Extra Credit: Student Response

Here is one of the responses which you can comment on for extra credit, from you classmate Annette Ounaphom. I’d like you to all read the response and comment with your own feelings, whether you agree or disagree, and take it form there. Feel free to respond to each other as well as to Annette’s student response.

You will earn 2 pts for commenting on this Student Response.

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Module 6 Student Response, by Annette Ounaphom

When thinking of carnivals and medieval times I think of the renaissance or people embracing the town fool, such as the movie, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I also think of all the games and events that you see. People of the carnival always seem rather mysterious or creepy in a way. Maybe it is because of the light or how you see portrayals of some in the carnival. When I think of anything carnivalesque I think of the night and low lighting with bright flashing lights from games that attendants at different stands are at.

In the reading, “From Carnival to Transgression” there was a quote that I found interesting.

“This transposition not only moves us beyond the rather unproductive debate over whether carnivals are politically progressive or conservative, it reveals that the underlying structural features of carnival operate far beyond strict confines of popular festivity and are intrinsic to the dialects of social classification as such.”

This quote makes me think of olden times when kings and queens had their personal joker person and how during carnivals of medieval times it was a celebration to mock the royal system, a place where the commoners had a place to enjoy themselves from being slaves of work.

If you think of present time, here in the states, we do not really have a celebration like that. Carnivals are rather different, where they are to provide joy to children and people are consumers of games where they can win prizes that tend to be overpriced stuffed animals, if you were to add up the dollars that you spend at the game just to win that prize. Carnivals are a part of popular culture where it comes mostly once a year in your town and everyone goes to have a good time.

For instance, every year during Cinco de Mayo, a carnival comes into Portland to celebrate the holiday. When I was in middle school and high school, some of my peers would skip school just to go to Cinco de Mayo. It was not to celebrate the holiday, but to go have fun and take part in the activities that were held there. Aside from also benefiting with your social status and identity, going to Cinco de Mayo allowed you to connect with people outside your social group. When you came back to school with candy, and prizes and a stamp or wristband showing you went to the cinco de mayo carnival, you were perceived as “cool”.

The social classification that the carnival gives you is not a high one. It is a place where you go to play cheap games, but if you lose the games do not stay cheap, because if you want that prize, you will have to pay. If you look at people who go to the carnival, you see low and middle class people who take part in this type of pop culture. You do not see a high class business man with his kids at the carnival.

Carnivals are questionable in their purpose in the surrounding popular culture, socially and politically. The different perspective makes me think of different points in time and in comparison provide different but similar views on the topic.

Extra Credit: Student Response

Here is one of the responses which you can comment on for extra credit, from you classmate Cathlean Ravinski. I’d like you to all read the response and comment with your own feelings, whether you agree or disagree, and take it form there. Feel free to respond to each other as well as to Cathlean’s student response.

You will earn 2 pts for commenting on this Student Response.

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Module 5 Student Response, by Cathlean Ravinski

In Fredric Jameson’s Media and Cultural Studies, he discusses how the image of the human figure has become the “commodity” in postmodernism. I find this true and it can be easily seeked out while you’re standing in line at the grocery store as you gaze upon all the fashion magazines and the tabloids with most topics on men and women’s figures, fitness or fashion. It seems that beauty sells these days; everything must look pretty or attractive to get you to purchase it. With America being the all time highest in plastic surgery, it’s not hard to guess what is causing such extremes to look perfect. In fact, in Japan, with the popularity of animation and manga, there are increased percentages for breast augmentation to strive to look like the buxom female characters in these series. It seems we are becoming of age as the “artificial age”; nothing seems to be real and genuine anymore.

In Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream, Jameson describes this as a canonical expression of the great modernist thematic of alienation, anomie, solitude and social fragmentation and isolation, an emblem of what used to be called the age of anxiety. And for good reason, it was a time where Munch was constantly surrounded by death. The painting suggests as Jameson states a hermeneutic model of inside and outside of a wordless pain developing. If there seems to be legitimate reasons for the age of anxiety, what reason is for the postmodern age and what we are today, in which I like to call the artificial age?

We can look at the age of consumerism in the early 60’s late 70’s where pop art first came popular and where Andy Warhol took his muse of Marilyn Monroe prints and turned her into a commodity ready for consumption by the public in many different retro prints. Other’s such as artist, Barbra Kruger in the early 80’s opposed this idea by using old advertisements out of magazines and text to send such slogans and messages questioning the viewer on feminism, consumerism, and desire. However, as consumption existed, so did the ongoing monster of advertisement ads and commercials. Beauty sells for women, being strong and confident sells for men, the seed was planted and the formula worked. The makeup and beauty industry is a multibillion dollar business. It is no mystery that this has affected the mentality of how we look at ourselves and the increasing percentage rate of eating disorders and body image issues amongst teens and adults each year.

Jameson also goes on the elaborate on Munch’s painting as a euphoria and self-annihilation. I also believe that this has been experienced now more than ever within the internet. The product of technology has made it so we do not need to go anywhere anymore, literally talk on the phone or communicate in person with another human being. This has caused many to become alienated from one another, as well as lead a type of pastiche cyber life on-line, a mask of you. It will be interesting to see the dynamics of communication 20 years from now and if it will isolate us even more and what psychological effects that will hold.

Extra Credit: Student Response

Here is one of the responses which you can comment on for extra credit, from you classmate Michele Barger . I’d like you to all read the response and comment with your own feelings, whether you agree or disagree, and take it form there. Feel free to respond to each other as well as to Michele’s student response.

You will earn 2 pts for commenting on this Student Response.

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Module 5 Student Response, by Michele Barger

I found that Postmodern Schizophrenia was the most interesting to learn about in this module. It was described as the loss of real history in our minds as it is replaced by the history that film has painted for us.  I enjoyed the relation of the waning effect to stars. “The waning effect is, however, perhaps best initially approached by way of the human figure, and it is obvious that what we have said about the commodification of objects holds as strongly for Warhol’s human subjects, stars- like Marilyn Monroe – who are themselves commodified and transformed into their own images (Media and Cultural Studies, KeyWorks).”

People don’t really know who stars are. We know the characters that they had portrayed in films, we know who they are dating and we know how they dress on the red carpet- but we don’t really know who they are. We know who we have created. That’s similar to history. None of us were really there to witness history in the making, but we know what we’ve seen on film- such as in Titanic and in Pearl Harbor.

The author speaks of schizophrenia as “a series of pure and unrelated presents in time.”  The author of the second article, “Dollarization, Fragmentation and God” , states that “Then, as the years went by, I discovered that what we thought we knew was very different from reality, from the facts.” I think a lot of people these days don’t enjoy reading and so we base a lot of our knowledge on what we are told and from films.

Mentor Lecture, Week 7

Reverse Outlining

By this point, you’re hopefully well on your way through your rough draft, and have maybe even finished your peer review already. Well, this exercise is for after you get your review back, and to help start your revision process. You won’t have to turn this in, and it’s not required in any way, but it’s one of exercises my previous students have said was the most helpful.

Usually you’ll do an outline before you start your paper, but a Reverse Outline comes once you’re done with writing your papers. It’s fairly simple, but can be very helpful.

1. Go down your paper and number each paragraph.

2. On a separate sheet of paper, write the number of each paragraph, and then describe the purpose of each. Don’t get cover what information is in the paragraph, but what that paragraph does for the paper overall. Is in the introduction? Does it bring up your second argument? Is it a counter-argument?

3. Now, review what you’ve written. You may find some paragraphs need to move, or you may see patterns in your argument which you’d never noticed before.

See, it’s pretty easy, right? I used this once on an essay for a grad class, and I ended up completely reorganizing the paper, but it didn’t require must actual rewriting. It’s one of the best papers I’ve ever written.

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No commenting this week, focus on your peer review!

Module 6, Question for Discussion

Well, I knew I was going to forget to post something when I left for vacation, and it turned out it was the Module 6 Question for Discussion response. So, you guys still have to do it, but I’m moving the due-date back a week. Instead of being due tomorrow (I can’t be that mean), it’s due next friday, the 6th, at the same time your extra credit is due.

To see your module question, go here.

Extra Credit

Worth: 5 points

Due: Friday August 6^th, 9:00am

If you’re missing a Question for Discussion Response, then this will allow you to make one up. It’s fairly straight-forward. Pick one of the modules, and compare it to a movie, cd, band, advertising campaign, or anything else you can think of, which hasn’t been mentioned in the modules or posted Student Responses, or used by yourself in a previous Response.

Also, please, no: Twilight, Avatar, or The Matrix. It’s just too easy.

Your response should be 500-800 words long (I’m looking for slightly longer than the normal responses, since this may be a topic you’ve already written on). Follow the usual procedure for emailing it to me.

In the final week of class, I will also be posting Student Responses, and all comments on them will be for extra credit. More on that later.

Peer Review

This is a general assignment, so it’s posted on The Main Mentor Page. Go check it out, and comment there to talk to your peers and to pair up for the review.

Mentor Lecture, Week 6

Sometimes the trickiest part of an essay can be making the most of your sources. Most college essays, at least of the research-variety, require at least a few sources. It can range from two to as many as ten or more, depending on the length of the essay. For our purposes, a minimum of three sources are required.

When I start researching, I usually begin with my working thesis, and then start looking for sources that will help my argument, or give me something to disagree with. By now you hopefully have a general topic in mind, and maybe even your working thesis. You probably already have some sources in mind from the weekly readings, but you don’t need to stop there.

I always begin my research with the PSU library website: http://library.pdx.edu/ There’s a general search right on that page, but there’s also a link to Databases & Articles (under the list of Resources), and I usually follow that link, select the list Title A-Z, and open up Academic Search Complete. This is just one way to go use the site though, and you should spend some time poking around—you never know what you might find!

If you’re having trouble finding books or articles from the library, I recommend a quick run to Powells. They have a few sections that might be of interest to you project. In the Pearl Room there’s a section on movies, animation, and similar stuff, and in I think the Purple Room there’s an area on popular culture. I quick browse through the Powells map should get you on your way. For my own writings on pop culture, I usually find my books at Powells.

This early in your writing process, I recommend assembling more sources than you need. Since three are required, I’d have at least five on hand. You may find that as you write your paper, some of them become unnecessary.

It’s very important to make sure you’re picking sources that actually help your argument, not simply citing them because it’s a requirement. You need to blend them into your essay. Quote when their words will do you the most good, and paraphrase otherwise (this keeps your essay from getting too clogged down with lengthy quotes). But remember, you’re not writing a paper on these articles, you’re entering the conversation with them. You’re using them as a means to make your own point. Don’t let them overpower your thesis.

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No comments this week, focus on your rough draft!

Student Response, Week 5: Judah Pitoy (Module 4)

Here is one of the response this week, from you classmate Juday Pitoy. I’d like you to all read the response and comment with your own feelings, whether you agree or disagree, and take it form there. Feel free to respond to each other as well as to Judah’s student response.

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Module 4 Student Response, by Judah Pitoy

One of the most interesting aspects that I thought Module 4 was talking about was the concept of subcultures. It seems that there are many different subcultures that exist in the United States, and that there are a large number that most people are probably not aware of. It could consist of fans of TV-shows, movies, certain music styles, bands, dance, and almost anything really. From what I know, the definition of a subculture is a particular group that has a distinct behavior that is different from mainstream culture. It seems like Star Trek fans seem to one of the most well known subcultures, even earning the nickname “Trekkies”. In terms of television shows like Star Trek, I think there is a wide base of fans, but the most devout fans would be considered Trekkies, the ones who go to conventions, dress up in costumes, buy Star Trek merchandise, and memorize episodes and are able to cite lines from them well. When someone from mainstream culture views it, they will see it as extreme and abnormal, but for Trekkies they will see it as normal behavior due to their devotion and passion. Another example of a sub-culture are people who are fans of Japanese anime, who can also be called “Otaku”, who have an identity and a specific behavior pattern that is all their own. Another characteristic I see in subculture is that these groups invent their own terms and lingo, and to the ears of someone outside their culture, it can sound like the people in that subculture are speaking their own language. These subcultures of course, are good for certain industries, because fans are so loyal they will buy as much as possible.

I do not know if this qualifies as a subculture that this particular module is talking about, but I am a break dancer and have been doing it since my sophomore year of high school. As a break dancer, we actually do not call ourselves break dancers, but we call ourselves a b-boy, or b-girls if you are a female. I think that’s already an example of specific terms that differ from mainstream society, we only use the term break dancer when we talk to someone who is not connected to the break dance scene. Although sometimes I think that the break dance scene is a branch off the hip hop scene, it really differs from other hip hop cultures such as krumpers, lockers, poppers or other generic hip hop dancers. Also, breakdance competitions are mostly referred to as battles or jams. Also, from what I’ve personally experienced, when someone who doesn’t regularly go to break dance battles and goes to one for the first time, they are usually puzzled and even a bit shocked at the behavior of bboys/bgirls. I personally think the break dance culture is an underground subculture, and not really well known. There are even famous bboys that are well known throughout the world with other bboys, but of course, they are only famous in the breakdance community and not in the mainstream. The way break dancing is portrayed in media nowadays is very clique and stereotypical, as seen in the movie Zoolander. As a being a part of this sub-culture, I usually wonder what other sub cultures exists out there and it really interests me. Before I began break dancing and was a part of the bboy community, I thought of it as everyone else in the stereotypical way, but I later learned it was much more different.

Student Response, Week 5: Celina Patrick (Module 4)

Here is one of the response this week, from you classmate Celina Patrick. I’d like you to all read the response and comment with your own feelings, whether you agree or disagree, and take it form there. Feel free to respond to each other as well as to Celina’s student response.

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Module 4 Student Response, by Celina Patrick

Encompassing the essence of American consumerism, Horkheimer and Adorn wrote that ?the triumph of advertising in the culture industry is that consumers feel compelled to buy and use its products even though they see through them? (p 101).  Irresistible are the gimmicks, flashing signs, and promises made by advertising companies to have your life finally fulfilled by the latest and greatest product, which is sure to make you cooler, smarter, irresistible yourself. Everywhere we turn, we face excessive advertisements via television, internet, radio, billboards, and through our peers.

Our culture has become consumed by advertising, but not in the traditional sense. In the past, advertisements were obvious fixtures? such as commercials during radio and television programs?and still are, but have now come to a point where ?universal publicity is in no way necessary for people to get to know the kinds of goods.? Advertising practice has lost its prestige, giving way to social power.

When it comes to fandom, with franchises such as the Twilight series, products are being advertised solely by being worn by the characters of these films. For example, the sale of Ray-Ban?s classics ?Wayfarer? sunglasses soared after Robert Pattinson, a.k.a Edward Cullen, was seen wearing them in the first Twilight film. Just as James Dean in his day, Pattinson was able to make a simple accessory one of the hippest, most sought after accessories all around the world. ?Twihards? flocked to the malls and online stores, making Ray-Ban an overnight hot-commodity.

Clearly, the desire to dress as their favorite characters do is a statement of their unwavering devotion. Not a ?fangirl? myself, I can only speculate as to what these ultimate fans are thinking about when they cry at the sight of their favorite character, or pledge allegiance to the vampires or werewolves. I do believe that for these fans, dressing like their favorite character (or actor) makes them feel connected to that person. For a second, they are able to literally walk in that character?s shoes. And for some, that one second is what makes that character seem real, even more relatable.

As books and films often do, they create an allusion of kinship with the audience by portraying situations that audience may have, or may be, going through. For some?and this has happened to me?watching a character go through a similar situation has helped strengthen my understanding and acceptance of things that I have been through. The best explanation for this occurrence, comes from one of my all-time favorite films, ?The History Boys? in which a teacher explains that ?The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – that you’d thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you’ve never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it’s as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.?

The truth is that even though actors portraying characters from our favorite stories and novels sometimes act as a vessel for advertisement, the purpose they serve is so much more useful. Yes, we are more inclined to buy something that we?ve seen a celebrity wearing, but in a way, that?s what interconnects all of us. Material objects serve as a commonality between the characters of the stories we so cherish, and us. And for some, the price of a new pair of Ray-Ban?s is well worth the feeling of solidarity.