Sanders, "The Politics of Literary Reinscription ..."

[jbor]

----------
>From: "Dave Monroe" <davidmmonroe at hotmail.com>
>

> (want the *whole* text? get it
> *yourself*)

Thanks, and sorry to bother you. It won't happen again, and I will seek out
the actual article because I am interested.

Btw, see also Taussig, _Defacement: Public Secrecy and the Labor of the
Negative_, Stanford University Press, 1999.

     Friendship, in this view, behaves like Marcel Mauss's famous notion of
    the gift, which likewise "cements" much of social process and lies at
    the heart of what we often call "corruption". Mauss drew attention to
    just this duplicity in the gift which is, as he stated on the first page
    of his book, in theory voluntary, disinterested and spontaneous but is
    in fact obligatory and interested. The form usually taken, he went on
    to note, "is that of a gift generously offered; but the accompanying
    behaviour is *formal pretence and social deception*" (emphasis added [by
    Taussig, citing Mauss, _The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in
    Archaic Societies. Translated by Ian Cunnison. Norton NY, 1967, p. 1])

     Not only is the logic of the gift implicated in friendship, but
    friendship in most situations is, I believe, likely to presume the gift
    or be itself a gift. For if we reflect upon it, friendship seems to
    possess a delightful mix of everyday taken-for-grantedness *and*
    something wonderfully serendipitous emerging from short circuits of
    social life so as to build and build on an ineffable bond of confidence
    between two or more persons. In this sense, friendship is a gift that an
    otherwise indiffirent society now and then bestows on those of us
    fortunate enough to be so blessed. Moreover, friendship becomes the
    locus for secrecy and sharing secrets, just as it is the locus of gifts
    and sharing gifts. Conversely, gifts can be like secrets and come nicely
    wrapped as part of the element of *surprise*. For surprise is the
    precise Maussian point where the contradiction in the gift discharges
    itself. But over and above this, friendship is in itself a gift.

     All the more fascinating and all the more poignant, therefore, the
    secret within the gift, and therefore withing friendship, concerning the
    impossible but necessary co-existence of generosity and calculation.
    This is of course no secret other than the classic public secret -- that
    which we all know but cannot easily talk about ... and the logic of
    the contradiction is giddying. Still, most of the time we get along. ...
                                                                [p. 62]

But enough of that sort of intimidation *here*. Now, what was it that they
want to be to reading about. Lists of favourite things was it? I think P's
favourite colour is green. Or-or magenta. What do you think? And I bet he
likes Britney better than Christina. ...

best