Through speaking to the class about the course, their papers, teaching, writing, and all sorts of things, I have decided to revise (to re-see) the way I want my course run.
1.) At the beginning of the course-- the first or second week -- I want to devote at least one day -- maybe more-- to 20-30 minute individual conferences where I get to know my students as students and unique individuals. I want to ask them about their history, background, extracurricular interests, entertainment choices (music, movies, books), major, schedule. I want more connection with my students.
2.) I will produce a Prezi (or at least a lecture) that explains the language we will use to describe writing in class and in peer review, including (re)introducing topic sentences, diction, paragraph structure, transitions, organization "flow," development, 'style', complete with examples of each.
3.) Near the above Prezi, I will give my style lecture, which someone suggested that give at the beginning rather than end the course. I think this student was absolutely correct.
4.) Peer Reviews will be "take home" and will consist in writing a letter (to be turned in via Sakai and emailed to the peer reviewer) at least a page single spaced that addresses the paper's author. In this letter, my students will explain the strengths and weaknesses of each other's paper, referring directly to specific parts and quotations from the paper before the peer review day, where we will do nothing but talk to each other about the letters and papers.
5.) I am thinking I may require a reflective letter, addressed to me, attached after the Summary/Analysis paper, Synthesis paper, and Research paper, laying out directly and more "informally" what the student was trying to accomplish, issues they had articulating certain ideas/points/arguments, and assessing the work's strengths and weaknesses, ending the letter with possible revision ideas. I believe that framing this as a "letter" will allow students to visualize me as an audience, whereas, in the paper, they will struggle with discovering the appropriate audience for the topic. These letters will be turned in as a separate attachment, which I will read after commenting on the main paper.
Ultimately, these reflections have led me to believe that the function of the 'letter' as explained in technical writing can be meaningfully incorporated into the First-year-writing classroom. I am not sure if work has been done on the effectiveness of this method, but I may write a piece dealing with this technique.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
Annotation examples
Full bibliography can be found here: http://honors.unca.edu/mccarthy/tslbiblio
This is what I showed you the other day. Remember that the second one is a bit less formal than I want your annotations to be.
This is what I showed you the other day. Remember that the second one is a bit less formal than I want your annotations to be.
Snyder, Phillip A. “Hospitality in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.” The Cormac McCarthy Journal 2008 Autumn 6: 69-86.
Phillip Snyder argues that the The Road advocates the radical ethics developed from the thought of Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas. [JR1] The upshot of their ethics is that we are not only ethically bound to our family, friends, and the immediate others we encounter, but also to every other person past, present, and future. Snyder borrows Derrida’s neologism, hostipitality, to argue that the boy recognizes that we are never merely a host or a guest, but both hosts and guests. The most concrete example given is the boy’s prayer--not to God--but to the people who have left the boy and his father a store of food in a bunker they discover. He understands that he is both a host of the meal at hand, but also that he is a guest in the absent person’s home. Thus, The Road suggests a secular ethics qualified by religious ritual.[JR2]
From my paper on The Road
While ethics are in the background of The Sunset Limited’s discussions, The Road, where actions towards other human beings are perhaps the only Good left in the world, directly engages the meaning of ethical actions. In “Hospitality in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road,” Philllip Snyder argues that The Road’s ethical stance maps onto an ethics of the Other derived from the thought of Emannuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. Derrida derives the term “hostipitality” from the French term hôte, meaning both “host” and “guest.” Derrida’s idea is best presented by the boy’s prayer to the absent people who stored food in a bunker: “Dear people, thank you for all this food and stuff. We know that you saved it for yourself and if you were here we wouldn’t eat it no matter how hungry we were and we’re sorry that you didn’t get to eat it and we hope that you’re safe in heaven with God” (R 146). Snyder argues that this prayer “illustrates the boy’s sense of responsibility as hôte as he acknowledges his hosting power in presiding over this first meal while understanding that he also remains a guest of the absent host” (Snyder 84).
Annotation as a Heuristic (inventive) Tool:
Fisher, Mark. “The Lonely Road.” Film Quarterly. Vol 62. No. 3. (2010): 14-17. Web.
Mark Fisher, the author of Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative, [JR3] argues that though Jameson says post-apocalyptic fiction can be used to imagine utopias, The Road does not offer such comfort: “The Road [. . .] is instead a symptom of the inability to imagine alternatives to capitalism’s entropic eternal present” (16). First off, I believe that Jameson also says that the strength of SF as a genre is the inability to imagine the future but to show our present as past, which The Road certainly does.[JR4] But he argues that it shows the past as the only alternative: “Capitalism and its lost commodities themselves becomes posited as utopia” (16). Of course, he doesn’t mention the way that rather than something greedily consumed, it is a sharing moment between father and son. Clearly, Mark Fisher and Matthew Ryan are at odds about whether The Road shows the need for sociality or represents individualistic values. For Ryan, the book is anti-Thatcherian, for Fisher it confirms that “there really is no such thing as society, only individuals and their families” (Fisher 16).[JR5] Fisher argues that cannibals are only the real form of collectivity and thus forecloses the possibility of collectivity. He also makes a pretty good argument that “conservation” is not a value in The Road (except that by negation we as readers realize this): “Such questions are meaningless in The Road, where conservation of resources can only temporarily stave off their inevitable total depletion, and where, in the absence of any raw materials for production, labor can only amount to scavenging” (17).
Fisher writes about language in terms of the Lacanian big Other, but I believe that the key in psychoanalysis is to realize that the big Other doesn’t want anything (and is purely imaginary). Fisher writes that “the shared, symbolic domain in which poignancy could be meaningful has been shattered,” but I would argue that the symbolic domain is still there, but in a different way. Language persists and indeed there are several instances of a re-vitalization of old forms and idioms that are adapted to their particular situation—the father can impart the meanings of certain words that have relevance to the new world. Furthermore, the word “okay” signifies agreement (see Linda Woodson “Mapping The Road in Post-Postmodernism” below). [JR6] It is as if Fisher thinks that the only way for language to work is for humanity to submit to a big Other.
Though Fisher makes quite a convincing argument for reading The Road as a hopeless novel, I would still argue that he forgets some key passages in the text where the boy imagines possible communities of aliens. This SF aspect of the novel, I think, shows that communities do not have to be merely local families, but we are responsible for the absent other as well (see “the bunker” episode and Phillip Snyder’s “Hospititality in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road”. Snyder might see these quasi-religious episodes as the hope that persists in “some kind of Gnostic religious impulse, a faith in a distant and unknowable God that has, to all appearances, abandoned the earth” (14). I would argue that it’s not the faith in god, but the faith in others and possible society.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Synthesis Essay Example
Class,
Below you will find an excellent essay from one of your classmates. This essay shows a thorough understanding of each of the texts and synthesizes them in a really interesting, original way. The paragraph transitions are smooth and powerful, leading the reader to the next paragraph almost naturally. Depending on time, I may post the essay again with extensive comments, pointing out why the essay succeeds.
Synthesis Paper
In our modern society, we live in a time where there are always influential factors that correlate with the choices we make. While we do live in a country in which we are given many liberties and rights, there is a controlling factor (not just the government) that holds authority over the way individuals are shaped and molded. In Foucault’s “Panopticism,” he argues that in order to develop and maintain an efficient society containing population increase and economic development, power should be distributed in a way metaphorically represented by a panopticon. In Berger’s “Ways of Seeing,” he claims that the power held within an image is being destroyed through our society’s means of reproduction. In West’s song “Power,” he sings of how his life is affected by the forces of power itself. We may all have “power” over something, but there is always something else that holds “power” over us. The idea that society holds a power- a power to influence our choices, opinions, behaviors, thoughts, and way of life- is synthesized and relayed throughout the three pieces of writing by Foucault, Berger, and West. Although these authors all speak of power in a different sense, they speak of the influences of power on our society.
Power can be seen as a term with a positive connotation or as a term that is seen as the root of all evils. In both Foucault’s “Panopticism” and Berger’s “Ways of Seeing,” power is not spoken of in a negative light, but in a way that shows how power has changed or has the ability to change our society in different ways. Foucault uses a panopticon as a metaphor to represent how discipline and punishment works in our modern society. A panopticon is an architectural figure in which all inmates can be examined and observed from one spot without being seen. Foucault speaks about how the organization of a panopticon allows power to operate efficiently though disciplinary mechanisms. According to Foucault, the power of control and examination on citizens of a disciplinary society is a functional mechanism to bring about an efficient society. In this type of society, the spread of disciplinary institutions that use methods of control and observation is necessary. These institutions are present in our society today and include schools, churches, hospitals, and prisons. In these institutions, power is used on individuals to make them a productive person in society. With more and more productive individuals in a society, economic and social growth follows that will blossom the society’s development. As a society’s efficiency improves, there are more opportunities for control and observation to make even more productive individuals. Through these disciplinary institutions, power is used on individuals as they are becoming more productive. According to Foucault, “the panoptic mechanism provides the common thread to what could be called the power exercised on man as a force of work and knowledge of man as an individual. (Foucault 299) In these institutions, the process of producing productive individuals involves the power of influence. The knowledge and wisdom we gain is highly influenced by the people we surround, like our teachers, coworkers, and colleagues in our respective institutions. These disciplinary institutions shape their individual’s way of thinking, acting, behaving, and feeling. “…it still exerts a moral influence over behavior…” (Foucault 296) As a result, these newly developed ways of thinking, acting, and behaving become the norm and way of life. More and more people start to conform to these behaviors and thoughts that were originally developed from the disciplinary institutions. Because a panopticon allows everyone to come and observe any of the observers, this represents that the power of influence in our society is not fixed. Everyone has the power to examine and control… the control and examination of each other’s thoughts, actions, and behaviors. In our society, there is not a central individual who exerts all this power of influence. Everyone is significant and holds this power to influence each other because of our interactions in the disciplinary institutions. This power of influence shifts back and forth between authority figures and citizens in a society that is based on this functional mechanism described by Foucault. We influence the government to create new laws or make amendments to the law, but this power of influences equilibrates and our teachers or coworkers may influence our opinions on what amendments to vote for or against. In a sense, our society, that seems to be running like the panoptic mechanism Foucault describes, is operating to achieve an efficient society through reproducing individuals that have the same way of thinking and acting, and individuality and originality is lost.
This same concept of reproduction of individuals can be related to Berger’s description of the reproduction of an image. We are losing the power to be the best we can be and our true selves because we are always being influenced by social factors, like a reproduced piece of art. Berger argues that “in the age of pictorial reproduction the meaning of paintings is no longer attached to them; their meaning becomes transmittable: that is to say it becomes information of a sort, and, like all information, it is either put to use or ignored; information carries no special authority within itself.” (Berger 153) An original image holds a power to reveal an idea, a ritual, or an experience. But, with the reproduction of the image, its original power and authority is removed as they enter the mainstream of life over which they no longer have power within themselves. With the reproduction of artwork and the social and political forces, our perception and interpretation of artwork becomes skewed because of the power of those forces influence our values and ideology. The way we view artwork has changed over time because of social changes. Our society has influenced us to value some things more than others as well as what is desirable and valuable. Our perception is manipulated by the power of influence that our society holds. A piece of artwork is only as unique as its rarity, not meaning. “But in either case, the uniqueness of the original now lies in it being the original of a reproduction. It is no longer what its image shows that strikes one as unique; its first meaning is no longer to be found in what it says, but in what it is.” (Berger 149) If our society has influenced us into thinking how great a specific piece of artwork is, then the demand for that artwork increases. As the demand increases, so will the monetary value of the artwork. This shows that the value of the image is not based on the meaning of its image, but because of its market value. “It [artwork] has become impressive, mysterious, because of its market value.” (Berger 152) This influential power that society holds has shaped our way of seeing. Artwork is like the effector who receives the negative effects of society’s power over us. Sometimes it almost seems as if we believe things but we have no idea why. It seems as if our interests and interpretations of things are being narrowed as much as possible because of our natural need to conform to what is the “norm.”
Why is our society so easily influenced by this power? Since this power of influence shifts, and not one person holds a power, what would it be like if one person had all the power to influence, but was not easily influenced by other people’s opinions and thoughts? In West’s “Power,” he sings about how the idea of power influences an individual. He represents power as a burden on himself because it has made him a person of who he is not very fond. Kanye West has gained power through his rise as a rapper and no one can take down his power, except for power itself. (example essay on the class blog) In this song, West is the one who holds the power, and he raps about how it has influenced and shaped himself into developing his egotistical personality. In Foucault's and Berger’s writings, they show how society has a power to influence, but in West’s “Power,” he shows how power itself influences an individual. With his fame, he has acquired the power to influence others, as he is the social force of society that influences. Although many Americans hate him because of his poor attitude, his record sales do not fall, and this is all because he exerts the power to be an influential person in society. West raps about how this power has made him a hated person in society, and how he receives a lot of criticism and judgment. But, he does not care what people say about him, as he is impermeable to all the hatred and criticism he receives and he is not easily influenced anymore by everyone else’s opinions in society. Society’s power of influence on him was how he gained his power because it helped shape the way he thought about everything. He has gained the power to think for himself, and because of this, it makes it easy for him to not be influenced by society and the media. Although there are highly influential people in our society who bring beneficial changes in our society, they had to have gained this power through something else that influenced them. He sings the line, “No man should have all that power” to show that the power of influence is actually very powerful, and can create a negative domino effect. This is why Foucault’s “Panopticon” shows how the organization of power is actually spread out and spread evenly amongst individuals.
In conclusion, in Foucault’s, Berger’s, and West’s pieces of writings, they all synthesize an idea of how society holds a power of influence over its citizens, and how this power is able to create a norm for the way we behave, act, and think. There is an extraction of knowledge because society ends up shaping the way we perceive things and causes us to be prone to judgment and criticism if we do not conform to be the “productive individual” that is reproduced to maintain an efficient society. We all exhibit this power to influence, but some people in society, like the media, hold it to a greater magnitude. It is actually better this way than having only one person holding all this power to influence because if this power is spread out, then at least there will be chances of new ideas emerging in our society.
Below you will find an excellent essay from one of your classmates. This essay shows a thorough understanding of each of the texts and synthesizes them in a really interesting, original way. The paragraph transitions are smooth and powerful, leading the reader to the next paragraph almost naturally. Depending on time, I may post the essay again with extensive comments, pointing out why the essay succeeds.
Synthesis Paper
In our modern society, we live in a time where there are always influential factors that correlate with the choices we make. While we do live in a country in which we are given many liberties and rights, there is a controlling factor (not just the government) that holds authority over the way individuals are shaped and molded. In Foucault’s “Panopticism,” he argues that in order to develop and maintain an efficient society containing population increase and economic development, power should be distributed in a way metaphorically represented by a panopticon. In Berger’s “Ways of Seeing,” he claims that the power held within an image is being destroyed through our society’s means of reproduction. In West’s song “Power,” he sings of how his life is affected by the forces of power itself. We may all have “power” over something, but there is always something else that holds “power” over us. The idea that society holds a power- a power to influence our choices, opinions, behaviors, thoughts, and way of life- is synthesized and relayed throughout the three pieces of writing by Foucault, Berger, and West. Although these authors all speak of power in a different sense, they speak of the influences of power on our society.
Power can be seen as a term with a positive connotation or as a term that is seen as the root of all evils. In both Foucault’s “Panopticism” and Berger’s “Ways of Seeing,” power is not spoken of in a negative light, but in a way that shows how power has changed or has the ability to change our society in different ways. Foucault uses a panopticon as a metaphor to represent how discipline and punishment works in our modern society. A panopticon is an architectural figure in which all inmates can be examined and observed from one spot without being seen. Foucault speaks about how the organization of a panopticon allows power to operate efficiently though disciplinary mechanisms. According to Foucault, the power of control and examination on citizens of a disciplinary society is a functional mechanism to bring about an efficient society. In this type of society, the spread of disciplinary institutions that use methods of control and observation is necessary. These institutions are present in our society today and include schools, churches, hospitals, and prisons. In these institutions, power is used on individuals to make them a productive person in society. With more and more productive individuals in a society, economic and social growth follows that will blossom the society’s development. As a society’s efficiency improves, there are more opportunities for control and observation to make even more productive individuals. Through these disciplinary institutions, power is used on individuals as they are becoming more productive. According to Foucault, “the panoptic mechanism provides the common thread to what could be called the power exercised on man as a force of work and knowledge of man as an individual. (Foucault 299) In these institutions, the process of producing productive individuals involves the power of influence. The knowledge and wisdom we gain is highly influenced by the people we surround, like our teachers, coworkers, and colleagues in our respective institutions. These disciplinary institutions shape their individual’s way of thinking, acting, behaving, and feeling. “…it still exerts a moral influence over behavior…” (Foucault 296) As a result, these newly developed ways of thinking, acting, and behaving become the norm and way of life. More and more people start to conform to these behaviors and thoughts that were originally developed from the disciplinary institutions. Because a panopticon allows everyone to come and observe any of the observers, this represents that the power of influence in our society is not fixed. Everyone has the power to examine and control… the control and examination of each other’s thoughts, actions, and behaviors. In our society, there is not a central individual who exerts all this power of influence. Everyone is significant and holds this power to influence each other because of our interactions in the disciplinary institutions. This power of influence shifts back and forth between authority figures and citizens in a society that is based on this functional mechanism described by Foucault. We influence the government to create new laws or make amendments to the law, but this power of influences equilibrates and our teachers or coworkers may influence our opinions on what amendments to vote for or against. In a sense, our society, that seems to be running like the panoptic mechanism Foucault describes, is operating to achieve an efficient society through reproducing individuals that have the same way of thinking and acting, and individuality and originality is lost.
This same concept of reproduction of individuals can be related to Berger’s description of the reproduction of an image. We are losing the power to be the best we can be and our true selves because we are always being influenced by social factors, like a reproduced piece of art. Berger argues that “in the age of pictorial reproduction the meaning of paintings is no longer attached to them; their meaning becomes transmittable: that is to say it becomes information of a sort, and, like all information, it is either put to use or ignored; information carries no special authority within itself.” (Berger 153) An original image holds a power to reveal an idea, a ritual, or an experience. But, with the reproduction of the image, its original power and authority is removed as they enter the mainstream of life over which they no longer have power within themselves. With the reproduction of artwork and the social and political forces, our perception and interpretation of artwork becomes skewed because of the power of those forces influence our values and ideology. The way we view artwork has changed over time because of social changes. Our society has influenced us to value some things more than others as well as what is desirable and valuable. Our perception is manipulated by the power of influence that our society holds. A piece of artwork is only as unique as its rarity, not meaning. “But in either case, the uniqueness of the original now lies in it being the original of a reproduction. It is no longer what its image shows that strikes one as unique; its first meaning is no longer to be found in what it says, but in what it is.” (Berger 149) If our society has influenced us into thinking how great a specific piece of artwork is, then the demand for that artwork increases. As the demand increases, so will the monetary value of the artwork. This shows that the value of the image is not based on the meaning of its image, but because of its market value. “It [artwork] has become impressive, mysterious, because of its market value.” (Berger 152) This influential power that society holds has shaped our way of seeing. Artwork is like the effector who receives the negative effects of society’s power over us. Sometimes it almost seems as if we believe things but we have no idea why. It seems as if our interests and interpretations of things are being narrowed as much as possible because of our natural need to conform to what is the “norm.”
Why is our society so easily influenced by this power? Since this power of influence shifts, and not one person holds a power, what would it be like if one person had all the power to influence, but was not easily influenced by other people’s opinions and thoughts? In West’s “Power,” he sings about how the idea of power influences an individual. He represents power as a burden on himself because it has made him a person of who he is not very fond. Kanye West has gained power through his rise as a rapper and no one can take down his power, except for power itself. (example essay on the class blog) In this song, West is the one who holds the power, and he raps about how it has influenced and shaped himself into developing his egotistical personality. In Foucault's and Berger’s writings, they show how society has a power to influence, but in West’s “Power,” he shows how power itself influences an individual. With his fame, he has acquired the power to influence others, as he is the social force of society that influences. Although many Americans hate him because of his poor attitude, his record sales do not fall, and this is all because he exerts the power to be an influential person in society. West raps about how this power has made him a hated person in society, and how he receives a lot of criticism and judgment. But, he does not care what people say about him, as he is impermeable to all the hatred and criticism he receives and he is not easily influenced anymore by everyone else’s opinions in society. Society’s power of influence on him was how he gained his power because it helped shape the way he thought about everything. He has gained the power to think for himself, and because of this, it makes it easy for him to not be influenced by society and the media. Although there are highly influential people in our society who bring beneficial changes in our society, they had to have gained this power through something else that influenced them. He sings the line, “No man should have all that power” to show that the power of influence is actually very powerful, and can create a negative domino effect. This is why Foucault’s “Panopticon” shows how the organization of power is actually spread out and spread evenly amongst individuals.
In conclusion, in Foucault’s, Berger’s, and West’s pieces of writings, they all synthesize an idea of how society holds a power of influence over its citizens, and how this power is able to create a norm for the way we behave, act, and think. There is an extraction of knowledge because society ends up shaping the way we perceive things and causes us to be prone to judgment and criticism if we do not conform to be the “productive individual” that is reproduced to maintain an efficient society. We all exhibit this power to influence, but some people in society, like the media, hold it to a greater magnitude. It is actually better this way than having only one person holding all this power to influence because if this power is spread out, then at least there will be chances of new ideas emerging in our society.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Reflection on course goals, teaching, assignments, and readings
After class today, I started to think about why I decided to give you all such difficult, long, and obscure texts. As I have said several times, these texts are hard even for me with my extensive background in philosophy, cultural studies, literature, and to a certain extent, politics. Part of their difficulty, as many of you pointed out, stems from their length. I agree with all of you that it is more realistic (from a teaching/learning/pedagogy) standpoint to decrease the length of the readings per day, breaking them up or potentially omitting large sections that I can then summarize.
Allow me to think quantitatively for a minute, here. We have had approximately probably about 2 hours (maybe) to discuss each reading, if I give more time to the readings than say lecture or in class activities. While the blog posts (mine and yours) as well as my responses supplements this, I realize that this is not the same as "live" discussion. The Foucault, for instance, is probably about 30-40 pages of a "normal" book (even though its only about 25, give or take, in Ways of Reading).
In graduate seminars, we generally discuss a 250-300 page book in 3 hours. That said, we rarely cover the entire book in 3 hours, something that has frustrated me as someone who really enjoys discussing the little details of the book. Furthermore, its a graduate seminar, so most of us are expected to be able to discuss teh book as a whole.
But rarely do we discuss the particular "rhetoric" or "writing" of the book itself, which is ostensibly what 1102 is supposed to use the readings for.
So what is my point and why am I talking about my graduate seminars? My point is that the major reason I assign all of the text (and don't break it up) is to try and help you in your selections of information/citations and how to make it meaningful. When you do research, some research articles (at least peer reviewed ones) will be 20-25 pages long and if you have to cite 8 sources, that is 20x8 = 160 pages of material that you have to sort through to find a few points to include in your 2700 (10-12 page) research essay. If you use books, you need to try and wade through information/text in order to find a point that you can use to support your own argument. This is not easy I tell you, as someone who reads hundreds of pages a semester.
This process of selection, however, is not as difficult as wading through something like Foucault, a complex, abstract, philosopher/historian/theorist that I still have not "mastered" (nor ever will--no one has). Most books/articles will have indexes, abstracts, and sometimes breaks in the article indicated by section titles. These are tricks that you will need to learn in order to manage the amount of research necessary to produce your own work.
Furthermore, I recognize that the majority of us do not encounter such complex texts on an every day basis. The longest piece of writing we are apt to read nowadays might be a two-three page article on the huffingtonpost, but most of writing comes in headlines, soundbites, videos, images, or textbooks (a form of writing that is structured to help students understand meaning). Selection seems determined less by the complexity of the information and more by the amount of the information, each of it easily understandable--for the most part.
The texts that we have looked at disrupt our normal processes of interpretation of meaning and on could make the argument that they may not be rhetorically effective for even a general, educated audience such as yourselves and the public at large (I would include myself, but a lot of these texts fall under my academic specialty --theory/philosophy).
To recap, if we only have 2 hours (approx) that we can devote to an explication to these texts and they are not broken up into sections (such that then the questions might become: what makes this section of Foucault different from the section we discussed yesterday, last week, etc) and texts in the Ways of Reading complicate interpretation and are not representative of the type of research you will encounter and do encounter on a day to day basis, which is more 'accessible' to a certain extent, rhetorically speaking), then it would only be logical to conclude that the readings do not facilitate achieving the stated goals of the course in its title: Rhetoric and Academic Research.
In other words, first, if we cannot even understand the basic concepts we are working with, it is doubtful that we will be able to discuss the rhetorical choices of these authors nor will be able to discuss how you can "use" these rhetorical strategies in your own writing or how the rhetorical choices made by the author affect what he or she is trying to say. Second, if our readings are in both meanings of the term, the "exceptional" works (meaning, not the norm but also those that exceed the norm in meaning and richness), than the readings do not prepare you to encounter a typical academic research article.
If you were (or are) working in the realm of theories of power, Foucault is useful to know and indeed you may encounter his name again; if you are working with art criticism, history, and media theory, Berger is an essential voice in the field; but the sad (?) truth is that the complexity of someone like Foucault is greatly reduced in academic texts because they are, like you (and me) readers more often than producers of those "primary" texts that are so rich with meaning that people keep reading and re-reading them.
Very few of us will write like Foucault (including me) and many people outside academia find him, like you may have, impenetrable, dense, convoluted, overrated, obscure (pick your pejorative adjective), but some of us (me included) might write about Foucault or use/cite Foucault. However, that may not involve an explication of his texts, carefully constructing meaning (many people have already done this work).
This is what makes videos and images so great to teach. Still, we must balance this with a reading of written texts because it is necessary to integrate these written texts in order to support one's argument.
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Possible strategies for future courses and/or later this semester
But it is hard to decide what "level" of texts to present. On the one hand, giving news articles only presents us with a journalistic style and rhetoric. op-ed articles are good, but in a way lack the complexity, depth, and breadth of research than an academic article. Academic articles tend to be specific to the academic discipline and address issues that may only be meaningful within that paradigm or if one is familiar with the more 'primary' texts of the field. More 'personal' essays (some of which are in Ways of Reading) may include elements that the writer uses skillfully that may not be acceptable in an academic article or that beginning writers may not use as effectively--perhaps this is why Bartholomae and Petrosky recommend imitating the style. Fiction, although it usually contains implicit arguments, can be even more ambiguous about its "meaning" or the argument its making than the theoretical work we have engaged in. Not to mention, many of you are not literature majors and this technically is not a "literature" class. I do not want this course to be a repeat of your high school literature and language courses and I'm sure you don't really want that either.
The honest truth is that you will learn about the conventions of writing in your discipline; I am not fluent in many of these conventions. These conventions would also lead to a construction of different assignments than analysis, synthesis, annotated bibliography, and research paper. Due to university/department conventions, goals, and restrictions, I am obligated to constrain myself to these major assignments. But more importantly, since many disciplines require data, experiments, illustrations, measurements--aspects of your discipline I am ill equipped to teach you--I cannot think of how I would construct such assignments that would fit our allotted time schedule.
And so perhaps this is why the course is labeled Rhetoric and Academic Research rather than Rhetoric and Academic Writing. While research processes may be similar (at least when one is researching textual sources, which, regardless of your discipline, you will have to do) the writing produced from this research has its own conventions for making meaning and displaying data.
Therefore, rhetoric can be explained through video clips, images, various different written documents. These should be texts with relatively clear arguments, 'ordinary' language (not necessarily colloquial), and of moderate length given the time we have in class to work on them. This could allow me to choose different articles that we have not discussed in class for our major assignments, but which are "comparable" to the genres and lengths of texts we have discussed in class. Of course, this risks the assignments having less to do with classwork and thus may provide less continuity and unity to the course as a whole (but perhaps this was always a forced unity). On the other hand, as long as these other texts were analogous in theme, it would seem less like the class exercises did not contribute to a larger understanding.
Perhaps introducing something new that we do not discuss in class in addition to 2 articles that we do discuss in class might allow for some tension to form in theses and in the essays in general. Perhaps the two articles in class can be shorter whereas the third one will be longer and more complex, forcing students to figure it out with one another--on the blog or otherwise. Perhaps this would help create tension in the thesis or in the interpretations of the articles. This would also free up more time for other activities besides discussion of texts.
Allow me to think quantitatively for a minute, here. We have had approximately probably about 2 hours (maybe) to discuss each reading, if I give more time to the readings than say lecture or in class activities. While the blog posts (mine and yours) as well as my responses supplements this, I realize that this is not the same as "live" discussion. The Foucault, for instance, is probably about 30-40 pages of a "normal" book (even though its only about 25, give or take, in Ways of Reading).
In graduate seminars, we generally discuss a 250-300 page book in 3 hours. That said, we rarely cover the entire book in 3 hours, something that has frustrated me as someone who really enjoys discussing the little details of the book. Furthermore, its a graduate seminar, so most of us are expected to be able to discuss teh book as a whole.
But rarely do we discuss the particular "rhetoric" or "writing" of the book itself, which is ostensibly what 1102 is supposed to use the readings for.
So what is my point and why am I talking about my graduate seminars? My point is that the major reason I assign all of the text (and don't break it up) is to try and help you in your selections of information/citations and how to make it meaningful. When you do research, some research articles (at least peer reviewed ones) will be 20-25 pages long and if you have to cite 8 sources, that is 20x8 = 160 pages of material that you have to sort through to find a few points to include in your 2700 (10-12 page) research essay. If you use books, you need to try and wade through information/text in order to find a point that you can use to support your own argument. This is not easy I tell you, as someone who reads hundreds of pages a semester.
This process of selection, however, is not as difficult as wading through something like Foucault, a complex, abstract, philosopher/historian/theorist that I still have not "mastered" (nor ever will--no one has). Most books/articles will have indexes, abstracts, and sometimes breaks in the article indicated by section titles. These are tricks that you will need to learn in order to manage the amount of research necessary to produce your own work.
Furthermore, I recognize that the majority of us do not encounter such complex texts on an every day basis. The longest piece of writing we are apt to read nowadays might be a two-three page article on the huffingtonpost, but most of writing comes in headlines, soundbites, videos, images, or textbooks (a form of writing that is structured to help students understand meaning). Selection seems determined less by the complexity of the information and more by the amount of the information, each of it easily understandable--for the most part.
The texts that we have looked at disrupt our normal processes of interpretation of meaning and on could make the argument that they may not be rhetorically effective for even a general, educated audience such as yourselves and the public at large (I would include myself, but a lot of these texts fall under my academic specialty --theory/philosophy).
To recap, if we only have 2 hours (approx) that we can devote to an explication to these texts and they are not broken up into sections (such that then the questions might become: what makes this section of Foucault different from the section we discussed yesterday, last week, etc) and texts in the Ways of Reading complicate interpretation and are not representative of the type of research you will encounter and do encounter on a day to day basis, which is more 'accessible' to a certain extent, rhetorically speaking), then it would only be logical to conclude that the readings do not facilitate achieving the stated goals of the course in its title: Rhetoric and Academic Research.
In other words, first, if we cannot even understand the basic concepts we are working with, it is doubtful that we will be able to discuss the rhetorical choices of these authors nor will be able to discuss how you can "use" these rhetorical strategies in your own writing or how the rhetorical choices made by the author affect what he or she is trying to say. Second, if our readings are in both meanings of the term, the "exceptional" works (meaning, not the norm but also those that exceed the norm in meaning and richness), than the readings do not prepare you to encounter a typical academic research article.
If you were (or are) working in the realm of theories of power, Foucault is useful to know and indeed you may encounter his name again; if you are working with art criticism, history, and media theory, Berger is an essential voice in the field; but the sad (?) truth is that the complexity of someone like Foucault is greatly reduced in academic texts because they are, like you (and me) readers more often than producers of those "primary" texts that are so rich with meaning that people keep reading and re-reading them.
Very few of us will write like Foucault (including me) and many people outside academia find him, like you may have, impenetrable, dense, convoluted, overrated, obscure (pick your pejorative adjective), but some of us (me included) might write about Foucault or use/cite Foucault. However, that may not involve an explication of his texts, carefully constructing meaning (many people have already done this work).
This is what makes videos and images so great to teach. Still, we must balance this with a reading of written texts because it is necessary to integrate these written texts in order to support one's argument.
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Possible strategies for future courses and/or later this semester
But it is hard to decide what "level" of texts to present. On the one hand, giving news articles only presents us with a journalistic style and rhetoric. op-ed articles are good, but in a way lack the complexity, depth, and breadth of research than an academic article. Academic articles tend to be specific to the academic discipline and address issues that may only be meaningful within that paradigm or if one is familiar with the more 'primary' texts of the field. More 'personal' essays (some of which are in Ways of Reading) may include elements that the writer uses skillfully that may not be acceptable in an academic article or that beginning writers may not use as effectively--perhaps this is why Bartholomae and Petrosky recommend imitating the style. Fiction, although it usually contains implicit arguments, can be even more ambiguous about its "meaning" or the argument its making than the theoretical work we have engaged in. Not to mention, many of you are not literature majors and this technically is not a "literature" class. I do not want this course to be a repeat of your high school literature and language courses and I'm sure you don't really want that either.
The honest truth is that you will learn about the conventions of writing in your discipline; I am not fluent in many of these conventions. These conventions would also lead to a construction of different assignments than analysis, synthesis, annotated bibliography, and research paper. Due to university/department conventions, goals, and restrictions, I am obligated to constrain myself to these major assignments. But more importantly, since many disciplines require data, experiments, illustrations, measurements--aspects of your discipline I am ill equipped to teach you--I cannot think of how I would construct such assignments that would fit our allotted time schedule.
And so perhaps this is why the course is labeled Rhetoric and Academic Research rather than Rhetoric and Academic Writing. While research processes may be similar (at least when one is researching textual sources, which, regardless of your discipline, you will have to do) the writing produced from this research has its own conventions for making meaning and displaying data.
Therefore, rhetoric can be explained through video clips, images, various different written documents. These should be texts with relatively clear arguments, 'ordinary' language (not necessarily colloquial), and of moderate length given the time we have in class to work on them. This could allow me to choose different articles that we have not discussed in class for our major assignments, but which are "comparable" to the genres and lengths of texts we have discussed in class. Of course, this risks the assignments having less to do with classwork and thus may provide less continuity and unity to the course as a whole (but perhaps this was always a forced unity). On the other hand, as long as these other texts were analogous in theme, it would seem less like the class exercises did not contribute to a larger understanding.
Perhaps introducing something new that we do not discuss in class in addition to 2 articles that we do discuss in class might allow for some tension to form in theses and in the essays in general. Perhaps the two articles in class can be shorter whereas the third one will be longer and more complex, forcing students to figure it out with one another--on the blog or otherwise. Perhaps this would help create tension in the thesis or in the interpretations of the articles. This would also free up more time for other activities besides discussion of texts.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Panopticon--Foucault
Sorry for being so out of sorts today--I'd like to think it is because of my cold. I need to clarify a couple things about the Foucault--I was muddling some really key distinctions today.
1.) Foucault's example of the plague is not "opposed" to that of the leper. They are "different" projects but not incompatible ones (285). According to Foucault, they are coming together: "individualize the excluded, but use procedures of individualization to mark exclusion" (285). Thus, we divide people into binary categories: mad/sane, dangerous/harmless and then we brand them with one or the other, which then indvidualizes them. Thus, someone becomes separated from society due to their branding as 'abnormal' and then we decide we will try and make them 'normal' again through disciplinary techniques.
The model of the 'plague' gives rise to disciplinary mechanisms because discipline calls for a distribution and and ordering of any kind of disorder and confusion, which is the model of the plague. However, the difference between the 'plague' situation is that the plague is framed as an "exceptional" situation: "against an extraordinary evil, power is mobilized," but the panopticon is a "generalizable model of functioning; a way of defining power relations in terms of the everyday life of men" (292). This means that the power relations formed because of the plague, which separates into the "simple binary of life and death" is generalized to our every day lives. This is how power becomes productive.
This is what Foucault means when he says that the Panopticon has a role of amplification
Therefore, I need to return to Caroline's question today about the "two images of discipline." So the "one extreme" the "discipline blockage, the enclosed institution, established on the edge of society, turned inwards towards negative functions" is the schema of exceptional discipline--discipline is not the "norm" of this society, it is used in exceptional situations, like the plague. Discipline is only used, here as a kind of 'prevention' mechanism--for prisoners or criminals who are then isolated from society. The panoptic society, however has to improve the exercise of power by "making it lighter, more rapid, more effective, a design of subtle coercion for a society to come" (295). The shift is to a generalized state of society, regardless of who you are.
I hope this may help a bit. I'm gonna keep looking back at this text so we can have a good, in depth discussion on thursday. I hope you will too.
1.) Foucault's example of the plague is not "opposed" to that of the leper. They are "different" projects but not incompatible ones (285). According to Foucault, they are coming together: "individualize the excluded, but use procedures of individualization to mark exclusion" (285). Thus, we divide people into binary categories: mad/sane, dangerous/harmless and then we brand them with one or the other, which then indvidualizes them. Thus, someone becomes separated from society due to their branding as 'abnormal' and then we decide we will try and make them 'normal' again through disciplinary techniques.
The model of the 'plague' gives rise to disciplinary mechanisms because discipline calls for a distribution and and ordering of any kind of disorder and confusion, which is the model of the plague. However, the difference between the 'plague' situation is that the plague is framed as an "exceptional" situation: "against an extraordinary evil, power is mobilized," but the panopticon is a "generalizable model of functioning; a way of defining power relations in terms of the everyday life of men" (292). This means that the power relations formed because of the plague, which separates into the "simple binary of life and death" is generalized to our every day lives. This is how power becomes productive.
This is what Foucault means when he says that the Panopticon has a role of amplification
although it arranges power, although it is intended to make it more economic and more effective, it does not so for power itself, nor for the immediate salvation of a threatened society [this would be the situation of the plague] ; its aim is to strengthen social forces--to increase production, to develop the economy, spread education, raise the level of public morality; to increase and multiply" (294)
Therefore, I need to return to Caroline's question today about the "two images of discipline." So the "one extreme" the "discipline blockage, the enclosed institution, established on the edge of society, turned inwards towards negative functions" is the schema of exceptional discipline--discipline is not the "norm" of this society, it is used in exceptional situations, like the plague. Discipline is only used, here as a kind of 'prevention' mechanism--for prisoners or criminals who are then isolated from society. The panoptic society, however has to improve the exercise of power by "making it lighter, more rapid, more effective, a design of subtle coercion for a society to come" (295). The shift is to a generalized state of society, regardless of who you are.
I hope this may help a bit. I'm gonna keep looking back at this text so we can have a good, in depth discussion on thursday. I hope you will too.
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