Blueprints for the Research Project

Main argument:

Matters of authority manipulates its own significance with the transaction and exchange that it experienced.

When we heard the word ‘transaction’ and ‘exchange’, it ought to refer towards the idea of benefit and loss. Benefit in a way that the transaction may conduct beneficiary and favorable outcome for the respective party, and loss in a sense that it may situates undesirable outcome and circumstances for the involved participants. Both may come in a form of not only physical—and visible—outcomes but also in a form which one does not simply perceive through the naked eyes and comprehension.

The matter of benefit and loss is already problematic as its determinacy becomes a question of how can such thing can be considered as a benefit or a loss for one particular being. It tends to imply an even deeper complexity as it will end up talking about the arbitrariness that it may cause.

Yet, the point of my interest will not solely emphasized upon such matter—even though I am not willing to deny its own chance in becoming an influence for my research and elaboration—as I will try to attempt my elaboration and analysis on the matter of authority and author-ity. How the elements of authority and author-ity is then exchanged through certain manipulation throughout a particular text; how the transaction is then related to the benefit and loss which may be received by the respective participants; how the exchange and transaction emphasizes the significance of authority, and author-ity, for certain party of the process.

Objects of the study:

The texts which will become both the subjects and objects of this study ought to concern the matter of colonialism (colonial writings) as such texts contain abundant circumstances in which there is an ‘exchange’ or ‘transaction’ that occurred between the colonizer and the colonized.

I will refer to Collins’ “The Moonstone” (1868) as its intriguing methods of narration and the problematic Oriental moonstone has become the starting point for my further comprehension and elaboration upon the text itself—especially the relevance towards the matter of both authority and ‘author’ which its contains.

Nonetheless, I am not yet able to specify another text which will become another point of interest upon my research. Yet, I am assured that it will be under the issue of colonialism, and all of its relevant matter as well.

Theoretical basis, methodological framework, and secondary resources:

Althusser, Louis.1968. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” inLiterary Theory: an Anthology ed. Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan. (2004, 2^nd edition; pg. 693-702). Australia: Blackwell Publishing;

“In the ordinary use of the term, subject in fact means: (1) a free subjectivity, a center of initiatives, author of and responsible for its actions; (2) a subjected being who submits to a higher authority, and is therefore stripped from all freedom except that of freely accepting his submission” (Althusser, Louis in Rivkin and Ryan, 2004: 701).

“Ideology has always-already interpellated individuals as subjects: which amounts to making it clear that individuals are always-already interpellated by ideology as subjects” (Althusser in Rivkin and Ryan. 2004: 700)

“…the ideological representation of ideology is itself forced to recognize that every “subject” endowed with a “consciousness” and believing in the “ideas” that his “consciousness” inspires in him and freely accepts, must “act according to his ideas,”” (Althusser in Rivkin and Ryan, 2004: 696).   

Foucault, Michel. 1969. “What Is an Author?” in Critical Theory Since Plato ed. Adams, Hazard and Searle, Leroy. (2004, 3^rd edition; pg. 1260-1269). United States: Wadsworth Publishing. And, 1977. “Truth and Power” in Critical Theory Since Plato ed. Adams, Hazard and Searle, Leroy. (2004, 3^rd edition; pg. 1269-1279). United States: Wadsworth Publishing;

“It is a question of what governs statements, and the way in which they govern each other so as to constitute a set of propositions which are scientifically acceptable…In short, there is a problem of the régime, the politics of the scientific statement” (Foucault in Adams and Searle, 2004: 1271).   

“What makes power hold good, what makes it accepted, is simply the fact that it doesn’t only weigh on us as a force that says no, but that it traverse and produces things, it induces pleasures, forms knowledge, produces discourses” (Foucault in Adams and Searle, 2004: 1273).

“The third point concerning this “author-function” is that it is not formed spontaneously through the simple attribution of a discourse to an individual. It results from a complex operation whose purpose is to construct the rational entity we call an author” (Foucault in Adams and Searle, 2004: 1265)

“The “author-function” is tied to the legal and institutional systems that circumscribe, determine, and articulate the realm of discourses…The distinctive contribution of these authors is that they produced not only their own work, but the possibility and the rules of formation of other texts” (Foucault in Adams and Searle, 2004: 1266).  

Said, Edward. 1978. “Orientalism” in Critical Theory Since Plato ed. Adams, Hazard and Searle, Leroy. (2004, 3^rd edition; pg. 1370-1383). United States: Wadsworth Publishing;

“The Orient is an integral part of European material civilization and culture. Orientalism expresses and represents that part culturally and even ideologically as a mode of discourse with supporting institutions, vocabulary, scholarship, imagery, doctrines, even colonial bureaucracies and colonial styles” (Said in Adams and Searle, 2004: 1370).

“I myself believe that Orientalism is more particularly valuable as a sign of European-Atlantic power over the Orient than it is as a veridic discourse about the Orient…Nevertheless, what we must respect and try to grasp is the sheer knitted-together strength of Orientalist discourse, its very close ties to the enabling socio-economic and political institutions, and its redoubtable durability” (Said in Adams and Searle, 2004: 1372).

Williams, Raymond. “Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory” in Contemporary Literary Criticism ed. Con Davis, Robert and Schleifer, Ronald. (1994). New York and London: Longman Publishing Group;

“For hegemony supposes the existence of something which is truly total…and which, as Gramsci put it, even constitutes the substance and limit of common sense for most people under its sway…And hegemony has the advantage over general notions of totality, that it at the same time emphasizes the fact of domination” (Williams in Con Davis and Schleifer, 1994: 458).

“But if we are to say this, we have to think again about the sources of that which is not corporate; of those practices, experiences, meanings, values, which are not part of effective dominant culture…There is clearly something that we can call alternative to the effective dominant culture, and there is something else we can call oppositional in a true sense” (Williams in Con Davis and Schleifer, 1994: 460).