I was the most taken with this repeated argument that became a refrain in Shanti Kumar's essay, "The degree of diversity/disciplinarity in the dialectical "syntheses" that a comparative approach to
global television and television studies will effect depends largely upon how willing or able practitioners of the discipline are to allow for expression of incommensurability. (emphasis mine) The more porous the disciplinary framework of global television studies, the greater will be the possibility for diverse expressions of incommensurability."(146)
The term 'incommensurable' seems to refer both to the difference in disciplinary approaches to TV studies, all of which have essential contributions as well as to the incommensurability of the television texts and contexts under study. This basically means approaching every study on a case-by-case basis, abandoning a general hope in TV studies of establishing a company line on the right theory, I understand why Kumar is advocating for a greater attention to the incommensurable, but I'm not sure how it is to be implemented? As a South Asian scholar who's often puzzled by the bulk of Western TV scholarship I read, wondering all the time 'Does this even travel?', I see the need to resist the urge to universalize, but for a discipline as a whole, that would surely be detrimental? How is this mythical balance to ever be achieved?
global television and television studies will effect depends largely upon how willing or able practitioners of the discipline are to allow for expression of incommensurability. (emphasis mine) The more porous the disciplinary framework of global television studies, the greater will be the possibility for diverse expressions of incommensurability."(146)
The term 'incommensurable' seems to refer both to the difference in disciplinary approaches to TV studies, all of which have essential contributions as well as to the incommensurability of the television texts and contexts under study. This basically means approaching every study on a case-by-case basis, abandoning a general hope in TV studies of establishing a company line on the right theory, I understand why Kumar is advocating for a greater attention to the incommensurable, but I'm not sure how it is to be implemented? As a South Asian scholar who's often puzzled by the bulk of Western TV scholarship I read, wondering all the time 'Does this even travel?', I see the need to resist the urge to universalize, but for a discipline as a whole, that would surely be detrimental? How is this mythical balance to ever be achieved?
Laboni -- the pressure on "incommensurability" in Kumar's piece stuck out to me too. He uses it in more than one sense, as you point out, so it's not always easy to pin down what exactly he means by this recurring motif in his essay. I also found myself wondering if he wasn't perhaps exaggerating, if in making the case for incommensurability he wasn't overstepping the mark. Cultures, texts, and cultural texts are different, yes; but it doesn't follow from this that they are incommensurable. To argue that they are, in fact, truly incommensurable would be a very strong claim, one which the experience of daily life repeatedly disproves. We know that texts travel in all sorts of ways and that people do...can difference really be reduced to teh more pessimistic incommensurability?...would love to hear your thoughts...
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DeleteLaboni, I've thought about your intervention re: incommensurability during last week's Zoom session a couple times this week, and your criticism that you elaborate here a bit here. If I'm understanding it, your questions are something like: is incommensurability sustainable as an analytical tool? How can any sort of larger theory of translation or participation in the "global" happen if the specter of the incommensurable always looms? These do seem like problems--and in a way, what the critique invites is a flurry of speculative work to understand commensurability and incommensurability itself. How does this in pass come about, and what are its limit cases?
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