February 21, 2006
Interdisciplinary Literature Review: Humor in Odessa
Students are preparing grant proposals, and literature reviews are becoming an issue again. I want to share the literature review produced by Eugenie Kim and Alex Lerner for their grant to do research on humor in Odessa. This is very well done, but what is also interesting is the fact that the project is interdisciplinary, combining methdologies from social science and humanities as part of one project. Very neat, and something to learn from. Take a look:
In Search of Humor: Myth and Memory in Modern Odessa
"People will claim that what I am saying smacks of tall tales. Well, I assure you that these are not tall tales! There is much more than meets the eye. Dark-haired Odessans simply bring with them a little lightness and sunshine…Well, fine. So I am biased, I admit it. Maybe I am extremely biased, but parole d’honneur, there is something to this place!"
--Isaac Babel
Background:
Amidst the oppressive shroud of anti-Semitism, the crowded, gritty bustle of Jewish shtetl neighborhoods, and the comfortless reality of deficits and crime, Odessa emerged as the proverbial "pearl of the Black Sea." This southern hub of commerce, unimpressive in its size and political stature, became the unlikely wellspring of the thinkers and writers who defined a generation of Russian Jews and bequeathed the rich intellectual and cultural legacy of the Diaspora.
The chaotic jumble of diverse voices and foreign tongues that resonated in the streets of this cosmopolitan port city made Odessa an incarnation of the biblical Tower of Babel. In the Odessan tradition of felicitous irony it is perhaps fitting, then, that the singular figure who ascended to embody and immortalize the legendary wit of Odessa was none other than Isaac Babel. Building on the homespun satires of Sholem Aleichem, Babel both distilled and disseminated the consciously wry and self-deprecating wit that typified the celebrated Odessan sensibility.
A noteworthy peculiarity of this sensibility lies in the extent to which it was informed by the worldview of a minority—a Jewish author writing about Jewish culture from the disenfranchised margins of Odessan society. Sardonic, bantam humor was inadvertently fostered by the undertow of political and religious repression during the tumultuous transition of the '920s from tsarist to soviet rule, and proved pivotal in sustaining the psychological and cultural vitality of Jewish Odessans. Quips like "if you want to eat, know how to sell the sleeves of a vest" allowed Jews to momentarily slip out of their blighted existence, to defiantly wink at the "tsuris" (troubles) that should have made them weep. Babel's stories so faithfully apprehended this distinctively Jewish-Odessan humor and bristled with such irresistible verve that even Russian gentiles came to deploy Babelian witticisms and, to this day, can recite whole passages from the "Odessa Stories."
Though the wit of Babel and his contemporaries is now a relic from a bygone era—when anxieties inherent to the "civilizing process" ['] and confrontations with modernity produced a unique comedic ethos—humor continues to permeate and reinforce the identity of modern Odessa. This persistent cultural identification with Odessa's comedic heritage, and the fierce pride that revolves around it, is the focus of our intended research. We are fascinated by Odessan humor and how it exists as a living concept in the imaginations of different social groups today. In our explorations of the Jewish underpinning of Odessan culture, we hypothesize to find that the once authentic and bold humor subsists today largely as a vestige of the past golden age of literature and intellect.
Review of Literature:
In the early '970s, Slavic studies scholar Maurice Friedberg conducted interviews with Odessan émigrés and produced what remains the only sociological study of Odessans [2]. Friedberg's intent was to paint a portrait of life in the city and though he was conscious of the "genuine affection and nostalgia so often found in the accounts" [3] he heard, he did not attempt to probe the role of myth as a confounding variable in assessing the Odessan memory. Though Friedberg titled his book after Babel's renowned short story, "How Things Were Done In Odessa," he acknowledges but does not investigate humor as a foundational component of Odessan identity. In the past thirty years the city's cultural landscape has experienced drastic alterations: the mass exodus of Jews and the abrupt dissolution of communism. The resulting political relaxation has opened up new possibilities for studying within the actual borders of the once-restricted eastern bloc, and for filling the gap in scholarship since the demographic shift of a diminished Jewish presence.
Historians Steven Zipperstein and Patricia Herlihy have written detailed accounts of Odessan Jewry and Odessan general history, respectively. While both scholars mention the sunny image of Odessa that persisted even after the golden age of the early '900's, their major works extend no further than the Russian Revolution of '9'7 [4], and therefore cannot shed light on how Odessa's past continues to be refracted through the present imagination. As historians of Odessa it is inevitable that Herlihy and Zipperstein encounter the vital cultural aspect of Odessan wit, but they use the writings of literary humorists as a historical source, a kind of textual snapshot of a bygone era. Rather than analyzing how writers such as Babel and Aleichem perceived the people of Odessa, we propose to capture the crux of Odessan identity by exploring how the people of Odessa perceived their literary humorists. By inverting traditional historical methodology and by focusing on Odessans' connection to humor, we face the prospect of understanding in a modern context how "the more [Odessa] deteriorated, the more she adorned and embellished herself" [5] with fantasies of her own uniqueness and grandeur. We are interested in studying Odessan humor not as a historically interred artifact but as a breathing entity that intimately informs Jewish and Russian identity today. To do so requires not only an objective, scholarly knowledge of the city's past, but also familiarity with the wistful, folkloric impressions and ornate memories of Odessa that individuals continue to cultivate and harbor.
Theorizing the commodification of culture, performance and Hebrew studies scholar Barbara Kirschenblatt-Gimblett describes issues surrounding the "agency of display" in museums, fairs, and tourist attractions [6]. For Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, "heritage is not lost and found, stolen and reclaimed…Rather, the heritage industry is a new mode of cultural production and it produces something new" [7]. Her conception of heritage as an "industry" will be a useful to our analysis of the tangible exponents of Odessan humor in monuments, souvenirs, museums, plaques, and billboards. However, the scope of our research requires a move beyond the formal production of cultural legacy through artifacts and pandering to tourism, and necessitates an interpretation of heritage as it exists informally in the minds of native Odessans.
In his book "Comic Effects: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Humor in Literature," Paul Lewis says that the contemporary "study of humor in literature continues to be shaped by two dated and, therefore, limiting methodologies" [8]. The first methodology is widely advocated by literary critics, who use universalist theories of humor—Freud’s psychoanalytic explanation of jokes as escaped expressions of unconscious impulses [9], Bergson's notion of the mechanical as humorous and laughter as the corrective force ['0], Schopenhauer's and Kant's incongruity theories in which the violation of perception or expectation is funny [''], Hobbes's premise of sudden glory where laughter is a function of superiority ['2], and Bakhtin's idea that hegemony is subverted by the comedy of carnival and chaos ['3]—to analyze comedic instances within literature. The second methodology, espoused by social scientists and psychologists, rejects the belief that derivations of humor are universal and focuses on empirical research and case studies to understand humor in a specific, individual context. Because of the scholarly chasm between these two research methods, Lewis claims that humor research today is fundamentally flawed and calls for a comprehensive approach that incorporates both literary criticism and social science. In our research we plan to bridge the gap between these two opposing disciplines, comparing literary criticism of Jewish-Odessan humor with our own data collected from fieldwork and interviews to arrive at a more complete understanding of the social function of Odessan humor.
Criticism of Odessan literary humorists abounds, with the majority capitalizing on the rich theories of Jewish wit ['4]. Odessa has historically been a haven for Russian Jews and thus many scholars perceive Jewish identity as a latent force at the origin of Odessan humor. Many academics find an avowal of the framework of Jewish wit in Odessan fictional heroes, particularly in Sholem Aleichem's milkman Tevye, a wry self-deprecating protagonist who sardonically shrugs his shoulders at his blighted existence and life's cruel twists of fate ['5]. It is paradoxical that out of the dismal circumstances of economic depression, pogroms, and political disenfranchisement emerged a "most richly distinctive humor" in Jewish Eastern Europe ['6]. Two different theoretical principles offer explanations for the creation and proliferation of the comedic Jewish sensibility fathered by Aleichem: Norbert Elias's civilizing process and the general theory of subculture. Elias's description of civilization and the development of the modern bourgeois world ['7] can be used to supply an understanding of Jewish humor—as Jews assimilated into the dominant Western culture, laughter soothed the embarrassment of missteps and the trials of cultural transition. At the same time that the marginalized community was learning to make light of the adversity of attempting to enter a governing culture, they nevertheless reveled in their distance as a subculture by ridiculing the values of the majority ethos. Though these theories are helpful in understanding the wellspring of Jewish wit, we are in search of cultural significance of humor for Jews and non-Jews in contemporary Odessa. In analyzing the humor of today's Odessa it would be facile to apply these theories, which are more appropriate to describe the pre-modern era, to the vastly changed landscape of the city. Despite drastic political and cultural shifts such as the mass departure of Jewish intellectuals, the political upheavals of a sloppy democratic election, and large-scale and zealous privatization, Odessans' pride in and identification with the humorists of the early twentieth century remain steadfastly unchanged. We propose to perform an inquiry into Odessan humor that will delve beyond theories of its creation and explore the reasons behind its perpetuation and its inflated vision as a primary cultural cachet of Odessa.
Of the theories of Russian humor that do not concentrate on the Jewish aspect, Slavic studies scholar Lesley Milne's interpretation is the most substantial and provocative. Contrasting Gogolian tradition of "laughter through tears" with Rabelaisian variety of hearty belly laughter, Milne argues that "Ilf and Petrov created a new category of literary laughter for the Russian tradition," one that cherished humor for humor's sake and valued an "active, uncomplacent, youthful spirit" ['8]. Although her book was published just in 2003, Milne adamantly maintains an almost purely formalist treatment, a kind of pedantic approach that does not allow for common perspectives of how individuals, past or present, find meaning in humorists such as Ilf and Petrov in their daily lives.
In a paper presented at Harvard in March of 2005, Patricia Herlihy and Russian journalist Oleg Gubar discuss the modern state of Odessa as teetering on the brink of transformation. They discuss with considerable urgency that "steps must be taken for a makeover" ['9], and express concern that the Odessan myth stands as an obstacle to the city's regeneration. They write, "Odessits have become accustomed to the fact that nothing depends on them; they take no initiative, but treasure paperweights of mementoes and picturesque ruins" [20]. Professor of Russian and Jewish studies Alice Nakhimovsky proclaims a parallel moment of change in her 2003 essay on Mikhail Zhvanetskii, the prominent contemporary descendant of the long lineage Odessan humorists. Nakhimovsky boldly asserts that the unique cultural expression of Russian Jewry "may have reached a historical end…along with it goes an important source of Jewish ironic humor" [2']. In light of this possibility for change, now is a critical time to understand the nature of the Odessan myth as it is manifested through a comedic sensibility and preserved as an evolving reality in the minds of Odessans today. Through our project we hope to contribute to the incipient field of humor research, to converge interdisciplinary methodology in novel ways, and to identify the issues that are pertinent and significant to the present condition of Odessa.
Posted by hilton at 07:43 PM | Comments (0)
December 12, 2005
Literature Reviews
Students are often baffled by literature reviews. What are they supposed to accomplish? They are particularly difficult for students in the humanities, since most research formats in literary studies, history and other disciplines in the humanities do not include an explicit literature review section.
I wrote a little description of what’s involved in writing a literature review, and you can read it here. The shortest definition, though, is that a literature review provides the meaningful context of your project within the universe of already existing research.
Included here is a literature review written for an undergraduate grant proposal for a Cultural and Social Anthropology honors project. It is not as extensive as it would be in a thesis, but it is very effective. What I reproduce here is not the entire proposal, only the beginning, yet as an example of a literature review, it’s an excellent example and worth looking at. Let us know what you think.
"Within These Walls: The Legacy of Spanish Colonial Identity in Manila’s Walled City" by Matthew Zafra.
Within the walls of Manila’s Intramuros, the original Spanish settlement, the Spanish colonial influence onto the nation and people persists through Intramuros’ continued usage and significance to the modern city; through ethnography and archaeology, this study aims to analyze modes through which the Filipino people and government interact with and represent their history and identity. I hope to examine the conflict between everyday functional uses of the site by its inhabitants, the traditional, bygone uses of an elite class, and the increasing gentrification, as mediated by the management of and renovation by the Intramuros Administration. Pedestrian surveys, questionnaires, archival research, and interviews with key governmental agencies and community advocates will address questions about the continued role and importance of Intramuros in terms of its spatial and cultural legitimacy to modern Filipino identity. This approach to a study of Intramuros drives understanding into the inner workings not only of Manila the city, but that of the people themselves in relation to their past, their government, and their presentation to the world at large.
INTRODUCTION
Modern archaeological interpretation has recently begun to place more attention on the everyday lives within societies rather than only focusing on the monuments that they build. From this stance, we can understand the legacy of monuments not as remnants, but as living representations and influences on modern society. My research will look at Intramuros, the original Spanish settlement in the heart of Manila. Indeed, as a monument, the physical presence of Intramuros and its relevance and restoration today indicates a governmental, regional, and cultural significance of the site beyond its geographical constraints. Intramuros may indeed be an example of the imposition and reiteration of the 350 years of Spanish colonial rule long after independence. My methods will engage research in archaeology and anthropology to understand the ways that local Filipinos interact with and represent their history. The recent restoration efforts at an understudied site such as Intramuros also present an opportunity to reflect on Filipino identity formation and a long—running power struggle for the character of the space itself. As Michel Foucault writes, "A whole history remains to be written about spaces— which would at the same time be the history of powers… from the great strategies of geopolitics to the little tactics of the habitat" (Foucault 1980:14).
PROPOSAL
In this project, I intend to explore how the government, through the Intramuros Administration, represents Filipino identity through the colonial monuments of Intramuros, and how has this changed and affected the everyday lives of people within Intramuros, and the Filipino people as a whole? What is the importance of Intramuros, designated as a "History Town," to the urban image of Manila itself? Given that the government’s restoration and renovation is a relatively recent and intentional phenomenon, what hierarchies select the dominant narratives to be expressed and represented, and whose experiences are swept under the proverbial rug? Further, I hope to explore the motives behind community organizations such as the Heritage Conservation Society, which aims to support the "conservation and rehabilitation of the historical patrimony" in Intramuros as a means of "forging a strong national identity" (Harper). This is a movement by the elite to preserve iconic, Spanish Intramuros. Thus, I also explore the authenticity of representation and its relevance to the present.
Current representations of colonial structures may suggest modes of hegemony long thought defeated that may still be at work in the government and society at large. Anthropologists, such as Ann Laura Stoler in her study, Carnal Knowledge of Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule, argue how colonialism is contingent upon racial hierarchies and conceptions. Using Stoler’s model, Intramuros is then a racialized space and gives insight into the experiences of both the rulers and the residents. For instance, historian Robert Reed identifies Intramuros as a symbol of the beginning of Spain’s "radical social, religious, and cultural transformation" of the Philippines (Reed 1978:11), and arguably, this transformation continues today. This carefully planned walled city, imposing its foreign governance, architecture, and design, made definitive changes to the progress of the Philippines as an urbanizing nation. In particular, Daniel Doeppers calls Intramuros at its conception an opportunity for Spain to "experiment with urban design on a scale unknown since Roman times" (Doeppers 1972:775), after having already honed such skills with previous colonial settlements in the New World. Further, historian Robert Reed deems Intramuros the "Spanish urban ideal" (Reed 1978:70). To Spanish and Filipinos alike, Reed calls Intramuros "the politico—religious nerve center of the archipelago and the material symbol of Spanish authority [and]… the military stronghold, the seat of government, the womb of the Catholic faith, and the exclusive residential quarter of the Spaniards" (Reed 1978:51). But even though by the 1860s the greater city, Metro Manila emerges in importance over what Reeds calls "the ultraconservative, traditional concept of Intramuros," to this day the Walled City still exemplifies the urban image of a historical Manila presented to the world through government programs to designate it as the Philippine heritage site.
Through the government’s recent involvement in the development of Intramuros as a prided cultural and historical icon, Intramuros still represents an "urban ideal." There are many connotations for Filipino identity— racial, social, and cultural— resulting from the lasting impressions and structures from its colonial past. Given Intramuros’ function as the "nerve center" of colonial Philippines, an analysis of its present role in society may address the nature of Filipino identity throughout its subjugation. The work done by historians has traced much of the colonial legacy to Intramuros, particularly conceptions of identity, the urban ideal, and its glorified past and heritage. The urban image frames the experience of visitors, foreign and domestic alike, to a city. Theorists on the urban image, such as Diane Favro, characterize the urban image as "always in a state of becoming" (Favro 1996:248). Theorists on the Philippines such as Doeppers, Borromeo and Pernia, have argued about the primary role of huge metropolises in developing countries, such as Manila, as crucial and definitive of the cultural, political and social constructions of the country. Such "primate" cities, often holding the great bulk of the country’s population, are important structures for analysis. Intramuros, then, at the heart of Manila, contributes to the image Manila and the country as well. Intramuros as the "History Town" is billed as the very roots of Manila’s founding; we may find meaning of the legacy of Hispanization in the Philippines as it is constructed and presented through the urban image of Intramuros.
My work seeks to understand the changes and persistence of this influence, and the complicity of government, popular, and foreign perceptions in this regard. A visitor to rustic and quaint Intramuros would find it not immune to hastily—swept evidence of poverty, but still in glaring contrast to the bustling traffic and squalor of much of Metropolitan Manila. "Modern cities have consciously labored to recapture the potency of a favored urban image from their past long after the historical physical environment has been lost" (Favro 1996:2), which is certainly the case in Intramuros. A focus on romantic Intramuros may ignore or conceal the realities of poverty and crowdedness in the rest of Manila. Further, Filipinos live and work amongst a Spanish setting, and, even as Spain has been officially absent, it is conspicuously present in the names of buildings and streets, widespread religious iconography, looming military structures, and even people’s surnames and the time and date. While the destruction of Intramuros from World War II shelling presented an opportunity for change, the government has chosen instead to renovate Intramuros back to reflect its Spanish foundation. The bureaucracy is careful to maintain the illusion of the weight of a history and tradition even as it may be irrelevant to the majority of lives in the Philippines. While the rest of Manila is given to sprawl and slums, Intramuros can be a space where the bureaucratic bodies can carefully "program" people’s interaction with the cityscape (Favro 1996:247). Yet, while Intramuros represents Philippine colonialism, there still remain unseen avenues for the expression of the diligence and solidarity of Filipino identity even as it has been vastly shaped by Spanish rule.
SIGNIFICANCE
Academic work regarding Intramuros has focused on historical accounts of politics and socioeconomic demographics. While these works account for changing social patterns as the city of Manila grew in size and significance around Intramuros, they insufficiently represent the individual experience. Archaeological work is supervised entirely by government agencies; thus, findings are subject to editing to fit iconographic displays of the militaristic and colonial life of the Spaniards and mestizos. An example would be the displays of artifacts at Casa Manila, a recreated house depicting the life of a Spanish illustrado during the 18th century. My intent is to expose and address some of the issues about the uses of space, and its implications for cultural identity, by understanding the individual experience and including those who live and work in the fissures and cracks, those unrecognized by bureaucratic and political dialogue. Previous studies have not yet taken into account the more recent increased government involvement in the presentation of Intramuros and their control over its material visual history. Moreover, most of the research on Intramuros comes before the wave of restoration that has occurred in conjunction with increased government involvement. We are now at the point of development where it would be timely to reevaluate the uses of space in a reconstructed Intramuros. My work will build on the first wave of colonial studies produced by Western—educated scholars, and incorporates a study of architectural space and uses of space in addition to elaborating on the resistance narratives of both the urban poor and the conservative elite.
The Philippines has long wrestled with distinguishing its identity from a dynamic and deep—seated cultural amalgamation of racial and ethnic influences— Chinese, Spanish, American, Malay— in blood composition as well as in culture. Aside from the churches widespread throughout the provinces, Intramuros does not correspond with much of Metro Manila’s changes since colonial times. The Western styles and businesses, shantytowns, and congested streets of Manila suggest not a Spanish ambience but a neocolonial Third World one. The case of Intramuros is essentially the dominant approach by the government to represent its Spanish history. Both the resistance and restoration in this regard can help measure changes in how national and cultural identities are consciously negotiated. While the ubiquitous Catholic faith represents one lasting legacy of Spanish influence, the Filipinos maintained linguistic and other subversive modes of cultural independence besides armed opposition. In the right lens, we can gleam these modes historically, culturally, and archaeologically. While much of academia has focused on the revolutionaries who used their Western educations and lifestyles to undermine their Western oppressors from within, perhaps future research can elaborate on the resistance narratives of the urban poor and the general populace during these times. While Intramuros represents a glorified and preserved past imposed by Spanish rule in much of the scholarly work done on the Philippines as cited above, it may be rather a living relic of the diligence and resolution of the Filipinos throughout their suppression. Thus, this study contributes to ideas about Filipino heritage and identity and the conflicts between state power and local agency. The results may establish a baseline from which we can look at other cases in the Philippines to better grasp the complex and often exploited Filipino spirit. This project however, has larger anthropological significance that makes it a case not unique to the Philippines. Through this study, we can look at ways that heritage and monuments are part of a continued representation of identities that are actively produced, and sometimes coerced, throughout time and history. This project also strives for a holistic approach beyond disciplinary boundaries, in engaging both anthropology and archaeology to address this issue of cultural production. From this local phenomenon, we can perhaps extrapolate insight into much broader categories of contemporary identity formation in a colonized and colonizing world.
Posted by hilton at 05:12 PM | Comments (1)