Slowly sink beneath the skin
Of the body we call America
Most rather hit and run
In the face of a weak heel
Slowly creep under the tissue
Into the vessels we call creativity
Blood and waste run
Through the timid cold feet
Slowly oh too slow
The sun shines and darkens
Clouds gather and disperse
The Black Mountain stands still
Rainy oh let it rain
The crow does not mind
A shepherd doses off on the meadow
Johnny stands besides the cage
累癱在床上的時候摸到放在床底下的書本封面，是杜思妥也夫思基的《惡魔》的1994年英文新譯本（中譯為《附魔者》，或許是受到早期英譯本的影響吧）。內容就不說了，這些年來還沒進入狀況。然而霧面的書皮摸起來特別有質感，七百多頁的厚度卻不覺得沈重，可能因為紙質比較輕，書本也大約是一般25開本的大小。整體卻給人非常有份量的感覺。拖拉庫司機嘔心瀝血寫作的熱血青年奮鬥浮沈錄當然是重點，然而譯者逐字推敲的用心，書本設計者的深厚功力，以及其他參與人員為了各種出版細節而付出的心力，都成為書本重量的一部分。
我一直記得八年前我在校園轉角處的College Inn餐館等著外帶漢堡的時候，就著斜射門窗的夕陽形同嚼蠟般讀著簡體版味道全失的Donald Worster的《自然經濟學》，竟然還有人問我在看什麼書。那個人很認真的告訴我他的荒島書就是這本拖拉庫司機的惡魔，他說這本書讓他一再閱讀，而且每次讀起來都感觸良多。這種不認識的人會問我在看什麼書，後來也只發生過一次，是在圖書館櫃檯打工的時候，我正讀著輕薄短小的William Strunk and E B White的The Element of Style，穿著風衣的青年問我正在讀什麼，或許他以為我又在讀什麼荒島書吧。知道我讀的是一千零一本寫作指南經典之後，那個人只說了一句淡淡的嘉許：Good for you。
經過眾人全心投入心血的書是不能以價錢計算其價值的，也只有這樣的書才有吸引人的力量。在新舊書店裡面走過整面書牆的時候，我會聽到每一本書在我耳邊的呢喃低語，隨著我的步伐而起伏生滅。桑塔格在他的日記裡面就說卡夫卡是絕對的力量，然後由此比較喬伊斯的愚笨、紀德的甜美，湯瑪斯曼的空洞和華麗，普魯斯特的趣味. . . 。有生命的書是會說話的。
上個週末到華盛頓DC難得見面的朋友家飲酒夜談，席間我拿出帶在身邊的瑞斯曼(David Reisman)的短文集子《個人主義再考》(Individualism Reconsidered and Other Essays, 1954)，儘管出版年代有點懷舊，不過對於無謂憂患時下時代知識份子的公共角色的我來說，里斯曼仍然不失為一股溫暖的支持。言談之間不免想到essay這個文類的可愛之處。
據說essay是法人蒙田的發明，法文的essais就是「嘗試」的意思。按蒙田原本的用意， Read More »
這陣子在不同場合而遇到兩個有點像的字：詩篇(canto)和觸摸(contatos)；前者主要是住在精神病院又向墨所里尼致敬的現代主義詩人Ezra Pound寫的《詩三篇》(Three Cantos)，後者則是來自我弟出的CD專輯名稱，取自巴西作曲家貝里那提Paulo Bellinati寫的《接觸組曲》(Suite Contatos)。這個巧合不免又挑起我的字源癖。查了線上牛津字典和韋伯字典之後似有斬獲，隨記感想如下：
Canto有三種意義：1)歌曲或敘事曲；2) 長詩的一部份；3) （女）高音，其拉丁字源是cantus ，也就是歌曲，如今法文的歌唱也是canêre。
Cantatos似乎是葡萄牙文的「接觸」，我從線上的葡萄牙文字典查不到，但是從英文的contact查到其拉丁字源 contactus，觸摸。
那麼我們能不能說，拉丁文的「歌曲」(cantus) 和「觸摸」(contatus) 的起源相同？我不確定，但或許可以由cantata這個字得到證明。義大利文的Cantata原來泛指歌曲，後來才衍生為供器樂演奏的器樂曲，這個字很明顯源自拉丁文的觸摸contactus。再不成，我們也可以蠻橫的剝削「象徵」的希臘文原義：symballein，to throw together，象徵就是混為一談。
以「接觸」作為「歌曲」的隱喻，讓我覺得很有意思。詩歌原本是無形的，但是透過聲波的傳遞可以觸動聽眾。拉丁文的「接觸」contactus直譯就是「觸摸各方」(to touch on all sides)。英文 tactile 和 tangible 的拉丁字源tact-ilis 都有「看起來可以摸」的意味（觸視），以此類推，源自canto（cant-us）和cantata（con-tact-us）就成了「聽起來可以摸」的詩歌（觸聽）。
沿著這個線索，相關的字應該不少，手邊想到的就有兩個：
toccata，觸技曲（來自義大利文和法文的觸摸toccare），原意是「音樂家在既定曲目之前即興演出的前奏曲」，後來引申為「為展現演奏者的觸感和技巧的鍵盤曲目，兼具有即興的意味。」
incantation：內在的歌唱(in-cantation)，就成了具有魔法意味的召喚。
最後，我們也可以看到「詩／文」和「歌／樂」的兄弟關係，最早的詩似乎都是可以入歌的。除了cantus和cantactus之外，又如orator是演說者，oratorio指的則是大型的敘事曲。進一步引申，不論是詩篇、歌唱、或接觸，都和拉丁文的cant相關： 也就是切割、劃分的意思。換句話說，詩篇和歌曲在演出的同時，反覆的韻律和震動的聲波往外擴散，接觸四方，也就把連續流動的世界切割成你、我、他；這裡和那裡；過去、現在、和未來。
昨天在《漢典》這個線上字典網站無意間發現這個表，很驚訝。原來注音符號不是現代的發明，相反地有很多是最原始的古字。有點懷疑為什麼以前的我不知道，難道老師教過我忘了，還是我孤陋寡聞？根據網頁作者（不詳）指出，注音符號的來源並沒有正式文告，因此我很佩服整理出這張表的人，裡面有很多有趣的解釋。這也讓我想到日本人創造五十音字母的時候，也是採取類似的方法。這個了解改變了我對注音的看法，注音不僅不只是一套符號，而且還是中文系統的古老成員，也就不會那麼排斥注音的「膚淺」和「初階」。或許也有可能以注音來發展出不同的方言書寫文字？事實上該作者也指出注音符號最初有設計拿來加註方言。總之，注音文也是文喔！
附上幾個google到關於吳稚暉和注音符號的link：
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ㄅ “包”之古字，說文解字：“勹，裹也，象人曲行，有所包裹。”，讀“ㄅㄠ”
ㄆ 說文解字：“攵，小擊也。”即手執竿輕敲，讀“ㄆㄨ”(撲)
ㄇ “幂”的本字。遮蔽覆蓋之意，古音“ㄇㄧˋ”
ㄈ 說文解字：“匚，受物之器。”古代一種盛物的器具，讀“ㄈㄤ”(方)
ㄉ 古之“刀”字，讀“ㄉㄠ”
ㄊ 古之“突”或“凸”，讀“ㄊㄨ”
ㄋ 古之“乃”字，讀“ㄋㄞˇ
ㄌ 古之“力”字，讀“ㄌㄧˋ”
ㄍ 說文解字：“巜，水流浍浍也。”川之小者，田間的水道，讀“ㄍㄨㄥ”(工)
ㄎ 說文解字：“丂，氣欲舒出，勹上礙于一也。”氣受阻礙而無法舒出或行而不利 ，讀“ㄎㄠˇ”(考)
ㄏ 古之“ㄏ”字，山側避風雨之居處，讀“ㄏㄢˇ”(罕)
ㄐ 古之“糾”字，說文解字：“丩，相糾缭也。”，讀“ㄐㄧㄡ
ㄑ ㄑ：水小流。同”畎”、田間溝渠。讀“ㄑㄩㄢˇ”(犬)
ㄒ 古之“下”字，讀“ㄒㄧㄚˋ
ㄓ 古之“之”字，讀“ㄓ”
ㄔ 明．張自烈．正字通：“左步爲彳，右步爲亍，合彳亍爲行。” 彳：左腳的步伐。讀“ㄔ” (吃)
ㄕ 古之“屍”字，讀“ㄕ”
ㄖ 古之“日”字(象形)，讀“ㄖ”
ㄗ 古之“節”字，誤讀或借作“ㄗ”音。讀如(早)之聲
ㄘ 古之“七”字，誤讀或借作“ㄘ”音。讀如(草)之聲
ㄙ 古之“私”字，讀“ㄙ”
ㄚ 古之“ㄚ”字，廣韻：“丫，象物開之形。”物之歧頭曰“ㄚ”，讀“ㄧㄚ” (押)
ㄛ 古之“呵”字，說文解字：“ㄛ，反丂也。”。讀如(或)之韻
ㄜ “ㄛ”之轉化，由”ㄛ”添筆而成。讀如(峨)之韻
ㄝ 古之“也”字，讀“ㄧㄝˇ”
ㄞ 古之“亥”字，讀“ㄏㄞˋ”
ㄟ “流”也，讀“ㄨㄟ”(威)
ㄠ 說文解字：“麽，小也。””麽”的本字。小也，細也。讀“ㄧㄠ”
ㄡ 握于手之象形字，讀“ㄧㄡˋ”(又)
ㄢ 說文解字：“ㄢ。艸木之華未發然”。花苞之象形，其意“含”也。讀“ㄏㄢˊ”
ㄣ 古之“隐”字，又作”乚”：匿也。讀“ㄧㄣˇ”
ㄤ 玉篇．尢部：“尢，跛、曲胫也。”腳跛也，讀“ㄤ”(肮)
ㄥ 說文解字段玉裁注：“ㄥ，古文厷，象形，象曲肱。”。厷讀“ㄍㄨㄥ”(供)
ㄦ “兒”的簡化字。讀“ㄦˊ”
ㄧ “一”是數字之始，讀“ㄧ”
ㄨ 古之“五”字，讀“ㄨˇ”
ㄩ 說文解字：“凵，飯器，以柳作之。”古盛飯之器，讀“ㄩ”(淤)
曾經和我老闆提過，如果說二手書店塑造了我的學術輪廓也不為過，因為在那裡常常會看到一些不曾注意過的經典，老闆也心有戚戚焉。不過要說最早開啟了我的研究眼界，應該還是要算賣新書的獨立書店，這裡我想到的是大度山上的東海書苑。一家好的獨立書店的條件是根據知識的類別和重要性來選書，而不是根據銷售量和大眾的閱讀習慣。當然這樣的一個基本條件是要有固定的讀者群才養得起，東海書苑在大度山上算是勉強支撐，到後來還是不得不搬到台中市區。
在美國很少逛獨立書店，因為這種實體書店都是照定價賣很不划算，如果在亞馬遜上面買的話，新書通常都有六折到七折不等的折扣，還免運費。另一個主要原因也是以前我住的城鎮雖然也是大學城，但是唯一的一家獨立書店選書並不怎麼樣，連社會學這個類別都沒有，更不用提文化研究，總的來說反映了地方的保守古典風氣。雖然以前偶爾會到Barnes and Nobles和Borders逛，發現美國大改每隔一個月入口架上的新書就會重新汰換一次，新書的出版速度很快。但是畢竟要顧及大眾的吸收和品味，不可能放太多純粹學術的書籍。
這個月住在賓州大學附近，在校園附近發現兩家選書都很不錯的獨立書店，讓我覺得很訝異。 Read More »
Again the week has past without much achieved, except for a few pages of translation. The good thing is that, without diving too much into each subject, fragmented chapters or paragraphs of books and magazines I read still resonated with one another. The article of the week is the front piece of Harpers Magazine (May 2007) written by Lewis Lapham on Time Travel, by which he meant historical consciousness. He quoted Cicero who said “Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child,” and the wonderful historian Arthur Schlesinger who hammered the superficiality of quick resolution:
“Problems will always torment us, because all important problems are insoluble: that is why they are important. The good comes from the continuing struggle to try and solve them, not from the vain hope of their solution.”
Along the way Lapham also quoted Herodotus and T. E. Lawrence, and mentioned Edward Gibbon, Montaigne, and the last Ming emperor and his eunuchs. After bashing on the Iraqi war, the federal No Child Left Behind Act, Rudy Giuliani, and of course the Bush administration, Lapham’s outspoken critique culminates in the end by saying
“The national shortage of adult minds suits the purpose of a government that defines its task as a form of child-rearing and guarantees the profits of the consumer markets selling promises of instant relief from the pain of thought, loneliness, doubt, experience, envy, and old age.”
The merit of Lapham’s article is his focus on historic consciousness, which reminds me a popularly forwarded article in Taiwan written by the Swiss anthropologist David Singer. [http://www.mass-age.com/report_article.php?id=1091&pagea=1, for English translation, please see: http://blog.yam.com/sabin/article/8526824] After touching lightly on the political history of Taiwan, including the retreat of Chiang Kai-shiek after 1949 and the enforcement and lifting of the Martial Law, the author dived into the middle-class anxiety typical in the culture of modernity, as in the renowned comments made by Baudelaire in the mid-19th century or by Marshall Berman in late 20th century. Perhaps this is telling regarding the historical amnesia in the middle-class in Taiwan and America alike. It is as if the life of people in Taipei (taken to be representing the whole Taiwan in the inappropriate title) between the end of the war and 1949 is blank. I guess the busy business in putting up all those memorial monuments and parks all over the island to commemorate the lesson of February 28th, 1947, is as irrelevant as the business putting up MacDonalds, while the debate over the cause, effect, and meaning of the event are quickly hushed by the media and those who lost votes for this. The greatest disadvantage of this ignorance is to look at the pattern of the society as a thin slice, while overlooking the causality of the current dynamic structure, thus presenting the place as a static, outsiders view.
Now back to Lapham. His sharpness and erudition is admirable. But this, I thought, is really going to irritate many people, who might well call him a cynic. I happened to learn the etymology of this word this week, which means a dog and alluded to its barking. (see here) In the Chinese translation of the term, they tagged the word “ru”, a Confucianist, behind the word dog “Chuan”, adding up Chuan-ru (Quanru)—a barking Confucianist. Chinese people are so good at euphemism, but still the term represents a sour agitation toward someone who is skeptical of human nature and motives.
I have not forgotten, however, Lapham’s description of Cicero’s tragic death, whose cut-off head displayed in the Forum, right hand nailed to the Speaker’s Platform, and the tongue torn out and pierced with hairpins. Perhaps intellectuals past and now enjoyed making themselves martyrs of honesty and shrewdness. By nature and by try-and-errors, I am a bit doubtful with this messiah-like attitude. But rather than denouncing it once and for all, I am curious about the efficacy of presenting oneself as Mr. who-know-everything. To be true, the world is “sleepwalking into future,” (to quote Kunstler) but how much will you achieve if people began to see you arrogant and feel offended?
Then it has become a matter of style. I am reminded of Jacques Barzun’s words on “The Positive Side of Negatives,” in A Word or Two Before You Go: Brief Essays on Language (1986). Though he was talking about writing, his three principles—economy, courtesy, and accuracy—are equally useful when it comes to the way an intellectual present oneself. Barzun said,
“Courtesy . . . consists in keeping the reader and listener always in mind. They come first; they are our guests, and hence to be well treated. For nobody on earth has taken a pledge to read or listen to us. It therefore behooves us to make the encounter comfortable, indeed pleasant, as we would certainly try to do if it were a matter of entertaining acquaintances at home.” [p.14]
He is not alone in this. T. E. Lawrence, John Ruskin, and Jean-Jacques Rouseau, all have similar moralist tone in their writing. But, for all my affection to these authors, sometimes they sounds too moralist to the point of being hypocrite. Is this, then, a quarrel between style and content? By way of a haste conclusion, style and content support each other in good writtings, historical or general alike, as Peter Gay has shown in his fine analysis of Edward Gibbon (See “Gibbon: A cynic among ancient politicians,” in Style in History [1974]). Furthermore, there is nothing wrong in analysis and skepticism, so I told myself. I have felt that, in Taiwan, and perhaps other East Asian countries as well, “style” as decorum, that is, the representation of social hierarchy, has prevailed, but the practical manner to achieve style in writing and reasoning is still wanting. In other words, this gap between style and content is so big in my education that such question on style has perplexed and worried me for so long. For this reason, perhaps, everything I read and thought has become a boomerang.
The nice thing about field exams (some say qualifying or comprehensive) is that you are pulled and pushed to extreme. Anxious, worried, and strained, your sensational system is boosted and you never feel so alive to the degree that you feel like dying. Moreover your scholarship is laid bare in front of the juries. In this aspect, it resembles a design review in the studio, though different in medium and organizational principles. After the exams, the overall comment from my committee is to be cautious with my tendency to compartmentalize knowledge instead of making connection across different authors and concepts. With this in mind I talk to each professor in the committee for more details in the past two days, and not until I talked to all of them did I realize fully what they meant by compartimentalization.
With Professor DU I take it as a matter of style. I also thought about him as an anthropologist, using knowledge as a pattern to cut across space and time, subject and object, individual and groups. Taken as a criticism I admit that it is always easier to remember the title of a book, its author, and publication year than to analyze the content in depth. In terms of writing it becomes an issue of craft, i.e., whether to put the names of the quoted author in the text or in the footnote. If the concept is important and overarching, for example, the prison in Foucault, then it is necessary to put his or her name in the text. On the other hand, if a paragraph or article is full of different names and opinions of authors, the eyes of the reader will be cluttered and the message you wanted to convey becomes obscured. Do not fetishize an author or a book. Flatten the concepts; absorb, digest, and internalize them. Make them your own words and opinions. That’s the first thing I learned.
During the breakfast with Professor BM this morning, she explained that by making connections she meant the gap between the visual theories (in authors such as Martin Jay and Holly Getch Clarke) and environmental history. Here the concept of “frame” and the distinction of insider and outsider has proved to be useful. What does this mean? To me it means an ethical opportunity and responsibility in landscape design and landscape study to contribute to the movement of environmentalism. Here the concepts of “perspectival hinge” (rather than perspective drawing) and “land-scopic regimes” (phenomenal picturesque regime and montage-diorama regime in particular) are useful, but there are still a lot to do with this huge gap. To me it is also a gap between, say, reason and imagination, between humanity and science, and so on. (Edward Casey and his book on mapping came to my mind after the discussion). I realize that even in academic writing one still needs to be liberated from books, especially in synthesis. This notion also helps me to find my own voice and to see, as Krishnamurti says, the light in oneself. (Here is an answer, though hardly a final one, to the “what” of illumination).
I visited Professor DE in his office this afternoon. He encouraged me not to be afraid of taking off and no need be shy in the synthesis and critique of other people. For example, my critique on the critique of Partha Mitter on Ananda Coomaraswamy was so low key in the written part. It was not until the oral that I spoke more directly about my dislike of Mitter. My interpretation is that after all this is what scholars do: to propose, exchange, and debate over different ideas in their efforts. In terms of my tendency in perfectionism DE advised me to write a little bit everyday. “If you write one more sentence,” he says, “you have one more sentence in your dissertation. Sometimes you write more and sometimes you cannot write. But if you write a little bit everyday, you are progressing.” He once told me that “the greatest enemy of a paper is a perfect paper.” Now that I no longer haveany term paper to write (yes), he changed the word “paper” into “book” and added: “the greatest enemy of a dissertation is an incomplete dissertation.” Hilarious but very true.
Looking back my days in design studio, despite knowing the value of precedents and their interpretation as opposed to mere replicate, I was (subconsciously) often too concerned with the issue of copying and creativity so that I could not precede once I feel my design resembles the form or pattern of a renown designer or project. Perhaps this is in fact the byproduct of the superstar culture. Yes, a great designer or scholar is admirable. Nevertheless they are no gods and, just like us, also make mistakes and wrong judgments. Rather than “who do you want to become” or “who is your role model,” the more pressing questions are: what does the world want from us, and what do we want from the world? To me the responsibility of a scholar is to make knowledge more accessible and efficient for the use of other people; and the task of a designer is to anchor people, physically and metaphorically, in this floating dream world. The rest is the remnant of excessive courtesy (read inferiority complex) and belongs to the dustbin.
By the way, I passed the exam.
一位好的作者可以點亮許多晦暗不明的觀念，宋妲(Susan Sontag)不愧為其中佼佼者。1965年她為文〈人類學家為英雄〉(The Anthropologist as Hero)（收錄於《反對詮釋》Against Interpretation, [1966])，介紹李維斯陀(Claude Levi-Strauss)和他的學術自傳《憂鬱的熱帶》(Triste Tropique)。二十世紀初以來，由於人類文明對於自身存在的虛無與焦慮，研究「史前」社會的人類學家逐漸滲入其他人文學科，大抵上到李維斯陀達到一個巔峰。儘管《憂鬱的熱帶》在1961即有英譯本，但據宋妲所言在當時一直沒有受到重視，或許就是這篇文章開啟了李維斯陀在英語世界的影響力。
可以想見結構主義從一開始就中爭議不斷。宋妲以親族制度為例(kinship)，英倫學者如馬凌諾斯基(Malinowski)傾向於生物功能論，而結構主義卻認為親族制度乃是文化建構，可以比較分析，除了「結構的需求」(the need for order)之外另無他義。她也在文中輕易點撥了結構人類學的弔詭：
「人類學者自己也是人，也試圖拯救自己的靈魂。但是他也必須經由極端嚴苛的形式分析來記錄、了解他的研究對象… 這同時抹除了他的個人體驗，也真正抹除了研究對象（也就是既存的原始社會）的人性面向。」
(The anthropologist, as a man, is engaged in saving his own soul. But he is also committed to recording and understanding his subject by a very high-powered mode of formal analysis. . . which obliterates all traces of his personal experience and truly effaces the human features of his subject, a given primitive society.)
論定《憂鬱的熱帶》時她總結說道：
「. . . 清醒而痛苦的觀察者陷入嚴苛理論的掌控，進而遭受理論的清算。」
(. . . [T]he lucid and anguished observer has been taken in hand, purged, by the severity of theory.)
這於是牽涉到方法論裡面的「結構主義」和「後結構主義」的不同見解，原本我是不打算也沒有膽量碰觸的。只能說，正當許多後結構主義者搖著傅先生和德先生等人的大旗搖旗吶喊時，布先生厄迪悄悄的用枝葉纏繞的文體復興了李維斯陀的彈性架構。宋妲在文末也稱許了李維斯陀的道德動機，肯定他欲將人類從「進步」的枷鎖解放而出的理想性格。
我敲打鍵盤的本意只是為了註記field這個字。宋妲文內提到field的重要性，它是提供人類學者親身體驗(experience)的場所。或許是在這段期間field這個字昇級成為高級觀念。其實在更早，1950年的時候，美國詩人與評論家Charles Olson倡議即興創作時，第一個原則就是「開放」(open)，他用的另一個同義詞是Field Composition。（他強調文字的時間特性，不過卻很奇怪地用了空間的比喻. . . ）這裡的field要如何翻譯呢？
Field 原意接近clearing，可以說是耕地，也可以是任何開闊的空地，例如操場，戰場。講中文的人類學者稱 field 為「田野」，大概是因為原本就有田地的意思，早期的人類學研究地點又都是史前社會（也就是沒有文字記載的族群）；如今人類學研究的對象幾乎包括世界各個角落的各個階層，「田野」這個暗示非都市譯法的詞也就不太合時宜。
到了藝評家Rosalind Krauss寫的 “The Expanded Field of Sculpture”(1979)，中譯就成了《雕塑的擴展場域》(連德誠，1995)。近十幾年來在各種學術會議裡也常常聽到有人會丟出場域這個字眼，我總是覺得很拗口。何不直說是領域？但是就領域來說，realm和territory這兩個詞對應得更好。. . . 看來「場所」或「場地」不失為平易順口的翻譯？雖然建築理論裡面的場所理論將場所指定給place，不過我想「地方」對應 place這個字，應該比「場所」更適合。這議題值得另書。
想到這裡，發現終究是無法找到一個中文的詞可以同時代表field這個英文字的所有含意。就像是如果我們把很多論文裡面的other（一般譯為「他者」或「異己」）翻譯為「其他」或「別人」，就幾乎沒有任何意義一樣。這樣的結果也不奇怪，學術語言無法結合日常語彙，擴大了學術研究和日常生活之間的距離，這問題在文言文和白話文對比的時代自然更嚴重。如今中文是學術理論的接收端（至少也是入超），這注定了歐美人士的優勢，但是同時也突顯了名詞譯介的重要性。
Appropriating a book title that I have not read for article title is perhaps not the smartest thing to do. But the term local knowledge does summarize what has been in my mind for the past few weeks besides the hassle of cross-continental moving and settling down. Last semester there was a rare opportunity that three Mandarin-speaking architectural historians coexist in the program. Although each needed to tackle with our own busy life, we still managed to gather and have a nice dinner once in a while. Interestingly most of the times the conversation ended with the debate over methodology in architectural history—whether theory or material should guide the organization of the narrative. One of the context for this conversation is that various sociological theories and big names has dominated the current scholarly concerns in architectural history (or perhaps many other humanity fields) in Taiwan.
Both sides of the argument have their points and both seemed equally valuable. Admittedly we need theory to organize the seemingly scattered amorphous materials. As the economist Keynes remarked, even a claim to avoid theory is a theory itself. On the other hand it is a pain when we come upon a book or article full of jargons that consume our energy in debunking the overly convoluted speculation only to find it doesn’t make sense at all. In fact, it seems to be a consensus among several professors in the program that a good scholar (to paraphase Professor W) wears his theoretical baggage lightly.
Of course an easy answer is that we need both theory and material and attain a balance through constant reverberation, as historian Peter Burke said that “structures change and changed are structured.” But it is an irony that the notoriety of sociologists has replaced the reputation of philosophers in their theory making. As Collingwood mentioned in the Idea of History, the rise of sociology under Comte was triggered in part by the impatience with pure philosophical speculations and an urge to seek evidences and facts. (Well, think about Socrates and the sophists!?) Since when do we blame sociologists for obsession with theory? Or perhaps the prosecution should also cover anthropologists and literary critics and those big names who cannot be pigeon-holed with disciplinary categories?
Sociology, admit it or not, has made a great impact on historical studies. Peter Burke rightly points out that many times when people say “theory” they mean “model”. In his nice book History and Social Theory (another book on my ever expanding must-read list) he discusses several “central concepts.” Indeed, a less disputable term than theory, concept is really important as an organizing tool. Depending on the question an author wants to deal with, the model and central theme of the same archive material may differ, therefore the organization of the material will also be different. Merely a glimpse over the list of central concepts Burke discussed we realize the ways people look at and write about the society can be so different: social role, sex and gender, family and kinship, community and identity, class, status, social mobility, conspicuous consumption and symbolic capital, reciprocity, patronage and corruption, power, center and periphery, hegemony and resistance, social movements, mentality and ideology, communication and reception, orality and textuality, and, finally, myth.
Now the argument may have tilted to one side and betrayed the title of the article. To be fair I should confess that I am a theory-oriented researcher. I am aware of this serious bias, but at the same time I also try to push it to the limit in order to let go. The research proposal I submitted recently is full of theories that have been swirling in my brain fort he past two years. The response I have gotten so far from several generous and perhaps tolerant professors has been helpful. One of the great feedbacks is that, since I have moved to this place, the Bay Area of California seems to be a good site for facts and evidences for the designer I am working on. It also solved my problem of not being able to deal with the continuous spectrum from country to city. After all, like sociologists and designers, historians need to work with materials and are bound to be local. Even the theorists cannot avoid being local. In a recent conversation, Professor S mentioned that theorists like Charles Jencks and Rosalind Krauss all have their own version of postmodernism that is “local” in nature. Very refreshing. Well, sometimes it takes a long detour to realize a simple point.
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