English 495 ESM: Multigenre Literacy in a Global Context, what a mouthful. Similar to other people in the class, I had no idea what to expect from it let alone what the name meant as a whole. Even the scope of my expectations faced limitations because I didn't have access to the course Moodle page, which contained the syllabus, for the first week or two. Once I actually got to take a look at the syllabus, the workload seemed a bit overwhelming because it was an area of work, work associated with technology beyond Moodle posts, that I hadn't done before for school. I'd never even attempted to create a blog before. One might say that for the generation I was born in to, I'm a little technologically behind or out of touch.
The blog was the first assignment. For this blog, we were suppose to post a weekly reflection that, preferably pertained to the course, could be on basically anything, at least from my understanding. Unfortunately, between the other assignments, presentations, and essays, that weekly post was frequently forgotten. However, the posting I did do wasn't for naught. It was a really refreshing change to write an essay and be able to insert pictures, video, links, and pretty much any other form of media content available to us; the normal assignments suddenly became an avenue for more than just written creativity.
While I'm on the topic of creativity, the second assignment that was required of us was analyzing a poem (a relatively simple task merely because writing essays are so familiar), and the third creating two unique poems that would also be posted on our blog. This assignment, as I expressed in an earlier post, gave me nothing short of anxiety. I hadn't written a poem of any sort since sixth grade, and even know I don't know how I managed to do that. Even worse, the poems were going to be graded, which in itself put the cherry on top of my apprehension: People, whether familiar to me or not, were going to read and judge something creative I'd done. I don't even like my parents reading my essays despite my having written a countless number of them. To my pleasant surprise though, the poem received a good grade and positive comments, effectually boosting my confidence and willingness to try taking more advantage of this new creative avenue, the blog.
Next, came the first group project, a Collaborative Myth Presentation. For this presentation, each group had to create a presentation in which we explored some aspect illustrated in the myth we chose. My group did the Vietnamese myth about the areca tree and betel nut. Essentially, we used this myth to draw conclusions and do research about the Vietnamese cultural foundations and history. The difficulty of this project was the group aspect. Most of my group members were very competent, but our schedules conflicted a lot, so it was hard corroborating with one another.
The fourth assignment was a Collaborative Media Literacy Presentation, another group project. This project required us to teach a certain grade level a lesson on any topic of our choice as long as it used some form of technology (PowerPoint and Prezi excluded). By this time in my school career, I've developed quite the disdain for group presentations because I often do most if not all the work. This wasn't the case with this group though. Ironically, there were some technological obstacles: Mine and Amber's emails pretty much refused to cooperate with each other. However, it turned out really well because all of our members had no problem doing their part, and despite the bump in communication, our presentation was really fun. Everyone seemed to be really into the type of technology, video games, we decided to use to teach our history lesson on the Civil War.
Aside from this post, our last assignment was the World Text Essay. For this essay, we read some economically and politically inclined journal articles Moodle and then related it to the topic of globalization within the movie Lost in Translation. This essay was actually enjoyable to write about because I'd never seen this movie and I loved seeing some Japanese culture, at least how it is viewed through an American lens.
This class was actually the biggest relief of my chaotic semester. The work was fairly challenging, but not a complete infringement upon the time I needed to complete other assignments in less favorable courses. In addition, there was a distinct, at least in my opinion, for every assignment we were given, I benefited from each assignment in some way. Overall, this course taught me a lot about how so many different kinds of technology can be integrated into education.
Education at the Fingertips
Monday, December 16, 2013
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Globalization: Cultural Dominance or Recreation?
Globalization has its benefits and consequences that make this
concept, or perhaps also an effect, a controversial topic. Globalization tends
to modernize through international influence, and repress cultural tradition as
a result, pushing culture out of developing metropolises and into the rural
countryside. Lost in Translation is about two unavailable strangers,
Bill and Charlotte, becoming romantically acquainted in a foreign land, Tokyo,
Japan. Bill and Charlotte’s story is less important than the experiences that
their story reveals through the Tokyo backdrop. Lost in Translation
demonstrates globalization, perpetrated for capital, through various forms of
iconism that form barriers between an old, resulting in an acculturation, and a
rising culture.
Tokyo, Japan itself is an icon as a globalized metropolis because
it is a center for generating capital. One way Tokyo generates capital is
through tourism. Examples of key elements that attract tourists are gambling,
buildings, and monuments. During Lost in Translation, the audience sees
examples and exhibitions for each of these three aforementioned components. For
example, gambling is seen in mass quantity for such close quarters when Bob and
Charlotte are running from a guy they and their friends are playing with. In
fact, the room they run through is so packed with slot machines that neither
the runners nor pursuers are able to move with their body completely facing
forward; they all had to turn their body left or right in order to squeeze past
the slot machine chairs. Gambling isn’t anything new to Japanese culture, but
the multitude of in- public participation with which gambling in Japan is
portrayed is unusual for the country’s more modest and frugal traditional
history. Italy, Germany, and the United States, throughout different points in
history, made public gambling wildly popular far before Japan undertook this
marketable finance, and in effect created a new profitable market of revenue,
tourism. Japan has taken a popular tourist attraction and placed it in a cross-
cultural city; the open presence of gambling in Tokyo is evidence of
globalization and demonstrates a specific purpose for making money.
The replica of France’s Eiffel Tower, viewable in the Tokyo
skyline, is a building that serves as another example of the globalization of
tourist attractions. The same is the case with the giant luminescent Ferris
wheel. However, the Ferris wheel is not a solely Japanese globalized
attraction, it’s one of history’s more light-hearted monuments; developing Ferris
wheels as famous attractions has history across several countries, providing
evidence for presence of worldwide globalization. According to David Harvey, in
regards to cities as places, “Space is a construction and material
manifestation of social relations which reveals cultural assumptions and
practices” (Harvey, 2nd slide). All of these attractions have influence or
inspiration drawn from other country’s popular icons. Japan’s adoption of these
icons reflects Japan’s utilization of globalization and therefore the existence
of it within the country, exemplified through Tokyo.
Globalization is further emphasized through the absence of it
outside of the city. Charlotte travels outside of the bustling city where,
through her visit, viewers can see another side of Japan: rooted cultural
tradition. One of Charlotte’s outings is to a temple. The temple and its
surrounding area are noticeably quiet and less populated; the countryside distinctly
tranquil compared to the city. The temple’s architecture is notably Asiatic in
origin, whereas the buildings in the city are fundamentally an “average”
skyscraper, indistinguishable as uniquely Japanese. During another outing,
Charlotte sees a Japanese couple involved in some part of a wedding ceremony.
Their garments and the quiet, respectful decorum of the party’s demeanor are
identifiably Japanese, or at the very least of Asiatic descent. Their clothing,
especially, differentiates itself from the popular high fashion wedding
clothing one would expect from a major city. There is one instance in Lost
in Translation that Charlotte discovers Japanese cultural roots within the
megalopolis that is the Tokyo city: Charlotte, feeling overwhelmed with one
feeling or another finds herself in a room with a group of Japanese women, who
are dressed in classical Japanese kimonos, and are creating Japanese flower
arrangements. The reserved and soft poise these women maintain throughout this
scene is obviously identifying. In addition, the difference in noise level
between the modernized city and traditional country, and the parts that
represent the traditional culture, is a primary way in which the two are
purposely separated from each other in the film, further emphasizing the effect
of globalization.
Globalization, as demonstrated in Lost in Translation, does
remove a cultures’ ancestral roots from the main city for the purpose of
producing income, consequently hindering the endurance of those cultural
traditions, but it also creates a new culture by doing so. According to Fredric
Jameson, author of “The Politics of Utopia”:
Perhaps the most
momentous specification of this opposition between the country and the city – a
shift into another register, which does not guarantee that the proponents of
each term remain ideologically committed to the same position when they change
floors, so to speak – is that between planning and organic growth. (48)
For example, language
barrier aside, many Lost in Translation viewers would probably agree
that the talk-show portrayed in the movie was spontaneous, complicated, and/or
confusing; the combination of various colorful literal and figurative elements
involved in the talk-show have made it distinctly Japanese. In addition, even
though it’s plausible that Japan adopted certain aspects of other cultures or
countries, the fact that all of these elements have been brought to a single
city, even if it is for money, makes the city of Tokyo its own, brand new,
unique culture; the combination of so many ideas and objects being brought to
Japan and integrated into the culture has resulted in substantial culture
modification rather than elimination. The cross- culture influence present in
Tokyo has created an amalgamated culture rather than the isolation or
corruption of other numerous cultures.
Similar to most things, globalization has its pros and cons, and
the arguments for one side or the other are many. A person’s view of this
concept and effect are individually dependent and, realistically, sort of a
moral “grey area.” Globalization can destroy cultures, but it can also inspire
new ones. Japanese culture, for example, was largely influenced by Chinese
culture due to centuries of war and trade. Unfortunately, some cultural
denigration, integration, and recreation must take place in order for any
country to substantially progress economically in today’s world market. In an
ideal and probably boring world, everyone would get along while maintaining all
of their cultural differences, have a comfortable life in which they truly want
for nothing, and politicians would be honest and as charitable as they
propagate everyone else should be, but the present world is reality, and in
reality everyone doesn’t “get their cake and eat it too,” the world is too big
for large-scope applicable ideals. Like globalization, capitalism and socialism
both have their individually dependent successes and failures. Historically
speaking, neither capitalism nor socialism has proven to work with even a
loosely relative minimal number of flaws, and yet people still rally behind one
or the other, just as globalization and all of its positive and negative
effects will continue to exist. All of these things are driven by humans
looking to make money, and as long as currency and human imperfection are
intermingled, all of these systems will be flawed.
Works Cited
Harvey, David. “Cultural
Space and Urban Place: The New World Disorder.”
Jameson, Fredric.
"The Politics of Utopia." New Left Review (2004): 35-54. Moodle.
Web. 14 Dec. 2013.
<https://moodle.csun.edu/pluginfile.php/1690811/mod_resource/content/1/http___www.newleftreview.pdf>.
Monday, November 4, 2013
There are
two things I’d like to address in this post since it’s been awhile since my last
one. To start off:
Last Monday,
each member of our class, within their groups, delivered their myth
presentations. The group I was in presented on sacred places. One reason sacred
places are significant to a culture is that they establish a foundation of
identity, moral fiber and whatnot. It was established during the presentation
that sacred places do not need to be in tangible existence, and that they
subjectively exist. We also stated that sacred places do not need to derive from
religion, although they often do in many cultures. After some postulation and
outside discussion, during which cultural versus religious foundations of a
number of peoples were distinguished, we asked two questions: Does objective
morality exist? Would morality exist without cultural and/or religious roots,
and if not, where would it come from or would it be at all?
The second
subject I’d like to quickly comment on is something I learned last week: The
Course of Empire. As dictated by Thomas Cole, each empire, civilization, etc.
goes through a number of stages ultimately leading to its fall. Those stages,
from “youngest” to “oldest” (I put this in quotes because, in a sense, this is
also subjective): 1. The Savage State; 2. The Arcadian State; 3. The
Consumption of Empire; 4. The Destruction of Empire; 5. Desolation. If whoever
is actually reading this post, and feels so inclined (assuming you don’t
already know what each of these stages entails), click on the link (http://thevelvetrocket.com/2010/04/21/paintings-of-the-day-the-course-of-empire-by-thomas-cole/) and read
what distinguishes these five stages. Then, post your answer telling which
stage you believe the United States of America is in now. Posting about other
countries is more than welcome.
Monday, October 7, 2013
*My two attempts at free verse poetry*
Future in the Yard
The Wind
blows.
He stirs
everything.
Rhinos dance
in the trees,
While a
creature from myth,
The
three-headed hydra sways,
Scraping
lightly at the sky,
And a dog
reaches to see the world beyond.
The Wind carries
life with it,
Hearing the
sounds of the world around,
Bringing all
the world
To us in our
sanctuary,
Bringing
happiness
Promise and
imagination
To the
forefront of our minds.
A Dream
Impending waters approach.
Refuge is taken on the beach,
In a Pink house; acceptance.
We watch Hope frolic on the shore
From the rocky bridge
Nervously trotted to,
Anxiety welling up from within;
Powerless acceptance.
Trepidation cries from the beach
As an omnipotent sheet swiftly
Sails forth seeking more ground.
A turning embrace as it takes us away,
A struggle beneath a pulling surface.
The bond is broken, but new life is promising; unexpected.
Water recedes, giving birth to a whole new world,
Its mysteries reset.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Freedom Through Poetry
*NOTE* I'm writing this with the preface that composing poetry requires more imagination than writing an essay does.*
Earlier this week, I posted a poetry essay assigned to the class. Then, in class, we were given the task of revising two of our classmates' essays, naturally laying out certain guidelines for what each person should look for when reading over each essay. In the same class, the professor asked us who had experience writing poetry. Many hands were not raised, my own included in this bracket. The very thought of having to create my own poetry to be read by a possibly large number of people, regardless whether I know them or not, produces anxiety and dread. I definitely prefer writing essays, I even enjoy it.
After reflecting on this class session I realized how sad it was that the idea of composing poetry made me so nervous; after so many years of writing essays, and being required to follow a certain structure, the freedom that writing in general was meant to grant has been virtually lost. Granted, I do feel structure within an essay is necessary for the sake of an instructor's efficient evaluation of it, but perhaps this well-practiced and enforced structure has stunted creativity. Yes, students are encouraged to produce new ideas and arguments to defend in their essays, but how many students, particularly before college, use the old ideas so they can simply get another essay out of the way? The "equal" essay to poetry might be a creative writing essay. But how many of those can you recall doing? Personally, I remember writing a single, one and a half page, creative writing "essay" in fifth grade. I can even recall what the premise of it was, whereas I couldn't tell you what the basis of an academic essay I wrote in high school, or even my first year of college was.
On this same class day, we were asked to create a series of alliterations, assonance, and metaphors. This being a class full of college level seniors, perhaps even a few juniors, majoring in English, none of these terms are completely unknown to us. Despite this, it took a substantial portion of class time before everyone was prepared to share. So, being a class addressing technology in the classroom, I postulate: Technology has obviously been utilized to accomplish structure, so how can it be effective in education for promoting creativity, perhaps even to create an amalgamation of formality and imagination? Not to eliminate one or the other, but to create a comfort with both; out of the box thinking can bring a great deal to an established structure. Opinions, feedback, input, etc. are very welcome?
Monday, September 23, 2013
Poetry Essay: "The Darkling Thrush" by Thomas Hardy
Economic and Societal Concern through Naturalism
Thomas Hardy was born in 1840,
during the second century of the Industrial Revolution, of which England was at the center of. He wrote “The Darkling
Thrush” in 1900, on the brink of a new era, the end of the Industrial
Revolution. Despite
the significant innovations that resulted from the Industrial Revolution, the
effects of this period were very controversial. These confusions about its
effects are reflected in “The Darkling Thrush.” In his poem, “The Darkling
Thrush,” Thomas Hardy utilizes tone, imagery, and personification to describe
the nature of England at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the
twentieth century, expressing his mixed concerns for his present time and the
new era to come.
The glum tone of “The Darkling
Thrush” is set through Hardy’s use of nature to describe the status of England,
more than likely London, as he spent a good chunk of his twenties there. According
to Cristopher Nash, editor of Narrative
in Culture: The Uses of Storytelling in Sciences, Philosophy, and Literature,
in which value is given to authors, Hardy being named specifically, in literature
in regards to evaluating and correlating economic status through the use of
naturalism, even in the primordial sense, is useful in terms of covering all
bases of argument (Nash 181). Although he doesn’t name specifics, “The Darkling
Thrush” is a reflection of his thoughts and feelings on the economy, and all those
encompassed in it, before and following the Industrial Revolution through the
use of the natural world. The poem begins, “I leant upon a coppice gate/ When
Frost was spectre- gray,/ And Winter’s dregs made desolate/ The weakening eye
of day,” immediately personifying elements of winter (Hardy 1-4). It seems he
personifies the characteristics of this season in order to get across a certain
cold feeling that he feels is reflected in London as a result of the Industrial
Revolution; the coldness of winter has been allowed to dominate the land
because it is in alignment with the author’s growing concern with the future
the period has left the new generation. The last line of this passage further
supports this as it contrasts with the typical signifier for day time, the
sunrise, bringing light and warmth to the land. Hardy feels as if the cloud
cover of English winters parallels the looming pollution that would have been
over the London sky during this time, using the words “The weakening eye of day”
as a symbolic reference for waning “light” of the country’s future and his lack
of hope for it (4).
Another instance in which despair
and ruin is shown is in the second stanza. The first half of this stanza reads,
“The land’s sharp features seemed to be/ The Century’s corpse outleant/ His
crypt the cloudy canopy,/ The wind his death-lament” (Hardy 9-12). Personification
is used again here to reflect the narrator’s perspective of the country
following a time of revolutionary innovation; Hardy feels the Industrial
Revolution has ultimately left the country in ruin, a shell of its former self,
a “corpse.” In addition, a marked cloudiness is also present in this passage, guiding
the reader back to his previous parallels between the elements of winter time
and the country’s state discussed formerly.
Another technique Hardy uses to express
his concern is his continuous association between nature and death, as if the
land itself is mourning. He describes the wind as being a song of lament for
the features of the land the narrator is looking upon, which have been rendered “sharp” by the Industrial Revolution, describing it as relatively resembling
a corpse (Hardy 9). The clouds seem to be symbolic of a tomb, as Hardy alludes to
in line eleven, “His crypt the cloudy canopy” (12). This suggests that the Hardy believes the Industrial Revolution has entombed the country in two senses: literal and figurative. Literally, the sky above London was known for being rather smoggy during this period. Figuratively, the effects the Industrial Revolution has had on humanity, veiling it from morality, leaving it entombed in the resulting negative habits through the new era.
The same concept of lack luster and despondency is demonstrated again in the second half of the second stanza, but in relation to the effect of this period on the human spirit. For example, “The ancient pulse of germ and birth/ Was shrunken hard and dry” suggests the life of humanity has shriveled (Hardy 13-14). A pulse can be associated with the human heart and the rhythm it projects to keep humans alive. This is symbolic in both a bodily sense as well as a spiritual sense because of the ever-present affiliation with human livelihood and character of heart. In addition, this “pulse” is described as being ancient, hinting that perhaps Hardy feels as if people have lost the values that once made them a proud as a people; Hardy feels as if humans have lost touch with their roots as a result of this period of high inventiveness. To more simply put it, as artful as this poem is, Marjorie Levinson in her work Object-Loss and Object-Bondage: Economies of Representation in Hardy's Poetry quotes Kevin Moore saying that Hardy’s poetry “…imagines the imagination dead,” which perfectly describes the fear Hardy has about the soul of humans resulting from the Industrial Revolution (Levinson, 552). The last section of this stanza continues with, “And every spirit upon earth/ Seemed fervourless as I” (Hardy 15-16). In this passage, Hardy simply lends support to his feelings by globalizing the era’s negative effect on humankind, once again expressing how he feels that this period has only hindered the luminescence of the human spirit, not failing to point out that he has also been a victim.
Despite the gloomy tone expressed
through imagery and personification, “The Darkling Thrush” is not completely
without optimism, as limited as it may be among so much pessimism. The first
sign of hope is found in words such as “weakening,” and “little cause.” Both of
words suggest that a process is still taking effect; the snuffing out of this
figurative light is incomplete (Hardy 4, 25). In the last two stanzas, the
thrush is used to symbolize this glimmer of hope, even if the narrator himself
fails to perceive it:
At
once a voice arose among
The
bleak twigs overhead
In
a full-hearted evensong
Of
joy illimited;
An
aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In
blast- beruffled plume,
……………………………………….
His
happy good-night air
Some
blessed Hoped, whereof he knew
And
I was unaware. (17-23, 31-33)
In
his failing to see hope, he admires this songbird because it persists in having
the fervor, despite its decrepit condition, that he believes contrasts with how
society used to be before the Industrial Revolution. This thrush is also the
first piece of nature used in this poem that isn’t employed to draw deteriorating
parallels between the natural world and the human world. So, despite all of the
negative aftermath he feels surrounds him, this bird is symbolic of the
tenacity the human heart and the capabilities within it to overcome and persist
on against the odds.
Thomas Hardy’s “The Darkling Thrush”
is an example of Hardy’s reflections at the end of a paramount couple of
centuries, as well as how it compares to those that came before it. Ultimately,
his concern in this poem is in regards to what the Industrial Revolution has
left for the generations of the twentieth century. What Hardy failed to realize
is that change is just a part of life, and with it comes easy and hard times.
It’s easy to sympathize with Hardy’s concern about the loss of connection to
the peoples’ roots, but this is inevitable with change that he himself, like
everyone else, has undergone; each generation usually finds it more challenging
to truly trace back where they came from. In addition, his concerns about the
Industrial Revolution directly correlate with the debate about the level of
integration and role technology should have in education, for which, similar to
the Industrial Revolution, there will be both positive and negative consequences
for regardless of the degree of amalgamation.
Works Cited
Levinson,
Marjorie. Object-Loss and Object-Bondage: Economies of Representation in
Hardy's Poetry. 2nd ed. Vol. 73. N.p.: John Hopkins UP, n.d. 549+. JSTOR.
Web. 22 Sept. 2013. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/30030023>
Nash,
Cristopher. "How Primordial Is Narrative?" Narrative in Culture:
The Uses of Storytelling in the Sciences, Philosophy, and Literature.
London: Routledge, 1990. 9+. Print.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)