Okay, so last Thursday's class is the first time in the history or Theory & Criticism (the class. not the concept) that I have had moments where I didn't understand a word of the explanations about a topic. This isn't true for the entire class, I think I have a shaky understanding about what Baudrillard says about representation and simulation. I'm not too worried, yet, about not totally following Thursday's class. I blame the migraine--sized headache I had going on, caused by two days with a total of about four hours of sleep, and a seminar that morning. When the class was discussing Baudrillard, my brain was pretty well tapped out. I know that I'll be doing some careful readings of what he wrote before diving into assignment # 9.
Speaking of our next assignment, I think the fact that I have seen The Matrix, and watched it quite a few times (until the sequels came out and, for whatever reason, I managed to loose interest with the all the movies) is one of the only reasons that I could somewhat follow the discussion on Baudrillard, at all. As, Dr. Pound said, understanding the concept is definitely in the examples. I found the map and the money examples, and the religious relics examples hugely helpful in following along. I really liked the money thing because I had always wondered (somewhere in the back of my mind) how shillings and pounds and the rest came about. I had wondered if it was something like, a pound is equal to the same in Stirling silver, and now I know. So, even if I can't say that I really understand Baudrillard, I can say that I learned where the concept of modern money got it's foundation.
Anyway, as I said, having seen the Matrix before, helped me follow along in class, to the extent that I could, with my skull cracking(or feeling like it was). I blame some of the one-track mind on being over-tired, but every time we were discussing something that I couldn't grasp at the time, I would just think, "right, 'there is no spoon,' I get it" (The Matrix).
So I guess to sum up my thoughts of the day, I need to read Baudrillard pretty carefully to try and figure out just what he's saying, I'm really glad that we still have another class to talk about him (and with any luck I'll have gotten sleep before hand), and there is no spoon.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
General Observations
Hello to all who venture here. OK, I feel like that was massively nerdy, so moving on...
I'll just get this out of the way right now, this blog will probably not consist of anything particularly profound. This is just my thoughts on today's class, and another general thought or two that I've been meaning to post.
So, today's class was excellent. I mean really good. And not just because we sere talking about sex. I love when class is funny, it makes the whole learning thing so much less painful. Don't get me wrong, learning is a good thing, but I feel like it leaves the brain weeping for relief at times, like an overused muscle. But, aside form the funny stories, which were great, I though the discussion in general was interesting, with the class' examples of how people and institutions are changing--or not--to take into account sexuality and the expression of sexuality which does not fit into traditionally "normal" specifications. Gives me some real examples to file away for "issues" that I've already been mulling over.
As to the more theoretical ideas raised in class, more specifically, the idea that sexuality itself is a construct of society, I'm not sure that I can agree. Or disagree, fully. I think that it's pretty clear that ideals of masculinity and femininity have been internalized of over hundreds of years, but I'm not so sure that I can say the same exact thing for sexuality. I think that some things are actually born in us, innate components of who we are.
I also meant to post my thoughts of dissecting "My Life had stood-- A Loaded Gun," for the assignment. I can't remember all that I had to say about this anymore, it's been a while. But, I will say that I really liked this poem. There was so much going on, that it was interesting to pull out the different meanings. There was so much going on, however, that I'm pretty sure that I missed, or forgot to incorporate about half the stuff that I meant to say in my assignment. I wonder if it is just me, or are the assignments really getting quite a bit harder. This one has been the most difficult assignment for me to organize my thoughts on (until assignment # 7). It's definitely hard to juggle the different meanings of the poem and pull them together to make some sort of unified statement. This makes me long for Deconstructing a text. At first I didn't totally appreciate this approach, but as school stress took its tole last semester, there was something decidedly fun about ripping something apart and not having to find a unifying way to put it back together.
I leave you with these thoughts of mine, for now.
I'll just get this out of the way right now, this blog will probably not consist of anything particularly profound. This is just my thoughts on today's class, and another general thought or two that I've been meaning to post.
So, today's class was excellent. I mean really good. And not just because we sere talking about sex. I love when class is funny, it makes the whole learning thing so much less painful. Don't get me wrong, learning is a good thing, but I feel like it leaves the brain weeping for relief at times, like an overused muscle. But, aside form the funny stories, which were great, I though the discussion in general was interesting, with the class' examples of how people and institutions are changing--or not--to take into account sexuality and the expression of sexuality which does not fit into traditionally "normal" specifications. Gives me some real examples to file away for "issues" that I've already been mulling over.
As to the more theoretical ideas raised in class, more specifically, the idea that sexuality itself is a construct of society, I'm not sure that I can agree. Or disagree, fully. I think that it's pretty clear that ideals of masculinity and femininity have been internalized of over hundreds of years, but I'm not so sure that I can say the same exact thing for sexuality. I think that some things are actually born in us, innate components of who we are.
I also meant to post my thoughts of dissecting "My Life had stood-- A Loaded Gun," for the assignment. I can't remember all that I had to say about this anymore, it's been a while. But, I will say that I really liked this poem. There was so much going on, that it was interesting to pull out the different meanings. There was so much going on, however, that I'm pretty sure that I missed, or forgot to incorporate about half the stuff that I meant to say in my assignment. I wonder if it is just me, or are the assignments really getting quite a bit harder. This one has been the most difficult assignment for me to organize my thoughts on (until assignment # 7). It's definitely hard to juggle the different meanings of the poem and pull them together to make some sort of unified statement. This makes me long for Deconstructing a text. At first I didn't totally appreciate this approach, but as school stress took its tole last semester, there was something decidedly fun about ripping something apart and not having to find a unifying way to put it back together.
I leave you with these thoughts of mine, for now.
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