The following image appeared in Marissa Frattini's photo galary at PBase.com. She titled the image Free Speech Canine Style. I received a link to Frattini's image in an e-mail with the header "Good Dog." Obviously, both Fraattini and the sender of the e-mail found great significance in this picture. Regardless of your political beliefs, the picture's humor should be obvious. But why, exactly, is it funny?
I want to argue that at a fundamental level the humor is based, like so much humor, on confusion between an agent's intention, that is, the meaning he (the dog here is clearly a male) intended a speech-act to have, and the significance that others attributed to his speech act. A key theoretical issue raised by this issue is whether or not the dog's urination can be considered an act of free speech.
I'll be using this picture to help my literature students better understand the difference between a signifier and a signified, which I hope will enable them to make sense of all the humor that is dervied from scenarios that require readers to consider the materiality of communication in Samuel Beckett's Molloy. I expect we'll begin by considering Molloy's claim that he understands his mother's profane parrot better than her "clattering gabble."
3 comments:
onkel eric,
1) the humor is self-evident. peeing on naked ape things is ALWAYS funny. also dogs enjoy highbrow humor like puns and appreciate the humor of peeing on the word "bush" (since we frequently do pee on bushes) just as it would be funny to see a dog peeing on the words "fire hydrant". the political element adds another layer of sophistication. dogs rule.
2) i'm interested in your claim that the meaning or significance has been attributed to the speech act by the senders when it probably differs from the intention of the dog. but how does the fact that the dog is engaged in the speech act change this inevitable gap between sender/receiver? would it really matter if it was a naked ape in the picture rather than a dog? the dog merely serves to emphasize the condition of all language.
3) some pee for thought--every dog's urine has a unique smell that is detectable by other dogs (and we can recognize familiar urine, including, of course, our own) and which, when left, leaves a record for other dogs to stumble upon, decode, and pee on themselves. to you it may be a mark but to us it is a sign. if you visit me, maybe i will leave my signature on you.
love, wally.
This site is outrageous. More power to the liberal element in Chicago but to use a professorship to refer people to your views is not only one of the most egotistical, asinine abuses of power but totally unethical by any standard.
I think you should either seperate your personal page (and views) from the site you refer students to or resign your professorship.
Dear Anonymous,
Thanks for your concern. I still have grading to do and reading and writing to do this evening before I head to bed, so this has to be quick and dirty…
This is my personal website, not the course website, so you can stop worrying about me making students read my blog. I assure you that I have no desire to teach student my personal political beliefs. I'm concerned first and foremost to teach them about literature. I teach at a public university and most students went to public schools. The sad fact is that far too many of them are unwilling or unable to read and analyze texts critically. (Why that might be is a question that'll have to wait for another day.) I primarily teach fiction - modern & postmodern novels - and my job is to teach them how to read closely and make coherent arguments about these texts.
Political topics, of course, come up in class, but I don't see how it could be otherwise. Most top-notch literary writers, from Shakespeare to Pynchon, write texts that are engaged with the pressing political issues of the day. When politics (however defined) does come up in class, I do by best, for pedagogic efficiency not least, to keep my personal political beliefs hidden. My agenda in such instances is to try to get students to understand how and why, say, Nicholas Mosley or George Orwell (to name writers often identified directly with the political Right and Left) make particular ideological claims in their writing.
We're going to start Graham Greene's The Quiet American soon, and I'm sure that the current war in Iraq will come up. Why? Because the Iraq War is mentioned in the book's "Introduction" by the American writer Robert Stone. However, I do not intend to make the Vietnam/Iraq parallel a focus, though I will probably spend time discussing why Greene was regarded by many as a conservative and why some critics complained that The Quiet American was, if not anti-American, than unfair to America's anti-Communist foreign policy in Southeast Asia.
But you probably could care less about the politics of literature and the literature of politics. It's the 'politically incorrect' dog image on my 'blog and the possibility that I made students go to my website to view it that inspired your wrath.
I'll have you know that when we discussed this image in class I began by saying that the point was not to make a political point, but to talk about formal analyses of signs and what is gained by following Saussurean linguists and treating the sign as being comprised of two components: the signifier and the signified. This image was useful for a variety of reasons, not least because of the visual pun involved (see wally's post above). However, the main focus of our discussion was about the question of intention and whether or not is was accurate to describe - as the person who posted this image online did in jest - the dog's urinating on a sign (and I stressed that it could just as well be Kerry, Nader, Tony Blair, etc.) as an act of 'free speech.' I could say more about our discussion of meaning, belief and semiotics, but there's a Discussion Board for that on the Blackboard course website, which is only accessible to registered students in my English and American Fiction class.
Because UIC is strapped for cash, classrooms aren't equipped with monitors for computers. I passed around a blurry black and white xerox of the image at the beginning of class while taking roll, but our discussion was primarily based on a quick description of the image. I did inform students that they if they wished they could look at the image on the Blackboard course website, but I did not direct them to my blog.
Have I directed students to my blog? Yes, but it was for purely pragmatic reasons. At the beginning of the semester a fair number students were not yet 'officially' in the campus computer system, which meant they could not access the Blackboard course website on UIC's servers. Therefore, I posted my syllabus and the booklist on my blog. I made a point of letting students know that this was my personal site and that the views expressed there did not reflect those of the university. I remember they laughed at that. Did I secretly want them to read my posts and decide to speak out, say, against government-sponsored torture? No, I wanted them to know what was on the syllabus: where my office is, what the campus policy on plagiarism is, and what they had to read for the first week, etc. You get tired of hearing the same questions over and over in the first week.
Did any political indoctrination occur as a result of students visiting my blog? I suspect not. Did any of them decide, say, to join Amnesty International or protest against torture at Abu Ghraib? I highly doubt it. Did any of them read anything at all? Maybe. I have had a couple students approach me about 'indie rock' music. Perhaps they saw the links to Paul Westerberg, Sonic Youth, Bloodshot Records, etc. on my blog? I hadn't given it a thought until reading your post.
Would I like students to read my blog? Sure, but I don't actively seek them out. Like most bloggers (I suspect) I like the idea of someone else reading my posts. Why else would I do it? (I know Dr. Johnson would label me a fool for not writing for money.) I post online and although it's really a labor of love for me, it's nice to know that one has an audience, however small that audience might be. Since I don't get many comments on this site, it's kinda exciting to hear from you. Even though your tone was nasty (anonymous posts tend to be more vehement I've noticed) it was funny to hear you refer to the "liberal element in Chicago" and my "asinine abuses of power."
But a teacher's job is never done, and I've spent far too much time on this riposte so I've got to sign off.
While you’re here in the blogsphere, I do have some advice for you. Since you’re someone who is concerned about ethics, and someone who believes in speaking his or her mind, you might reflect upon the nomination of Timothy Flanigan to the post of Deputy Attorney General in the U.S. Department of Justice. As Senator Barack Obama has noted: “Mr. Flanigan’s alleged involvement in the crafting of the White House ‘torture memos’ and his relationship with indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff raise significant questions regarding his fitness to serve in the No. 2 post in the nation's top law enforcement department.” Perhaps, after further inquiries on your part, you’ll want to speak up and let your political representatives know that you object to Mr. Flanigan being approved for the position of Deputy Attorney General? It’s your choice, of course. Should you choose to voice your opinion, whatever it might be, on this or any other ethical issue, I encourage you to have the courage to express your thoughts in your own name (Call it an intuition, but I’m assuming that you live in a society where free speech is protected and are indeed a U.S. Citizen; if you prefer to be ‘Anonymous’ in, say, China or Iraq, it’s understandable). Your ideas and opinions will carry more weight with a signature attached.
Best,
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