The End

We as a human population have a gift for predicting how the world is going to end. Its scary to think that we can write so many movies and TV shows about the end of the world like it might never happen. However, some of the stories have a valid premise for the start of the end of the world. Some for the cure for a terminal disease that might reduce the humans mind to a mere shell that only has the basic human instincts to eat and to survive; others with the earth falling apart from the inside from the cataclysmic event.

Zombie, which seems to be the thrill on the market, and frankly it’s the scariest. People move towards the idea that animal instinct is the inevitable end game. We would be coming full circle, and would be moving back towards a time when there wasn’t any need for presidents, mayors, or any type of authoritarian figure that wasn’t providing food. For every person it is eat or be eaten at this point in the world. These shows might be a result of the fact that so many people are having a hard time hiding the urge for blood lust.

There have been multiple ways that have been brought fourth as a way that the world will end. A personal favorite is the slow motion type, where we are killing our selves. The melting of the ice caps, the burning of the ozone layer, starvation in mass quantities around the world, obesity in the rest. What most people don’t realize is that we don’t need some sort of high risk, super monster to worry about we have our self already, and the scariest monsters are usually man made.

There are movies that even depict the trees as the monsters that are taking matters into their own hands and ridding the world of a good portion of the world population in an effort to save the earth. In another scenario we bomb each other to death, creating a world that isn’t safe for us to survive in, forcing the human race into space for over a hundred years. There is an endless amount of ways to push the human kind to extinction.

There are movies out that make a parody of the end of the world in the biblical sense. We laugh about the fact that as long as we can do at least on good deed before we die then we can go to heaven where whatever we want is aloud. We can smoke drink and fornicate till our heart is content because we were good right before we died.

These last generations have built monuments to the post apocalyptic world where the need for systematic oppression isn’t necessary. We seem to subconsciously long for a world where we can do whatever we want without the repercussions of society. We have created several different scenarios for the end of the world, and each one is more appealing then the last and our ideas are forth coming.

Gender Expectations

            I chose to do my final project on my journey with feminism and how understanding how important it is changed me and how I tend to live my life. I think examining gender roles and what each gender expects from the other is important. I mentioned in my essay that when I don’t wear makeup guys comment on how tired I look or how sick I look or if I even have a tiny blemish. I think it’s so interesting that men are allowed by society to have imperfect skin and large pores and shiny foreheads because they don’t have to constantly cover up their faces. I know I look particularly young when I’m going barefaced and I’m quite offended when people ask me how old I am when I’m working or tell me I’ll love when people think I’m eighteen when I’m twenty five. I just never saw that point in unsolicited comments from strangers about my overall appearance. I remember one time when I was working, I am a cashier, two middle aged men only came through my line because they considered me a “good looking chick”. I rolled my eyes so hard when I heard that but I still had to be professional even though I felt uncomfortable.

            While doing my project I found an article of a man telling why he thought it was okay for men to tell women to smile and why most men do it. This man said that men want something pleasing to look at and a smiling woman is just the thing. I hate waking up knowing that I am going to possibly be seen as just some object for some man to look at while I’m in the grocery store buying eggs or something. I’m not saying that every man feels this way or would say that to a woman he sees in public but I just wish that some thought would be put into saying something purely based off of someone’s gender. Gender and sex and sexuality are things that are becoming so important and so prevalent in the media that it’s just frustrating that some people still don’t understand how incredibly inappropriate it is to say something gender focused to someone they know and don’t know.

            I think it’s important for both genders to understand one another. I think classes focused on gender roles and understanding genders would be something great to be taught to students in high school. Young people are so impressionable so if we could just teach students while they are young that people, male and female alike are not objects there wouldn’t be a need for me to be angry that some man once again told me I looked sad and that I should smile more because the world can’t possibly be that hard. 

Lame, Ridiculous Alien Movies that Really Aren't so Lame and Ridiculous Through a Post-structuralism Lens

Last night I went to see the Star wars premiere. As I don’t want to post any spoilers, I have decided to analyze the previews, because they kind of got on my nerves. There were twenty five minutes of previews (trust me, I counted), and I know at least three of the films that were previewed were about aliens coming to take over the earth. I have never quite understood why so many films of this genre exist. I mean, why make a movie about beings from another planet coming to destroy the earth, when humans are already destroying the earth right now? Wall-e was a very successful movie, there could definitely stand to be more movies like that. But I digress.

I was thinking about why there could possibly be so many alien films, and I thought that maybe they could be a used as in interpretation for post-structuralism. In the beginning of the semester, we read an essay called “Identity and Difference” by Martin Heidegger. In his essay, if you didn’t remember, he talked about Existence, and how people feel about their own own sense of self, which comes from thinking of Being and Existence separately.

Now going back to the previews, I feel that these films about an otherworldly threat that challenge one’s difference of Being and Existence, make people subconsciously think about these theories questions in the actual world. This one specific film preview stuck out to me, and it was called Wave 5. In the preview you learn all  about the aliens invading the earth and what happens in the different ‘waves’. In the fourth wave, the aliens start to inhabit the remaining human beings on Earth, and no one can tell whether a person is a real human being or not. So this film really specifically goes along with the poststructuralist identity crises. Heidegger said “the Being of Existence  is authenticating reason”. In the alien movie, the humans have to establish the Being of Existence in order to be validated as actual humans, and this definition of being and how it differentiates against Existence is how people are able to defeat the aliens (probably, as I haven’t actually seen any of these alien movies). It is also important to mention that Heidegger mentions that “difference is reduced to a distinction, to a product of human intelligence”, and of course we all know that the human intelligence/idea is what makes humans so much better than the aliens, or robots, or whatever is challenging their existence, as well as Existence (with the capital E).

So what is my overall point, exactly? Well, I would like to believe that all of these ridiculous alien movies are really just an expression of human identity. Which of course, is totally possible when you look at them through a poststructuralist lens. These alien movies become so popular, because subconsciously, people really want to  differentiate their sense of Being and Existence, which makes them able to validate themselves because of their great human intelligence. I think that this new post structuralist outlook made me see some credibility in the common alien films.

Bye-Bye Coffins

          Many people are uncomfortable with the thought of death and never being able to see their loved ones again.  If there was a way you could continue to visit a living remnant of your loved ones after they’ve died; would you do it?  A way to be immortal in a sense that may not be what we would normally think of, to go on living not as a human being but as a new form of life.  Well this can now be a reality with Capsula Mundi, an organic burial concept created by Anna Citelli and Raoul Bretzel.        

This organic burial concept takes a new look at death.  The body is put in the fetal position within a biodegradable pod.  This idea puts the body in a state much like the state we are in during our time in the womb.  In this sense they are treating death not as an end to one’s existence but more like a rebirth into a new form.  The biodegradable pod is shaped much like a seed of which a tree of your choice is planted directly above.  In planting the tree directly above the pod, it allows the roots to grow and absorb the nutrients from the pod and the degrading body.

Immortality can have many different ideas or outlets, reincarnation being one of them.  Reincarnation or re-embodiment can be defined as, “a rebirth of the soul; the belief that the soul, upon death of the body, comes back to earth in another body or form” (Dictionary.com).   Although this does not bring life into a new physical body, it does create new life in a living organism of which contributes to the Earth’s ecosystem.

This response to death would be a way for people to give back to the ecosystem that once sustained us during human life.  As humans we naturally take and take from our environment in order to live.  Here we are able to give back some of what we have taken.  Trees take in carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen, of which most living organisms need in order to survive.  This allows us to contribute to the continuation of life around us.  Trees also create homes for other species, such as birds, chipmunks, squirrels, etc. so as in human form we cut down trees to make our own homes, we can now create a home for a new organism.                 

“A cemetery will no longer be full of tombstones and will become a sacred forest” (Capsula Mundi).  A sacred forest rather than a cemetery will allow family and friends to come and visit their loved ones in a less threatening environment.  I believe the experience of a loved one passing would be less frightening if people had a living, breathing, tangible entity that they were able to visit.  A place where people can go and remember their loved ones.  Imagine taking refuge under the shade of a tree that is now your loved one.  Families can go and have a picnic, or string up a tire swing and enjoy a sunny day.  You are able to watch the tree grow and mature as it changes with the seasons.  I believe that this would shed a whole new light on the grieving process; it would be a less intimidating and upsetting experience.  Children could go and learn about the trees and their role in nature, allowing a spiritual bond between generations to occur.

Death is a mysterious, delicate and inevitable step. The dead cannot be just a technical problem; it cannot be treated as a taboo. Regardless of the religion and culture we belong to, death is a biological phenomenon; it’s the same thing for everyone. No designer ever thinks of a coffin but this becomes a way of reflecting on how distant we are from Mother Nature. (Capsula Mundi)

The cycle of life would have a new meaning as well, as we are used to (although frightened by) the idea of being born, living and dying, but with this concept that doesn’t have to be the case anymore.  Each individual cycle does not have to end with death; we can now be recycled into a new form. 

            Unfortunately you can’t go out and pick out your tree just yet, as Capsula Mundi is still only an idea and not an up and running company.  But it is an interesting alternative to dealing with death, one that is much less frightening.  This is a concept that could change our entire outlook as human beings on death and the grieving process.  It would allow us to become one with nature and give back to the planet that sustains our mortal lives.  It is a much more economically sensible idea, as it is something that will most likely be available to the masses rather than strictly to the wealthy.  Most importantly, this idea would allow humans to finally obtain immortality through something more than legacy; a tangible sense of immortality.  If you would like to learn more about this idea please visit, http://www.capsulamundi.it.          

The Practice of Vernacular Verbosity in The Realm of Pedagogical Theory and Writing

I've been thinking a lot about how important accessibility is when we talk about literary theory and writing papers in general. The anthology we used for class was great, and I'm sure that it'll be one that I'll get a lot of mileage out of down the road, but not all essays are created equal. We've got such a variety of different approaches in the anthology, but I think the majority of them share a common hurdle: They're way, way, way inaccessible. 

Part of this is understandable. After all, we wouldn't expect to be able to read medical journals if we weren't well versed in the field of medicine. But unlike medicine, language is something we all use every day, with literature, writing, and reading being omnipresent in nearly everyone's lives. There are a few authors in the anthology that stand out from the accessibility of their language (shout out to Audre Lord), but most have language that is so impermeable and multi-syllabic that to navigate even a paragraph of one of the essays requires a nearby dictionary, a lot of re-reading, and as much patience as can be mustered.

But does it have to be this way? I really don't think so. The few truly open essays in the anthology shine for their clarity, and I think our propensity for superfluous loquaciousness is unnecessary at best, and masturbatory at worst. When we have theory talking about the theory on theory of pre-existing theory, at what point are we still creating meaningful work? Perhaps why Derrida's concept of differance was so hilarious was because he was making fun of the nature at which words cease to have meaning in the critical realm. 

For my final project in my Gender Studies class we were to write an article on social media about a topic, to promote what our teacher calls 'Scholar Activism'. He's a big believer in the point that Paolo Freire made about 'Banking Education', where the teacher acts as a spout of information to fill up their students so that they might gather, absorb, and store the information without ever actually doing anything with it. Study, memorize, test, degree, congratulations, you're a scholar. Scholar Activism focuses on actually trying to better the world through repeated outreach, meaningful and practical application of study and pedagogy, and praxis, which is the learning process when analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of one's outreach and activism.

So, I ended up writing an article for Buzzfeed "4 Huge Problems with Trigger Warnings (and 4 Ways to Make Them Better)" , and I ended up with a meaning, thought-provoking, very open piece of writing that resonated with a lot of people. I link to over a dozen articles, and used twenty to form the foundation of it, but it (hopefully) doesn't seem like a lesson just because of the sheer ease of language. It's currently sitting at 4000 views, and it's been the first real time writing in college where I've actually felt that I was making some semblance of an impact through my writing.

I'd actually been wanting to write the article ever since our in-class discussion on trigger warnings, and I'm glad that I finally got an outlet to do so. It really resonated with a lot of people, and I feel more assured now than I ever did about what I feel to be the correct stance when dealing with trigger warnings. When I got into arguments with people, I wished that there could be something I could show them to sum up how I feel, along with every reason for it. It didn't exist, so I made it exist (shout out to Toni Morrison).

I believe now more than ever in succinctness and clarity over huge, eloquent diatribes. I see so many essays and schools of thought that didn't have clear and open essays to express the deep and important thoughts contained with in. Maybe I'll have to write some of my own.


(As a little post-script, I wanted to share my favorite comment that I received from my article. This, as from literally every single plainly negative comment on it, was from someone who clearly did not read the article and was coming in with their own unmoveable beliefs on the subject:

 "If I was violent raped, I'd be smart to not look at violent rape scenes and shit like that on the Internet because I know it'll be make me have flashbacks. Other people shouldn't have to cater to their stupidity if they fuck up and look anyways."

Keep it classy, internet.)

Literature's Ability to Agitate and Unite

Earlier this semester I had the opportunity to attend a talk by Mahmood Karimi-Hakak on the subject of Peace-building through the arts. I was taken by the notion of revising age-old canonical literature inorder to represent today’s political clashes in an artistic format.

“Humanity is living in one of its darkest periods in history,” said Karimi-Hakak. “This darkness is more apparent than ever because there are no longer any borders.”

Does this vast expanse of borderless communication make us more vulnerable or responsible? Peacebuilding requires cultural understanding, and the arts are really the best way to achieve cultural understanding. Karimi-Hakak advocates that artists use their work as a means of cultural communication to peacebuilding. However, quoting the Persian aphorism that such a venture is impossible, like carrying water in a sieve, he stated that it is the artist’s job to struggle, to challenge the impossible.

“During the Shah’s time (in Iran in the late ‘90s), our job as artists was the fight the tyranny of a dictator — we learned about peacebuilding, we learned about agitating the public,” said Karimi-Hakak. “After the revolution, one dictator was replaced by the other and my colleagues and I continued to use art as a means to agitation.”
This notion of art as a means of agitation really has stuck with me. What does it mean to agitate a public? To arouse concern about an issue in the hope of prompting action. In this sense, I'd say some of the best literature is agitating and, in fact, I think its the duty of alot of literature to be agitating. I think that poetry and prose that is partially documentary with the intent to agitate their readers into action is some of the most responsible writing an author can do. But, in 1999 Karimi-Hakak staged a production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The play was eventually raided and shut down. Karimi-Hakak was forced to leave the country after many court appearances and a threat directed at his wife and young daughters.

“Perhaps agitation may not work as the best tools for bringing people together. Maybe cultural understanding could do it,” he stated about what he learned from the experience.

Enter Ralph Blasting, current dean of Fredonia’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, former dean of Liberal Arts at Sienna College in Albany where Karimi-Hakak is a professor. In 2010, Blasting worked as the dramaturg on a production with Karimi-Hakak titled HamletIRAN. The idea was that of placing Hamlet within the Iranian Green movement, which emerged after the apparent vote fraud that reelected Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency in 2009.

This movement eventually triggered the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt, leading to similar movements in Greece and eventually inspiring, in part, the Occupy Wall Street movement and all of its extensions. A famous haiku poem of the green movement, translated to English, reads simply “where is my vote?”

Kirimi-Hakak and Blasting collaborated to create a production in which Hamlet’s pursuit of the truth and his receiving of all testimonies in the case of his father’s death, is putting forth the concept of a grassroots democracy. Each citizen, one vote. I think that this change from agitating work to work that promotes cultural understanding was necessary for Karimi-Hakak, but not for everyone. I don't believe that agitation is "not the best tool for bringing people together". I do 100% believe that cultural understanding is THE best tool for such an endeavor. But, when one is priveledged enough to be a citizen of, and live in, the united states or Europe, they have more opportunities to agitate. Our government does not intervene in matters of public opinion so harshly as was the case with Karimi-Hakak in Iran.

Karimi-Hakak stated that when he was young he realized “that art can be used as entertainment, as a happy way of releasing the tension, or as a political tool, in which case it will create the tension.” An artist’s job is to be an agent of change, to hold up a mirror to society.

“Politicians cannot bridge that gap,” he said. “We know academics cannot bridge that gap, now perhaps is the time for artists. But we cannot do that without you, the audience. What you think of as you walk out of the building, that is what theater is.”

Injunuity and a bit of Postcolonialism...

Injunuity (www.injunuity.org) is a digital platform through which reflections and testimonies of the Native American world can be shared and passed down. These videos present the ways in which Native American beliefs and practices were changed and corrupted, by the ways of their western occupiers. These changes have arrived in Native American communities through the influence of Christianity, European land ownership laws, and the typical western binary for gender identity. These videos showcased, in an interesting artistic way, how the Western orientation towards individualism corrupted the relationship-based Native society. 

In the video “Two Spirit” we hear the stories of the ancient beliefs about androgyny and how it’s been carried on in Native American communities until today. Speaking on the topic of androgyny in this way encompasses both homosexual and transgender individuals, both generally falling under the umbrella term of “queer”, which I will use to refer to such individuals from here on out. In “Two Spirit” we hear testimonies from queer individuals who grew up in Native communities. While growing up these individuals were seen as doubly blessed. It was not that they were “less of a man” or “not a real woman” but rather they were stronger in spirit than a singular man or a singular woman and therefore were a greater benefit to society. The Native community saw androgyny and being queer as a blessing. Fast forward to when these contemporary “Two-Spirits” leave the reservation and start living and working in American society. What they came to find was that the general public does not view queer individuals as doubly blessed, but rather lacking something, corrupt or flawed in someway. This is the influence of Christian thought on our society. Although today the number of people that identify as Christian may not make up the majority population, the influence of the Christian foundations of our country and society still shape the way many of us think today. This includes the strong beliefs in a gender binary and also an emphasis on heterosexuality. Although we have made great strides in past years to embrace queer individuals and offer them the rights that should be available to every human (i.e. marriage), we still have a long way to go as a western influenced society when it comes to labels. This tendency to put people into boxes, allowing them to only be one thing at a time, is devastating to the psyche and way of life for queer individuals, as evidenced in the “Two Spirit” video. A Native testimony in the video states that before Colonization oral tradition “allowed people to learn about each other and appreciate each other and to live in a way that everyone felt safe and accepted”. The loss of oral tradition in contemporary society has resulted in an alienation of certain values and understanding of certain populations. The Injunuity videos are working to restore that tradition and allowing both Native and non-Native individuals to experience alternative ways of seeing, ways that are not rooted in Western/Christian/Colonial practices.

                There is a common U.S. attitude that the Native American’s “lost their land” because they “didn’t understand property rights”. It is true that Natives viewed agricultural and hunting land as more communal and also cycled its use to preserve a natural balance of resources. They did not “own” specific pieces of land, the land was , generally speaking, not theirs to own. Enter the Europeans. The colonizers of America had very different attitudes about land ownership. They started trading goods for the Natives land rights. Sure some could view this tragedy as naivete on the part of the Natives, but how were they to know? Their concepts of group responsibility were so deeply ingrained there was probably an aspect of being unable to fathom how deep this European orientation towards individualism truly went. In “Buried” we see a communal piece of Native American land, a burial ground no less, being torn apart to build a shopping mall. This land was most likely obtained in an unfair trade in which westerners capitalized on and exploited the lax Native attitude about land ownership. What resulted was a blatant disregard for the resting place of these individuals. This toxic lack of acceptance and understanding stems from the alienation of the “different”.

                What we see in all three of these videos was the Native American’s acceptance of the “different” and even the reverence of those who “deviated from the norm”. The entrance of European colonizers into the fabric of native society resulted in a progressive estrangement of this “different”. The Europeans were intolerant of the Natives practices which resulted in today’s population needing to deal with the Tragedy of the Commons. This stems from the disregard of Native American attitudes towards stewardship. Caring for our “commons” has become politicized and even some of the most sincere environmentalists are victims of the European orientation towards individualism which has had catastrophic consequences for our common resources. The Injunuity vides work to bridge this gap through the reinstatement of the oral tradition, through which an environment of acceptance and personal responsibility is fostered. I recommend Injunuity as required viewing for anyone woking with the Postcolonial lens in relation to Native American rights and beliefs.