Ferguson 2003

Competing Concepts of Literacy in Imperial Contexts: Definitions, Debates, Interpretive Models

"I attempt to explore some of the ways in which our views of early modern empires and their literacies are not only shaped (as they must inevitably be) by our own historical position but also deformed (in ways they needn't continue to be) by inadequate reflection on some of the investments in empire that we, as modern writers and readers, share (in part) with some of our educated forebears." (31)

much literacy scholarship produced in modern universities "has had the expansion and/or the decline of empire as a major condition of production" (32)

• us (literate) vs. them (illiterate)

flashcard literacy (36)

until c19, "literature" and "literacy" used interchangeably to denote being well-read and ability to read/write (39)

how do interpretations of literacy affect performance? see e.g. pg 40

"Great Divide" theories -- orality vs. literacy (44) -- often "read like slightly secularized narratives about the Fall of Man", with it being both liberating and damning (45) (Levi-Strauss)

"culturalist view" (Derrida)

Levi-Strauss/Derrida debate; lessons to learn:

• "the epistemological problems of ethnocentrism are central and inescapable whenever we undertake to analyze literacy in cultures distant from our own in time and/or in space" (52)
• "one cannot simply pay lip service to the methodological problem presented by one's own historical, and in many cases professional, investment in a particular view of literacy" (54)