First Week Edition

Holy McCloud! During the first week of school, all roads seemingly led to McCloud. There's the obvious reference, in the form of our first class. Imagine my surprise when my Current Trends teacher showed a video on Thursday night. My third McCloud reference comes from rereading Understanding Comics. In the first chapter, McCloud performs what he terms "aesthetic surgery" (5) to come up with a working definition of comics. This process, covered in pages 5-9, resonates with my study of the literary canon. I've struggled with my definition of literature ever since I went to school and learned that some texts have value and others don't. 

The gutter, the cognitive leap of making meaning from a text, preoccupies most writers, I think. An obvious example of the gutter is Spielberg's film Jaws. By keeping the shark off camera, the audience is left to its own devices, which prove much more frightening. I can think of many examples in film, such as Hitchcock's Rear Window. Recently my sister read a book called The Girl Who Played with Fire. The book contains a narrative so suspenseful that my sister stayed up all night to finish, and then had to sleep with the lights on the following night. The book burrowed into her imagination.

The gutter attests to the dialogic nature of art. I've learned many ways to critically read a text and all of them include what the 'reader' brings to the table.

9.13.10 Edition

A response to the Weston text: (can you spot my premises?)

'Reverse' racism exists to distinguish the racism experienced by/directed towards a minority group/race from the racism experienced by/directed towards the majority group/race. 'Reverse' racism is the practice of racism towards the majority group/race by specifically, a member or members of the minority group/race. Why must it specifically be committed by a minority member or members? Because of that qualifier, 'reverse'. This term is specific to one contextualization, one reading of racism (a directional definition) and provides the majority group/race with its own special brand of racism. So the racism experienced by white people (the majority group/race) through the actions or words of a non-white person becomes unique because of that qualifier, 'reverse'.

What is implicit in the charge of 'reverse' racism when it's directed at a minority group/race? Well, for one, it's an accusation that can only be used against a specific, minority group/race. A member of the majority group/race cannot be an agent of 'reverse' racism because of its directional definition. A member of the majority group/race can only be a victim of 'reverse' racism (in fact, they are the only victims possible).

Let's dig deeper: since we know that racism (just the regular, garden variety racism) is the exercise of power through discrimination based on race (another way to think of this is a simple equation that Dr. Armstrong taught me: racism = power + prejudice), is the act of charging/accusing someone of being a 'reverse' racist itself an act of racism? Think about this: can a white person be a 'reverse' racist? No. The very definition of the term precludes it. Only non-white people can be called 'reverse' racists. So this term 'reverse' racism contains power that can only be exercised by white people and can only be used against non-white people. It's laden with the baggage of our white history. Is the use of the term exercising power through discrimination based on race? Who came up with this term anyway? Who uses the term and to what ends?

We know that racism occurs across races/ethnicities. So why do we call racism lodged against white people 'reverse' racism? What does such a term accomplish? Is it too difficult or perhaps too expensive for a white person to call a non-white person a mere racist?

10.4.10 Edition

Weston Chapter Three "Arguments by Analogy"

This chapter briefly describes arguments by analogy and provides the real example of a Chippewa Indian Chief who argued about the folly of Christopher Columbus 'discovering' America. After exiting a plane in Italy in full tribal regalia, Nordwell 'took possession' of Italy by 'discovering' it much like Columbus 'discovered' America. Nordwell's argument is an analogy as he is claiming that his discovery of an already inhabited land is similar to Columbus' discovery. The complete breakdown of Nordwell's argument is on page 21 of my version of Weston (third edition).

McCloud Chapter Six "Show and Tell"

McCloud charts the division of images and words into two separate disciplines (art and literature) which come back together in the medium of comics. Like the rest of this book, Chapter Six revels in the conceptual fields of artistry, reaching into the past to clarify the present. Though the chapter resonates with me on many levels (McCloud's deftness with combining words and images to offer meaning to his readers, the subject matter with its emphasis on core concepts that cut across media, etc), page 140 sticks out for its relevance to my studies. The last row of panels illustrates a person's love of reading mirroring the disintegration of the relationship between words and images. Unfortunately, I think McCloud is on to something with this criticism. Could reading books go the way of reading newspapers? Or worse, could books return to their class-based origins and find their sole use in scholarly discourse?

On the other hand, the panels represent a limited definition of reading and by extension, literacy. We know that reading is the process by which a person renders meaning from a text. The term 'text' often refers to a book, but it can also refer to a visually-based medium (like film). What McCloud's illustrations remind me of is the seeming lack of connection between books and our 21st century reality. I'm wondering if in these new mediums (wikis, blogs, etc) we might find the same means of developing skills and abilities that we currently associate with print-based literacy. In other words, let's suppose that books do lose touch with the masses and become a specialty medium (like the scholarly article). What will replace books as the method of fostering literacy and the critical thinking skills which come with that literacy? This is a serious concern of mine, given that I am studying to become a literature professor. I don't equate literature exclusively with books, but I am not sure that other mediums can build a sustained attention span and the 'close', yet open-ended reading that books offer.

McCloud closes out the chapter with an exercise in how words and images can mesh (or not) with each other. The exercise also demonstrates how meaning can be a product of the two (words and images) working in tandem, or one 'taking the lead' over the other. For that matter, meaning is possible with only one of the two present. What changes with these different balances between words and images? The varieties and depths of meaning possible for the reader to achieve. The outcome of this exercise demonstrates that neither words or images has a clear edge over the other in terms of critical literacy.

I suppose the issue isn't so much what we are reading, but how we are reading that determines the level of engagement with any given text. That distinction relates to my project: if 20th century literary study is all about who to read (i.e. the canon and/or anti-canonical works), is 21st century literary study about how to read? How we read books is fundamentally different from how we read blogs, which is fundamentally different from how we read films or plays or the email from our boss telling us to stay away from Facebook. McCloud touches on this issue on page 150, when he remarks on the disconnect between 'high' and 'low' art, which is just another division of art, set into a hierarchal structure (much like the division of words and images).

10.910 Edition

Booth, Colomb, Williams Chapter 8 "Making Claims"

The primary message of this chapter is to evaluate your factual or conceptual claim through your reader's eyes. Particularly, we should ask ourselves the questions that our readers are likely to ask:

        What specifically is the writer's claim?

        For example, one of Jon's arguments is that pop culture texts, like song lyrics, will increase an adult student's chances of academic success because these texts draw upon that student's prior knowledge.

        Is the writer's claim significant?

        Jon supports his claim's significance by referencing dropout rates and the societal costs of illiterate adults (in terms of larger prison populations, increasing homelessness and unemployment, etc).

Readers looks for accuracy, plain language and significance when they evaluate a research paper's claims. The text also suggests that research writers assert the limitations of their claims in order to enhance the paper's credibility. For that purpose, the texts offers "hedges", which are qualifying terms such as "unless", "believe", "suggests", "appears", etc.

Works Cited

Booth, Wayne C. and Gregory G. Colomb and Joseph M. Williams. The Craft of Research.

            Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics The Invisible Art. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.

Weston, Anthony. A Rulebook for Arguments. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing

            Company, 2000.

M O'Neill's Page

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