I often like to start essays with a quote or short anecdote.
I see it as an act of centering oneself; a moment of mindfulness in the swirling
mass of thoughts and possibilities:
One of the questions
I still haven’t fully resolved in terms of my thesis outline is: How am I going
to read the literature? What am I really hoping to achieve and demonstrate in
my analysis of the literary texts? And I think what’s really important about
this section, is that I write what I want to write.
Essentially, everything I write should be authentic for and meaningful to me
as well as the reader.
When I was
desperately trying to finish my research project last semester (and yes,
surprisingly for me, it was rather last minute!), one of the parts that
frustrated me and I struggled with the most was applying the leadership theory
to the short story. As I was writing that section I knew deep down that it
wasn’t what I wanted to write. It didn’t really have any meaning for me, as
both author and reader, and subsequently, it felt rather contrived (which showed!).
One of my other key concerns was that by reading a cultural work in this way,
especially since 'leadership' was a secondary concern to racial issues in the
short story, I was reducing it to fit a neat model that was too reductive and
subsequently, overly simplistic.
I’ve noticed that
when I am writing merely to achieve a grade, no matter how technically good the
piece is, it will never be excellent. In these cases, there is always a feeling
of stiltedness.
Disconnection.
Disengagement...No moment/s of epiphany. The ‘so what’ remains
frustratingly elusive.
So I feel that more
than anything, I want what I write about for, say, The Lifeboat or The
Invention of Wings, to be engaging, persuasive, provocative and
authentic/genuine/true for me as well as others. I think I’ve been getting too
caught up in the idea that I have to completely divorce literary analysis from
my subjective ‘interpretative’ readings of the texts. That my analysis has to
be strikingly precise and wholly relevant to business leaders – raising questions
which will instantly encourage reflective practice and, ultimately, ‘change'
people for the better. And this isn’t a bad goal. In fact, this is what I
believe good literature has the power to do. But is it the right or only
objective for this thesis, at this particular point in time?
I’ve been looking back at some of my favourite English
literature essays, particularly the ones concerned with thematic analysis and
sociological criticism, trying to decipher what exactly made them so compelling
(and why I loved writing them!!).
For example, in my essay “‘Voicing’ and ‘Identifying’ Sexual
Violence in the Congo and Iraq” the problem/issue presented is political: “In
patriarchal societies and cultures, the battle for domination and nation-wide
control is played out on the powerless and faceless female body.”
But women’s literature has the power to speak about this
issue in a different, more inclusive and expressive way than purely factual reports
or non-fiction ever can. And it is through the medium of theatre that two
female authors, Heather Raffo & Lynn Nottage, are able to give the
previously ‘faceless female bodies’ powerful “new ‘voices’ and identities,
freeing them to tell their own stories and become more than just another rape
statistic.”
Similarly, in another essay titled “The Struggle for
Author/ity: Interrogating the Colonising Acts of Writing and Reading in J.M.
Coetzee’s Foe,” I investigated the
novel’s overarching concerns with the colonising activity of writing and
reading and subsequently, the ensuing power struggle for authorship and
identity. The main thrust of the essay was to consider how Foe engaged with the ‘reader’ and involved him/her in the reading
and writing process.
Rather than separating ideas/theory from close textual
analysis, I considered the methods Coetzee used to convey his message and the affect
this has on the reader. By writing in metatextual form, using opposing binaries
and changing narrative patterns throughout the novel, Coetzee places the reader
in a unique position, spurring him/her on to question the very nature of
language and the ideologies which inform his/her own beliefs on patriarchy,
colonialism, feminism and race.
I think this form of theoretical + textual analysis leads on
naturally to deeper reflective practice and discussion, for example:
In the end then, Coetzee
challenges the reader to demystify the writer’s art, to find within Foe traces of other sounds or voices,
and to interrogate any attempt at authority (Maher 40). This small journey of
discovery leads to greater questions about the struggle for authority and power
in colonised nations, as well as the ideological assumptions that encode a
reader’s own stories and beliefs. Like Susan, “I” must ask, “Who is speaking
me? To what order do I belong? And you: who are you?” (133).
So what does this mean for me? How can I
potentially harness this ‘method’ of analysis in my thesis?
In The
Literary Theory Toolkit (2011), Herman Rapaport explains that in the
application of a critical approach to literary analysis, ‘examples’ or selected
texts/narratives should work in such a way that they help explain and develop a
theory that to many people makes no sense without a ‘key’: “The theory
should illuminate a work, and a work should illuminate a theory” (p. 9).
Rapaport goes on to describe “art’s purpose,” noting that ‘art’ has the
potential to “revolutionise our perception in such a way that we won’t see the
world as we ordinarily do. In this sense, it is as if literary language itself
were a sort of revolutionary hero that reforms the fallen (automatic, habitual)
thinking” (p. 15).
In some ways this is
very similar to what Badaracco attempts to achieve in Questions of
Character, particularly with regards to what it means and requires to
be/come a more ethical and moral leader in the twenty-first century. However,
his analysis of classic literature tends to lack depth in terms of leadership
theory, as well as focusing more on ‘great man’ constructs of leader =
leadership. This is most likely because the book is geared towards mainstream
audiences who want a ‘practical’ step-by-step guide as opposed to an
academically rigorous approach.
However, by
thoughtfully incorporating theory on women’s leadership with storytelling (or
re-telling?) and textual/rhetorical analysis, I believe the novels/plays/short
stories I select will be able to 'voice' something important about contemporary
women’s leadership and followership. Especially since good literature can
articulate alternatives to dominant worldviews by making thought as
felt and feeling as thought (Williams, 1977).
Rather than being purely reflective (as I tried to do in my
research project), my role (as I tread the fine line between leadership specialist/management
facilitator and literary analyst) should be to eloquently summarise,
illuminate, analyse, and provide questions which give female leaders and
aspiring leaders a ‘key’ which will help them both understand leadership from a
different perspective (the voice of the ‘Other’) and encourage meaningful reflective practice.
Creating ‘space’ for the reader to engage in new ways with women’s leadership
issues and “working to relate the extraordinariness of
imaginative literature to the ordinariness of cultural processes” (Filmer, 2003,
p. 199).
I will leave it at that for now (along with another inspiring quote, this time by Ursula K. Le Guin!) as I have a whole
lot more reading to do on storytelling and narrative methods…Part 2 will follow
as soon as I have completed the next stage of research!
References:
Filmer, P. (2003). “Structures of feeling and socio-cultural
formations: The significance of literature and experience to Raymond Williams's
sociology of culture.” The British
Journal of Sociology, 54, 199-219.
Rapaport, H. (2011). The
literary theory toolkit: A compendium of concepts and methods. Chichester,
UK. John Wiley & Sons Limited.
Williams, R. (1977). “Structures of Feeling.” Marxism and Literature. Oxford, UK:
Oxford UP.
