Intertextuality Discussion - Alanis

 Hi all, 

Welcome to the discussion post on Intertextuality. Here, I took some quotes from the reading and had some discussion questions associated with them that I thought were interesting and I was thinking of these while I read. Feel free to respond here if your answer doesn't get said in class. Obviously there is no right or wrong answer, just say how you feel! 

“To communicate we must utilize existing concepts and conventions”

• Discuss: Today, we sometimes see new concepts and phrases being used to communicate meaning, such as the creation of memes and the expansion of slang terms. Is this quote still true, or can we see communication happen using new concepts and conventions? If it is true, to what extent do you see it being applicable/true today?

“This rather extreme but important example thus serves to highlight that every reading is always a rewriting.”

• Discuss: Do you agree or disagree with this statement? When you think about reading and writing yourself and your essays, do you think of it as rearranging words that have already been written? Is originality just an abstract concept, as the text on Intertextuality suggests? 

“The notion of intertextuality problematizes the idea of a text having boundaries and questions the dichotomy of 'inside' and 'outside': where does a text 'begin' and 'end'? What is 'text' and what is 'context'?”

• Discuss: Are there any reasonable examples of texts or works that you know that don’t relate to anything else that you know of immediately? Can a piece of literature stand on its own or is it constrained by relationship to other texts and ideas? Is it a constraint to know that one’s text has to relate to something else?

“Would the 'most intertextual' text be an indistinguishable copy of another text, or would that have gone beyond what it means to be intertextual? Would the 'most intratextual' text be one which approached the impossible goal of referring only to itself?”

• Discuss: Can plagiarism be considered “intertextuality”? Is there power in being a text connected to the world in some way, or would it be better if we could somehow make an intratextual world where somehow, nothing is really connected? Is there power in seeing an advertisement without words and being able to know most of the context without needing it read or spelled out?