Round-up Reflection

For me, this blog post represented the first indicator of things to come in this class, and the first artifact which documents the evolution of my understanding of rhetoric, writing, and identity.  I was surprised by the unconventional way Lil, as a professor, addressed the class so openly and frankly.  In her "Who am I Bringing to Class?" piece, she immediately challenged the way I thought about identity and rhetoric-- what constitutes a professor's rhetoric versus that of a student or a friend?  How "safe" of an environment is a writing or English classroom, anyway?  That is a question we discussed several times over the course of this class. 

In composing my own "Who am I Bringing to This Class?", I was able to work through some of the conflicting pre-existing notions I had about the nature of identity.  The changes I made from my initial draft to my final are significant, which I feel represents the transformation of the concept of identity-- much more fluid, for one thing, than I originally thought-- in my conceptions of it.  By writing that I am a WIP (work in progress), I was able to come to terms with the fact that I perform different positional identities at different times and am still beginning to take on new positional identities-- I'm a work in progress.  This reflection was vital to my understanding in this class. 

Initially, I struggled somewhat with the Holland and Gee readings and their more theoretical aspects.  Reading blog annotations by those who obviously understood them a little better (such as this one by Kerri Bright Flinchbaugh) helped me a great deal-- in addition, I learned to love using Jing! 

One program I had already learned to love is Pinterest.  As a certifiable Pinterest addict, I was really able to use my inquiry project and critical narrative boards as a way to bring my ideas visually and conceptually together.  Checking out others' boards was interesting as well, because the boards seem to give a unique perspective on how we are approaching the sites and cultures of our inquiry projects.  This is my Inquiry Project board, but I also went crazy pinning images and quotes about Lorde for my critical narrative project.

My critical narrative on Lorde (subtitled Rhetoric of a "Real" Pop Idol) was one of the crucial processes which really helped me to understand rhetoric and performance of identity "in motion".  Curating different perspectives on and representations of Lorde was fascinating, and I was really satisfied with the final product.

  I found all of the critical narrative projects, creative and visually-oriented as they were, to be particularly fascinating and really applaud the whole class on what a great job everyone did.  My group member and fellow Hannah, Hannah Mayfield, 's critical narrative takes the cake as my absolute favorite, though.  Her exploration of fandom culture and society's perceptions of fandom in this beautiful Prezi through images and dialogue really blew me away.

Of the books we read for class, I was definitely most intrigued by Matt Wray's Not Quite White.  As a history major who has studied the history of the Old and New South and that of the Carolinas, I was able to make many connections between our modern concept of "white trash" and the identities of the backcountry farmers who I have studied and written papers on for my history department classes.

When writing and editing my final inquiry paper, I was fortunate to get a lot of excellent input from my group members, Hannah and Zachary, as well as from Lil.  My group members were invaluable for this class!

What did I learn from this class?  That we are in the midst of a life-long identity crisis.

What I mean by that is that we are constantly performing and adjusting our identities to our current situation.  Identity is a fluid concept-- the metaphor of different water pouring over the same waterfall, from the TED TALKS video we watched in our second class, comes to mind.  I have really enjoyed the creative opportunities and thought-provoking, eye-opening discussion facilitated in ENGL 4273, and can only hope that some time in the rest of my college career I will get to take a class I will enjoy half as much.

Talking Points for Composing (Media)= Composing (Embodiment)

Note: Since I read the essays in the collection somewhat sporadically according to which ones most interested me, I have included eight talking points (four for Tuesday, and four for Thursday) out of order.  The first three are more meandering and focus on specific essays; the latter three are more direct, general questions concerning the collection or its themes as a whole.

1.  In the spirit of blogging, I want to focus first on something I found interesting in the essay "Pausing to Reflect" on the British MO (mass observation) project and the nature and purpose of blogging as discourse today.  The author asks how much of what we write (in our blogs, writing, journaling, academic work, social media, etc) is for ourselves and how much is composed for an audience.  I thought this was an interesting question which emphasizes how contextual writing is.  When we write for blogs, we are constructing a certain identity for ourselves and "performing" that identity through our words; we use certain types of discourse in order for our online identities to be perceived as the type of person we want to be perceived as in real life.  Does anonymity give strength to the expression of discourse on everyday life?  I found that an interesting question for my inquiry project and paper as well... another thing, even when journaling in an apparently private notebook, are we composing for ourselves or for others?

2. I found this quote from the "Drawn Together" essay very relevant-- it reminded me of Lindquist's A Place to Stand ethnography.
"...Having produced our identities, we then know who we are."  The beginning of the essay explores identities as largely retrospective; only by reflecting on our actions and our bodies can we begin to construct our own identities through our past "performances".  What do you think about this view on identity and performance?

3. I felt that "It's My Revolution", the essay on the identities of mixed-blood Indians, to be among the more intriguing essays.  (Though I think the author could have done more with the topic than examine three MySpace profiles.)  The question of how or whether or not one "performs" an Indian or mixed-blood Indian identity is complicated by whether or not or to what degree one has the physical attributes or "regalia" which is associated with "Indianness", and is accepted as Indian by Indian and non-Indian communities.  As a person of mixed-blood Indian descent who has never felt very "Indian" or identified as such, I found the author's experience as a "Finndian" interesting.  The legalities imposed on "Indianness"-- whether one can be Indian under US law-- such as blood quantum, tribe laws, and the question of biological versus legal Indianness are fascinating, if perplexing.  How is performing an Indian identity differ from performing a white, black, Latino/a, identity and how are physical features and adornments (such as the shawl from the essay) regulated as markers of "Indianness"?  There was a lot to write about here which the author did not delve into-- perhaps she has written a book.

4. One point from the essay "Authoring Avatars", which compares the identities explored through roleplaying gaming with those assumed by students writing about themselves in composition classes, struck a chord with me and seems especially relevant.  As students in English (or other humanities) classes, we are constantly encouraged to write about own identities and experiences in traditional academic writing and through multimodal projects like the "Who am I bringing to this class?" videos we made in this class.  The author points out that students consciously design and author these identities as they write.  I wondered if this isn't a critical part of the college experience and the reason why college graduates seem (in my opinion) to have clearer views of and clearer ways of articulating about their own identities.  Does "writing our identities into being" serve a greater purpose in helping us to, by constructing our identities, assume those roles?  Maybe this is a vague question, but I found it to be an interesting concept.

5. In "How Billie Jean King Became the Center of the Universe", the author discusses the function and meaning of Wikipedia as a "librocentric archive" and cross-cultural source of information.  While Wiki is only just beginning to be accepted in academic discourse, it has been considered a reputable source in popular discourse for quite some time and has truly revolutionized the way we think about accessing information and media consumption.  How democratic is Wikipedia; who exactly are these anonymous authors and what kinds of processes are at work when people tirelessly strive to edit and access Wikipedia?

6. The book is partially intended for an audience of teachers of writing (particularly, it would seem, for teachers of first year college composition).  How did this affect your experience of reading the book-- did you read the lesson plan ideas or find they illuminated the more theoretical concept well?

7. In "New Approaches to Composition", the author addresses what they feel is a distinct difference between writing as craft or as a testimony to "a writer's ability to reproduce ideal discourses" which are approved by social institutions or others.  What do you feel is the difference (if any) between "designing" and "crafting" pieces of writing?  What stigmas or advantages do you associate with academic, scholarly writing, and do you feel they are in need of revision?

8. As our bodies are the primary media through which we perceive the world, the essays in the book discuss "media" through two different senses of the word.  What do you make of the stimulating (if rather too cerebral for me to easily make sense of) quote from the introduction: "Writing as technology enables us to experience our bodies as our bodies while at the same time writing mediates those bodies in line with existing institutions"?

Reflecting on Women Without Class

In the fifth chapter of her book, entitled "Border Work", Bettie examines social mobility between classes within the site of her ethnography-- a public, Midwestern high school-- and the population of her study, mainly white and Mexican-American middle and working class girls.  She examines how some of the girls choose to "embrace" their class identity (for example, working class girls who wear a lot of makeup and embrace alternative hairstyles, music, and "markers" of their anti-mainstream viewpoint and working class status) even as other girls practice upward social mobility by "performing" the identity of a middle class girl. 

I was pleased that Bettie noted that "exceptions are the rule" when it comes to performing class identity.  Yet she does make tentative generalizations and provide an in-depth study of how the girls see themselves, how they would like to be seen, how they view the "others" in their school and outside of their social groups.  I find her connection between the girls' social mobility and their futures-- ie whether they go to a four year or community college or "experience maternity" (as she so deftly puts it) upon graduating from high school. 

The sixth chapter brings up an interesting point.  Most of the girls who Bettie interviewed for her book had no discourse to speak about class, even if they did understand something more about the intersections of race and gender.  Class is often a marginalized facet of girls' and womens' identities, even within ethnographic studies such as Bettie's.  After reading her references throughout the book to the bestselling ethnography Saving Ophelia, I felt compelled to read the two to have better means of comparing them.  It is absolutely true that sociologists and researchers studying young women look first to upper-middle class, white women as their subjects. 

Through her book, Bettie has obviously filled a great void in our understandings of identity and how it intersects with gender, class, and race.  That the girl themselves seemed to have no discourse to discuss the class which they, nevertheless, constantly "performed" suggests that women often view themselves as "class-less", as Bettie suggests early on in her book.  I remember reading that women, much more frequently than men, identify as "the daughter of X" or "the wife or mother of X", in accordance with their relationships to family members and to men in particular, rather than first identifying themselves as part of a socioeconomic class or by their occupation, hobbies, etc.   I believe this is something of a travesty, and that Beattie brings up an important point: "women are never without class" and learning more about how class intersects with how women identify as women, as having a racial identity, etc, is essential to gaining a better understanding of women's identity, discourse, and economics.

In regards to how this book and our study of it enriches our class's discussion of identity, rhetoric, and writing, I feel that many of us will be able to relate to the socioeconomic world-- the world of high school and that of a small town-- presented by Beattie in this book.  We have previously also not considered gender in terms of how it affects identity to the extent that we have considered ethnicity, class, and socioeconomic status through our other readings and discussions.

LORDE: Rhetoric of A "Real" Pop Idol (Critical Narrative)

 Click here to view my Glog (online poster) about the rhetoric surrounding Lorde to get a better visual than the one below.

Explanation of the Piece:

Seventeen year old Kiwi pop idol Lorde first came to my attention when I begin to read about the controversy surrounding Lorde's having publicized her birth certification in order to stifle media rumors that she was lying about her true age.  While the rumors were proved to be false, the most "fake" thing about Lorde might be said to be her stage name (she was born Ella Yelich-O'Conner in 1996).  Like fellow young celebrities Shailene Woodley and Jennifer Lawrence, Lorde has cultivated a "real" image, a uniquely striking but honest goth-girl-next-door type of persona, in her short but explosive musical career.

Celebrity and pop culture are figured worlds with which we are all familiar.  We are bombarded with their headlines whenever we glance at a magazine rack or turn on the television.  "Celebrity shaming" is a discourse easily observed in popular magazines and often takes the form of expository photos or scandalous stories designed to attract the public's attention by any means possible.  The general public could be said to be more aware of the latest antics of pop star Miley Cyrus, who has rewritten the discourse of "celebrity shaming" and scandal to her own commercial advantage, than recent natural disasters or political elections.

In the case of Lorde, she has become a renowned figure in mainstream pop music, performing at the Grammys' and sharing a highly-publicized friendship with American singer Taylor Swift.  Yet Lorde is consistently cast by the mainstream media, the public and her fans, and the artist herself as somewhat "Other" in the figured worlds of popular music and celebrity culture.  Lorde's youth-- she made her debut with the album Pure Heroine at only sixteen-- works to "Other" her more than perhaps anything else. As she remarked in the quote included on my glog, she is often made to feel like "a fascinating toy" in the discourse of her fellow celebrities and the patronizing media.  Lorde first faced "celebrity shaming" not for wearing provocative outfits-- she leans towards a visual style I might describe as "the-girl-in-your-high-school-drama-class"-- or writing offensive lyrics, but as a result of several well-publicized remarks to the effect that she could not possibly be seventeen.  The controversy over Lorde's "true" age went viral on the Internet and eventually induced the artist to present her birth certificate as "proof" that she was indeed seventeen.  I see this as interesting commentary about celebrity culture.  Because Lorde does not "fit" the typical image of teen idol within the figured worlds of celebrity culture, where long blond locks and photoshopped images are the norm, the discourse of that world has questioned her right to exist within it as a "teen idol".

Outside the discourses of media and celebrity culture, Lorde is often admired or embraced by young people seeking an alternative to the lyrics typical of popular music-- featuring, as one Lorde fan puts it, "parties and fake romance"-- and the air-brushed images of "unattainable" idols like Taylor Swift and Katy Perry.  As a fan myself, I find Lorde's lyrics to be uniquely resonating with my own experiences, criticisms of society, and anxieties in ways which most pop artists' lyrics are not.  Fan discourse (snippets of which are included on the glog) typically applauds Lorde's dedication to being "real" and providing what many see as a positive role model.  A quick search on Pinterest reveals that fans re-pin and "like" photos of Lorde and lyrics from her songs with frenzied intensity.  In a cultural discourses where the worthiness of young celebrities as "role models" is constantly evaluated, the majority of the public seem to feel that the down-to-earth Lorde passes the test, even as other online discourses decry her eccentric style or "too-mainstream" music.

In this piece, I have tried to capture images and rhetoric about Lorde across many different cultural spaces and figured worlds.  I have included snippets of fan discourse, "celebrity shaming" discourse in the form of tweets which insult her appearance or apparent age, lyrics from Lorde's songs, and two quotes credited to the artist herself which can be said to represent her relative disillusion with the figured world of celebrity culture and determination to remain true to herself.  In regards to the images, I have tried to represent a myriad of different perspectives on Lorde as a celebrity, musical artist, songwriter, role model, and as a seventeen-year old girl.

Annotation & Reflection on Angels' Town

 Reflection:

I found Cintron's discussion of the "logic of violence" and the "logic of trust" to be an accurate reflection of what (little) I know of the mentality and worldview of gang members and, by extension, ostracized or marginalized members of society.  The logic that the world is a harsh place and one can only survive by defending one's honor and the honor of one's gang or family or group or community makes sense, and also reflects many "cultural narratives" wherein vengeance stories are common.  (Think of movies like Die Hard, Taken, and pretty much any Western film ever made-- they are all archetypal revenge tales and have influenced the cultural mentalities of both Americans and Mexicans.)

In fact, Cintron mentions that Valerio, the teenage boy he interviewed, employs images and narratives of tough cars, Marines, and successful baseball players to "feel strong"-- these are all examples of the machismo, or macho, identities which many Latino males (as well as males from other groups) construct for themselves to create places of respect for themselves in a system where they are not automatically granted respect.  The old man, Don Angel, used a macho style of discourse when he talks mexicano, and this "character" also works to set up the interesting contrast between the viejito (Old World Mexican, folk ways) and chero lifestyle and ideologies versus the ideologies of the Latino gangs, who listen to hip-hop and rap music and are thoroughly invested in the "modern" and creating power and respect for themselves in the New World of the US and Angel Town.

I like Cintron's positioning of the gangs as an example of "socioeconomic outsiders" asserting their rights to create themselves, and how he does now write about them in either a strictly negative or positive sense.  He doesn't dwell on their involvement with the drug trade or crimes, but focuses more on the mentality of the gang members, the systems of meaning behind their symbols, language, and perceptions of themselves and their communities where they "rule". One thing I found really fascinating was the repetition of the language which the gang members used to name themselves and their gangs...there is an obsession with royalty and social structure and constant references to gangs as "nations" and "language of nationhood".  Yet, at the same time gangs would seem to be forces of anarchy in that they oppose institutions of government and another easily observable theme in their language of discourse is what Cintron calls a "theme of madness" or insanity.  Gangs, then, are a form of very organized anarchy.  Cintron positions them as socioeconomic outsiders asserting their rights to create themselves and claim positions of power and respect through discourses of identity and the logic of violence and machismo which demands respect.

Annotation & Reflection on Not Quite White

Reflection:

I found this bit from the annotation particularly interesting, as I was able to link it to some of what we studied in my North Carolina History class last semester.  NC was arguably "the" poor-white trash colony for much of the US's early history and some historians think that the little-known (today) Regulator Rebellion, like Shay's Rebellion, inspired the planter class to begin seeking labor more in the form of imported African slave labor rather than relying on the increasing discontented indentured white workers.  Backcountry rural farmers, here referred to as "lubbers" and later as "crackers", were a largely uneducated but highly religious Protestant group of people, mostly descended from Irish and Scot-Irish immigrants who moved to the NC backcountry.  Today, many NC mountain people share the Appalachian dialect, secluded agricultural lifestyle, poverty, deep religious convictions, and distrust of institutions which marked many of their backcountry ancestors. And also like their ancestors, mountain and backcountry people tend to be marked as "dangerous" by the white upper and middle-class-- somehow less civilized or more likely to be involved in petty crime or drugs.

I wrote a long paper on North Carolina backcountry people and moonshining activities last semester, so forgive me if I sound too much like I'm veering into the discourse of History.  However, I found this book to be very much in the genre of social history and much more engrossing than any of the others.  I found the ideas about Boundary Theory and "classifications" interesting as well and paid particular attention to the authors' exploration of various upper-class whites' attempts to explain the perceived "moral unworthiness" of poor whites.  These processes (a kind of "boundary work", to maintain class lines, huh?) continue today, with jokes about backwoods inbreeding which could be viewed as remnants of Social Darwinism ideology in our modern discourses.  The long section on the attempts of middle-class social reformers to blame poor whites' "unworthiness" and poverty on a hookworm epidemic is something I was really unaware of and found totally disturbing.  Overall, Not Quite White does a thorough job of examining the stigmatype of the poor, uneducated white, the evolving perceptions of the "poor white trash" who have existed as an ostracized category in American society from its very beginnings.  

Pinterest Collections

Link to Board #1: For Inquiry Project
http://www.pinterest.com/alykat2415/inquiry-project/

I have started to post images relating to my "micro-ethnography" on the Food Lion store where I work.  It is difficult to find things which go beyond the obvious, but most of these seemingly random pics relate to my observations on the site so far.  For example, there are a few images relating to class and the peso relates to the number of Mexican immigrants who are part of the store's community.  The wedding ring reflects a strange social norm among the cashiers, wherein some of the younger single girls wear rings to make it look as though we are married.  More to come...

Link to Board #2: Critical Narrative on ID:
http://www.pinterest.com/alykat2415/critical-narrative-lorde/

For this Pinterest analysis, I kept the original comments from the pins because so many of the pinners expressed their opinions on Lorde, her music, her persona or lack thereof.  I chose to do my narrative on this teen pop prodigy because I find her kind of fascinating-- as Lindquist might say, she is very "mainstream" and yet "other", yet not to the extent that you get the idea she is "faking it" for fame as other popular singers (ie Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga) might be accused of doing.