Fall 2021

Week 5 Newsletter

Paul Fess

Hi all,

This week you (hopefully) got the chance to make substantial progress on your first papers, and I hope not having any other work to do for this class helped.

**Speaking of the paper: Here is the link to the folder where you can upload your final draft. Please label the file with your first and last name (ex: Paul_Fess_Paper_1).**

Some of you need to catch up on blogs. Do so quickly because you will start to see zero grades if you don’t .

Here’s what’s coming up next week:

Week 6 (10/19-10/21)

Blog Post #6 Prompt

Paul Fess

In “Living with Music,” how does Ralph Ellison describe how music affects his living experience in his New York City apartment building?

What does he mean by the first sentence of the piece? (“In those days it was either live with music or die with noise…”)

Can you think of points of comparison between Ellison’s essay and either R. Murray Schafer’s “The Soundscape” or Episode 2 of Damon Krukowski’s Ways of Hearing?

Newsletter Week 4

Paul Fess

Hi everyone

This week we talked about the almighty thesis statement, a concept that may have already played a central role in your writing lives, and if it hasn’t yet, it surely will in the future. I want to remind you that I would like you to bring your working thesis statement to our meeting next week. I advise that you use the Sheridan Baker worksheet to create your thesis. Remember a thesis should have two components: an argument and a rationale.

I also want to remind you that we won’t be meeting as a class at all next week. Instead, you will meet with me individually to discuss your paper. If you haven’t done so, please sign up for a time slot.

Additionally, I will grade blog #4 posts soon. Respondez!

What We’ve Done

As I say above, this week you embarked on your thesis journey. Keep the techniques and practices we talked about in mind.

Ways of Seeing, Episode 4: In this episode Berger discusses the ways advertising imagery seduces and convinces us into buying products by promising us fantasies of how our lives could be better. You might think about what Berger says here in terms of the advertisements you encounter around the city, on televisions, and online, in your daily lives.

Seeing Through Race, by Martin Berger (no relation to John, that I know of): Martin Berger lays out an alternative way of seeing photographs that document the Civil Rights era. He focuses on how they depict black suffering over black political activism in order to create sympathy for the movement. You might think about this in comparison to images of the protests that circulated in 2020.

What’s Coming Up

Next week you should focus on writing your paper.

You will also be meeting with me individually to discuss this paper.

Newsletter Week 3

Paul Fess

Hello All,

Now that we are up and running with the site I will be posting these newsletters at the end of every week. In general I will divide these newsletters into two broad categories: what we’ve done and what is coming up. There are three items I want highlight this week.

First, I have graded for your introductions and your entries for blog post #1 and #2. (I will grade blog post #3 soon). If you don’t see your grade for a blog post in the Blackboard grade center it means that either I didn’t see it or you haven’t posted it. Please contact me if you would like a grade for these missing blog posts. Otherwise, I will be entering zeros soon.

Second, I have posted the prompt for Paper 1 on the course site. Read it, absorb it, and come to our meeting at the beginning of next week with questions.

Third, please check the course site regularly. In addition to posting links to course activities in the syllabus I also post items that come across the wire such as job and event postings in the “Events and Opportunities” section. For example, now there is a flyer for an upcoming SciFi event that includes details on a writing contest.

What we’ve done

They Say/I Say:

Ways of Seeing:

You should have watched Episodes 1, 2, and 4 at this point. It is essential for you to watch these videos in order to complete the blog posts and the Paper 1 assignment.

Blog posts:

Last week you wrote about Berger’s discussion of representations of women. Here are some things you might think about as you further consider this episode:

  • Berger focuses on representations of women. He defines a distinction between the female nude and nakedness. According to him, the female nude is a constructed image of female sexuality meant to satisfy the desires of the male viewer; whereas, actual nakedness is not constructed. It occurs on the fly, when we are least conscious about it. Berger ties this distinction to the objectification of women.
  • In thinking about this further you might ask yourselves if the same thing takes place with depictions of women nowadays. For instance, when Beyonce creates a sexualized image of herself does the same problem Berger identifies arise? Or, is something different going on? You might also think about the role of social media and the “selfie” in this regard. If an Instagram user creates a “sexy” post of herself is she objectifying herself or is she controlling her own image?

This week you completed Blog post #3, which asks you to consider Berger’s thoughts on advertising imagery. Do the same kinds of manipulations of images go on today? Or, is it different? If the situation is different, how so? We’ll talk about these questions and your posts next week.

What’s coming up?

Here, I’ve listed the items you will take up next week:

Week 4 (10/05-10/07)

Let me know if you have any questions.

PF

Blog Post #4 Prompt

Paul Fess

In the Introduction to his book Seeing through Race, Martin A. Berger (not related to John Berger) lays out the thesis of his book’s interpretation of the photography associated with the U.S. Civil Rights era (1950s &1960s). According to Berger, newspaper and magazine editors selected photographs based on their perceived power to draw out the of their white readers. The result, Berger continues, was that “the media could not assuage the racial anxieties of whites without affecting the depiction of blacks.” This meant that photographs that featured the black protestors succumbing to white violence was more common than depictions of black-led political action. In other words, editors, especially white ones, were more likely to use photographs featuring black people as victims as opposed to black people standing up for their rights.

Recently, we have seen a similar dynamic at play as media depictions of the killing of George Floyd caused many white allies to take to the streets in solidarity with black Americans. We have also seen media depictions of African-American protests incite white racial anxieties about black violence.

What do you make of Berger’s argument? Do you agree, disagree, or something in between? Use the information from Chapter 4 of They Say/I Say and the “Sheridan Baker Thesis Machine” and write a thesis statement in which you take a position on Berger’s argument.