Term Paper

For my term paper, I'm considering writing about how the development of writing has intensified humanity's sense of self, and how it's become evident over time with the rise of post-modern literature. I'm reading Tristram Shandy now (it's not post-modern literature, as far as the time period, but it has a lot of similarities), and it's hard for me not to see a complete lack of community, or really anything besides the author. It's almost like a diary; Ong says on page 101, "The kind of verbalized solipsistic reveries [the diary] implies are a product of consciousness as shaped by print culture." In chapter 7, under the heading "The Inward Turn: Consciousness and the Text," he says, "the stages of consciousness described in a Jungian framework move toward a selfconscious, articulate, highly personal, interiority." 

It's circular in my head at this point: consciousness brings rise to the word, the word heightens consciousness, which in turn produces print, heightening consciousness even more.