Updates and clown video

So,
Next Tuesday: You should have completed your interview.
The Following Tuesday: You should be ready to turn it in to me (via paper, email or blog)

For Thursday:
Read Ch. 5 in FW. Pick something interesting to talk/write about.
Respond to two classmate's blogs.
Get moving on your book club!!!
Contact informant and schedule interview.

Be prepared: As we move forward in class, we will be moving more into "workshop" mode. this means we will be writing in class and out of class and sharing in class with more than just one person (sometimes with everyone). This will start with in-class writing next time. Bring all your notes/writing so far.

Jan Damm's Clown routine as example of posting video. Enjoy!

late post

Sorry to post this a little late everyone:

So what did I add to the syllabus yesterday, let's see....

• email me your consent form so I can give you feedback before you go out interviewing.
• make sure you have set up a time and person to interview.
• come up with ten questions for that interview.
• reading as mentioned on syllabus
• there are links on blackboard, under Class Links: "The Woman with Two Vaginas" and "Smiling Indians." To pair with "Smiling Indians," follow the link to the excerpt of Smoke Signals. {To the left is a picture of Sherman Alexie, the screenwriter of Smoke Signals, smiling wonderfully.} If you go in to it at 5:00 minutes, you'll be at the scene I'd like you to watch. They are on a bus.
• Please email me one discussion question based on any reading so far that interests you, so that I can let your interests lead our discussion.

I will work on the schedule for the rest of the quarter to give to you tomorrow. Can I assume everyone can get an interview in the next week? Let me know if that is rushing it too much for you.


Here is a funny clip for Sherman Alexie at the People of Color Conference in Seattle 2006. He's in the middle of the story at the beginning, but the rest is really worth it.



Lydia

For Next Tuesday

Hello 284:

For you blog for next Tuesday, please review a cultural event of some sort. As you do this, play with your voice. Perhaps you will need to write it out as you normally would and then revise to do this. Consider other qualities of voice beyond point of view. What type of personality do you want to portray in this review. Try on a personality that is radically different from your own. Make sure you spend at least one good paragraph relating details of the cultural event: sights, sounds, smells, plotlines. Then evaluate it. What is your response to it? Why?

Other work on the horizon:

• You should have completed the IRB training online and made a possible consent form by now. Share your consent form with a partner via email or blackboard and get feedback. (is it clear what the subject is consenting to? What questions are raised?) Bring it to class Tuesday revised, and we will work with it a bit more.
• Do Box 16 ( a verbal snapshot) in relation to your fieldsite (or one of them). Also do Box 17.
• Write a short list of candidates for an interview relating to your fieldwork: rank them. Then set up a timetable for yourself: how soon will you get permission? How soon will you interview? How soon will you obtain audio recording tools (or video), if you need them? Check out the DALN website (linked on blackboard) and see what kinds of narratives are there and what their guidelines are. They also have consent forms.
• Read in CH. 4 of Fieldworking: pp. 175-6; 184-203)
• Read Ch. 3 of A Thrice Told Tale; these are her fieldnotes, recorded by an assistant. Take notes as you read. What do you think of her notes and method? What would you do differently? What strategies might you borrow from her?

Have a good weekend.

Lydia

Recapping

Today in class we began to have a dialogue about "voice" and "point of view" in writing.

I want to amend my comments somewhat, or extend them, perhaps?

I argued in class that there is no such thing as "authentic voice" and that I disagreed with the book on this point, seeing voice in writing as always an aspect of constructed performance. Of course, then we began a debate about nature v. nurture (biological determinism v. social construction). I maintain my position on this issue: we can never completely remove ourselves enough from our own cultural baggage to see nature through some pure lens. We always see through a cultural lens. So nature and nurture are inseparable. We cannot understand nature without culture. Or to put it another way, we have invented culture to understand our nature (but then where was the starting point? Chicken or egg? Impossible to determine, I would think).

Another strand of the argument went along the lines of voice being recognizable in print as identical to one's speaking voice. I would agree with the recognizable part and disagree with the identical part. To take an analogical leap: As a younger person I took voice lessons. I have a naturally high voice with little vibrato. This is a matter of biology. The fact that I am classified as a soprano is a matter of cultural interpretation. By taking voice lessons, I was able to increase my range, my volume, my lung capacity, and the quality of clearness in my voice. Additionally, if I were to sing different parts in different musicals, I may be called upon to use my voice in different styles of singing, making more or less use of my nasal passages etc. As I've gotten older, my voice has lowered slightly, and probably will continue to do so. If I go without singing for a long time, all of the advances I made in vocal training whither away. My voice is never just one note. It changes over time and according to the demands of performance. However, it remains recognizable qualitatively as my voice. I will never be a baritone, no matter how much I train. Is this analogous to writing? You tell me.

One more amendment: the metaphorical concept of "finding a voice" or "coming to voice" is still powerful, despite my belief that there is no authentic voice. For those who have felt silenced (orally or in writing), the opportunity to express one's own opinions in a distinctive and subjective style is liberating. Voice is a good metaphor for such a process.

I was unable to blog at my conference, as you know, because internet access in my room cost 15$ a day! Here are a few observations about the culture I observed there. Of course, there were many subcultures. They were defined by age, areas of scholarship, institutional affiliations, if you had the money to pay for internet access.... One overarching observation across the subcultures (but at varying degrees) was an atmosphere of both competitiveness and amicable scholarly sharing. So, typically after a panel, there would be pretty friendly questions from the audience, but there would also be some sense of disagreement or challenge often. This makes for friendly, but tense relations, it seems to me.

I went to a "rock and roll dance party" on Saturday night and enjoyed watching different generations of scholars and students wash onto and off of the dance floor as the music switched from ABBA to Madonna to the Violent Femmes to Lady Gaga. I was surprised to see some scholars I know and consider quite serious shaking it on the dance floor. It was like a window into some other part of their souls--a loose, sensuous side.

I also got to participate in an open poetry reading, which I found particularly satisfying personally, since my Masters is in creative writing--poetry. I enjoyed finding other misfit poets among the rhetoricians and compositionists.

That's all I have for now. If I could have blogged on site, perhaps I'd paint a particular picture for you, but alas, I've lost them all.

Remember for Thursday:

• Respond to your partner's blog.
• Rewrite your paragraph (from in class response to Box 9) in a new voice or point of view and be prepared to share it next time.
• Do the IRB training at the "research" page on OU's website (just search "research") and create a consent form for future interviews.
• Do the groundwork activity p. 166.

See you Thu.

Assignments for the week

This week for your individual blog posting: Write a review of any cultural event (movie, play, concert...) This means get out and do something! Have fun, but take notes and observe. [If your blog does not yet appear int he right hand column under Blog List, please email me your url (http://blablabla.blogspot.com/) and I will add it to the list].

Meanwhile, I will be in Atlanta, hopefully having lots of fun, but also participating in and observing a national conference in my field. I plan on blogging here about my observations about "conference culture."

What else should you be doing while I enjoy the warm weather in Atlanta?

• Visit the site (by yourself) you visited with your research partner in class Tuesday and take more notes. Afterward, re-read your notes from classtime, and comment on them in the blank column. Contact your research partner (you can email through blackboard just by selecting their name) and share what you noticed.
• Start visiting a site for your subculture and taking double-entry notes (ignore syllabus that says do Box 6; you are doing this instead) like you did in class today. If you are having trouble deciding on a site/subculture, pick one. Visit it, and if it does not yield much observational information, try another one at another time. Take notes regardless. You should visit this site a few times in the week.
• Aside from taking notes, collect artifacts that relate to the site (pamphlets, cards, menus, a piece of equipment you can borrow) and start trying to make connections with people. Soon you will have to interview someone, so make yourself known now.
• Write: Do Box 9 in response to the second chapter, "The Hot Spell," in a Thrice Told Tale, which you will have to have read.
• Do reading as indicated on syllabus.
  
• Meet with your book club for your first discussion (even if it is just over the first chapter). You can use the discussion boards under Groups on blackboard if you cannot meet in person.

See you all next Tuesday. I'll be blogging in between.

Lydia