Guide to Week 1: Thursday

        To get a sense of what basic strategies of reading and interpretation we initially bring to the course, we will compare the reading and interpretive moves we make, and the doubts we express, in our reading protocols on Hemingway's "One the Quai at Smyrna."  What rules were you following as you read, and how many of us shared those rules?  Test your reasons for even the most simple rules (e.g., did you consider the collection's title as part of the story's meaning?; did you read the table of contents to see how the story fit into the collection?; did you read anything else to help you read the story?;  do you have doubts about whether this is a legal "story" at all?).  Are there rules you followed that you believe we also should follow but currently do not?  For an interesting philosophical attempt to define four basic rules for ordinary communication, see H.P. Grice's "Maxims" (AKA, "the cooperative principle").  Artistic language might be identifiable precisely because it violates Grice's maxims in one or more ways.

        Then we will test our rules for good interpretive behavior on the "Michael[.]" exercise.  Be aggressive and push your interpretive speculations to their limits.  Remember that theory governs our interpretation of everything we read, including ordinary reality, but we often are not aware of theory's operations until "ordinary" or "normal" no longer apply.  What interpretative methods do we agree are important/legal and which are dangerous/illegal when interpreting literature.  How can theory guide our attempts to read really strange objects, including objects that are not even "literature"?

Web Page--Things we did while reading Hemingway--2007.