hybridity

[samuels at anthro.umass.edu]

>...The
>problem with the notion of 'hybridity' as borrowed from biology is that it
>presupposes a related notion of 'species'.
>


I'm not sure that this is the problem with the notion of hybridity.  Why
isn't that like saying that the problem with the notion of "focus" in
geometry is that it meant "hearth fire" in Latin?

My difficulty with "hybridity" is that its users tend to assume that the
most important path to understanding is philological. As a way of getting
at certain contemporary expressive practices, I think it's got advantages
over "syncretism." (This mostly has to do with the combination of disjunct,
rather than conjunct forms.) It's a worthwhile concept, then, but only if
it means something different from syncretism (an open question in many
treatments), and only if it concentrates on the utterance rather than the
default notion that the historical/philological antecedents of the
utterance are by definition explanatory of it.



David W. Samuels
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
212 Machmer Hall
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003

VOX: (413) 545-2702
FAX: (413) 545-9494
email: samuels at anthro.umass.edu
http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~samuels/

wot 2 be got 2 be