Passing through the invention of printing press, people in Western Europe came to face more indivualized society and now I want to 'imagine those communities'.
Personally, strong impressions from this imagined communities are 'more uses of vernacular languages' caused by gradual decrease of sacred language, Latin or Arabic and 'simultaneous factors' caused by newspapers and books.
There must've been very difficult to learn sacred languages, so it made limitation of making classical communities, but as there were more uses of vernacular languages, taking time a lot though, people could've had a concept of closer concept of national identity. If we think about the impact of language for national identity, thoses situations make a sense a lot.
Language seems to be a invisible rope to connect the people in a concept of 'nation'. I think , using the language, we can communicate about what/ why/ who/ when/ where/ and how. From the history of what language did for establishing a contry or maintaining it, the power of it seems very huge in the society.
Currently, language doesn't seem to be limited by the geographical boundary of nation. For example, English even make new concept of language community, which is beyond nations.
How many language learning communities are there through both off-line and on-line!
And the power of English moves onto making national identity stronger , not directly connected to every nation using English, though.
Also, 'spontaneous factors by printed media', as Anderson mentioned, gave a strong identity to the nations. Talking about the events which happened in our country today seems to provide strong national identity to the people. Yes, we're getting globalized currently, but at the same time, it's interpretation and experiences are happening with a pretty much national point of view, I think.
joohee
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Response to Reading #10, Eisenstein
As a following impact of printing press, I think, Eisenstein covered very broad areas affected by it. Especillay, she mentioned of the standardization of reading material, which is the format and content of it brought strong impact to the readers, and it's very interesting to me.
I think if we think about the educational role of it, it is very meaningful in that they can more easily and effectively educate many people of Christian doctrine or moral concepts of what to do or not to do. Young readers must have absorbed the standardized rules of how to behave. If we think about learning how to behave currently, there is a lot of educational difference between learning from parents and from the book, which seems to provide more objective and professional knowledge to the learners.
Also, personally, I was very interested in her mentioning, 'people read the books silently, which is quite different from before'. I think it has a profound meaning of it because when there was not prevalent printed materials, a few people who possessed the book must've read it loudly to transfer the content of it, but after inventing printing press, people could read individually.
Especially, by reading silently, they could have more chances of thinking or meditating the material individually. Isn't it wonderful progress for helping people stand on their own?
joohee
I think if we think about the educational role of it, it is very meaningful in that they can more easily and effectively educate many people of Christian doctrine or moral concepts of what to do or not to do. Young readers must have absorbed the standardized rules of how to behave. If we think about learning how to behave currently, there is a lot of educational difference between learning from parents and from the book, which seems to provide more objective and professional knowledge to the learners.
Also, personally, I was very interested in her mentioning, 'people read the books silently, which is quite different from before'. I think it has a profound meaning of it because when there was not prevalent printed materials, a few people who possessed the book must've read it loudly to transfer the content of it, but after inventing printing press, people could read individually.
Especially, by reading silently, they could have more chances of thinking or meditating the material individually. Isn't it wonderful progress for helping people stand on their own?
joohee
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Reflections of week # 9, Hugo & Yates
Victor's hugo's mentioning, "The one will kill the other." gave me a basic insight of understanding the impact of printing press, diminishing role of architecture as a tool of expression, and Hugo's interpretations of this historical event by dealing with church of Notre Dame.
As we can see from the picture of cathedral of Notre Dame, it has the facade of divided into three, which means 'holy father, holy son, and holy spirit' and has many statues, sculptures, and drawings which represents the stories of the bible. It's such a paradime shift to me, from the paper or screen book to the building as a book.
Definitely, the people must have been overwhelmed by the huge scale and sacred envrionment of building and made them absorb the content of the building, the story of God. When they walked inside of the church, they received the knowledge of the God and tried to remember what they saw, connecting the parts of the building into the story. ( When we think about mnemonic devices for remembering, using building, order, and image, it really makes sense to me in a way. Like by the image in a certain place, people can remember some contents. - My mother is visiting here from Korea and doesn't know English almost at all, but she can remember all the places , reminded by some landmark buildings, and can drive and go anyplace, not reading English signs.)
As there came out a lot of things to remember more specific Christian doctrines, or things to do or not to do, the building was not enough to hold and convey all those things to remember. Then, here comes Gutenberg, inventor of printing press. It is such a cost saving product, which could save time, money, and space, comparing to the expense of constructing a building.
People must've felt thrilled by experiencing their own individual reading, holding the book and meditating some contents and kept reading, and even transferring the content to somebody else just as a book.
If we think about ' the damage of religious unity or degrading status of church of Notre dame, I can understand why Hugo mentions, "The one will kill the other". He may have felt some negative emotion of what was happening at that time, but did he expect by his literature, 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame', there was huge revival movement of Gothic architecture? Also, did he expect as the tool of communication was changed, printing press brought us a totally unexpected new world?
Currently, many people are worried about the negative impact of new technology as a way of communication, like the people in the cave blame all tough process to the outside of the cave, but I think there have always been frontiers who can see the future and has led most people into new world. The important thing is that how much the frontier can persuade or educate common people to follow them and we should be alert about the side effect of new technology and try to improve it to better world.
Joohee
People must've felt thrilled by experiencing their own individual reading, holding the book and meditating some contents and kept reading, and even transferring the content to somebody else just as a book.
If we think about ' the damage of religious unity or degrading status of church of Notre dame, I can understand why Hugo mentions, "The one will kill the other". He may have felt some negative emotion of what was happening at that time, but did he expect by his literature, 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame', there was huge revival movement of Gothic architecture? Also, did he expect as the tool of communication was changed, printing press brought us a totally unexpected new world?
Currently, many people are worried about the negative impact of new technology as a way of communication, like the people in the cave blame all tough process to the outside of the cave, but I think there have always been frontiers who can see the future and has led most people into new world. The important thing is that how much the frontier can persuade or educate common people to follow them and we should be alert about the side effect of new technology and try to improve it to better world.
Joohee
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