praxis and theory
So a friend of mine is involved with planning a conference investigating this question of praxis and theory. I was reading the call for papers again today and realized how much this question really means to me and the basic problems i’ve been running up against in various professionalizing situations that seem to depend, either implicitly or explicitly, on the assumption that “thinking” and “doing” are two separate spheres that should be performed by different kinds of “professionals.” A very basic example is the way in which my film program, a very praxis-oriented one, kept “production” and “theory” very separate. There was a separate film studies major, and those students were never given the opportunity to collaborate with “production” students within the formal structure of the program. While collaborations did occur, they were rare, unfunded, and, quite frankly, not encouraged. Is there something within the training of a film scholar that makes her unable to make a film? Would she lose her position of objectivity were she ever to actually take part in the thing she studies? I found it strange that I had to choose between thinking and doing, and I still find it impossible to imagine that one could do one or the other solely!
Critique only serves to reinforce this dichotomy at times. You, the critic, are outside the thing being critiqued.
I have heard that this is more of an issue in the US, in a context where professionalization is narrower, more segmented, more specialized than in other places. I’m not sure how true this is, but it sounds probable enough.
