Dear Readers,
This is my thesis, a culminating experience of my undergraduate work at Michigan State University. I feel it is necessary to explain my journey to this thesis for two reasons. First, you get to know the person beyond the paper. Second, to welcome they that hesitate to do what I have done: try something new for the sake of passion and curiosity.
Until about a year and a half ago, I was resolutely an English Education Major. I did not do science or math; I passed my requirements and the most interaction I would have with the two in the future was baking in the kitchen. My niche was filled with graphic novels, Shakespearean plays, Norton Anthologies and worksheets I made for my imaginary classroom.
My stance as an academic would be profoundly shaken with one honors required course. I took “Cognitive Science and the Literary History of the Mind” simply because it was the only class that could fit into my schedule. Feeling incredibly stupid surrounded by people double and triple majoring in Neuroscience, English, Microbiology or some combination thereof, I stuck out the class. With a patient professor (now a co-thesis director) and some serious googling of science terms, I found out that I like science. Well, specifically Cognitive Science. I listen to NPR science Fridays, read books entitled, “Proust and the Squid” and can explain to my cousin what is happening in her son’s dyslexic brain. Like so many others, I have been sucked into the complex mystery of the human brain by science and literature.
This thesis will combine my two passions, English Education and Cognitive Science. I made the choice to combine English and Education because, as we will see later, I use a neuroscientific experiment on reading to discuss the implication of the results on the teaching of reading. Thus, English Education. I believe that these two fields have a lot to offer to each other, thus my target audience for this thesis is both the neuroscientist and the secondary education teacher, the cognitive psychologist and the Jane Austen professor.
Before I delve into the analysis and meat of this paper, I want to first address the issue of combining education and neuroscience. After fleshing out the arguments, we move into the experiment itself, ORDER ORDER ORDER
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Quick Note
Just a quick note:
I have moved into the drafting stages of this thesis, which is why I haven't posted anything in about two weeks.
A few things:
I have chosen APA formatting. Though I really despise "citation styles," the paper is geared towards educators and what seems to be educational psychologists, since those are the people most often cited in the neuroscience/education papers I have read. I also prefer Chicago Style or MLA, but I think the audience deems APA.
Also, worldcat.org is the coolest citation generator!
I've really hit a stride with finding new papers. This is late in the game, but once I found the right ones, it just spilled into new ones that I should have been reading weeks ago. Oh well. It's just a draft for now!
Recently saw a direct connection between a cogsci paper and a a participant's paper! Also, APA prefers "participant" to "subject" since the former acknowledges the participation and contribution of the human. Interesting.
Gotta get back to reading and writing!
peace, love and interdisciplinary work.
I have moved into the drafting stages of this thesis, which is why I haven't posted anything in about two weeks.
A few things:
I have chosen APA formatting. Though I really despise "citation styles," the paper is geared towards educators and what seems to be educational psychologists, since those are the people most often cited in the neuroscience/education papers I have read. I also prefer Chicago Style or MLA, but I think the audience deems APA.
Also, worldcat.org is the coolest citation generator!
I've really hit a stride with finding new papers. This is late in the game, but once I found the right ones, it just spilled into new ones that I should have been reading weeks ago. Oh well. It's just a draft for now!
Recently saw a direct connection between a cogsci paper and a a participant's paper! Also, APA prefers "participant" to "subject" since the former acknowledges the participation and contribution of the human. Interesting.
Gotta get back to reading and writing!
peace, love and interdisciplinary work.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Awesome Research Book Says Awesome Things
"Precise demonstration of truth is important but not as important as the communal pursuit of it" Wayne C. Booth (xvii)
"It [writing a formal research paper] will change the way you think, but only by giving you more ways of thinking." (13)
Though in reference to writing, I think this is a great argument for the combination of English Education and Cognitive Science. We are changing the way we think of each discipline (roll with me that English Education is one subject) by allowing other practices to influence how we think about those practices themselves. The goal of this project is not to threaten the integrity of either discipline, but rather let the best of each flow freely into the other as to help us understand the human experience of reading a literary text.
Thesis question: How can we enhance our understanding and teaching practices of reading through this neurological-based study on Jane Austen?
Paige likes it. We are not guaranteeing answers, but rather engaging in discussion in search of more questions and answers!
"It [writing a formal research paper] will change the way you think, but only by giving you more ways of thinking." (13)
Though in reference to writing, I think this is a great argument for the combination of English Education and Cognitive Science. We are changing the way we think of each discipline (roll with me that English Education is one subject) by allowing other practices to influence how we think about those practices themselves. The goal of this project is not to threaten the integrity of either discipline, but rather let the best of each flow freely into the other as to help us understand the human experience of reading a literary text.
Thesis question: How can we enhance our understanding and teaching practices of reading through this neurological-based study on Jane Austen?
Paige likes it. We are not guaranteeing answers, but rather engaging in discussion in search of more questions and answers!
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Scattered Thoughts
So I've been thinking a lot about attention during reading. Obviously.
I wrote in an ENG classroom the other day that "Reading is a socially individual experience." And not to toot my own horn, but I think I hit something here. Someone can't read for us, thus it is individual. However, we have tons of other things in our brain besides squishy grey snot. We have reading strategies taught to us by teachers, other languages/dialects, movies, books, texts, poems, conversations, lectures and even that nagging feeling that I left the door unlocked. Besides all of that, during the actual reading process there is evidence that we actually place ourselves in the narrative, our brain activates motor cortex to perhaps mirror the actions occurring in the book and drawing on social experiences to dissect the story. Thus, reading is also incredibly social. I want to either prove or explore this idea in discussions of the experiment.
I tried so hard to prove that we learn to interact socially by reading books because I do believe it, despite no scientific evidence. I think we can prove that a lot is a happening in the brain during reading by this experiment, or rather, it is already proven and we get to talk about it in a different way! We also draw on our social experiences to enhance our reading. English Education majors constantly talk about student-to-text connections to deepen learning. How do you relate to this character or situation? Is there another text that relates to this? We draw on prior knowledge to engage students (as in SHAKESPEARE IS STILL AND ALWAYS WILL BE RELEVANT TO HUMANITY) and foster perspective analysis on both their and the text's social situation. But is this automatically happening in the brain. "Reading in the Brain" by Daehaene clearly states language happens in the brain, but what else besides that?
"Reading is a cognitive, social and cultural activity..." (71)
Also, "...our individual command of reading varies greatly from person to person, depending on how we learn to read." (71)
What are these differences in the subjects' brain? How do we as secondary ed teachers, who often are not the first people to teach students to read initially, deal with the variances in reading styles? I wrote earlier about reading strategies and this is an attempt to teach reading, but also kind of level the playing field. As we teach strategies, we also are attempting to get everyone reading at the same level, a loaded term. I would hope it's impossible to get everyone to read the same for that would diminish the unique interpretations and essays. However, ensuring everyone can read and process texts of the same density and complexity is a good goal.
To move in a direction closer to what we can see, what areas are being activated? Is it worth the teacher's time to teach close reading? Are there more effective ways to teach close-reading? What are the benefits of spending precious class time having students pleasure read?
I read a study called, "Properties of Attention During Reading Lessons" (1992) that I had some serious problems with, but still was able to draw something from it. They watched 2/3 graders while each read aloud and based on physical appearances determined if the students were paying attention or not. Urg. Anyways, the silver lining.
"Probably what happens when a text becomes too difficult and errors rise is that children's strategies break down and they become discouraged." (171) The authors go on to posit that too easy reading does not foster learning and neither does super hard reading. Instead, like Goldilocks discovered, it's the middle ground that is the best for children, or the zone of proximal development. The article also cites Gaffney and Anderson who say, "Moreover, whether a particular child will find a particular book easy or difficult depends upon the context in which the book is read and the conditions surrounding its use." (171) This idea of external influences is interesting in our experiment.
At the upcoming think tank, I want to talk about external influences since they are a huge part of education.
I will end it here for tonight. More to read! Happy thinking!
I wrote in an ENG classroom the other day that "Reading is a socially individual experience." And not to toot my own horn, but I think I hit something here. Someone can't read for us, thus it is individual. However, we have tons of other things in our brain besides squishy grey snot. We have reading strategies taught to us by teachers, other languages/dialects, movies, books, texts, poems, conversations, lectures and even that nagging feeling that I left the door unlocked. Besides all of that, during the actual reading process there is evidence that we actually place ourselves in the narrative, our brain activates motor cortex to perhaps mirror the actions occurring in the book and drawing on social experiences to dissect the story. Thus, reading is also incredibly social. I want to either prove or explore this idea in discussions of the experiment.
I tried so hard to prove that we learn to interact socially by reading books because I do believe it, despite no scientific evidence. I think we can prove that a lot is a happening in the brain during reading by this experiment, or rather, it is already proven and we get to talk about it in a different way! We also draw on our social experiences to enhance our reading. English Education majors constantly talk about student-to-text connections to deepen learning. How do you relate to this character or situation? Is there another text that relates to this? We draw on prior knowledge to engage students (as in SHAKESPEARE IS STILL AND ALWAYS WILL BE RELEVANT TO HUMANITY) and foster perspective analysis on both their and the text's social situation. But is this automatically happening in the brain. "Reading in the Brain" by Daehaene clearly states language happens in the brain, but what else besides that?
"Reading is a cognitive, social and cultural activity..." (71)
Also, "...our individual command of reading varies greatly from person to person, depending on how we learn to read." (71)
What are these differences in the subjects' brain? How do we as secondary ed teachers, who often are not the first people to teach students to read initially, deal with the variances in reading styles? I wrote earlier about reading strategies and this is an attempt to teach reading, but also kind of level the playing field. As we teach strategies, we also are attempting to get everyone reading at the same level, a loaded term. I would hope it's impossible to get everyone to read the same for that would diminish the unique interpretations and essays. However, ensuring everyone can read and process texts of the same density and complexity is a good goal.
To move in a direction closer to what we can see, what areas are being activated? Is it worth the teacher's time to teach close reading? Are there more effective ways to teach close-reading? What are the benefits of spending precious class time having students pleasure read?
I read a study called, "Properties of Attention During Reading Lessons" (1992) that I had some serious problems with, but still was able to draw something from it. They watched 2/3 graders while each read aloud and based on physical appearances determined if the students were paying attention or not. Urg. Anyways, the silver lining.
"Probably what happens when a text becomes too difficult and errors rise is that children's strategies break down and they become discouraged." (171) The authors go on to posit that too easy reading does not foster learning and neither does super hard reading. Instead, like Goldilocks discovered, it's the middle ground that is the best for children, or the zone of proximal development. The article also cites Gaffney and Anderson who say, "Moreover, whether a particular child will find a particular book easy or difficult depends upon the context in which the book is read and the conditions surrounding its use." (171) This idea of external influences is interesting in our experiment.
At the upcoming think tank, I want to talk about external influences since they are a huge part of education.
I will end it here for tonight. More to read! Happy thinking!
Sunday, November 4, 2012
On Test Essays
One thing that drew my attention was the question of what factors made reading harder. I tallied the responses as followed. The language of concerns actually varied little, so I was able to group them easily.
Factors that made reading harder:
Not being able to write/mark the texts: 5
Not being able to flip/reread: 4
Not being able to FLIP and WRITE: 6
None:1
Use outside resources: 1 (also flip/write)
PhD students use the reading technique of annotating texts. Some specify what they would underline (repeated words/phrases, important quotes, in the margins) and some noted it helps them to organize and make sense of the text.
As a student of English education, we learn about how to teach reading strategies and the importance of those strategies.They help struggling readers to focus on the text , organize it and connect on a personal level with it. They also push advanced readers to consider the text beyond a basic plot level, encouraging them to make intratextual connections, to other works and most of all, ask questions. Reading strategies can also be a scaffold for later class activities and assignments. This action is mirrored in the experiment by the need to mark the text, one particular reading strategy.The amount of people needing to annotate the text shows how much students rely on the strategy to succeed in reading. It is not safe to say that it helps the readers since we don't have any evidence, but we can say that the readers use it to succeed in close-reading. I'm not sure how much this relates to the brain imaging because we don't have images of annotating brains versus non-annotating brains. I think this is important because it shows that readers who are highly invested in reading (they are English PhD students after all) engage in the text by writing in it, they don't, except for one, just read it.
One criticism I have of the question is that it doesn't specify when the readers use the strategy; close reading or pleasure reading. We would assume it's during close reading but we can't say for sure. Does pleasure reading include annotation and physical reading strategies? Or is that solely a feature of close reading?
However, does the need to annotate justify the need to teach it in schools?
I myself used to use sticky notes to write down my thoughts, I've also learned about a color-coded system of sticky notes (blue for questions, pink for personal connections, green for figurative language etc...) graphic organizers and a code system to write in the actual text.
I would also be curious as to what subjects underline versus what the they brainstormed and then wrote.
Factors that made reading harder:
Not being able to write/mark the texts: 5
Not being able to flip/reread: 4
Not being able to FLIP and WRITE: 6
None:1
Use outside resources: 1 (also flip/write)
PhD students use the reading technique of annotating texts. Some specify what they would underline (repeated words/phrases, important quotes, in the margins) and some noted it helps them to organize and make sense of the text.
As a student of English education, we learn about how to teach reading strategies and the importance of those strategies.They help struggling readers to focus on the text , organize it and connect on a personal level with it. They also push advanced readers to consider the text beyond a basic plot level, encouraging them to make intratextual connections, to other works and most of all, ask questions. Reading strategies can also be a scaffold for later class activities and assignments. This action is mirrored in the experiment by the need to mark the text, one particular reading strategy.The amount of people needing to annotate the text shows how much students rely on the strategy to succeed in reading. It is not safe to say that it helps the readers since we don't have any evidence, but we can say that the readers use it to succeed in close-reading. I'm not sure how much this relates to the brain imaging because we don't have images of annotating brains versus non-annotating brains. I think this is important because it shows that readers who are highly invested in reading (they are English PhD students after all) engage in the text by writing in it, they don't, except for one, just read it.
One criticism I have of the question is that it doesn't specify when the readers use the strategy; close reading or pleasure reading. We would assume it's during close reading but we can't say for sure. Does pleasure reading include annotation and physical reading strategies? Or is that solely a feature of close reading?
However, does the need to annotate justify the need to teach it in schools?
I myself used to use sticky notes to write down my thoughts, I've also learned about a color-coded system of sticky notes (blue for questions, pink for personal connections, green for figurative language etc...) graphic organizers and a code system to write in the actual text.
I would also be curious as to what subjects underline versus what the they brainstormed and then wrote.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
A Change of Scenery
This post marks a different point in my education as a student of CogSci, Education and English. So please, take the posts before with a grain of salt, seeing as I departed highly from an academic tone which often we frown upon and I am afraid will stain my credibility. However, I no longer want to hide and deny the person and writer I once was. I am constantly evolving and believe in "emerging thinking," meaning that not all writing, speech or text needs to be perfectly polished. Instead, this is a safe place for me to think about my topics in a pattern of speech that makes sense to my audience, mostly me and my two outstanding directors whom I cannot thank enough!
I am working on my Senior Honors thesis concerning a study on Jane Austen and reading attention with the focus on English education.
I was asked why do I want to do this. I've been fumbling around for the right answer, and I'm starting to think it's many.
After a great semester with Dr. Phillips, I am really interesting in studying the brain. There is so much that we don't know about it, but I believe that the more we study and know it, the better we can manipulate it to do the things we want it to do.
I am highly invested in English Education. A running theme through my courses at MSU has been teaching has no formula because the classroom changes everyday due to external and internal factors. So I've been on a mini-quest to see how we as a collective teach. Are there running patterns throughout our American or even global classrooms? This search is problematic because ascribing a formula to teaching can make it into that which we do not want it to be: detached from students, teacher-centered and most of all...boring! In my study of CogSci, I want to look at how understanding the brain's functions can deepen, or improve, the classroom.
Looking back to high school junior year, I did my big research essay on how school is killing students. And you know what, I really think I was on to something. "Teaching with the Brain in Mind" by Eric Jensen makes a point to note that high schoolers have different sleep patterns than the current school system, thus we end up with sleepy teens in our class. I made this point in my research paper (though far less eloquently and with considerable more angst) and I still believe that today. If we start to integrate new knowledge into the schools, I really believe we can start to teach to students better.
There is also this linguistic divide that has always bugged me. How can teachers access new data coming out if the language is written not written for them but really is important to them? I will explore the challenges I face in writing for multiple audiences, as well as this whole formatting thing, which I believe is a frustrating social construction, but I have to deal with it. I want to be present in my writing because it does not try to hide the fact that I will inherently be biased no matter how hard I try, especially concerning new subject combinations that have less scholarly quotes to plop in.
This taboo divide between science, education and English is really no longer relevant in our highly connected society. Each subject can enhance the other. Humanities can humanize the sciences, sciences can qualify the humanities. The issue of these products is where our future lies. Above all, I believe in the promise of the future that comes from the hard work of today. I realize that my particular interest of study may stomp on some toes, but my study raises questions about each of these subject areas that may have never been raised before.
In the process of trying to answer these questions, we get a deluge of new questions. That space of delightful ignorance is where we grow and improve.
As of this moment, the thesis is: What questions for the English secondary classroom does this study of modes of reading attention in Jane Austen raise?
This thesis is strong because it focuses on questions, not answers.
This thesis is weak because it's not really specific and it just doesn't sit right with me.
I may have been taught this, but I mostly found it out myself after writing 20-30 papers at the collegiate level: write your paper first and then your thesis. For this project, the two instances may not be so distinct. Instead, I see it more as a simultaneous development; as one side evolves, so does the other.
Coming up soon: After reading the PhD student's essays, I want to talk about
1. Almost all noted things on needing to annotate text while reading; what does this mean for teaching reading strategies in the classroom?
2. How brainstorming affects essay
3. Why the researchers asked if the subjects had taught any course and what are the implications there
4. Essay content: lots of focus on Edmund/Fanny and education/intelligence
I am working on my Senior Honors thesis concerning a study on Jane Austen and reading attention with the focus on English education.
I was asked why do I want to do this. I've been fumbling around for the right answer, and I'm starting to think it's many.
After a great semester with Dr. Phillips, I am really interesting in studying the brain. There is so much that we don't know about it, but I believe that the more we study and know it, the better we can manipulate it to do the things we want it to do.
I am highly invested in English Education. A running theme through my courses at MSU has been teaching has no formula because the classroom changes everyday due to external and internal factors. So I've been on a mini-quest to see how we as a collective teach. Are there running patterns throughout our American or even global classrooms? This search is problematic because ascribing a formula to teaching can make it into that which we do not want it to be: detached from students, teacher-centered and most of all...boring! In my study of CogSci, I want to look at how understanding the brain's functions can deepen, or improve, the classroom.
Looking back to high school junior year, I did my big research essay on how school is killing students. And you know what, I really think I was on to something. "Teaching with the Brain in Mind" by Eric Jensen makes a point to note that high schoolers have different sleep patterns than the current school system, thus we end up with sleepy teens in our class. I made this point in my research paper (though far less eloquently and with considerable more angst) and I still believe that today. If we start to integrate new knowledge into the schools, I really believe we can start to teach to students better.
There is also this linguistic divide that has always bugged me. How can teachers access new data coming out if the language is written not written for them but really is important to them? I will explore the challenges I face in writing for multiple audiences, as well as this whole formatting thing, which I believe is a frustrating social construction, but I have to deal with it. I want to be present in my writing because it does not try to hide the fact that I will inherently be biased no matter how hard I try, especially concerning new subject combinations that have less scholarly quotes to plop in.
This taboo divide between science, education and English is really no longer relevant in our highly connected society. Each subject can enhance the other. Humanities can humanize the sciences, sciences can qualify the humanities. The issue of these products is where our future lies. Above all, I believe in the promise of the future that comes from the hard work of today. I realize that my particular interest of study may stomp on some toes, but my study raises questions about each of these subject areas that may have never been raised before.
In the process of trying to answer these questions, we get a deluge of new questions. That space of delightful ignorance is where we grow and improve.
As of this moment, the thesis is: What questions for the English secondary classroom does this study of modes of reading attention in Jane Austen raise?
This thesis is strong because it focuses on questions, not answers.
This thesis is weak because it's not really specific and it just doesn't sit right with me.
I may have been taught this, but I mostly found it out myself after writing 20-30 papers at the collegiate level: write your paper first and then your thesis. For this project, the two instances may not be so distinct. Instead, I see it more as a simultaneous development; as one side evolves, so does the other.
Coming up soon: After reading the PhD student's essays, I want to talk about
1. Almost all noted things on needing to annotate text while reading; what does this mean for teaching reading strategies in the classroom?
2. How brainstorming affects essay
3. Why the researchers asked if the subjects had taught any course and what are the implications there
4. Essay content: lots of focus on Edmund/Fanny and education/intelligence
Thursday, April 19, 2012
All Aboard the Struggle Bus
Fact: Unexplained Migraines for 12 hours are not conducive to doing anything but playing soccer and sleeping.
Fact: I will try!!
So I'm really interested in the Father in CIotDitN. In the beginning of the novel, I think readers empathize with the father. He loyally takes care of his "behavior problemed" son in lieu of his wife dying tragically of a "problem with her heart." But by the end of the novel, the father has knocked out Christopher, killed Wellington and hid 2 years of letters from Chrisopher's mother. Whew. That is a hefty list. In these revelations, I think we as readers adjust our view on him because he commits very culturally taboo acts. Christopher travels from his home to London to get away from his father.
And the way the reader deals with the father is very complicated because we have Christopher's distinctly devoid of emotions narrative. It was Sihrisha who brought up the point that we put our own ToM onto Christopher's narrative. In this essay, I want to explore the father and how we understand him. Is he actually a very emotional character? Is he "good," "bad" or some kind of grey area?
Lists of quotes
"He held up his right hand and spread his fingers like a fan. I held up my left hand and spread my fingers out in a fan and we made our fingers and thumbs tough each other. We do this because sometimes Father wants to give me a hug, but I do not like hugging people so we do this instead, and it means that he loves me." (16)
"I do not tell lies. Mother used to say that this was because I was a good person.But it is not because I am a good person. It is because I can't tel lies." (19)
"And he said, "It's a bloody god, Christopher, a bloody dog." (20) Then Father banged the steering wheel with his fist and the car weaved a little bit across the dotted line in the middle of the road and he shouted, "I said leave it, for God's sake." (21) I could tell he was angry because he was shouting 21
There were tears coming out of his eyes, Wellington. "Yes, Christopher, you could say that, You could very well say that.
I know that they're working out what I'm thinking, but I can't tell what they're thinking...but this was nice, having father speak to me but not look at me 22-23
"Father said he didn't know what kind of heart attack she had and now wasn't the moment to be asking questions like that 27
I used to think that Mother and Father might get divorced. That was because they has lots of arguments and sometimes they hated each other. This was because of the stress of looking after someone who has Behavioral Problems like I have 46
47
49
"...I'm not interested in faces" 71
"What is this?" but he said it very quietly and I didn't realize he was angry because he wasn't shouting. "
"Holy fucking Jesus, Christopher. How stupid are you? This is what Siobhan calls a rhetorical question...it's difficult to spot a rhetorical question." (81)
"Mother had hit me sometimes because she was a very hot-tempered person, which means she gets angry more quickly than other people and she shouted more often. But Father was a more level-headed person, which means he didn't angry as quickly and he didn't shout as often. So I was very surprised when he grabbed me."
I had no memories for a shirt while...It was like someone swtiched me off and then switched me on again."
Then he locked the back door again and put the key into the little china jug that is shaped like a fat nun and he stood in the middle of the kitchen and closed his eyes. 83
"I only do it because I worry about you, because I don't want to see you getting into trouble, because I don't want you to get hurt. Do you understand?" I didn't know if I understood so I said, "I don't know." 87
In the fan scenes, never a replication of love
Mother: "I was not a very good mother. Maybe if things had been different, maybe if you had been different, I might have been better at it."
"But I said I couldn't take it anymore and eventually he got really cross and he told me that I was being stupid and said I should pull myself together and I hit him, which was wrong, but I was so upset."
"And you father is really pacient but I'm not" 107
"...the two of you together and thinking how you were really different with him. Much calmer. And you didn't shout at one another." 108-109
"Then I could hear that he was crying because his breath felt all bubbly and wet.
Phrases:...I did it for your good, Christopher....I just thought it was better if you didn't know"
"...because I didn't know how to explain. It was so complicated. So difficult. 114
"It's bloody hard telling the truth all the time...I want you to know that I'm trying. I really am." 120
"I think she cared more for that bloody dog than for me, for us. 121
"Father had murdered Wellington. That meant he could murder me, because I couldn't trust him, even though he had said, "Trust me," because he had told a lie about a big thing" 122
"bastard" 194
196 Fight
"And I don't care how long it takes...if it's one day and two minutes the next three minutes the next and it takes years I don't care. Because this is important. This is important more than anything else." And then he tore a little strip of skin away from the side of the thumbnail on his left hand."
Articles to be used: Keen "A Theory of Narrative Empathy" Palmer "The Whole Mind" Vermeule "Why do we care about lit Characters?"
Fact: I will try!!
So I'm really interested in the Father in CIotDitN. In the beginning of the novel, I think readers empathize with the father. He loyally takes care of his "behavior problemed" son in lieu of his wife dying tragically of a "problem with her heart." But by the end of the novel, the father has knocked out Christopher, killed Wellington and hid 2 years of letters from Chrisopher's mother. Whew. That is a hefty list. In these revelations, I think we as readers adjust our view on him because he commits very culturally taboo acts. Christopher travels from his home to London to get away from his father.
And the way the reader deals with the father is very complicated because we have Christopher's distinctly devoid of emotions narrative. It was Sihrisha who brought up the point that we put our own ToM onto Christopher's narrative. In this essay, I want to explore the father and how we understand him. Is he actually a very emotional character? Is he "good," "bad" or some kind of grey area?
Lists of quotes
"He held up his right hand and spread his fingers like a fan. I held up my left hand and spread my fingers out in a fan and we made our fingers and thumbs tough each other. We do this because sometimes Father wants to give me a hug, but I do not like hugging people so we do this instead, and it means that he loves me." (16)
"I do not tell lies. Mother used to say that this was because I was a good person.But it is not because I am a good person. It is because I can't tel lies." (19)
"And he said, "It's a bloody god, Christopher, a bloody dog." (20) Then Father banged the steering wheel with his fist and the car weaved a little bit across the dotted line in the middle of the road and he shouted, "I said leave it, for God's sake." (21) I could tell he was angry because he was shouting 21
There were tears coming out of his eyes, Wellington. "Yes, Christopher, you could say that, You could very well say that.
I know that they're working out what I'm thinking, but I can't tell what they're thinking...but this was nice, having father speak to me but not look at me 22-23
"Father said he didn't know what kind of heart attack she had and now wasn't the moment to be asking questions like that 27
I used to think that Mother and Father might get divorced. That was because they has lots of arguments and sometimes they hated each other. This was because of the stress of looking after someone who has Behavioral Problems like I have 46
47
49
"...I'm not interested in faces" 71
"What is this?" but he said it very quietly and I didn't realize he was angry because he wasn't shouting. "
"Holy fucking Jesus, Christopher. How stupid are you? This is what Siobhan calls a rhetorical question...it's difficult to spot a rhetorical question." (81)
"Mother had hit me sometimes because she was a very hot-tempered person, which means she gets angry more quickly than other people and she shouted more often. But Father was a more level-headed person, which means he didn't angry as quickly and he didn't shout as often. So I was very surprised when he grabbed me."
I had no memories for a shirt while...It was like someone swtiched me off and then switched me on again."
Then he locked the back door again and put the key into the little china jug that is shaped like a fat nun and he stood in the middle of the kitchen and closed his eyes. 83
"I only do it because I worry about you, because I don't want to see you getting into trouble, because I don't want you to get hurt. Do you understand?" I didn't know if I understood so I said, "I don't know." 87
In the fan scenes, never a replication of love
Mother: "I was not a very good mother. Maybe if things had been different, maybe if you had been different, I might have been better at it."
"But I said I couldn't take it anymore and eventually he got really cross and he told me that I was being stupid and said I should pull myself together and I hit him, which was wrong, but I was so upset."
"And you father is really pacient but I'm not" 107
"...the two of you together and thinking how you were really different with him. Much calmer. And you didn't shout at one another." 108-109
"Then I could hear that he was crying because his breath felt all bubbly and wet.
Phrases:...I did it for your good, Christopher....I just thought it was better if you didn't know"
"...because I didn't know how to explain. It was so complicated. So difficult. 114
"It's bloody hard telling the truth all the time...I want you to know that I'm trying. I really am." 120
"I think she cared more for that bloody dog than for me, for us. 121
"Father had murdered Wellington. That meant he could murder me, because I couldn't trust him, even though he had said, "Trust me," because he had told a lie about a big thing" 122
"bastard" 194
196 Fight
"And I don't care how long it takes...if it's one day and two minutes the next three minutes the next and it takes years I don't care. Because this is important. This is important more than anything else." And then he tore a little strip of skin away from the side of the thumbnail on his left hand."
Articles to be used: Keen "A Theory of Narrative Empathy" Palmer "The Whole Mind" Vermeule "Why do we care about lit Characters?"
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Zesty Bridges Way Too Far
So in the Hayles "Hyper and Deep Attention" article, John Bruer is quoted as saying that connecting neuroscience research and educative practices is a "bridge too far." He argues that we can connect behavior research and education. Well my darling John, I do not support that kind of thinking. I honestly see no reason why we cannot take brain research and apply it to the teaching of things with brains. As I was initially appalled by this thought, Hayles concedes a few sentences later that imaging studies can correlate behavior to brain and then behavior to education. And yet, the nature of this article defies Bruer's original conception of education as it related to brain research. This article looks at how brain research on attention disorders and the media affect the classroom pedagogy.
In my education classes we have already come to the agreement that media needs to be incorporated into the classroom because it is a major form of expression and helps bridge the learning differences between students. For example, in a Hamlet unit I recently made we not only read the play-text, we also watch The Reduced Shakespeare Company's Hamlet. The reading allows for the development of sustained deep attention while the RSC appeals to the hyper attention. Please watch this clip in which the inner strife of Ophelia is expressed by an audience of probably 100: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ofKJ6UFv60. It doesn't get more hyper attentive than that.
My other point of contention in the piece is when she describes reading Pride and Prejudice as deep and Grand Theft Auto as hyper. I want to resist these neat categories because reading can actually be a hyper attention activity. What about graphic novels? One has to process not only the words but also the images of the page. I think that reading does require sustained attention, but that doesn't mean the actual content is deep as well. Look at Tristram Shandy. There is a lot to process and the environment changes all the time, and the narrative mirrors a video game or a tv show. The idea that reading requires constant attention to shifting sentence structures or narrative structures appeals to me, partially because I have spent so long studying these things and thus am very aware of them.
Looking at the Attention Deficit Disorder poem by McCormick, Hayles would categorize reading it as a deep attention activity. However, there is actually a lot in that poem. One has to adapt their reading to this particular poem's tone and structure. For instance, what are those "/" at the end of some lines? One normally uses them when quotes poetry in prose. A critic has to figure out why the /s are there and what purpose do they serve, like when I learned to play Temple Run on my phone and had to learn that gold coins are good to run into. The poem's content itself advocates that ADD isn't a lack of attention, it is a different type of deep attention. That certain activities look hyper attentive but are really deep attentive.The narrator can "re-draw" (5) the "worn lines along my teacher's thick brown neck" (4) in his sleep, which may be something other students can't do because they were deeply focused on reading or listening to the powerpoint.
This article mirrors A Curious Incident because both take a holistic look on disorders that affect learning and social interactions. The pieces wish to convey the message that neither of these are a "you have or do not have it" but rather a continuum. With this mindset, our society can being to adjust to allow these people on the continuum the right to be treated like equals in the education system.We also acknowledge the outside factors that affect children's ability to interact with the world, that it's not just "their dysfunctional brain's fault." While this perspective is more time consuming for teachers, parents and policy makers (assuming they take into consideration the actual process of teaching...lolz if that every happens) interdisciplinary collaboration can help us understand and make a solution that is the least compromising to the child and will eventually be quicker for the future generations of educators.
In my education classes we have already come to the agreement that media needs to be incorporated into the classroom because it is a major form of expression and helps bridge the learning differences between students. For example, in a Hamlet unit I recently made we not only read the play-text, we also watch The Reduced Shakespeare Company's Hamlet. The reading allows for the development of sustained deep attention while the RSC appeals to the hyper attention. Please watch this clip in which the inner strife of Ophelia is expressed by an audience of probably 100: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ofKJ6UFv60. It doesn't get more hyper attentive than that.
My other point of contention in the piece is when she describes reading Pride and Prejudice as deep and Grand Theft Auto as hyper. I want to resist these neat categories because reading can actually be a hyper attention activity. What about graphic novels? One has to process not only the words but also the images of the page. I think that reading does require sustained attention, but that doesn't mean the actual content is deep as well. Look at Tristram Shandy. There is a lot to process and the environment changes all the time, and the narrative mirrors a video game or a tv show. The idea that reading requires constant attention to shifting sentence structures or narrative structures appeals to me, partially because I have spent so long studying these things and thus am very aware of them.
Looking at the Attention Deficit Disorder poem by McCormick, Hayles would categorize reading it as a deep attention activity. However, there is actually a lot in that poem. One has to adapt their reading to this particular poem's tone and structure. For instance, what are those "/" at the end of some lines? One normally uses them when quotes poetry in prose. A critic has to figure out why the /s are there and what purpose do they serve, like when I learned to play Temple Run on my phone and had to learn that gold coins are good to run into. The poem's content itself advocates that ADD isn't a lack of attention, it is a different type of deep attention. That certain activities look hyper attentive but are really deep attentive.The narrator can "re-draw" (5) the "worn lines along my teacher's thick brown neck" (4) in his sleep, which may be something other students can't do because they were deeply focused on reading or listening to the powerpoint.
This article mirrors A Curious Incident because both take a holistic look on disorders that affect learning and social interactions. The pieces wish to convey the message that neither of these are a "you have or do not have it" but rather a continuum. With this mindset, our society can being to adjust to allow these people on the continuum the right to be treated like equals in the education system.We also acknowledge the outside factors that affect children's ability to interact with the world, that it's not just "their dysfunctional brain's fault." While this perspective is more time consuming for teachers, parents and policy makers (assuming they take into consideration the actual process of teaching...lolz if that every happens) interdisciplinary collaboration can help us understand and make a solution that is the least compromising to the child and will eventually be quicker for the future generations of educators.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Orange Squash
Boy was I thrilled that I did not do my Wednesday homework during Tuesday and instead was sucked into Swindon by a narrator who has autism. Also, I wouldn't want to live with that father either. Also also, what is orange squash?
To geek out for a moment, it is just so cool how Christopher was just a perfect match for the symptoms and behavioral traits of children with autism listed in the reading link.
Christopher makes a lovely point in the novel that we all need something special to help us function in the world. His dad needs packets of sugar for his coffee. I need a ring on my left thumb or else I feel unbalanced. Christopher explains succinctly why he screams out of frustration and anger. As children, persons with out disabilities did just that; but they learned how to suppress that urge to loudly express frustration. Christopher also has techniques that help him calm himself. He counts to 50 and doubles 2. This is a very common practice among individuals when it comes to anger: counting numbers. Christopher uses the exact techniques in a longer span of time.
I was really interested in the distinction between a simile and a metaphor. Christopher thinks a simile is okay because it compares images but a metaphor is a lie because one is not telling the truth about the thing they are making into a metaphor. For instance, he would probably not understand "lend me a hand" in reference to help because he would think that one asks for an actual hand instead of comprehending the metonymic nature of the phrase.Therefore that phrase is a lie because one asks for help, not a hand.
Shirisha (sorry about the spelling if it's wrong!) talked about metaphor comprehension and if I remember correctly, Christopher would have an impairment on the left side of his brain. I read an article (http://www.semel.ucla.edu/autism/news/10/nov/03/ucla-study-reveals-how-autism-risk-gene-rewires-brain) that said UCLA found that children with autism have an "unusual symmetry" in the brain with regards to language when children without autism have a strong left-side connection. So perhaps this symmetry refers to a lack of connection to the left side when there should be almost an "over" development to that part of the brain.
I did find one inconsistency in the book with regards to what Christopher says about himself. He says he cannot have pictures in his head that didn't really happen, like other people can. So in effect, Christopher cannot imagine multiple worlds for him to inhabit, which ties into his inability to lie or comprehend lies. (78) But then a page later he says, "I like imagining that I am there [Mount Everest], in a spherical metal submersible..." (80) Christopher can imagine multiple realities! Does he not realize that was he imagines is the same process as others? I find this the most logical conclusion because he has no Theory of Mind skill, he has to he taught Theory of Mind like one is taught how to solve for the hypotenuse of a triangle. "I know that they're working out what I am thinking, but I can't tell what they're thinking." (22) It's so interesting that this is a huge hindrance for Christopher's success of social interactions. After reading, I felt incredibly grateful that I have developed this skill and how important this ability is in order to function. In thinking that, Christopher is able to function, it takes him longer to complete social interactions and he has to use conscious thought to do so.
I did, however, doubt Christopher's ability to overcome his fears/behaviors and get to London. But I think what is hard to express in the novel form is the passage of time. The narrator slips in occasionally a measurement of time but to the reader spatially, it seems like a very short time. And in that fault of written books we lose the grandiosity and courageous act of Christopher. It took him a really long time. Like I think upwards of 12 hours to take what should be about a 4 hour trip. So in my disbelief, I began to argue the miracle that Christopher performed. I think the book is a testament to Persons with disabilities. They are more than a section of humans than cannot function in "our" normal society.
To geek out for a moment, it is just so cool how Christopher was just a perfect match for the symptoms and behavioral traits of children with autism listed in the reading link.
Christopher makes a lovely point in the novel that we all need something special to help us function in the world. His dad needs packets of sugar for his coffee. I need a ring on my left thumb or else I feel unbalanced. Christopher explains succinctly why he screams out of frustration and anger. As children, persons with out disabilities did just that; but they learned how to suppress that urge to loudly express frustration. Christopher also has techniques that help him calm himself. He counts to 50 and doubles 2. This is a very common practice among individuals when it comes to anger: counting numbers. Christopher uses the exact techniques in a longer span of time.
I was really interested in the distinction between a simile and a metaphor. Christopher thinks a simile is okay because it compares images but a metaphor is a lie because one is not telling the truth about the thing they are making into a metaphor. For instance, he would probably not understand "lend me a hand" in reference to help because he would think that one asks for an actual hand instead of comprehending the metonymic nature of the phrase.Therefore that phrase is a lie because one asks for help, not a hand.
Shirisha (sorry about the spelling if it's wrong!) talked about metaphor comprehension and if I remember correctly, Christopher would have an impairment on the left side of his brain. I read an article (http://www.semel.ucla.edu/autism/news/10/nov/03/ucla-study-reveals-how-autism-risk-gene-rewires-brain) that said UCLA found that children with autism have an "unusual symmetry" in the brain with regards to language when children without autism have a strong left-side connection. So perhaps this symmetry refers to a lack of connection to the left side when there should be almost an "over" development to that part of the brain.
I did find one inconsistency in the book with regards to what Christopher says about himself. He says he cannot have pictures in his head that didn't really happen, like other people can. So in effect, Christopher cannot imagine multiple worlds for him to inhabit, which ties into his inability to lie or comprehend lies. (78) But then a page later he says, "I like imagining that I am there [Mount Everest], in a spherical metal submersible..." (80) Christopher can imagine multiple realities! Does he not realize that was he imagines is the same process as others? I find this the most logical conclusion because he has no Theory of Mind skill, he has to he taught Theory of Mind like one is taught how to solve for the hypotenuse of a triangle. "I know that they're working out what I am thinking, but I can't tell what they're thinking." (22) It's so interesting that this is a huge hindrance for Christopher's success of social interactions. After reading, I felt incredibly grateful that I have developed this skill and how important this ability is in order to function. In thinking that, Christopher is able to function, it takes him longer to complete social interactions and he has to use conscious thought to do so.
I did, however, doubt Christopher's ability to overcome his fears/behaviors and get to London. But I think what is hard to express in the novel form is the passage of time. The narrator slips in occasionally a measurement of time but to the reader spatially, it seems like a very short time. And in that fault of written books we lose the grandiosity and courageous act of Christopher. It took him a really long time. Like I think upwards of 12 hours to take what should be about a 4 hour trip. So in my disbelief, I began to argue the miracle that Christopher performed. I think the book is a testament to Persons with disabilities. They are more than a section of humans than cannot function in "our" normal society.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Rock On, Structuralism
1. Rock on Professor Phillips for scaffolding our week topics so well.
2. Rock on Gertrude Stein and the James Brothers for being champions of lingustic thought.
3. Rock on Lerer for writing a clear an interesting article on a subject that has potential to be confusing and boring.
I totally dig the Structuralist idea of signifier/signified. They expose the arbitrariness of language, something A LOT of my classes have rolled with. There is absolutely NOTHING in the word grapefruit that is particularly round, pinkish, sour and sweet (I dunno how they really taste, the last time I come into contact with one was at 5 in the morning in Africa after throwing up for two days straight.) But you get what I mean. In French, grapefruit is pomplemousse. Yeah, French doesn't do much better at explaining the concept of the object. Well what about a word like vomit. Latin past tense is vomi, French is vomi and English is vomited. Well, that doesn't work because they share roots which does not actually reflect the act of tossing one's cookies, or perhaps in Rome tossing one's grapes.
Alright, so we have that down. Words does not equal objects. But at the same time, they do. The final argument and ultimate failure of Stein is that she failed to remove meaning from language. Because language is so deeply rooted in our brain, we cannot step out of our language. The reason we know her sentences are nonsense is because we automatically make meaning, no matter what our brain tells us.
I think one thing that was alluded to but not really mentioned was how we think. I believe the human brain doesn't function in words, like a rolling teleprompter during the Grammys. Instead, it's this odd mix of feelings, fleeting images, concrete images and colors. Language is an attempt to unify and successfully communicate the mess that is our thoughts. Thus arises the need for a structure that will ensure success, which is grammar. However, as Stein and Chomsky demonstrated, we don't really need to think in words. We need the signifier that is the word to trigger the image/feeling in our brain. In this distinction is the failure of Stein; our imagination. Stein underestimates the ability of humans to make meaning from images.
There is also the aesthetic quality mentioned in the Lerer reading, which is another factor of language. I really can't concretely say this with science backing, but there is something in "In the room the women come and go/ Talking of Michaelangelo." The rhyme nicely encapsulates the couplet, but I just love the way it sounds. I think the Stephen Fry phrase is "trippingly off the tongue." We bathe in our language. We eat words, taste and digest them in our brain and excrete meaning. Why do we like rhyme? That's a French thing; Anglo-Saxon poetry is based in meters, French did rhyme schemes in poetry first. So we have a tendency, as demonstrated last week, to make meaning as first as a self-preservation activity, but we have developed it past that, I think. It's become a way of life, speaking.
So in Tender Buttons (talk about great titles) under the "Food" section we have the following sentence: Room to comb chickens and feathers and ripe purple, room to curve single plates and large sets and second silver, room to send everything away, room to save heat and distemper, room to search a light that is simpler, all room has no shadow.
1. We don't comb chickens. When is the last time you saw a farmer catch and comb a chicken? No. But we can imagine it.
He thought with a despairing thought, it's time to comb the chickens. For fifteen minutes he would battle against the Henrietta, the lead hen. Upon grasping her fat body with his calloused hands, he would have to fight another five minutes to calm her down. But he always forgets about the pleasure of combing Henrietta because of the long fight that precedes. He takes out the chipped wooden comb, missing a few teeth, not unlike himself. The hen settles down between his legs, fluffing her feathers out with pride, attempting to retain dignity in spite of her captivity. The farmer strokes her sides intentionally at first. But as the pair settle into one another, the process becomes more unconscious. He hums the song his mother sang when she made summer blueberry scones. He sings the Beach Boys' Don't Worry Baby as Henrietta drifts into a waking reverie, basking in the afternoon sun and combing. In the prime of their matronly and fatherly years, they make peace for ten minutes.
So while I take artistic liberty, I can make meaning from nonsense because I can subvert the nonsense. As an English speaker, I am aware that these are not conventional sentences or word usage. But that doesn't mean they cannot work.
The rest of the phrase is a lot more abstract and I think we make meaning from the action implied. There is always the remembrance of things when experiencing things. So the "room to curve" reminds me of a sort of silversmith, a person who needs space to actually make plates and heat the fire that will help the construction.
There is always weight of words. I have a theory that there is no such thing as a synonym; all words have a specific context. We can never depart from the issues of audience, rules and predictions. Our brain also resists degradation. Stein does an excellent job of making the basis of structuralism by showcasing grammar but she just underestimated our ability to abstract. On the same point, we also becomes very frustrated by her dense poetry and prosody because we have to constantly abstract meaning.
Theories of Language and Writing show how complicated communication is. While we try and try to explain everything, there will always be dissonance because there is no absolute unity and congruity in all aspects of our language. Of course we shall never give up the fight to find ourselves, but perhaps we could be less cutthroat about it and remember the enjoyment of language.
2. Rock on Gertrude Stein and the James Brothers for being champions of lingustic thought.
3. Rock on Lerer for writing a clear an interesting article on a subject that has potential to be confusing and boring.
I totally dig the Structuralist idea of signifier/signified. They expose the arbitrariness of language, something A LOT of my classes have rolled with. There is absolutely NOTHING in the word grapefruit that is particularly round, pinkish, sour and sweet (I dunno how they really taste, the last time I come into contact with one was at 5 in the morning in Africa after throwing up for two days straight.) But you get what I mean. In French, grapefruit is pomplemousse. Yeah, French doesn't do much better at explaining the concept of the object. Well what about a word like vomit. Latin past tense is vomi, French is vomi and English is vomited. Well, that doesn't work because they share roots which does not actually reflect the act of tossing one's cookies, or perhaps in Rome tossing one's grapes.
Alright, so we have that down. Words does not equal objects. But at the same time, they do. The final argument and ultimate failure of Stein is that she failed to remove meaning from language. Because language is so deeply rooted in our brain, we cannot step out of our language. The reason we know her sentences are nonsense is because we automatically make meaning, no matter what our brain tells us.
I think one thing that was alluded to but not really mentioned was how we think. I believe the human brain doesn't function in words, like a rolling teleprompter during the Grammys. Instead, it's this odd mix of feelings, fleeting images, concrete images and colors. Language is an attempt to unify and successfully communicate the mess that is our thoughts. Thus arises the need for a structure that will ensure success, which is grammar. However, as Stein and Chomsky demonstrated, we don't really need to think in words. We need the signifier that is the word to trigger the image/feeling in our brain. In this distinction is the failure of Stein; our imagination. Stein underestimates the ability of humans to make meaning from images.
There is also the aesthetic quality mentioned in the Lerer reading, which is another factor of language. I really can't concretely say this with science backing, but there is something in "In the room the women come and go/ Talking of Michaelangelo." The rhyme nicely encapsulates the couplet, but I just love the way it sounds. I think the Stephen Fry phrase is "trippingly off the tongue." We bathe in our language. We eat words, taste and digest them in our brain and excrete meaning. Why do we like rhyme? That's a French thing; Anglo-Saxon poetry is based in meters, French did rhyme schemes in poetry first. So we have a tendency, as demonstrated last week, to make meaning as first as a self-preservation activity, but we have developed it past that, I think. It's become a way of life, speaking.
So in Tender Buttons (talk about great titles) under the "Food" section we have the following sentence: Room to comb chickens and feathers and ripe purple, room to curve single plates and large sets and second silver, room to send everything away, room to save heat and distemper, room to search a light that is simpler, all room has no shadow.
1. We don't comb chickens. When is the last time you saw a farmer catch and comb a chicken? No. But we can imagine it.
He thought with a despairing thought, it's time to comb the chickens. For fifteen minutes he would battle against the Henrietta, the lead hen. Upon grasping her fat body with his calloused hands, he would have to fight another five minutes to calm her down. But he always forgets about the pleasure of combing Henrietta because of the long fight that precedes. He takes out the chipped wooden comb, missing a few teeth, not unlike himself. The hen settles down between his legs, fluffing her feathers out with pride, attempting to retain dignity in spite of her captivity. The farmer strokes her sides intentionally at first. But as the pair settle into one another, the process becomes more unconscious. He hums the song his mother sang when she made summer blueberry scones. He sings the Beach Boys' Don't Worry Baby as Henrietta drifts into a waking reverie, basking in the afternoon sun and combing. In the prime of their matronly and fatherly years, they make peace for ten minutes.
So while I take artistic liberty, I can make meaning from nonsense because I can subvert the nonsense. As an English speaker, I am aware that these are not conventional sentences or word usage. But that doesn't mean they cannot work.
The rest of the phrase is a lot more abstract and I think we make meaning from the action implied. There is always the remembrance of things when experiencing things. So the "room to curve" reminds me of a sort of silversmith, a person who needs space to actually make plates and heat the fire that will help the construction.
There is always weight of words. I have a theory that there is no such thing as a synonym; all words have a specific context. We can never depart from the issues of audience, rules and predictions. Our brain also resists degradation. Stein does an excellent job of making the basis of structuralism by showcasing grammar but she just underestimated our ability to abstract. On the same point, we also becomes very frustrated by her dense poetry and prosody because we have to constantly abstract meaning.
Theories of Language and Writing show how complicated communication is. While we try and try to explain everything, there will always be dissonance because there is no absolute unity and congruity in all aspects of our language. Of course we shall never give up the fight to find ourselves, but perhaps we could be less cutthroat about it and remember the enjoyment of language.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Some Days We Take It Slow
So, after deciding to take this week for a presentation, I find myself confused and wholly disappointed in the articles I read. I have yet to finish The Cognitive Dimension because it's too boring for me. I think I may be thinking too hard to trying to find a topic and render myself in a mental block.
What does one do to get over a block? Take a bath to get away and then write out the problems.
The most comprehensible article was Damasio's. I appreciate his lauding of Shakespeare right away. This old dead white guy knew everything about everything and the faster we accept this the better.
So Damasio argues that emotions beget feelings. He firsts separates feelings from emotion, the former being private and the latter public. "emotions and related phenomenon are the foundation for feelings." (28) Alright, I almost believe this dude. Feelings are shadows "of the external manner of emotions." (29) Sooooo the public expression causes the private experience? Not following.
Then he goes into this homeostasis machine tree upside down lung thing explanation which is not confusing in structure, but I get lost as to how this relates to emotions being the cause of feelings. I have the desperate need to slow this article and break it down into manageable pieces.
Fact 1: We are supposed to solve problems automatically
How I make sense of this: Theory of Mind automaticity. Humans are trained to be social beings that interpret each other very very very quickly, which gives evidence that nature equipped us with the ability to solve things quickly. We also want to live, so solve problems quickly gives us the chance to die another day. Got it.
Fact 2: Homeostasis machine enables us to do that. This causes actions like moving, activity levels and cooperation with the environment to keep us from dying. Rock on.
Branches:
Low: metabolism, basic reflexes, immune system. Stuff that is necessary to be alive that we do not think about. See fact one.
Middle: Behaviors associated with pleasure/punishment. Example: healing a hurt knee or a cold. So this is where the emotions come in, I think. He cites the public actions of the body, like holding a recently banged knee or of my own thoughts, one scrunches up their nose when they smell something bad. Similarly, when one's body functions well, it shows it. The walk is loose and open, perhaps a smile may flit across the visage. Endorphins are released, too! These physical features of wellness or sickness manifest themselves in a public manner. But apparently, "the experience of pain or pleasure is not the cause of the pain or pleasure behaviors and is by no means necessary for those behaviors to occur." (33) What? You just said that when our body functions well we show all these things. If the experience does not cause behavior, what the heck does? I'm
going to read on to clear up confusion.
Next level: Drives and motivations; desires and appetites.
Topish: Emotions-proper
Top: Feelings!!!
Alright, so these all work together and have developed because we want to live. These also all nest together, but in a very messy way. Some project back and some forward.
Then this dude gets to what he I think he is really saying. One aspect of emotions is that they facilitate social relations, also stave off dangers and help take advantage of an opportunity.
Okay, but how does scrunching my face do any of this stuff? I can see how it warns other people that something is up, but what about these other three? How does holding a broken hand help me stave off dangers? Unless I missed something, this guy never goes in depth as to why exactly emotions came to be. Help????
Now I'm hoping that the Vermeule article will make sense of the previous article.
So we animate everything because it is better to think something is alive and pay attention to it than to ignore it and possibly die. We look for social cues above all and eye contact is the main mode of finding these cues.
Alright, I think I can talk about something here. With the idea that we animate everything, I began to search in the poems for instances in which animism occurs. Dream Song 14 is very interesting because the first line claims life to be boring. Is it really? Life is a concept noun, not a thing that is actually alive. Humans are alive and life is the span of our years, so life is like time in that it goes on no matter what. Life ends individually but at the same time it onyy ends at the end of the world. So, life is not boring. Human perceive it as boring.
I found "the sky flashes" really interesting because this would be a very useful animation. If our forefathers and mother were walking in Africa hunting, noticing the sky flashing would indicated perhaps a storm and this encourage them to seek shelter.
Now the sea yearning, that's a tough one. Does she yearn for the sailors who sailed upon her face during hurricane season? Does she yearn for the shore which is why she laps upon it?
The final motif, the "tranquil hills" who of course cannot be tranquil. They sit for thousands of years, which one understands why we ascribe peacefulness to them. This technique could communicate safety or a place of reset.
Perhaps life is actually boring because it cannot make itself interesting due to its lack of life. But to acknowledge that it is us who is boring is socially taboo and we should make life more interesting by doing stuff. But does that make life more interesting or is it we become more interesting?
Ugh, struggle bus tonight.
What does one do to get over a block? Take a bath to get away and then write out the problems.
The most comprehensible article was Damasio's. I appreciate his lauding of Shakespeare right away. This old dead white guy knew everything about everything and the faster we accept this the better.
So Damasio argues that emotions beget feelings. He firsts separates feelings from emotion, the former being private and the latter public. "emotions and related phenomenon are the foundation for feelings." (28) Alright, I almost believe this dude. Feelings are shadows "of the external manner of emotions." (29) Sooooo the public expression causes the private experience? Not following.
Then he goes into this homeostasis machine tree upside down lung thing explanation which is not confusing in structure, but I get lost as to how this relates to emotions being the cause of feelings. I have the desperate need to slow this article and break it down into manageable pieces.
Fact 1: We are supposed to solve problems automatically
How I make sense of this: Theory of Mind automaticity. Humans are trained to be social beings that interpret each other very very very quickly, which gives evidence that nature equipped us with the ability to solve things quickly. We also want to live, so solve problems quickly gives us the chance to die another day. Got it.
Fact 2: Homeostasis machine enables us to do that. This causes actions like moving, activity levels and cooperation with the environment to keep us from dying. Rock on.
Branches:
Low: metabolism, basic reflexes, immune system. Stuff that is necessary to be alive that we do not think about. See fact one.
Middle: Behaviors associated with pleasure/punishment. Example: healing a hurt knee or a cold. So this is where the emotions come in, I think. He cites the public actions of the body, like holding a recently banged knee or of my own thoughts, one scrunches up their nose when they smell something bad. Similarly, when one's body functions well, it shows it. The walk is loose and open, perhaps a smile may flit across the visage. Endorphins are released, too! These physical features of wellness or sickness manifest themselves in a public manner. But apparently, "the experience of pain or pleasure is not the cause of the pain or pleasure behaviors and is by no means necessary for those behaviors to occur." (33) What? You just said that when our body functions well we show all these things. If the experience does not cause behavior, what the heck does? I'm
going to read on to clear up confusion.
Next level: Drives and motivations; desires and appetites.
Topish: Emotions-proper
Top: Feelings!!!
Alright, so these all work together and have developed because we want to live. These also all nest together, but in a very messy way. Some project back and some forward.
Then this dude gets to what he I think he is really saying. One aspect of emotions is that they facilitate social relations, also stave off dangers and help take advantage of an opportunity.
Okay, but how does scrunching my face do any of this stuff? I can see how it warns other people that something is up, but what about these other three? How does holding a broken hand help me stave off dangers? Unless I missed something, this guy never goes in depth as to why exactly emotions came to be. Help????
Now I'm hoping that the Vermeule article will make sense of the previous article.
So we animate everything because it is better to think something is alive and pay attention to it than to ignore it and possibly die. We look for social cues above all and eye contact is the main mode of finding these cues.
Alright, I think I can talk about something here. With the idea that we animate everything, I began to search in the poems for instances in which animism occurs. Dream Song 14 is very interesting because the first line claims life to be boring. Is it really? Life is a concept noun, not a thing that is actually alive. Humans are alive and life is the span of our years, so life is like time in that it goes on no matter what. Life ends individually but at the same time it onyy ends at the end of the world. So, life is not boring. Human perceive it as boring.
I found "the sky flashes" really interesting because this would be a very useful animation. If our forefathers and mother were walking in Africa hunting, noticing the sky flashing would indicated perhaps a storm and this encourage them to seek shelter.
Now the sea yearning, that's a tough one. Does she yearn for the sailors who sailed upon her face during hurricane season? Does she yearn for the shore which is why she laps upon it?
The final motif, the "tranquil hills" who of course cannot be tranquil. They sit for thousands of years, which one understands why we ascribe peacefulness to them. This technique could communicate safety or a place of reset.
Perhaps life is actually boring because it cannot make itself interesting due to its lack of life. But to acknowledge that it is us who is boring is socially taboo and we should make life more interesting by doing stuff. But does that make life more interesting or is it we become more interesting?
Ugh, struggle bus tonight.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Nerdworms
"Readers often comprehend a story by assuming the perspective of a character...and mentally represent his or her emotions" (697)
I totally dug into this idea presented by Mar and friends because I think there was an assumption with "a" character. What happens when we have a novel like Persuasion that uses FID that gives us an insight into multiple characters minds? The FID blurs the line between narrator and character which creates this odd sense that we may be in the characters minds, but at the same times gives us a very powerful sense of the presence of some kind of thought process.
For instance, after being totally rained on by "Heartache and Head Injury," I awaited the final reunion of Anne and Captain Wentworth. And let me tell you, I was getting highly irritated by the end. JUST KISS ALREADY. They kissed in my head though not narrated explicitly, manners of the time be damned. And when they finally admitted they still loved each other, the narrative gets interesting. We hear Wentworth's description of his feelings through the Anne/Narrative hybrid FID present throughout the novel. "jealousy of Mr. Elliot had been the retarding weight, the doubt, the torment." (226) In this, the reader cannot be sure who is speaking, but we clearly understand the sentiment that makes us empathize with the object, Wentworth. In this case, it doesn't particularly matter who is speaking, but rather that direct entrance into the content of the speech which either removes bias of characters/narrators or overloads bias to a point where the reader has to make a decision themselves. I argue for the last point, that we as readers are forced in points like this, that remove the obvious speaker, to use the meaning repairing center of our brain in conjunction with our social skills as humans to make an inference. The inference being that Wentworth was jealous of Elliot and acted really weird at the concert. We have to feel jealousy, that pain of hating so much to the point where we can't do anything but feel awkward and tormented, like we read about just a few chapters ago, and what we probably have experienced in life. FID encourages us to empathize with someone and make social assumptions because the narration isn't allowing us direct access to a speaker, thus assigning an interpretation based on the book. There has to be a melding of abilities. And yet, this happens incredibly quickly and really without us knowing. I think we don't process immediately that there is a lack of speaker because we have raw information that is matched up with previous information from the novel.
Later in the paragraph we get "he" and "his" which reject direct access to Wentworth, but we still don't know if Anne is narrating or the narrator is doing their job.
In this ambiguity, I found myself empathetic with Anne, Mrs. Smith and Wentworth. I completely understood the pain of Wentworth's rejection by Anne because of FID, as well as Anne's desire to be with Wentworth. Poor Mrs. Smith! Her life just sucked something awful; the worst luck a fiction book can make, Candide aside. I think Austen did a great job using FID to create empathy for multiple characters, which ultimately supplies the reader with many social experiences that could manifest themselves in everyday life.
Another question I has was can a "naturally empathetic" person be found? The authors raise the question that such a person may be able to comprehend story telling better and be more inclined to read. As we have discussed in the previous week, this "natural" is called into question because we cannot isolate that which is nature and that which is educated. The article suggests tracking children who are more inclined to engaged in "imaginative play" and see if they later on become a bookworm, which would then make them a more socio-capable individual. However, these children may reject reading for it is a solitary action, one that may mirror society, it does not exactly replace the relationships and interactions of real life.
I also began to question how children and students are taught to read literature. For instance, the study of poetry often involves the evaluation of formal features, that is things like rhyme scheme, structure, vocabulary and other tonal features. I have found that this type of lens can push the reader away from the emotionality, that is the "message" of the piece. This would therefore inhibit the social interaction aspect that one would gather from the reading of the fiction. I may be stretching the theory by applying it to poetry, but the same is true with books. If one makes plot maps, character webs, factual worksheets and academic essays, one may be distracted from the society within the novel because one is looking for something else. The fault in this argument is that we cannot say if we pick up the empathy unconsciously or consciously. As a teacher, I would have to draw attention to the sentences that point to instances that call for socio-interpretation like the example of Wendy and her trembling drawer. I would like to see a study done on the difference in education of literature. I get emotionally attached to characters, but I also can distance myself when I'm specifically searching for formal features. I wonder if a school system systematically rejects the emotionality and empathetic nature of fiction, would that render a bookworm an "unfeeling" nerd?
I totally dug into this idea presented by Mar and friends because I think there was an assumption with "a" character. What happens when we have a novel like Persuasion that uses FID that gives us an insight into multiple characters minds? The FID blurs the line between narrator and character which creates this odd sense that we may be in the characters minds, but at the same times gives us a very powerful sense of the presence of some kind of thought process.
For instance, after being totally rained on by "Heartache and Head Injury," I awaited the final reunion of Anne and Captain Wentworth. And let me tell you, I was getting highly irritated by the end. JUST KISS ALREADY. They kissed in my head though not narrated explicitly, manners of the time be damned. And when they finally admitted they still loved each other, the narrative gets interesting. We hear Wentworth's description of his feelings through the Anne/Narrative hybrid FID present throughout the novel. "jealousy of Mr. Elliot had been the retarding weight, the doubt, the torment." (226) In this, the reader cannot be sure who is speaking, but we clearly understand the sentiment that makes us empathize with the object, Wentworth. In this case, it doesn't particularly matter who is speaking, but rather that direct entrance into the content of the speech which either removes bias of characters/narrators or overloads bias to a point where the reader has to make a decision themselves. I argue for the last point, that we as readers are forced in points like this, that remove the obvious speaker, to use the meaning repairing center of our brain in conjunction with our social skills as humans to make an inference. The inference being that Wentworth was jealous of Elliot and acted really weird at the concert. We have to feel jealousy, that pain of hating so much to the point where we can't do anything but feel awkward and tormented, like we read about just a few chapters ago, and what we probably have experienced in life. FID encourages us to empathize with someone and make social assumptions because the narration isn't allowing us direct access to a speaker, thus assigning an interpretation based on the book. There has to be a melding of abilities. And yet, this happens incredibly quickly and really without us knowing. I think we don't process immediately that there is a lack of speaker because we have raw information that is matched up with previous information from the novel.
Later in the paragraph we get "he" and "his" which reject direct access to Wentworth, but we still don't know if Anne is narrating or the narrator is doing their job.
In this ambiguity, I found myself empathetic with Anne, Mrs. Smith and Wentworth. I completely understood the pain of Wentworth's rejection by Anne because of FID, as well as Anne's desire to be with Wentworth. Poor Mrs. Smith! Her life just sucked something awful; the worst luck a fiction book can make, Candide aside. I think Austen did a great job using FID to create empathy for multiple characters, which ultimately supplies the reader with many social experiences that could manifest themselves in everyday life.
Another question I has was can a "naturally empathetic" person be found? The authors raise the question that such a person may be able to comprehend story telling better and be more inclined to read. As we have discussed in the previous week, this "natural" is called into question because we cannot isolate that which is nature and that which is educated. The article suggests tracking children who are more inclined to engaged in "imaginative play" and see if they later on become a bookworm, which would then make them a more socio-capable individual. However, these children may reject reading for it is a solitary action, one that may mirror society, it does not exactly replace the relationships and interactions of real life.
I also began to question how children and students are taught to read literature. For instance, the study of poetry often involves the evaluation of formal features, that is things like rhyme scheme, structure, vocabulary and other tonal features. I have found that this type of lens can push the reader away from the emotionality, that is the "message" of the piece. This would therefore inhibit the social interaction aspect that one would gather from the reading of the fiction. I may be stretching the theory by applying it to poetry, but the same is true with books. If one makes plot maps, character webs, factual worksheets and academic essays, one may be distracted from the society within the novel because one is looking for something else. The fault in this argument is that we cannot say if we pick up the empathy unconsciously or consciously. As a teacher, I would have to draw attention to the sentences that point to instances that call for socio-interpretation like the example of Wendy and her trembling drawer. I would like to see a study done on the difference in education of literature. I get emotionally attached to characters, but I also can distance myself when I'm specifically searching for formal features. I wonder if a school system systematically rejects the emotionality and empathetic nature of fiction, would that render a bookworm an "unfeeling" nerd?
Friday, March 9, 2012
Holy Spoiler Alert, Batman!
I'm sorry about the late post, most awful jet lag yesterday that rendered me incapable of doing anything but napping with my kitty, Bella.
I was pretty irritated at the "Of Heartache and Head Injury" piece because, as usual, I read an article before reading the primary piece, IT GAVE AWAY THE ENTIRE NOVEL. I have never read or seen "Persuasion" and now I know the whole darn thing. I have not the slightest clue why I thought the article would save the juicy incidences seeing as no other articles do, but perhaps I am more emotionally invested in Austen than Proust. Oh bla di, life goes on.
The article, among many things, discusses the tension between nature and nurture in Austen's time. My point of view from this article is that the authors, thinkers and doctors (used broadly, as people who studied the brain and body, could I get a proper word, NP?) disagreed as to whether the brain held the mind, and if human personalities came from education or nature, or some combination thereof. Richardson, perhaps unconsciously, summed up Austen's view in about the middle of the article that helped me immensely sort out the multiple theories, "The struggle between rational control and passionate feeling.....manifests not a split between the mind and the body but the impossibility of ever teasing them apart." (149) This quote lead to the discussion of a "divided subject," (149 also) one that always is subjected to the unconscious and the conscious, wild emotion and reason.
The question for me became not if "Persuasion" is either or, but in what way do these human "sides" influence the other? How does education impress on natural disposition and conversely, how does character impress itself on reason? And on a similar note, in what way does the family or surroundings play a role; is there an inherited trait in the families?
So, I thought about Anne's two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth who function as the ugly/evil stepsisters in the Cinderella fairytale mentioned in Richardson. They are really, just awful creatures. Their father, Sir Walter Elliot, is a miraculously pompous being due to his vanity of physical beauty and baronet title. This trio is vastly different from our actual hero, Anne Elliot, who is described as a much more modest girl. With the Richardson article in mind, I wondered how exactly Mary and Elizabeth turned out so rotten and Anne so "ripe" (hahaha)
Elizabeth inherited her father's good looks. "For one daughter, his eldest, he would really have given up anything...his tow other children were of very inferior value." (7) 1. Ouch! 2. Did this mentality of the father create the personality of Elizabeth, who was naturally born beautiful? Did she learn to be haughty or did her father teach her to be haughty? As far as I am into the novel at this point, Austen doesn't give the readers a clear answer. I am tempted to say that Elizabeth would be a different person had she not been spoiled by her father, but I cannot say for sure. If she had been born in a different family, would she still have beauty that distinguishes and makes room for vanity? The line between nature and nurture are blurred, the final theory being that it is a combination of the two.
The other sister, who is not beautiful, but married, a big deal in that age see Pride and Prejudice for that whole barrel of monkeys. She faces a sort of bipolar disorder in that she constantly oscillates between highs and lows. "...she had great good humor and excellent spirits; but any indisposition sunk her completely." (35) Later, Mary chastises Anne for not coming sooner, despite a cheerful letter. Mary draws attention to herself, away from Elizabeth, by being depressed and unwell, thus demanding care. She also pushes Anne out of the picture by acting so. She also "...inheriting a considerable share of the Elliot self-importance..." (35) Wait, what? Austen portrays personality as something that can be inherited! Elizabeth got it, Mary got it. But does Anne? Thus far, nope. That begs the question, is there something in nature that can suppress another nature or is it education that is doing it?
I think Austen wants us to look at the twining of humans and the earth, viewing the two as more than partially autonomous. Not one or the other, or one more than the other, but a symbiotic relationship that produces unique individuals even if they are raised by the same family.
God knows I don't want to be nor am the same as my brother.
I was pretty irritated at the "Of Heartache and Head Injury" piece because, as usual, I read an article before reading the primary piece, IT GAVE AWAY THE ENTIRE NOVEL. I have never read or seen "Persuasion" and now I know the whole darn thing. I have not the slightest clue why I thought the article would save the juicy incidences seeing as no other articles do, but perhaps I am more emotionally invested in Austen than Proust. Oh bla di, life goes on.
The article, among many things, discusses the tension between nature and nurture in Austen's time. My point of view from this article is that the authors, thinkers and doctors (used broadly, as people who studied the brain and body, could I get a proper word, NP?) disagreed as to whether the brain held the mind, and if human personalities came from education or nature, or some combination thereof. Richardson, perhaps unconsciously, summed up Austen's view in about the middle of the article that helped me immensely sort out the multiple theories, "The struggle between rational control and passionate feeling.....manifests not a split between the mind and the body but the impossibility of ever teasing them apart." (149) This quote lead to the discussion of a "divided subject," (149 also) one that always is subjected to the unconscious and the conscious, wild emotion and reason.
The question for me became not if "Persuasion" is either or, but in what way do these human "sides" influence the other? How does education impress on natural disposition and conversely, how does character impress itself on reason? And on a similar note, in what way does the family or surroundings play a role; is there an inherited trait in the families?
So, I thought about Anne's two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth who function as the ugly/evil stepsisters in the Cinderella fairytale mentioned in Richardson. They are really, just awful creatures. Their father, Sir Walter Elliot, is a miraculously pompous being due to his vanity of physical beauty and baronet title. This trio is vastly different from our actual hero, Anne Elliot, who is described as a much more modest girl. With the Richardson article in mind, I wondered how exactly Mary and Elizabeth turned out so rotten and Anne so "ripe" (hahaha)
Elizabeth inherited her father's good looks. "For one daughter, his eldest, he would really have given up anything...his tow other children were of very inferior value." (7) 1. Ouch! 2. Did this mentality of the father create the personality of Elizabeth, who was naturally born beautiful? Did she learn to be haughty or did her father teach her to be haughty? As far as I am into the novel at this point, Austen doesn't give the readers a clear answer. I am tempted to say that Elizabeth would be a different person had she not been spoiled by her father, but I cannot say for sure. If she had been born in a different family, would she still have beauty that distinguishes and makes room for vanity? The line between nature and nurture are blurred, the final theory being that it is a combination of the two.
The other sister, who is not beautiful, but married, a big deal in that age see Pride and Prejudice for that whole barrel of monkeys. She faces a sort of bipolar disorder in that she constantly oscillates between highs and lows. "...she had great good humor and excellent spirits; but any indisposition sunk her completely." (35) Later, Mary chastises Anne for not coming sooner, despite a cheerful letter. Mary draws attention to herself, away from Elizabeth, by being depressed and unwell, thus demanding care. She also pushes Anne out of the picture by acting so. She also "...inheriting a considerable share of the Elliot self-importance..." (35) Wait, what? Austen portrays personality as something that can be inherited! Elizabeth got it, Mary got it. But does Anne? Thus far, nope. That begs the question, is there something in nature that can suppress another nature or is it education that is doing it?
I think Austen wants us to look at the twining of humans and the earth, viewing the two as more than partially autonomous. Not one or the other, or one more than the other, but a symbiotic relationship that produces unique individuals even if they are raised by the same family.
God knows I don't want to be nor am the same as my brother.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Collective Writing Rules, but Topic Sentences Drool
When one opens a fiction novel, one expects a story about a family, love, a caterpillar or epic battles to destroy the evil Empire. Rightly so one envisions a saga of some sort, for the tradition of such a narrative structure dates back to before books were made, that is the oral tradition of poems like Beowulf or later Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In this genre of general story-telling, one expects to understand the plot. One expects to understand each sentence uttered. Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne nuclear-bombs every expectation of literature. The reader does not get a cohesive narrative, but receives instead a jumble of languages, bizarre characters, and a righteous headache. Or, if one has the right attitude, a smile. Sterne uses literary tools unconventionally that distract and confuse the narrative, destroying a clear and cohesive reading experience. [Can you do more with this transition? The space between (and logic that links) these two sentences seems like key part of your argument. Can you do more argumentative work of your own with Vu? What’s the relationship between 1) Sterne’s tools, 2) attention as single resource and 3) divided among diff. tasks to diff amounts. Super interesting work here!] Attention is “a single resource that can be divided among different tasks in different amounts” (Vu, 19) and Sterne forces our attention to be divided in more ways than the reader can handle in the novel, [slow down and unpack. Again, seems key to your argument. Which ways? So it’s the number of ways it’s divided that overloads our attention? Or the way he divides it? Both?] rendering Tristram Shandy wholly unreadable and incomprehensible.
One of the first and most prominent modes of attention distraction of Tristram Shandy is frequent character interjections.
Another tactic employed by Sterne is the visual manipulation of the written formant.
Another example of visual manipulation used by Sterne is when he manipulates letters and words, as opposed to imagery like marbled and black pages.
It is dangerous to say Sterne planted all of these devices to manipulate the audience. (Man, this is like, the worst topic sentence ever.)
Finally, the way in which Sterne actually writes his story creates confusion in the reader. (seriously, these things are getting worse.)
Sterne through Shandy’s narration admits to the prevalence distractions early in the novel. “Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine-they are the life, the soul of reading; take them out of this book for instance, eternal winter would reign in every page of it.” (52) In this particular case, the digressions do add life to the pages of the novel, but readers cannot distinguish or understand that life. If the jargon and extra languages fled the pages, perhaps a cohesive story would be left, but that is not a message or point of the novel. The novel sets out to confuse and play, turn literature upside-down. It is necessary to laugh at Shandy’s story and narrative style because that is what the novel is; it’s a joke. A very intelligent joke that happens to be incredibly critical of literature and leaves the reader questioning reality, but a joke nonetheless.
This exercise really pointed out how horrendous my topic sentences are. Hello future editing technique! Don't worry guys, this paper is totally getting restructured.
One of the first and most prominent modes of attention distraction of Tristram Shandy is frequent character interjections.
Another tactic employed by Sterne is the visual manipulation of the written formant.
Another example of visual manipulation used by Sterne is when he manipulates letters and words, as opposed to imagery like marbled and black pages.
It is dangerous to say Sterne planted all of these devices to manipulate the audience. (Man, this is like, the worst topic sentence ever.)
Finally, the way in which Sterne actually writes his story creates confusion in the reader. (seriously, these things are getting worse.)
Sterne through Shandy’s narration admits to the prevalence distractions early in the novel. “Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine-they are the life, the soul of reading; take them out of this book for instance, eternal winter would reign in every page of it.” (52) In this particular case, the digressions do add life to the pages of the novel, but readers cannot distinguish or understand that life. If the jargon and extra languages fled the pages, perhaps a cohesive story would be left, but that is not a message or point of the novel. The novel sets out to confuse and play, turn literature upside-down. It is necessary to laugh at Shandy’s story and narrative style because that is what the novel is; it’s a joke. A very intelligent joke that happens to be incredibly critical of literature and leaves the reader questioning reality, but a joke nonetheless.
This exercise really pointed out how horrendous my topic sentences are. Hello future editing technique! Don't worry guys, this paper is totally getting restructured.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
The Vivacity of Objects
The idea that most interested me was presented in the very end of the Scarry article. "An image elicited by the verbal arts, in contrast, has some of the vivacity, solidity, persistence and giveness of the perceived world, attributes that can in part be accounted for the instructional quality of writings, the explicit directions for how to construct the image that replace our own sense of volition..." (52) The verbal created image is contrasted with the day dreamed image, which has less "vivacity." The written word has the ability to make life where there is none; there is only ink, paper and you. This life feels real and has qualities of life that perhaps we miss when dreaming. We can make someone die that never really inhabited this earth; they inhabited our minds.
I began to think about how exactly these worlds are created in literature. I admire JK Rowling and Suzanne Collins because of the worlds they write in their books. The culture feels so real, there are faults and triumphs, jobs, trees, death and births. How does an author fabricate life? How do they convince their readers that what they say is actually true? I wrote in the margins of the Scarry article, "verbal arts gives life." I then deconstructed that initial notion. To have a sentence, one generally has a subject and a predicate which consists of a verb.
The path which had hitherto been considerably smooth, now became rugged and steep. (Brown, 97)
Let's do a kind of sentence diagramming exercise here. The path is the subject of this sentence, it is modified by an adjectival phrase. (" which had hitherto been considerably smooth, now") What is indicative is the verb "became." The path was not rugged before, but now it was changing. The path, an inanimate object, suddenly has the ability in Edgar Huntly to change! The path was probably always rugged and steep at the point which the narrator says it became. The way our language functions depends on human ability to abstractly interpret the sentence, as much as the sentence seems logical and natural. What is correct is "To my perception, the path I was walking on became rugged and steep." The path exists separate from the narrator, but only until the narrator gives us the knowledge of its existence do we grant it the ability to enter our discourse. That path was exactly as it was before the narrator arrived, but the need to describe it necessitates that a verb be ascribed to it. The path can now become animated through human description of it. The path has life! It changes like I change my clothes! In a day dream, Huntly would not have thought "The path which had hitherto been considerably smooth, now became rugged and steep" but rather just walked up the steep path. But because the path was described using a code system that requires a the subject to do something, the object has a sort of life. Is this making sense at all?
The nature of our language forces action on all that is a subject, even if that subject does not have the ability to act. Thus, written and spoken word creates life that would otherwise be glossed over in perception or daydreaming.
On page 45, the author outlines Rousseau's mental exercise for a Madame Delessert in which Rousseau writes incredibly detailed descriptions of a certain flower. Delessert is challenged to create that image of the flower based on the description. I believe Rousseau wanted to prove he can replicate the image of the flower with is words so that one does not actually need to see the flower to know exactly what it looks like. To unpack that statement and put a theory lens on this exercise, Rousseau believes that language can offer direct and perfect access to mental imagery.
We did an exercise in my writing class that mirrors Rousseau's. Our group received an ordinary object.We kept our object, a large binder clip, hidden from the prying eyes of our neighbors and set out to describe the object using words. We then went around to other groups who performed the same task, and tried to guess their object based on descriptions, and they ours. Every object was guessed. Our class was able to directly access the objects in question based on constructed images. So, the answer to the question "does language offer direct access to mental imagery?" would seem yes. And yet, I do not believe it fully.
"...but the impression made upon me by this incident was unexampled in my existence. My reading had furnished me with no instance, in any degree, parallel to this, and I found that to be a distant and second-hand spectator of events was widely different from witnessing them myself and partaking in their consequences. My judgment was, for a time, sunk into imbicility and confusion. My mind was full of images unavoidably suggested by this tale..." (87)
Even direct, live narrative was unable to directly access the emotions and story of Clithero. Reading couldn't do that either. True, images were created, but they are jumbled. In another layer, does the reader directly access Clithero's story because Huntly can't? In reading a novel, does the reader directly access the characters or author's intention? My theory is no, because language is imperfect in that sense; it cannot directly access emotions. However, we can make new worlds that are full of life.
I began to think about how exactly these worlds are created in literature. I admire JK Rowling and Suzanne Collins because of the worlds they write in their books. The culture feels so real, there are faults and triumphs, jobs, trees, death and births. How does an author fabricate life? How do they convince their readers that what they say is actually true? I wrote in the margins of the Scarry article, "verbal arts gives life." I then deconstructed that initial notion. To have a sentence, one generally has a subject and a predicate which consists of a verb.
The path which had hitherto been considerably smooth, now became rugged and steep. (Brown, 97)
Let's do a kind of sentence diagramming exercise here. The path is the subject of this sentence, it is modified by an adjectival phrase. (" which had hitherto been considerably smooth, now") What is indicative is the verb "became." The path was not rugged before, but now it was changing. The path, an inanimate object, suddenly has the ability in Edgar Huntly to change! The path was probably always rugged and steep at the point which the narrator says it became. The way our language functions depends on human ability to abstractly interpret the sentence, as much as the sentence seems logical and natural. What is correct is "To my perception, the path I was walking on became rugged and steep." The path exists separate from the narrator, but only until the narrator gives us the knowledge of its existence do we grant it the ability to enter our discourse. That path was exactly as it was before the narrator arrived, but the need to describe it necessitates that a verb be ascribed to it. The path can now become animated through human description of it. The path has life! It changes like I change my clothes! In a day dream, Huntly would not have thought "The path which had hitherto been considerably smooth, now became rugged and steep" but rather just walked up the steep path. But because the path was described using a code system that requires a the subject to do something, the object has a sort of life. Is this making sense at all?
The nature of our language forces action on all that is a subject, even if that subject does not have the ability to act. Thus, written and spoken word creates life that would otherwise be glossed over in perception or daydreaming.
On page 45, the author outlines Rousseau's mental exercise for a Madame Delessert in which Rousseau writes incredibly detailed descriptions of a certain flower. Delessert is challenged to create that image of the flower based on the description. I believe Rousseau wanted to prove he can replicate the image of the flower with is words so that one does not actually need to see the flower to know exactly what it looks like. To unpack that statement and put a theory lens on this exercise, Rousseau believes that language can offer direct and perfect access to mental imagery.
We did an exercise in my writing class that mirrors Rousseau's. Our group received an ordinary object.We kept our object, a large binder clip, hidden from the prying eyes of our neighbors and set out to describe the object using words. We then went around to other groups who performed the same task, and tried to guess their object based on descriptions, and they ours. Every object was guessed. Our class was able to directly access the objects in question based on constructed images. So, the answer to the question "does language offer direct access to mental imagery?" would seem yes. And yet, I do not believe it fully.
"...but the impression made upon me by this incident was unexampled in my existence. My reading had furnished me with no instance, in any degree, parallel to this, and I found that to be a distant and second-hand spectator of events was widely different from witnessing them myself and partaking in their consequences. My judgment was, for a time, sunk into imbicility and confusion. My mind was full of images unavoidably suggested by this tale..." (87)
Even direct, live narrative was unable to directly access the emotions and story of Clithero. Reading couldn't do that either. True, images were created, but they are jumbled. In another layer, does the reader directly access Clithero's story because Huntly can't? In reading a novel, does the reader directly access the characters or author's intention? My theory is no, because language is imperfect in that sense; it cannot directly access emotions. However, we can make new worlds that are full of life.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
My Sin, My Soul
My Sin, My Soul
A rule when creating new worlds whilst writing is that the new world must have rules in itself. For example, in the magical world of Harry Potter, there are five essential rules to magic that can never be violated, such as one cannot conjure food. There is also a governmental system and as JK Rowling insists, magic does not solve all problems. If these rules did not exist, the Magical World would be less believable thus hindering the reader's ability to engage in the story. So, Johnson is not entirely wrong when he denounces fantastical works that exist unbounded in terms of creation. However, to insist that all stories must reflect our own known world is utterly ridiculous. What authority does he have to claim that he know what humans should and should not read? Before language was written down, before books, when wax tablets engraved with hieroglyphics transmitted knowledge from one person to another. I am absolutely positive that corruption, rape, violence and all other immoral acts (except online pirating or course) were abound in the civilizations. The usage of written communication in its toddler years was used for recording business transactions; things like how many bottles of oil on a ship or how many slaves sold in the market. There was no documentation of vice, and yet it was still present. To outlaw the documentation of evil does not guarantee the eradication of it.
Johnson insists on the censory of literature, a hot debate among educators today. Literature provides a safe place for experimentation with decisions. To unpack that, let me use an example. I read a book called Tweak that was the biography of a meth addict. It was very graphic with scenes of sex, drug-induced trips, drug deals, withdrawals and physical fights. The book was very raw and unrestrained, making me very afraid of being in the same room as meth. Now the question is, at what age can a "youth" read that? Will the portrayal of a very real problem in our world that happens to be a destructive and vice-filled account destroy the innocence of the child? What if I wanted to teach that in a Health class outlining the dangers of drug addiction? I think there is a very real possibility that the children, being able to experience drug addiction in a safe environment (that is the world created in the narrative), will choose to not engage in drug use. However, I cannot say with absolute certainty that every child will swear off drugs for life because of the book and there may be some youths who will try drugs because of what they read. I cannot make promises, but with the right lesson plan and proper discussion, this Johnson condemned book could be beneficial "morally."
In all, I think Johnson is trying to make the world a safer and more "moral" place, but his censorship denies the possibility that we can learn from mistakes in literature. I also am a firm believer that we need some rain to appreciate the sun, but that is another, less related topic.I cannot imagine a world without Lolita. Banned books don't stay banned.
Changing thoughts but not authors, I was quite interested and agreed much more with the Adventurer piece. When Johnson described the process of oral debate, I was reminded of Selfridge's Daemon theory of mental lexicon access. As a defender of a statements, one has to, "he is entangled in unexpected difficulties, he is harassed by sudden objections...his thoughts are scattered and confounded, and he gratifies the pride of airy petulance with an easy victory." (Johnson, 2) This confusion is similar to the daemons in our lexicon fighting for the loudest voice. This verbal contest is so quick, just milliseconds, if that, that we don't know we are confused or don't know for a little while. But, when the word is repeated often, the victory of comprehension written words seems effortless, just like winning an argument.
The necessity to read, write and engage socially with other people to be that "full man" also mirrors how we process words in parallel models/structures.Our brains use the phonological route for less familiar words, thus learning and making the unfamiliar familiar. But for words used often take the direct lexical route, one that allows nearly instantaneous access to the meaning. We would have serious difficulty learning new words without sounding them out, and we would read slow if we could not directly access the meaning. Without one, we are lopsided readers, similar to Johnson's argument. If we only read, we get lost and blinded by the brilliance of our own thoughts, which speaking to people who hold different views combats, allowing intellectual development. Also, only speaking can cause confusion and writing allows us to organize our thoughts, explore our assumptions to be better speakers or readers.
To rely only on one tool hinders our problem solving ability making road blocks in our life that could be easily overcome, if we work to develop an arsenal of weapons against confusion.
I very much in love with the statement by Lamb, "I dream away my life in others' speculations." I think it is a beautiful notion of inhabiting another world, another perspective that will increase our intellectual and cultural awareness. It also reminds me of Lewis Carrol's Through the Looking Glass and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, both being enchanting and fantastical books.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
All Hail the Mighty and Powerful Cookie
So before I get started, I wish to tell an anecdote from ENG413 that happened today. While working on a collaborative essay, a girl in my group perked up and said, "Does someone have the gum Fruit Stripes?" And from down the table, a boy held up a freshly opened pack and said, "You have an excellent nose!" The smeller told everyone within ear shot how she would eat that gum all summer long and the Zebra tattoos that are on the wrapper always came out blurry. I perked up and said, "That gum smells like childhood and I haven't smelled that in 15 years." All agreed with me. From the wafting scent of a piece of (really crappy gum) we were suddenly pulled back into a time of pop sickles, summer nights and stirrup pants. Oh the 90s.
I think Proust accepts Cavandish's point that the brain cannot be squared, to a degree. He marvels and relishes the randomness of human existence. "...it [the memory] has stopped, has perhaps sunk back into its darkness, from which who can say whether it will ever rise again?" (2) Lerer outlines the principle of "just accept it" in Bergson's idea, "the reality of our self-consciousness- could not be reduced or experimentally dissected." (78) I find this perspective incredibly fascinating and paradoxical. On one hand, Proust and Bergson acknowledge the unexplainable of the human consciousness, but on the other hand they constantly explore their feelings, memories and writings. I would think their constant writings and in the case of Proust, exploration of a joyous feelings, represents an insatiable curiosity of the mind. I may be splitting hairs here, but perhaps they cannot admit that they are drawn to the idea of being able to explain their memories and mind despite denying their ability to do so. Why is it that Proust wrote three pages of Times New Roman font on the fleeting memory of the taste of a madeleine? Because he wanted to know what that feeling was. "...(although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy)" (2-3) This sentence implies he will further search for the source of the happiness, instead of simply basking in the happiness he had in that fleeting moment. Further, if Proust constantly edited his works as Lerer tells us, Proust didn't leave his memories alone; he constantly edited them in search for something in them or perfection.
I happen to be taking a Medieval and Renaissance lit course that uses the omniscient Norton Anthology of English Literature. The poetry of the time was not looking for accuracy of reality, but rather wanted the perfection of wordplay that creates a new world, filled with truth and magic, which holds moral truth as well. The poets alone had the power to fabricate these new worlds to inhabit (NAEL vol 1B, 504). Similarly, Proust believed that "only the artist was able to describe reality as it was actually experienced." (77) As is with most literature, I find this a fascinating point, that only those who produce art tell the truth. Or, is it create truth? If we take what the rat experiment of 2002 proved, the truth of our memory is only that which we remembered the last time. So wouldn't truth only be what we made in the moment? What is true, the buttery cookie or the memory of the buttery cookie? What is my reality, the physical world in which I live or the world created inside my mind through memory? The last world is constantly edited, combining new lessons and facts with old ones; an ever changing reality quite unique. But since I am not a poet or "gifted" writer in the traditional sense, does my writing, words and internal reality not actually represent or is reality? I would disagree with Proust in that point. Why does he and Renaissance authors have the authority to dismiss my memories that are just as strong as the tea and cookie?
I finally want to say how cool the Nader experiment is. He actually proved that we need constant repetition to remember, it's not just my French TA blabbering on and wanting to torture me with verb conjugations! I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the idea that my memories are constantly remade. It makes sense logically, but to think that I will never remember anything exactly as it was the first time is slightly scary. Will I remember my child's first step clearly or my high school graduation? Perhaps that is what Proust is trying to do; capture himself in a moment to examine. But in that caging, he also changes his memory because he can go back and visit it. So, memory is a recursive process, just like writing or reading.
So, when I smell the Fruit Stripes gum, I will remember the summation of childhood summers AND the ENG experience, tainting the original memory, that actually does not exist anymore.
In other news, would anyone like a cookie?
I think Proust accepts Cavandish's point that the brain cannot be squared, to a degree. He marvels and relishes the randomness of human existence. "...it [the memory] has stopped, has perhaps sunk back into its darkness, from which who can say whether it will ever rise again?" (2) Lerer outlines the principle of "just accept it" in Bergson's idea, "the reality of our self-consciousness- could not be reduced or experimentally dissected." (78) I find this perspective incredibly fascinating and paradoxical. On one hand, Proust and Bergson acknowledge the unexplainable of the human consciousness, but on the other hand they constantly explore their feelings, memories and writings. I would think their constant writings and in the case of Proust, exploration of a joyous feelings, represents an insatiable curiosity of the mind. I may be splitting hairs here, but perhaps they cannot admit that they are drawn to the idea of being able to explain their memories and mind despite denying their ability to do so. Why is it that Proust wrote three pages of Times New Roman font on the fleeting memory of the taste of a madeleine? Because he wanted to know what that feeling was. "...(although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy)" (2-3) This sentence implies he will further search for the source of the happiness, instead of simply basking in the happiness he had in that fleeting moment. Further, if Proust constantly edited his works as Lerer tells us, Proust didn't leave his memories alone; he constantly edited them in search for something in them or perfection.
I happen to be taking a Medieval and Renaissance lit course that uses the omniscient Norton Anthology of English Literature. The poetry of the time was not looking for accuracy of reality, but rather wanted the perfection of wordplay that creates a new world, filled with truth and magic, which holds moral truth as well. The poets alone had the power to fabricate these new worlds to inhabit (NAEL vol 1B, 504). Similarly, Proust believed that "only the artist was able to describe reality as it was actually experienced." (77) As is with most literature, I find this a fascinating point, that only those who produce art tell the truth. Or, is it create truth? If we take what the rat experiment of 2002 proved, the truth of our memory is only that which we remembered the last time. So wouldn't truth only be what we made in the moment? What is true, the buttery cookie or the memory of the buttery cookie? What is my reality, the physical world in which I live or the world created inside my mind through memory? The last world is constantly edited, combining new lessons and facts with old ones; an ever changing reality quite unique. But since I am not a poet or "gifted" writer in the traditional sense, does my writing, words and internal reality not actually represent or is reality? I would disagree with Proust in that point. Why does he and Renaissance authors have the authority to dismiss my memories that are just as strong as the tea and cookie?
I finally want to say how cool the Nader experiment is. He actually proved that we need constant repetition to remember, it's not just my French TA blabbering on and wanting to torture me with verb conjugations! I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the idea that my memories are constantly remade. It makes sense logically, but to think that I will never remember anything exactly as it was the first time is slightly scary. Will I remember my child's first step clearly or my high school graduation? Perhaps that is what Proust is trying to do; capture himself in a moment to examine. But in that caging, he also changes his memory because he can go back and visit it. So, memory is a recursive process, just like writing or reading.
So, when I smell the Fruit Stripes gum, I will remember the summation of childhood summers AND the ENG experience, tainting the original memory, that actually does not exist anymore.
In other news, would anyone like a cookie?
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Why "Tristram Shandy" Sucks So Much
So the title is a little bit dramatic, and I don't actually think the book sucks.
I think hate can stem from ignorance, a lack of understanding. That in mind, I hate (not think sucks) Tristram Shandy. This is because I don't understand it! I cannot pay attention to the narration, often wondering what I should make for dinner or what I should wear to the party tonight.
Cue awesome transition/lightbulb!
This week's readings on attention and scientific study of that phenomenon is perfect for self-diagnosis! My question I will attempt to answer in this blog post is: What about Tristram Shandy hinders my (and other readers') ability to pay attention to the narration? And maybe, just maybe, I will not hate it so much.
My initial thought is that Sterne plays with our attention purposefully. In all honesty, I cannot keep track of the original story, if one such exists! Sterne embeds story within story within story, pulling the audience along. For instance, the beginning of Volume II deals with Uncle Toby's story of his groin injury and subsequent recovery. Now this story was deemed necessary, or rather was brought upon us, while Tristram tells the story of his birth, in which his father and Toby are present. Only, the scene in the parlor with father and uncle is last mentioned in detail Vol I Chapter 18, 40 pages previous. These layers are not neat and organized with a clear voice. This voice is complex which detracts from a neat narrative. The voice not only tells the story from the character in question's perspective (Uncle Toby, Tristram, the father ect...) but also interjects into the story as Shandy himself. This skews the flow and distracts us.
The Vu article states that, "Many studies have showed that it is easier to perform two tasks together when the tasks use different stimulus or response modalities than when they use the same modalities. (20) Now, Shandy is using the same modality, that is written word, to convey multiple tasks, that is multiple stories. And to be fair, many books, movies and songs do the same thing. But I think this particular novel is so confusing because the voice never changes. Shandy tells all the stories in the exact same way, which does not allow us to see the physical scene shift. As readers, we do not notice that Shandy has engaged in a pseudo-discourse with someone outside the novel, like the critick in Vol. II, and strayed from the Uncle Toby discourse. Or, we do notice, but too late to create distinct breaks with which we organize the multiple stories.
Succinctly, Sterne is messing with the reader's ability to pay attention to the story through the narrator's inability to pay attention to his own story! We have so much information thrown at us in subtly sarcastic and mocking ways. There are constant references to outside world: literature, scientific thoughts, theories, events, even actual people! The information clogs the pages, obscuring the story, I think on purpose.
I'm starting to see the brilliance in the novel. The Vu article spoke about the philosophical period of attention developments. This particular quote struck me, "Malebranche held that we have access to ideas, or mental representations of the external world, but not direct access to the world itself." (4) What if this goes on in the world of literature? Sterne makes us well aware that TRISTRAM SHANDY controls the words. He tells us exactly what is going on, and that view is flawed and confusing. The reader cannot enter the parlor room directly through the narration because Shandy won't back away. Metaphorically, it's like he is a green-tinted window through which we see the action being played out. The green tint distorts our access to the action inside, and we cannot get rid of it. For example, " I could not give the reader this stroke in my Uncle Toby's picture, by the instrument with which I drew the other parts of it..." (81) Shandy is admitting he is in control of Toby's picture, that is his world, and we as readers have to accept that we will get no other view, and perhaps forces us to imagine an alternate picture, one that changes our perception of Uncle Toby.
Alright, so I kind of dig this book now. I'm still not happy with the lack of actual story, but I think I need to step back and realize that this is not Jane Eyre. The book is a liminal character, flitting between a traditional method of story telling and an almost stream of consciousness narration. Which, in my opinion, is a really hard thing to do, especially when the stream of consciousness won't be invented for another 150 years or so. Sterne is turning the novel inside out and flipping it upside down. This leads me to believe that maybe the story isn't the focus, it's the voice. Our inability to have direct connection to the world, that we have to look through green tinted windows. But what happens when we realize the tint is there?
I'm on to you Laurence Sterne. Watch out.
I think hate can stem from ignorance, a lack of understanding. That in mind, I hate (not think sucks) Tristram Shandy. This is because I don't understand it! I cannot pay attention to the narration, often wondering what I should make for dinner or what I should wear to the party tonight.
Cue awesome transition/lightbulb!
This week's readings on attention and scientific study of that phenomenon is perfect for self-diagnosis! My question I will attempt to answer in this blog post is: What about Tristram Shandy hinders my (and other readers') ability to pay attention to the narration? And maybe, just maybe, I will not hate it so much.
My initial thought is that Sterne plays with our attention purposefully. In all honesty, I cannot keep track of the original story, if one such exists! Sterne embeds story within story within story, pulling the audience along. For instance, the beginning of Volume II deals with Uncle Toby's story of his groin injury and subsequent recovery. Now this story was deemed necessary, or rather was brought upon us, while Tristram tells the story of his birth, in which his father and Toby are present. Only, the scene in the parlor with father and uncle is last mentioned in detail Vol I Chapter 18, 40 pages previous. These layers are not neat and organized with a clear voice. This voice is complex which detracts from a neat narrative. The voice not only tells the story from the character in question's perspective (Uncle Toby, Tristram, the father ect...) but also interjects into the story as Shandy himself. This skews the flow and distracts us.
The Vu article states that, "Many studies have showed that it is easier to perform two tasks together when the tasks use different stimulus or response modalities than when they use the same modalities. (20) Now, Shandy is using the same modality, that is written word, to convey multiple tasks, that is multiple stories. And to be fair, many books, movies and songs do the same thing. But I think this particular novel is so confusing because the voice never changes. Shandy tells all the stories in the exact same way, which does not allow us to see the physical scene shift. As readers, we do not notice that Shandy has engaged in a pseudo-discourse with someone outside the novel, like the critick in Vol. II, and strayed from the Uncle Toby discourse. Or, we do notice, but too late to create distinct breaks with which we organize the multiple stories.
Succinctly, Sterne is messing with the reader's ability to pay attention to the story through the narrator's inability to pay attention to his own story! We have so much information thrown at us in subtly sarcastic and mocking ways. There are constant references to outside world: literature, scientific thoughts, theories, events, even actual people! The information clogs the pages, obscuring the story, I think on purpose.
I'm starting to see the brilliance in the novel. The Vu article spoke about the philosophical period of attention developments. This particular quote struck me, "Malebranche held that we have access to ideas, or mental representations of the external world, but not direct access to the world itself." (4) What if this goes on in the world of literature? Sterne makes us well aware that TRISTRAM SHANDY controls the words. He tells us exactly what is going on, and that view is flawed and confusing. The reader cannot enter the parlor room directly through the narration because Shandy won't back away. Metaphorically, it's like he is a green-tinted window through which we see the action being played out. The green tint distorts our access to the action inside, and we cannot get rid of it. For example, " I could not give the reader this stroke in my Uncle Toby's picture, by the instrument with which I drew the other parts of it..." (81) Shandy is admitting he is in control of Toby's picture, that is his world, and we as readers have to accept that we will get no other view, and perhaps forces us to imagine an alternate picture, one that changes our perception of Uncle Toby.
Alright, so I kind of dig this book now. I'm still not happy with the lack of actual story, but I think I need to step back and realize that this is not Jane Eyre. The book is a liminal character, flitting between a traditional method of story telling and an almost stream of consciousness narration. Which, in my opinion, is a really hard thing to do, especially when the stream of consciousness won't be invented for another 150 years or so. Sterne is turning the novel inside out and flipping it upside down. This leads me to believe that maybe the story isn't the focus, it's the voice. Our inability to have direct connection to the world, that we have to look through green tinted windows. But what happens when we realize the tint is there?
I'm on to you Laurence Sterne. Watch out.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Brave New World
I was taught in my Education courses that the best way to introduce students to a new topic is to relate the new material to things they already know; make connections. Very much a student, I need to connect this topic of cognition and neuroscience in relation to literature to that which I already know. Thus, this entry will look at the excerpt from René Descartes "Selections from Meditations on First Philosophy" with connections to ideas I already know. This will allow me to better understand what Descartes communicates as well as if I have (or have not) seen his theory in action before.
Having some French training (7 years) I have the happy ability to understand the famous Descartes phrase, "je pense donc je suis." I find the article in question to be the discourse leading up to the assertion of existence of "I think therefore I am." Indeed, the author begins with, "...I am nothing so long as I think that I am something... I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind." (21) Descartes establishes consciousness as existence.
He argues this point further through exploration of the physical body. Essentially, the body cannot do anything without the mind. What is the feeling of a hot stove without the mind to tell the "I" that it is hot? I really love how Descartes discusses dreaming as part of consciousness and existence. He acknowledges the power of dreams and how we don't stop "being" when we are asleep, for we still use our mind to dream, thus we still are. "I am a mind, or intelligence, or intellect, or reason- words whose meaning I have been ignorant of until now...a thinking thing." (22)
An discussion I have trouble following ensues just after the one previously mentioned. He questions the "I" the subject he claims to be. I think he asks himself is he of his mind or of his body...which one of these is his I. We cannot know that which we do not know, therefore we cannot be something we do not know we are. For example, if the United States of America banned the word "pancakes" in favor of "flap jack" in 1776, outlawing "pancake" written or oral presence on the continent, I would never know that the round thing I eat with syrup and butter for breakfast (or lunch or dinner) was a pancake, the pancake would never exist. Only a flap jack would because the round thing can't be what I don't know it could be. If I have this right, this is a very interesting argument. Can humans be something that we do not know we are? Can blue be purple if blue thinks it is actually purple?
Social construction is at play here in my mind. I remember a theory of language that said language is only made of differences because that is the only way we can communicate what we mean. The signs must be agreed upon as well. The English language calls a cloud a cloud because it is neither a tree nor a foot nor a sock. The French call a cloud a nuage because it is not a meuble, pomplemousse or chat. The English don't know a cloud as a nuage because that is not what they call it. The cloud cannot say to humans that is actually a nuage and not a cloud, or actually a cloud and not a nuage. The white fluffy thing in the sky is only what we know it as; a construction of our language. Thus, humans can only be that which we have constructed, that is, what we know. We can observe our physical body and (in a sense) hear our consciousness and know both exist.
On the final page of the article, Descartes brings in vision. By using the metaphor of the wax who can change states of matter, he says "that knowledge of the wax comes from what the eye sees, and not from the scrutiny of the mind alone." (24) This written observation (see what I did there? haha) mirrors the argument of knowing and not knowing. Only the brain and the eye together "make" the wax, without either one, the wax does not exist to us because we depend on the two to make the world around us. I connected this to concealing an explosive in a cupcake. Our eyes see the cupcake and the mind confirms it is a delicious pastry treat as well. However, we cannot see the true nature of the malicious frosted mini-cake because we do not know it's true nature, that is the one concealed to us. Now when the cupcake blows up (not harming anyone of course) we have new evidence that we must compromise with our brain and eyes.
What Descartes fails to note is the impact of the other senses as well as memory. Let's say the cupcake looked like a cupcake, but smelled like sulfuric acid? What would we conclude? We might conclude that we have to assume that it is not actually what we think it is. Another person who happened to know his friend used to make cupcake explosives would have different knowledge that us, the unawares. That person may view the treat as a potential threat, despite visual evidence. Also, what if that person yelled, "THAT CUPCAKE IS GOING TO EXPLODE! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE PEOPLE!!" We would give this man a quizzical look and recommend that he gets a good night's rest. I could be splitting hairs here, but I think previous knowledge is an important factor when determining what is real and what is not. Descartes could have learned that wax can melt but stay the same, as in someone told him the properties of wax, rather than his eyes alone telling him.
I find the underlying implications of his revelation strong. I am slightly obsessed with Shakespeare, particularly Hamlet. There is a wonderful quote, "There is not good or bad/but thinking makes it so." The world exists as it is, and the only way for humans to process it is through our senses, which our brain interprets. Descartes also admits that he does not know himself as well as he thought. "I should have a more distinct grasp of things which I realize are doubtful, unknown and foreign to me, that I have of that which is true and known- my own self." (23) I have to ask, is he really that "true"? We already called into question truth because we can only know what we have evidence of, and that does not necessarily make it "true."But when we think about it, we pass a judgement that makes the action, thing or person true, good, bad, right, wrong or silly. He also separates the body and mind, unlike later theorists who rejoice in the complex and unknowable joining of the two.
I think Descartes theory is still in society today. When a person decides to pull the plug on someone they know in the hospital because they are a "vegetable," that is they have no more consciousness, some may consider it the right thing to do because the hospitalized person does not exists anymore. After reading articles that question the placement of the mind and soul in relation to the body I feel I am not ready to make my own judgment on what makes a person exist. Or perhaps, I should not question that and simply rejoice in my consciousness, body and dreams.
Having some French training (7 years) I have the happy ability to understand the famous Descartes phrase, "je pense donc je suis." I find the article in question to be the discourse leading up to the assertion of existence of "I think therefore I am." Indeed, the author begins with, "...I am nothing so long as I think that I am something... I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind." (21) Descartes establishes consciousness as existence.
He argues this point further through exploration of the physical body. Essentially, the body cannot do anything without the mind. What is the feeling of a hot stove without the mind to tell the "I" that it is hot? I really love how Descartes discusses dreaming as part of consciousness and existence. He acknowledges the power of dreams and how we don't stop "being" when we are asleep, for we still use our mind to dream, thus we still are. "I am a mind, or intelligence, or intellect, or reason- words whose meaning I have been ignorant of until now...a thinking thing." (22)
An discussion I have trouble following ensues just after the one previously mentioned. He questions the "I" the subject he claims to be. I think he asks himself is he of his mind or of his body...which one of these is his I. We cannot know that which we do not know, therefore we cannot be something we do not know we are. For example, if the United States of America banned the word "pancakes" in favor of "flap jack" in 1776, outlawing "pancake" written or oral presence on the continent, I would never know that the round thing I eat with syrup and butter for breakfast (or lunch or dinner) was a pancake, the pancake would never exist. Only a flap jack would because the round thing can't be what I don't know it could be. If I have this right, this is a very interesting argument. Can humans be something that we do not know we are? Can blue be purple if blue thinks it is actually purple?
Social construction is at play here in my mind. I remember a theory of language that said language is only made of differences because that is the only way we can communicate what we mean. The signs must be agreed upon as well. The English language calls a cloud a cloud because it is neither a tree nor a foot nor a sock. The French call a cloud a nuage because it is not a meuble, pomplemousse or chat. The English don't know a cloud as a nuage because that is not what they call it. The cloud cannot say to humans that is actually a nuage and not a cloud, or actually a cloud and not a nuage. The white fluffy thing in the sky is only what we know it as; a construction of our language. Thus, humans can only be that which we have constructed, that is, what we know. We can observe our physical body and (in a sense) hear our consciousness and know both exist.
On the final page of the article, Descartes brings in vision. By using the metaphor of the wax who can change states of matter, he says "that knowledge of the wax comes from what the eye sees, and not from the scrutiny of the mind alone." (24) This written observation (see what I did there? haha) mirrors the argument of knowing and not knowing. Only the brain and the eye together "make" the wax, without either one, the wax does not exist to us because we depend on the two to make the world around us. I connected this to concealing an explosive in a cupcake. Our eyes see the cupcake and the mind confirms it is a delicious pastry treat as well. However, we cannot see the true nature of the malicious frosted mini-cake because we do not know it's true nature, that is the one concealed to us. Now when the cupcake blows up (not harming anyone of course) we have new evidence that we must compromise with our brain and eyes.
What Descartes fails to note is the impact of the other senses as well as memory. Let's say the cupcake looked like a cupcake, but smelled like sulfuric acid? What would we conclude? We might conclude that we have to assume that it is not actually what we think it is. Another person who happened to know his friend used to make cupcake explosives would have different knowledge that us, the unawares. That person may view the treat as a potential threat, despite visual evidence. Also, what if that person yelled, "THAT CUPCAKE IS GOING TO EXPLODE! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE PEOPLE!!" We would give this man a quizzical look and recommend that he gets a good night's rest. I could be splitting hairs here, but I think previous knowledge is an important factor when determining what is real and what is not. Descartes could have learned that wax can melt but stay the same, as in someone told him the properties of wax, rather than his eyes alone telling him.
I find the underlying implications of his revelation strong. I am slightly obsessed with Shakespeare, particularly Hamlet. There is a wonderful quote, "There is not good or bad/but thinking makes it so." The world exists as it is, and the only way for humans to process it is through our senses, which our brain interprets. Descartes also admits that he does not know himself as well as he thought. "I should have a more distinct grasp of things which I realize are doubtful, unknown and foreign to me, that I have of that which is true and known- my own self." (23) I have to ask, is he really that "true"? We already called into question truth because we can only know what we have evidence of, and that does not necessarily make it "true."But when we think about it, we pass a judgement that makes the action, thing or person true, good, bad, right, wrong or silly. He also separates the body and mind, unlike later theorists who rejoice in the complex and unknowable joining of the two.
I think Descartes theory is still in society today. When a person decides to pull the plug on someone they know in the hospital because they are a "vegetable," that is they have no more consciousness, some may consider it the right thing to do because the hospitalized person does not exists anymore. After reading articles that question the placement of the mind and soul in relation to the body I feel I am not ready to make my own judgment on what makes a person exist. Or perhaps, I should not question that and simply rejoice in my consciousness, body and dreams.
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