Shaili Gandhi

Research questions:

 

• How does the treatment of books across cultures reflect on the members of those societies/predict or shape group mentalities

 

• What is the relationship between the treatment of books and the treatment of people
  • Treatment of women/minorities? Portrayal of women?
  • Development of children??????

I am thinking about looking at popular fiction– focusing on specific texts (ex: for the US, I might focus on Harry Potter or The Hunger Games or 50 shades) across cultures and compare the different portrayals of women and/or minorities.

Then I can approach research from a sort of sociology influenced position, looking at studies related to how pop culture and reading influences (or does not influence) the formation of opinion.

The human brain has a tendency to find order in disorder. Books on shelves somehow offer a sense of structure while the same books in crates or piles on the floor evoke little but chaos. But is there really more order in one and less in the other? And is one really superior to the other? Perhaps a library with books strewn on the floor or in mounds piled high to the ceiling would be a radical departure from some unspoken “universal” form of academia. An act of defying traditional patterns of structure is a defiance of the mind itself, it is resisting the natural tendency to find order. An ongoing struggle exists: how should books be organized? How should anything be organized? In the NYU bookstore, texts are arranged alphabetically by last name. The A’s and B’s are in one row while the G’s-I’s are in another. But then, there really is no reason for B to follow A. Alphabetical order– the universal sequencing of the letters– is merely a human attempt to regulate chaos.

This same need to compartmentalize transcends books. The idea of unifying a people, often under what Bhabha calls “naturalist traits” inherently creates a group of “other.” When people are sectioned off by color the same way books are with letters, a dichotomy exists– there is unity within each minority, but conflict within the whole. Hitler exploited the idealistic view of a classless society to unify a people while alienating another, and it was this alienation that strengthened the bonds within each individual community. Without this need to compartmentalize, is it possible for society to extend its horizons? 

Is it possible that books in a pile could offer more to us than those on bookshelves?

Imagine walking into the New York Public Library in the 1940s. Where would you head first? The stacks of books, the renowned Rose Reading Room, the archives? What about the coat-check room? A silent survey of diversity, the coat check room must have embodied the democratic ideals of the entire institution. There, umbrellas and bowler hats sat next to shoe-shine boxes, neither taking precedence over the other. The library, the “great marble palace” was a home for everyone, not just the elite or the wealthy. Equal opportunity manifested itself behind a counter of checked belongings– checking a shoeshine box was like checking the oppressive forces of poverty or race at the door, checking a hat and umbrella like leaving behind socially constructed privileges that no longer apply under the library’s roof. The coat-check allowed citizens to leave their inequalities behind them in a secular setting, quite literally lifting restrictions from class or trade, leveling the playing field for acquiring knowledge. Instead of being shackled to a shoe shine box in one hand, the bootblack can reach for the same book as his higher class counterpart.

Suppose that the fundamental jobs of a library is to preserve its contents– to conserve words written by dead hands, leaving behind an infinite legacy of a finite mind. If this is the case, whose legacy deserves to be upheld? And to whom is this information available? Ancient libraries can provide insight into the transience of not only ideas but of human existence itself. The quest to create a universal library continues, but even the legendary library of Alexandria went down in flames. Some people use words as a way to immortalize themselves but still these attempts fall short. Time refuses to be conquered. Books are often our main look into the past, but as more time passes, it become increasingly difficult to distinguish fact from fiction. Say that 500 years from now, the only thing left of 21st century America is a copy of The Hunger Games. Will future historians assume the 2000s were a time of immense centralized power that enjoyed watching kids fight like gladiators for their lives? And how far would they really be from the truth? In this case, Suzanne Collins’s young adult novel would be among the only remnants of our time; the rest of our present history will have been effectively erased, much like Shi Huangdi’s attempt to obliterate any reality before his own. This begs the question, is it considered history if no one is looking back at it?

 

While libraries are a center of accumulating knowledge, their existence is also deeply rooted in the destruction of what it works to preserve. In Battles’s words, “Libraries are as much about losing the truth– satisfying the inner barbarian of princes, presidents, and pretenders– as about discovering it. The loss of libraries is often enough the product of the fear, ignorance, and greed of their supposed  benefactors and protectors.” Knowledge often exists in the hands of a select few, resulting in a monopoly of knowledge. If knowledge is power, this sequestering of information can help those in authority maintain their position. Public libraries are funded by the government, which means– though it would be unconstitutional– it would be possible for them to regulate what information reaches the masses. If books are the center of knowledge and knowledge is power, books must then be the center of power. So, the secular ties of the library maintain a kind of power play between the governing and the governed.

Floor length windows line the wall. Below, a girl walks across the park, a backpack half her size slung over her shoulder. I wonder what class she’s going to or coming from, what books fill her bag, weighing her down with all the words she doesn’t yet know. Or maybe, her backpack holds no books at all. Maybe as I look down at her from the library, I romanticise her experience as a quest for knowledge when in reality she is lugging around cheap liquor bottles, wondering if anyone can see through her facade. I sit at a table lined with students, each on looking intently into the eyes of the screen in front of them. A girl is writing a lengthy paper while the girl next to her surfs through her facebook feed. It has never been easier to find information. It has never been harder to pay attention.

It is 5:30 and the sky deepens into a dark blue. Against it, the empire state building glows red, sitting atop a multitude of little squares of light. The girl across from me works attentively, her phone laying face down next to her tablet. She considers neither as her eyes dart from left to right, scanning her laptop. She reads without a book in sight.

 

(Also was unable to attach a picture)