C&W, again

Here, a visual representation of a textual representation of a fantasy representation: Shehun, my old DaMOO character. I miss DaMOO. I'm on SecondLife (in the cheap seats), but it's not the same (duh). This .gif was part of the hypnotic Captain-and-Tennille performance that we gave: Jonathan speaking, me accompanying with image, repeated image, text, repeated text. Iteration.

C&W parts 2-3

Okay, I PROMISE I'll write about Detroit, even though most of you have probably heard my schtick on the sad, sad Motor City. But first:

Part of what Jonathan had to say:

But what I have been missing (and longing for, not just not finding) in our recent pedagogical discussion about new media and the communications technologies is a strong sense of how we are having, with our students, discussions about technology and subjectivity that extend beyond thinking about what kinds of cool critical thinking skills we can develop with videogames, or how neat it is to have students make iMovies to practice a variety of rhetorical skills. Indeed, I want to push for something more, a (dare I say) humanistic, but still critical, approach to technology, particularly the new communications technologies. Specifically, I want to advocate that we interrogate much more forcefully than ever before, both amongst ourselves and with our students, the dense interconnections between technology and subjectivity.

And part of what I had to say:

What is the place of the sexual self, the somatic body, in rhetoric and writing? We are most comfortable with discussions of identity that are accessible to analytic language. That is, we like to talk about things that can be talked about. The feedback loop inherent in this system necessarily elides considerations of the body and of sex, that most persuasive of human endeavors. The dilemma is how we are to talk about non-discursive rhetorics, since, as Laurie Anderson once said on a similar topic, “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.” We have also, since Aristotle’s time, steered away from discussions of the so-called “inartistic proofs,” and one might argue that it is this very realm of the inartistic that we find many of our pleasures. The other dilemma is how to value something that we can’t analyze in our analytical-discursive field.

My sense is that answers lie outside of our field, in visual arts and computer animations, in immersive technologies that demand full and embodied participation from writers and readers. But even there, we only can hope to surround the body’s argument—not speak it. At the same time, this very surrounding, or immersion, might give us a clearer sense of our available freedoms, with the hope of adding to that number.

But we didn't get to say what we had to say...more on that later.

C&W pt 1: After my

C&W pt 1: After my dog got me up @ 5 a.m. yesterday, I worked until 8 p.m., caught a redeye @ 11:45, and hit Detroit @ 9:30 Eastern. Yawn.

Working on my C&W paper

Really, I just want to be Laurie Anderson. Or have coffee with her.

Nothing says Spring like...

...proctoring a comprehensive exam.