Interpretation as Keyword

July 31, 2007

As you may have noticed, Old Roads has gone through a major redesign (and please forgive some browser issues that we are straightening out). Martyn's Blog has been transformed into Old Roads Blog.. which seemed more descriptive. A further change in the official title of the site may have gone unnoticed. What we provide "interpretations of places, books, and other texts". The line used to read "comments". OK, it's a small change, but it reflects some recent reflection on what this site is about.

We strive to cover a wide range of texts—defined broadly as any cultural product that can be experienced sequentially. A street, a book, a film, a song, even a political speech.. they are all texts that can be read.. and thus interpreted. The idea of providing "comments" seems a passive activity.. a process of footnoting texts. Our goal is to provide an interpretation that stakes out a meaning for the text.. not in an attempt to control or simplify, but to identify the reading that the text itself is leading toward. "Comments" points to the identification of unclear details and explanations; "interpretation" is about following a text and learning to sense the meaning toward which a reader is being guided by an author or cultural system. This emphasis on interpretation emphasizes engagement with the process of a text.

Interpretation strikes us as a way to give some coherence to the topics treated at Old Roads Blog, which are admittedly various. Texts here will not stand out as great objects, nor as pop-culture icons or moral lessons; they are artifacts from a specific time that have an original reading context. They then gain interpretive traditions as they pass through time and continue to be read (whether streets or books). Our vision of interpretation takes into account these layers of historical interpretation.. which is often where cultural meaning is located and where the fun of our interpretive work becomes apparent.

This point helps to clarify my philosophy of teaching. My overriding goal is to nudge students into the process of reading a text (and that often means convincing them of the text-nature of buildings and streets). That process of active interpretation through engagement with the movement of a text is my central goal and should be the purpose of all my assignments.