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.

Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 and The Uncanny

Freud's theory of the Uncanny, or Unheimlich, is easiest described as a mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar with an end product coming across a peculiar and somewhat indigestible. In our anthology’s sample of Freud’s “The Uncanny” we have the example, given by Jentsch, of the uncanny; “doubts whether an apparently inanimate being is really alive; or conversely, whether a lifeless object might not infact be animate”. Here is where I would like to bring in Haruki Murakami’s novel 1Q84. In the novel, which is over 1,000 pages and therefore quite difficult to summarize, the reader is presented the concept of an air chrysalis. The air chrysalis is a cocoon of sorts, woven from strands plucked from the air by “little people”. The air chrysalis slowly become larger, it is almost like a womb. There is a scene in which the protagonist, Tengo, comes across an air chrysalis on his father’s hospital bed, in place of his father. When he peeks inside the form he sees a “freshly made” replica, of sorts, of the little girl Aomame he once knew as a child. Aomame is the second protagonist of the story, but she is an adult in the timeline of the novel. By seeing an unmoving “freshly made”, anachronistic version of Aomame, he questions the reality of it. She does not wake of move in this scene, we do not know if she is animate. We question the humanity of the very human looking form, this is uncanny.

                Although this novel, like most of Murakami’s work, is rife with instances of the uncanny, the second example I will give is that of the two moons over Tokyo. The two moons appear, for Aomame, when she descends the stairs from an elevated highway platform. This is the moment when Aomame enters 1Q84, having previously been residing in 1984. The uncanny is apparent even in the naming strategy here. The letter “Q”, in Japanese has a sound analogous to the sound of the Japanese number nine. By replacing the 9 in 1984 with something that looks different (unfamiliar), but sounds the same (familiar) Murakami has toyed with the uncanny in the mere title of his novel. But, going back to the two moons, the presence of the second moon is both unfamiliar, but familiar. The characters are continually checking for the presence of absence of this second moon throughout the novel and at times it’s uncanniness is a source of comfort.

                An additional instance of the Uncanny that is important to the differentiation between 1984 and 1Q84 in the novel is the police uniform and gun. The gun is especially important. Aomame remembers the officers always carrying revolvers, but in 1Q84 they all carry semi-automatic pistols. The difference between the two is beyond me, bit this subtle variation is very important to the story. There is a large element of the story, that I’m not going to touch on here, that revolves around an ideological cult and there was previously a fatal shootout that had resulted in the change in weapons carried by the Tokyo police officers. This shootout did not occur in 1984, but had in 1Q84. Aomame’s process of coming to terms with events and their repercussions that she had no memory of every occurring was an instance of the Uncanny. She was both familiar with the circumstances of the events, but unfamiliar with the events and their aftermath.

                Murakami’s magical realist works all have some element of the Uncanny in them. He is one of my favorite authors and although I wouldn’t recommend starting with such a monstrous novel as 1Q84, I definitely believe his works are required reading. 

Author Experience

       In my Scribbling Woman's course we read a short story called "Two Offers" by Frances Harper. I literally fell in love with the work. In short its about a who woman who has two offers of a marriage and in debating between the two she wonders if she could really love any one of them. The man she chooses turn out to be a complete asshole. It seems as if he married her simply for the title and having her as a Trophy without giving her any love or affection, anything to hold dear. The story is told from the perspective of her cousin, who was a nun. At the end of the story you realize the woman had ruined herself in hoping all the days of her life her husband would care about her. At her death bed she still awaits for her husband to come and prove he loved her. After she dies, her cousin explains that she never was pained the same way because she chose to develop herself and her faculties instead of spending her entire life waiting for the love of a man, instead of being everything she could fully be. The only thing I don't like about the story is the "become a nun and have no man troubles" part. Everything else I completely agreed with and as the way she sets up and makes her argument was beautiful. 

  Anyways, after reading the story it was all I thought about for a few days. I liked it so much I was considering doing my research project on it for Scribbling women. In researching information on the story I came across an article on the author. The article spoke about Frances Harper as an African American writer. I was stunned. Although I had not really thought about the race or ethnicity of the author, all of a sudden it mattered so much in me knowing. I felt my whole perspective on the story had changed, because the whole time I pictured a white woman. This just wasn't a story on the 19th century women who depended on a man. This was for all the African American woman who not only were under the oppression of their men, but under the oppression of their race and ethnicity as well. This was a powerful message to woman of minorities, encouraging them to develop themselves completely. Of course, this was powerful no matter the woman, as it can be influential in any feminist opinion, however, I thought it was fascinating that she was indeed African American because it was not highlighted, emphasized or anything. Even thought I pictured a white woman, and finding out she was African American helped me understand her message more, I also kind of liked the fact that it wasn't being emphasized. I like the move towards we are all just people. Writing about causes. And we all have a cause.

  This made me reflect on my previous post of authorship effecting the ability of understanding. I still think that applies here. There was no way of knowing the race or ethnicity of the author by reading the literature, and of course no such thing as it being harder to understand for it.However, I do believe that author experience, like I said in my previous blog, does indeed affect how we will interpret the message of the works, without pulling away from the outright feminist point in the first place. 

PTSD in Avengers: Age of Ultron

This might be late coming, but let’s think back to Avengers: Age of Ultron. If anyone knows me, they know that Captain America is my favorite Marvel character. They also know that I absolutely despised Age of Ultron. I hated the storyline, I hated the characters, and I hated what they did to my babies. But that’s not the point of this. The one thing that I really enjoyed about Age of Ultron, that made me go back and watch the movie again so that I could really zoom in and look at it, was the examination of Steve Rogers’ PTSD. The Russo brothers’ have already said that in Civil War, his PTSD will be explored even more, but the fact that there was even the vaguest introduction to it in Age of Ultron saved the movie for me at least a little bit.

            The two most obvious moments to me were the party scene after the opening battle and Steve’s fear sequence. We know that Thor is inherently “other,” he’s not from here, he’s a god, these are all things that we know. What’s interesting about the party is how Steve remains with Thor the entire night. He associates himself with the “other” and therefore “others” himself. When he’s not with Thor he’s usually by himself, except for that one conversation with Sam that ends with a staring off into the distance, lost in his thoughts.

            When Wanda forces Steve to imagine his worst fear, we first see a dance hall and him dancing with Peggy. The soldiers who are dancing and drinking are boisterous, spilling wine on themselves without a care in the world. He has his true love back, nothing seems to be wrong. But as the scene continues on, the wine on the uniforms turns to blood, and eventually the hall empties, leaving Steve standing alone in the center. He is always left alone. He is out of his own time, without Peggy, his true love, without Bucky, his best friend, and without the soldiers he used to command. Though he has leads on finding his best friend, he is essentially chasing a ghost. Nothing is guaranteed for him.

            I argue that this is the one thing that Age of Ultron did well in relation to their characters. The characterization of the rest of their characters was flat and it didn’t reach to their prior movies. It seemed as though the MCU canon didn’t exist in AOU. While the fight scenes were good, it was almost as though the movie revolved around making those fight scenes. But placing tidbits of Steve’s PTSD added something to his character that can be expanded on in later movies and was enjoyable while watching Age of Ultron. 

Both sides now: why is being confused so great?

“I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now

From up and down and still somehow

It’s clouds’ illusions I recall

I really don’t “know clouds at all” – Joni Mitchell

As I finalize my final project for this course on the creepy, complicated, massive House of Leaves, I find myself feeling what I don’t get to feel enough: pure excitement at turning the next page. Even though I’m familiar with the text, I want to know when one of my favorite parts will come up and wait in anticipation. I’ve been daydreaming about poring over its endless footnotes and dizzying layout as I finish up work for my other courses. If I haven’t made the point clear, it is not an easy read, especially the first time around – those searching for “something light,” well, all hope abandon. But that density and difficulty is so much of why I really, really cannot get it out of my head.

In large part, the difficulty in the book comes from wondering who to trust and when to trust them: the Navidson Record, the documentary film that comprises most of the novel’s narrative, appears to be made up by an old man named Zampano, who is dead, and who we are only reading from by way of the self-professed unreliable narrator Johnny Truant. Readers also have to contend with the spectre of Johnny’s mother as a potential “author,” alongside the real author himself, Mark Z. Danielewski, who also inserts himself in the narrative strategically (and secretly) just to make sure you can’t be sure of anything. Reading the novel is akin to playing a guessing game and attempting to reconcile contradictory pieces of evidence, with the only conclusion (as far as I can see, anyways) that there is no real, satisfying conclusion; there’s no tidy Formalist answer.

Confusion, or rather the feeling of being confused, is a feeling that I value when it comes to literature. It’s part of why I’m so drawn to Kurt Vonnegut, who thrived so much on paradox and introspection that you’re never really sure how to make sense of his lessons. It’s why I love studying philosophy and in particular metaphysics, because part of arriving at a conclusion is learning the fatal flaws against it, those that threaten to utterly destroy it.

I used to think I liked having the answers, but I’ve realized more through being an English major that that’s not the case at all. The best reading I do is when I think to myself, “I have no fucking clue what’s going on.” Beloved appealed to me, in part, because of the central mystery surrounding the identity of the titular guest at 124. There’s evidence that could point in several different directions, and we as readers cannot settle decisively on one lone possibility without taking a leap of faith or two.

I think that, in the pursuit of high GPAs and well-sourced essays and unpacked metaphors, we forget that we’re all here studying literature not because of the money, but because it’s just so much fun. (I like to joke that I became an English major for book recommendations, but the jury’s out on how much of a joke that really is.) To that end, I hope that I am still finding work to admire and appreciate, work that excites me to write about, work that confuses the hell out of me – and I hope everyone else gets to do the same. 

The Power of Art: Ovid's Metamorphoses

As shown in the Oxford Dictionaries, art can be defined as the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.  Art is a self-expression of emotions, these emotions range from pure joy to deep sorrow or grief and many others in between.  In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, artistic expression is an ongoing theme.  Ovid strongly portrays the importance of art within these stories and the characters self-expression.  They are able to portray their thoughts and feelings in a way that is everlasting.  Art is a form of expression that freezes that moment in time even after the character him or her self has continued on.  It is a way to go back to that exact moment in time, and for the audience to feel what they were feeling at this time.  Orpheus and Eurydice is one of the many stories that carries out this idea of art as expression and just how strong that expression can be when it comes to getting what one wants.          

Orpheus finds himself caught in a very unfortunate predicament as his wife Eurydice has met an untimely death after she is bit on the ankle by a serpent.  Orpheus not ready for this nightmare to become a reality goes after Eurydice to the underworld where he uses his song to make his plea.  Singing his heart wrenching melody and plucking the strings of his lyre he gains the sympathy of all those residing in the underworld including King Pluto and his Queen Proserpina.

“Orpheus has learned Ovid’s lessons well.  In order to achieve his goal of regaining Eurydice from death, Orpheus sets aside the poetic skill he will display so vividly later in book 10, and delivers to his royal audience exactly what he determines they want to hear: a concise, encomiastic and rousingly pathetic entreaty.  The aesthetic cost of success for an artist in the face of power is high induced verbatim.” (Johnson 119)

Orpheus does this by connecting personally with Pluto and Proserpina “if the story of that long ago abduction is not false, Love joined the two of you as well.” (Ovid 165)  Orpheus plays on the Kings good graces and praises him, as he is the ultimate king, for he holds the eternal resting place for the human race.  “You own us, entirely, and though we may delay a little, sooner or later as we hurry on we come to this one place.  We are all heading here, this is our final home, and your reign over the human race is the longest reign of all.” (Ovid 166)  By not only telling the King what he wants to hear, but by using the power of his words, Orpheus is able to have one last chance with Eurydice.  Only through his exquisite execution of song and lyric he is able to successfully state his claim and appeal to everyone in the underworld. 

            Throughout Ovid’s Metamorphoses, we see that art and the power that it holds is very relevant to the stories and the characters within the stories.  Even after the passage of time this art still lives on, much like Ovid’s words live on, Orpheus’s words will also live on.  Although he was had to accept the fate of his beloved Eurydice, through his art he was able to have a chance at saving her.  His passionate love for her was ultimately her demise, when it was that as well as his expression of pure grief that had the opportunity to save her, all through the power of art. 

             

Works Cited

"Art." Oxford Dictionaries: Language Matters. Oxford University Press, 1 Jan. 2015. Web. 1 Apr. 2015. <http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/art>.

Johnson, Patricia. Ovid before Exile: Art and Punishment in the Metamorphoses. University of Wisconsin, 2008. 200. Print.

Trans. Simpson, Michael. The Metamorphoses of Ovid. University of Massachusetts, 2001. Print.