Jan 28; American Born Chinese Response

What strikes me most about the first half of Yang's book, 'American Born Chinese,' is the depth of intrapsychic conflict. I've enjoyed taking a few eastern psychology classes at WMU centered on ego-identity. Some people reasonably dispute the validity of such study, but I feel that the ideals were explored amongst the three stories in Yang's book. The simple briefing is: all the main characters are struggling with their own identity against the compromise of prejudicial social forces. Hence, they acted based on how they were treated in order to protect themselves emotionally in the future.

 

Monkey King provides an excellent example of an internal struggle represented in words and pictures. After being excluded and humiliated by the other gods, he becomes angry and determined to answer exact vengeance on them. He practices warrior arts and comes back grown way out of proportion. His massive size represents the large-scale expansion of his jealous ego. We see this in excellent pictorial on page 60; Monkey King has grown so large that his head and feet extend beyond the frame.

 

His contemporary monkeys don't appreciate his newly developed greatness, so on the next several pages of frames he goes out to the other gods and destroys them in humbling fashion. But he gets to his creator on page 68, and discovers that there are still forces greater then himself and any ego driven image he could create. The picture sequence on pages 76-78 emphasize the shock frustration on Monkey King's face (graffitied/urinated-on hand, plus the multiple small pictures of Monkey King's stunned reaction). Monkey King's ego is unable to save him from the discovered reality that the he can't escape the hand of his created. The crush of this finding is shown buried under rocks for 500 years on page 84.

Jan. 26; Lets Look into it: The Depth of Text

Race is a sensitive issue in our culture. People don't seem to want to talk about it or even think about it.

I've often said that a piece of art or literature can say as much about the consumer as it can the producer. When a person judges and interprets a piece of literature, that person does so through one's own lens. We all have experience and preferences that subject us to taking things in all at once and each reaching different conclusions. Text can have very different meanings to each and every one of us, just based on how we've come to see the world.

There's no doubt that things like race, ethnicity, and class play a steady hand in how we absorb the world around us. Even if you carry your white privilege member card and tend not to expend much conscious thought on race, you're perspective on the things you read is impacted you've ever turned on the six o'clock news or learned about the Civil Rights Movement, or have been introduced to the idea of affirmative action (rest in peace).

Langston Hughes wrote very different literature than Walt Whitman. That's obvious. What doesn't get discussed as often even in intellectual circles is that I likely have a very different interpretation of the work of those two poets than would someone like Muhammad Ali.

bell hooks:

I appreciate the perspective that bell hooks offers on the issues of race. There really isn't a whole lot for me to say in contrast to what she said. I think her thoughts and opinions are valid and not unfounded in the least. I think if she was in our class to participate in group conversation everyone would be able to grasp a deeper understanding of what lies on her mind and we would all be the better for having listened and participated.

Peggy McCintosh

She seems to have a few references about committing foul, clumsy, or foolish acts that she knows won't be attributed to her race. I think that's an interesting point that I don't readily consider. Of course a minority doesn't HAVE to consider that their status represents their race. But that doesn't mean that there won't be people present who create negative stereotypes based on such things.

There's an interesting point about the ability to create one's company. For better or worse, minorities have done their part to create their own exclusive social networks to counter that pattern. It appears to be almost a mutual desire for different races to want to spend at least some time with others who share their experience and skin color.

Jan 20; Multimodality

It's January 20, 2009 - THE day of change. As I'm typing this I am keenly aware that President-elect Obama has by now been inaugurated as President Obama. 

Of course, I missed the whole thing while I was trying to do my part to change the world amidst a busier than usual week. But at least I'm not at all bitter.

But there is an irony that we should read an article focused on the changing landscape of literature communication and do so on the same day as the inauguration of a man who ran his campaign on the basis of change. Change, to me is integral to survival, and the ones who survive are often the one's who are willing not to change completely, but to adapt their ways to a new era as opposed to clinging to outdated ideals.

I still know many educators who seem to believe that black and white textbook communication and lecture notes are the only true way to inform one's students. Some writers are tempted by the belief that a pen and paper is the only true art of literature that should stand to be recognized.

The article of today on the topic of multimodality and multisemiotics highlights a change in literature that should be embraced. As a species so blessed to experience and interpret reality through five different senses, we stand only to benefit by diversifying the way in which we communicate and inform. The integration of these senses through multisemiotic lesson planning allows students of different learning strengths to grasp a concept that they may struggle with had they been confined to just one form of experiencing a lesson.

McCloud's book is of particular interest here because he outlines the different ways in which a graphic writer can communicate a scene to an audience of readers. His book describes the graphics and text as partners that can play different roles from frame to frame. Some may communicate almost exclusively through picture, some may exclusively go through text; and often the two would make no sense at all without the other. In that sense, it can actually be a challenge to the reader to make good use of all the visual information at hand.

The same could apply in a classroom. A teacher's explanation may be very drawn out and difficult to understand if they didn't use a model, and likewise, the teaching model may be of no use if not accompanied by the thoughtful word of the teacher.

Jan. 14, Response to McCloud

I afford a very broad definition to "real" literature. I simply consider it the art of the pen (keeping in mind that movies of course begin with a script). I like to think of it as intelligent material that makes me think, but I know better than to do so. To address the underlying question, yes, I do consider comics to be literature. Sometimes they can even be exceptionally good literature.

I was never really a particularly big fan of comics when I was younger. But I'm an absolute die-hard fan of the "Batman" story line (I think it's another dark psychology thing), so I had to lend credence to this art of which I knew very little.

Comics definitely have a negative connotation. The best works of comic art (in my opinion) are not even regarded as comics. They are called "graphic novels." It's interesting how society has a way of adapting it's vocabulary to cope with it's own prejudice. I theorize that it's a situation of older audiences not wanting to associate a fascination with something perceived as juvenile as "comics." But "graphic novel" on the other hand sounds much more mature.

In McCloud's book, I appreciate the deep scope of understanding that he conveyed. He describes them in a manner that I can easily attribute to film-making. For instance, he describes the comic gutter in a way similar to that of how I would describe film-scene cutting and editing. The read was made much easier by the way in which McCloud invoked very clever humor. My academic pursuits would be made infinitely more pleasant and effortless if all my textbook readings were written with the same high wit that McCloud puts into his writing.

Jan. 14, Class Art Response - La Guernica

Picasso is threatening.

Otherwise this could be the mark of the threatened. It's dark, jagged chaos. The obvious emphasis on black and blue tips below the point of calm serenity and into a territory of loss and confusion.

On the upper portion of the picture it looks like it can be somewhat clearly divided into three different vertical, wide clusters of subjects. However these different clusters seem to be united by the bottom dwellings of the picture. The body lying at the bottom seems to connect all of the subjects at the top.

It is the faces in the picture that grab my attention first and foremost. It is a human response on my part. I, like most all others gravitate to the point of reference where I am used to getting my emotional information in my everyday life. These faces to me convey panic, terror, death and confusion.

Overall, I felt that there was a tragedy, or scandal that bound several different parties together. I notice the person lying at the bottom is holding a knife. To me that is another suggestion of crime and betrayal.

Another possibility is that of an uprising, or a threat to those at the top (panic, confusion) coming from those trampled and suppressed at the bottom (man lying with knife).

Polar Bear News

Jan 10: Favorite Poem for Monday

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

By Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep. 

Frost Suicidal?

An old friend of my family who’s garnered great success in the musical arts was once going through a rough and difficult stressful time, and he said to my mom, “All I want to do is run out to California and sit under a tree with a coloring book. I’m not so sure that Frost is talking about a serious desire to commit suicide. He may be. But what comes to my mind is a desire to want to escape from the demands and promises of life and sink into the majesty of his ideal tranquil surroundings.

 

He takes a minute to do so, but like so many of us, he has his allying horse there to tug him to stay on track before too long passes. Like our closest friends, relatives, confidants, or even our spouse, the loyal horse cannot fully understand his rider’s motivation. All he can do is see him through, and encourage staying the course.

Jan. 7: What is an American

An American is free. An American can choose whatever he or she wants to be, think what he wants to think, say what she wants to say.

An American is diverse. An American is black, white, Indian, Asian, Hispanic, and everything else combined and in between.

An American is an interdependent part of a whole. An American is unique yet inseparable by fate.

An American is rich, if not personally then by association or proximity.

An American is not perfect. He is flawed yet celebrated. She is unstable steadfastly striving for actualization.

An American is dynamic, changing with the times for liberty and survival.

An American is an ideal.

Jan 7: Two of the theories that interest me

I begin by saying that I am a psychology major. I follow by saying, surprise surprise, psychoanalytical teaching theory quickly grabbed my attention. I'm chronically fascinated by the social world around me, and it sounds like this educational theory is geared at at teaching to that fascination.

It brings me to wonder, what it the written word if not a window to the soul? I strongly considered majoring in English, but I became interested in psychology because I wanted to study and explore the motivations, repressions, and struggles that follow people. Well, low and behold, the psychology of WMU believes in Skinner behaviorism (translation: WMU psychology and literary analysis tend to have a mutual disinterest in each other). After completing my major studies I truly believe that literary analysis and interpretation has just as much to offer for insight to human behavior.

I see writing along the paradigm of an expression of self. Exploring and expressing emotional adversity is very therapeutic to both writer and reader alike. Studying from a psychoanalytic perspective affords teachers and students the chance to collectively dissect all the suffering motives of certain writers and the perceived chaos of society that brings them to write and imagine as they do.

Reader Response is also a preferred instructional style for me because it's the most engaging. I enjoy styles and subjects that allow for the teacher to step into more of a facilitator role. I find it conducive to a class environment where all members become both teachers and students. Particularly in the study of literature, this type of approach brings the text to life. It creates for a diversity of opinions that can result in a deep synergistic understanding for everyone.

This type of educational style, I feel, also pushes classes to select deep, well-crafted art and literature that can allow for various levels of interpretation and understanding. Literature like that of Shakespeare, and films like "American Beauty" are extraordinarily deep and thoughtful. These are the types of literary artwork where everyone can observe and study and all can walk away with diverse respectable viewpoints. "American Beauty," for example, is my favorite film. I've quite literally seen it about ten times, and almost every single time I seem to pick up on a different meaning of the movie. It's the kind of material that is excellent for this type of class set-up and even casual discussion amongst friends.

And a quick "P.S."

If you anyone would like to comment about the depth of understanding of a film like say, "American Beauty," please by all means feel free and encouraged to do so on my blog.