----- Original Message -----
> From: Michael Robison
>
> Without a definition it has no meaning. The
students
> seeking to establish one seems perfectly reasonable
to me.
Therein lies the whole point of the disease metaphor. I
pointed out that a doctor looks at a patient's symptoms to
determine the illness; a given patient may not present with
all the symptoms of an illness, but there reaches (one hopes)
a point where only one diagnosis makes sense. I wanted to
avoid an unnecessarily narrow definition. As a matter of
fact, my moving from "characteristics of noir" to "symptoms
of noir" has been a very successful decision! The students'
understanding and analysis of noir is much more sophisticated
than last semester!
Besides, there are many things in life that have no set
definition but still have great meaning.... One would have a
great deal of trouble constructing a satisfactory definition
of, say, "pornography." In 1964, Supreme Courrt Justice
Potter Stewart famously tried to explain "hard-core"
pornography by saying, "I shall not today attempt further to
define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . .
. [b]ut I know it when I see it . . . "
(Jacobellis v. Ohio, 1964). "Love" is an equally problematic
word.
Damn it, I was not trying to start another contentious debate
about definition of noir.
~Marc
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 24 Sep 2005 EDT