Questions of Authorship and Text: Finally tying in some sociological theory

“what is the past but a once material substance, now silenced, extant only as a sign and as a sign drawing to itself chains of conflicting interpretations that hover over its absent present and compete for possession of the relics, seeking to inscribe traces of significance upon the bodies of the dead” (Spiegel, quoted on 162)

My  background in history did very little to shape my opinion of texts since most of my professors were very much in line with the critics of “theoretically inclined historians” described by Clarke (161).  Fortunately, the University of Waterloo was a haven for Sociologists of Religion, and they above anything else shaped how I see the world.  While reading Clarkes synopsis of the various theoretical approaches to reading texts, I thought of how these theories fit with the problems of authorship and context and realized that I have been heavily influenced by the works of Peter Berger.  So bear with me while I describe Berger’s theory on the sociology of knowledge, and how I believe it ties in with this week’s topic. 

Berger argues that society is a ‘dialectic phenomenon’ that is a “human product, and nothing but a human product, that yet continuously acts back upon its producer” (Berger, “The Sacred Canopy”, pg 3) We unconsciously create society, and we are largely a product of the society that we make.  This dialectic occurs in three steps;  externalization, objectification, and internalization.  ‘Externalization’ concerns the continuous physical and mental creations of humans (books, law etc), ‘objectification’ is the process in which these ‘things’ gain a reality of their own that is separate from their creator, and ‘internalization’ is the “reappropriation by men of this same reality, transforming it once again from structures of the objective world into structures of the subjective consciousness” (Berger, 4).  We continuously make society, society becomes its own reality sui generis, and society imposes back on us.  It takes Berger two books to figure out the nuances of his theory, so this hardly gives it justice, but it applies itself well to how we should read texts from the past.

The various authors citied by Clarke are concerned with studying the various stages in the creation of a ‘text’.  Historians have attempted to explain ‘texts’ by their original meaning and authorship (externalization), as standalone objects (objectification), or by what they convey upon the reader (internalization).  The implications of Berger’s theory are that the original intentions of an author are meaningless.  Once something is written down, any claim of ownership by the author is lost, as his words are now independent objects.  Looking at the objective ‘text’ is also problematic, since at that point you’ve already internalized it and given it a subjective meaning.  At the point of ‘internalization’, we are grappling with our own interpretations and how others have interpreted it, and this I believe is where a ‘text’ gets its meaning.  Throughout history, words have been taken out of their original contexts and intended meaning and appropriated to become something completely different.  We must study ‘texts’ by how they are used and understood by others, since the original meaning has long since been lost because of the socialization of knowledge.

Since I subscribe to Berger’s theory and believe that it has relevance not just to sociology but to the study of history, it is easy to see why I had an affinity with the theories of Barthes and Foucault that were presented in this week’s readings.  Barthes criticizes literary critics who obsess with authorship, original meaning and the objectivity of ‘texts’.   He focuses on the “collaboration” between the reader and the text, and how the reader inevitably becomes the author (133).  The reader may claim to know the original meaning of a text by knowing the authors intentions or the context in which the text was written, but this is problematic.  Even in this case, the reader would have his/her own opinion of the author that would affect intentionality, and the choice of which “context” the book was written will affect its meaning.  The reader brings his/her own knowledge and interpretation to a text when it is internalized, and in so doing affects its meaning.   Foucault questioned the idea of authorship, and specifically the zeal in which many scholars sought to identify the original author in order to give a work ‘authority’.  I agree that this is a largely fruitless endeavour and that the important questions to ask are, “What are the modes of existence of this discourse? Where has it been used, how does it circulate, and who can appropriate it for himself? What are the places in it where there is room for possible subjects?  Who can assume these various subject-functions?”  (134).  These questions assist us in finding the meanings within a text, meanings that are far distant from there now ‘silenced’ past.