conceives may be likened to a stone, at first rough and jagged, only attaining a polished state upon entering a ‘dialogic relationship’ in the external stream of consciousness surrounding it. The stone/idea, susceptive to the exchange with its medium, eventually renounces its rigidity, allowing the contextual currents to shape it. The idea succumbs to the resistance of its context in order to become refined. I find it interesting that Bakhtin specifies the need for the contribution of ‘others’ in order for an idea to take shape. This resonates with the definition of the intellectual as one who engages his social setting. My fondness for the scenic route is second only to my fondness for metaphor, and again, I’m not alone. Gotta love that Caviola!

Caviola argues that interdisciplinarity itself exemplifies and upholds the extent to which both “literary and scientific language are inextricably metaphorical in nature”. But what do the metaphors represent? Is there no reality that is not metaphorical? Are all claims to non-representational ‘knowledge’ false? Surely there is nothing metaphorical about a statement such as: “there are currently 27 students enrolled in the MA Program at the Centre for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto”, is there? Caviola appears to think so, and although I ultimately agree with him, I cannot gloss over the controversiality (is that a word?) of that claim. After all, do we not operate under an overarching method which commences with hypothesis, develops with evidence and culminates with conclusion? How could a claim be both conclusive and metaphorical? This alludes to what I believe to be THE thematic tension central to all of our discussions. All issues inevitably gravitate around the subjectivity-objectivity axis. How do we churn fact from fiction? How do we distil knowledge from a sea of opinions? What is TRUE? We are told to leave our personal biases out of the equation, or to at least account for them and compensate for them, and we do so in order to operate as agents of pure ‘scientific’ rationality. Our personal experiences are to relegated to the back seat, if not the trunk. We are trained to be ‘intellects’ first, and ‘people’ second. Our subjective experiences, notions, ideas, etc. need to be validated by objective demonstrable evidence. We have thus far encountered numerous variations on this theme, e.g., ‘who is the REAL authority of ritual?’, ‘what is the ACTUAL meaning of this text?’, ‘what do those practitioners REALLY experience?’. To me these are all manifestations of the impulse to ascertain the distinction between the subjective and the objective. We tend by and large to prefer the latter with respect in academia. So, Caviola’s claim that all exists as metaphor – be it literature, biology, sociology, anthrolpology, religion, etc. – highly problematizes our academic pursuit of ‘knowledge’. If we can’t really KNOW anything directly, then how do we LEARN, or TEACH? Are we merely chasing allegorical shadows on the wall of some Socratic cave? What could ‘expertise’ possibly mean in this context? Callanan asserts that expertise amounts to the relationship between information, colleagues, texts, institutions and students. This model appeals to me. I like the idea of the ‘teacher’ being a facilitator, equally participating in the process of learning rather than being an instructor, one who possess conclusive knowledge which she must download to her students. An expert, for me, is not someone with all of the answers, but merely someone who has devoted much time and thought to specific questions. To limit expertise to mastery of knowledge is to stifle creativity and originality, to obstruct the expansion of any given discipline, and to prevent the development of new disciplines. Genius, after all, is extolled in juxtaposition to traditional, content-based modes of thought. If knowledge, then, is not something we can readily pursue, since it’s a process rather than a result, what is the actual fruit of our labour? Surely our pursuit is not a fruitless one. It seems that perhaps the fruit is the pursuit itself, where the emphasis is on dialogue, not data. The scholar ought not to engage in conversations as a means for conclusion, but, rather, should regard conclusions as means for conversation.

TEXT: Smudging the lines between Author and Audience

Please excuse the relative lateness of this blog entry: I am currently contending with some personal issues. Incidentally, discussing them here would surely make for a more interesting entry, but I don’t know that they directly relate to the study of religion…did I mention that humour is my favourite defense mechanism….?

Of all of the readings thus far examined, these chapters from Clark’s book promise to contribute most richly to my own research. My MA project is centered around textual analysis of the Ramayana, so the various issues and approaches discussed here are well worth considering whilst grappling with a text as complex and ancient as Sanskrit epic. I am not sure if the variety of theories from which to chose will aid or frustrate my research pursuit; I find myself suffering from the usual mental indigestion …Now, Where do I stand (at least today) on the idea of contextualism…? I am grateful for the qualification “at least today” since it seems that what I think and write about contextualism is itself context-dependent. I only hope that my mindset will not shift to the extent that I won’t be able to defend these views come Wednesday’s class….

I find Genette definition of “transtextuality…[where]…on the same parchment, one text can be superimposed upon another, which it does not quite conceal but allows to show through” quite apt for my research. Texts, for him, transform and/or imitate previous texts. He redefines this as “open structuralism” (132). This is exemplified throughout the receptive history of the Ramayana, particularly in the movement to theologize the text through the lens of Vaisnava devotion. How do I treat these ‘superimposition’? Are they removed from ‘the original’ text? Does there in fact exist an ‘authentic’ text whereby to measure all subsequent redactions, interpolations, interpretations, etc? I have tended in past to subscribe to the notion that all texts are supplements, merely filling out the ongoing cultural dialogue, perpetually alluding to and making reference to other texts, in a similar approach to Derrida who emphasizes the fact that never has there been written a text untouched by other texts (132). He challenges the notion of text as a finished, discreet complete work, positing, rather, that it is “a differential network, a fabric of traces referring endlessly to something other than itself, to other differential traces.” The Ramayana, throughout its vast hermeneutic history, exemplifies inexhaustible varieties of interpretation. Reading it seems, indeed cotributes to the process of composition. To what extent, then, is the reader actually the author of the text? To what extent may he partake in the authorship thereof?

In my opinion, there is much merit in deviating from a desire to uncover the actual, unified, harmonious, uncontestable meaning of a text. Meaning, is, after all subjective and in constant fluctuation. On this basis, I can sympathize with Roland Barthes view that “a text’s unity lies not in its origin but in its destination” (133). Does this imply that the author then possess no agency whatsoever in the composition of a text? This doesn’t somehow seem right to me, either, but in all honesty, I haven’t quite sorted it out. I am interested in what Foucault has to say on ‘authority’ of a text being somehow dependent upon the certainty of its ‘authorship’ in out culture. He puts into perspective just how culturally-specific our regard for authorship is. The reception of a text is inextricably linked to the reception of its author, i.e., its ‘textual proprietor’. This anxiety to ascertain and/or verify authorship seems drastically diminished in my own textual milieu. With respect to ancient South Asian texts, there is far less of an emphasis on the authorship. Numerous texts are of uncertain authorship, and further, several authors are of uncertain historical status. Regarding the Ramayana, for example, what do we know about legendary adi-kavi (first poet), Valmiki? Did such an author in fact, exist? Does the answer to this question colour all subsequent questions we bring to the text? What cultural presuppositions/inclinations do we reveal in inquiry after the author thus? In line of such questioning, I find Derrida’s encouragement for us to question why we read texts the way we do as quite refreshing. How could we refrain from identifying, or confessing, our own philosophijal and political assumptions that are institutionally sanctioned by our social context? In an attempt to resist the seductive appeal of textual ‘re-pristination’ (which I, too, regard as a futile endeavor), I see merit in exploring the Wirkungsgeschichte (“effective history”) of the text. I will never no what Valmiki intended, nor, even if Valmiki existed.

There is much in these reading to process, but I especially perplexed/intrigued by what Gadamer says about text. He seems to hold that language is intended to impart meaning, and that therefore texts are intended to be readable and understood without too much difficulty, but bifurcates his argument with a questionable distinction between written (literary) language and the spoken (auditory) variety. For him the process of writing necessarily constitutes a barricade, blinding the reader from the author’s intended meaning. I am not quite sure how the author vanishes once his thoughts are written rather than vocalized. Or maybe I am phrasing this incorrectly, it’s not as though he vanishes, but merely that he becomes invisible to us – he is still present, but we can’t see him. While one is engaged in text, one cannot easily grasp the meaning of the author. However, for Gadamer, spoken word possesses “sonority, melody, sound”, and therefore more readily presents its meaning to the listener. It is easier to access the ‘actual meaning’ intended while one hears, and accessibility lacking when one reads. I am not sure how to treat this bifurcation in my own work because I deal with an ancient text which was preserved orally for centuries. The verses of this epic poem were ‘heard’, not ‘read’ throughout the vast majority of their cultural reception and preservation. Furthermore the metrically consistent poetry of the Ramayana was intended to be performed – sung, chanted, enacted, etc. So, does the intrinsic ‘sonority’ of this ‘text’ bridge the remoteness between authorship and readership (i.e., listener-ship) to the extent that one, while witnessing its performance, may be granted access to ‘the intent of the author’?

I operate like a pendulum on these issues, because even though I believe that the distinction between interpretation and authorship is fine-to-nonexistent, Clearly Skinner has a point in asserting that texts do not come about of their own volition. Individuals conceive of and articulate ideas, and these ideas are embedded in texts. He challenges the Derridean bifurcation of writing and speech on the bases that he studies dialogues, which is essentially speech captured in writing. He is in a similar boat I think. The third aspect of his argument is applicable to my own pursuit. Skinner appeals to the author’s intention, insofar as it may be identified as in support of their objective. The ‘meaning’ of a text may be various, as subsequent meanings may be later introduced or identified, but Skinner aims to uncover the ‘original’ intention of the statements put forth. I suppose the key here is that ‘the intention’ is not ambiguous. For example, Nagesha Bhatta, a Srivaisnava commentator on the Ramayana rereads its ‘kernal’ verse (where Valmiki curses the hunter) as a praise to Vishnu. His reinterpretation relies heavily upon phonetic and linguistic gymnastics – to simplify, he breaks up the compounds differently, and employs homonyms. The result is nothing short of brilliant, but it is ‘an accurate’ interpretation. Despite my acknowledgement of the reciprocity between interpretation and text, I can’t help but regard this devotion-based reinterpretation as contrary to the original intent of the verse. It does not fit with the verse which come immediately prior, not with what comes afterwards, not is it remotely supported in the context of the rest of the epic. There certainly seems to be no ‘intention’ to praise Vishnu in Valmiki’s curse (which is central to both the ‘emotional flavour’ of the epic along with the epic’s basic plot), and so I can see the merit of Skinner’s emphasis on intention as a standard of interpretational merit. However, where the ‘intent’ is unclear, how do we proceed? I suppose I need to adopt an approach that best befits my subject matter, and adhere to it faithfully for the duration of the project.

The Universality of Emotions: What I think about what I Feel about what Cultural Relativists Think about what they Feel about Emotion

In an attempt to somewhat focus my reflection, I will confine my random ruminations to the tension between relativism and universality that pervades academic discourse on emotion. I must confess that it never occurred to me that emotions were socially derived, but rather, I viewed it self-evident that emotions are universally integral to the (cross-cultrual) “human experience”. Having completed this week’s reading, I find my thoughts on the matter much more nuanced with regard to the extent to which ‘emotion’ may be characterized as culturally dependent. There is much food for thought in these writing, too copious and complex to be digested in one sitting; however, the notion that emotion is contingent upon culture is still somewhat unsettling to me. It seems intuitive to me that emotions are universal, but the line between intuition and folly is quite fine, so I suppose I must identify and articulate my reasons for believing so. I am not sure if this clarifies of complicates, but I perceive a disjunction between what I refer to as ‘emotion’ and what these writers refer to in their discussion. Clearly there is an element of identification, justifications, rationalization, etc. intimately intertwined with the experience of emotion, and this element is indisputably culturally-relative. However, when I refer to emotion, what I mean is the experience of grief, anger, joy, etc. itself, and not our ideas pervading the social circumstances cradling these emotional experiences. The ‘why we feel’, ‘how we feel’, ‘when we feel’, ‘should we feel’, etc are culturally contingent, but WHAT we feel, in my opinion, is universal. Perhaps then the extent to which I disagree with these writers is largely attributable to a different definition of ‘emotion’.

John Corrigan, in his introductory essay (“Introduction: Emotions Research and the Academic Study of Religion”), outlines several arguments in support of emotion being a universal phenomenon. The evidence cited by Corrigan upholding the thesis of the universality of emotion range from: i) the Darwinian assertion that emotion is a necessary, species-wide mode of expression, as species; ii) the linguistic commonality in reference to emotions cross-culturally; iii) the cross-cultural performative dimension of emotion; iv) the theological/philosophical assertion that emotion is universally ‘mysterious’; and, lastly, v) the cross-cultural commonality of neurological/physiological functioning during emotional experiencing (9-10). I will sidestep Corrigan’s questions as to whether such inquiry concerning emotion is reductionistic, etc. My interest here is whether or not emotion is universally experienced. Emotion may in fact be irreducible and/or inexplicable, but I don’t see these issues as directly related to the universality thereof. These categories are not mutually exclusive in that emotional response may be universal and explicable, universal and inexplicable, universal and reducible, universal and non-reducible, etc. In any case, I find the five arguments cited compelling, particularly the linguistic one. We all refer to emotions, cross-culturally, without an anxiety to define exactly what experience we are referring to. They appear to be presumed as self-evident. Anger is anger and grief is grief, etc. This is the case from Shakespeare, to Aristophanes, to Kalidasa. Although clearly the circumstances and norms pervading the social and cultural contexts to some extent dictate the justification, impetus, penchant, etc. of the emotion experience, the fact that we can read and relate to the characters so widely dispersed over culture, space, and time, suggest to me that their emotional experiences aren’t so removed from ours so as to be eclipse by the cultural shifts intervening between composition and reception. Our appreciation of various literary works from various cultures across various times, for me, suggests a somewhat archetypal element to emotional experiencing. Despite the VASTLY different circumstances in works of literature across the ages, across cultures, the classics survive because of their ability to invoke emotion that is basic to all human beings. To what, otherwise, may we attribute the timeless accessibility and appeal of ‘classics’? Why else are we still studying Elizabethan drama and classical Sanskrit kavya alike? The same came be said, I would argue, for visual arts and performing arts. Although they employ the syntax of their culture, they tell the tale of humankind to some degree.

I am not certain that I can articulate this in a sufficiently sensible fashion (since it is intuitive to me, of the same Intuition that dangerously borders Error), but my reflection on the emotion/state of Compassion seems to me to support the universality of emotion. Compassion, to me, appears to be esteemed and extolled cross-culturally, whether embodied in Christ, the Buddha, or the sages of ancient India. But I invoke compassion here not merely because it occurs cross-culturally, or that it is extolled cross-culturally, but because of its nature. And now, what could I possibly mean by that? Thank goodness for the license afforded by Blogging. What I mean is that Compassion is based on an empathetic feeling of concern for the welfare of others. This to me presupposes the emotional likeness among all human beings, all suffering from the same emotional demons. How could I hope to have empathy for others if they are fundamentally different in their emotional experience and emotional requirements? Perhaps I am not articulating this as well as I should for it to be compelling, but the enterprise of compassion (whether by a religious practitioner, a secular humanist, a philanthropist, a civil servant, etc.) seems somehow hollow and futile in the absence of emotional universality. If our emotional experience is discreet and culturally-dependent, the same as our ideas, behaviors, etc., then what comprises this notion of “the human experience”? If not emotion, what, then serves as the common thread constituting the human tapestry? Perhaps the whole notion of there being a common link to human beings (and terms such as ‘humanities’, ‘humankind’, etc.) are conceits, as artificial as the term ‘religion’ itself. It could be the notion of ‘humanity’ as a whole exists only in the realm of the conceptual. However, if this is not the case, and there is such a thing as humanity, then emotional experience would undoubtedly contribute to our universal innate human-ness.

Clifford Geertz writes that “non only ideas, but emotions, too, are cultural artifacts” (13). Is he referring to ideas about emotions, ideas prompting emotions, or emotions themselves? Although I feel that the experience of emotion is one of the commonalities of human beings, I could not uphold the view that social conditioning plays no role in emotional expression. Emotional activity possesses a culturally-contingent dimension. Indeed “highly complex social codes governing such things as…birth, death, marriage” are necessarily dependent upon cultural values and thus differing from one context to another. However, are these highly complex social codes emotions themselves? Are they not mere stimuli for emotional response, catalysts and conduits merely channeling the experience of emotion? Why we feel what we feel is dependent, but what it is that we actually feel, in my opinion, is universal. If the experience of an emotion is intrinsically tied to the ‘reason why’ we feel an emotion, then how can we account feeling a certain emotion (e.g., anger), without knowing why? Social “feeling rules” can’t always apply, if so, we would always feel justified in feeling a certain way, but we don’t. There are many situations where we experience a certain emotion in tandem with the acknowledgement that we have no ‘right’ to feel so, yet we feel so nonetheless. The ‘right to feel a certain way’ is inevitably cultural and thus relative; the ‘feeling a certain way’ appears on some level to be uninfluenced by cultural norms. If, for example, we feel irritable, we may in fact be angered by a stimulus that isn’t culturally sanctioned as justification for anger. Our provocation may not in fact exist under other circumstances, but given our culturally independent irritability we are nevertheless provoked into a heightened state of anger. Of course, such issues depend largely on individual constitutions and predilections towards anger, etc. Such predilections often outweigh cultural sanctions for emotions, else there would be no danger of ‘road rage’ or need for ‘anger management’ instruction. One emotional response often exhibits an independence from (and even rebellion against) social dictates.


Catherine Lutz and Geoffrey M White report that “emotions are a primary idiom for defining and negotiating social relation of the self in a moral order” (14), in other words “moral emotions are moral judgments”. In order to bolster this claim, they invoke the sensation of shame/embarrassment. Their study was based on the Newar inhabitants of Nepal, among whom “hot, flushes red-faced feelings of embarrassment, and cold, metaphorically deathlike, empty feelings of shame, embody moral evaluations” (14). I find it interesting that shame differs from guilt in that for shame to take place, others must be present, while one experiences guilt in the presence of others and in solitude alike. Shame, then, necessarily involves a societal dimension. Shame no doubt is a useful tool for crafting and maintaining social norms, but it is the only type of emotion? What about emotions that occur in solitude, or even at a stage of development prior to the inculcation of social values. Take for example a young child in the toy department. She sees a toy and is instantly gleeful as she reaches out for it. Her parent allows her to play with it. Joy ensues. For thinkers like Michael Stocker, emotions (like the child’s, too, presumably) are not emotions, but rather are “emotionally held thoughts”, akin to Robert M Gordon’s claim that emotions bear a strong functional resemblance to belief. I wonder whether either of these individuals (no doubt fine scholars) have ever had such an experience with a child in the toy department. I wonder if they are able to attribute the child’s enthusiasm regarding Toy-Q to some sort of belief system. Also, I wonder whether or not the grief experienced by the child once confronted with the painful separation from Toy-Q at some point en route to the checkout counter could possibly be accounted for on the basis of indoctrination or cultural bias. My experience as a sales rep at Wal-Mart’s toy dept seven years ago counsels me otherwise.


In Christian’s “ Provoked Religious Weeping in Early Modern Spain”, we are presented with one specific form of piety – a sixteenth-century Catholic Spanish weeping, a clearly ‘learnt behavior’, dependent upon specific prescriptions of religiosity of a specific social context, seeking a specific outcome. May we regard this as representative of all weeping and indeed for grief itself? Does the fact that it was ‘learnt’ and non-spontaneous diminish its status as a bona fide emotional experience? I would like to applaud Ebersole for the extent to which the approach employed in his work “The Function of Ritual Weeping Revisited: Affective Expression and Moral Discourse” is non-reductionistic and intriguingly nuanced. As you are aware, Ebersole, too, shares in the culturally relativistic impulse to derive social significance from emotional response in the context of religion (specifically ritual). He in no way holds the view that ‘a tear is a tear is a tear’, and thus searches after the meaning associated with the shedding of tears, meaning which, invariably varies from one cultural, social, religious context to another. With respect to the actual emotional response, however, he exposes the extent to which our privileging of emotional spontaneity (as corroborative of authenticity, suggested by, e.g., by Durkheim, 204) is largely prejudicial. With regards to ritually/socially ‘scripted’ tears, Ebersole appears to uphold the notion, albeit implicitly, that ‘grief is grief is grief’, whether socially contrived or interpersonally inflicted. The experience, i.e., the feeling of grief, would be the similar (and probably comparable) regardless of the cause, context, or stimulus. On this basis, I hold that the social cues about how to be emotional shed no light on the emotional experience that those cures incited. The ‘feeling rules’ of a culture as represented in art, bureaucracy, family, dress, courtship, language, music, etc (18) is, for me, distinct from the actual feelings proper. Perhaps this is the distinction that accounts for why I cannot relate to cultural relativism with respect to emotional experience. I am referring to emotion, not the rules and representations thereof. The key word here is perhaps representation. All we can study are the representations, articulations, and expressions of emotions, which are necessarily culturally dependent to some degree. How may we as scholars enter into, or study the emotional experience itself? And yet again we find ourselves at the bottom of the slippery slope of experience…