‘All experience is fictional’
I stumbled upon the above statement in Prof Jean-Philippe Wade’s very first lecture on ‘Saussure: Semiotics and Structuralism’ and I must admit that it left me utterly baffled! My first thought was, “But this… but this? Wait a minute, this goes against my philosophy that ‘Tis but our experiences that turn us into modern-day SUPERHEROES’!” I later read the statement in its context, being that ‘reality is always mediated by language’ (Wade, 2007:4) and breathed a deep sigh of relief. (Actually I lie… I am still haunted by the proposition of all experience really being fictional. I don’t suppose I could be blamed, for the recent spate of events in my life have often led me to question, “Could I really be just a fictional purrsona in some fairytale yet to be told?”).
Just when you thought all was well and no longer rotten as in the state of Denmark, and that Cultural Studies wasn’t the Big Bad Boogyman, you get hit in the face by some dude studying film telling you that everyone wears masks of power and beneath all those masks is a humanist – a somebody whose real identity may only ever be exposed back-stage (Goffman, 1990). This further demonstrates that in the fiction-art-life spectrum, all we are in effect doing is learning roles (I am a daughter, sister, aunt, student, friend, blogger) (Goffman, 1990). So I am now stirred into formulating my own catchword for Cultural Studies: ‘Not for the faint-hearted!’
I stumbled upon the above statement in Prof Jean-Philippe Wade’s very first lecture on ‘Saussure: Semiotics and Structuralism’ and I must admit that it left me utterly baffled! My first thought was, “But this… but this? Wait a minute, this goes against my philosophy that ‘Tis but our experiences that turn us into modern-day SUPERHEROES’!” I later read the statement in its context, being that ‘reality is always mediated by language’ (Wade, 2007:4) and breathed a deep sigh of relief. (Actually I lie… I am still haunted by the proposition of all experience really being fictional. I don’t suppose I could be blamed, for the recent spate of events in my life have often led me to question, “Could I really be just a fictional purrsona in some fairytale yet to be told?”).
Just when you thought all was well and no longer rotten as in the state of Denmark, and that Cultural Studies wasn’t the Big Bad Boogyman, you get hit in the face by some dude studying film telling you that everyone wears masks of power and beneath all those masks is a humanist – a somebody whose real identity may only ever be exposed back-stage (Goffman, 1990). This further demonstrates that in the fiction-art-life spectrum, all we are in effect doing is learning roles (I am a daughter, sister, aunt, student, friend, blogger) (Goffman, 1990). So I am now stirred into formulating my own catchword for Cultural Studies: ‘Not for the faint-hearted!’
