“Textual power” and the subject of oral interpretation: An alternate approach to performing literature

Abstract

Contemporary theory in literary and performance studies has significantly effected oral interpretation pedagogy by broadening the idea of "text." Consequently, many oral interpretation courses now feature the analysis and performance of a variety of noncanonical or "nonliterary" verbal art forms. In this essay, we propose to supplement the changes in oral interpretation pedagogy brought about by the introduction of new texts by describing an alternate approach to analyzing and performing texts based on semiotic theory and Robert Scholes' model of reading.Recent theory in literary and performance studies poses a number of ideological and pedagogical challenges to the practice of oral interpretation, challenges that revolve around a variety of issues. 1 In what follows, we focus on one of these issues-the politics of textuality-to explore several ambiguities related to the teaching of reading and performance in undergraduate-level oral interpretation courses. We argue that semiotic theory should be used in such courses and that "theory" (with its elevated connotations in the undergraduate classroom) and "experimental" performance (which suggests a deviation from the norm) may be brought together to help students and teachers confront some of the social questions that invariably show up in oral interpretation classrooms. Using the terms reading, interpretation, and criticism, especially as these have been delineated by Scholes (1985Scholes ( , 1989, we describe an alternate approach to performing literature that focuses on questions of textuality, performance, and power. ORAL INTERPRETATION AND THE POLITICS OF TEXTUALITYFor much of this century, courses in oral interpretation have been considered most useful as a form of literary study, designed to help students gain an experiential knowledge of a literary text. By learning techniques for deciphering the character and situation of the dramatic speaker-in-the-text, and by embodying this speaker in a solo performance, students learned from the pleasures (and pains) of empathizing or identifying with the attitudinal complex of another (or an "Other") subjectivity. Because literature was projected as a special kind of writing, possessing specific aesthetic or formal properties and Michael S. Bowman is Assistant Professor and Cindy J. Kistenberg is a doctoral candidate in the

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“…Criticism in this study does not speak for Muslim women but filters these texts through critical perspectives and writings on culture, gender and identity. Bowman and Kirstenberg (1992) argue that textual power allows the marginalized to comment on oppressive structures. Critique exposes texts that can, "change the ways we think and live" (Pollock, 1992, p. 60).…”