Notes on Susan J. Douglas’ “Where the Girls Are”

This book discusses how mass media affected Baby Boomer women, everything from Disney fairytales as children to 60s Beatlemania, 70s television, and 80s advertisement. Douglas explains that she received contradictory, self-flagellating messages on how to view herself and the world in which she lived. She uses examples from a wide variety of public life to explore how women’s interests were often muted or pitted in opposition to one another (Veronica vs Betty and Jackie vs Marilyn), forcing either/or fallacies into personal decisions that, for young men, contained a myriad of options.

Douglas writes in the style of a public intellectual more so than a scholar of cultural studies, eschewing academic terms for pop culture allusions. Yet the work is well sourced and helpful because her personal experience is the starting point, not the ending. Also, the chapter titled “ERA as Catfight” reflects the catch-22 many women of the 70s who adopted feminist thought found themselves in, essentially having to choose between Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinhem. She delves deeper in a later chapter, “I’m Not a Feminist, but…” where the discourse around women’s expectations of the world they live in must be tempered with a dismissal of negative connotations and exaggerated stereotypes that have latched on to the fight for gender equality. Despite its 1994 publish date, the content is still relevant and the concepts could likely be found in the (social) media messages of today.

Notes on Henry Jenkins’ “Textual Poachers”

This book discusses fandom culture, focusing on media fandom–where the research is on followers of film and television rather than sports or music. That said, Jenkins does have a chapter on the music that grows from media fandom. He focuses on the discourse between fan groups and the text of a show, drawing most of his examples from Star Trek and Trekkies. He borrows from Michel de Certeau’s criticism about the “scriptural economy” of “multiple voices” battling over “mastery of language” about how a fanbase can make a text their own once they begin interacting with it. This then creates a semiotic tug-of-war over meaning and purpose between signifier and signified.

Essentially, a text has multiple ways to add an ur-texts, the most famous being fan fiction. Yet it is more than this; the creation of cons (conventions centered around a niche theme) as well as fan artwork allow texts to become scaffolding in which other art is built. With the internet, this can change the original text in real time, as seen with shows like Lost and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The “textual poachers” became those who also planted the seeds. This happens more in the age of social media and smart phones, but fan fiction and fan art still are more a reaction to more so than an addition to.

The term “textual poacher” should not get confused with “misreader” because the fans are appropriating, not misinterpreting the text, which is an important distinction. Jenkins explains that, over time, the increase in fan cultures has made this distinction less necessary because fandom is better understood and accepted. But there was a time when fans had to fight for a voice of legitimacy. He cites Ang Lee’s article about Dallas that explains how critics of a show are often in a much more prime position to voice their opinion than fans. The ground has begun to tilt, largely because the internet allows for fans to retreat to their respective corners. But also fandom cultures beyond just the media fandom Jenkins explores have grown and become normalized through shows like The Big Bang Theory and mediums such as Twitter.

Notes on McLuhan’s “Understanding Media”

This book is a mid-60s reflection on the state of popular culture, serving as an American version of Roland Barthes’ Mythologies. McLuhan’s subtitle, “The Extensions of Man” refers to his discussion of various aspects of modern life–clothing, money, games. The book is known for its assertion of how medium begets message, with environment shaping ideas. But beyond this, he explains language as a form of evolving technology with words serving as the “explicitness of thought.” His point that “new mediums disrupt the investments of whole communities” is grounded early and layered through each chapter as he argues that each aspect of life serves as a form of expression. Semiology and simulacra abound. And it is our job to filter and disseminate it, whether we realize it or not.

Some of his ideas are dated, which is to be expected and the generalized anecdotes to which he sometimes alludes seem contrived, but his predictions about the future of media have gained traction, especially when considering the compression of information and evolving of anthropology fostered by the internet. Nicholas Carr in his book The Shallows hits on this idea, referencing McLuhan often. Ultimately, this work attempts to bring harmony to the white noise of mass media during a time where it seemed blaring but–in comparison of today–was quite quiet. Its serves as a good first word in the study of media because although it points to the future, it contains an adequate amount of intellectual history.

On Professional Academic Writing in the Humanities and Social Sciences by Susan MacDonald

This book is exactly as its name suggests, it discusses academic writing, but it does so through the lens of theory. I expected more of a how-to or even examples of the differences between them. But instead, I read about how New Historicism affects academic approaches towards writing and how that writing should inform knowledge-making. This is the most interesting aspect of the book because it focuses on how the role of universities is to produce knowledge and in so doing, we must develop a language that makes that knowledge clear.

MacDonald spends a great deal of time on secular hermeneutics, cresting in a discussion between theoretical and textual-based evidence. Her emphasis on the “continuum of academic discourse between interpretation and explanation” highlights that even though the Humanities and the Social Sciences both stem from philosophy, the two vary in their methodology of collecting and presenting data, a difference that must be acknowledged and understood if true writing across the disciplines will exist. The three things you must know if you’re trying to learn something are the history, vocabulary, and current events.

In this case, a common history may mislead people into thinking that the vocabulary and current research overlap in the Humanities and Social Sciences. This is a mistake. The difference in vocabulary and in research methods reflect divergent thinking, an epistemology with common goals but differing ways of approaching them.

On “Views from a Distance: a Nephological Model of the CCCC Chairs’ Addresses, 1977-2011” by Derek Mueller

This article uses word clouds to discuss the terms and concepts most often emphasized at the CCCC conventions’ primary presentations. The argument hinges on the idea that we can learn a great deal about how Composition ebbs and flows based on the metonymical representation of the speaker and what he or she has to say. This method is accessible at a glance, but when digging into the clouds, we must remember context alters meaning. For example, Mueller talks about how the word “internet” shows up during several 90s speeches, but depending on when and who it’s spoken, the context reflects either suspicion or excitement.

The article reflects how pattern recognition can sometimes be easier to see when presented in a visual format as opposed to words on the page shaped into paragraphs. The reason being is that down words–words that show up in speeches but have little use to the word cloud–can saturate a speech, drowning or at least dampening the major nouns and verbs in the address. This use of the cloud is an example of applying visual rhetoric to help us translate and transmit verbal rhetoric. The program, developed by Chirag Mehta, is designed to help use list formats as a supplementary tool for consolidating large swaths of information in an easy to read manner.

This allows us to see that a shift in perspective allows us to squeeze more info out of the info provided to us without sacrificing the mental cognition that rewards us when we read or hear a speech.

Notes On ” ‘/’ and ‘-‘?: An Empirical Consideration of the Relationship Between ‘Rhetoric’ and ‘Composition’

This article by Eric Detweiller dives deeply into the subtle difference between what we as scholars mean when we use the words “rhetoric” and “composition” in our journal citations. The point he makes is interesting in that he lays out an ongoing argument in the field of where one word ends and the other begins. Both terms possess a myriad of denotations and connotations and get used interchangeably depending on the speaker or writer.

The goal is to sift through the recent disagreements at conferences and in journals about how the words get used and then formulating a system that categorizes the various journals that scholars in the Rhet-Comp field publish into either R or C publications. After laying out his methodology, he studies the scholarly tendencies of the different publications such as which scholars get cited the most, what publications are quoted most often, what key words show up most often.

The combination of word clouds, euler diagrams, and other charts gets a little confusing, but does show that both groups value Kenneth Burke whereas for example, Bakhtin shows up more in the C publications and Aristotle more so in the R ones. The point is that there is a subtle but clear divide in terms of which scholars get used as evidence when forming arguments, and from that data (and similar distinctions) one can if one wants divide the two fields, not so much by dictionary-style definitions or theoretical analysis, but by quantity information based on word choice and scholarly representation.

The article is long, and one would doubtless quote from every aspect it but would potentially quote extensively from a specific section or two, using data gained from this study that parses the metonymy from the metaphor in the discussion between the discipline(s) of Composition and Rhetoric.

On Simulacra and Simulations by Jean Baudrillard

This article examines the nature of reality as it relates to the various expressions that either reflect, distort, hide, or replace it. Baudrillard explains that a simulacra is the image separating the viewer from the thing, creating a type of prism that affects the truth of that which is trying to be seen. A collection of a simulacra can be a simulacrum like, for example, Disneyland. It is the representation of a world kept alive by the myriad simulacra it creates and perpetuates, creating a self-preserving loop. Another example Baudrillard uses is that of Watergate–the scandal through which we came to understand Nixon’s lawbreaking. Watergate isn’t what happened; it’s the framework through which we viewed what happened. The hypereality of the chain of events is what happened. And to a large extent, we cannot know it, and that is largely true with most events. This is why historiography has value: we need to understand how we shape the simulacra and how the simulacra shapes what we see.

Baudrillard takes his concepts one step further by philosophizing on how the simulation provides its own prism, yet instead of a funhouse mirror, it acts more as a watch that is five minutes behind. Its verisimilitude has enough in place for us to act on it, but it is not the real thing. It contains enough of the real thing, that it can fool us, but can it satisfy us? The example he uses is that of bank robbery, where he charges the reader to simulate a bank robbery and see what happens–someone will inevitably behave as if it is real and in so doing ruin the bubble of the simulation. Hence the problem with simulation as a simulacra of reality: we too easily burst the faux reality because someone else behaves as if it’s hyper reality. And, on some level, at a certain point, hyper reality invades the simulacra and the simulation that we create.

The significance of this discussion is that much of power is protecting the illusion of the simulacra from those who benefit less from it. Baudrillard argues that in many cases that which is behind the power is merely a tacit agreement that the power exists, a tacit agreement that may have been hard fought for, but may also be paradoxically firmly rooted and fragilely held. This is why simulacra–the stories surrounding the simulation–must be well produced and held firm.

On On Pop Music by Theodor Adorno

This article includes much of the philosophy of the Frankfurt School, which discusses popular music in relation to classical or standard music. Adorno aims to distinguish the difference between the two in a way similar to Ang Ien separates Mass Ideology and Populism. The idea is that popular music–which for Adorno was including but not limited to jazz and ragtime–contained a pseudo individualism that essentially misled an audience into thinking the music contained variety when, in fact, the myriad sounds were more of a parlor trick that repackaged the same things with only slight variations.

He argues that pop music rewards “the distracted listener,” one who can enjoy the music without fully investing in it. The “distracted listener” can superficially enjoy music absent of its history and intricacies. Adorno does not argue that popular music serves no purpose, but he does wonder aloud about its effect upon music as a whole and the culture at large. He does not predict one way or the other but does hint that catering to popularity was becoming easier whereas standard music, despite its growing availability, was falling behind in influence.

He leans towards an either/or ethos and yet he is unclear as to why the two are mutually exclusive–one can enjoy music built for distraction and music built for full engagement. Overall, Adorno believes that good standard music forces artists to into creativity while good popular music forces artists into imitation. The argument, of course, is a reflection of the shifting mores present during the interwar period; music was, for Adorno, a physical reflection of that.

On Dallas and the Ideology of Mass Culture

I couldn’t find the full article, which apparently is a chapter in a book that my school’s library has but not in online form. Anyway, I read enough about the article that I can at least discuss some of the ideas, but I admit if I could’ve gotten the full version, I’d have a stronger grasp of Ien Ang’s concepts.

The article analyzes a series of letters from Dutch viewers of the 80s night time soap opera, Dallas. Ang concludes that there are four types of viewers whom she calls the Ideology of Mass Culture. The first type dislike the show because its obvious commercialism and marketability make it too packaged, empty intellectual calories that may be entertaining but add little else of value. The second type enjoyed the show’s appeal but watched it through the prism of irony, essentially gaining enjoyment from either the fact that they’re not supposed to like it or from a sense of superiority where they make fun of it. The third type uses their enjoyment as a way of finding their place on the mass culture spectrum, understanding that their enjoyment is partly ironic but also partly genuine because despite the caricatures presented the show contains character arcs and relationship themes they as viewers can identify with. The fourth type adhere to a general populism that states it’s up to the viewer to decide what’s good and what one enjoys.

The four types reflect locations on a cultural map that reflect the anthropological prisms through which people view popular but potentially feckless content that amounts to the equivalent of entertainment fast food.

Would like to give a shout to Chloe Villaneuva’s Prezi and Allen John Guanzon’s ISSU project on it for providing some general outlines.

Notes on Writing without Teachers by Peter Elbow

Peter Elbow’s book discusses the value of writing groups in which writing is evaluated without the expectations of the traditional teacher-student-classroom relationship. In his introduction, he provides a brief personal memoir on his background as both a student and teacher of writing, a background in which inadvertently developed his theory of the “believing game” where one writes without fear of correction, rejection, or any other type of limiting instruction. The concept–freewriting–is designed to get sentences on the page–wordy and clean, ambiguous and clear. From there, one could edit, sloshing through the sludge of poorly written material, finding the fertility of the well written.

He contrasts the “believing game” with the “doubt game,” which is the more traditional way of looking at writing specifically and education generally. The “believing game” is more prescriptive and can hinder the bloom of thought because it creates hesitation in the writer who is trying to work along the expectations of a professor who may not fully understand the message the writer is trying to present, a problem added to by the fact that the writer themself may not know. And sometimes, the only way to arrive at knowing is to work through the unknowing.

Elbow relies on two metaphors with the “believing game,” growing and cooking. Growing is the work the writer does alone; cooking is that which is done with the group. The growing borrows from the gardening metaphor because the freewriting is a type of planting and the scaffolding upon the good–or at least helpful–writing leads to the growth. The cooking concept refers to the group dynamic where ideas simmer through clear, honest feedback and a collaborative culture. When I say collaborative, I don’t mean that Elbow is saying the writers within the group co-author each other’s work but rather the writers within the group are committed to communicating clearly what they understand and what they thought while reading the text. It’s not a place to pick at grammar or quibble over conceptual meaning, both of which have their place in the “doubting game,” which Elbow repeatedly explains also has value but not at the same time and in the same way as the “believing game.”

The book ends with an appendix containing series of essays in which Elbow seems to anticipate and troubleshoot some of the objections that other academics might have about his ideas. Elbow understands that language has meaning but that meaning exists because of the gestalt we bring to it, and because of that, we should plug into that gestalt when writing (especially in the early stages) so that we can add to the knowledge zeitgeist of which we all are part of.