Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Been reading through William Pietz's work on the fetish, a series of articles which appeared years ago in Res. The history of the fetish can teach us a bit about composition studies and its relationship(s) to its own object(s) of study, writing.
One main issue is the question of mis-recognition. Europeans encountering African ritual for the first time mis-recognized African usage of currency, objects, material goods, and worship. They also greatly misunderstood discourse (and thus, rhetoric) motivated by object placement and usage.
Thus, the mistake of labeling such activities "fetish."
One specific moment of interest to me was the European feeling that trade for trinkets revealed an African obsession with trash and junk.
"While it was precisely such 'false' estimation of the value of things that provided the desired huge profit rates of early European traders, it also evoked a contempt for a people who valued 'trifles' and 'trash'" ("The Problem of the Fetish" 41)
I'm not really trying to evoke analogy here, but I see a parallel to how composition has determined the nature of writing(s), particularly in the digital. The question of what is trash or unimportant revolves around how practioners interpret those new domains encountered in the digital (the digital has been compared as well to a colonial enterprise). Anything outside of the expected and familiar (like the Portuguese valuing gold over other material goods because of an accepted currency value in circulation in Europe) is worthless. The unfamiliar signifies a displaced object of value, a fetish.
Robert Farris Thompson demonstrated in Flash of the Spirit how in Yoruban culture, the fetish (represented in the usage of objects for communicative purpose) revolved around the notion of itutu, whose contemporary meaning is cool.
See the connection(i.e. to my object of study)? No surprise, then, to find cool a dominant web term (the cool list, for instance) whose larger rhetorical value gets scorned in composition as displaced attention, too much focus on the trivial and trinket. In other words, too much focus on the fetish.
All of this also connects to an article I’m working on about the throw back jersey as rhetoric. The jersey, too, functions as fetish; its rhetorical output generates nostalgia as rhetorical gesture. But more on that connection later….
Posted by jrice @ 03:04 PM EST [Link]
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Found this card in a kitchen drawer while packing. It must have come with a loaf of bread purchased who knows when. I probably eat about 3-4 loaves of bread each week.
Posted by jrice @ 10:44 AM EST [Link]
Monday, May 24, 2004
Over on TechRhet right now, there is a debate regarding “authentic technology” (whatever that might mean; what, for instance, is “inauthentic technology”?). I think what amazes me most about many of these debates (not necessarily this one in particular) is that technology is being used for communicative purposes in all kinds of fascinating ways, and composition is not paying attention (contrary to Selfe’s declaration). This is a major point of my work on 1963, composition studies, and cool, but it’s also a point clearly evident when you fire up your browser and start surfing around.
Check out My Urban Dig, for example. Here we have the Web (via the weblog or weblogish application) being used to produce knowledge (how my “things” define who I am). And I can imagine an assignment in a first year writing course that asks students to do the same. But the "authentic" debates don't lead to such assignments, don't use the kinds of writing being produced RIGHT NOW on the Web as heuristics; in fact, the debates don't lead to much at all other than fancy terms which hide the little innovative work being done. We see a lot of print duplication online and we see the rise of technical writing as the leading inspiration for web writing (design an online manual, create a website for a non-profit agency, create a website for an imaginary business, put your resume online as a .pdf). We also see too much emphasis on print conventions. My Urban Design doesn't fret over topic sentences, citation, or paragraph structure. The sight instead utilizes the Web in order to construct a catalogue (itself a fascinating media form) for identifying how material objects lead to identity formation (not, in itself a new idea, but one often not explored in first year or any year writing – literacy narratives have done a terrible job exploring identity even though they often claim otherwise). The weblog/website provides a nice medium for constructing this kind of writing because it allows for a different kind of navigation, indexing, hyperlinked rhetoric.
Boing Boing is another fine example of using the Web in order to categorize oddities (but most folks online know that), as is one of my favorite examples Everything2, where the network provides the rhetoric of inter-linked knowledge.
Authentic? Uh, yeah. It's already being done, ain't it?
Yo Comp! Wake up and surf!
Posted by jrice @ 12:00 PM EST [Link]
Sunday, May 23, 2004
Since academics love to gossip so much, how come we don't teach it as a form of expression in composition? Particularly in CAC (Communication Across the Curriculum), you would think gossip would rate up there with the oral presentation, the speech, or developing interview skills (should we have GAC – Gossip Across the Curriculum?). And as the network becomes more of a way of organizing information (as well as a logic which structures the apparatus) and less of a metaphor, gossip must be considered as a major form of communication. Gossip spreads through the network very easily (here we can think of the "meme" and gossip as being, at times, interchangeable parts) and creates its own reality or simulation of reality - choose your flavor. Yes, Lingua Franca, a gossip-esque pub for academics, failed. But we shouldn’t let that stop us from developing GAC! (or GAG? Gossip Across the Gossip – serious meta gossip going on in that program).
But what would the gossip-writing assignment look like? It can't be yet another "analyze this" writing assignment. It has to be an assignment (or series of assignments) which produces gossip as a rhetoric. Maybe students watch the E! channel for ideas? Maybe students are asked to fabricate rumors about each other and post them to a class weblog (sophistry, no?) where interlinking allows new gossip tidbits to be produced and hyperlinked (the never ending network of gossip – GAG!). Ideas, folks? Sounds like a textbook in the making here.
Posted by jrice @ 10:05 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, May 20, 2004
Thoughts on space/storage encouraged by the Gmail hype lead Matthew Kirschenbaum to wonder if we will ever delete again.
An interesting Phillip K. Dick-oriented proposition. A time when all information exists and nothing is deleted. And by all information, I mean every thought, anxiety, wish, idea, belief, perversion, fetish, need, etc. circulates in endless streams of databases so users/writers can mine them for work. A giant library of information built out of every thing we have ever imagined or dreamed. The entertainment industry, the government, academia, writing students (of course) obtain access to these deposits of information and sample whatever they want for whatever purpose they want. Every idea exists in an infinite amount of forms. Why? Because all I have to do is imagine the idea differently, and it is now stored in a new version. What Engelbart imagined at the level of textual comparison, I see as something bigger and broader, something far more dangerous and simultaneously far more exciting.
Plagiarism? Not a concept anymore in the global emotional/cognitive database.
Posted by jrice @ 12:07 PM EST [Link]
I'm feeling outside of academics these days.
Eh. Maybe I'll start posting some of my ideas on articles I started, but have let lapse.
Posted by jrice @ 09:58 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
My parents telling a story in the car today:
Dad: So I said out loud while reading the ingredients: "You can never get enough red dye #8," and then some woman laughed real loud.
Mom: That woman was me!
Dad: What, you're not a woman? I said some woman. You are a woman.
Posted by jrice @ 03:33 PM EST [Link]
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Maybe because a lot of semesters have come to a close recently, but the plagiarism hunters seem to be out in full swing lately on several academic(ish) blogs. Always an odd mix: teachers turned police. Students’ rights dis-assembled. Guilty, guilty, guilty, to quote (without citation) an old Doonsbury strip on Nixon (or was it Reagan?). The prison house of writing, Turnitin.com and its profit hungry clones, take center stage. Lock ‘em up cause they cheated! As righteous as they wanna be, the plagiarism hunters (out on the holy war of cheating, they rely on the habitual “gotcha”) forget a few useful tidbits as they make their mission accomplished and save the world from mis-quoted statements or lifted Internet passages:
Posted by jrice @ 08:21 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, May 15, 2004
When you introduce new terms into a discipline - and consequently, new ways of thinking about that discipline's subject matter - you encounter resistance.
"What? Can't be?"
"That won't work!"
"That's not what we do!"
And such reactions often hinge on the act of forgetting. Those practices we cling to as legitimate were themselves often conceived under doubt and suspicion. I like to point to the once radical position of the novel or the essay, but we can find other contemporary examples like word processing.
The other difficult obstacle is getting others to understand the nature of media and not messages. Media overwork us completely (as McLuhan notes). The content of TV - lost in debates about TV and kids, for instance - is not as important as TV itself.
Where composition has been stumbling is over media. Harvard's English A struggled to understand the nature of print ("Look at this handwriting! You fail and need remedial work!"). Composition in the 1960s couldn't get film or TV (See Braddock et al in Research on Written Composition when they briefly mention the two).
Today composition - as it becomes fascinated more and more with media - still doesn't get it. The logic and rhetorical conventions media produces - just as print produced its own methods of categorization in the table or list, among others - are being looked over as the logic of print is applied to new media.
The real question for what is composition now is - can we develop a pedagogy in terms of networks, remixing, juxtaposition, fragments, interlinking, etc. etc. etc.?
Aligned with this question is who will teach us these things? How will we practice imitatio today? By continuing to read a series of canonical textbook essays? Or by looking to media itself? How can we adopt the language of new media to writing? Why aren't we?
McLuhan reminds us that in times of changes, we use the old to do the work of the new. We see that today as the most popular of all new media, the weblog, is forced into the same position as the short story, the read essay, the advertisement, etc. have been in first year writing: analyze this writing for its rhetorical stance/approach/position. Analysis (and here I wish we used all the word’s meanings) leads to “critical thinking.” Does it? It doesn’t. Zizek tells us otherwise. Barthes tells us otherwise. And as Jenny notes, affect tells us otherwise. Analysis has been shoved into a cubby hole of just another assignment which fails to accommodate the way knowledge is produced. But we like thinking that the rhetorical analysis is responsible teaching – because we wouldn’t want irresponsible writing, would we? Or we should take issue with responsibility and how we convince ourselves of false writing ethics at a latter date….
Posted by jrice @ 09:23 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Jerz’s excerpt of an old Yellow Dog post and the very brief ensuing discussion prompts me to revisit the perpetual question, what is composition?
Bartholomae asked that question in an essay of similar name, and his response like much of his work was unsatisfying.
So many folks teaching first year writing. What are they teaching? The post on Jerz’s blog was from one of my rants on the remix. His colleague’s response is that such ideas are fine and dandy in theory (and apparently for grad students…didn’t understand that point since I’m not a grad student and even if I was, so what?) but not in practice. First year students need to learn to “think on their own,” the colleague says. Mixing texts doesn’t allow for that. Oh really?
Here’s the dilemma and confusion. Asking students to conform to a print based logic in an electronic world is not teaching anyone to think on one’s own. Indeed, this kind of pedagogy translates into a continual academic stubbornness, a refusal to recognize the communication shifts we have experienced and are experiencing currently. Telling students to write according to the logic of print (whether the writing is on paper or not – I am talking about the logic not the medium) is to force students to reject the communicative practices around them: IM, the Web, Film, TV, music, etc.
The other serious problem here is that the refusal to recognize the remix is also a refusal to recognize the nature of texts we often value and admire in English Studies (and the university in general). The Wasteland? Remixed. Shakespeare? So remixed. Las Meninas? Remixed Velasquez. Pick a Medieval text at random. It will be a remix. Newspaper stories? Always remixed (I remember my own newspaper experience at several publications– we would go through other papers looking for ideas). Literature reflects a Borges universe where every story is remixed and mixed. Spun around on a literate turntable and wondered over.
And the general concept of research? It is a remix-oriented practice when done right. In fact, the notion of one’s “own idea” as Jerz’s colleague puts it, only occurs after one has gone through various ideas, synthesized those ideas, and remixed them in order to produce a so-called new idea.
What digital media has done (and what Benjamin pointed out long before the digital as we know it and what McLuhan understood before the personal computer) is it has made the remix a daily practice for all and disseminated the practice so widely that its ubiquitous nature (Tv, film, music, word processing, etc.) has greatly confused composition studies. The remix is so prevalent that somehow it can’t be worth doing, composition seems to believe. That which is repeatable is no good – a splendid fantasy to believe in (and contradiction - how many personal stories leading to self worth or empowerment has expressivism made the poster boy of triteness or cliché? ). Or, the favorite mantra tells us, remix? That’s plagiarism.
But another angle: composition’s greatest error is ignoring writing. The field clings to the standard essay while ignoring how writing looks elsewhere. We can’t deny that sampling, digital media, Flash, weblogs, or whatever your flavor is writing. Folks, it’s writing. Take a harder look. Just because it doesn’t match the essay (and here again composition falters; historical overview serves as a reminder of just how radical the essay itself once was) doesn’t mean it’s not writing.
And then I marvel. “Think for yourself.” And many students do just that. But when they think for themselves and work within the logic of new media (consciously or not) some instructor comes along and accuses them of cheating, or to a lesser degree, not organizing information the way the text book says.
So what’s the point of this post? A self-response to the brief conversation I read? A reminder that composition seems to enjoy sitting outside of writing practices that can’t be jammed into yet another textbook that teaches purpose, audience, clarity, coherence? A call for better teaching which reflects how writing actually works (it’s not theory; it is practice – how odd to declare a media-based practice a “theory” – is this fellow not living in the modern)?
Today on WPA, Fred Kemp says he’s looking for less calls for more research on writing and more narratives about actual, new practices. Look around Fred. The practices are already here. Getting the teachers to understand that is our real challenge.
Posted by jrice @ 08:56 PM EST [Link]
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Began packing up for the big move next month. I'm reminded of Benjamin's "Unpacking My Library" only in reverse. Discoveries while I pack (and yes, I think this would be yet another writing assignment: describe the objects you discover while "packing" up your home. Use "packing" as metaphor more than literal association):
Posted by jrice @ 12:16 PM EST [Link]
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Found some (but send any you find as well):
Note the remix of hip hop imagery, but also the usage of juxtaposition and manipulation of imagery (especially in the last image - the filter effect), a lesson the rhetoric of cool learns from Douglas Engelbart's concept of textual and visual manipulation.
Posted by jrice @ 02:21 PM EST [Link]
Today I saw a story on TV (which news?) about a Kool cigarettes ad campaign called Remix. I haven't seen the ads yet, but if anyone does, please scan 'em in and send them to me. I need to see how Kool is adapting the rhetoric of cool (via the remix) in order to argue for kids to smoke.
Posted by jrice @ 01:41 PM EST [Link]
Monday, May 10, 2004
For awhile now, I've wanted to address the over-hyped tropes of "open source," "creative commons," "copyleft," "copyfight," etc. All are important issues. But their circulation throughout Internet culture, and Lessig-oriented rhetoric, has produced a lot of buzzwords with little bite. What does slapping a creative commons license on a website really do? Are you that worried that someone will use your words for other ends? Really? Self importance at play or legitimate concerns?
I've come to call this kind of over-hyped thinking Hackerism. I name it after the so-called hacker spirit documented and celebrated in many publications, and I name it after Diana Hacker, who passed away recently. Diana Hacker's A Writer's Reference (which I assign all the time) has itself become a over-hyped book, a trope on grammar and punctuation circulated throughout first year writing courses with little reference or context. Drawing on both the computer hacker and Diana Hacker, I define Hackerism as the overuse of a concept or practice to the point that its meanings is lost.
Which is not to say that either the hacker spirit (loosely represented in the upsurge of open source styled ideas) or A Writer's Reference are bad. No. They are both useful. But that use has been overdone. Even while their use-value is celebrated and admired, I think the meaning has been diminished. A well known academic blog (of bloggers) demonstrates this concept quite well.
I've been meaning to write all this up as an article, but Hacker's recent death would probably make it an untimely publication for now....
Talk amongst yourselves.
Posted by jrice @ 07:04 PM EST [Link]
Friday, May 7, 2004
Actually, this call (below) gives me an idea for a conference:
A conference devoted to out-dated research. Participants will be asked to go through back issues of JAC, English Journal, College English, CCC, etc. and find an article that no one ever picked up on (an idea/theory long forgotten). Participants then prepare and deliver a paper explaining its continued insignificance to the field.
Posted by jrice @ 02:08 PM EST [Link]
Writing Research in the Making
What on earth does that mean? Writing research...do you write research? And why is it in the making (the already is/to be)? I'm very confused by this conference call:
Together we will explore the critical importance of current research, how it is made, and how it is developing the knowledge we need to advance teaching and practice.
Sounds a bit redundant and vague. Current research? As opposed to “out dated” research? Whose current research? What kind of research? Research about what? What isn't already research, anyway? For a writing conference, these are some serious writing problems in the call.
Is it better to pose such a general writing conference call? I wonder if writing studies/composition wouldn't benefit more from specialized conferences or conferences which take up specific challenges/issues. Let CCCC be more general.
Then again, what do I care? It's not my conference. Still, I find this an odd call and not really well defined. Kind of like a "literature" conference, or a "theory" conference. What's the focus here?
Posted by jrice @ 12:17 PM EST [Link]
Thursday, May 6, 2004
Posted by jrice @ 02:41 PM EST [Link]
Wednesday, May 5, 2004
While on the subject of 21st century composition...
I finally have gotten around to looking through Gingko Press' new edition of McLuhan's Book of Probes. Very stunning design. It's a book rich with wonderful McLuhanesque observations on print and electronic culture.
The age of writing has passed.
We must invent a new metaphor, restructure our thoughts and feelings
All this inspires me (yet again) to think up new ideas for writing assignments. McLuhan provides an excellent example of the power of the fragment. We know how to critique student writing for engaging with fragments at the level of incomplete thought, but we don't yet know how to encourage fragments as a way to produce meaning.
This book is a compilation of McLuhan's work, but a good deal of his work does function by fragments, aphorisms, probes, etc. Barthes gives us other good examples of how the fragment can be used to produce knowledge (Textbook has its own exercise based on Barthes' Lover's Discourse). Barthes by Barthes fragments subjectivity into various observations, anecdotes, ideas, critiques. Advertising is the best popular example of the persuasive power of fragments ("Just do it").
But I would like students - undergrad or grad - to produce their own online Book of Probes. Fragmented entries would be hyperlinked. Content would be up to the student; the probes wouldn't be about writing/electronic culture, but about something else.
Write Your Own Book of Probes on an Area of Interest to You (or another version: On The Area You are Becoming An Expert In, Your Major). Hyperlink your entries. Make each page (or more than one page) a Fragment
Posted by jrice @ 12:10 PM EST [Link]
Another fine example of 20th and 21st century composition practices: Warp Art.
Posted by jrice @ 11:05 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, May 4, 2004
I found this image at Wish Jar Journal. I hope the author doesn't mind the replication here (I'm not stealing; I'm admiring). I'm intrigued by the painting, which I don't see an explanation for.
I'm reminded of Ulmer's "Memorable People" email assignment, which I modified and turned into a placement exam two years ago for incoming students. That this painting is of Henry Miller interests me because of my memories of reading Miller at 16 (The Rosy Crucifixion) and thinking he was the greatest novelist ever (the sex, the despondency, the cultural fantasies). When I was 20 and in Paris, I imagined myself repeating Miller's tales of urinating down by the Seine (no fancy romantic allusions to Hemingway or the Lost Generation here, folks). What kind of celebrity imaging is this? What kind of celebritacy is this (novelists are celebrities; ask Mailer)? It's the kind I want to embrace. It's the fetishistic side of discourse and rhetoric.
I can imagine a writing assignment that asks students to produce these kinds of paintings (use Photoshop if you can't draw) and then supplement them with anecdotes, memories, fantasies, allusions, history, critique, all interconnected in a networked kind of way.
Posted by jrice @ 10:36 AM EST [Link]
Monday, May 3, 2004
Rock the vote
Posted by jrice @ 03:48 PM EST [Link]
Sunday, May 2, 2004
Penne with mushrooms and sun dried tomatoes in a roasted pepper/roasted eggplant sauce.
Posted by jrice @ 06:47 PM EST [Link]
CSS offers web writing all kinds of new possibilities. It foregrounds style in web writing in ways HTML doesn't allow for.
Posted by jrice @ 04:37 PM EST [Link]
