Today was my first full day back
on campus after a four month break. I
left on May 6th and returned today.
It was a remarkable summer in Maine, and the impact it had on me was
felt immediately when I walked across campus to my office. Hofstra is a registered arboretum, which
means it has at least one example of every kind of tree in New York State. I share this because the intensity of the
tree life on campus was so real this morning, and I had to believe it was the
result of the amount of time I spent in and around the forests of Maine and New
Hampshire. And that consciousness of vitae arbor (tree life, the force of the
life of trees) is one that continued to capture me as I made my way back to
good ole 29 Sunset Drive, the home where I was raised and where I will take up
residence during the semester when I am teaching at Hofstra. This town is aptly named Summit, for it is a
collection of hills that flow into the Watchung Mountain range. 29 Sunset Drive sits atop one of those
hills, and the back yard spill into a forest that is home to birds, chipmunk,
squirrel, raccoon, deer, possum, and from what I’ve been told this evening, the
occasional black bear! So there is some
important continuity being experienced here via the trees, a continuity that
takes me right back to where I left off with the legend of Zarathustra!
“Zarathustra remained shy and
silent throughout the meal, laughing when the caretaker recounted his view of
Don Quixote’s prick encounter. Quixote, who also found the story amusing, left
the company at pains to breathe when he said, ‘That holly is more prick than
bush, she is.’ There shared the
giddiness of weary travellers, mirth brought on from the food and drink that
shoots to the top and lightens the head, before falling straight to the bottom
of empty stomachs. As bellies were
filled, the travellers lay down in the shade for smoke and sleep, both of which
were aided by the caretaker who provided them with dried leaf for their pipes
and stories…as they drifted off into an intense siesta.
“The caretaker’s stories
captivated the silent Zarathustra. He
listened with rapt attention to the tales of the river, forest and mountain.
‘Life is bountiful here,’ and, ‘ I should like to remain here,’ thought
Zarathustra as he drifted off into sleep.
In
his dream he was a caretaker, hauling buckets of cool clear water from the
river to the shelters of the forest. At
one of the shelters he encountered a rather grim looking group who receive him
with disdain. They had an air of
haughtiness about them, and seemed to feel ‘entitled’ to his services. ‘Is that all you bring?!’, barked one of the
group whose head was covered in a multicolored scarf, and whose face wore the
scars of many battles. ‘Where is the
meat? We are hungry!’ Zarathustra
remained silent, despite the humiliation he was feeling. ‘Look,’ said the
scarred face one in a mocking tone, ‘this one can not speak. Perhaps we should try to address him with the
‘words’ of the trees.’ Laughter arose
between the group as Zarathustra left the lean-to. ‘Why do they mock me?’ he
said to no one in particular. ‘They do
not mock you,’ a voice said. He turned
to face a tall hemlock. ‘The disdain
they show reflects the weariness of their legs, for they are tired from a long
journey. But it is also a reflection of
the fear that is trapped deep in their hearts.
These travellers wander with the spirit of those whose lives are filled
with the fear of death, unable to remain at peace with their mortality. They
see their finitude as a foe that lurks in every dark corner, hiding and ready
to pounce upon them. Every being they
encounter appears as a threat to them.
They live to consume or destroy what threatens them. Theirs is not the wandering of a community,
but the desperate flight of the lonely ones, who gather, by chance and with
much trepidation. They move not with the
dynamic equilibrium you experience here as part of this forest community. No.
See there how their limbs tremble, how they have moved from the
excitement of mockery to a sudden state of alarm and agitation. What threatens them?’ Zarathustra turned to see two members of the
group shoving one another, while others shouted. Suddenly the shoving turned to grappling, and
the two tumbled into an oak barrel, smashing one side of it. Water burst forth
flooding the lean-to and soaking everything therein. This only produced more agitation amongst the
group who turned against the two who had caused the flood. Knives were brandished, howls and shrieks
filled the glade, sending a pair of turtle doves fleeing from their perch above
the moshing. The once clear water now
cascaded over the edge of the lean-to with the rusty red mixture of blood,
sweat, and dirt. A strange silence
ensued. Zarathustra turned back to the
hemlock, its crown towering high above the grim and grimy scene below. Eyes shut, he lowered his head.
“Opening his eyes he awoke from
his strange dream to find the serene face of the caretaker regarding him in a
calm and reassuring manner. ‘Are you
thirsty?’ The caretaker handed
Zarathustra a mug of water. He sat up
and drained the mug. The caretaker
filled it again. ‘Your friends bid you
safe travels,’ said the caretaker as he returned the mug to Zarathustra, who
then leaped to his feet, and in a moment of desperation, ran into the forest,
only to trip over the lazy root of an enormous oak. ‘Why have they let me sleep for so long? Why have they left without me?,’ Zarathustra said
softly. ‘You are not alone. You are in the company of good friends, you
stranger. Rest here, for the mountains
call for you, and soon you must make the long ascent to the peaks standing high
above this forest community.’
“Zarathustra lifted himself from
the ground, raised his head and was gathered by the resolute bearing of the
might oak. He turned back to the caretaker
who held out the cup Zarathustra had dropped during his flight into the forest.”(09/04/04,
the entirety of the material written this day ten years ago, with only small
edits)
3.0 (Wednesday, Portland, ME) I just submitted the abstract for the PES Phenomenology and Existentialism SIG panel that will be organized for the 2025 conference. It was around 10 years ago that Tyson and myself organized the SIG. So it's a bit ironic that I am submitted a proposal, but only if one takes the arrogant view on such matters, as if a founder is ineligible to submit a proposal. The proposal, which I will share below, isn't bad. I'm not sure if it's compelling enough, even though I propose sharing of a segment of a hypothetical radio broadcast. I definitely feel myself a bit out of touch with the current discourse and lexicons of the field. Nevertheless, I submit and will let the reviewers decide my fate. As I wrote in yesterday's 3.0 commentary, this is a bit of turning point for me. If the proposal is accepted, I will go to PES. If it's not accepted, I'm done once and for all with PES, and I will make the turn toward the writing of fiction! (Reading back the tale of Quixote and Zarathustra, and recalling the joy of that writing, it seems that perhaps the turn toward the writing of fiction is way overdue. The publication of "LEARN" will be a nice conclusion to more than 30 years of writing/thinking!) I'm wide open to either scenario, although I suspect the turning of tide is coming. Reading back to the 2.0 commentary I'm so relieved that I will not be commuting to Hofstra this week, or the following. Sabbatical!! This time next week I'll be back up in Bar Harbor, editing the first draft of "LEARN"!!!
ReplyDelete3.0b (Before sharing the proposal, I wanted to note that the prickly Holly Tree featured in the story was modeled on a Holly that was in the back yard of the old Kenwood Street house.).
ReplyDelete“Teaching Catastrophe: Learning from and Reproducing Benjamin’s Radio Pedagogy”
Between 1929-1933, Walter Benjamin’s voice was broadcast into the homes of Germans on the airwaves of Radio Frankfurt and Berlin. This presentation engages with Benjamin’s radio pedagogy as a model that could be replicated as we grapple with teaching climate change and racial injustice, among other tribulations of our times. Benjamin wrote and delivered upwards of 90 radio broadcasts for children. As Hannah Arendt reminds us, for Benjamin “truth” is an acoustical phenomenon, a “revelation which must be heard, that is, which lies in the metaphysically acoustical sphere.” (Arendt,1968,49) And Tyson Lewis describes the phenomenological force of Benjamin’s broadcasts: “Sound has the ability to produce a shock related to the happening of events, reviving them by returning them to consciousness. Sound can call children into the past (as in echo) and can thrust them into the ‘invisible stranger’ of the future.” (Lewis, 2020, 68)
Benjamin’s radio pedagogy is a part of his phenomenology of fragments and his unique methodology of collecting. (Benjamin, 1968) Radio provided him with a medium to share his collection of stories. One of the most compelling tales, which is a focus of this presentation, is “The Mississippi Flood of 1927.” (Benjamin, 2014) It is a story of existential struggle and survival, as well as an ominous forecast of catastrophic political events to come at home and abroad. Delivered in March 1932 on Radio Berlin, the broadcast offered an allegory of dictatorship, describing the struggle between the hubris of state officials versus the local knowledge of farmers, a story that took the listener right into the rising waters inundating the farmlands, killing hundreds and displacing over 200,000 African Americans. “The Mississippi Flood of 1927” is an intersectional story indicating how the dictatorship that unleashed the fury of the river also reopened the floodgates of racial oppression and violence with the official deputizing of the Ku Klux Klan, “Judge Lynch and the other unsavory characters that have populated the human wilderness of the Mississippi, and still populate it today.” (Benjamin, 2014, 180).
3.0c - What can we learn from listening to Benjamin’s radio pedagogy? Benjamin was captivating his young listeners with strange but true stories, while also conveying to them how a catastrophe is a sudden overturning of the taken for granted order of everyday life. His stories allowed children to venture into the past and to faraway places, and in the process helped them negotiate the calamities they experienced in their own world, encouraging them to perceive what Foucault describes as cracks or fissures in the order of things.(Foucault, 2003) While they certainly had the effect of frightening some children, his manner of telling the stories was intended to calmly remind them that a catastrophe is a crisis, a revolutionary moment, an opportunity for existential change, a sudden turn of events that could lead to new social relations.
ReplyDeleteWith the intention of imagining ways to reproduce Benjamin’s radio pedagogy, this presentation offers a concise review of the mass/social media educational projects being made by philosophers of education, indicating both what is promising and discouraging about these productions. The most notable difference between Benjamin and contemporary philosophers of education is the media platform. Contemporary philosophers of education are producing podcasts. In turn, this presentation will propose ways to replicate Benjamin’s experiment over the radio waves, specifically through noncommercial community and college radio stations, and will conclude with the playing of a brief selection from “The Insurrection of the Capitol, January 6, 2021,” an original Benjaminian inspired story for children that was read during a special segment of the presenter’s weekly radio program.