What I would be interested in, personally, would be more direct
experiential accounts of the uses of orality. Derrida, like Jabes (which
otherwise might also be a good source), comes from a highly literate
culture; there are so many mediations at work here. I was thinking about
the _approach_ to theory from a non-writing perspective - the nearest I
can bring to bear here is Jean Duvignaud's Change at Shebika, still quite
worth-while, detailing the phenomenology of a
sociological/anthropological approach to a Tunisian village.
Alan
On Fri, 16 Sep 1994, Walt Stein wrote:
> In Article <Pine.SUN.3.90.940915002830.17556C-100000@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> steven.meinking@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
>
> >
> > Alan Sondheim inquired:
> >
> > "I would be interested to know, if you can describe it, how an oral
> > culture plays out into theory, or does it? For books can also be
> > problematic loci of power."
> >
> While not exactly relevant to your question, might I suggest that
> Derrida's section on "the writing lesson" in Of Grammatology might help to
> spark ways of looking at this question. I've read and enjoyed Ong,
> Orality and Literacy, but I found Derrida very helpful on this issue.
>
>