Orality Journal Volume 3, Number 1, 2014 | Page 12

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Samuel E. Chiang

As I conclude my thoughts in this Note, my mind keeps on thinking of
Jesus’s use of parables and questions. Might it be that the religious order
of that time colonized the masses, and treated the lost as “readerly”? Might
it be that Jesus came along and used the parables to move the crowd into
“writerly” settings? If our culture is “producerly,” why are our teaching
and learning approaches still “readerly”?
On the journey together,

Samuel E. Chiang
From Chiang Mai, Thailand

In a 1975 seminal work by Roland Barthes, S/Z: An Essay, with foreword by
Richard Howard and translated by Richard Miller, the author makes distinction
between passive and active participation in the text as ‘readerly’ vs. ‘writerly’;
for further elucidation on the definition please go here.
i

A contemporary of Barthes, but often considered the individual who set the
foundation of critical pedagogy, Paulo Freire, achieved his iconicity in his book
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which was first published in Portuguese in 1968, and
was translated by Myra Ramos into English and published in 1970.
ii

John Fiske is a well-respected American academic who wrote about popular
culture. While he is retired, his book, The John Fiske Collection: Understanding
Popular Culture, 2nd Edition, Routledge, 2010, is still required graduate school
reading across many campuses and countries.
iii