May 3, 2016
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Homework Journal #11: OBJECTIVITY!
To be objective is to “not be influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts”. At times, I can be objective. However, I feel that there is a strong attraction towards not being objective that is always present. As Mahatma Gandhi once said “it's easy to stand in the crowd but it takes courage to stand alone.” In other words, the easiest way out is often following the crowd and therefore it's the path most often chosen. This is what I believe causes/contributes to not only my lack of objectivity but possibly everyone’s. Looking back at Raymond Williams’ Modern Tragedy can relate back to how others react to me. Modern Tragedy helped me understand the concept that there is a lack of communication and interaction between people nowadays which is the tragedy. Personally, I feel that along with a lack of communication there is an abundance of judgement. Living in a judgmental society does not allow for much objectivity and in fact actually causes most people to remain quiet about their true thoughts and therefore in a sense forces them to assimilate with the majority. The fear of being judged or looked at differently can cause a person to lack objectivity. A perfect scenario to describe a situation like this would be a classroom setting. Students tend to follow the majority most of the time even if they are wrong. Sometimes a person may know that they do not agree with a statement or idea they will agree anyways which shows they have a lack of objectivity whether they are aware of it or not. Another example, would be when going into a situation or reading a book after a friend has told you about it. It is almost impossible to not take into consideration what you were told beforehand. As presented in Susan Sontag’s Against Interpretations essay, people tend to look for a explanation they are not foreign to and therefore we take away from what is actually there because of our bias (which may be caused by prior-influence). I don't think many people,including me, can say that they have always been objective and have voiced their opinion to their will. My lack of objectivity depends on the situation. However, now as I think of it and become more self aware, I realize my objectivity represents my opinion and I voicing when I objective something will show my belief in my opinion. Hopefully after becoming more aware, like the narrator in the beginning of The Great Gatsby, of my lack of objectivity will allow me to be more objective where necessary.
Tech Glitches
Sorry this did not go up sooner as was scheduled. I would like to hear your informal thoughts about what of Modern Tragedy you have made it through. Feel free to let me know if it is too difficult in certain places, or if you have specific passages you wish to respond to. Most of class will be spent on the poems, but you'll understand in time why having a structural text to turn to is of great value. See you tomorrow!
Homework Journal #1
In your first homework journal, which will be a post on your own tumblr (a tumblr I will be following), I would like a free write response to the Sontag essay. Feel free to consider what this essay may have to do with our class at large, to discuss my shared understanding of the essay, and/or a pointing out of passages that continued to cause confusion or inspired disagreement with the author's words, making sure to include pertinent quotes and your own ideas as to what was disagreeable in the essay. Have a great weekend!
Correct Text
It has been brought to my attention that the copies of the Sontag essay are somehow missing every other page. I wish this had been brought to my attention more than three hours before class, but c’est la vie. I will be posting in next post the full text. Please, if you noticed that your photocopy is incorrect--i.e. the page numbering in the top right corners of the original papers make no sense--print out the pages i’m sending, or if absolutely necessary, make sure you can read them on your phone or tablet. while phones, tablets, computers, etc., are not allowed in class, in situations like this, phones and tablets, but NOT computers, will be tolerated.
The Journey Comes to a Signpost, But No End Beyond (maybe a water fountain 'round which to pause and refuel...)
Tomorrow we will have an opportunity to explore where we began in our thinking (about literature, college educations, ourselves (identity, experience, internal narrative, etc.,) as we entered, --or even on a macro-scale, life/the world/existence--, and, well, ( that's as tangential as I think we should go in the scope of our reflections,) chose to remain in RA210 an take the trip. We didn't just learn how to write about literature, we learned how to make our writing about literature through the lenses of literary theories, a literature in their own right. That is to say, when write with sincerity, empathy, and urgency about how a given artist or thinker has revealed the truths of their(/our) contemporary situation(/s), and we do so in a way that displays a unique voice, embracing our own understandings of/insights on tragedy (in that viewing of the primary source/s through our chosen lenses of literary theories), ultimately creating a literature of our own. We are not just readers, we are not just historiographers, we are not just critics, rather, we are these things and more; we are the writers of a literature that shapes the discussion of how we are going to go about being a civilization, how we are going to navigate being citizens in this civilization comprised of the old status quo, the new guard, those who have been lost by time but found again, and those who, were we to lose them from our literary canon, the world would likely go unaware of the loss. You have the opportunity and skill to ensure your lives have meaning--whatever you need that idea of meaning to need to you. And to have such opportunities and skills is truly awesome; the catch then is whether or not you are going to use those skills and seize those opportunities. I hope you write truly amazing final papers, as I have witnessed the truly amazing thinking, on both the word, and idea of, "tragedy", that you have developed and added to our class' communal discussion on this incredibly rich strain of literature, and overused word. Remember that you need to be making an argument in your paper--if you are not taking a stand, making a point that matters to you, then you are less likely to write something compelling. Furthermore, the argument you make is not being made to me as your sole audience; you are writing this paper to me, yes, but also to your peers (be they immediately so, in the sense of being in our class, or aiming even further--the CUNY Queens College student body, our generation, etc.,) and therefore, it is all the more important that you write a piece that truly communicates what you feel you need to tell others. You are taking a classic novel, a truly American (and human) tragedy of the 20th century, and showing it to us in a new light, as we step into the 21st century and take accountability for our time. I know you are all up to the task, and wish you only the best.
Watch and Read and React
Watch The Fugitive Kind (w/Brando) Read the first two stories in 9 Stories Write about where you are in your thinking after having ingested all of that.
For Tuesday
I am posting a link to a PDF of J.D. Salinger’s 9 Stories and you are to read the first two stories over the weekend. We will only be reading two stories, and we will be dividing into two groups to argue which, if either, story is a tragedy. I am trying to post this early so that you can have a look and choose if you want to have already chosen by class today.