English Lang/Lit LPs

  Do you get a sense of authorship about her work? What seems to be typical areas of interest for her and/or typical authorial choices? Kesteleyn's work is fairly distinct, the subjects of her projects tend to be people whose perspectives tend to be overlooked in mainstream discourse. The projects that focus on one person specifically tend to be fairly mundane, but have some trait or experience that sets them apart in some way. Kesteleyn seems to be interested in mundane everyday life as a subject, many projects follow their subject in their everyday life, those that don't focus on individuals or people groups often focus on events, like the Miss Plastic Surgery contest from the project that shares its name. Kesteleyn portrays the mundane, be that in a positive or negative light, but overall there does seem to be a sense of humanity in all of Kesteleyn's work, the subjects are usually portrayed favorably, and even when they aren't, they're often seen as victims of ...

 Choice of text: Arcadia The text is an advert for a multimodal story written by Iain Pears which can read by the reader on a phone or tablet. The question I am answering is how does the advertisement promote the app version of Arcadia.  Paragraph 1: The use of phones as a visual element displays the ease of use and visual appeal of the app. Paragraph 2:Through including a statement from the writer in which he promotes the app as a better alternative to the e-book or hardcover makes the app seem like the better more faithful version of the work. Paragraph 3: The highlighted text of the download button, but not the text about in-app purchases encourages the reader to download the app by highlighting only certain parts. Conclusion: The text uses visual highlighting, visual depictions of phones, and quotes from the author to establish the app as an equal or superior way to read Arcadia.

LP entry: Choose one of the letters from Cave’s Red Hand Files and write about your reactions to it, perhaps using the GQs from the Nick Cave document. You could also look for thematic connections between it and the literary works you’ve studied. My Choice: Issue #149 I have called these texts (the answers primarily) “letters”. Do you agree with this classification? In what ways are these texts like letters, in what ways are they unusual as letters? The answers are very much structured like letters, even if the questions are rarely. Starting with the phrase "Dear [name]" and ending with something like "Love, Nick" really makes the structure feel similar to a letter. As for things that set it apart from most letters, I might say the content of what's being discussed, but some of the best essays and works have started off as letters. By all respects I would consider this a letter, though I may well be wrong in doing so, I do not claim to be an authority on letter...

LP: Compare and contrast how the Key and Peele sketches treat US racial politics with other works/texts you have covered during the course. Consider how they treat the topic, and the way they use authorial choices to contribute to this. Key and Peele take an interesting approach to racial issues in the United States. Many of the works we've worked with in the past that tackle this issue do it with an emphasis on respect and offer really solid thoughtful commentary on racial issues. Key and Peele take a somewhat unorthodox approach in that they use comedy to critique and comment on racial issues. Other works/texts tended to emphasize understanding and offer arguments regarding racial issues, Key and Peele treat racial politics with more simplicity, signaling that this really isn't a complicated situation, black people deserve dignity, safety, and equal opportunity and rather than start arguing why they approach the situation more to mock and comment on the racism built into the...

 Reflecting on the IO practice we had. The IO practice went well I think, the main problem for me was timing and covering all my points sufficiently(which are pretty much the same problem). I feel like I prepared well and had good, well-thought-out points. I'll have to make sure to time myself better in future practices and the real IO. I liked my works and giving the IO was pretty fun, I liked talking about my works so getting the motivation to work on my IO wasn't a problem. Overall the IO practice was good, the main takeaway was to work on timing more precisely.

  LP 15 Blood, Sweat, and Sear by Oliviero Toscani I wanted to jot down some of the ideas about Toscani's work because I found the documentary we watched in class to be very interesting. Toscani is an interesting figure because he takes advertising, which is usually very filtered, muted, and profit-driven in its message, and uses it as a tool to draw attention to controversial, yet important, issues. The main issue in this is that behind all of the really great activism, there is the underlying understanding that Benetton and Toscani are getting filthy rich off of it, Benetton would, and consequently did, fire Toscani the first moment his activism started hurting the company's bottom line. I would, however, say this is a critique of Benetton and not Toscani, even journalists and authors profit off of publishing controversial stories, Toscani, perhaps uniquely as a very different kind of advertiser, is not much different. Benetton, on the other hand, could have had at least a li...

LP 14 How is the cultural context of a work/text relevant to an interpretation of it? The cultural context of a text is very important for its interpretation. Authors are shaped by the society they live in and by their own culture. Additionally, an author's text says a lot about the author, in the process of creation, an author leaves an imprint of themselves on their work, and by extension their cultural context and society as well. To understand the preconceptions, biases, and insights of a text it's important to understand the cultural context in which it was written. Are established interpretations superior to those created by individual readers? The way we interpret a text establishes what the text means to us personally, I'd argue that there can be interpretations that are more valid, Top Girls is not about the Apollo 11 Space Mission, for instance, but in the realm of reasonable connection, I see no reason why an established interpretation would be superior to an in...