for next week 4/8

Using examples from The Bluest Eye, and Lipstick Jihad, explain how outward appearance affects inward understanding of self and identity. How is this complicated in terms of the ways individuals are contextualized in particular historical, cultural, and geographical situations? (Think abuot the relation between the individual and society--the outward appearance and self-identification/understanding.)

For wed 3/11

Sontag. from Regarding the Pain of Others

Assignment: read the following quotes, then write a response that explains some of the ideas that Sontag is trying to get at in Regarding the Pain of Others. Use any of the quotes below as well as other examples from the text that help to explain the ideas presented. (Remember that it's helpful to go to the pages from which the quotes are taken to read them in their full context; they'll make more sense that way too.)

Ch 5

“That a gory battlescape could be beautiful—in the sublime or awesome or tragic register of the beautiful—is a commonplace about images of war made my artists. The idea does not sit well when applied to images taken by cameras: to find beauty in war photographs seems heartless. But the landscape of devastation is still a landscape. There is beauty in ruins…Photographs tend to transform, whatever their subject; and as am image something may be beautiful—or terrifying, or unbearable, or quite bearable—as it is not in real life” (76).

“Transforming is what art does, but photography that bears witness to the calamitous and the reprehensible is much criticized if it seems “aesthetic”; that is, too much like art” (76).

Ch 6

“One can feel obliged to look at photographs that record great cruelties and crimes. One should feel obliged to think about what it means to look at them…” (95).

“Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question is what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated” (101).

Ch 8

“To designate a hell is not, of course, to tell us anything about how to extract people from that hell, how to moderate hell’s flames. Still, it seems a good in itself to acknowledge, to have enlarged, one’s sense of how much suffering caused by human wickedness there is in the world we share with others” (114)

“The images say: This is what human beings are capable of doing—may volunteer to do, enthusiastically, self-righteously. Don’t forget” (115).

“Perhaps too much value is assigned to memory, not enough to thinking” (115).

For Wed 3/4

For your blog post this week, write 3-5 paragraphs explaining what you are writing your midterm paper on and how you will go about presenting and supporting the argument you want to make. Say something about the sources you will use and what kinds of points you will make to support the overall argument.

Bring your ideas and points from Regarding the Pain of Others to discuss in class on Wed.

For Wed 2/25

Explain and respond to 1-2 points from each of the 2 chapters in Sontag's On Photography. Remember to write 3-4 paragraphs that include info and examples from the text.

For Wed 2/11

Write a 3-4 paragraph response on The Corporation and/or No Logo in terms of issues of "culture" and "identity" using specific examples from the text(s).

For Next Wed

Write a blog response that explains and responds to the ideas in Ohman's Selling Culture or Klein's No Logo. Focus on 1 or 2 points from either text, explain each point, and then respond to those points. Use quotes and info from the text for your discussion.

For Wednesday

For this Wed. post a blog response that discusses one or two points from Ohman (Selling Culture) and Adorno/Horkeimer (Culture Industry). You may take a point or two from Ohman for example and talk about this in relation to A/H in general or in relation to particular points from A/H. Please use quotes/info from the readings and specifically explain your points (don't generalize w/o explanation/support/discussion.

Also, keep thinking about other "transgressive" examples that work to counter/critique the totalizing Culture Industry and either write about these on the blog or bring them to class to discuss.