Thanks for the feedback Dale. Just to clarify, I want to focus on how the competitiveness between human beings is, according to the ideas Carpenter lays our in his film, one of man's greatest downfalls. Do you think this idea will work? I just really need a solid idea so that I can get at least a B+ if not an A on this paper. In your email, you said I needed to stick very close to my thesis, what tangent were you worried I might go off on?
Oppositional language in distinguishing the direction -- be it negation, position, or some hybridization -- of association as part of the social, natural collective (an inclusionary affiliation with both a cause & consequence, and neither) where sub-, infra-, and non-human are critical aspects to a greater, achievable construct of what humanity is.
I have a question. So we somewhat discussed my thesis friday (Valerie Solanas, lens of Butler, etc) but I had a question about the body of the essay. Should i structure the body around figures of speech (so her satire, then her irony) or around her different structures of argument?
Well, since your focus is on relations between humans -- which, as I said in my e-mail to you, seems to me a very productive angle -- but the film is endlessly drawing our attention to relations between humans and aliens, it is easy to see how you might get drawn into analyzing things on those lines rather than keeping to your chosen focus. You see what I mean?
Ok, thats totally fine because my whole focus is between the human on human relationship (thats sounds dirty...) and i will only mention the aliens as an instigator/ enabler for the already present issue within most human beings.
Eva your question suggests a rather formal approach -- you know, a framework of figures, structures, and so on. But, the key thing is actually to let the structure be determined by the support through close reading of the thesis. If drawing attention to a figure supports the thesis, then do so, if not, don't. So far, I think you've got a good general vantage. But a strong thesis still needs to emerge from that vantage to organize your thoughts, observations. What are your ideas along those ideas?
I want ensure that I do a very close reading on my final paper.
Would you please expand upon that concept, for example, using your lecture regarding Fanon and "black is not a man." (I'm not writing on Fanon but just wanted to suggest a neutral subject.) What would you expect to see in the 6 pages? Recall that you broke down that text into 3 distinct meanings. Still, there's a limit -- or is there? -- as to what can be said of that particular piece of the text?
Thanks a bunch Dale, I am going to start on my rough draft right now and I will probably check in in an hour with some more questions. have fun being attacked by copious amount of inquiries.
About DJ's comment -- we will turn to your topic Tuesday after a fashion. A thing to think about: Haraway/Butler explicitly repudiate post-gender discourses, advocating instead more capacious re-articulations of sex-gender, while Fanon/Gilroy advocate post-race very insistently... What's the difference, esp. given the complementary formulations of identity as linguistic-performative practices issuing out in legible social bodies?
Presumably it is the task of supporting your claim that governs and disciplines your close reading. One could always read closer, read more, there's always another detail or association that one can draw attention to that can lead to who knows what kind of serendipitous insights... As you are producing your close reading, always be able to answer satisfactorily to yourself the question, how does this textual selection, contextualization, objection/qualification, bit of evidence support my thesis?
In other words, following your logic that suggests a man is a woman (if not a man), would you expect to see support from the text that reduces female stature, as to power within society, etc., and how the powerlessness of a black man is related?
As to close readings, would you expect just a singular reading from the text (phrase, sentence, paragraph, page)to be developed in the 6 pages, as opposed to several quasi-related phrases, sentences, paragraphs, pages to the overall thesis of the text?
What I am trying to argue is that Solanas' piece is not the ravings of a mad(crazy), mad (angry)woman, but rather that if you interpret a new language of gender through her piece (that eliminating the male sex is actually eliminating the concept of male as seperate from female), her claims become quite rational and understandable. Her use of irony, satire, parody, etc. adds to this understanding, because without the new definitions within her language, the piece would genuinely sound crazy. Does that make sense at all?
Sorry again . . .doesn't appear that my first question was posted!
Dale, I'd asked you to expand upon the concept of "close reading" by using your lecture example of "black is not a man ..." I'm not writing on that but just wanted something neutral to draw from.
I want to be sure to do the expect "close reading."
There is a limit -- or is there -- to how much can be said about a "seemingly" limited text?
Cheryl -- first off, my lecture suggested that part of what Fanon seemed to suggest in saying "the Black is not a Man" is that the one constituted by the irrational rationality of race was rendered more like a woman, and that there was something inherently misogynist about this formulation that played out in the whole book. That's not something I believe, that;s something I believe Fanon believed.
There is no universal rule about whether a thesis is best supported through the close reading of one or of several passages -- I've been blown away by papers on both ends of that spectrum.
Thanks again for offering office hours online. I was planning on giving a close reading of Arendt's piece "Conquest of Space"
I want to argue that Arendt's metaphorization of theory as (outer)space contrasts two different conceptions of rhetoric. The first is where rhetoric is merely understood as the "art of persuasion" (and the notion of deception that inheres within it) -- one that would "conquer" space, one that monopolizes "power", one used by a "researcher." The second follows the definition you provided in the beginning of class (as the facilitation of efficacious discourse) -- one of the "pure" scientist, where one explores "space" rather than conquers it, and one that exercises a "power" that is an "interconnected formidable [one] of abstraction and imagination."
I plan on going into depth/defining each term that I have quoted above. Would this work overall, or is the thesis unclear/too general?
But as a general matter, I do think one typically reads several passages scattered throughout a text to make and support such a case. Especially if part of the task is to anticipate objections.
But does it matter if Solanas is crazy? Crazy people have created works of art and math and politics that have inspired millions. I think it is tricky to determine where madness ends and sanity begins in Solanas, especially since part of what she is trying to point out is that sex/gender is itself insane, and also because sex/gender violated and exploited her so terribly that it is only to be expected that she would be made a little bonkers by it.
I think a better claim would sidestep what looks like a diagnosis of Solanas, and focus instead on her diagnosis of gender. That risks being a very general claim unless madness is brought front and center in an interesting way in it. Perhaps the proposal that whether or not Solanas really is mad or not, part of the performance of the text is her playing at being mad to expose the madness of playing at gender given the way that game is rigged?
About using "I" in your writing. Many of you have been mislead by your instructors hitherto that you cannot refer to yourself in a paper, that a good argument exhibits a five-paragraph pyramid structure, and other such nonsense. The truth is far more exciting and awful. There are absolutely no rules at all -- only choices formed by your expectations of your audience and your own situation as a writer. If you choose to call attention to yourself in your piece through the use of the "I," it seems to me that the only question you need to answer is -- why should the reader care what you in particular think? Have you established yourself as uniquely interesting or relevant or credible on the question at hand? If yes, it makes perfect sense to use the "I" -- if not, the "I" may seem skewed, partial, immodest, self-congratulatory, who knows what. Context is all.
Are you sure Arendt thinks all theory through outer space? This is a more interesting question than you might think. In the Prologue to the Human Condition she reads closely the meaning of Sputnik's entry into the Earth's orbit, in light of Aristotle's co-location of philosophy and the stars. It is very specifically the world-alienating techno-scientific theory she assimilates to Kafka's Archimedean Point, isn't it? How does this relate to other modalities of thinking? Philosophical, Deliberative, Activist (the Marxist "Point Is to Change It"), and so on...?
I think the fact that you speak of "exploring" suggests you may be still a bit too general, but also I think you are in a good place... I don't want to get you off your track, but I am interested in your parenthetic declaration that deception is necessary with persuasion. Perhaps a thesis on the notion of deception in Arendt's piece -- the Scientist/Lucifer as the Deceiver, the self-deceived...
I guess I was a bit unclear. She doesn't locate theory solely in outer space...I was thinking more so that theory has been manipulated by scientists (and "researchers," more particularly) to exceed our own boundaries and sense perception. Theory, in this way, has been lost and seemingly irrelevant to the "layman," notwithstanding its invasiveness in his/her life. Nonetheless, I was hoping to discuss how space itself helps articulate the two conceptions of rhetoric that she offers up, the first being an outerspace that is totally abstracted from man, and the other being a harmonious navigation between outer and inner space (or, in other words, between the general and particular). Does that make sense/is that a good project to work with? Or am I getting lost (in space)?
Waseem -- two kinds of rhetoric, an instrumental world-alienated one spitting out toys and capacities and a deliberative/persuasive one in which questions of meaning, adjudicating disputes (about costs, risks, benefits, stakeholders of/to these developments) play out, right? Okay I see this, especially the notion that the scientists are disrupting rhetoric more than theory. That's a clear thesis. What would a strong objection be? (You're not in space...)
In Scum Manifesto, Valeria Solanas asserts that in order to eliminate sexism, humanity must “destroy the male sex.” Although Solanas was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenia and spent considerable time in mental hospitals receiving psychiatric aid, her writings both represent her insanity but also employ it. Insofar as Solanas’ views are radically extremist, she is able to use her ostensibly crazy objections and assertions in order to satirize those who have belittled the female gender, and in order to parody the madness within their own claims. As a woman who suffered at the hands of the definition of her sex (sexually abused by her father, beaten by her alcoholic grandfather, homeless at 15, forced into begging and prostitution), Valerie Solanas’ Scum Manifesto ascertains that in order to overcome the insanity that is sexism, a similar madness must be adopted.
Thanks a ton that's exactly what I was trying to get at. I'm having a little bit of trouble coming up with a strong objection but I'll approach you about it in the days to come.
Hey Dale. Did you get my email?
ReplyDeleteHi Dale!
ReplyDeleteI just responded to it this very second. Has it arrived yet?
ReplyDeleteGreetings!
ReplyDeleteI shall check lol
ReplyDeleteTap, tap, tap -- is this thing on?
ReplyDeleteWhy on earth would that inspire gales of laughter of all things?
ReplyDeleteYou guys certainly are a loquacious bunch.
ReplyDeleteI warn you the party's pretty slow so far, and I can't seem to find the bar...
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback Dale. Just to clarify, I want to focus on how the competitiveness between human beings is, according to the ideas Carpenter lays our in his film, one of man's greatest downfalls. Do you think this idea will work? I just really need a solid idea so that I can get at least a B+ if not an A on this paper. In your email, you said I needed to stick very close to my thesis, what tangent were you worried I might go off on?
ReplyDeleteOkay, so i'll throw down an idea I may work with as a final.
ReplyDeleteOppositional language in distinguishing the direction -- be it negation, position, or some hybridization -- of association as part of the social, natural collective (an inclusionary affiliation with both a cause & consequence, and neither) where sub-, infra-, and non-human are critical aspects to a greater, achievable construct of what humanity is.
ReplyDeleteI have a question. So we somewhat discussed my thesis friday (Valerie Solanas, lens of Butler, etc) but I had a question about the body of the essay. Should i structure the body around figures of speech (so her satire, then her irony) or around her different structures of argument?
ReplyDeleteWell, since your focus is on relations between humans -- which, as I said in my e-mail to you, seems to me a very productive angle -- but the film is endlessly drawing our attention to relations between humans and aliens, it is easy to see how you might get drawn into analyzing things on those lines rather than keeping to your chosen focus. You see what I mean?
ReplyDeleteSorry . . . didn't meant to start a new post.
ReplyDeleteHello to all!
Ok, thats totally fine because my whole focus is between the human on human relationship (thats sounds dirty...) and i will only mention the aliens as an instigator/ enabler for the already present issue within most human beings.
ReplyDeleteEva your question suggests a rather formal approach -- you know, a framework of figures, structures, and so on. But, the key thing is actually to let the structure be determined by the support through close reading of the thesis. If drawing attention to a figure supports the thesis, then do so, if not, don't. So far, I think you've got a good general vantage. But a strong thesis still needs to emerge from that vantage to organize your thoughts, observations. What are your ideas along those ideas?
ReplyDeletehuman on human relationship (thats sounds dirty...)
ReplyDeleteHuman on Alien relationships don't sound dirty? Let's ask Rick Santorum...
Dale,
ReplyDeleteI want ensure that I do a very close reading on my final paper.
Would you please expand upon that concept, for example, using your lecture regarding Fanon and "black is not a man." (I'm not writing on Fanon but just wanted to suggest a neutral subject.) What would you expect to see in the 6 pages? Recall that you broke down that text into 3 distinct meanings. Still, there's a limit -- or is there? -- as to what can be said of that particular piece of the text?
Thanks a bunch Dale, I am going to start on my rough draft right now and I will probably check in in an hour with some more questions. have fun being attacked by copious amount of inquiries.
ReplyDeleteAbout DJ's comment -- we will turn to your topic Tuesday after a fashion. A thing to think about: Haraway/Butler explicitly repudiate post-gender discourses, advocating instead more capacious re-articulations of sex-gender, while Fanon/Gilroy advocate post-race very insistently... What's the difference, esp. given the complementary formulations of identity as linguistic-performative practices issuing out in legible social bodies?
ReplyDeleteHello!
ReplyDeletePresumably it is the task of supporting your claim that governs and disciplines your close reading. One could always read closer, read more, there's always another detail or association that one can draw attention to that can lead to who knows what kind of serendipitous insights... As you are producing your close reading, always be able to answer satisfactorily to yourself the question, how does this textual selection, contextualization, objection/qualification, bit of evidence support my thesis?
ReplyDeleteYodelay, Eddie, howdy newcomers...
ReplyDeleteSounds good. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteGrand.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, following your logic that suggests a man is a woman (if not a man), would you expect to see support from the text that reduces female stature, as to power within society, etc., and how the powerlessness of a black man is related?
ReplyDeleteAs to close readings, would you expect just a singular reading from the text (phrase, sentence, paragraph, page)to be developed in the 6 pages, as opposed to several quasi-related phrases, sentences, paragraphs, pages to the overall thesis of the text?
What I am trying to argue is that Solanas' piece is not the ravings of a mad(crazy), mad (angry)woman, but rather that if you interpret a new language of gender through her piece (that eliminating the male sex is actually eliminating the concept of male as seperate from female), her claims become quite rational and understandable. Her use of irony, satire, parody, etc. adds to this understanding, because without the new definitions within her language, the piece would genuinely sound crazy. Does that make sense at all?
ReplyDeleteHey Dale, is it ok if we use I in the final paper or should we avoid first person writing?
ReplyDeleteSorry again . . .doesn't appear that my first question was posted!
ReplyDeleteDale, I'd asked you to expand upon the concept of "close reading" by using your lecture example of "black is not a man ..." I'm not writing on that but just wanted something neutral to draw from.
I want to be sure to do the expect "close reading."
There is a limit -- or is there -- to how much can be said about a "seemingly" limited text?
Cheryl -- first off, my lecture suggested that part of what Fanon seemed to suggest in saying "the Black is not a Man" is that the one constituted by the irrational rationality of race was rendered more like a woman, and that there was something inherently misogynist about this formulation that played out in the whole book. That's not something I believe, that;s something I believe Fanon believed.
ReplyDeleteAnd I do think you can see all sorts of places where that assumption plays out in sexist and heterosexist ways throughout his text.
ReplyDeleteThere is no universal rule about whether a thesis is best supported through the close reading of one or of several passages -- I've been blown away by papers on both ends of that spectrum.
ReplyDeleteHey Dale,
ReplyDeleteThanks again for offering office hours online. I was planning on giving a close reading of Arendt's piece "Conquest of Space"
I want to argue that Arendt's metaphorization of theory as (outer)space contrasts two different conceptions of rhetoric. The first is where rhetoric is merely understood as the "art of persuasion" (and the notion of deception that inheres within it) -- one that would "conquer" space, one that monopolizes "power", one used by a "researcher." The second follows the definition you provided in the beginning of class (as the facilitation of efficacious discourse) -- one of the "pure" scientist, where one explores "space" rather than conquers it, and one that exercises a "power" that is an "interconnected formidable [one] of abstraction and imagination."
I plan on going into depth/defining each term that I have quoted above. Would this work overall, or is the thesis unclear/too general?
Best,
Waseem
But as a general matter, I do think one typically reads several passages scattered throughout a text to make and support such a case. Especially if part of the task is to anticipate objections.
ReplyDeleteBut does it matter if Solanas is crazy? Crazy people have created works of art and math and politics that have inspired millions. I think it is tricky to determine where madness ends and sanity begins in Solanas, especially since part of what she is trying to point out is that sex/gender is itself insane, and also because sex/gender violated and exploited her so terribly that it is only to be expected that she would be made a little bonkers by it.
ReplyDeleteI think a better claim would sidestep what looks like a diagnosis of Solanas, and focus instead on her diagnosis of gender. That risks being a very general claim unless madness is brought front and center in an interesting way in it. Perhaps the proposal that whether or not Solanas really is mad or not, part of the performance of the text is her playing at being mad to expose the madness of playing at gender given the way that game is rigged?
ReplyDeleteAbout using "I" in your writing. Many of you have been mislead by your instructors hitherto that you cannot refer to yourself in a paper, that a good argument exhibits a five-paragraph pyramid structure, and other such nonsense. The truth is far more exciting and awful. There are absolutely no rules at all -- only choices formed by your expectations of your audience and your own situation as a writer. If you choose to call attention to yourself in your piece through the use of the "I," it seems to me that the only question you need to answer is -- why should the reader care what you in particular think? Have you established yourself as uniquely interesting or relevant or credible on the question at hand? If yes, it makes perfect sense to use the "I" -- if not, the "I" may seem skewed, partial, immodest, self-congratulatory, who knows what. Context is all.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds more manageable. I'll try to whip up an intro, and post back before long!
ReplyDeleteAre you sure Arendt thinks all theory through outer space? This is a more interesting question than you might think. In the Prologue to the Human Condition she reads closely the meaning of Sputnik's entry into the Earth's orbit, in light of Aristotle's co-location of philosophy and the stars. It is very specifically the world-alienating techno-scientific theory she assimilates to Kafka's Archimedean Point, isn't it? How does this relate to other modalities of thinking? Philosophical, Deliberative, Activist (the Marxist "Point Is to Change It"), and so on...?
ReplyDeleteI think the fact that you speak of "exploring" suggests you may be still a bit too general, but also I think you are in a good place... I don't want to get you off your track, but I am interested in your parenthetic declaration that deception is necessary with persuasion. Perhaps a thesis on the notion of deception in Arendt's piece -- the Scientist/Lucifer as the Deceiver, the self-deceived...
ReplyDeleteEva: Okay.
ReplyDeleteI'm listening to Mama Cass while I am tapping away at the keyboard. Do people still listen to Mama Cass at all?
ReplyDeleteHahaha, yes, they do...
ReplyDeleteThat's very encouraging.
ReplyDeleteAs to Mama Cass, "dream a little dream of me" is my mom's favorite song.
ReplyDeleteI guess I was a bit unclear. She doesn't locate theory solely in outer space...I was thinking more so that theory has been manipulated by scientists (and "researchers," more particularly) to exceed our own boundaries and sense perception. Theory, in this way, has been lost and seemingly irrelevant to the "layman," notwithstanding its invasiveness in his/her life. Nonetheless, I was hoping to discuss how space itself helps articulate the two conceptions of rhetoric that she offers up, the first being an outerspace that is totally abstracted from man, and the other being a harmonious navigation between outer and inner space (or, in other words, between the general and particular). Does that make sense/is that a good project to work with? Or am I getting lost (in space)?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dale ...
ReplyDeleteYour comments directed toward me, as well as the other students, have been helpful -- so I hope!
Waseem -- two kinds of rhetoric, an instrumental world-alienated one spitting out toys and capacities and a deliberative/persuasive one in which questions of meaning, adjudicating disputes (about costs, risks, benefits, stakeholders of/to these developments) play out, right? Okay I see this, especially the notion that the scientists are disrupting rhetoric more than theory. That's a clear thesis. What would a strong objection be? (You're not in space...)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Cheryl. It's been fun.
ReplyDeleteMama Cass -- I like It's Getting Better, One Way Ticket, Welcome to the World, Move In A Little Closer Baby, all the very hippy-happy stuff.
ReplyDeleteOh, and of course, the anthem, Make Your Own Kind of Music, how could I forget that one!
ReplyDeleteIn Scum Manifesto, Valeria Solanas asserts that in order to eliminate sexism, humanity must “destroy the male sex.” Although Solanas was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenia and spent considerable time in mental hospitals receiving psychiatric aid, her writings both represent her insanity but also employ it. Insofar as Solanas’ views are radically extremist, she is able to use her ostensibly crazy objections and assertions in order to satirize those who have belittled the female gender, and in order to parody the madness within their own claims. As a woman who suffered at the hands of the definition of her sex (sexually abused by her father, beaten by her alcoholic grandfather, homeless at 15, forced into begging and prostitution), Valerie Solanas’ Scum Manifesto ascertains that in order to overcome the insanity that is sexism, a similar madness must be adopted.
ReplyDelete--Thoughts, comments, advice?
her writings both represent her insanity but also employ it.
ReplyDeleteLove it!
I like it all -- I might tinker with a word here and there but I think it is very fine. Looking forward to reading it.
ReplyDeleteThanks a ton that's exactly what I was trying to get at. I'm having a little bit of trouble coming up with a strong objection but I'll approach you about it in the days to come.
ReplyDeleteThanks again,
Waseem
Thanks everybody, you've been a great audience!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your time Dale!
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you will receive a few emails tonight with further questions. :)