Text/Media/Culture - Recently Updated Pages

tropic in taurus

Anonymous — Mon, 21 May 2007 14:13:33 CDT

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Anonymous — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 23:19:13 CDT

Welcome to MC15 Homepage for Text/Media/Culture!

Groups:
A: Jason, Gianna, Karynn, Robin
B: Gina, Eli, Tristan
C: Monica, Daliso, Kate
D: Kim, Tarek, Sarah

TA: Cynthia Lugo
Office hours: Tues 11am-1pm
MCM basement, Room 009
Cynthia_Lugo AT brown DOT edu

XI. Spivak

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 22:45:20 CDT

VIII: Kristeva II/Fanon

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 21:30:24 CDT

Daliso's Post:
In Chapter Five of Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon makes many general declarations as to the image of the black man from a white patriarchal perspective. While some of his points in regard to feelings of inferiority are salient, I was rather dissatisfied by the fact that he did not delve into the construction of racism as a means for the dominant race to maintain control over subordinate racial groups. He does not once go into the historical realities of racism or link racial antagonisms to the structure of capitalist economics. I was hoping he would delve more into racial privilege and spend less time on preoblematizing what is revealed in a phrase like “Mama, see the Negro!”

But his description of blackness as it is ostensibly seen from a white perspective resurfaced in me a question that I have increasingly wondered at: in what way may we contend with the way in which white media continuously presents anything outside the confines of white experience as a mysterious, or even frightening “other?” Let me elaborate a bit on this question. It is my view (and I’d be keen to see how people might disagree with it) that white upper middle class characters with their related white upper middle class experiences are generalized as the mode or norm of human experience in both television and film. As “John Ellis said in Broadcast TV and Cultural Form,” television programmers assume their “audience takes the form of (white) families (113). Nonwhite characters are often projected as outside of the centrality of the televisual of filmic family. If not portrayed as bad guys, black characters are noted for the way in which they do not fit the norm – a fact which many will probably assume is just a point of acknowledging the black character’s racial individuality, but which I believe is a means of showing how he does not fit within the on-screen family. Now of course, this is not always the case, but it is definitely something to note. If we are under the assumption that there are certain specificities of race which should be openly demonstrated on television and film, let’s just admit this and leave media as it is. But if we want to view each other as just men (and women), then we must trouble the tendency in mainstream media to portray non-white characters as morally indigent “others.” What are the alternatives that might be proposed to current mainstream portrayals? Is it a matter of simply having more people of color involved in producing our own images, or are there certain systematic features of mainstream/white patriarchal media that can be redressed?

Also, briefly: On page 129, Fanon discusses how according to the generalized “white man,” the black man can be seen as a stage of development. This imaginary white man says “Your properties have been exhausted by us.” What does this tell us about the development of cultures? John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony referred to his settlement as a city upon the hill, remarking that it would be a light for the rest of the world. There have been people in numerous cultures who have similarly praised the success of their own civilizations above others. In this culture in which the Western way of civilization is considered the most advanced, what do we think of the prospects of undeveloped countries retaining sovereignty over their development? Especially with Western media as expansive as it is, what are the prospects for a development alternative to that which has been conceived in the West? As an extension of this, is it possible for the traditional (as in traditional ethnic culture) to be modern?

IV: Barthes II

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 22:11:47 CST

Daliso's Post (which is too long to post in the "Comments" section)
In “Death of the Author,” Barthes proceeds with his analysis of mythologies and gives us some insight as to how we may be freed from them. But while Barthes’ critiques of mythology are valid, his solutions for how they might be confronted are wanting. Before I get to my question, let me outline my understanding of the key themes as briefly as I can, so as to establish a basis for discussion. According to Barthes, authors and critics together are myth makers, who supply each other secret understandings of literature. When Barthes states how the “image of literature is tyrannically centered on the author,” he is recognizing that what is important is not simply the given text, but also the style and characteristics of the author. Here I think of Robert Frost poems, and how their meaning is not simply derived from the words on paper, but from studying the life and experiences of the man himself. Given this paradigm, we can see the author as myth maker, and the reader as myth adherent, because the reader’s task is to understand the text by breaking into the depth of the author’s private meaning. Barthes is against this privileging of knowledge, and thus looks to break down the structure of this relationship. By deploring the “arrogant antiphrastical (I had to look this one up: means the use of a word in a sense opposite to its proper meaning) recriminations of high society,” Barthes aligns himself with Benjamin, who celebrated the camera’s ability to strip objects of their aura. Both looked for a democratization of signs, to remove gloss from all objects and find a way to show things equally and plainly.

Barthes’ commitment to simplicity of meaning and an end to the valorization of the author is furthered when he mocks (p.145) the idea that authors write anything original, saying that “the author, when believed in, is always conceived of as the past of his own book.” I agree with him here, that if ideas existed before the author, than he cannot one day purport to “author” them as his own. But what, realistically, can we see as the reverse of this action? He suggests that writing should work by “performative… in which the enunciation has no other content than the act by which it is uttered” (p.146). But like Gina said last week, isn’t there always some sort of interpretation occurring from the outset? How can we realistically withdraw ourselves from the object of our writing so much that “the hand, cut from any voice, borne by a pure gesture of inscription (and not of expression), traces a field without origin…” (p.146)?

I have a problem with another of Barthes’ ideological views which looks great on the surface, but is implausible when looked at realistically. He refuses fixed meaning and deplores the idea of there being any ultimate meanings. Then he gives the example of Greek tragedy and how the reader understands the duplicity of the words being used in the play, while the characters do not. But this reality must change when the reader is the subject being spoken to. Why would we expect him not to make the same mistakes as the characters in the tragedy? How can we believe that a text’s “multiple writings, drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual relations of dialogue, parody, and contestation (p.148)” can be focused and unified by the reader? It’s nonsensical to imagine the reader without “history, biography, or psychology (.p148).” But perhaps a writer who thinks of himself as such would have the ability to look at things more “objectively.”

Handouts

cynthialugo — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 22:23:22 CST

Attached below:
1. Course syllabus
2. Paper Instructions
3. Paper One Topics
4. How You Can Play a "Real Cool Hand" When You Write Your MC15 Paper

II: Benveniste/Levi-Strauss

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 22:41:04 CST

Key Terms:
Deictics (also known as shifters): a class of words whose meaning varies according to their situation or whose reference varies. For Benveniste, a deictic is a term whose meaning cannot be determined without referring to the particular message that is being communicated between a sender and a receiver. Personal pronouns are shifters: the word "I" designates both the speaker and sender who says "I" and the "I" contained in the message that is sent. Other deictics include here and this (referring to the place where the speaking occurs) and now (referring to the time of the utterance).

I: Saussure

cynthialugo — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 23:52:16 CST

Key Terms
Sign: With Saussurean linguistics, the sign becomes the basic unit of the analysis of language. A sign is defined as a psychical entity consisting of a signifier (a sound image/pattern) and a signified (a concept). The relationship between the two is referred to as signification.

Value: The value of a sign is determined by the network of contrasts in enters into
with all the other signs in the system. (The value of a sign is not its meaning.)

Langue/Parole: According to Saussure, langue is a "body of necessary conventions adopted by society to enable members of society to use their faculty of language." Langue therefore refers to language as a system or a code. Parole is Saussure's term for the linguistic level at which individual speech acts occur. Saussure maintained that the proper object of linguistics was langue.

Paradigmatic (Associative)/Syntagmatic Relations: A paradigm is usually understood as a set from which lexical items are selected and then combined to form a syntagm. (Saussure himself did not use the term paradigmatic but instead referred to the associatve dimension of language.) The paradigmatic is often conceived of as the vertical axis of language, in contradistinction to the syntagmatic axis---the horizontal, linear axis of language that moves forward in time.

Synchrony/Diachrony: An opposition introduced by Saussure to describe two aspects of language and two corresponding approaches to linguistics. The synchronic approach studies the state of language at a given stage of its evolution, and facilitates the analysis of the system of internal relations that constitutes it as a language. The diachronic approach traces the historical evolution of a language through time. Saussure privileged the synchronic over the diachronic aspect of language.

XIII: Deleuze/Derrida II

cynthialugo — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 03:46:07 CST

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

XII: Lyotard/Jameson et al.

cynthialugo — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 03:44:33 CST

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

X. Foucault

cynthialugo — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 03:43:13 CST

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

VIIII. Freud II/Irigaray

cynthialugo — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 03:42:23 CST

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

VII: Marx/Althusser

cynthialugo — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 03:40:01 CST

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

VI: Freud I/Lacan

cynthialugo — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 03:39:27 CST

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

V: Derrida/Nietzsche

cynthialugo — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 03:38:45 CST

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

III: Barthes I/Kristeva I

cynthialugo — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 03:37:42 CST

There is no abstract available for this page revision.