More Disgrace…

I am actually surprised by these next few chapters that we have read. I really thought that David Laurie could never be a father. He just doesn’t seem like the type to have a child. I know anyone can just be a father, but it does take something special to be a “daddy,” and with his past with just what we have read so far, I’m not exactly sure how he will do with this situation.

As for relating Disgrace to other theorists, I did have a tough time in doing this. I think it might be because I’m am not looking at the book in a “theorist” way. I think I’m just reading it for it’s face value. Anyway, I tried. On page 63 it says:

“One wants to leave something behind. Or at least a man wants to leave something behind. It’s easier for a woman.”

“Why is it easier for a woman?”

“Easier, I mean, to produce something with a life of its own.”

I thought about these few sentences for a while. They kind of remind me of Rubin’s piece. I think that Rubin’s piece is the most powerful one that we have read so far. I think that this is the one that hit me the most. Also, the whole “women as gifts things” would go well with this section. I just don’t get why women are so oppressed if they are valuable to our world. In these few sentences, it makes it seem like women are more important than men, just for the simple fact that they are able to give life to another. Yes, men help in this process, but it is the women who actually carry the child and produce it in the end.

Going back to Rubin’s kinship thing, I think it might relate to this. What I think she means is that kinship is basically roles and structures that one’s culture has. If women are so important because they are the ones who produce children, then why are they so oppressed and basically have such a low social status? Women are the target for oppression, so why are they valued so why does it seem like they are valued so much? Obviously you cannot make a child without both sexes, but like I said before, the women must carry so ultimately they are giving it life. It is ironic because they are the ones who make the males that actually oppress women.

Also on page 1672 of Rubin’s piece she talks about the whole “women as gifts thing.” Speaking of a woman as a gift, in a way, allows her to have more power. Gifts are usually something wanted or desired, something valued. So, my question is then why if they are “gifts, “ something valued, then why are they so oppressed. It just does not make sense to me. Maybe I’ll bring it up in class to clarify it a bit more.

Disgrace

I have to say that I did enjoy reading Coetzee’s piece so far. I thought that there were a lot of interesting things said here. It’s certainly a change from what we’ve been reading, so I’m open to it.

I liked a lot of the stories that this man told. I thought that were very interesting. One thing that I liked was on page 2 when he says “Affection may not be love, but it is at least its cousin.” I thought about this quote for a while, and to me, it does make sense. You can have affection toward people, it doesn’t even have to be sexual and you can still like a person. With love, there is so much more. You have affection, on top of so many other things. I liked that he referred to affection as a “cousin” because cousins are westerly the closest relatives to you, but they are still in the family.

I thought the whole referring to “sex” or “lust” as making love was a bit odd. Professor Lurie does this a lot in just the few short pages we’ve read. It’s funny because I think that it fits our society today. So many people refer to sex as making love, but how can it be if you are not in love? We have to admit that we do live in a very promiscuous world today, compared to say the early 1900s, or maybe its just that people are not ashamed to admit it today. Referring to “lust” as making love just doesn’t make sense to me, I just don’t see the connection between love and lust, to me, they are two totally different things. Maybe I’m just old fashion, but I think you need to be in love to make love. You don’t have to be in anything to make lust.

So far, I’m not really liking this Professor Lurie character, but we will see what happens further into the novel. I just hope his attitude changes a bit!!

Fanon

Reading Fanon’s piece really made me think. Race issues are not usually something I like to talk about. I feel like it is just a very touchy subject, but I do think that it is important. I feel like reading what other think about race issues could help me develop my feelings on race issues. Obviously, we all know that we are not all equal. It’s really not right, but we all know it’s true, whether we like to admit it or not. I just think that it is always interesting to see what others think about the subject in order to get the wider picture or view on the whole thing.

I did enjoy reading this piece, but like others, I was a bit confused on how Fanon wanted to compare African Americans to Jews. On page 115, Fanon writes “all the same, the Jew can be unknown in his Jewishness. He is not wholly what he is. One hopes, he waits. His actions, his behavior are the final determinant.” Fanon then goes on to talk about how Jews are harassed and “hunted down” and horrible things such as that, but then says that it is like little “family quarrels. When I first read that I was like “what?” How can you compare that type of thing to a little family quarrel? I didn’t fully get it until I read on. What I think he means here is that every race, religion, basically anything fights, but within each race or religion, there are fights as well, not only fights about them from other perspectives, but also quarrels within them.

Fanon then goes on to talk a lot about African Americans and how they are effected by their race. One thing that I thought was interesting was on page 117. Fanon writes “the black physician can never be sure how close he is to disgrace.” On first thought, I thought “well, can anyone really?” With any race, we all can never be too sure? But what does Fanon really mean here? I think that with any race, it is hard to always be right, because no one is ever fully right about a subject especially on a topic such as touchy as this one. The question is really what is considered disgrace and what is not? Figuring out that draws the line on what is right or wrong without putting a title on anything. When a title is placed on something, such as race, it automatically opens a new discussion of right and wrong. Why does anyone have to be right or wrong? Is it a sense of pride or power? Or is it just simply human nature that there has to be a stronger or more dominant group? I never really got that, why can’t we all just be equal? We are all basically the same anyway, so when we “disgrace,” shouldn’t it all be the same anyway? Instead of figuring out the level of “disgrace” by the color of our skin? I hope this made some type of sense here. It sounded so much better in my head.

After reading this piece, I do feel bad for Fanon for what he went through, but everyday, people are still going through the same things. It just doesn’t make sense that skin color or culture can really make us as humans that different. I personally don’t think that peace will ever be reached, just for the simple fact of arrogance. If we all just put aside our own ideas, our own upbringings on the subject for a moment, we would realize that we all not all that different, but still I think that our upbringings and our own personal views are the very thing that allows us to create a barrier between cultures. The cycle is really never ending.

How I’ve Grown so far…

It’s always fun to evaluate yourself half way through a semester. You never really know how much you’ve really grown unless you do. Since the beginning of this semester in Lit. Crit. Theory, I do think that I have grown a lot in many different ways. I started to write this so many times as we had our spring break, but I just don’t think that I was ready. I thought a lot about it and of course, like everything else, I have to wait until the last minute to write about it. I think for this assignment, I did the right thing, waiting until the last minute, just for the simple fact that I had an entire week to think about it.

I’m sure many others will agree with me when I say the reading for the class isn’t exactly easy. When we first started reading out of our dear friend Mr. Norton, I honestly thought about dropping the class. I knew this was impossible because as an English major, this is required. I also heard many horror stories of students failing because of the readings and the work load and I honestly thought that I would never make it past the first week. One thing that I’ve learned from life, as well as this class is “what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.” I personally think that my reading skills have grown immensely since the beginning of the semester. Whenever I open a book for the reading assignments, the words on the page actually make some sense to me, although I do not believe that I have completely mastered the art of this class. Our first few theorists were honestly a complete blur to me. That is until they kept coming up in different assignments later on in the class. I think this is when I really got it and why we read them in the first place. Theorists such as Deleuze and Guattari and Bakhtin made no sense at all to me. Even when we were through talking about them, I still only had little knowledge of what they were truly about. Now, after reading many other, including Watchmen, I feel that I have a better understanding of them, not only because their theories were repeated throughout many other readings, but because they actually make some sense to me.

My reading is not the only thing that has evolved since the beginning of the semester. I feel that my writing has as well. When we first started, I would just pick out a few things about the reading, write them down in my post and then wait for them to be discussed in class to actually understand them. I honestly thought it was impossible to decipher them since I didn’t even think half of them were even in English. Now, I give the theorists a lot more thought before writing my post. I still do write down things that are confusing and blurry for me, but now, I also pick out things that I at least think I understand, and basically hope I’m right. Sometimes, after class, I realize that I am right and I did have the right idea, or ideas that others had as well. Other times, I am completely wrong with what I had thought. I think that being right or wrong doesn’t really matter. I think that trying is key. In the beginning, I though that I’d never be able to write a post of this stuff. Now, I ready for the challenge and looking back on my posts, I think that I’ve grown a lot. I now have more posts that say “I think what this means is…” instead of “I didn’t get this…” I feel that because it is mandatory that we write blogs, it makes us think about the readings a bit more, which helps us develop our writing skills a bit more.

I’ll start out by saying my conversation does need a bit more work. I’ve always been pretty shy in the classroom setting, at least when it comes to speaking about things such as these theorists. It is not that I do not want to speak about them, it is just that I feel like my idea is completely wrong, or just doesn’t make sense. I’ve realized that so many times after a class that I was right on an idea or two, but I never speak about it, or I do, but I speak very little on it. I think that conversation is the part that needs the most work thus far. Another thing is that, I feel that other ideas that are brought up in class are far better than mine and I’m basically like “well, I thought I had it” and I realize that I was completely wrong. I think that I really need to just get over my fear of being wrong on these things and just say what I think, like in group work. I think working group work is key to this class. I think it gives me, as well as other students a chance to really figure out what all of these theorists are trying to say. It gives us time to take time out from the class, and just say what we think and if it’s wrong, it’s ok because at least you’re not embarrassed by having the entire class hear it. One thing that I’ve realized is that more of my ideas develop in group work. I think in a small group, communication is much easier and our ideas build off of one another, which allows us to have a deeper understanding of the subject matter.

I think that evaluating yourself in anything really is key to being successful. I feel that you’ll never really know how you are doing in something if you do not stop and actually think about it. With this class, even though I do think that it is quite the challenge, I think that it is not impossible. The readings may be tough and writing about them might be even harder, but I think that it is all about the learning process and what we take from the problem solving skills that we have learned. I think that challenges are always fun, no matter what they are. I think that it is the end of the challenge that really makes you realize how much you have learned and what you will take with you, which is what I think the whole point of the class really is.

Rubin

Trying to figure out theorists high on cough and cold medicine is not easy, but I tried. I found Rubin’s piece to be very interesting, although I didn’t quite fully understand it. I did notice that she talks a lot about labor and reproduction much like Althusser did. I liked how she talked about in terms of women and housework. On page 1665 Rubin says “a number of articles have tried to…locate the oppression of women in the heart of the capitalist dynamic by pointing to the relationship between housework and the reproduction of labor.” Rubin then goes on to say that in order to figure out the relationship between housework and the reproduction of labor, women must be placed “squarely in the definition of capitalism, the process in which capital is produced by the extraction of surplus value from labor by capital” (1665). Okay, so this kind of made sense to me. I understand that in order to figure out the connection between that two, you must first define it, but housework does not involved getting paid, so how would you figure out the correlation between the two? When I read on, I just got more confused. Does Rubin mean that because women do not get paid for doing housework then they are oppressed by it? Or is it just a different form of oppression?

Another thing that I found interesting was the whole ‘sex/gender system” and the “gender-stratified systems.” Rubin says that “it is important…to maintain a distinction between the human capacity and necessity to create a sexual world, and the empirically oppressive ways in which sexual worlds have been organized” (1669). When I first read this I was like “WHAT?!?” It just didn’t click with me on what she was trying to say here. Maybe it was just the meds, but the main example that came to mind was the babies in China. I learned in high school that if a family has more than one female, then they either kill her or give her away and the boys are kept no matter what. Males are the dominant figures and are highly valued for the country. When I first heard this is made me sick. I really could not believe what I was hearing. It didn’t make sense to me that people were actually ok with doing this and had no remorse afterward, but I think that is what Rubin was trying to get across here.

Wikipedia says that “Kinship is the most basic principle of organizing individuals into social groups, roles, and categories. It was originally thought to be determined by biological descent, a view that was challenged by David M. Schneider in his work on Symbolic Kinship (1984, A Critique of The Study of Kinship). The crux of his argument was that anthropologists had founded the domain of “kinship” on the notions of human reproduction and the biologically defined relatedness of their own Euro-American culture. Human reproduction and notions of biological relatedness cannot be presumed to structure people’s social relationships in other cultural contexts.” Okay, so I had to look this one up here because I just didn’t understand it in the terms that Rubin was explaining it. The “elementary structures” thing didn’t work so well either. What I think she means is that kinship is basically roles and structures that one’s culture has, but if women are the target in oppression in one’s culture, then does it mean that it is just part of the structure of the “system” or does every culture have a different definition of what kinship should be?

Although I didn’t fully understand this article, I did enjoy reading it. I find the whole “women oppression” thing to be very interesting. I just can’t get over the fact that it is still occurring today and our society is suppose to have grown? Now I’m not really into the whole feminist thing, but this just doesn’t make sense to me. Oppression of women is just hard for me to understand when we are suppose to have a “free” and “equal” nation. I realize that it is worse across the world in other countries, but it still bothers me that it is happening here and it is still present in our country today.

Althusser

Welcome back theorists!! I’m happy that they have returned, but I do miss the pictures!! Anyway, I actually enjoyed reading Althusser, well what I understood of it. I did enjoy his overall reading and I thought a lot of his ideas were very interesting and did make some sense to me.

One thing that I thought was interesting was on page 1486. Althusser says “Their index of effectively (or determination), as determined by the determination in the last instance of the base, is thought by the Marxist tradition in two ways: (1) there is a ‘relative autonomy’ of the superstructure with respect to the base; (2) there is a ‘reciprocal action’ of the superstructure on the base.” When I first read this I was like “what?!?” I really had no clue what it meant. After reading it a few more times, I think I got some of it. I think what Althusser means is that there are rules according or in accordance to the “base.” Althusser goes on to say on page 1487 that “…the Marxistopography  of the spacial metaphor of the edifice…..is crucial, that it reveals that it is the base which in the last instance determines the whole edifice.” So, what I think this means is that Marxistopography is extremely important in naming or determining the base, which is crucial to the whole “superstructure.”

I also thought the “Ideology Has No History” part was quite interesting. I like how he starts the section off with “one word first of all to expound the reason in principle which seems to me to found, or at least to justify, the project of a theory of ideology in general and not a theory of particular ideologies, which, whatever their form (religious, ethical, legal, political), always express class positions.” I think this does make sense. Class positions seems to wrap everything up into one. I think I agree with him in that it does explain more than one thing, whether the religion, political or whatever has an influence on it. It can be explained though class positions. For example, our society today is still considered to have different class positions, which explain our jobs and really positions in life. It makes sense for class positions to explain different concepts and ideologies too.

The end of Watchmen

I have to admit that I am glad that this novel is over. It was a nice change to have a break from our other authors, but for some reason Watchmen just didn’t do it for me. Maybe it’s because I had an extremely hard time relating it to the pieces we have read so far. I’m also not a huge fan of comic books either, so I guess that could be why. Either way, I’m ready to get back in the old swing of things and tackle some new authors.

 A lot of things happened at the end of this novel. I, like some others, just can’t get over the fact that Laurie ends up with Dan. I mean, I did see it coming, because I do think their flirting among other things was quite obvious but I can’t help but feel bad for Jon. And him walking in on them after they engaed in “sexual relations” didn’t help the situation either. I kind of wanted Laurie to be with Jon, especially after everything that went on between the two.

Another thing that I found interseting was the whole sitiuation with Rorschach. Maybe I’m a softy, but I feel bad that he is dead now. I did like that he sends his journal away though. I think it’s a piece of him that will live on, even though he is gone now. I was a bit confused as to who was going to receive the journal, but then when I found out he was sending it to the newspaper I liked it even better. Having the entire world read you thoughts it the untimate to “live on” even after your death. Way to go Rorschach!

Throughout this novel we kept seeing those damn “Nostaglia” bottles popping up everywhere. By the end, the name “Nostaglia” has changed to “Millenium.” I didn’t really understand why this happened. The only thing that I could think of is that maybe the name changed because the situations with the characters changed so much? I’m not really sure, but I’m sure we’ll go over this in class since a few people have written about it so far.

As for the connections to other authors, I think that I’m going to stick to the Deleuze and Guattari theory of chaos. I feel that this could fit the novel best. Living in a world with chaos like the charatcers in this novel, superheros are obviosly going to be needed. But, unlike reality, happy ending don’t always happen at the end. I think I like the “fairy tale” world better. It’s a nice break from the real world and what’s happening around us.

Watchmen 2……I hate snow

Okay, so I officially hate New York and all the snow that comes with it. I’ve been living here since I was born and I still can’t get over the gross amount of snow we get! It’s so annoying! Anyway, because of the glorious life stopping snow, I had plenty of time to read the Watchmen while I was snowed in, drinking my hot chocolate. I’ve never really been into the comics and I’m really having a hard time getting into this one. I feel that, especially after these chapters, that there is just so much information to digest that I can’t keep it all straight. I think I actually might be a little better at trying to figure out stuff like Saussure or Deleuze and Guattari, but a comic was a nice break, but needless to say I happy it’s almost over.

Through out these chapters a lot happened. Like many others, I really enjoyed hearing Dr. Manhattan’s back-story on his life. It was so sad and I feel that he feels helpless. I couldn’t even imagine knowing the future and not being able to do anything to stop the bad events the were going to occur. Dr. Manhattan does have the power to change things, yes, but if he does he could possibly set off a course of events that could be even worse than what was going to happen in the first place. This may be a stretch, but I kind of thought of the president and his job in relation to Dr. Manhattan and his.  Many people do think that “We are puppets” and I do believe that this is true, but I think that we partly allow ourselves to be.  I think it’s because we are afraid to know what’s going to happen or what might happen, so people like Bush and Dr. Manhattan have to decide things for us. Don’t get me wrong, I do have some strong words that I would love to say to Bush if I ever had the chance, but his job is difficult if you think about it. It’s like he does know some of the future and what’s going to happen. One mistake, like 911, turned our world up-side-down. I think Dr. Manhattan has the same problems with which issues to touch and which ones to leave a lone. You never quite know what’s going to happen with each decision that you make.

Like others, I too noticed the strategically placed Nostalgia bottles. I wasn’t exactly sure what they meant. I guess the bottles spilling could mean a loss of the past. Maybe it’s that we are suppose to not forget the past, but push it aside so that we can live here in the present and also prepare ourselves for the future.  I’m not really sure, but I’m sure we will discuss it in class today, which will help me clear up a few things.

Watchmen

Ok, so after trying to post this stupid thing and being unsuccessful because twice because of internet issues in my house, here goes a third time! I really enjoyed reading Watchmen so far. I had no clue that it was going to be a comic book. I was really quite surprised and happy at the same time. I had never really been into the comics, but like others have posted, I found this very interesting. I felt it was very difficult to find a connection to the authors we’ve read in class so far. I wasn’t really sure if a connection even existed, but here goes.

I felt that Deleuze and Guattari’s chaos theory could be somewhat connected. If you think about it, it does make sense. With all the destruction, all the chaos that is taking place in the “super hero” world, I truly thought it was set in the future. I, like other classmates, was very surprised to see the time it was actually set in. I guess every era has had destruction and chaos. Basically since the dawn of time, our earth has had chaos so it does make sense that the time it was set in also has chaos.

After reading some other posts, especially Elizabeth’s, I felt that there was also a connection between Saussure and Watchmen. Saussure talks about the idea of speech and language and how they don’t exactly have to be taken in their literal form. I think that the pictures in Watchmen are an example of this. Pictures are a way of communicating ideas without words, which makes a topic easier to understand. Obviously there are a great deal of pictures in Watchmen because it is a comic, but think about it if there were none. I think it would be much more difficult to understand what was happening and also the course of events. Although I do think that pictures do sometimes take away from the readers imagination, I think that they help out a great deal in understanding and also communicating ideas.

I thought that the third chapter was a bit confusing, but like I said pictures did help in understanding it as a whole. So far, I really like this novel. Even though I did think it was difficult to relate it to our readers, I do believe that I can learn from it.

Jameson….getting warmer

Halaloua!! I felt that Jameson’s piece was the easiest to understand so far. He was much more straight forward than other authors that we have read. I love that he doesn’t use big annoying words to dance around his one simple point. I think this is one of the main reasons that allowed me to actually understand this. Some of the other author’s words just got in the way, which lead to a lack of understanding what exactly they were trying to say. Props to Jameson!

I thought a lot of this article was very interesting, perhaps this was because it actually made some sense to me. I really like his whole section on “The Death of the Subject”. I especially liked his explanation of “dead individualism”. On page 1964 Jameson says “The great modernisms were, as we have said, predicted on the invention of a personal, private style, as unmistakable as your fingerprint, as incomparable as your own body. But this means that the modernist aesthetic is in some ways organically linked to the conception of a unique self and private identity, a unique personality and individuality, which can be expected to generate its own unique vision of the world and to forge its own unique, unmistakable style.” I thought that he hit the nail right on the head here. I feel that all authors want to have a sense of individualism in their works. It makes sense that it is linked to their own self identity and personality. I feel like an author should have a piece of themselves in their work in order to make in more real for their readers.

Jameson goes on to say in the next couple of paragraphs that indiviualism is basically dead and that it is now an “unspoken” thing or a thing of the past. He says that there are two positions on this theory. He says that the first is “content to say: yes, once upon a time, in the classic age of competitive capitalism, in the heyday of the nuclear family and the emergence of the bourgeoisie as the hegemonic social class, there was such a thing as individualism, as individual subjects……today, that older bourgeois individual subject no longer exists.” Jameson says that the second position is the more radical of the two. He says that “not only is the bourgeois individual subject a thing of the past, it is also a myth; it never really existed in the first place; there have never been autonomous subjects of that type.” Although I understood these points, I don’t nessaceraliy agree with them.

I don’t think that it is possible to write a piece of work and not have a piece of you attached to it. I’m going to try to explain what I mean by this without completely confusing all of you, so here goes. I understand that it is hard to write about something that someone else has not already written about, but I still believe that the piece can still be considered a part of “individualism”. Whenever I write something, whether it’s fiction or fact, I always realize that I’ve something or another about myself. Whether it’s an opinion or something else, a piece of me is there. I think it’s silly to say that individualism is a myth or a thing of the past. Although a piece may not be completely written “individually”, I still think that no matter what the subject, a piece of the writer can be found somewhere in it.