Merits of Humor as a Didactic Strategy

Desi Bradley

Professor Steven Wexler

English 638

April 26, 2010

To Tickle or To Skewer? or

Poking Fun versus Driving Home the Point: Merits of Humor as a Didactic Strategy

 

The inspiration for this work derives from the now-hackneyed Horatian maxim that literature should strive to “delight and instruct”. Noting that Upton Sinclair’s intended didactic subject in The Jungle—namely the perils of capitalism versus the merits of socialism—failed to garner the sort of class-consciousness that Sinclair perhaps hoped to elicit, this work begs the question of whether the tone of the novel had something to do with the diversion in response. To wit: if Sinclair's efforts with The Jungle fell on deaf ears, maybe it was because the novel was so graphic and horrifying. Maybe, as a collective, the American public simply resists casting itself as responsible in any way, for the exploitation of an entire class of working immigrants.

As a tangent, it's also possible that the didactic lessons on Socialism were too indirect for the mass public to see its own role, as consumers, in perpetuating the cycle of capital's exploitation of labor. In other words, Joe the Plumber doesn't really see himself as having a role at all in The Jungle. This being the case, however, this work focuses on the role of Sinclair's tone in the novel—which, of course, begs the question of whether or not a different tone might be more effective. A lighter tone, perhaps. Maybe even a humorous one? One might conjecture that to shed light on the issues of wage slavery in a humorous tone it might be necessary to be somewhat opaque as opposed to outright didacticism.

In line with this thinking, then, this work examines Tom Robbins’ Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas through a Marxist lens. Robbins’s novel falls under the rubric of popular culture, with potential to reach a mass public. It's certainly written in a playful tone, but not without complex theoretical discourse. And the notion of work—cheating at work, lack of work, the need to work (or not,) compensation for work, and satisfaction with work, or lack thereof—plays a huge role in the theme of the narrative.

In their book Tom Robbins: a Critical Companion, the only published criticism of Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, Catherine Hoyser and Lorena Stookey recognize that it “seems appropriate to consider Frog Pajamas’ vision of the contemporary working world in the light of Marx’s insights,” (154) and indeed, they do pay lip service to such a reading with a cursory overview of the topics I explore in detail with this paper. These include the diminishing power and numbers of the American middle class, the widening gap between the super-rich and the poor, the value of work and workers’ alienation from the products of their labor, and workers’ (dis)satisfaction with labor itself.

Working with a substantial body of foundational political criticism, including Marx, Gramsci, and Althusser, while integrating these political ideas with contemporary research into the effect of humor on communication, comprehension, emotion and learning, this work joins in an ongoing conversation, and contributes to the discourse surrounding the intersection of these two ideas. The theoretical conversation that links humor with political critique extends back to the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, and his analysis of Rabelais and His World, in which Bakhtin explicates Rabelais’s use of scatological humor as a device to explore sociopolitical topics inherent in the ritual of carnivale. However, theoretical work addressing the use of humor as a didactic strategy in literature is thin, and two of the major contributions to the conversation in this paper are not journal articles or book chapters, but doctoral dissertations. Furthermore, those dissertations have a gap of almost 30 years between them. In 1976, Helen Marie Whall-Seligman completed her doctoral dissertation exploring the use of humor as a didactic device in Tudor drama, and it wasn’t until 2003 that Sandra Eileen Van Pelt published her dissertation, which examines the use of scatological humor in Juvenalian satirists Taylor and Swift. Van Pelt’s work is more closely aligned with Bakhtin’s analysis and also this analysis of Tom Robbins’ work. However, the academy has largely ignored a vast corpus of satirical work, particularly that produced in the postmodern epoch. The work done so far in this area both opens a space and points to the need for further research into the intersection of humor with political didacticism in literature.

Louis Althusser’s Ideology and the Ideological State Apparatuses provides one of the most significant foundational premises for an argument supporting the use of humor as a strategic device to communicate a subversive message to its reading public. Building on the notion of political hegemony as put forth in Antonio Gramsci’s manifesto, Althusser’s discussion of hegemony begins to illustrate its recursive, almost tautological quality. To illustrate, Althusser explains that men’s interpretations of their conditions “take literally the thesis which they presuppose, and on which they depend, i.e. that what is reflected in the imaginary representation of the world in an ideology is the conditions of the existence of men, i.e. their real world” (694). In other words, what Althusser is describing is the invisibility of a naturalized ideology, which is instituted at maintained, according to Althusser, by the state apparatuses such as school, churches, and government. Ideologies are so instilled and maintained that the citizen who is educated—or “indoctrinated,” as Althusser would say—within that ideology is unaware of its ideological quality and, rather, takes the ideology for granted as “the way things are”. For Gramsci and Althusser the discourse surrounding hegemony and ideologies are firmly entrenched in Karl Marx’s capitalist critique, wherein they are necessary to reconcile the alienated labor pool with the conditions of their existence (Althusser 695).

The notion of political hegemony and the ideological state apparatuses collides with the notion of humor as a dissident strategy where humor theory asserts that one of the most prominent forms of humor and humor response occurs when the joke violates a social norm, prohibition, or taboo. Recognition of the transgression, combined with an appreciation or affinity for the worldview that transgresses whatever social norm or taboo that is violated, produces the humor response, that the humor response—or appreciation of the joke—provides a bridge that enables for the serious entertainment of subversive ideas. Two studies in the field of humor theory lend credence and support to the thesis that humor serves as such a bridge. Christophe Harbsmeier’s exploration of Chinese ancient texts, "Confucius Ridens: Humor in The Analects" argues that Confucius utilized often self-deprecating humor as a political strategy for diffusing hostilities, and obscuring his own uncertainties. In 2002, Ronald A. Berk’s "Does Humor in Course Tests Reduce Anxiety and Improve Performance?" suggests that the experience of humor is likely to reduce anxiety and enable students to reduce focus on themselves and appropriate behavior.

Humor itself is enjoyable or cathartic in the sense that it permits the participant to transgress or violate social taboo under the rubric of a sense of “fun” or “falseness” much like the ritual of carnivale as elaborated by Mikhail Bakhtin, and, as I suggested earlier, Bakhtin’s work with Rabelais’s novels is foundational in this respect. “Laughter,” for Bakhtin, is “linked with the bodily lower stratum…[it] degrades and materializes”. However, degradation as Bakhtin employs the term should not be misconstrued as a diminutizing or dismissive term. Degradation, in Bakhtin’s analysis means “coming down to earth, the contact with earth…in order to bring forth something more and better” (688). In the case of Rabelais’s work, this means laughter that is concerned with base bodily functions—with defecation, sex, and birth. For Robbins, in Frog Pajamas, this degradation through humor also locates itself in base bodily functions such as urination, defication, sex, and rectal cancer. Following in the tradition of scatological humor Robbins connects the rubric of elimination with that of procreation—in fact one of the earliest sexual innuendos made in the novel is the suggestion that when the main character urinates she will be reminded of her new love-interest, as they have both eaten asparagus and will therefore have matching urinary odor. Furthermore, Robbins infuses this scatological romp with a dose of class-consciousness by conflating the reproductive functions of the lower body with the rhetoric of capitol. Gwen doesn’t long to bear children, Robbins writes, but rather longs to “swell with a pregnancy of moola” (83).

In the world of Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, late monolopoly American capitalism takes center stage. Althusser’s state apparatuses are seen as operating in full force, indoctrinating the culture with an ideology that privileges the work ethic in and of itself as its own end. Value is measured in dollars. Even religion is being supplanted by capital: which is not to say that “faith” is supplanted. Faith, rather, is diverted—for many. Gwen herself has displaced faith from religion into the commodities market, as have many of her colleagues. After the market crashes in the novel’s opening pages, Gwen reflects that “the market’s been chugging along on faith alone…and [when the market crashed] that faith was badly strained” (42). Significantly, not everyone has displaced their faith into financial markets—but that is a significant source of tension in the novel. Those who still exercise a religious faith (Belford Dunn, for example) serve as comic dupes in the novel. And those who signify wisdom or transcendence place their faith in an entirely different, mystical and mysterious sphere. Larry Diamond, who serves as the voice of the Fool, signifying enlightenment, states the conflation of faith with finance quite simply when he asks, sardonically, “did you really expect that a culture that believes the Second Coming is right around the corner could have the long-range vision or long-term will to sustain a superpower economy?” (122). Clearly, Larry Diamond does not. What’s more, it is apparent that, to Larry Diamond, the wherewithal to sustain a superpower economy is neither here nor there—it’s a diversion from what is truly important.

The important players in Frog Pajamas include the novel’s protagonist, Gwendolyn Mati—a struggling commodities broker, Belford Dunn—her boyfriend, Q-Jo Huffington—Gwen’s best friend and the local mystic/tarot reader, Larry Diamond—a new love interest, guru, and former commodities broker, the “Rich Boys,”—a gang of independently wealthy hoodlems, the growing class of Seattleite homeless/destitute, and Dr. Yamaguchi—who seems to have discovered a cure for colon cancer and is giving it away for free. Each character represents a different ideology within the matrix of late capitalism, and also a different status with regard to the alienation of labor.

Gwen has a less-than-middle-class background: her father a bongo-drummer with a penchant for hallucinogenic drugs, her mother a poet and suicide in the fashion of her idol, Sylvia Plath. She suffers anxiety over her Filipina heritage, her second-rate university degree, her tenuous middle class status, her mediocre job performance, etc. etc. She is characterized mainly by way of her narcissism and ambition.

Gwen’s boyfriend and best friend each serve as a sort of foil to Gwen’s ambition. Belford exemplifies the sort of arbitrary quality that is associated with financial success in the contemporary climate of late monopoly capitalism. That he has earned his substantial nest egg as a real estate agent by virtue of naïve, boyish charm and serendipitous connections is an irony not lost on readers fresh out of the 2009 collapse of the American real estate bubble. Gwen suffers extreme envy of Belford, whom she perceives as having achieved the American Dream “without ever dreaming it” (35). And while she claims no attraction to Belford, and consistently reveals his foolishness, naiveté, and simple-mindedness, she has been dating him for 3 years at the novel’s opening, and frequently considers settling on a marriage of convenience for the financial security he provides. Although Belford is a foil to Gwen’s ambition, he is treated as a dupe in the novel—often missing the fact the he is the butt of the joke, and firmly entrenched in a born-again Christian ideology that illustrates Althusser’s concept of indoctrination by way of the state apparatus.

Q-Jo Huffington, on the other hand, serves as a foil representing an enlightened point of view. Q-Jo is the only main character in Frog Pajamas who is not alienated from the form and product of her labor. In fact, Q-Jo is firmly grounded in her work, reaping emotional and spiritual rewards as well as a modest stipend for her tarot readings and for serving as a one woman audience for lonely citizen’s vacation memorabilia. Q-Jo has insight into Gwen’s character that (apparently) exceeds her own, as afforded by the unique second person narration Robbin’s uses. She serves as a spirital guide and emotional ground for Gwen.

Larry Diamond, as alluded to already, serves as the voice of enlightenment of this narrative. A former super-star as a commodities broker, Diamond is alienated from the worker of the brokerage and disillusioned with the (vast amounts) of money it earned him. In Diamond’s own words “no matter how sweet the scores, they never added up to anything.” Aware that his point is ambiguous, Larry sighs, “I suppose you don’t [know what I mean]” (162). The way Larry Diamond sees things, the possibility that the stock market may not recover from the crash is a good thing, the end of the “Big Lie”.

So far, Robbins commentary seems fairly obvious and straightforward—greed is bad, religion a bit foolish but harmlessly so, and the real happiness is found by engaging with one’s work in a spiritually rewarding way, free from greed. And once seen in this light, the rest of the narrative does fall into place in a similarly straightforward way. Perhaps this is the reason that Hoyser and Stookey devote a mere 2 pages of their 160-page volume to a Marxist reading of Frog Pajamas. However, the message is not completely uncomplicated. For example, Larry Diamond is the one character suffering from fatal colon cancer. And, contrary to what one might expect, given Robbins’s mystic agenda, Diamond doesn’t embrace the end of his life and the promise of the hereafter. Clearly, enlightenment doesn’t solve everything.

Furthermore, what is more interesting about the didactic message in Frog Pajamas isn’t so much the message itself, but the method of delivery. In his essay "Political Satire and Hegemony: A Case of “Passive Revolution” during Mussolini’s Ascendance to Power 1919-1925" Efharis Mascha examines the critical role that humor played in the establishment of what he refers to as a counter-hegemony during Mussolini’s rise to power. According to Mascha, the subtle uses of satire increase inversely with the rise of censorship. What Mascha illustrates is the efficacy of humor as opposed to explicit didacticism in communicating a counter-hegemonic message. Mascha is careful to distinguish between “anti-hegemony” and “counter-hegemony”—an important part given that all teaching (or indoctrination, according to Althusser) is inherently ideologically driven. A counter-hegemony, however, is driven by socially prohibited or taboo ideology. Humor provides a critical device that enables transmission and response to the counter-hegemonic message.

This essay argues that Tom Robbins’ Frog Pajamas, taken in opposition to Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, suggests strong support for the thesis adapted from the foundational work of Mikail Bakhtin, and advanced by Mascha, Seligman, and Van Pelt, that humor provides a platform for dissenting discourse, alternative ideologies, and counter-hegemonies.

Works Cited

Robbins, Tom. “Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas.” Bantam: New York.1994. Print.

Hoyser, Catherine E., and Lorena L. Stookey. "Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas." Tom Robbins: a Critical Companion. Westport: Greenwood, 1997. 139-56. Print.

Political Criticism:

Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." Literary Theory: an Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Second ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. 2004. 693-702. Print.

Gramsci, Antonio. "Hegemony." Literary Theory: an Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Second ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2004. 673-74. Print.

Marx, Karl. "Labor and Capital." Literary Theory: an Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Second ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2004. 659-64. Print.

Humor Theory:

Berk, Ronald A. "Does Humor in Course Tests Reduce Anxiety and Improve Performance?" College Teaching 48.4 (2000): 151-58. JStor. Web. 7 Apr. 2010.

Harbsmeier, Christophe. "Confucius Ridens: Humor in The Analects." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 50.1 (1990): 131-61. JStor. Web. 17 Apr. 2010.

Political and/or Didacticism and Humor Theory Combined:

Mascha, Efharis. "Political Satire and Hegemony: A Case of “Passive Revolution” during Mussolini’s Ascendance to Power 1919-1925." Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21.1 (2008): 61-98. Academic Search Elite. Web. 14 Apr. 2010.

Bakhtin, Mikhail. "Rabelais and His World." Literary Theory: an Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Second ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. 2004. 686-92. Print.

Van Pelt, Sandra Eileen Body. "Excremental Recycling in Selected Writings of Edward Taylor and Jonathan Swift: A Structuralist Study in Scatological Humor and Didactic Accommodation." Diss. University of Mississippi, 2003. Digital Dissertations and Theses (2003). ProQuest. Web. 23 Apr. 2010.

Whall-Seligman, Helen Marie. "To Instruct and Delight: Didactic Method in Five Tudor Dramas." Diss. Yale University, 1976. Digital Dissertations and Theses. ProQuest. Web. 23 Apr. 2010.

 

 

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Positioning the Project: Humorous Didacticism in TR's *Frog Pajamas*

Working with a substantial body of foundational political criticism, including Marx, Gramsci, and Althusser, while integrating these political ideas with contemporary research into the effect of humor on communication, comprehension, emotion and learning, this work joins in an ongoing conversation, and contributes to the discourse surrounding the intersection of these two ideas.  The theoretical conversation that links humor with political critique extends back to the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, and his analysis of Rabalais and His World [[which contributes xyz foundational premise???.]]  However, theoretical work addressing the use of humor as a didactic strategy in literature is thin, and two of the major contributions to the conversation in this paper are not journal articles or book chapters, but doctoral dissertations.  Furthermore, those dissertations have a gap of almost 30 years between them. The work done so far in this area both opens a space and points to the need for further research into the intersection of humor with political didacticism in literature.

Tom Robbins Project: Working Bibliography

I'm recording the sources I've located and *skimmed and/or *read the abstract of and/or *partially read. I'm calling this a "working bibliography" because I'm pretty sure I won't end up citing everything on this list. It is, after all, only an 8-10 page paper. I'd use up 10 pages just annotating these! But I'd like to keep this recorded for future reference. Especially if I ever decide to expand my analysis into something broader than I'm doing for this 638 paper. I've separated the sources into three categories--political criticism, humor theory, and the intersection of the two--to make the list more coherent. Ergo:

Working Bibliography

Hoyser, Catherine E., and Lorena L. Stookey. "Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas." Tom Robbins: a Critical Companion. Westport: Greenwood, 1997. 139-56. Print.

Political Criticism:
Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." Literary Theory: an Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Second ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. 2004. 693-702. Print.

Emerson, Caryl. "On the Generation That Squandered Its Philosophers (Losev, Bakhtin, and Classical Thought as Equipment for Living)." Studies in East European Thought 56.2/3 (2004): 95-117. JStor. Web. 17 Apr. 2010.

Gitlin, Todd. "After the Failed Faiths: Beyond Individualism, Marxism, and Multiculturalism." World Policy Journal 12.1 (1995): 61-68. JStor. Web. 5 Apr. 2010.

Gramsci, Antonio. "Hegemony." Literary Theory: an Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Second ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2004. 673-74. Print.

Marx, Karl. "Labor and Capital." Literary Theory: an Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Second ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2004. 659-64. Print.

Novak, Estelle G. ""Dynamo" School of Poets." Contemporary Literature 11.4 (1970): 526-39. JStor. Web. 17 Apr. 2010.

Rikowski, Glenn. "Left Alone: End Time for Marxist Educational Theory?" British Journal of Sociology of Education 17.4 (1996): 415-51. JStor. Web. 17 Apr. 2010.

Humor Theory:
Bell, Nancy D. "Humor Comprehension: Lessons Learned from Cross-Cultural Communication." Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 20.4 (2007): 367-87. Academic Search Elite. Web. 14 Apr. 2010.

Berk, Ronald A. "Does Humor in Course Tests Reduce Anxiety and Improve Performance?" College Teaching 48.4 (2000): 151-58. JStor. Web. 7 Apr. 2010.

Harbsmeier, Christophe. "Confucius Ridens: Humor in The Analects." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 50.1 (1990): 131-61. JStor. Web. 17 Apr. 2010.

Mason, Jeffrey D. "Arthur Miller's Ironic Resurrection." Theatre Journal 5.4 (2003): 657-77. JStor. Web. 9 Apr. 2010.

Political and/or Didacticism and Humor Theory Combined:
Mascha, Efharis. "Political Satire and Hegemony: A Case of “Passive Revolution” during Mussolini’s Ascendance to Power 1919-1925." Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21.1 (2008): 61-98. Academic Search Elite. Web. 14 Apr. 2010.

Bakhtin, Mikhail. "Rabelais and His World." Literary Theory: an Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Second ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. 2004. 686-92. Print.

Thorne, Christian. "Thumbing Our Nose at the Public Sphere: Satire, the Market, and the Invention of Literature." PMLA 116.3 (2001): 531-44. JStor. Web. 17 Apr. 2010.

Van Pelt, Sandra Eileen Body. "Excremental Recycling in Selected Writings of Edward Taylor and Jonathan Swift: A Structuralist Study in Scatological Humor and Didactic Accommodation." Diss. University of Mississippi, 2003. Digital Dissertations and Theses (2003). ProQuest. Web. 23 Apr. 2010.

Whall-Seligman, Helen Marie. "To Instruct and Delight: Didactic Method in Five Tudor Dramas." Diss. Yale University, 1976. Digital Dissertations and Theses. ProQuest. Web. 23 Apr. 2010.

Woman Warrior and Princess Valhalla

more fragments hastily recorded herein because i cannot be counted on to remember my own middle name!!!

ok. i'd like to compare the dream sequence in the beginning of woman warrior with the princess valhalla video. i'll also need to include some of the backstory (for valhalla) in order to make the connection.

some thoughts on the two compared/contrasted:
*both seek to undermine feminine inferiority by positioning the woman as a warrior. the princess valhalla video is clearly ironic. can the dream sequence in woman warrior also be read as ironic?
*princess valhalla is the first woman in her kingdom to reach sexual maturity. this is both a position of power and a cause of danger. she seeks to make herself "unnattractive to the prince" and evade his sexual advances. compare this with kingston's response to sexual maturity in the dream sequence. she embraces her mate (whom she has foreseen) but in many ways rejects motherhood.
*princess valhalla, in the video, is an incompetent warrior. if she has power--if, in fact "might wins" then her power lies somewhere beyond strength as a warrior. perhaps it is the kind of power that camille paglia reads into a woman's sexuality. she certainly commands the gaze... kingston's woman warrior, on the other hand, is a virtually perfect (for lack of a better word) mimesis of the male version of a warrior. if her version of power is indeed ironic, then, the irony must lie in somehow undermining the male version of strength, virility, honor, and so on as represented in the icon of warrior.
*princess valhalla comes from a society that values her for her femininity and fecundity. in the chinese culture, these are devalued. yet both women seek to escape being pigeonholed into a role inscribed by gender. in what ways are their responses to gender roles similar/different?

other random insights:
*the dream sequence, if it were told to another, is a sort of "talk-story". in fact, it is being told to us though through the written medium. (discuss.)
*kingston ascribes a tremendous power to language, voice, and naming. talk-story is only one--significant, but singular--aspect of the power of words. throughout the memoirs, this remains a powerful and vividly present trope. (discuss.)
*asian languages provide a rich example of the conflation of visual with verbal rhetoric. on several occassions, kingston comments on the difference between the western "meaning" of a given word when contrasted with the visual connotations implicit in the ideographs. (look up references. discuss. essays from hill's defining visual rhetoric are relevant.)

Princess Valhalla Hawkwind

This video just BEGS to be read through a feminist and/or orientalist lens.  
I'm preserving the idea here in my blog.  
Maybe this week I'll think of a way to connect it with Woman Warrior. (!!!)

Oh, right: 'to DELIGHT and Instruct!' (Perhaps Sinclair read "Disgust"?)

Some raw thoughts here follow:

If Sinclair's efforts with The Jungle fell on deaf ears, maybe it was because the novel was so graphic and horrifying.  Maybe, as a collective, the American public simply resists casting itself as responsible in any way, for the exploitation of an entire class of working immigrants.  As a tangent, it's also possible that the didactic lessons on Socialism were too indirect for the mass public to see its own role, as consumers, in perpetuating the cycle of capital's exploitation of labor.  In other words, Joe the Plumber doesn't really see himself as having a role at all in The Jungle.

But, for now, I want to focus on the role of Sinclair's tone in the novel.  Which, of course, begs the question of whether or not a different tone might be more effective. A lighter tone, perhaps.  Maybe even a humorous one?  I'm imagining that to shed light on the issues of wage slavery in a humorous tone it might be necessary to be somewhat opaque as opposed to outright didacticism... Maybe not.

In line with this thinking, then, I'd like to look at Tom Robbins Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas through a Marxist lens.  Its falls under the rubric of popular culture--so it has the potential to reach a mass public.  It's certainly written in a playful tone, but not without complex theoretical discourse.  And the notion of work--cheating at work, lack of work, the need to work (or not,) compensation for work, and satisfaction with work, or lack thereof--plays a huge role in the theme of the narrative.

For such an analysis, I think I'll use Marx (duh,) Bahktin, Husserl, and Althusser.  Robbins, of course.  Also, I'll search the databases for other work about parody or irony, and/or humor, with regard to Marxism and any literature.  I don't think I'll find much scholarship about Robbins to work with, so I'll have to go with mostly theory for secondary resources.  And I'll find out whether or not I think the Marxist agenda is: 1) actually present in Frog Pajamas; and 2) more palatable given Robbins' tone.

Are We Essentially Performing, Then?

Judith Butler's theory of gender as a social construction constituted by performance of gendered characteristics has been challenged by theorists and activists working on behalf of intersexed individuals, particularly in opposition to the traditional OGR (optimum gender of rearing) model, which held that gender assignment should be surgically accomplished in infancy.  This model was founded on the assumption that children are born with a sort of tabula rasa with regard to gender, and that gender is (or can be) socially constructed, as long as indoctrination begins before the age of about 2. Adherents to the OGR cite the relative scarcity of documented gender switching or homosexuality in adult patients who were surgically assigned at birth as evidence of its success. However, this model is undermined by the testimony of actual intersexed adults, and has been challenged by recent oppositional medical protocol issued by the DSD (disorders of sex development) Coalition.

These thoughts are still incubating, but I think I want to say that even if there are certain biological differences between genders, and that those differences are both intrinsic to sex/sex development and significant in terms of medical prognosis for the treatment of disorders of sex development--even if those things hold true--this fact does not undermine the performative aspects of gender identity.  Science, particularly molecular biology, proves that there are innate biological differences between the sexes .  Yet even in the field of molecular biology, concessions are made for external and environmental contributors to the expression of genetic differences (Rosario).  I find it difficult to accept that there is no culturally constructed performance of characteristics that recursively inscribe and express gender (Butler).

Works Cited:

Butler, Judith. "Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions." The Judith Butler Reader. Ed. Judith Butler and Sara Salih. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2004. 90-118. Print.

Rosario, Vernon A. "Quantum Sex: Intersex and the Molecular Deconstruction of Sex." GLQ: of Lesbian and Gay Studies 15.2 (2009): 267-84. Project Muse. Web.

Pathologies of Sex and Gender

Photographed here is Del LaGrace Volcano, who identifies "hermself" as intersex--neither male, nor female.  Herm was born female, but upon puberty began to develop sexually ambiguous characteristics, including uneven breast development, masculine musculature, and male-patterned facial and body hair. Herm has not had gender reassignment.

Volcano is well known in the Queer community for herm's photojournalism.  Herm's work may be found online at: http://www.dellagracevolcano.com/

In the introductory volume of The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault explores the ways in which (so-called) “deviant” sexuality has been historically criminalized, pathologized, and demonized. This text is commonly considered as foundational to contemporary Queer Theory, and it is certainly groundbreaking and pivotal in terms of exploring alternative manifestations of sexuality and sensuality in the field of Queer studies.  However, Foucault’s text has implications beyond sexuality for people of clinically ambiguous gender—historically known as hermaphrodite, intersex, and most recently reclassified in the DSM-IV as “disorders of sex development”.

As Foucault himself relates, people of ambiguous gender signify deviance of sexuality in the common imaginary. And during the historical period when sexuality was becoming inscribed as representative of the order of society—and deviance regulated by legal policy—the treatment of ambiguous sexuality was telling.  “For a long time,” Foucault observes, “hermaphrodites were criminals, or crime’s offspring, since their anatomic disposition, their very being, confounded the law that distinguished the sexes and prescribed their union” (893).  This ostensibly “natural” law was interpreted and enforced in Christian terms via sexuality’s generative, or reproductive capacity.  In this way, the policing of sexuality can be seen as intersecting with a capitalist agenda, insofar is the control of sexuality both regulates and channels excessive public energies toward productive avenues and reproduces and increases labor power (Foucault 894).

However, in America, where the mythologies of freedom and tolerance hold sway, particularly in the late 20^th century and beyond, the legal censure of sexual practice has diminishing authority.  Accordingly, sexual deviance is pathologized as mental illness or even chromosomal abnormality.  In Foucault’s construction, the medicalization of sexuality is a form of power and, while it may be construed as sympathetic, medicalization (as opposed to criminalization) does NOT imply acceptance.  Furthermore, medical pathology has slippery slope implications that could turn toward things like selective termination (chromosomal eugenics.)

All of this history is particularly relevant to the recent reclassification of intersex individuals as patients suffering from “disorders of sex development”.  From a theoretical standpoint, this reclassification is disturbing—stigmatizing and perhaps a backward step in terms of sociological integration of “deviant” individuals.  However, from a more pragmatic (and experiential) standpoint, this reclassification portends an innovation in terms of the medical treatment of intersex people: specifically with regard to gender assignment, hormonal replacement therapy, and cosmetic surgical procedures.  This debate merits further investigation.

Works Cited:

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, An Introduction. Vol. 1. New York: Vintage, 1990. Print.

Volcano, Del LaGrace. "Del LaGrace Volcano--Intersex Artist/Activist." Web. . 

Monopoly Capitalism, the American Dream, and Class Consciousness

Factory farming today isn’t the only way in which our current climate resembles the world Sinclair portrays in The Jungle. Today’s monopoly capitalism, dominated by transnational corporations, makes wage-slaves out of a vast population of workers, worldwide. This is complicated by the prevailing rhetoric that continues to convince the majority of Americans of the mythology of the American Dream. Moreover, rhetorics of tolerance and equality—regarding such issues as religion, gender, and race—complicate the discourse so that the actual conditions of labor are obscured.

In The Jungle, Sinclair uses Jurgis and Ona and their extended family as a kind of synecdoche for an entire population of wage-slaves—at the time, the majority of them were immigrants. The entire family, and particularly Jurgis, are necessarily drawn in a sympathetic light in order to elicit public sympathy for their plight.  Their faults, then, are perceived as inevitable response to their lives.  Jurgis's drinking and violence, for example, can be interpreted as an escapist reaction to Ona's rape by Phil Connor, and especially to Antanas death.  Marija's prostitution is perhaps even more forgivable, being as her value as a laborer in the factory couldn't possibly support the family with Jurgis absent.  Her drug addiction is a critique of management and its control over labor.  Moreover, it symbolizes the bound-ness of Marija's labor as a wage-slave.

Packingtown symbolizes the horrific working conditions; the idea of the jungle represents the sort of social Darwinism inherent in any capitalist system where “the mass of the people were always in a life-and-death struggle with poverty. That was ‘competition,’ so far as it concerned the wage earner, the man who had only his labor to sell; to those on top, the exploiters, it appeared very differently, of course—there were few of them, and they could combine and dominate, and their power would be unbreakable” (357).   The fact that Jurgis is sent to jail for his violence against Phil Connor, and also the system of "mortaging" slumhouses, are both symptomatic of a larger corruption that Sinclair sees in the capitalist economy.

Through the rhetoric of socialism, however, Sinclair means to make it clear that if workers were to combine that they, too, could dominate. As Ostrinski explains the socialist movement to Jurgis, Sinclair distributes socialist propaganda to the reader.  This objective provides the exigence for drawing Jurgis and his family is such a pathetic yet sympathetic light.  Sinclair's rhetoric suggests that the control of the means of production is undermined when there is no labor to accomplish that production.  Were this rhetoric to be successful in communicating to the masses, then they may realize the implicit necessity for a vast underclass to serve as labor in the capitalist system in order to generate the surplus value that enables profit. Were this rhetoric successful, the majority of American wage-slaves who read The Jungle might, as Jurgis does, recognize the value in labor coalition.

However, it seems that the opposite has occurred, as demonstrated by Barbara Ehrenreich’s 2001 expose Nickel and Dimed, an undercover journalistic exploration of the lives of the American working poor, arguing the idea that it is virtually impossible to survive in America by working for a minimum wage. Socialist rhetoric has been denigrated in the eyes of the typical American citizen—many of whom still live as laborers bound by the shackles of wage-slavery. Labor unions have been systematically stripped of negotiating power while popular opinion has turned against the notion of coalition. And the typical American citizen still lacks “class consciousness”.

Works Cited:

Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: on (Not) Getting by in America. New York: Metropolitan, 2001. Print.

Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. Cambridge, Mass.: R. Bentley, 1971. Print.

I've read that Upton Sinclaire's intent in writing The Jungle was to draw attention to the immigrant labor pool, and the horrific working conditions under which they labored, and the hobbling poverty that held them bonded to such wage-slavery.  Instead, the public's outrage turned against the meatpacking industry--perhaps rightly so.  Ergo, we have the creation of the FDA.  All of this is general public knowledge, nothing insightful or innovative.

What is surprising to me is how closely today's factory farms mirror the conditions that President Roosevelt responded to when The Jungle was published.  And I continue to be amazed at how the profit motive supercedes any humanitarian imperative when it comes to publicizing and/or regulating industry.  To illustrate, consider the viewer response to the following YouTube clip from a cruelty-free dairy farm, in which the (friendly) audience laments the fact that cruelty-free farming is just "too expensive":



Furthermore, I'm dumbstruck at the willful ignorance and antagonism from many in the public sphere.  The vitriol with which Joe (carnivorous) Citizen responds to some of the animal rights videos posted on YouTube illustrates my point while begging the question: why such an intense and violent reaction?  For example, the following 5 minute clip is accompanied by 7 pages of lowbrow "debate" about the merits of eating or not eating meat.  It's true that this particular clip is heavy on the pathos, perhaps eliciting the violence in response.  But this is only one of many, many examples I could have chosen.

Midterm Essay (aka "TL-DR")

“We Were Girls Together”

-Tony Morrison, Sula

The collective “we” who tells the story of Karen Lee Boren’s debut novella Girls in Peril stands out as a curious defining feature, begging the critical reader to explain, interpret, and justify its unusual mode of narration. The “we” in question refers to the story’s main character(s), a group of five young neighborhood girls aged 11 to 13.  The use of the collective first person serves to obscure the identity of the narrator, while blurring the boundary between subject positions of the five girls.  Narrative cues throughout the novella distance the role of the narrator from the individual identity of each girl in turn, as Jeanne, Donna, Lauren, Stacey, and Corrine are each referenced in the third person, and the reader is never offered an intimate, detailed view into any character’s innermost thoughts or perspective.  In this way, the story achieves ambiguity and coalition in its narrative subject. 

            Competing with the narrative point of view for center stage is the curious spectacle of one of the girls’s, Jeanne Macek’s, “extra” thumb: a birth defect.  Remarkably, rather than ostracize Jeanne for this oddity, the group of girls fetishizes the extra thumb, worships it, “court[s] Jeanne’s favor for the chance to pet it” (1). The girls envy the extra thumb, and see that it confers on Jeanne a number of (traditionally male) privileges, for example, exclusion from childcare, housekeeping, and personal hygiene responsibilities.  The thumb is also obscurely and ironically credited for Jeanne’s exceptional athletic and strategic prowess, and “when she won, she treated her thumb like a teammate who had helped her out” (3). In short, the thumb stands in as a sort of phallus, a transcendental signifier of sorts. And in fact, despite the ambiguity of the narrator, it is apparent from the early lines of the novella that Jeanne centers and directs the group of five girls.

In her critical essay on the use of the collective first person in French literature, "’Romans Des Nous’: The First Person Plural and Collective Identity in Martinique," Dawn Fulton advances the claim that the use of the collective identity—for example as in the “royal ‘we’”—has historically functioned as a discursive strategy conferring legitimacy and power upon a line of discourse.  In Girls in Peril, the use of the collective first person is significant in this respect, because the gang of girls achieves legitimacy and power through use of collective identity.  In fact, they are acutely aware of the fact that coalition confers power as they negotiate their interactions with adult authority figures.  “Alone we were vulnerable,” they reason. “We felt more comfortable as a group…together, we had a firmly fixed identity” (6).  In the comfort of this firmly fixed collective identity, the girls garner confidence in their collective action.  Also, the narrative voice achieves greater authority to tell its story.

Furthermore, the girls achieve an even greater measure of authority through their association with Jeanne, who possesses the transcendental signifier in the third thumb.  Laura Kipnis explores the nature of the phallus as the marker of entitlement (to authority and power) in her 2006 article “Something’s Missing”.  Historically, she claims, it is inexplicably and invariably true that authority and power coincide with the phallus—which is why Lacan refers to it as the transcendental signifier—what is transcended, in this case, is the physical body.  Power is entitled by virtue of anatomy but extends beyond anatomy.  The female response, according to Kipnis, is to choose between feminism, constituted by social activism opposing male entitlement in the first place, and femininity—by which the female can obtain access to the phallus on a “time-share basis” through pair bonding/marriage (23).  In the case of the girls of Girls in Peril, however, association with the transcendental signifier is appropriated though the use of collective identity as opposed to marriage.  By forming a coalition with Jeanne, in other words, Donna, Lauren, Corrine and Stacey all attain a share of the collective power conferred by the phallus.

Jeanne Macek’s third thumb may also be read as a symbolic clitoris. In this scenario, collective identity is associated with youth and sexual immaturity.  As long as the group remains sexually immature their collective identity is secure.  Reading Jeanne’s thumb as a clitoris, however, is not inconsistent with reading it as a phallus if it is also read through the lens of sexual immaturity, and therefore the thumb still symbolically confers upon Jeanne the status of transcendental signifier.  This is because, according to Freudian psychoanalysis, the preadolescent girl’s clitoris functions much in the same way that the preadolescent boy’s phallus does.  It is, in essence, a substitute—or inferior—phallus.  According to Jane Gerhard, in her Feminist Studies article "Revisiting "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm": The Female Orgasm in American Sexual Thought and Second Wave Feminism," Freud maintains that until the transfer phase, in which an adolescent girl transfers her libidinal center to the vagina, it is located in the clitoris.  During this pre-transfer phase the girl is gender and sexually ambiguous—being neither masculine nor feminine, neither heterosexual nor homosexual, but somehow all of these at once (452-3).  This description of the adolescent girl as androgynous seems well-suited to Jeanne Macek, who navigates the sphere of preadolescent girlhood as well as dabbling the in the sphere of male privilege.

 Furthermore, as Gerhard elaborates, Freudian psychoanalytic theory holds that failure on the part of the adolescent girl to successfully navigate the transfer phase, reassign her libidinal center to the vagina, and achieve sexual maturity can result in penis envy, hysteria, and neurotic discontent.  This is relevant to a reading of Girls in Peril insofar as the amputation of Jeanne’s thumb can be read as a forced transfer via clitorectomy, and her resulting hysteria evidence of its failure.  The amputation signals a move toward sexual maturity in alignment with Freud’s transfer phase. This is reinforced in the text by Jeanne’s escalated role in the domestic sphere. “As her hand healed,” the narrative voice recounts, “Jeanne’s chores increased and we saw less and less of her than ever” (61).  The idea that the amputation corresponds with sexual maturity is also reinforced by the shift in dominant personality from Jeanne (whose sexuality is rooted in the third thumb as clitoral symbol) to Lauren, who represents a traditionally feminine (vaginal) sexuality.  What is problematic about this sexual maturation is the fact that it is enforced upon Jeanne, without her consent, via the authority of the medical community.  Furthermore, it accompanies her rapid disappearance from the public sphere, and ultimately her silence and the dismantling of the group identity.  These events signify a feminist critique of assigned gender roles and the authority conferred upon the owner of the transcendental signifier (see Cicoux and Kuhn, and Lindenmeyer.)

Moreover, the group’s collective identity breaks down after Jeanne’s amputation.  The loss of the thumb signifies a disconnection from the phallus and its conferred privileges, among which may be included the discursive authority that also accompanies the collective first person (i.e. “royal we”.)  However, this also can fall within the purview of reading the third thumb as clitoral symbol, the amputation read as a clitorectomy forcing Jeanne into the transfer phase.  The loss of collective identity here is associated with sexual maturity and the traditional feminine domestic role, which forces her out of the public sphere and into the private sphere.  The implication is that women in the home—in the private sphere—are disconnected from each other and from society; therefore the group sacrifices its collective identity.

The climax of the feminist critique in Girl’s in Peril is signified by Jeanne’s breakdown at the end of the story, whereby her brother Joey’s attempted murder and successful suicide trigger Jeanne’s (apparent) hysteria.  However, the hysterical reading is contestable by way of feminist theorizing.  Hysteria is typically derived from psychoanalytic readings of failed transfer, mislaid gender association, and/or penis envy.  This helps to explicate the implied association between Jeanne and Joey, whether Jeanne’s amputation is read as a castration or clitorectomy.  In fact, clitorectomy is rather analogous to castration in Freud’s construction, as the clitoris functions as a stand in for the penis up until the transfer phase where the adolescent girl is forced to abandon it.  Jeanne’s “hysteria,” then, is read as the psychoanalytic diagnosis that is criticized in this text.  On the one hand, Jeanne’s response to Joey’s violence and death is understandable.  On the other hand, it can be read as hysterical due to its extremity.  Finally, however, Jeanne is simply silenced by her elimination from the family.  This is in accordance with traditional methods of dealing with vocal women (who perhaps transgress gender boundaries) by silencing them.  Here the notion of medicalizing/pathologizing female behaviors is relevant.  Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s The Yellow Wallpaper and Virginia Woolf’s lived experience provide both textual and material examples of this phenomenon.

            Karen Lee Boren’s Girls in Peril utilizes the collective first person in conjunction with the central metaphor of the transcendental signifier to perform a feminist critique of traditional female roles in postmodern society.  The critique is particularly salient in this context because it foregrounds the dissonance between the traditional role expected of mature women, (even, as Kipnis explores in The Female Thing, in contemporary American society) and the possibilities they are taught to entertain in adolescence.  As Jeanne’s emotional breakdown demonstrates, the dissonance can prove psychologically crippling.

Works Cited

Cixous, Helen, and Annette Kuhn. "Castration or Decapitation?" Signs 7.1 (1981): 41-55. JStor. Web. 7 Mar. 2010.

Fulton, Dawn. ""Romans Des Nous": The First Person Plural and Collective Identity in Martinique." The French Review 76.6 (2003): 1104-114. JStor. Web. 9 Mar. 2010.

Gerhard, Jane. "Revisiting "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm": The Female Orgasm in American Sexual Thought and Second Wave Feminism." Feminist Studies 26.2 (2000): 449-76. JStor. Web. 7 Mar. 2010.

Kipnis, Laura. "Something's Missing." Women's Studies Quarterly 34.3/4 (2006): 22-42. JStor. Web. 8 Mar. 2010.

Kipnis, Laura. The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability. New York: Pantheon, 2006. Print.

Lee Boren, Karen. Girls in Peril. Portland: Tin House, 2006. Print.

Lindenmeyer, Antje. "Postmodern Concepts of the Body in Jeanette Winterson's "Written on the Body"" Feminist Review 63 (1999): 48-63. JStor. Web. 6 Mar. 2010.

Morris, Adalaide. "First Persons Plural in Contemporary Feminist Fiction." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 11.1 (1992): 11-29. JStor. Web. 8 Mar. 2010. 

Gramsci, Marx, Althusser: and Single-Payer Healthcare?

What do hegemony, capital and the wage-laborer, & ideology and the state apparatus have to do with single-payer healthcare?  Answer: lots.  Lots to unpack here.

Hegemony: right-wing wingnuts, talking point mouthpieces, religious institutions, and public schools.  FOX News, CNN, NY Times, and The Huffington Post.  Press releases, press conferences, sound bytes and photo ops. And so on...

Capital and the wage laborer: the very foundation upon which the US economy functions (disfunctionally).  Why is it that as a population we are so very willing to ignore the fact that a capitalist economy is structured upon the necessity for the working class to exist simply in order to create excess value via the exchange--or rather sale---of labor, which value in turn creates excess value in the commodities that are fetishized and purchased as a false representation of the wealth that they create?

Why, rather, do I need to phrase this very fact in such convoluted terms so that the proletarian that probably never will, but should possibly be influenced by this idea if she read this, will NEVER understand and so continue to elide the fact that class dissonance is a necessary condition for capitalism to exist?!?

Ideology and the state apparatus:  well, one things bears mentioning.  Althusser has a wicked sense of humor.  And good thing, because what he has to say is fairly dismal.  So, ideology is the substance upon which hegemony perpetuates itself.  Invisible, insidious, yes. Odious, impenetrable, perhaps? Perhaps not.  Marx alludes to the notion that a radical discourse is possible--presupposing, of course, the existence of a radical class.  And it follows, necessarily, that the penetration of hegemonic ideology is possible by virtue of this radical discourse.

But, man, it looks difficult!  Ideology is the sum total of the function of naturalization of itself, and perpetuation through the transmission of "obviousnesses" (Althusser 698) or, as the Flobots claim in their song Fight With Tools: "spread like a virus through accepted thoughts and proper manners". Ideology is at it worst the farcical appearance of free choice, even when it perpetuates contradictory claims.

There...I have arrived at the transition to the main point: Single Payer healthcare.  Which, it would seem, would be consistent with the ideology inherent in a supposedly "christian" nation.  I guess the ideology of christianity is at odds, however, with the ideology of capitalism.  And the goals of capital are at odds with the materials conditions of the lives of wage-laborers.   And yet, those very same professed christian wage-laborers parrot and promote the agenda of capital, which is completely inconsistent with the spirital agenda promoted by Christ.

hmmm...  yes. these thoughts are fragmented and incomplete. but the skeleton is there.

Displaced Sexual Objects/Horse-y Toys/and the Tagmemic Grid

Here I am supposed to blog about my contribution to this week's group presentation on Peter Shaffer's Equus.  Our group posted a group-authored blog here:

http://equus638.blogspot.com/

That chronicles our follies and foibles as we mucked through mountains of literary theory and one small two-act play.

My primary contributions are named in the post's title: the Tagmemic grid being the most significant.  Also, props.  And I'd like to think a bit of perspective/sanity/direction.  Ha! Like being the operative word.

More to say on this after this evening's shenanigans.

OK....the evening's shenanigans long since passed, and here are my reflections.

The tagmemic grid...hmmm...  I still like the grid.  However, due to my lateness and our group momentum I'm not sure it was adequately explained to the class.  In theory it would have helped groups to explore the issues in Equus on an escalating scale of complexity to arrive at certain conclusions.  In practice...I'm pretty sure it just served as a decoration-a garnish if you will-augmenting the "presentation" of our presentation.  I believe that some found it too complex.

And the horses...well, they were garnishes to begin with.  So perhaps I was the set decorator.

In terms of discussion I am happy with what happened.  I feel pretty strongly that our group distributed the task of analysis equally.  We were each very knowledgeable about the text of Equus and the application of a variety of theoretical approaches to the text.  My own analysis applied mostly psychoanalytic theory and poststructural theory to Equus.  I especially focused on the play as Dysart's narrative, wherein he arrives at certain conclusions about the erroneous nature of normativity and his role as an enforcer of social norms.

The Simpsons spoofs Trouble in River City

What If It Were Agreed that "Proper" Meant Wearing a Codfish on Your Head?"

In their essay "Introductory Deconstruction" from Literary Theory, An Anthology, Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan explain that one implication of Jacques Derrida's concept of differance is that it becomes very difficult to ground the notion of "truth" in any authority.  In Derrida's construction then, truth, as the authors explain, is a deferred presence grounded in representations.  Furthermore, its presence is "shaped by conventions regarding how those acts of representation work.  It must be haggled over and settled on through agreements" (261).

Tim Burton's recent adaptation of Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass finds Alice pensively posing this post's titular question to her mother, while en route to a formal engagement party.  Alice's mother discovers that she (Alice) has failed to don the appropriate undergarments.  Angrily, she exclaims: "but you're not properly dressed!"

"What if were agreed" retorts Alice, "that 'proper' meant wearing a codfish on your head? Would you wear it?"  Pleased at her mother's befuddled nonresponse, Alice demurs "to me, stockings are like a codfish."

Burton's reproduction of Alice in Wonderland casts Alice in a role that contests the notion of what is proper and who has the authority to make such conventional agreements.  As such, she is a classically poststructuralist heroine who resists the meta-narrative of her proper gender role in three different but parallel strings.  First, there is the question of marriage--whether or not she will marry "Hamish," the effete aristocrat who proposes in the first scene.  Second, the notion of heroes and damsels in distress, which is turned completely on its head as Alice is called upon to be the White Queen's champion in battle against the Jabberwocky.  Finally, there is her deceased father's business which has been purchased by her would-be fiance's family.

Furthermore, there is the allusion to what amounts to a very queer,  (albeit heterosexual) attraction between the Mad Hatter and Alice.  Also Absolom seems somehow meant to signify Alice herself in her state of always "becoming".  This conflation of identities queers the gender narrative in the movie as well.

[Still in progress. Seems lately I finish nothing.]