Interpretatio

The "Love" Article I Was Talking About In Our Last Class

2011-07-01T00:13:00.001-07:00

This is the article that I was talking about that I saw in a movie. The first link is the article itself through JSTOR, and the second link is the little part from the movie I found on YouTube (it's pretty interesting what they say in the movie before the guy actually says his argument, but his "thesis" comes at one minute and five seconds....

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4104976

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9CaXPlzSbM

Check this out! NPR did a segment on Terkel's Working

2011-06-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3892055

Precis for Studs Terkel's Working

2011-06-27T21:27:00.000-07:00

In the introduction Studs Terkel states clearly that Working has one common "theme" in all of the accounts and episodes: all of them have within them some sort of violence, whether the violence is physically done against the characters in over-working them, or mentally by continually being put down. This could in a way be seen as the move that Keiji Nakazawa did in Barefoot Gen when he brought up the tidbit about the wheat in the introduction, but maybe not as obvious. It's sort of hard to miss that every single story in Working has in it some sort of violence, but a few other things might be overlooked without further examination; in a lot of ways I think that he's suggesting that this violence is in a way innate in our everyday lives, and to all of us, no matter where we work or what ethnic background we have or who we try to be or what class we're part of.

Although I obviously didn't relate with all of the stories, a few of the stories I was able to connect to really strongly, and for the majority of the others in which I didn't personally relate to, I was still interested in what the person was going to say and how the artist chose to convey their story. It seemed as though the entire book in general was pitched towards an all-inclusive audience of nearly all the people in America. I don't want to extend the audience to the whole entire world because every story was set in America, and whether one-time immigrants or not, all of the characters were "American". In a way it might be going to say that the connection between our working life and the violence we face in it might be part of our society in America and not per-say the way the working life is in other countries; an opposition to this could be said though for the fact that Studs Terkel didn't openly mention life in another country or how working conditions are in other places, so Working could be seen more as a criticism of just our society in and of itself rather than a comparison-type-of-criticism of America's working habits as opposed to other countries'.

I have noticed that others in their precis' went on to write long descriptions of their reading of the text in specific, but in my case I merely wanted to set up with my reading of the general arguments the text presents, and pose some questions that I hope will jump-start our conversation tomorrow....I have some answers of my own to the these questions, but I feel it would defeat the purpose if I just said what I think, so here goes nothing....

What do you guys think the purpose is that Harvey Pekar chose to get different artists for each of the stories? What is he trying to say by sketching each one of the stories in a different way? What was the reason for this stylistic choice in this graphic novel adaptation of Studs Terkel's Working?

Do you think there were forms of work and types of jobs and sorts of people that were not included in Working?

Do you think that there was anything that the people had in common throughout the stories (besides the given that they were all speaking of work, haha)?

In adapting Studs Terkel's Working into a graphic novel, what do you think has changed in the presentation? What has remained the same? Has the work remained true to its goal (the work's argument)? Has newer arguments been created? Has the graphic adaptation taken previous arguments further?

For what it's worth... my incredibly late thesis

2011-06-27T21:08:00.000-07:00

Thesis: In Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, Alison Bechdel recounts her relationship with her late father as a means of understanding her own identity through an analysis of her fathers.

Opposition: Fun Home follows the relationship between a father and daughter as a way of presenting two very different paths taken in the discovery of self hood.

Bacchanal

2011-06-26T19:20:00.000-07:00

We've already arrived at our final week, incredible though that may seem. And since this has been quite a collegial and friendly little group I have mentioned before that I mean to bring round some refreshments for our final meeting, when papers are handed in, evaluations scribbled, lingering questions aired, and so on. If anybody else had the idea to bring anything that day, chips, crackers, veggies, cookies, cups, napkins, or what have you, the Virgo in me wanted to get the ball rolling in the comments section to this post so that it can be done in an organized rather than utterly haphazard sort of way, so here you go...

Thesis: Ethnography - Can't Stop Won't Stop

2011-06-26T11:42:00.000-07:00

The Photographer, in all well meaning innocence, fabricates Afghani selfhood as that of an oriental other through the use of myth bound signs. It is a work of truth that tells a lie.

- counter -

Using actual photography as well as mostly first hand accounts gives as politicized a text as possible, the construction of myth is not done by the photographer but by the readers. To whit; myth making of narrative selfhood is an act of interpretation.

Theses...

2011-06-25T20:10:00.001-07:00

A couple more to come, surely? Better late than never, now! So, how are you feeling about your writing processes? Did the thesis assignment help get you underway? Comments, problems, questions?

Thesis

2011-06-25T15:20:00.000-07:00

I completely forgot to post but here it is: ( Im still work in progress, here are two finches and I was wondering which was more advanced in the evolutionary stage)

Duncan's ability to embody not only a ideology but a way of life in to a dance gave her the power to break the social constraints which silenced women, to become the catalyst and inspiration of many revolutionary thinkers.

Duncan's embodiment of her ideology and way of life into her dance gave her the power to make her voice echo in the minds of many revolutionary thinkers despite social constraints where a women's mind were almost non-existent .

(leaning more toward the first thesis)

Counter claim (Im not sure, I think I still need to work on my thesis to get a more solid one)- It Ducans love affairs that gave her the publicity to be heard as a woman in a society where females were silenced.

Deogratias Thesis & Opposition

2011-06-25T14:15:00.000-07:00

Thesis Statement: Deogratias recurring flashback encounters interwoven (with the present) throughout the novel seem to take on a pedagogical slant/perspective that is unbounded by time and space (as portrayed by the unbounded boxes without lines).

Intelligent Opposition: Deogratias recurring flashback encounters interwoven (with the present) throughout the novel seem to not suggest a pedagogical slant because of the sexual themes, graphic violence and coarse language employed.

Palestine Thesis

2011-06-24T23:52:00.000-07:00

Thesis:

Joe Sacco initially inhabits the outsider persona as a means of establishing a kind of distance from the plight of the Palestinians--one that could afford him a venue for escape--yet, he deliberately plunges himself into the folds of the Palestinian testimonies, becoming an ambassador of their history, closing the gap he originally constructed and shattering the Western preconceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Opposition:

Joe Sacco maintains this outsider persona and, though he does attempt to reveal the truth of the Palestinian conflict, he attempts to maintain his Journalistic objectivity by belittling some of the harsh realities of Palestinian life--never fully taking a stand on the conflict with the power to waver Western preconceptions.

Thesis For American Born Chinese (Franco)

2011-06-24T22:38:00.000-07:00

Gene Luen Yang creates the identity and experience of the "American Born Chinese" as an "other" constantly dependent- being defined by the hegemonic forces of america.

Counter:

Gene Luen Yang creates the identity and experience of the "American Born Chinese" outside of American hegemonic forces and uses it to critique the one that is defined through American hegemonic forces.

-Franco

P.S: If this is the final essay thesis, it will be refined. Whatever I had at the 1st thesis workshop was much more refined and eloquent :)

Thesis For Final Paper

2011-06-24T22:27:00.000-07:00

Thesis: In Deogratias, Stassen makes Deogratias turn into a dog to show that he saw himself as inadvertently put in the situation he ended up in as the dogs he saw when he came back for the girls. Just as the innocent dogs that were put in the situation they found themselves in, Deogratias wanted to be let go of his misery by be shot.

Opposition: Stassen merely wanted to show that Deogratias had gone mad just like how the dogs had gone "mad" and had begun to eat human flesh. No further special connection as to why Stassen chose dogs, but just because it was an image Deogratias had seen in the recent past.

Thesis for American-Born Chinese

2011-06-24T22:03:00.000-07:00

Thesis: The three different narratives do not function as parallel stories to one another; instead, each permeate with their own unique struggles within different societal hierarchies beyond race, such as parental, capital, and religious, that meld together into a single story that exacerbates rather than resolves any conflict as the author originally intended.

Opposition: The three different narratives within American Born Chinese - one coming-of-age, one fantasy, and one sitcom-like - are parallel stories of self-acceptance that meet at a single point, woven together in order to emphasize the universal necessity for self-acceptance.

Goodbye Thesis

2011-06-24T20:06:00.001-07:00

The contrasting representational economies of the photorealistic “furniture” and cartoonish inhabitants in Tatsumi’s Goodbye highlight the attempt of many characters to inhabit a certain fantasy, to no avail. This failure of escapist fare frames inhabits the struggle of post WWII Japan to cope with the aftermath of the bombs.

Opposition: the contrasting representational economies do not represent an effort inhabit a fantasy space in which the bombings did not occur; rather, the photorealism of the scenery is purely a means of contextualizing the various narratives that take place in the novel.

US Constitution Thesis and Opposition

2011-06-24T18:17:00.000-07:00

Thesis:
In presenting the history of the U.S. Constitution through the eponymous graphic novel—by using figurative and formal devices to demonstrate the way in which the past interacts with the present and future, by drawing on important American symbolic representations, and by emphasizing the evolutionary and progressive nature of the document that the Framer’s intended for it to have—the reader sees the emergence of the self as the American identity and nationhood.

Opposition:
It is not the American identity and nationhood that emerges out of the graphic novel, but rather the character of the U.S. Constitution itself that is demonstrated by the fundamental nature of the document that remains constant irrespective of its external conditions in accordance with the original intent of the Framers and its determinative nature on the people of the United States.

American Born Chinese Thesis

2011-06-24T15:12:00.000-07:00

In American Born Chinese, the author fuses western and Chinese tales and motifs to establish and explain the unique self of American born Chinese, and in doing so commits to the idea that self-hood is ultimately determined by heritage and cannot be shaped or modified by time or one's will.

Opposition: the author does not argue that heritage is the determinant factor in establishing one's self hood; a person can develop an individual self-hood that is not dependent on his or her cultural background.

Thesis Fun Home

2011-06-24T11:51:00.000-07:00

In Fun Home, Alison Bechdel utilizes texts, both fiction and non-fiction, as a channel through which she identifies not only with herself but with other people; however, the texts enable her to blur the lines between fiction and non-fiction regarding the events that occurred in her life.

Anti Thesis

2011-06-24T11:22:00.000-07:00

The machine in "The Constitution" is a time machine because it functions as a metaphor for the timelessness of the constitution via the framers' in-temporal ideology and vision of the nation conveyed within.

The Time Machine is not a time machine; rather, a robot that serves as an anti-metaphor for the complicated issue of "tight rope walking" which itself is a metaphor for the complicated process the constitution and framers underwent creating the constitution itself.

Note: I do not think this is my final paper thesis.

Final Paper Thesis and Intelligent Opposition

2011-06-24T01:25:00.001-07:00

Thesis: The repeated image of a wounded face in Barefoot Gen illustrates the failure of literal language in representing historical trauma.

Intelligent Opposition: Barefoot Gen's use of literal language to describe the events preceding Hiroshima's moment of trauma suggests an indispensability of literal language in accounting history.

The Photographer Thesis

2011-06-23T20:45:00.000-07:00

Thesis:
Although the graphic novel The Photographer is filled with photographs of a war-torn country and courageous doctors mending said country, readers should not allow those photographs to divert their attention away from the novel's main focus: Didier Lefevre. Instead, the photographs and rendered images are a tool that allows readers to witness Lefevre's growth.

Opposition:
Through it's numerous photographs of a war-torn Afghanistan-from its barren landscape to the difficult day to day life of it's citizens, from the gruesome injuries that its citizens suffer to the courageous doctors seeking to mend those injuries-The Photographer seeks to educate it's audience of the Afghanistan condition.

2011-06-23T14:43:00.000-07:00

08 is a graphic novel based almost entirely on images and sound bytes gathered from mass media sources. Some of the most memorable moments from the 2008 presidential campaigns of Barrack Obama, John McCain, Hilary Clinton, and Mitt Romney, among others, are vividly recreated in graphic illustrations. Since the novel is told almost exclusively through the lens of the media, however, it was difficult for me to pin down exactly what the book is arguing for or where the authorial voice is meant to be coming from. While I think it's fair to say 08 is Obamacentric, since the book really does seem to favor him over the other candidates, I don't think it was really arguing for a political ideology or Obama's message of hope and change. It feels as though it could go that way for a moment, but after Obama wins the election and gives his speech in which his “words were heard around the world”, the narrative shifts to a scene featuring the two reporters struggling to write a conclusion. As they decide to go big with their coverage of Obama's victory the two men are quickly transitioned into new coverage and the novel ends with: “And now we turn the page”. This ending leaves the narrative open and without a resolution, and it doesn't leave me with the impression that the novel is trying to align itself politically with Obama.

What seemed more important to the novel was the relationship between the media, politicians, and the public. What continually drives 08's narrative is exactly the same as what influences the vote, the media coverage. There's a ton of images which constantly remind the reader that the illustrations are meant to be seen through the media. There are microphones, boom mics, newspapers, and even familiar news personalities and political commentators, like Rachael Maddow and Rush Limbaugh, chiming in with their two cents. Like we discussed yesterday in class, the idea of our democracy is largely based on having as many ideas out in the open as possible. What 08 seems to capture is a moment from our recent past which demonstrates how much this democratic process has changed as mass media has evolved. Nowadays the population is inundated with information for months leading up to an election. What information is released and how it is conveyed plays a huge role in how politicians are perceived publicly. And with so much information being available to the public, opinions of politicians can change extremely quickly.

That being said, 08 does have an argument, I'm just not sure what it is.

SUPERMAJORITY

2011-06-22T14:31:00.000-07:00

I recalled this episode from the Daily Show, and thought it perfectly exemplified the portrayal of the Supermajority as some sort of super hero.

The Daily Show - Democratic Super Majority
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

The United States Constitution Precis

2011-06-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Hennessey and Aaron McConnell truly bring the United States Constitution to life in their graphic adaptation. They present the document, among other things, laden with symbolic figures and through extensive personification. If anyone ever questioned how the Constitution could possibly be a living document, this graphic novel is a testament to its spirit.

The entire novel is a meta text, constantly referring to and reproducing the actual document of the Constitution. We also get a whole slew of other documents represented in their actual forms such as: stamps from various time-periods, drafts of the Articles of Confederation, monetary media, as well as published materials including the Federalist Papers and the work of Alexis de Tocqueville. The novel not only uses actual paraphernalia but also relies on heavily symbolic figures to represent various aspects of the story. One such example is the representation of the three branches of government. They are personified as corporal beings headed, literally, by their respective monumental symbols. The legislative branch is represented as a suited man with the U.S. Capital monument as its head, the executive branch is another suited figured topped with the White House, and the judicial branch is a robed figure (similar to the attire of a judge) crowned with the Supreme Court. This device effectively brings these government bodies to life displaying their tendency for action and their ability to act; but it could also serve to distance these “headless” (mindless?) bodies from the public. A curious feature is that sometimes the legislative branch is represented as a woman and at other times as a man, the other two branches are consistently distinctively male.

Another form of symbolism and perhaps personification is the use of birds to represent the various states. They are always a motley flock twittering their various opinions and stances on all matter of issues. It is almost aggrandizing that the Federal Government (and/or America) is portrayed as an eagle in comparison to the minute birds. The use of the birds gives the sense of fickleness and division, but it can also demonstrate a duality: the idea of a unified flock. Additions to the flock, that is new states, are depicted as the production of a new egg, laid in a systematic nest brought forth by Congress.

Greek columns are used once in the novel to represent the states during the ratification of the Constitution. Their particular line-up suggests the building blocks of our nation as well as a nod to the philosophies founded in ancient Greece. That same page also has an illustration of the three branches of government, their hands raised to the heavens, overshadowed by dark skies and lightening. Perhaps a reference to the Gods?

Overall, the graphic novel is a perfect example of a comic-book featuring dramatic action, superheroes (The Supermajority!), and the occasional villain. It animates documents and abstract ideas with such force and superhero strength, that no one can doubt their power.

Isadora Duncan Precis

2011-06-21T13:29:00.000-07:00

Spend 0.37 seconds searching google images with keywords “Isadora+Duncan” and you’ll find 158,000 photographs, any number of which bear striking similarity to the rendered images in Jones’ biography of the same name. There are a whole host of pictures that are so immediately recognizable that you can literally toggle back and forth from screen to page and not only not lose your bearings, but also seriously delight in the dialectic space that emerges from taking the two media up together. Take, for example, this image, Isadora with wings.

Jones seems to have cut-copied-and-pasted this same image in at page 14, and captioned it with some variation on the tortured-artist-being-misunderstood-thought-bubble (an act that gets old, not cute, fast). No one is going to disagree that tinsel fairy wings are silly, but it is Isadora who insists that she could “suggest” wings with her movement. It’s no wonder Rodin nicknamed her “Sister of the Breezes.”

RODIN GALLERY

There are endless things to say about Rodin. The first is that a number of his sculptures are on display at the Rodin Gallery in the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco (the Spreckles gift to the city and the city’s gift to us, as in me and Birney who went to check it out this last weekend.

In Rodin's sculptures (excluding the thinker) I was looking for movement—what could be more fluid than Plaster?—and I found it in this triad: (from L to R) Eternal Idol, Baccantes Embracing, and Dance Movement B.

We have here two lovers embracing in sacred ecstasy and we have in the text Isadora telling us Dionysus, “sweet god of wine and earthly mysteries,” laid claim to her soul. Here also we have a dancer in the splits, turning toward us as if moving across a dance floor in the same way Isadora endlessly turns toward us as we turn pages. Now I might not have wanted to lose my virginity to the handsy and bearded Rodin who authored these pieces, but Isadora, right on.

NOT LITERALLY LOSING HER VIRGINITY TO RODIN BUT FETISHIZING IT INSTEAD

And, about the loss of her virginity, I’m not entirely convinced that Isadora didn’t give it up to Rodin. That’s not to say that they literally slept together—one bed on fire is enough beds on fire for any story—but Isadora tries (perhaps successfully) to re-capture “years later” in creepy and subversive ways the possibilities that inhere not only in the losing of one’s virginity, but in the losing of her virginity to Rodin in that particular moment. On p. 22, the final panel is a panel from the future, demarcated as such with the superimposition of “years later” at its head. But fast forward to p. 81, when it actually is years later, when that panel that gave us an ex-post-facto self-flagellation might actually appear in its rightful place in the chronology of her life story, and we are importantly at the chapter entitled “Revolt of the Isadorables.”

Isadora’s biological children have all already died (and are always still dying), Singer had just left her for the final time, and Isadora aspires to be the mother to those to whom she had always-only been a dance instructor. The period of intended adoption is short-lived, but before the conclusion of the episode, Isadora says something of those six women and what she says of them matters. At the top of p. 81: “Just as Rodin surrounds himself in his studio with slabs of marble, I need to surround myself with my marble—my pupils.” Isadora is certainly not subtle about the connection she’s forging here. She literally says Rodin’s name, she figuratively makes a brute equation of marble and her pupils, and she conjures up images on one side of her what would be Rodin’s slabs of marble and on the other what would be her own slabs of marble but grooved with silhouettes of the pupils she would presumably make into her children. (Creepy…)The way the image is rendered seems to suggest that Isadora is trapping her would-be children in the very marble from which they should be liberated. That is to say, if what Rodin does is preserve movement in bodies as carved from marble (and plaster and bronze and what have you), then what Isadora-as-mother would be doing as Isadora-as-sculptor is not preserving movement. She is just preserving living bodies, the disembodied heads of which litter what’s left of the page. It’s not that these heads couldn’t have bodies, it’s that they don’t yet have bodies, and something about the presence of the head and not of the body seems to conjure up stills from the process of giving birth and the way that in giving birth the head crowns first.

Or, we can take Isadora’s metaphor of pupils as marble (and necessarily marble as pupils) and glean from it that the making of children is a form of art. Perhaps we can take as support here the endless occasion Isadora has for saying of her children “I feel very near the mystery—the knowledge of life” (p 50), which could just as easily describe the way she feels about any of Rodin’s paintings, or about art more generally. While it doesn’t have to be Rodin, here it still does have to be Rodin, actually, because he is the one to whom she did not lose her virginity. He is the one with whom she was never able to father children. The potentiality of making of children with Rodin is a form of art that she was never able engage in, so instead she literally fantasizes about making children from the marble that Rodin touches instead of touching her. That is to say, there is a trafficking between “art as children” and “children as art.” To ask what art they could have made is to ask the exact same question as what children they would have borne.

At least we’ve seen Isadora’s other children, her real children, just as we’ve seen—however briefly—the lovers who have fathered them. Perhaps Rodin would have been just another of the postcard picture faces with names on page 117. Honestly, I think even absent his face he is still present as part of the lovers’ narrative. He is the winged skulls that float above her, especially if we think back to the way he suggests movement in his sculptures (like the one at the bottom of the page) and the way Isadora stubbornly asserts that she can suggest wings absent silly tinsel wings. But this narrative of her lovers that we get when Isadora is trying to publish a memoir for pay isn’t a narrative that is as distinct from her life story as she protests. The story of the lovers is not subsumed, it is not co-existing, it is instead as much a part of her narrative as her art is because the act that she engages in with them as lovers is not only an artful one (sex is like art), it is actually art itself (children are marble). Isadora gets the final word, even if we might call it a punch-line, though. At p. 111 Isadora, with an angry face, says to us from inside her memoir that is surely a memoir of art and lovers, “When I do publish, it will be a memoir of my art, not [of] my love affairs.”

The Prompt Problem

2011-06-20T19:24:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'll admit it: I'm having trouble with the idea of providing you all with specific prompts for the final paper. Everything I come up with feels like it's spoon-feeding a topic or thesis and I strongly suspect it is going to inspire a rather robotic puppet performance. Let me proceed instead with a more general sort of discussion.

You will remember the thesis-building exercise we did for American Born Chinese… I've posted the thesis workshop worksheet here on the blog to walk you through that exercise as many times as you might like. May I propose that if you aren't yet sure what you want to write about, you simply ask yourself which of the texts we've read in the class you responded to most personally or about which you feel you have the most things to say?

The overall organization of the course itself may provide you with a general starting off point, since I began more or less with texts in which a fictional or autobiographical character/self was seen to emerge in the context of some historical event, usually a traumatic one. The always somewhat traumatic process of coming into selfhood through adolescence becomes in many of these texts a sort of perverse lens through which to think of history in the "larger" political or social sense.

Then, we read texts in which the narrated self in a story or memoir seemed instead to emerge out of the geography in which they find themselves, coming into selfhood was a matter of taking up a place in the world where "place" itself is determinative/ overdetermined/ ambivalent.

This week, we are taking up highly mediated subjects -- a celebrity, a text which embodies a national ethos/self, a clash of personas aspiring to occupy a subject-position that stands in a symbolic relationship to citizen-selves.

This is of course a very rough sketch -- other themes have also played out over the weeks and will continue to do so -- the enigmatic short stories of Good-Bye and the converging narrative frames of American Born Chinese and the weaving of autobiography with literary/mythological meta-texts in Fun Home cut across other ways I have organized the course, and that cross cutting continues on in the days ahead.

Also, looking back over our syllabus, I now realize that sometimes history has played out more centrally in texts I initially read instead as texts whose narrative selves were "placed," and vice versa.

Think about the kinds of relations posited here -- selves emerging out of historical trauma, out of determinative places, through formal experiments with narrative, and so on.

Do such relationships provide you with the initial glimmers of a thesis when you are thinking about the texts which most moved or provoked you from the class?

Without prejudicing your results too much by thinking things through in advance, why not start the thesis workshop sheet by brainstorming from such initial thoughts? What do you come up with?

Do you find yourself with a thesis that demands a close reading to support it? Can you anticipate an objection to the thesis worth responding to? Once you can answer those questions I suspect you are well on your way to writing a paper you will be proud of.

Once you come up with a thesis or two you think you can stand behind, feel free to e-mail me or talk to me (or your colleagues on the blog or at class-time!) about getting some feedback.

In my opinion, coming up with a strong thesis is the single most important part of any paper writing process.

You may feel impatient or lost as you struggle through it, you may despair that coming up with the thesis is preliminary to actually writing the paper itself, but the truth is that coming up with a good thesis, a thesis with an intelligent opposition that must be supported with a close textual reading is already to do the key organizational work of writing, to know where you are going from the beginning. To have a strong thesis is to be well on your way to completing a well-made paper about which you can feel real conviction.

We can talk about this stuff more in class tomorrow at the beginning if you like.

The Photographer

2011-06-16T16:00:00.000-07:00

The Photographer was my most favorite graphic novels, it was account of a photographer that accompanied Doctors Without Borders to document their expedition and work in war torn Afghanistan. This is the first time we see photographs added to the novel and the addition of the photos just brought everything thing to life for me. The photographs gave the documentation more credibility than the documentations before it. Just the fact that real wounded people, some that even look like relatives make it that much more real .The photographs really helped what I experienced in my past and apply it and try to live and feel the moments Didier tried to portray. The combinations of the photographs with the comics were brilliant idea, it captures the conversations, the emotion and sometimes even the sounds are brought to life. What I found most impacting were the film strips that took multiple shots so it made little movie scenes, every micro second captured perfectly put myself in the persons place that was being portrayed.

The stories that were told were very sincere and I believe that after I read this graphic novel I came out with a better understanding of the Afghani culture and ways of life. It opened my mind to see what it meant to live a “normal life” in Afghanistan from little kids falling into ovens or men accidently hurting themselves with their gun.

Addendum to the Palestine Précis

2011-06-15T21:03:00.000-07:00

Joe Sacco, is not the name of a Palestinian, it is not the name of an Israeli, it is not the name of one of the individuals who is interviewed for their stories in this graphic novel. It is the name of the outsider who comes into to the Palestinian territory to absorb and to observe the conditions of the Palestinian people. Joe Sacco is the author of Palestine, it is a graphic novel whose “gist” is to basically portray the conditions of the Palestinian people while providing room for a specific perspective of the Israeli people. The graphic novel is directed towards an audience that is not aware of the Palestinian state of mind, or state of body. It is a fair introduction into the Palestinian condition under “Israeli rule” for Joe Sacco treats the story of Palestine as more of a lesson in history then a people trying to tell its own story. We begin to sense the “historical” state of framing and absorbing material when on page 3 we see an image of a tank that has multiple years attached to it, signifying the historical nature of the story that we are delving into. Already through a historical lens of observing are we receiving an “alienated” story of Palestine. Our main character who is supposedly Joe Sacco himself draws himself with glasses, but these glasses are different, they are thick and not transparent to the audience. The “main character”, actually, let’s not call him the main character because the main character within this graphic novel is “Palestine” itself and Joe Sacco is simply a medium for the audience to experience and absorb the Palestinianian state- for having eyes that resemble blank slates sends a strong message that “we” the audience must lend our eyes to Joe Sacco, who is our navigator throughout the whole graphic novel. This graphic novel is never about him, it is never about developing him as a character- it is about the history of a people.

Joe Sacco’s graphic novel hasn’t been written to “liberate” the Palestinian people nor to persuade you to feel sympathy or empathy or to move you into a certain direction towards action. His graphic novel has simply been made to paint you a picture, to create a product that is just made for viewing, much like a museum. But as the novel progresses, the novel performs more like a capitalistic transaction of a book. For we begin to see that these stories, the Palestinians’ stories are not told by themselves but through an author, which begins to enforce a tone and feel of alienation. We begin to see this on pg. 50 when the narrator is concerned about the “taxi” which is a symbol that is constantly present in the novel, as a form of escapism for our narrator. For when confronted with strong imaginary of the reality that the Palestinians face- he doesn’t stay- he grabs a taxi. He also comments on how he begins telling a story of the Israeli soldier’s side of the story (he also omits part of the story) and admits that he isnt’ there to mediate between sides. It is at that point of the novel that we see that he is only there to absorb, to witness the events, not to move himself to action, which eliminates any possibility of the audience being moved to a certain action. There is a development to a certain extent, a change in the narrators depiction of the Palestinian people- he becomes numb to the stories- he starts to think that he knows all the stories- that they become generic and starts to just inhale stories like they’re products when he says in pg.77 “Man I wish I’d seen the soldiers firing tear gas”. But when he asks the a Palestinian man as to how it felt to be tortured and then the man demonstrates by almost hitting our narrator- he confesses that he’s just a suburban boy who lives off the small details that he isn’t for “living vicariously”. It is at this moment that we begin to depart from being given an “authentic story” of the Palestinian people. For an “authentic” story of the Palestinian people would be a story told from their own lens not from an outside agent, it wouldn't be our author trying to live the story vicariously- it would be us, the audience. Yet the whole graphic novel is introduced by Edward Said who is one of the key figures in post colonialism who speaks about graphic novels as a way of “freedom” but the novel that he introduces keeps the Palestinian people oppressed and keeps them silenced through the lens of an outsider, through the lens of a photojournalist. For journalism's goal is to be as objective as possible, but in terms of providing progress to the Palestinian people through his agency as a photographer- he fails. For as Bishop Desmond Tutu once said " If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor".

Palestine Précis

2011-06-14T22:33:00.000-07:00

Joe Sacco’s story begins in Cairo, from where he moves on to Palestine shortly after. He juxtaposes the hectic, crowded and impersonal streets of Cairo with a personal conversation about love, money and politics—all things that the reader can relate to. Within this short conversation he addresses his identification with the West, letting the reader know that his is a Western perspective. For his whole life, as he states on page 256, he has “heard nothing but the Israeli side,” and so he has come as an impartial spectator looking to hear the other side for the first time in his life. By the end of this conversation, he is eager to leave Egypt and a few days later he departs for Israel.

After three weeks he is in Nablus where he begins a conversation with a Palestinian man. While many are skeptical of his intentions, most Palestinians are happy to talk with him in hope of him spreading their stories of the daily conditions and injustices they experience as Palestinians living and working in Israeli-occupied territory. Many are aware that Israeli intelligence officials often disguise themselves as journalists in order to find “terrorists.” And, so, Sacco knows that he doesn’t belong, but he knows what to say. He is “a perfect guest of Palestine,” and so he often finds Palestinians to be very gracious and hospitable. The scenes on pages four and five seem to be suggesting that Sacco’s manner of interaction is not what most Palestinians are used to encountering. As Edward Said states in his introduction: “Joe is there to find out why things are the way they are” and so “he moves and tarries among them, attentive, unaggressive, caring, ironic” unlike his imperialistic British and American compatriots, who aggressively disregard and mistreat them.

Throughout the rest of the novel, Sacco travels throughout the occupied territories, meeting and interviewing individuals and families. In hospitals, markets, refugee camps and occupied cities, Sacco finds that it is actually quite difficult to find someone who has not experienced some negative aspect of the occupation. Disproportionate harassment and beatings are everyday occurrences; nearly everyone has either been to jail or knows someone in jail; and unwarranted deaths are common. I find it interesting that the occupation of Palestine by Israel—the forced removal of civilians into camps, the issuance of identification cards, the creation of policies deliberately aimed at subordinating Palestinians, and the many civil and political rights violations—is very reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s policies towards the Jews and other targeted minority groups. While the depictions in this graphic novel are not of a wholesale extermination, the actions on behalf of Israel, by both the military and the civilians, have reduced Palestinians to the same level of the Jews living in Nazi-occupied Europe: daily life for the Palestinian consists of fear, shame, violence, insecurity, and dwindling hope.

As suggested by an introduction by Edward Said and the appearance of his work Orientalism in one of the chapters, one could argue that this novel attempts to shed light on the way in which “the West’s” conception of Palestine and Israel is quite different from reality. The portrayal by the American media, e.g. the Chuck Norris film “The Delta Force” on page 46, has largely shaped the West’s understanding of Israel and Palestine. It begins by establishing an “us” and a “them” (a binary opposition that is at play in Israel, too). Through the various discourses operating at the local, national, and international levels, actions—both illegal and immoral—have gone unstopped and/or gained approval. I would venture to guess that Sacco’s reserved and nonparticipatory approach upon arriving in Palestine was intentional, then. As we see, however, the polite and observant character that he is at the beginning of his novel cannot remain that way throughout his experiences. As the people that he encounters become less of a story and more of a human to him, his actions become riskier—forcing him to change from observer to participant. Ultimately, his experiences in Palestine, along with the process of writing this graphic novel, have functioned as a transformative experience in which old conceptions were broken down and new ones were created.

Some questions that I had: 1. How do the varying styles (e.g. splash pages with smaller frames superimposed; diagonal, overlapping or messy frames) Sacco employs for framing his images affect his story and message? 2. How does he make use of "the face," and what do the characteristics of the character's faces (e.g. the accentuated teeth) emphasize or bring attention to? 3. How do some of the reoccurring things, such as the tea, the rocks, the keffiyeh, add to the story? 4. How does his use of photo-realistic backgrounds affect the impact his story has on the reader?

EDIT: the questions following the fourth paragraph

Some Questions on Stuck Rubber Baby

2011-06-14T13:57:00.000-07:00

SELFHOOD
Is Stuck Rubber Baby the “lyrical tale of a young man?” Is it a narrative about a man’s coming to terms with his own homosexuality; or, more so, his own coming out of the closet? Or is it a critique on the politics of the 1960s social movement, set within the confines of an intolerant American South?

While each question leads to a different reading and interpretation of the text, one aspect remains unquestionably present – the self. However, this self differs from the self as we have studied in prior texts. The narrative and illustration of Stuck Rubber Baby manuevers the graphic novel's protagonist Toland Polk through a moment in history in which the self is sitauted within a specific event, like the graphic novels, Barefoot Gen, Good-Bye, and Deogratias, yes. But Toland as the only self in question neglects the graphic novel's interest in creating a space - the American South. Rather than depending on a singular event in the construction of a self (e.g. Hiroshima, Rwanda genocide), Stuck Rubber Baby creates a rich, cultural world contained within this one space. Thus, might I pose that the self may, in fact, be the American South, as opposed to Toland? And if so, how might our reading differ, and how might our conception of selfhood contrast thus far?

HOMOSEXUALITY
We've seen a glimpse of homosexuality in Alison Bechdel's Fun Home. She speculates about her father's sexual orientation quite thoroughly in the first half of the graphic novel. However, such speculation revolves around, and stays within, the closet. That being, the closet in which her father hides his sexual preference. Yes, the graphic novel depicts explicit images of Alison's own lesbian encounters, but falls short in terms of depicting the male subject engaging in sex.

This is where Fun Home and Stuck Rubber Baby differ somewhat. On pg. 138, Toland engages in sex under the dark-shading within the panels. In only three pages past this scene, the square panel disappears, exposing two men embracing one another. Howard Cruse doesn't shy away from depicting these scenes with immediacy and force.

However, I'm wondering how we might challenge the ways in which Stuck Rubber Baby situates homosexuality in its narrative. Is it merely an examination of the homosexual subject in relation to a closet, or not? And how might this combat with other social issues tackled in this piece, such as racism?

Possible In-Class Close-Reading

What about this image strikes us, as rhetoricians, in contemplating about the self? How does the substitution of what would normally be a blank, white background to the image of a face, alter our experience with the text?

Stuck Rubber Baby

2011-06-13T23:45:00.000-07:00

Stuck Rubber baby is the tale of a young man on the cusp of adulthood during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. As Alison Bechdel aptly puts it in the introduction, Toland Polk “doesn’t intentionally do much of anything at all. He’s drifting along, equally disengaged from himself and the world.” Indeed, Toland’s life seems perfectly directionless: he’s just finished high school, has chosen not to go to college, and isn’t likely to be drafted. Toland doesn’t seem to think he can get anything right, and this culminates in his crisis of sexual identity. Within the first few pages, the reader discovers that Toland realized fairly early in his life that he was gay. In this early revelation, Cruse immediately situates Toland as at odds with his environment, and moreover himself. As a closeted gay in the days of Jim Crow, Toland gathered from his surroundings that there was something “wrong” about homosexuality, a notion suggested by his relentless quest to “fix” himself through his relationship with Ginger.

Chronicling the plight of Toland and that of those around him during the Civil Rights Movement, both white and African-American, Cruse argues that African-Americans were not the only ones to suffer under the hands of Jim Crow; all of Cruse’s characters suffer in some way. Toland struggles with his sexual identity. Ginger struggles with the realization of her political impotence, and is faced with the difficulty of unwanted pregnancy. Sammy suffers the disowning of his family. Orley and Melanie are faced with domestic unrest and a different kind of impotence. The list goes on. Cruse’s emphasis on struggle during this time of radical political shift dramatizes the high toll wrought by bigotry in many areas of society.

Because this narrative takes place in such a notable time in American history, a time with which any American student would be familiar from a grade school history class, it seems the audience of this narrative is all Americans. As stated, the narrative emphasizes the toll of this difficult struggle against bigotry exacted on all areas of society, making the civil rights movement a universally American topic. Further, Toland’s struggle to reconcile who he is with who he desperately wants to be is an even more universal predicament.

It is important to note that Cruse’s narrative bears a frame structure. The “meat” of the narrative takes place in the inner frame, with older Toland narrating the story to the reader in the presence of his partner. This affords the reader the luxury of a relatively reliable narrator. Unlike young Toland, who would be a thoroughly unreliable narrator because of his inability to come to terms with his homosexuality and is therefore in conflict with himself, older Toland provides a sober view of his delusions in his youth with great temporal distance between himself and the narrative. Further, the frame structure functions to underscore that the narrative is not about a revelation of sexual identity: the reader knows that both older and younger Toland are gay. Rather, Toland is forced to reluctantly confront his true identity, for better or worse; this reevaluation of the self can be read as allegorical for the tumultuous reconfiguration of society in this period, especially in the arenas of racial and sexual equality.

It’s important to note that humor does appear throughout, such as Toland’s early comment, “we had a pet rabbit that got run over. Now that was a mess!” In the web of difficulty and despair that weave this narrative, I rarely found “humorous” comments to actually make me laugh. Rather, humor interspersed in the narrative (often by the lively Sammy) seems to acknowledge the nonsensical nature of bigotry. Further, it had the effect of humanizing the characters, tangled in foreign situations to which some may find difficult to relate.

Finally, pondering the title Stuck Rubber Baby is an illuminating exercise. The most direct interpretation of the title finds that it is in reference to Melanie, Toland and Ginger’s baby that resulted from a lack of protection (because Toland discarded his “stuck rubber”). The title, therefore, injects the text with a feeling of rejection, of being unwanted, as some of the characters feel throughout the novel, particularly Toland, who is unwanted even by himself in his youth because of his sexual orientation.

Everything Old Is New Again

2011-06-12T14:22:00.001-07:00

Now that the blog is aesthetically different I guess I can deign to post here.

For some odd combination of small town mores and a man getting involved in a social movement to impress a woman Stuck Rubber Baby reminded me of my favorite short film of all time, Death to the Tinman. I doubt very much that this illuminates anything in a particularly useful light, but the film is worth watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4yBXIhB36g

Youtube has the best quality video but has it split in two parts. Sadly, the second part's sound goes out of synch somewhat. Still worth watching.

Vive la differance!

- Birney

Renovation

2011-06-12T13:14:00.000-07:00

I've done a little blog updating -- let me know if I've accidentally removed features or elements you had access to before. There are more bells and whistles to play with, let me know how you like it. Anything you'd like me to add?

Thesis Worksheet

2011-06-12T13:10:00.000-07:00

A thesis is a claim. It is a statement of the thing your paper is trying to show your own readers about a text you have read. Very often, the claim will be simple enough to express in a single sentence, and it will usually appear early on in the paper to give your readers a clear sense of the project of your paper. A good thesis is a claim that is strong. For our purposes, the best way to define a strong claim is to say it is a claim for which you can imagine an intelligent opposition. It is a claim that you actually feel you need to argue for, rather than a very obvious sort of claim or a report of your own reactions to a text (which you don't have to argue for at all). Remember, when you are producing a reading about a complex literary text like a novel, a poem, or a film the object of your argument will be to illuminate the text, to draw attention to some aspect of the work you think that the text is accomplishing.

Once you have determined the detail or problem or element in a text that you want to draw your reader's attention to and argue about, your opposition will likely consist of those who would focus elsewhere because they don't grasp the importance of your focus, or who would draw different conclusions than you do from your own focus.

The thesis names your paper's task, its project, its object, its focus. As you write your papers, it is a very good idea to ask yourself these questions from time to time: Does this quotation, does this argument, does this paragraph directly support my thesis in some way? If it doesn't you should probably delete it, because this likely means you have gotten off track. If you are drawn repeatedly away from what you have chosen as your thesis, ask yourself whether or not this signals that you really want to argue for some different thesis.

THESIS WORKSHOP EXERCISE ONE:

A. Brainstorm. Take fifteen minutes or so and write down fifteen to twenty claims you can make about your chosen text. Don't worry about whether these claims are "deep" or whether they are "interesting," just write down claims that you think are true about the text and be as clear and specific as you can manage.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

B. In small groups of two to three peers:

1. Once the time is up, take ten to fifteen minutes to share your claims with one another. Determine together which, if any, of your claims are not really about the text at all. For example, eliminate claims that say the text is "good," or "correct," or "effective" -- since these are really claims about the way you react to the text rather than claims about the text demanding argumentative support. Also eliminate claims that say the text is "wrong," or "incorrect," or "ineffective" since, again, these are really claims about you, or they are claims that will lead you to discuss some more general or tangential topic rather than remaining focused on the text itself. How many claims are you left with?

2. Now, take twenty minutes or so to discuss the claims that remain. Do some of the claims seem conspicuously more interesting or more important than the others? Do some of the claims really say the same thing in different ways? Do these comparisons suggest ways to re-phrase claims to capture your intentions more forcefully? Do some of the claims make or rely on observations that might function well as support for other claims? Have other, more forceful, claims occurred to you as you have engaged in this process? Do some of the claims suggest lines of argument and support that seem more promising to you than others? This process of elimination, honing, ordering should leave each of you with three or so strong claims.

THESIS WORKSHOP EXERCISE TWO:

A. You should now each have a two or three candidate claims for a thesis remaining (some of you may have similar claims by now). Now, for each of these possible thesis claims come up with the strongest or most obvious opposition to each thesis. For example, what would the opposite claim be to the one you are making? Or, might there be an element or detail in the text that initially seems to contradict the thrust of your claim? Devote fifteen minutes or so to this.

1.

2.

3.

B. Read over these oppositions. Of course, you are likely to disagree with these claims since they are opposed to the ones you want to make yourself -- but can you imagine anyone actually making these oppositional claims about the text you have read? Be honest with each other about this, it is important. Take twenty minutes or so to make these determinations and discuss them.

If the opposition you have come up with seems vague or unintelligent or highly implausible this probably indicates that you need to sharpen up your own initial thesis. Is there a version of your thesis that is more focused and specific that retains the spirit of your claim but which provokes a more interesting opposition? What is it? What is its opposition?

If, on the contrary, the opposition you have written suddenly seems more compelling than the thesis itself this probably indicates that the stakes of your project, or possibly your whole take on the text itself, is different than you initially thought it was. Perhaps what you thought of as opposition to your thesis actually provides you with a stronger thesis and a new direction for your own paper. What is the strongest or most opposition to the new thesis you have adopted?

C. Now, quickly identify the best, strongest, most argumentatively promising thesis that results from this process for you personally, as well as what you take to be its most provocative opposition. Then in your groups, help one another identify two key details or elements in the text to which you could direct a reader's attention in an effort to support your individual theses, and also one detail or element you might use to circumvent its opposition (include page numbers). Take twenty minutes or so to do this.

1. sup

2. sup

3. sup

4. opp

Fun Home: Death and the Quest for Gender Identity

2011-06-09T15:37:00.000-07:00

Alison Bechdel’s, Fun Home is a narrative account of the formation of gender identity through the author’s relationship with her father. Fun Home also serves as a memoir of Bechdel’s late father, as means of coming to terms with his untimely death. Through the use of various allusions to literature, mythology, and pop culture, Bechdel understands and conveys her parents and her relationship with her father, through fictional characters. Fun Home is laid out as a series of memories presented to the reader as a progression of understanding rather than in chronological order. The theme of gender identity is gradually conveyed through the constant play of differences between her effeminate father, and her unfeminine self. Through this account of her relationship with her father, Bechdel is able to synthesize meaning in her father’s otherwise meaningless death.

Fun Home opens with an introduction of Alison with her father, filling the roles of the mythological Icarus and Daedulus. Though there is an odd reversal of these roles, as she states, “It was not me but my father who was to plummet from the sky” (Bechdel, 4). Immediately the reader understands the relationship and opposition of the main characters in fictional terms. We are also exposed early on, to the differences in the gender roles of the father and daughter in their clash of wallpaper and clothing preferences. As Bechdel puts it, “I was Spartan to my father’s Athenian. Modern to his Victorian. Butch to his Nelly. Utilitarian to his aesthete.” (Bechdel, 15). The second chapter focuses more so on the life and death of Alison’s father Bruce, and her struggle to find meaning in the ‘absurdity’ of his death. Though it is not proven, Alison maintains that her father’s death was no accident, but a suicide. By rendering his death a suicide, she gives purpose to what would otherwise be a meaningless death. The news of her father’s death coincides around the time she officially announces that she is a lesbian, a coincidence she views as her ‘last, tenuous bond’ with her father. It is only after his death that Alison discovers the extent of her father’s homosexual relationships and begins forming an understanding of her father’s sexual identity.

Returning once again to the memories of her earlier childhood, Alison recalls her perceptions of her father’s masculinity. She measures her father against the brawny, virile men in town, and through that association is able to deduce that her father ‘was a big sissy’. She realized that where he lacked in masculinity, she was able to compensate. This play of differences is further illuminated in a scene in which she struggles with her father who insists that she wear a barrette in her hair and in a later scene, insists that she wear a strand of pearls. Though the polarity of their preferences creates a distance between them, it also simultaneously serves as a way of connection. “Between us lay a slender demilitarized zone—our shared reverence for masculine beauty.” (Bechdel, 99). Alison’s discovery and embrace of her sexual identity is the obverse of her father’s closeted sexual identity. This oppositional relationship is metaphorically represented in her dream in which her father fails to join her in watching a glorious sunset. Sunsets being something, she later reveals, left her father ‘wordless’. This metaphor serves to convey Alison’s feeling that is her father had only joined her in seeing the beauty of openly embracing one’s ‘true colors’, he might not have chosen to end his life. Though it is curious that she chose the brilliance of a sunset rather than a sunrise, I suppose it prefigures his death.

Through analogizing the journey of her sexuality and selfhood with that of her father’s, Alison is able to draw a bridge between the opposition of their gender identities. She helps build this bridge with literary references, literature being a key point of connection with her father through out their relationship. By finding the presence of her father in the works of literature he loved most, Alison is in a sense immortalizing him. A process of immortalization she makes concrete in her own masterpiece. She reconciles her father’s struggle with his own sexual identity by embracing her own, compensating where he fell short, and allowing his memory to live on through her words.

American-Born Chinese, part two

2011-06-09T01:11:00.000-07:00

I thought I’d begin by looking at the three different stories separately at first, in order of their introduction.

The Monkey King’s introduction –

The first setting is utterly fantastical and yet absurdly suburban in terms of activity. The different beings are gathered for a dinner party, a uniquely adult activity. They’re gathering to talk, brag, as well as demonstrate their status and accomplishments. The line is so long that The Monkey King must wait, and when he does get to the door, he is rejected. To begin, none of the beings present look very much like one another but there is already a physical difference between him and the others – he is noticeably shorter. This difference is not yet a problem for The Monkey King until later. Yet the reason he is rejected is because he is not wearing shoes – a seemingly meaningless difference. He is not received the same way that the other deities are despite the fact that he has powers just like they do. His title as a leader is disregarded by them; rather, they have already chosen a place for him in the hierarchical order using a physical difference (his lack of shoes) as a way to set him apart from them. Could this possibly be a critique of the author is making about race? That the differences between races are insubstantial and that we impose them upon one another, creating isolation and conflict? The Monkey King reacts violently yet this does not quench his anger. He wishes to be accepted by the others and it is there that his change begins…

Jin Wang’s introduction –

Unlike the fantastical story that came beforehand, the second story - Jin’s story - is more familiar and more characteristic of a coming-of-age tale. To begin, the teacher introduces Jin incorrectly and is oblivious to the damage she helps cause. The teacher gets his name and origin wrong, already contributing to his misrepresentation. Everything she says is blanketed with a supposedly cheery tone. Her statements all end in an exclamation mark but her enthusiasm is superficial. The teacher is no better than her students in terms of how she treats Jin; she appears to be more welcoming yet pushes her own stereotypes upon him, contributing to the this traumatic episode.

Wei-Chen Sun is introduced in a manner parallel to Jin. His identity – from his place of origin to his name – is introduced improperly. Jin plays the hostile character in Wei-Chen’s story, replying to Wei-Chen’s question in Chinese in a different language and tone. He states in English, “You’re in America. Speak English” (37). Yet Jin’s attitude changes entirely when Wei-Chen brings out his toy robot (similar to the transformer Jin had at the beginning of the story), arousing Jin’s curiosity. Jim’s attitude switches entirely and he then contradicts what he just said, speaking in Chinese in order to forge a connection with Wei-Chen for the sake of this common interest.

Other points I thought were interesting in this story was Greg and the older woman. Greg does not directly confront he bullies but he clearly does not approve of their treatment of Jin when they are young. His backward glance on pg. 33 implies regret at the way Jin has been treated by his classmates. I personally got the impression that Greg and Jin would later befriend each other but the author shies away from this course of action, taking Greg into a different direction where his inaction develops into racism. The older woman plays a different role however. She’s the figure who warns Jin of the consequences of his actions in a time where Jin does not understand. She states, “It’s easy to become anything you wish…so long as you’re willing to forfeit your soul” (29), revealing the main theme of the piece: to deny who you are and where you come from means forfeiting your own identity. Jin’s rejection of his identity as well as signs of the self-hatred that Anne mentioned in her post manifests itself physically in the next narrative where he is now older. This self-hatred is also apparent in the ways he occasionally treats Wei-Chen

Danny’s introduction -

Third narrative begins with Danny studying with Melanie, a girl who he has a crush on, when his cousin Chin-Kee arrives. He is given an extra introduction with the panel dedicated to him stating “Everyone Ruvs Chin-Kee” with only his face appearing. The panel appears to mock the sitcom in its style. It’s similar to the end of some kind of musical introduction to a show or something of the sorts. I’m reminded of Everybody Loves Raymond from the title He first appearance on pg. 48 is an entire panel. In the background, Jen’s dad holds his suitcases which are (absurdly) giant Chinese take-out containers, adding to the unreal sitcom vibe. Danny is horrified by his cousin who he shares no physical features with. Jin’s mother and father are not pictured either so there can be no comparison there (Danny’s mother is always behind a door while his father is shielded by the luggage containers). Chin Kee personifies the ultimate Chinese stereotypical foreigner in Danny’s opinion. He has an incredibly thick and stereotypical accent, mannerisms that are just so offensively stereotypical, and most noticeable, the buck-teeth that Jin was mocked mercilessly for earlier.

The narrative re-enacts a familiar scene from most sitcoms where two individuals (the main character who is romantically interested in the other) are interrupted by the introduction of an outside force, out of the control of the one who possesses romantic feelings. This individual acts as an obstacle for the character initially introduced (in this case Danny) and his or her object of his desire. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this scenario play out many times on TV myself, some with racial stereotypes and others with not (Steve Urkel from Family Matters came to mind for whatever reason). Regardless of the specific nature of the interruptive character, he or she is a source of shame for the main character. At certain moments of alleged hilarity (and Danny’s embarrassment/humiliation), there’s a clapping or a laugh track.

This is not the only moments where the author critiques pop culture. Towards the end, Chin-Kee performs “She Bangs” – a callback to William Hung’s performance of the song on American Idol that launched him into fame/notoriety. Yet there remains the controversy that his success is due only to the fact that he represents what many consider to be an Asian stereotype.

In the end, fantasy, reality, and imaginary narratives combine to make a surprisingly fitting conclusion. I think that’s one of the reasons I spent so much time focusing on the different narrative settings and tropes. I’m interested in how they come to create a new narrative at the end.

Questions I had:

How did you feel about the Lucifer falling from heaven story being re-told in Wei-Chen’s rejection of Tze-Yo-Tzuh and in his goodbye of his father?

Is Steve the anti-Greg figure in the narrative? Or is he another idealized relationship that Jin wishes he had? Both maybe?

On the second to last page, there cigarette smoke acts as a type of split between Wei-Chen and Jin – one speaking Chinese, the other English. Does anyone agree that they are two halves of a whole and this scene is these different sides reconciling?

What did you think of that one panel without color where Wei-Chen is revealed for who he truly is? (pg. 229) What about his transformation physically (the cigarette, the earrings, the sunglasses and bling)?

Last but not least, what did you think of the author’s reference to the Internet meme that originated on YouTube where Jin and Wei-Chen are now the two boys in the music video? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2rZxCrb7iU) Especially in comparison to the William Hung allusion?

American Born Chinese

2011-06-08T21:53:00.000-07:00

American Born Chinese is a story about self-hatred, self-denial, self-transformation, self-acceptance and self-identification. I find it the most straightforward text we have read thus far for the class. Not straightforward in terms of its structure (the three parallel story starting point is an interesting technique) but in terms of what the author’s intention is. That is, the message of American Born Chinese is as clearly put out as it can be. The heavy-handed metaphor of the shoes, the literal transformation from Jin to Danny, and the “I would have saved myself five hundred years’ imprisonment beneath a mountain of rock had I only realized how good it is to be a monkey” (bolded, even) – it doesn’t get more obvious and in-your-face than that. In fact, the incessant drilling of the message tinges the work with a pedantic feel, for all its beautiful colors and interesting plot it felt more like a textbook, a lesson, a polished product for the readers more than a self-expression for the author (although it is a self-examination and based on the author’s personal story).

What interests me most among the three parallel tales (which of course merge into one in the end) is the story of the Monkey King. Because of my background (born and raised in Beijing, China for 15 years), I’m very familiar with the story. I don’t actually know if I’ve ever read through the whole book of Journey to the West, because the TV version was constantly on when I was growing up, and the book is huge for a little kid so I only read it on and off. So I have no verdict on where my knowledge of the story comes from, but I’m positive that I know how the story goes by heart. It is thus very amusing to see how the author changed the story, a story passed on through centuries and ingrained in the Chinese culture, a story that is most common knowledge among the Chinese, a story of Buddhism, to something decidedly much more western-friendly (although the Buddhist part is also played down by the atheist Chinese government whose censorship agency must have had a say on the content of the TV show). It is perhaps a little unnecessary to explain the full story in order to showcase all the differences, since the bulk of A Journey to the West is actually about what happens after the events depicted in American Born Chinese, but some specific examples directly reflected in the book include how the Monkey King did not achieve his power through self-meditation, rather he learned them from someone; that the monk is not delivering boxes to the West but rather going on a trek in order to get something there (and by the way the West does not refer to the western world); and obviously that the Monkey King never had a self-identification crisis. The main character of that story is actually the monk, but the Monkey King turned out to be far, far more popular than him or his other three disciples. And yes, the story is a story of, more than anything else, Buddhism. The gods and goddesses featured in the story are Buddhist gods and goddesses, and the West actually refers to India, which is to the west of China and from where Buddhism came to China. The monk is supposed to go there to learn more Buddhism (there was an actual monk who did that and was the inspiration for the story). In American Born Chinese, the Buddist facets are turned down significantly, and it is very easy to think of the mighty Tze-Yo-Tzun as the God of Christianity, and this undoubtedly is related to the author’s own religious background which is an important part of his identification as an American Born Chinese.

It comes as no surprise that even with just a rough analysis, it is clear the author’s version of the Monkey King is modified from the more common one for the sake of serving the purpose of American Born Chinese better. This idea, however, makes me feel that, paradoxically, the message of the text might be delivered more effectively to people without the cultural background. Although they can’t understand the Chinese characters that pop up into the page nor successfully pronounce the numerous Chinese names, they may take in the lesson easier than me, who had quite some trouble seeing the best intention in the author (although admittedly I have trouble seeing the best intention in anyone). In the end, the author created something that is trying a little too hard to say what he wants say that it inevitably comes across as somewhat excessive. This small disappointment, however, sheds light on the author’s selfhood more so than the actual story content of the book does. I see him identifying with a very unique type of culture, not Chinese and not American but a combination of the two. I see him trying to explain it but was afraid that without an existing understanding of both culture or a personally relatable, similar experience other people may fail to understand it. The text may seem to be targeting more towards a certain population of a certain background (and that may indeed be what the author thought), but it turns out to be more effective on explaining the universal need to find who we are and accepting it than it is at, say, making someone who actually knows the American Chinese culture identify with characters of the story (and consequently the author).

Constructing the Nature of the True

2011-06-08T01:00:00.000-07:00

Alison Bechtel's Fun Home is a treatise on truth using the guise of autobiography/biography. This is not to say that it is not an autobiography but instead that it points out through the medium of telling the story of her and her father's life the problematic essence of the real. Through use of irony and transference Bechtel calls into question the meaning of truth and her understanding of her past. Those of us who feel that the truth can be defined as real things, as facts, can be informed otherwise if we so allow it. This is not a story of real facts: real comes from Latin res “things” and facts comes from the Latin facere to “make, do.” Okay, so maybe this is a story about real facts. But not as we understand them.

The story is told, first of all, as a story. Even if we trust Bechtel to be telling us the one hundred percent verifiable truth as she recalls it, she is telling it to us with a knowledge of future events which colors the presentation of her remembered account, “His absence resonated retroactively” resonate comes from Latin resonantia “echo” and this echo travelled back in time “echoing back through all the time I knew him” (Bechtel 23). The echo is not the thing, it is facsimile of the thing and harkens to it, would not exist but for it, yet it is clearly not the thing. Regardless, it's impact cannot be ignored, “I ached as if he were already gone” (Bechtel 23). Obviously this is not testimony she would have been capable of giving in that very moment, but it is true for Bechtel looking back on those moments. She is illustrating her memory using knowledge gained from her research on the past in the present; knowledge unavailable to her when that past was the present yet regardless of this lack of access was no less true.

This coloring of knowledge, this creation of subtext into a remembered main text, this problematizing of events after the fact, this goes on all the time everywhere. To verify something is distinctly not to see that it is true but comes from the Latin verus “true” and facere “to make, do.” We make things “true.” Bechtel admits that she does not know her father even committed suicide, but in her telling of events there is little room for doubt. This suicide is the grounding of our interpretation of the text as presented, it is the basis for making meaning out of a set of reconstructed memories.

It is important to remember that we are not remembering this events and neither is Bechtel. In fact she is recreating them for our consumption. Each panel is a creation meant to represent a part of her narrative as she remembers it. It is a sign that refers to a memory not our own which points to a real event. Yet it goes even one better, for Fun Home Bechtel created each panel with real objects and posed herself as the subject to be drawn. She took a picture, fiddled with it in photoshop to get it right, and then drew the result. Her panels are pictoral depictions of a photographic recreation of a memory of a thing that may or may not have happened. Ask a psychologist how reliable personal testimony is, there is a reason leading questions are not allowed in court trial after all. The truth is made, a set of fabrications borne from the untrustworthy well of memory post-prejudiced by post knowledge.

Truth in crisis is brought to a head when three threads are bound into the text connected by Bechtel's diary: writing in her diary, menstruation, masturbation. Prepubescent Bechtel was obsessively concerned with the nature of recounting the truth in her diary. The journey of the qualifier “I think” from scribbled interjection to massive page defining inverted symbol IS the story qua story of Fun Home. It ties to all other concerns for what is true and how the truth can be recounted or understood. At puberty, when a child starts to become an adult biologically, Bechtel informs us she began to experiment with lies in her journal “My diary was no longer the utterly reliable document it had been in my youth” (Bechtel 162). She deliberately does not record her first period. She instead employs the Ostrich strategy and hopes that by not creating a referrant to it that it will not have been. Even when the unavoidable recurrence of menstruation gives the lie to that strategy she continues to abandon verisimilitude in favor of obtuse references given to her by exposure to algebra. Mathematics, supposedly the purest language for description of the world, becomes a cloak to hide it. Masturbation, apparently, leaves one squirming in one's seat (couldn't resist, sorry) if one is concerned with the nature of truth because Bechtel's first fumblings with autoeroticism hardly count as masturbation because she is not aware of what she is doing and it's effect. Her first discovery of herself as a sexual self is a discovery done in all ignorance, she is not aware that she is masturbating but masturbating is none the less what she is doing. How can one accurately, in real time, recount events truthfully that one is not aware of? From this point on her journal bears less and less relation with what is real and takes on an affected air.

Young Bechtel was troubled by truth and that sense of unease never actually seems to go away so much as get sidestepped. There are a number of times when Bechtel “discovers” the truth of something through reading a word in the dictionary, such as the word orgasm. The definitions might inform her, but they do not satisfy her. To define, after all, comes from Latin de “completely” finis “boundary, end.” To go to a dictionary to find truth is a journey that stops at its destination; it would be like upon looking up the word orgasm saying, “Ah, yes, I know what that is now” and never bothering to experience one. The reason dictionary terms seem to serve for Bechtel is that they inform her of something she is already aware of, “. . .before I even got to the definition I didn't need to know the phonetics to recognize the approximate liquid of that 'or,' the plosive 'ga,' the fricative 'z,' or the labial, nasal, sigh of the final 'um'” (Bechtel 171). The truth of orgasm cannot be defined in a dictionary, a book of dead terms, but can only be found in the lived experience.

The truth of having lived her life with her father could only be known after the consumation of their voyage together. It might seem obvious to us looking back on it comfortable with the knowledge of where it all ends. Yet living the life of that man's daughter; to have admired him, to have feared him, respected him, desperately desired his affection, was for it not to be obvious at all. In the end we are left with no answers, no real facts, and we return to the image and myth we began with. Daedulus and his son Icarus, Bechtel arms spread as if in flight above her father with him ready to catch her. Truth is not an answer.

Tap Tap.... Is This Thing On?

2011-06-06T16:53:00.001-07:00

Any comments on the comics? Any discussion of your colleagues' precises? C'mon people, make some noise.

More Persepolis

2011-06-05T14:16:00.001-07:00

From Persepolis

2011-06-05T14:00:00.001-07:00

Our Cancer Year Precis

2011-06-02T08:43:00.000-07:00

Harvey Pekar’s and Joyce Brabner’s “Our Cancer Year” is the autobiographical account of a couple’s fight against cancer presented in comic book form. The first page of this graphic novel sets the tone for the rest of the story. The authors want the readers to realize that while yes, the graphic novel is the story of their struggle against cancer set against the backdrop of the rest of the world’s struggle with the Gulf War; it is also a story about very normal things: “marriage, work, friends, family, and buying a house.” Through the use of their graphical autobiography, Pekar and Brabner hope to change the way that their readers deal with sickness.

Harvey Pekar, towards the beginning of the story, only really cares about himself and doing whatever it takes to “keep [his] marriage going good.” When he is first diagnosed with cancer, he becomes entirely dependent on his wife. From there, his condition only worsens and does not improve until he becomes aware of other people’s problems. Joyce, on the other hand, is completely selfless; having been brought up “thinking [she] was supposed to take care of everybody.” She constantly has her hands full with moving into their new home, worrying about her friends, and taking care of her husband. Eventually, she realizes that there is only so much she can do echoing the introduction on the first page about doing too much. Towards the end of the story, Brabner has an epiphany; she forces her husband to take care of himself and think about others or else he would not get better.

DEOGRATIAS: A TALE OF RWANDA (PRÉCIS)

2011-06-01T15:28:00.000-07:00

Jean-Phillippe Stassen’s graphic novel, Deogratias, A Tale of Rwanda (2000), invites us into the unraveling mind of its eponymous protagonist whose canine animorphism episodes reveal his psychological fight against his decaying “humanity.”

In the aftermath of the Rwandan tragedy of 1994, Deogratias’s mind relentlessly shifts between the past and present. Marked by this alternating current of time, Stassen’s work forefronts the magnetic hold the past has on Deogratias. The narrative’s frequent interruptions of time displace Deogratias, dislocating him from the present and setting him in an unsettling past (and vice versa). Additionally, witnessing this shifting frame of mind invites us to experience his psychological struggle with him.

Others’ semantic derogation by the use of zoosemic terms (e.g. dogs, bitches, cockroaches, and bugs) draws the reader into the de-humanization practices by which Rwandan society cultivates ethnic and sexist tension. Such linguistic warfare help facilitate the eventual physical warfare culminated by the genocide. Additionally, Deogratias’s canine animorphism episodes materialize the experiences of his growing “animality” and decaying “humanity.”

And what does Deogratias argue about humanity? About the definition of humanity?

“Our Cancer Year” Précis

2011-06-01T12:22:00.001-07:00

“Our Cancer Year” takes place in a conspicuous time in United States history – that of the first Gulf War. The novel makes little mention of U.S. intervention in the Gulf War aside from a mention of “Operation Desert Shield” and “600 Kuwaiti oil wells” which Saddam torched to remove the U.S.’s stake in the war. Instead of dealing with the auspicious nature of the war in terms of U.S. international policy, the novel focuses on those the war impacts. This is the crux of the novel’s argument because the conception of war functions in a multivalent manner – there are many wars playing out upon the pages and, in turn, real life.

To identify this argument, one need look no further than the first caption. The first caption functions as a thesis for the rest of the story cinching all the argumentative strings together in one neat little box: “This is a story about a year when someone was sick, about a time when it seemed that the rest of the world was sick, too. It’s a story about feeling powerless, and trying to do too much.” The first sentence is compound; therefore, Harvey links his battle with lymphoma with the first Gulf War and Joyce’s children. The second element of the thesis hones in on Joyce who, in her introduction says: “I grew up thinking I was supposed to take care of everybody.” Joyce’s statement links her with the thesis thus setting the underlying theme of futility in action – powerlessness.

The notion that action is ultimately futile to a certain extent is one of the argument’s biggest stakes and has vast implications. The argument plays upon the assumption that one can accomplish anything if they put enough effort into accomplishing an end; however, the argument calls this assumption into question throughout the entire novel. The most obvious example of playing on this assumption is Joyce’s children and Joyce herself. The children all seem to share one thing in common, which Joyce says repeatedly like a “look here” sign, “as much as they have to carry, every one of them is thinking about somebody else.”

The argument seeks to change conduct through its portrayal of the ultimately futile act of caring for others without reservation for one-self. The novel makes this point in several instances. Joyce and her children all care for each other as much as possible; however, the payoff is not worth what one puts in, for there seems to be little or no payoff at all. The first Gulf War still engulfs everyone and they all still worry about each other, but nothing positive seems to come from that worrying except the positive reassurance that somebody worries about somebody else. Conversely, nothing negative results from this concern for others either.

Joyce tries to do everything she can for Harvey at the beginning of his battle with lymphoma; towards the end, however, she realizes that he must do things for himself such as getting out of bed, getting dressed and so on. The argument suggests there must be a middle ground between complete self-sacrifice for others and complete abandonment of them. On one end of the spectrum, one cannot give up their life for another and expect to maintain their own, while at the opposite side of the spectrum, one cannot be entirely self-serving like the Christian Slim.

Poison is an interesting metaphor tying Harvey to the Gulf War. Joyce’s children mention their worry about poison gas and all the precautions they take; however, there is never any mention of the precautions actually being necessary. Harvey neglects to have his tumor examined for the first half of the novel and eventually ends up with lymphoma. To treat the lymphoma, they pump him full of drugs so potent that some “eat through tile” or “burn skin.” Joyce’s children attempt to defend themselves from vicious gas used in the Gulf War, whereas American doctors pump Harvey full of poison that drives him insane in order to rid him of the cancer.

These metaphors clash with each other in a peculiar manner. Saddam’s gas would be horrible if unleashed on Joyce’s children; however, Harvey’s cancer treatment requires poison to save him. The fact that Joyce’s children prepare for such an attack and never encounter it, whereas Harvey neglects the possibility of cancer and ends up with it further confounding this relationship. The metaphor could be read, “Saddam would not gas people to kill them, but American doctors will to save people.” Moreover, this calls into question the agency of characters within the novel and since this is autobiographic, it calls into question fate, for, no amount of preparation or lack of preparation seems to save people from that which they most fear merely leaving the inevitable.

Through Harvey’s treatment, he becomes more and more disfigured described via exposition as well as imagery. So far, disfigurement seems to be a major part of the works we have read thus far. Could this be convention or merely a good metaphor for the self (or perhaps the loss of some part of it), as Emerson says, “The world takes on the colors of the soul?” Are these authors making some claim through disfigurement about the narrative of selfhood – perhaps that the narrative of the self is contingent on some transformation (literally in the case of Deogratius) or loss of a part of the self?

Deogratias Precis (Part 2)

2011-06-01T11:58:00.000-07:00

On pp 5, Deogratias stops the Frenchman from swatting a cockroach bug. In what sense is this figurative when we remember the "cockroach" slur used by Hutu extremists to describe Tutsis?

It is even more ironic that Deogratias still played a part in aiding the deaths of Benina and Apollinaria, both of whom were Tutsis – of which he had no choice although he claimed to love both of them.

However, we see how his dividing loyalty eventually shifts to the supposed ‘Tutsi antagonist’ that his ethnic group were strongly opposed to. He takes matters into his own hands towards the end of the story and avenges different people for what has happened. How does it make us feel when he finally comes to terms with whose side he is finally on? It is interesting though how Deogratias was portrayed as a human when he subtly poisoned the French tourist, Bosco and Julius, except at the end when he was portrayed as a dog, explicitly telling Brother Philip to drink the poison. Why do you think this is so?

Towards the end of Deogratias’s final flashback encounter on pp75, we see how the dogs were making a mess when they were devouring the corpses. How can we see the extermination of dogs that were ‘polluting’ the environment at the end as a figurative reference of what is to become of Deogratias at the end?

It is interesting to note that the night sky filled with stars is illustrated 4 times in the story, including the end. Why do you think this is so? What is the significance of this?

Deogratias Precis (Part 1)

2011-06-01T04:45:00.000-07:00

In spite of the introduction that sets the backdrop and explains the historical significance of the period to readers who might be unfamiliar with the genocide and the context the story was set in (revealing the possible scope of a universal audience), I personally felt that the audience is still primarily pitched at Rwandans – not only because of unstated assumptions associated with morality and Christian spirituality in Africa, higher education social status, etc but also the underlying message it desires to convey: “Never Again” shall it happen here.

These assumptions however seem to introduce some form of tension under closer scrutiny:

Although Rwanda is among the most Christian countries in Africa, in the 1994 genocide, church buildings became the primary killing grounds. It was argued that Rwanda's churches have consistently allied themselves with the state and played ethnic politics. Just as Hutu politicians used the genocide of Tutsi to assert political power and crush democratic reform, church leaders supported the genocide to secure their own power. But interestingly, Christianity on the other hand was also what inspired some Rwandans to oppose the genocide, which demonstrated that opposition by the churches, were possible, and might have hindered the violence.

Reaching higher levels of education was linked to students’ social status and ethnicity – ‘of becoming somebody’. However, Augustine, belonging to the Twa minority ethnic group in the story seems to be at an apparent disadvantage just because he isn’t white. Even though he proved to be a brilliant student in college with a promising future, working as a driver or night watchman for the whites when he graduated earned him more than being a college professor.

The overall mood of the book seems to depict sadness or distress, with the past constantly coming back to haunt Deogratias through recurring flashback encounters – events that happened both before and during the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda.

It is interesting though that these flashbacks seem to be rather sporadic in terms of its appearances in the story. There sometimes seem to be no connection between what is actually taking place and what flashbacks Deogratias recalls subsequently. The reader is also often left to guess when the flashback for each appearance would abruptly cease and the story continue. Why is this so? What could the inexplicitly woven interplay of events tell us about the mental state of Deogratias?

Unlike Barefoot Gen and Goodbye (Hell) where a descent into ‘hell’ is mainly portrayed through grotesque images of burnt corpses – where scars are physically visible, it is interesting how Deogratias descent into ‘hell’ seems to scar him emotionally as they do physically. Deogratias in the present is portrayed as a broken man, teetering on the brink of sanity, addicted to alcohol (or more specifically urwagwa) and virtually lifeless (in a state of trance as seen from his eyes). The manifestation of his emotional disorder leads him somehow to a physical identity crisis where he physically and figuratively transforms into a dog at times, which he is fully aware of: “sometimes I’m a dog.” (pp. 56), and then back into a human being, where he claims "...I am not a dog." What does this identity interchange reveal to us? In what sense does it figuratively represent his divided loyalty or position?

Goodbye Precis

2011-05-31T12:31:00.000-07:00

Goodbye Precis

Hell:

What do we make of Prime Minister Eisaku Sato’s face? Why is his face the most realistic face in the sketch? And why does it appear only twice in the sketch?

What do we make of the fact that the Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Atomic Bomb Dome), which is supposed to be a symbol of peace and hope, is one of the most ominous symbols in this sketch—particularly signifying the hell that Mr. Koyanagi feels?

Like Barefoot Gen, ‘Hell’ portrays some grotesque images of burnt corpses. Yet, they are less graphic/realistic, they seem a little more “cartoonish.” While the violence in the final scenes of Barefoot Gen are made direct and in our face because of the more realistic corpses/destroyed buildings, the violence in ‘Hell’ seems to be more terrifying because it is less direct. There are mainly silhouettes and shadows, and we are forced to engage with the sketch and use our imaginations. In this sense, Tatsumi seems to be playing with the “fear of the unknown,” by the suggestive images.

In the Q & A with Tatsumi on p. 206, he says that he wanted to “create an ‘anti-nuclear’ manga that worked as a story.” How do the figures of the Yamadas function for the reader in this sense? What is the significance in Tatsumi creating an image that is supposed to support a “campaign against nuclear proliferation,” only to falsify the interpretation of the image? Does the falsification of the image take away the impact that it has on the reader?

How is weather functioning in the sketch? In the beginning, Mr. Koyanagi describes a “black rain.” The wind towards the end of the sketch seems to foreshadow the murder of Kiyoshi Yamada. Yet, it rains again at the end of the sketch. Rain/water generally signify rebirth/purification, yet, this is a “black rain.” What is the significance of this? Are we to see this ending as a rebirth?

What is Tatsumi suggesting about responsibility in the sketch? It is interesting that Mr. Koyanagi feels guilty that he sells the photograph of the Yamadas, yet he murders Kiyoshi at the end of the sketch. It is also interesting that Mr. Koyanagi is able to carry his guilt and “live his own private hell.” Mr. Koyanagi’s fate seems to epitomize a kind of desperation/darkness that many of Tatsumi’s other “postwar” characters also succumb to.

Just a Man:

Like Mr. Koyanagi, Saburo Hanayama internalizes the feelings of torment that he attributes to his daily “hell.” Though he lives what seems to be a financially comfortable life, and he seems to have fulfilled his career as a manager, Mr. Hanayama is not satisfied with his life. This sketch seems to be the classic story of a middle-aged man trapped in an unhappy/unfulfilling marriage.

This unfulfilling marriage leads Mr. Hanayama to experience feelings of sexual frustration, and desperation to alleviate his sexual desires. He despises his wife and seeks revenge for her heartless behavior toward him. He fantasizes about Ms. Okawa, a woman he works with, and he nearly sleeps with Kazumi. Are we intended to see his behavior as merely reflections of a kind of “mid-life crisis” that he is experiencing? The entirety of the sketch seems to convey Mr. Hanayama’s behavior as a struggle to assert a kind of right to his manhood. He seems to feel trapped/subdued by the completion of his career and the responsibility he has to his family, and believes that committing adultery could fill the void. Ultimately, he realizes this is not the case.

Is Mr. Hanayma a cowardly character? Do we feel that his inability to control his family and his attempts to commit adultery are acts of cowardice? What do we make of the fact that he seemed clueless that the Turkish bathhouse was a kind of brothel type establishment? Is this ignorance or innocence? Are we intended to see this as something that characterizes his morality, due to the fact that he is unfamiliar with the process entailed in hiring a female entertainer? Furthermore, how is it that Tatsumi manages to create a character that wants to commit an immoral act, yet incites feelings of sympathy from the reader? Do we sympathize with him or do we pity him? Is there a difference between sympathizing with him and pitying him?

What does it mean that Mr. Hanayma decides not to sleep with Ms. Okawa at the end? He explicitly states that meaningless sex would not be enough for him to feel that he had taken revenge on his wife, that he needed to feel love. Yet, when he’s with Ms. Okawa, his ‘goddess,’ he is unable to follow through with his initial plan. What is the significance of this?

How does all this relate to the title, “Just a Man”? What are the implications of the title? Is it that his being a “man” justifies his need to remediate his sexual frustration?

Mr. Hanayama calls the Yasukuni Shrine, grounds where “many of Japan’s war dead [were] buried” (intro), impotent, like himself. What is the significance of calling himself and the shrine impotent? How do we feel about him urinating on the shrine?

Sky Burial:

Why does Sky Burial begin with the description of the Tibetan Sky Funerals? What are we to make of the juxtaposition of grotesque images at the start of the sketch with the dismal city life that characterizes the rest of the sketch?

Nogawa seems to be consistently depicted as a paranoid character throughout the sketch (paranoid about death?). Vultures are also a common occurrence in the sketch. Do we believe that Nogawa is really seeing the vultures or are they just a construction of his paranoia?

p. 75—Nogawa seems to be Christ-like as he lies on the bed. What do we make of this?

Why does Tatsumi include the random death of the neighbor? Is it to explain the vultures that Nogawa has been seeing?

Why does Sky Burial have such an ambiguous ending? Why is Nogawa the last remaining tenant—a kind of hermit?

Rash:

What is the rash that the protagonist is plagued by? Does it stem from the responsibility that he feels he has to his family, like Mr. Hanayama? Or is it the result of his sexual repression?

What is it that he wants his wife and daughter to free him from? The responsibility that he has to them? How does he expect them to free him, by leaving him in solitude? How does the fact that he is in nature contribute to solitude? Do we feel that his environment is helping alleviate his “rash”?

Does the rash really seem like it is something to control? If so, is it really a rash or is it self-wrought?

How are the mushrooms, which “are a stock manga symbol with erotic overtones” (intro), functioning in the story? On p. 93 he is reflecting on the past sixty years of his life, but he is contemplating the mushroom. It seems to be a confrontation with his sexual repression that leads him to desire the liberation he seeks from his family.

What are we to make of the young girl that he takes in? What kind of relationship do they have? On p. 107 it seems as if she is showing some interest in him, yet she is shocked at the end of the sketch when she finds his mushroom in her bed. Why does Tatsumi choose to end the sketch this way? Why does he depict an ominous shadow of the protagonist on the girls closed door?

Woman in the Mirror:

Why do we feel that Kazuya dresses up as a girl? Do we buy the reason that Tesuji gives at the conclusion of the sketch, that “the women in his family made him feel like he had to be a man, and it was too much for him”? Could it be possible that he simply preferred to be identified as a female? On p. 119 he calls himself beautiful and says that he loves himself…what do we make of this?

How do we feel about Tesuji’s reaction upon seeing Kazuya dressed as a girl? Do we feel that he reacted appropriately by vomiting? How do we feel as readers about Kazuya dressing up as a girl? Do we pity him the way that Tesuji does? Even later Tesuji calls it an “incident,” what are the implications of this word? The entire “incident” is foreshadowed as something fearsome. Why?

Do we feel the house fire is a coincidence? What is the significance of the fire?

How do we feel about the fact that Kazuya is seen at the end of the sketch with a wife and a child?

Night Falls Again:

The protagonist in Night Falls Again is called a pervert on a couple of occasions—do we feel he is a pervert? He seems just as sexually frustrated as many of the other male characters depicted by Tatsumi in Goodbye. Do we pit/sympathize him in the same way that we pity/sympathize with them?

The Tsutenkaku Tower, a symbol that “immediately conjures up a mood of poverty, petty crime, and homelessness” (intro), is illustrated a couple of times in the sketch. It almost seems to be a surveyor of the protagonists behavior. How is it contributing to the gloomy mood of the sketch?

Why does the protagonist masturbate in Tennoji Park? What is the significance of him revisiting the spot the next day and seeing the aftermath of his activity?

Do we feel that the protagonist wants love or simply meaningless sex? Why is it that he eavesdrops on the girls talking about love and marriage but does nothing in response? Are we to see him as rendered hopeless by his economic standing?

Life is So Sad:

Is Akemi truly innocent? Why does she cheat on her imprisoned boyfriend with Mr. Yamagami at the end of the sketch?

Why does she save her stained sheets? What does she mean when she says that it is all she can do?

Do we pity/sympathize with her or condemn her? It seems that she constructs her own problems.

Click Click Click:

Like the protagonist of Night Falls Again, Mr. Yamano seems to be a pervert. What do we make of his fetish with shoes/legs?

How do we feel about the seeming double life that he lives?

Are we disturbed by the meaningful death that he imagines? Are we intended to feel disturbed?

It is interesting that there seem to be women in the crowd of spectators watching the girl dancers on p. 181.

The title click, click, click, originally made me think of photography—it is interesting that the noise is actually the sound of heels hitting the pavement, is it fitting the Tatsumi concludes the sketch with this sound?

Good-Bye:

Why is Mariko depicted as such a mentally unstable character in this sketch? What do we make of her promiscuity?

How do we feel after the soldier leaves her? Do we feel that Mariko’s obstacles justify her alcoholism?

Why does she sleep with her father and what do we make of the fact that he reciprocates?

Reoccurrences throughout the entire work:

Signs—Tatsumi is constantly depicting signs throughout the work, signifying Bars to Restaurants. What is the significance of this? Is there any particular reason that he devotes several frames to the sole depiction of these signs?

Women—Women in the work are constantly being portrayed as promiscuous. Are we to attribute the sexual frustration that the female characters in this work feel, to the “new way” that the people of the “postwar” era were trying to find (as stated in the intro p.1)?

Welcome Notes

2011-05-25T13:31:00.000-07:00

Everybody should have received a blogger invite to join. If you haven't received one it likely means I transcribed your e-mail address incorrectly, so just e-mail me directly and I'll re-invite you using the address in your e-mail itself. Problems, issues, just ask, before or during class or via e-mail.

The Syllabus is here and this version will be updated should things change at all, so trust this one first of all. You can always reach the syllabus by clicking the link to it in the sidebar.

The sign-up sheet for co-facilitations is also up, sign up in the comments to the sign-up sheet post itself, and I'll jot you in, first come, first served. There's a link in the sidebar about co-facilitation from a different course than this one, but it should give you some general ideas to play around with if you feel you are at an utter loss as to what is expected. By all means give it a looksee.

Somebody take charge of organizing book sharing! Post something here to get started.

Come what may, everybody needs to get and read Barefoot Gen before Thursday's meeting, and although there will be no co-facilitators everybody should arrive with observations, questions, and provocations. Remember to read the Intro as well, because that will be part of our discussion.

Remember, American Born Chinese is a book on our required list that was mistakenly not ordered by the book store and so you should be making arrangements NOW to get it in time, check local bookstores, expedite something used online, share, make do, but get on it.

Let me know in comments here or in questions when we meet if there are problems with any of this. See you all soon, try to stay dry.

Sign-Up Sheet for Co-Facilitations

2011-05-25T13:22:00.000-07:00

Week Two
31 Good-Bye
1. Jenhi
June 1 Deogratias
1. Evangeline
2. Felix
2 Our Cancer Year
1. Cole
2. Huy

Week Three
8 Fun Home
1. Lindsay
2. Birney
9 American Born Chinese
1. Anne
2. Karin

Week Four
14 Stuck Rubber Baby
1. David
2. Eric
15 Palestine
1. Scott
2. Christopher
16 The Photographer
1. Maribel
2. ____________________

Week Five
21 Isadora Duncan
1. Jessica
2. ____________________
22 The United States Constitution
1. ____________________
2. ____________________
23 '08
1. Salvo
2. ____________________

Week Six
28 Working
1. ____________________
2. ____________________

Syllabus for Rhetoric 121: "The Rhetoric of Narrative Selfhood in the Graphic Novel"

2011-05-25T10:26:00.000-07:00

Summer Session A, 2011
University of California at Berkeley
Department of Rhetoric

Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday 4.30-7 100 Wheeler May 23-July 1

Dale Carrico dcarrico@sfai.edu

Course Blog: http://interpretatio.blogspot.com/

Attendance/Participation: 30%; 2-4pp. Presentation: 30%; Final 7-10pp. Paper 40%

Course Description

In this course we will survey rhetorical gestures -- logical, topical, and tropological -- through which a selfhood whose substance is construed as narrative is variously conjured up and deployed in a host of (mostly) contemporary graphic serial textual forms from Trajan's great stone self-promotional column to the scattered photographs of the deceased Didier Lefevre organized and supplemented between the covers of "The Photographer." What passes for selfhood -- from the records of notorious historical figures to traces from anonymous everyday citizens, from the voices of reporters and storytellers, from politicians on a mass mediated campaign trail to the ethos of a whole socioeconomic class at a particular historical juncture, to a "living" political document, among many other subjects -- and what matters in and about these selves varies enormously across the range of these works of graphic biography and autobiography, imaginary memoir, advocacy journalism, adapted ethnography and media transcripts we are reading, as well as in a couple of film adaptations we'll watch together. We will devote attention to writings by artists Will Eisner, Scott McCloud, Alan Moore, and Art Spiegelman on both the theory and practice of storytelling and characterization in graphic novelization, but the center of gravity for our conversations will remain our shared and intensive engagements with these extraordinary works over our weeks together. By the end you'll have a story to tell about selves for yourselves.
Our reading list is long and, I fear, dauntingly expensive. I will make a copy of every piece we are reading together available on reserve in the Rhetoric library, and I hope that at least some of us can arrange to trade and share copies as a community to defray some of these costs. Those of you who buy all of the required texts may find you have accidentally embarked on a new and ruinously costly obsession: my apologies. These works will be supplemented by practical and theoretical essays collected in a brief reader
Required Texts

Alison Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Michael Crowley and Dan Goldman, 08: A Graphic Diary of the Campaign Trail
Howard Cruse, Stuck Rubber Baby
Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefevre, Frederic Lemercier, The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan With Doctors Without Borders
Jonathan Hennessey and Aaron McConnell, The United States Constitution: A Graphic Adaptation
Sabrina Jones, Isadora Duncan: A Graphic Biography
Hayao Miyazaki, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (film adaptation of Miyazaki's own graphic series)
Keiji Nakazawa, Barefoot Gen: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima, vol. one
Harvey Pekar, Joyce Brabner, and Frank Stack, Our Cancer Year
Harvey Pekar, Paul Buhle, Studs Terkel, Working: A Graphic Adaptation
Joe Sacco, Palestine
Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud, writers and directors, Persepolis (film adaptation of Satrapi's Graphic Novels)
J.P. Stassen, Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda
Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Good-Bye
Gene Luen Yang, American Born Chinese

Provisional Schedule of Meetings

May

Week One
24 Administrivial Introductions
25 Personal Introductions
26 Barefoot Gen

Week Two
31 Good-Bye

June

1 Deogratias
2 Our Cancer Year

Week Three
7 Persepolis
8 Fun Home
9 American Born Chinese

Week Four
14 Stuck Rubber Baby
15 Palestine
16 The Photographer

Week Five
21 Isadora Duncan
22 The United States Constitution
23 '08

Week Six
28 Working
29 Nausicaa
30 Concluding Remarks and Bacchanal

2010-05-06T12:20:00.000-07:00

You Final Exam

2008-04-18T16:25:00.000-07:00

To be recognized as human is to be accorded a special or “authentic” kind of ethical standing, while to be dismissed as nonhuman, subhuman, infrahuman through racializing, sexualizing, pathologizing, infantilizing, primitivizing, or bestializing language is to be rendered especially vulnerable to being cast outside of both culture and history. Discuss what you take to be significant similarities or differences in the role of this proposition in any two of the pieces we engaged with in class by Michel Foucault, John Carpenter ("They Live"), Valerie Solanas, Judith Butler, Franz Fanon, William Burroughs, Donna Haraway, or Carol Adams.

The essay is to be 5-6pp., and is due at the beginning of our final class meeting. We'll talk about this together next week if you have questions, comments, etc.

Haraway Reading for Next Week

2008-04-15T07:35:00.000-07:00

(Shifting the Syllabus around a bit, next week we'll discuss Donna Haraway adn we'll push the Carol Adams onto the next week.)

Manifesto for Cyborgs

SCUM!

2008-04-07T22:52:00.000-07:00

Just realized I didn't post a link to this yet -- I'm assuming everybody just googled for it, else somebody would surely have e-mailed me to let me know I'd forgotten... right? right? Here's the link.

Immortality

2008-03-30T19:46:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to the text of Burroughs' "Immortality," which we'll be discussing Tuesday. There are several versions available online, but all of them are incomplete. This version cobbles together most of the text (not quite all, but enough), so be sure to read this one in particular if you don't have one of the printed versions on hand.

Culture Industry reading for Tuesday

2008-03-14T20:06:00.000-07:00

here's the reading for our next meeting. Hope everybody is having a good break.

Part Two: Mid-Term Exam

2008-02-27T23:26:00.001-08:00

Choose one of these two questions to discuss. Your answer should be 4-5pp. long. Remember, you are also expected to answer a question from the selection I provided last week in Part One.

Question One:

Provide a brief account of Marx's critique of the fetishized commodity, and then discuss how either Klein's critique of the Logo or Barthes' critique of myth (choose only one of these two) is both indebted to Marx's account but also departs from it in some key way.

Question Two:

Pick two of the objects Barthes interprets in his shorter essays. First, show how these essays both illustrate the more general thesis that myth is naturalization, and then point to some significant differences in the way “the natural” seems to function more specifically in each of your chosen examples.

Part One: Mid-Term Exam

2008-02-20T10:14:00.000-08:00

Choose one of these three questions to discuss. Your answer should be 4-5pp. long. You will also answer a second question from a selection I will provide next week in Part Two. It is very important that you remain focused on the topic of the question you have chosen, and that you substantiate your claims with quotations from the text your are discussing.

Question One:

In "The Soul of Man Under Socialism," Oscar Wilde forcefully distinguishes our possessions (property) from our creations (art). What impact do you think this distinction has on Wilde's individualist politics, since it would seem that his version of individualism demands both self-possession and self-creation?

Question Two:

Despite what appears to be a relentless megalomania in Ecce Homo, it is also true that many of the topics on which Nietzsche focuses in the book are actually rather modest. What insights might Nietzsche's modesty or immodesty provide as we try to determine what his ambitions are for the interpretive method of “affirmation” he offers up in Ecce Homo?

Question Three:

In his essay “Psychological Notes Upon an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia,” Freud provides an interpretation of the autobiography of Dr. Daniel Paul Schreber. Near the conclusion of his reading of Schreber’s story, Freud makes a striking claim: “It remains for the future to decide whether there is more delusion in my theory than I should like to admit, or whether there is more truth in Schreber’s delusion than other people are as yet prepared to believe.” How and why does the figure of Schreber seem to pose such a challenge to Freud’s larger effort to portray psychoanalysis as a scientific project? Are there other places in the text in which Freud seems to play out this ambivalence to Schreber’s own interpretation of the world and of his own place in it? Why might this matter so much Freud in the first place?

Marx As the "Darwin" of History

2008-02-10T20:27:00.000-08:00

In his 1888 Preface to The Communist Manifesto, Frederick Engels attributes to Marx a “proposition which, in my opinion, is destined to do for history what Darwin’s theory has done for biology[.]” This proposition is as follows:

“[I]n every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the social organization necessarily following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primitive tribal society, holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class struggles, contests between exploiters and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; that the history of these class struggles forms a series of evolutions in which, nowadays, a stage has been reached where the exploited and oppressed class -– the proletariat –- cannot attain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class –- the bourgeoisie -– without, at the same time, and once and for all, emancipating society at large from all exploitation, oppression, class distinctions and class struggles.”

Marx Readings

2008-02-10T10:27:00.000-08:00

Marx, Fetishism of Commodities

Klein, No Logo
Part One
Part Two

Ecce Homo Readings

2008-02-02T09:23:00.000-08:00

Preface
Why I Am So Wise
Why I Am So Clever
Why I Am A Destiny

Syllabus for Critical Theory A, SFAI, Spring 2008

2008-01-28T10:56:00.000-08:00

Critical Theory A, "The Point Is to Change It"

Instructor: Dale Carrico: dalec@berkeley.edu

Your final grade will be based on the following:

Precis/Co-facilitation 15%
Mid-term 35%
Final 35%
Attendance/Participation 15%

JANUARY

WEEK 1
22 Intro/Administrative

WEEK 2
29 Intro/Themes & Wilde's Soul of Man Under Socialism

FEBRUARY

WEEK 3
5 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo
Preface
Why I Am So Wise
Why I Am So Clever
Why I Am A Destiny

WEEK 4
12 Marx, Fetishism of Commodities
Klein, No Logo
Part One
Part Two

WEEK 5
19 Freud, "The Psychotic Doctor Schreber" (hand-out)

WEEK 6
26 Barthes, Mythologies (buy the book)

MARCH

WEEK 7
4 Mid-term Exam Due;
Screening and discussion of Carpenter's "They Live"

WEEK 8
11 SPRING BREAK

WEEK 9
18 Adorno/Horkheimer, The Culture Industry

WEEK 10
25 Foucault, Discipline and Punish (buy the book)

APRIL

WEEK 11
1 Burroughs, "Immortality"

WEEK 12
8 Solanas, SCUM Manifesto

WEEK 13
15 Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (buy the book)

WEEK 14
22 Adams, "Beastliness and the Politics of Solidarity" (handout)

WEEK 15
29 Butler, Undoing Gender (handout)

MAY

WEEK 16
6 Final Exam Due; Haraway, Manifesto for Cyborgs

Invitations to the Blog

2008-01-28T10:53:00.000-08:00

I have sent invitations to the blog to everybody who has given me an e-mail address. If you have not received an invitation, that means either that I do not have an e-mail address from you or the address was input incorrectly for whatever reason. E-mail me at dalec@berkeley.edu to let me know if there's a problem, and I'll re-send an invite. If the process of getting onto the blog is confusing or problems occur, don't sweat it. We can talk it through in class tomorrow morning.

Co-facilitating Discussions and Writing a Precis

2008-01-21T19:04:00.000-08:00

One of the key assignments for our course will be your
co-facilitation of class discussion of an assigned text.
This assignment also requires that you generate a precis
of the text you are taking responsibility for. This
precis should provide a point of departure for your
contribution to the discussion in class, and you will
also hand it in to me at the end of the session.

Think of this precis as a basic paraphrase of the
argumentative content of a text. Here is a broad and
informal guide for a precis, consisting of questions you
should ask of a text as you are reading it, and again
after you have finished reading it. Don't treat this as
an ironclad template, but as a rough approach to producing
a precis -- knowing that a truly fine and useful precis
need not necessarily satisfy all of these interventions.

A precis should try to answer fairly basic questions
such as:

1. What is the basic gist of the argument?

2. To what audience is it pitched primarily? Does
it anticipate and respond to possible objections?

3. What do you think are the argument's stakes in general?
To what end is the argument made?

a. To call assumptions into question?
b. To change convictions?
c. To alter conduct?
d. To find acceptable compromises between contending
positions?

4. Does it have an explicit thesis? If not, could you
provide one in your own words for it?

5. What are the reasons and evidence offered up in the
argument to support what you take to be its primary end?
What crucial or questionable warrants (unstated assumptions
the argument takes to be shared by its audience, often
general attitudes of a political, moral, social, cultural
nature) does the argument seem to depend on? Are any of
these reasons, evidences, or warrants questionable in your
view? Do they support one another or introduce tensions
under closer scrutiny?

6. What, if any, kind of argumentative work is being done
by metaphors and other figurative language in the piece?

7. Are there key terms in the piece that seem to have
idiosyncratic definitions, or whose usages seem to change
over the course of the argument?

As you see, a piece that interrogates a text from these
angles of view will yield something between a general book
report and a close reading, but one that focuses on the
argumentative force of a text. For the purposes of our
class, such a precis succeeds if it manages

(1) to convey the basic flavor of the argument and
(2) provides a good point of departure for a class discussion.

Final, etc.

2007-07-29T16:13:00.000-07:00

I'll talk about this in class tomorrow, but I've decided to switch things up a bit -- let's read Haraway's A Manifesto for Cyborgs for Wednesday, and nudge the Carol Adams and Judith Butler onto next week...

Tomorrow we're still talking about Fanon, and I'll begin class by going over the questions on the final to be sure everybody understands what comes next.

Final

2007-07-25T16:21:00.001-07:00

Part One:

Everyone Must Answer the Following Question:

To be recognized as human is to be accorded a special or “authentic” kind of ethical standing, while to be dismissed as nonhuman, subhuman, infrahuman through racializing, sexualizing, pathologizing, infantilizing, primitivizing, or bestializing language is to be rendered especially vulnerable to being cast outside of both culture and history. Discuss what you take to be significant similarities or differences in the role of this proposition in any two of the pieces we read in class by Valerie Solanas, Judith Butler, Franz Fanon, Donna Haraway, or Carol Adams.

Part Two:

Choose Just One of the Following Options to Answer, A, B, or C:

Option A:

In the History of Sexuality, Vol. I, Michel Foucault complains that “[i]n political thought and analysis, we still have not cut off the head of the king.” Similarly, quite early on in the text he expresses doubt at the notion that “the workings of power… belong primarily to the category of repression.” Is Foucault’s account of power in his earlier book Discipline and Punish different in a way that makes a difference from the account he goes on to criticize? Why or why not? Provide concrete textual evidence in support of your view.

Option B:

William Burroughs' piece "Immortality" is written superficially in the form of an academic paper, providing philosophical arguments and policy analyses of technological developments like transplantation, organ harvesting, cloning, dream research, space travel, and so on. Valerie Solanas' "SCUM Manifesto" is written superficially in the form of a conventional manifesto, offering up a general critique of contemporary society and providing a program for addressing injustice. But very quickly these two pieces begin to stray from the conventional political forms they are citing, performing breathtaking poetic leaps, parodic exaggerations, rapid shifts in tone, satirical inversions of their generic conventions, and so on. Compare what you consider to be the key argumentative strategies employed in these two pieces and then examine what you think is their (similar? different?) political significance in the world into which they were released by their authors. Substantiate your claims as best you can with material from the texts themselves.

Option C:

Would you characterize John Carpenter’s film “They Live” as a film about ideology? Why or why not? In what ways does the film recognizably depict the workings of ideology in contemporary American society? Do you think the account of ideology we discussed in Barthes’ Mythologies corresponds to (or interestingly fails to do so) the account of ideology one might discern in the film? Does Carpenter’s film express its own ideological commitments? Substantiate your claims with examples from the film and quotations from any relevant texts.

Immortality

2007-07-22T08:45:00.001-07:00

Just to be sure everybody finds the text for Monday's class, here's the link again.

Mid-Term Exam

2007-07-03T19:55:00.001-07:00

Pick two of the following Four Questions. For each of the two Questions you have chosen, produce a short essay (4-5 pp.) that substantiates a claim through a close reading of the relevant text under discussion in a way that responds to the that Question. Remember to try to write your essays in a way that reflects the Four Habits of Argumentative Writing we have talked about in class.

Question One:

How might one make a good case that despite what appears to be a rampant and relentless megalomania in his Ecce Homo, Nietzsche is actually rather modest in the claims he makes in the book? Substantiate this claim with material from the text. What insights might this modesty provide us as we try to determine what Nietzsche’s ambitions are for the interpretive method of “affirmation” he offers up in Ecce Homo?

Question Two:

In his 1888 Preface to The Communist Manifesto, Frederick Engels attributes to Marx a “proposition which, in my opinion, is destined to do for history what Darwin’s theory has done for biology[.]” This proposition is as follows:

“[I]n every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the social organization necessarily following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primitive tribal society, holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class struggles, contests between exploiters and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; that the history of these class struggles forms a series of evolutions in which, nowadays, a stage has been reached where the exploited and oppressed class -– the proletariat –- cannot attain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class –- the bourgeoisie -– without, at the same time, and once and for all, emancipating society at large from all exploitation, oppression, class distinctions and class struggles.”

First, describe simply and in your own words the basic propositions that characterize Marx’s unique contribution to the interpretation of history from this viewpoint. And second, describe the status of these propositions in Barthes' Mythologies and propose how any change in their status for Barthes might have an impact on his own interpretive project as a Marxist or post-marxist critical theorist.

Question Three:

In his essay “Psychological Notes Upon an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia,” Freud offers up an interpretation of the autobiography of Dr. Daniel Paul Schreber. Near the conclusion of his reading of Schreber’s story, Freud makes the last of a series of curious claims on a similar theme: “It remains for the future to decide whether there is more delusion in my theory than I should like to admit, or whether there is more truth in Schreber’s delusion than other people are as yet prepared to believe.” How and why does the figure of Schreber seem to pose such a challenge to Freud’s larger effort to portray the project of psychoanalytic interpretation as a scientific practice? Are there other places in the text in which Freud seems to play out this ambivalence to Schreber’s own interpretation of the world and of his own place in it? Why might this matter so much Freud in the first place?

Question Four:

In the Preface to the 1970 edition of his Mythologies Roland Barthes says that his ambition for the book was to “account in detail for the mystification which transforms petit-bourgeois culture into a universal nature.” In the extended theoretical essay “Myth Today,” at the end of the volume, Barthes spells out this transformation in greater detail. In a key section of that culminating essay, “Myth as Depoliticized Speech,” Barthes writes:

[M]yth has the task of giving an historical intention a natural justification, and making contingency appear eternal. Now this process is exactly that of bourgeois ideology… [M]yth is the most appropriate instrument for the ideological inversion which defines this society… [:] What the world supplies to myth is an historical reality, defined… by the way in which men have produced or used it; and what myth gives in return is a natural image of this reality… The world enters language as a dialectical relation between activities, between human actions; it comes out of myth as a harmonious display of essences. A conjuring trick has taken place; it has turned reality inside out, it has emptied it of history and has filled it with nature[.]

In the series of shorter essays that make up the bulk of the volume, Barthes offers up interpretations of a host of phenomena, popular icons, events, attitudes, and so forth. In each essay he exposes the way something that is actually a contingent and specific product of historical circumstances (which might therefore be open to contestation and reform in the ongoing social struggle of history) has come to assume the status of the natural, the inevitable, the taken-for-granted, the best of all possible worlds, the best workable solution, and so on. But although each short essay testifies in its own way to the ideological accomplishment of naturalization, the fact is that the force of “nature” for each of the objects of his interpretations is a bit different in the specific work it seems to do, and in the specific forms it seems to take.

Pick two of the objects Barthes interprets in his shorter essays. First, show how these essays both illustrate the more general thesis that myth is naturalization, and then point to some significant differences in the way “the natural” seems to function more specifically in each of your chosen examples.

Summer 2007: Syllabus for Critical Theory A: The Enterprise of Interpretation

2007-06-23T21:00:00.000-07:00

June 18

Administrative Introduction, Personal Introductions.

June 20

Oscar Wilde, "Soul of Man Under Socialism"

June 25

Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

Preface

Why I Am So Wise

Why I Am So Clever
Why I An a Destiny (or Fatality)

June 27

Marx, on Commodity Fetishism, from Capital

Naomi Klein, No Logo, selection

Part I

Part II

July 2

Sigmund Freud, on the Psychotic Doctor Schreber (Handout)

July 4 Holiday

July 9

Roland Barthes, Mythologies (Purchase Book)

July 11

John Carpenter (dir.), They Live (In-Class Screening)

Hand in Take Home Mid-Term Exam

July 16

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (Purchase Book)

July 18

Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality (Purchase Book)

July 23

William Burroughs, "Immortality"

July 25

Valerie Solanas, "SCUM Manifesto"

July 30

Franz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (Purchase Book)

Aug 1

Carol Adams, “Preface” & “On Beastliness and Solidarity" (Handout)

Aug 6

Judith Butler, Undoing Gender (Handout)

Aug 8

Donna Haraway, “A Manifesto for Cyborgs”

Hand in Take Home Final Exam

Checking In

2007-04-30T22:22:00.000-07:00

How was everybody's weekend? Another question for the final has found its way to the blog, you'll notice. I'm hoping that by now you are all well on your way to completing at least one of your essays in any case. As I have been adding questions I have also been going back into the initial blog entry and expanding it to include all the questions, so if you want to survey all of your options just scroll down a bit. Even though it is possible that another option is yet to appear, you definitely should not be waiting for it to arrive. The finals are to be handed in one week from tomorrow, in class. Hope you are enjoying the Ranciere and finding all the pieces falling wonderfully into place.

Yet Another Option for the Final

2007-04-30T22:13:00.000-07:00

Charity Scribner proposes that in Joseph Beuys' Economic Values a collection of objects memorializes a State while Rey Chow proposes that in Lao She's story "Attachment" a collection of objects threatens a State. A work of memory, it would seem, confronts a work of promise; a past, a future. But how different, finally, do you think these projects really are, how different do you think the work they are doing really is, how different do you think their politics really are? Do not choose to respond to this option for your final unless you feel sure you can provide clear and firm answers to those three questions in the last sentence and can substantiate your positions with material from our texts.

To get an A in the class, you must see this movie

2007-04-27T14:33:00.000-07:00

Ok, that is obviously not true, but notwithstanding your grade, i can almost guarantee your lives will be better if you see the film:
Leben der Anderen, Das, or "The Lives of Others" in english.
It takes place in East Germany in the 1980's, and depicts the invasive observational tactics the Stasi took to keeps tabs on the GDR citizens. It follows the lives of artists (writers, directors, an actress) directly confronted with expressing their art under socailism (i am being purposely vague, as to not give anything away).
Anyway, i find that it directly hits upon a lot of the themes of our class, and in reading the Scribner piece, i was reminded of this amazing amazing movie. ( if anything, you can see the film depicting the "Niche culture" Scriber describes...)
So, if you want to break fom studying and have a refreshing cinematic experience, go see "The Lives of Others"!!!

A Second Question for the Final (More Choices to Come, Drop by Drop)

2007-04-23T18:38:00.000-07:00

Bill Brown writes of "the suddenness with which things seem to assert their presence and power: you cut your finger on a sheet of paper, you trip over some toy, you get bopped on the head by a falling nut." Jeanette Winterson begins her own account of an education into visual art by telling a story that seems to complement to Brown's in key respects: "I was wandering happy, alone, playing the flaneur, when I passed a little gallery and in the moment of passing saw a painting that had more power to stop me than I had power to walk on." Brown draws on such experiences to flesh out his sense of the thing as distinct from the object. "These are occasions outside the scene of phenomenological attention that nonetheless teach you that you're 'caught up in things' and that the 'body is a thing among things.'" As for Winterson, it would seem for Brown that esthetic encounters have something to teach us, especially when we are unprepared for them. What are the politics of this esthetic education for Winterson and Brown? Do they seem to follow the same route from their initial encounter? Do the politics of this encounter differ or do they resemble the political education attributed to the "realist" art object in some of the Marxist esthetics we read early on in the term? In your answer, feel free either to focus on comparing and contrasting Brown with Winterson, or to focus on comparing and contrasting one of these two essays to the realist esthetics we read early on.

Final Preview

2007-04-15T19:45:00.000-07:00

One Question

Explain how Debord's description of the Spectacle, Benjamin's notion of the Aura, or Klein's treatment of the Logo (choose one of the three) re-stages Marx's account of the Fetish, then propose a way in which you think the formulation you have chosen extends or subverts Marx's account in some key respect.

A Second Question

Bill Brown writes of "the suddenness with which things seem to assert their presence and power: you cut your finger on a sheet of paper, you trip over some toy, you get bopped on the head by a falling nut." Jeanette Winterson begins her own account of an education into visual art by telling a story that seems to complement to Brown's in key respects: "I was wandering happy, alone, playing the flaneur, when I passed a little gallery and in the moment of passing saw a painting that had more power to stop me than I had power to walk on." Brown draws on such experiences to flesh out his sense of the thing as distinct from the object. "These are occasions outside the scene of phenomenological attention that nonetheless teach you that you're 'caught up in things' and that the 'body is a thing among things.'" As for Winterson, it would seem for Brown that esthetic encounters have something to teach us, especially when we are unprepared for them. What are the politics of this esthetic education for Winterson and Brown? Do they seem to follow the same route from their initial encounter? Do the politics of this encounter differ or do they resemble the political education attributed to the "realist" art object in some of the Marxist esthetics we read early on in the term? In your answer, feel free either to focus on comparing and contrasting Brown with Winterson, or to focus on comparing and contrasting one of these two essays to the realist esthetics we read early on.

A Third Question:

Charity Scribner proposes that in Joseph Beuys' Economic Values a collection of objects memorializes a State while Rey Chow proposes that in Lao She's story "Attachment" a collection of objects threatens a State. A work of memory, it would seem, confronts a work of promise; a past, a future. But how different, finally, do you think these projects really are, how different do you think the work they are doing really is, how different do you think their politics really are? Do not choose to respond to this option for your final unless you feel sure you can provide clear and firm answers to those three questions in the last sentence and can substantiate your positions with material from our texts.

Bruce Sterling

2007-04-05T20:35:00.000-07:00

For the handful of my fellow classmates who are into the reading, I've wondered around the net and found a few sites on Sterling:

http://www.chriswaltrip.com/sterling/

http://blog.wired.com/sterling/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Sterling

Upcoming Readings, Upcoming Paper

2007-04-01T09:36:00.000-07:00

As everybody staggers back home from their various pleasure domes, I wanted to post a couple of reminders. First, that we are devoting the next three lectures to discussion of Bruce Sterling's novel, Distraction, and that a short paper is due in a couple of weeks' time. More specifically, this Tuesday we will be discussing Chapters 1-4 of the novel; Thursday we will be discussing Chapters 5-9; the following Tuesday we will be discussing through to the end.

The following Thursday, you will be handing in a short (4-5pp.) paper. In the paper you will provide a short reading of key material in either the film V for Vendetta or the novel Distraction, and your reading will substantiate a thesis related to some issue, idea, or question we have been grappling with over the course of the term. Both the film and the novel are art objects, both serious, both directed to mass audiences, both quite popular, both take up the subject of the political explicitly, and both struggle to connect issues of esthetics with politics. Do you find in either work an interesting evocation, complication, illustration, counterexample, or problem that takes you back to some theoretical formulation or some theme or some quandary from any the texts we have read together so far in the course? That is where you should begin as you focus on what you want to write about in your paper.

I am also attaching here an excerpt from my Four Habits of Argumentative Writing handout, since this lets you know a few concrete things about what we expect in an argumentative close reading. Otherwise, you are free to focus on whatever topic interests you personally as a way of connecting these art objects to the larger themes of the course.

First: An argumentative paper will have a thesis. A thesis is a claim. It is a statement of the thing your paper is trying to show. Very often, the claim will be straightforward enough to express in a single sentence or so, and it will usually appear early on in the paper to give your readers a clear sense of the project of the paper. A thesis is a claim that is strong. A strong claim is a claim for which you can imagine an intelligent opposition. It is a claim that you feel a need to argue for. Remember, when you are producing a reading about a complex literary text like a novel, a poem, or a film the object of your argument will be to illuminate the text, to draw attention to some aspect of the wider work the text is accomplishing. Once you have determined the dimension or element in a text that you want to argue about, your opposition might consist of those who would focus elsewhere or who would draw different conclusions from your own focus. Your thesis is your paper's spine, your paper's task. As you write your papers, it is a good idea to ask yourself the question, from time to time, Does this quotation, does this argument, does this paragraph support my thesis in some way? If it doesnt, delete it. If you are drawn repeatedly away from what you have chosen as your thesis, ask yourself whether or not this signals that you really want to argue for some different thesis.

Second: You should define your central terms, especially the ones you may be using in an idiosyncratic way. Your definitions can be casual ones, they dont have to sound like dictionary definitions. But it is crucial that once you have defined a term you will stick to the meaning you have assigned it yourself. Never simply assume that your readers know what you mean or what you are talking about. Never hesitate to explain yourself for fear of belaboring the obvious. Clarity never appears unintelligent.

Third: You should support your claims about the text with actual quotations from the text itself. In this course you will always be analyzing texts (broadly defined) and whatever text you are working on should probably be a major presence on nearly every page of your papers. A page without quotations is often a page that has lost track of its point, or one that is stuck in abstract generalizations. This doesn't mean that your paper should consist of mostly huge block quotes. On the contrary, a block quote is usually a quote that needs to be broken up and read more closely and carefully. If you see fit to include a lengthy quotation filled with provocative details, I will expect you to contextualize and discuss all of those details. If you are unprepared to do this, or fear that doing so will introduce digressions from your argument, this signals that you should be more selective about the quotations to which you are calling attention.

Fourth: You should anticipate objections to your thesis. In some ways this is the most difficult habit to master. Remember that even the most solid case for a viewpoint is vulnerable to dismissal by the suggestion of an apparently powerful counterexample. That is why you should anticipate problems, criticisms, counterexamples, and deal with them before they arise, and deal with them on your own terms. If you cannot imagine a sensible and relevant objection to your line of argument it means either that you are not looking hard enough or that your claim is not strong enough.

Questions, Questions, Questions

2007-03-09T11:44:00.000-08:00

Scroll down to the Mid-Term Preview and you will find that all five questions are now available for your delight and edification. Let the Preparations begin in earnest!

Political Dancing

2007-02-22T23:31:00.000-08:00

So this is really late notice, but the William Forsythe Dance Company is going to be performing at Zellerbach on Friday the 23rd at 8pm. And the reason that this is cool is, it's about the physicality of war! As art, it addresses the politics of war...it's so relevant to class that I almost fell out of my chair when I read about it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/arts/dance/18solw.html

This article talks about the dance company and its political aspect, I think the title pretty much says it all: "Is It Dance? Maybe. Political? Sure."

Mid-Term Preview

2007-02-19T22:44:00.000-08:00

Those of you who have been checking the blog diligently all week-end long are at last rewarded (more of you should be posting to the Four Questions thread, by the way -- why, just look at the fun the folks who are sharing are having!):

At least one of the following three questions will be included in the Mid-Term Exam you will be taking in-class, in, whenever that is, a few weeks from now. (I reserve the right to tinker with wording a little here and there if I stumble on the need to clarify my intentions, but this is more or less the shape of things to come.) Enjoy!

1. Explain how Debord's description of the Spectacle, Benjamin's notion of the Aura, or Klein's treatment of the Logo (choose one of the three) re-stages Marx's account of the Fetish, then propose a way in which you think the formulation you have chosen extends or subverts Marx's account in some key respect.

2. How does the treatment of the figure of the Spectator differ in Wilde's "Soul of Man Under Socialism" from its treatment in Debord's Society of the Spectacle? What political significance attaches to these different treatments in their respective texts in your view?

3. How do the differing attitudes toward German Expressionism conveyed in Ernst Bloch's "Discussing Expressionism" and in Georg Lukacs's "Realism in the Balance" provide a window onto the larger stakes of their differing views on the relation of aesthetics and politics?

4. Describe the different ways in which Simon Frith and Iain Chambers discover possible forms of political commitment in popular art works, popular art practice, and popular culture. Highlight their differences by showing how their two accounts might be considered as an echo of the debate of Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno which began with the publication of "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" and continued in the exchange of letters published in the volume Aesthetics and Politics.

5. What is appealing about the idea of "ambiguity" in William Empson's literary criticism for Terry Eagleton and in Max Raphael's art criticism for Michele Barrett? How do Eagleton's and Barrett's sympathetic treatments of the work of a key critic from an earlier generation of the Left provide each of them with an occasion to model a form of committed criticism that simultaneously overcomes some deep impasse they discern in traditional Marxist aesthetics (for example, tendencies toward elitism, reductionism, formalism, or the like) while also guarding against some troubling tendency they discern in the criticism of their contemporaries (for example, relativism, antihumanism, complacency, or the like). Does it matter that each seems to admit that the project of their model fails in some key respects?

Four Yes or No Questions

2007-02-15T06:17:00.000-08:00

1. Should art represent reality?

2. Can a work of art fail?

3. Is there such a thing as avant-garde art?

4. Does some art contribute more to progress than others?

Current Readings and a Few Demands

2007-02-14T16:40:00.000-08:00

Hello, fellow politicized aestheticians. From the stone wall of perplexity that confronted me in lecture yesterday afternoon to a number of pleas I have received from students individually since then, I am gathering that the essays we are reading this week and next week don't interest and excite you all quite as much as they do me. How can such things be?

Let's talk about it here a bit, why don't we?

Why are these essays hard to get into (if indeed they are)? What special demands are they making on your attention? Are there specific references in the pieces that you feel you are missing? Is the style less accessible in these texts, in some sense, do you think, and if so what do you think is the cause for that and what are the consequences? Are the texts saying things that don't seem new (and, hence, provoke boredom) or are they saying things that seem to be coming out of blue (and, hence, provoke incomprehension)? Give me your two cents.

I'm starting to craft my notes for tomorrow, and I want to be sure we connect better. What do you feel you're missing from the discussion yesterday that you'd like a better handle on for tomorrow and next week?

Boston Spectacle

2007-02-08T16:35:00.001-08:00

A bit tangental but this was mentioned in reference to the Debord.
Fear and Loathing in the Bay State

Related?

2007-02-01T17:10:00.000-08:00

Sitting in lecture today, this kept coming to mind (as it had during the lecture on Wilde), and I finally decided that, despite its probable intellectual immaturity and almost certain errors, it deserved posting. And, perhaps shortly, deletion. But we shall see.

Next Up: NO LOGO

2007-01-31T20:05:00.000-08:00

We'll still be talking about Debord's Society of the Spectacle tomorrow afternoon (remember, I asked you last time to read past Chapter Two a little further into Chapter Three, all the way through the 63rd Thesis). Next week, we turn our attention Tuesday to Naomi Klein's No Logo and then Thursday to Walter Benjamin's Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.

Next Week: Guy Debord

2007-01-24T18:15:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow we're discussing a few key formulations from Marx that will recur throughout the term (for links to texts, scroll down past the Wilde posts), but I wanted to post the texts we're reading next week already, for those who want to get a jump on things. We're reading the beginning of Debord's Society of the Spectacle, Chapter One for Tuesday, Chapter Two for Thursday. Blog invites are still not happening yet. For now, you 'll have to settle for e-mailing me, or posting in comments instead.

Wilde: Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young (1894)

2007-01-23T11:55:00.000-08:00

he first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.

Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.

If the poor only had profiles there would be no difficulty in solving the problem of poverty.

Those who see any difference between soul and body have neither.

A really well-maded buttonhole is the only link between Art and Nature.

Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.

The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.

Nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest importance.

Dullness is the coming of age of seriousness.

In all unimportant matters, style, not sincerity, is the essential. In all important matters, style, not sincerity, is the essential.

If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.

Pleasure is the only thing one should live for. Nothing ages like happiness.

It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.

No crime is vulgar, but all vulgarity is crime. Vulgarity is the conduct of others.

Only the shallow know themselves.

Time is a waste of money.

One should always be a little improbable.

There is a fatality about all good resolutions. They are invariably made too soon.

The only way to atone for being occasionally a little over-dressed is by being always absolutely over-educated.

To be premature is to be perfect.

Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right and wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual development.

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.

A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.

In examinations the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer.

Greek dress was in its essence inartistic. Nothing should reveal the body but the body.

One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.

It is only the superficial qualities that last. Man's deeper nature is soon found out.

Industry is the root of all ugliness.

The ages live in history through their anachronisms.

It is only the gods who taste of death. Apollo has passed away, but Hyacinth, whom men say he slew, lives on. Nero and Narcissus are always with us.

The old believe everything: the middle-aged suspect everything: the young know everything.

The condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth.

Only the great masters of style ever succeed in being obscure.

There is something tragic about the enormous number of young men there are in England at the present moment who start life with perfect profiles, and end by adopting some useful profession.

To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.

Wilde: Preface to the Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)

2007-01-23T11:53:00.001-08:00

The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.
The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved.
No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.
From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.

Next Week: Wilde and Marx

2007-01-21T10:12:00.001-08:00

Here's a reminder that you are to read Oscar Wilde's Soul of Man Under Socialism for Tuesday.

For Thursday we are turning to selections from Marx. Follow the link to The German Ideology, and scroll down the text until you arrive at the section: "[4. The Essence of the Materialist Conception of History Social Being and Social Consciousness]," and then read the section that follows as well, "History: Fundamental Conditions."

Then from Capital, read Chapter 1, Section 4: "The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof." The link should take you right to the proper place in the text.

You should start receiving blog invites later this afternoon in your mailboxes. If there are problems either e-mail me or talk to me Tuesday at the start of class.

Syllabus for Rhetoric 103B: Aesthetics and Politics

2007-01-16T08:02:00.000-08:00

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:30-5, 126 Barrows
Instructor: Dale Carrico (dalec@berkeley.edu)
Leading Discussion: James Harker, Amy Jamgochian
Course Blog: http://interpretatio.blogspot.com

Just which objects are art and what are art’s objects and how do arts voice objection? Over the course of the term we will think through the conversation, antagonism, and co-construction of the aesthetic and the political, especially as these have played out in some characteristic Marxist and postmarxist discourses.

Grade Breakdown:

In-Class Mid-Term Examination: 25%
Short Paper: 25%
Take-Home Final Examination: 25%
Attendance/Participation: 25%

A Provisional Schedule of Meetings

January

T 16 Introduction (Syllabus/Course Policies)
R 18 Introduction (Some Course Themes)

T 23 Oscar Wilde, "The Soul of Man Under Socialism"
R 25 Marx and Engles: From The German Ideology and Capital, Alienation, Camera-Obscura, Commodity Fetishism

T 30 Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle

February

R 1 Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle

T 6 Klein, No Logo
R 8 Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"

T 13 Jameson (ed.), Aesthetics and Politics, Ernst Bloch, "Discussing Expressionism," pp. 16-27; Georg Lukacs, "Realism in the Balance," pp. 27-59.
R 15 Jameson (ed.), Aesthetics and Politics, Bertolt Brecht, "Against Lukacs," pp. 68-85, Walter Benjamin "Conversations with Brecht," pp. 86-99.

T 20 Jameson (ed.), Aesthetics and Politics, Correspondence from Adorno to Benjamin, pp. 110-133; Benjamin Replies, pp. 134-141.
R 22 Jameson (ed.), Aesthetics and Politics, Adorno, "Commitment," pp. 177-195.

T 27 Simon Frith, "Art Ideology and Pop Practice"

March

R 1 Iain Chambers, "Contamination, Coincidence, and Collusion: Pop Music, Urban Culture, and the Avant-Garde"
T 6 Terry Eagleton, "The Critic as Clown"
R 8 Michele Barrett, "The Place of Aesthetics in Marxist Criticism"

T 13 V for Vendetta (in-class screening)
R 15 V for Vendetta (in-class screening)

T 20 Discussion of Film
R 22 In-Class Midterm

27-29 SPRING BREAK

April

T3 Bruce Sterling, Distraction [ISBN: 0553576399]
R5 Bruce Sterling, Distraction

T10 Bruce Sterling, Distraction
R12 Jeanette Winterson, "Art Objects"
Short Paper (4-5pp.) Due

T17 Bill Brown, "Thing Theory"
R19 Jessica Riskin, "The Defecating Duck. or, the Ambiguous Origins of Artificial Life"

T24 Charity Scribner, "Object, Relic, Fetish, Thing: Joseph Beuys and the Museum"
R26 Rey Chow, "Fateful Attachments: On Collecting, Fidelity, and Lao She"

May

T1 Jacques Ranciere, The Politics of Aesthetics, pp. [9]-41.
R3 Jacques Ranciere, The Politics of Aesthetics, pp. [42]-66.

T8 Final Comments, Turn in Take-Home Final

Vergil was never in control

2006-12-12T05:36:00.000-08:00

Greg Bear’s Blood Music depicts a future in which human kind is fated to become overtaken by cell structures. The goal of these cells is to eliminate the autonomy of humans and instead mold them all together physically, as well as mentally, into one large structure which eventually will be the only thing of which the earth consists of. Their creator, A scientist named Vergil, injects them into himself and thus allows them to take over his body and eventually spread themselves out into the world. What we see of the character of Vergil in this story is supposed to be a subtle transition from human to more and more cell like, however it seems from the ending of the story that the reader was never really introduced to the human Vergil. It’s possible that the cells were manipulating Vergil from the moment we are first introduced to him, using the meeting between his friend Edward as a catalyst to their growth and the eventual erasure of the human race.

Vergil’s actions in the first half of the story depict him as being a man who is unaware of the consequences that will be brought upon the world by his actions. He acted confused towards Edward and in need of complex medical attention to attempt to determine exactly what is going on inside of him. It’s understood to both Edward and the reader however that Vergil’s intentions with the cell clusters were to see how far he could push the cells into multiplying and eventually thinking for themselves, as he puts it, “to go forth and multiply, improve.” (Bear, 25)

This contradiction in representation and action brings into question Vergil’s true character and if he was ever really in control of his thoughts throughout the story. It seems as if Vergil was more aware of what was going on then he let on to Edwards, obviously being done so entirely on purpose, “I’m not sick, this is my show.” (30) Vergil represents himself as a confused, intrigued individual who merely wants to seek out the help of a friend in order to gain more information. It would make sense however if really this was the cells using Vergil to make sure that the first person he spread the cells on to was someone that he knew and trusted.

The reasoning for this is explained at the end of the book, after Edward is already under the control of the cells and is made to be a recorder of his transformation. Edward had the medical knowledge to accurately describe the events occurring and could be a trusted source from which Vergil, thus the cells, could depend on. Where as Vergil represented himself to Edward as an ignorant individual, really Vergil had already taken the liberty of injecting himself with the cells and was thus already being manipulated by them. Knowing how quickly they could learn and multiply, the action of injecting himself with the cells almost guaranteed that he would be giving his body, mind and life over to them to control.

It seems as if the only action that Vergil is able to do completely on his own is to kill himself. The cells would not want to eliminate a mind and body which could further their development, much less the host body from which they were created, so it seems reasonable to understand that Vergil’s death was completely under his own control. As he lies in the bathtub, Vergil speaks to Edward about releasing the cells into the drains and thus into the world directly, stating “they would go everywhere.” (39) Unable to concentrate on his own feelings and only on releasing the cells into the world, it seems as if Vergil has a sudden realization at the last moment of exactly what is going on. Possibly the cells allowed his brain to work for itself for a few seconds, perhaps he gained control himself, but regardless for a moment he understood the reality of what was going to happen.

In an act of desperation and possibly even a bit of shame, he ends his life. In this moment of clarity he may of felt as if he was saving the world, he could have thought that the cells had not already spread themselves to Edward and maybe they would just remain contained within the bathtub and die along with their host. The reality of the consequences of his actions will never be able to be understood by Vergil himself however, and his death was an unnecessary event. Vergil, the creator of the cells in which eliminate humanity and all that it has created, does not even allow himself to become a part of his own creation.

This depiction of the story, in which the cells are in control of Vergil from the moment he is introduced on the first page, seems to be the most consistent in terms of relating the way in which Vergil represents himself to his actual actions. From calling upon Edward for his help, shaking his hand, and eventually killing himself in from of Edward, the cells had been using Vergil from the beginning. They were merely following their instructions to improve, even though it meant eventually absorbing and thus eliminating their creator along with his entire race.

Insanely Destructive Devices

2006-12-08T00:01:00.000-08:00

Ricardo Moran
12/07/06
Rhetoric 121

Insanely Destructive Devices

Lawrence Lessing argues in “Insanely Destructive Devices” that the types of threats to humanity are changing greatly. Until now naturally evolving pathogens still leave enough humans alive in order to be able to kill later. For example only 30% of people who get smallpox die. The types of threats to humanity have changed because there is now the possibility of engineered pathogens. These pathogens could be self-replicating and therefore not need a host body. Lessing cites the work of some australian scientists who were able to alter the mousepox virus to increase death rate to 100% in mice.
So there’s a new type of biological threat that can devastatingly deadly to a degree that has been unseen before. Lessing paints an even grimmer picture when he discuses how these pathogens could be produced. She describes these types of threats of having the possibility to be produced much more discreetly than a conventional weapon such as an atomic bomb. Furthermore if a terrorist is actually able to produce an atomic bomb well guess what? That is only one bomb. The engineered pathogens are especially dangerous because the self-replicate. In other words they can take care of themselves once released into the population. Lessing calls this specific combination of extremely deadly yet discreetly made self-replicating biological attacks “insanely destructive devices” (IDD’s).
Furthermore she goes into the difficulty in preventing such an attack. She refers to the answers given in a classroom environment. First one person suggested that we gear up with space suits and put extensive controls on research equipment in order to prevent such an attack. Soon thereafter the students realized the difficulty in executing such a constricting plan. The next suggestion was to limit the reasons or motives to want to make IDD’s. To attack the problem at the source rather than try to prevent its effects.
I agree that we should try to attack the problem at the source but it seems to me that it would not be enough. There are always going to be loonies out there that are going to want to destroy humanity for the sake of destroying humanity. That does not mean we should not try to eliminate motives but these motions should run parallel with some monitoring of research equipment. Essentially I am advocating a certain level of big brotherness because I think it is necessary to prevent these types of attacks. Of course as soon as big brother policies escalate to incredibly proportions I would leave the country (homeland security anyone?) but I still see the need for some of these policies to be implemented.
Rhetorically, I like the point that Lessing makes when he describes IDD as P2P meets WMD. P2P is a buzzword that has been floating around since Napster was introduced in the 90’s. The basic idea of how easy it is to share information in a P2P network is easily understood by the average American. WMD’s or weapons of mass destruction have also been covered extensively in the media in relation to questionable political moves by President Bush. By using both of these terms that greatly prevail in contemporary culture, Lessing is putting the threat in very clear and easily discenable terms for the average American.