Linguistic Anthropology DVDs?

[Larry Gorbet]

>For feature films, I think Memento provides a fascinating 
>presentation on the American (Anglophone?) fallacy of "facts" as 
>autonomous, independent "things" which one could establish and the 
>engrave in stone (or tatoo on one's body). I've never tried using it 
>in class, however. Could be risky. The only way this would work 
>would be to view the entire film.

Alex -

I quite agree that Memento, among other things, is a nice allegory of 
reified memories, but I wonder what if any evidence supports the 
notion that this conception is at all peculiar to particular cultural 
traditions. In particular, how is your "American (Anglophone?) 
fallacy of 'facts' as autonomous, independent 'things'" anything more 
than a particular confluence of evidential and epistemic 
categorizations that are widespread, if not universal? If this 
"fallacy" were indeed so particular, what could we make of such 
often-grammaticized categorizations as "independently verifiable", 
"realis" etc.? I suppose one might argue that the account in the 
linguistic and anthropological literature of these grammatical 
categories is flawed by the aforementioned fallacy, but such an 
argument, to be an argument, needs some evidence and careful analysis.

Note also, with respect to Memento itself, that those tattos etc. are 
really nothing more than mnemonic stand-ins for the protagonist's 
memories and speculations. There is nothing I am aware of in the film 
that suggests that he regards them as having any more status 
"factually" than any personal memory (of either events or 
speculations) he would "ordinarily" have. That is, they are still 
"his", not something independent. He doesn't appear to believe that 
some stranger has mysteriously tatooed him.  The reification is just 
an artifact of the situation that his mental condition has forced him 
to put these notes in an extra-somatic (or at least "extra-cortical") 
form and that when he reads them later, they do not connect to 
internal memories.

- Larry


-- 
Larry Gorbet                         lgorbet at unm.edu
Anthropology & Linguistics Depts.    (505) 883-7378
University of New Mexico            
Albuquerque, NM, U.S.A.