Level 4, Intermediate, Post 3, 'Themed Free Post'
Warm Salutations
Prospective Social Scientists from FACSO,
This week, I am bringing to you the third out of ten blog sessions.
In this particular session, you will be asked to do the following class assignment:
- Comments: Leave a comment on your post + 3 of your classmates' posts
- Word Count: 180 words
- You are free to write any topic you want to, in any manner.
As usual, I will leave you a sample. This time an extract from a literature essay that me and a classmate wrote a few years ago,
"The Scarlet Letter as a biformous narrative: Characterization.
Hawthorne’s novel, ‘The Scarlet Letter’ can be said, inhabits ‘biformity’, a term which has been coined by Michael Kammen in his essay ‘Biformity: A Frame of Reference’. More particularly, the novel’s ‘biformity’ can be found in the construction of one of its main characters, Hester Prynne.
As a starting point, ‘Biformity’ can be shaped as an ambivalent state of two opposing philosophical and moral forces that, “Subject people to more extreme contrasts and abrupt changes during a lifetime or a generation than is normally the case with other great nations” (Kammen, 101) Moreover, ‘biformity’, is said to develop “a tension between newer and older human ways of acting and believing”. (Kammen, 99)
‘Biformity’ can also be explained through the creation of a national identity, a creation of a collided and contradictory identity, which furthers back in time to the creation of the Puritan collective. America`s first settlers are said to be contradictory as well, or, as a better term can encompass, America’s first settlers might possibly have lived in a ‘biformity’, or, as Kammen points out, to have lived in ‘extreme contrasts and abrupt changes during a lifetime’ (Kammen, 101).
Such are the contrasts that the national American character proposes, that ‘biformity’ falls into a further conceptualization concerned with its historical and philosophical implications, as Leo Marx points out: “The dialectical tendency of mind – the habit of seeing life as a collision of radical opposed forces and values – has been accentuated by certain special conditions of experience in America”. (Kammen, 107)
The character of American people, according to Marx, is said to have a dialectical tendency to see the conformation of life as a radical collision of opposed forces. Reality for American people is dialectical, in constant contradiction, and within this apparent struggle of opposing forces, the national character of America emerges". (...)
References
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Wordsworth Editions Limited. 1992.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter: An authoritative text. Essays in Criticism and Scholarship, Third Edition. WW Norton and Company. 2005
Kammen, Michael. People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization. Knopf, New York. 1972.
Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and The Profane: The Nature of Religion. Harcourt, Inc. 1957.
It's the first time i read about Hawthorne and Kammen, i also didn't know the concept the "biformity". It seems a very interesting novel, i think i'm gonna add to the list of book i wanna read in quarantine. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI did not understand much of what I was reading, but I comply with post my comment. dont leave your home if not necessary :( Regards!
ReplyDeleteInteresting comparison, In my opinion the contradictions are everywhere, they are part of life
ReplyDeleteIs like Hegel said about life, a contradiction. I love It!
ReplyDeleteIt is the first time that I have heard the term "biformity", but I find it very interesting, and perhaps it portrays one of the most properly human aspects, the constant learning to coexist with the contradiction.
ReplyDeleteGreetings.
Like many in here I've never heard about that concept, what I've lived tho is this contradictory state and the comparison of my decisions in really extreme situations, even when you're a really moral person, as humans we tend to fall more for our needs and contradict what we say to follow
ReplyDeleteHave a nice day (ᐛ)ﾉﾞ
I knew about the book but I had never read what it was about, I find the concept very interesting, I had never heard it. I think that at the end of the day it's about life, about contradictions, about a constant living by mixing the past and what's coming.
ReplyDeleteLike my teammates, i didn't know the concept, but wiht the little essay, i understand a lot about it. And its really interesting. I think this biformity applies a lot in politics in US, wiht democrats and republicans, and a lot of conflicts, that, with variables, act as like dualities. I think its a really good way to get into the discussion of the idiosincrasy in US.
ReplyDeleteGood to read u, regards!
Hi René, it's interesting to know about the Biformity concept, always is great to learn something new. But as one of my classmates, I think evrything is full of contradictions, is part of life.
ReplyDeletewowow, read this wasn't easy, but i think every day we can learn something new. Thanks René for share this with us
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ReplyDeletethe book sound interesting, I'm going to add it to my list of books to read
ReplyDelete*sounds
Deletehellouuuuu teacher ! wooow that concept more interesting and full of contradictions, thank you very much for sharing your knowledge :D
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ReplyDeleteit's very interesting
neither the term of biformity nor the author had heard them before, thank you for sharing that fragment with us
ReplyDeleteoh i never ear the concept of biformity before
ReplyDeletewhat kind of discipline use it comonely?
Perhaps the ancestral relationship with the land creates resistance to change since there is a way of being and doing with which it is deeply rooted (Bourdieu's "habitus"). Then the changes would be slower.
ReplyDeleteThe American colonists didn´t have that relationship with the American land, they did not have to defend themselves against colonizers and they wanted to progress according to the modern era. I´m not surprised by its biformity
OMG, I Had never listen about that concept before, thanks for sharing with us new things. Maybe the concept can be use for other discipline too.
ReplyDeletesee you in class.
I never heard of "biformity", however it seems to me a very interesting concept. I would like us to talk about it in class or when the opportunity arises. Regards!
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ReplyDeleteI had never read the concept of biformity
I had never read about this concept and as the text is in English I am not sure I have understood correctly, I will look for it in Spanish to understand it better!
ReplyDeleteI had never heard of the concept before, and found it interesting. In that sense, and from what I could understand, is the Chilean identity thinkable as a biformity? I say this thinking about this clash between colonizing and indigenous culture and how the latter has been historically denied.
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