Okay, so maybe one of the reasons my blog entries end up so short is that I'm purposefully trying not to be whiny or judgmental- that's what my pain blog is for. You know, that one is more or less a diary that I just happen to put online because it's easier for saving and, well, more fun, quite frankly. But this blog seems to have gotten more or less PC in tone. Like I'm afraid of offending you all.
So, let's complain. Just to shake things up.
I really really really did not want to get out of bed this morning. It isn't uncommon for me to want to burrow under the covers and pretend to be a dead-like thing. But today, I really thought I could do it forever. Then my second alarm went off and I got up. I think that having cats to cuddle with makes it harder. They really hate the cold that comes when you leave. Er, when I leave...
I basically didn't have much to do today, so I copy edited the department newsletter again. Which is really boring, and hard to do when you are a receptionist. Because folks keep being noisy and distracting. I can't listen to music either, because it would distract other people. Oh, how lowly I am. Anyway, I got a little irritated, because people were really being noisy today, and it was insanely hard to concentrate. Here's hoping I caught most/all the typos and grammatical errors.
I'm not really irritated anymore though, so it's silly to say anything at all. I was just a little peeved at the time. But I know that people were tired from the busy end of the year rush. So really, I feel bad for being annoyed. Obviously am crap at this.
Going to bed...
Friday, December 31, 2010
Holiday?
What is the deal with this holiday eve eve becoming a holiday in and of itself? On Christmas Eve eve, almost everyone went home early or stayed home the whole day. Today, the day before New Year's Eve (aka New Year's Eve eve) I was one of two people who stayed until 5 p.m. What madness is this?
Wow. I don't know how people do it, writing paragraph upon paragraph about their lives. I'm trying to write longer and more often, but it seems the only way to do that would be to post poetry all the time. Which would just be boring....? I did write a poem today, but I'm posting it to my pain blog, on account of it's all related-to-pain-y.
I finished writing the third third of my capstone today (rough drafts). A lot more exciting than it sounds. Got to talk about Invasion of the Body Snatchers. As a metaphor for pain. Yurp...
Tomorrow is New Year's Eve. As you may recall, I randomly do my New Year's resolutions/goals in September. Because time isn't fixed/is arbitrary- so really it doesn't matter when you do your resolutions. Of course, what I do isn't really a resolution, so much as a goal to read 52 books in a single year. Rereads don't count though. If you look to the right, you'll see my count for this year, which I think is at least one behind at the moment. I didn't count academic texts/texts read for my research or school last year, but I decided to this year. As Gertrude Stein said (sorta) a book is a book is a book is a book.
My computer really needs to get restarted or something. Probably I've got oodles of updating to do. The computer is taking many long seconds to type what I am trying to make it type with this keyboard. It is really annoying when there are typos. Mostly the caps carrying over to an additional letter.
Wow, this post is boring.
Wow. I don't know how people do it, writing paragraph upon paragraph about their lives. I'm trying to write longer and more often, but it seems the only way to do that would be to post poetry all the time. Which would just be boring....? I did write a poem today, but I'm posting it to my pain blog, on account of it's all related-to-pain-y.
I finished writing the third third of my capstone today (rough drafts). A lot more exciting than it sounds. Got to talk about Invasion of the Body Snatchers. As a metaphor for pain. Yurp...
Tomorrow is New Year's Eve. As you may recall, I randomly do my New Year's resolutions/goals in September. Because time isn't fixed/is arbitrary- so really it doesn't matter when you do your resolutions. Of course, what I do isn't really a resolution, so much as a goal to read 52 books in a single year. Rereads don't count though. If you look to the right, you'll see my count for this year, which I think is at least one behind at the moment. I didn't count academic texts/texts read for my research or school last year, but I decided to this year. As Gertrude Stein said (sorta) a book is a book is a book is a book.
My computer really needs to get restarted or something. Probably I've got oodles of updating to do. The computer is taking many long seconds to type what I am trying to make it type with this keyboard. It is really annoying when there are typos. Mostly the caps carrying over to an additional letter.
Wow, this post is boring.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Scatterbrained me
I'm just going to tell you and get it over with- I lost a Christmas present. Retrospectively, the whole matter is a bit amusing and obviously meant to be, but I was pretty upset yesterday and this morning. I got the gift months ago, and have been pretty durned proud to have got all my Christmas shopping done during Hanukkah, since it came so early this year. But alas, on wrapping last night, I realized that the certain present was missing.
I looked everywhere. Not kidding. I sent hounds out, I tried yelling "accio present" with wand a-waving, I even consulted a ouija board. The best I can figure, the thing has got itself to an alternate reality. Worm holes are tricky suckers.
In any case, I went out and repurchased it. Man, were the stores crazy today though. Well, store anyway. I only went to the one. Didn't lose any others (she says, cockilly).
Plus, I wanted the thing myself (even thought about getting myself one when I went to get the other), but I held off. So, whenever the thing pops its head out, I'll be ready to pounce and claim it as my own [insert evil cackle here].
Moral of story- when you want something, buy it, or terrible things will happen and you'll have to buy it twice anyway. (Obviously, I am quite superior to silly Aesop)
I looked everywhere. Not kidding. I sent hounds out, I tried yelling "accio present" with wand a-waving, I even consulted a ouija board. The best I can figure, the thing has got itself to an alternate reality. Worm holes are tricky suckers.
In any case, I went out and repurchased it. Man, were the stores crazy today though. Well, store anyway. I only went to the one. Didn't lose any others (she says, cockilly).
Plus, I wanted the thing myself (even thought about getting myself one when I went to get the other), but I held off. So, whenever the thing pops its head out, I'll be ready to pounce and claim it as my own [insert evil cackle here].
Moral of story- when you want something, buy it, or terrible things will happen and you'll have to buy it twice anyway. (Obviously, I am quite superior to silly Aesop)
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Bucky, Jason Todd, and Uncle Ben
Bucky, Jason Todd, and Uncle Ben
Except that what all there is now
is the will-one-day-be-retconned reality
people wondering where I’ve been
what can I tell them, except that
once in 1988 some jackass called in
over and over with a computer
voting that I’d get blown up
except that I didn’t blow up, not entirely
they’ll say I was in suspended animation
locked up in a block of ice after botching
an attempt at defusing an explosive
but really this revolving door
leading in and out of a certain heaven
that might be no place really
except that I was in reality 616
where maybe my wife is dead
(it's hard to remember now
what with all this coming and going)
but maybe I’m just camouflaged
killing a just another one of me
mostly just to pass the time
except there's nothing much I know
whether I died or not,
blown up or drowned
shot by some burglar
killed myself while not myself
all that remains
is a revolving door plot
and a god with writer's block
Copyright 2010 Amanda Martin Sandino
Except that what all there is now
is the will-one-day-be-retconned reality
people wondering where I’ve been
what can I tell them, except that
once in 1988 some jackass called in
over and over with a computer
voting that I’d get blown up
except that I didn’t blow up, not entirely
they’ll say I was in suspended animation
locked up in a block of ice after botching
an attempt at defusing an explosive
but really this revolving door
leading in and out of a certain heaven
that might be no place really
except that I was in reality 616
where maybe my wife is dead
(it's hard to remember now
what with all this coming and going)
but maybe I’m just camouflaged
killing a just another one of me
mostly just to pass the time
except there's nothing much I know
whether I died or not,
blown up or drowned
shot by some burglar
killed myself while not myself
all that remains
is a revolving door plot
and a god with writer's block
Copyright 2010 Amanda Martin Sandino
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
A Blog Post!
Because acc. L, I haven't been updating much lately. Which is ridiculous... 'cause witches, they were persecuted, Wicca good and love the earth and women power and I'll be over here.
I'm including the video for reference, in case you all (all two of you...) aren't as nerdling-y as me (I?). Even though there were none on Youtube of high quality. What is that about? Honestly, Youtube gods-- yer powers are gettin' a wee bit weak.
You can tell I'm tired because of the way I've suddenly forgotten how to spell words. I first spelled weak "week." Earlier, I spelled panic "panick." There are other weird things like this-- I need a good nap. Saturday shall be declared Dead Day. Except it can't be. Drat. So then, next Wednesday will be Dead Day, Autumn 2010. I need to defeat Twilight Princess. Although I must admit, I have gotten myself stuck in the City in the Sky- which is pretty pathetic for a hero hell-bent (heaven-bent?) on saving all of Hyrule.
Plus, I was laid out for five days-ish do to a crazy pain crisis. So, now I have yet another med. Which means I am even more broke. Am so broke and busy- it is not funny. On positive note- I will have the whole of my capstone rough drafted by the start of next quarter. Less work then- hurrah!
Ugh, the last thing I want to do right now is look at a computer screen, so I'm going to go and get an ice pack and read my new steampunk novel some more. It actually last ended on a cliffhanger- Civil War folks (we're not sure which army it is) are trying to blow the dirigible out of the sky! Yikes! <-- G-rated version of what I actually thought. ^^*
What happened to emoticons, btw? Am I now the only one who uses them? So outdated...
Good night!
I'm including the video for reference, in case you all (all two of you...) aren't as nerdling-y as me (I?). Even though there were none on Youtube of high quality. What is that about? Honestly, Youtube gods-- yer powers are gettin' a wee bit weak.
You can tell I'm tired because of the way I've suddenly forgotten how to spell words. I first spelled weak "week." Earlier, I spelled panic "panick." There are other weird things like this-- I need a good nap. Saturday shall be declared Dead Day. Except it can't be. Drat. So then, next Wednesday will be Dead Day, Autumn 2010. I need to defeat Twilight Princess. Although I must admit, I have gotten myself stuck in the City in the Sky- which is pretty pathetic for a hero hell-bent (heaven-bent?) on saving all of Hyrule.
Plus, I was laid out for five days-ish do to a crazy pain crisis. So, now I have yet another med. Which means I am even more broke. Am so broke and busy- it is not funny. On positive note- I will have the whole of my capstone rough drafted by the start of next quarter. Less work then- hurrah!
Ugh, the last thing I want to do right now is look at a computer screen, so I'm going to go and get an ice pack and read my new steampunk novel some more. It actually last ended on a cliffhanger- Civil War folks (we're not sure which army it is) are trying to blow the dirigible out of the sky! Yikes! <-- G-rated version of what I actually thought. ^^*
What happened to emoticons, btw? Am I now the only one who uses them? So outdated...
Good night!
Saturday, December 11, 2010
A Novel Approach to Cultural Studies?
Amanda Martin Sandino*
"The oxygen and hydrogen will now have the honor of combining before Your Majesty."
- John Henry Pepper (creator of the illusory technique Pepper's Ghost) to Queen Victoria, quoted in Jim Steinmer's Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear, also quoted in Clover as a cheesy metaphor for love.
It is astounding to me the number of ways in which my academic and nerdy artist lives have intermingled over the past year. I've written poems drawing upon Audre Lorde's theories of poetics, made a radio show in tribute to hooks, Said, Halberstam, and others, and, alas, as of November 30th, written the great Cultural Studies U.S. American novel. I use the word "great" loosely, as, so far as I know, I'm the only one to have written a cultural studies novel at this point, though I'd be pretty thrilled to be proved wrong.
I've always been pretty self-reflexive as a fiction writer, which is possibly the main reason why I never get any novels done save during National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) each November, when would-be novelists are encouraged by the Office of Letters and Light to write 50,000 words of a novel starting at November 1st at 12:00 a.m. and ending at 11:59 p.m. on November 30th. For the past four years, I have been successful in these attempts, writing A Shiver in the Distance (general fiction, 2007), Dedication (general fiction, 2008), The (Mostly) True Story of Ms. Bertha P. Collins, Grandmother, Showman, and Sometimes Usurper, as Told By the Terribly Unfortunate, Blister-Thumbed, Hortensia Higgory Hernandez, Volume 1 (children's fantasy, 2009), and, most recently, Clover (steampunk, 2010). All of these books were written while attending university, the first while an Asian Studies student at Seattle University, the second in the same program but as an exchange student at 上智大学 (Sophia University) in Tokyo, and the third and fourth while a cultural studies grad student.
This most recent session, I was even more self-reflexive (self-critical, panicky about undermining my own intentions, and harried) than the previous years, while simultaneously considering whether or not the novels written in the first two years of my Nanowrimo experience ought to be trashed. We do a lot of critiquing in cultural studies, but, in my eyes, no one is more harshly critiqued than the self.
Cultural Studies and Zombies
I've also been interested in linguistic questions, such as the idea of cultural studies as a non-discipline/anti-discipline. Recently, at a graduate research colloquium, a certain professor demonstrated an archive of multi/mixed media materials pulled together during a summer 2010 study abroad to South Africa, expressing displeasure at it often being referred to as a "scrapbook." Perhaps a better term might be "non-scrapbook"? In any case, I've been considering the linguistic understandings of non/anti-discipline in terms of the word "undead" to refer to zombies and the like, the reanimated dead as it were (and vampires, sometimes, but let's not get into polemics). What does it mean to be "undead"? Well, realistically the undead are dead, technically, as they have died in some form, but this death has far more implications than the conventional death. After all, this isn't an idle death, but one full of transformation and movement, as well as the continuous daming (not too be confused with "damning"--"siring" simply felt too patriarchal) or turning of the living.
What does this mean in terms of cultural studies? Well, in case you haven't followed my rather obtuse metaphor, cultural studies as a non-discipline works outside of traditional understandings of a discipline. Stuart Hall, a grandsire of cultural studies in a strictly Whedonian sense, explains:
Even the word "scrapbook" has a number of connotations, many negative and perhaps a bit stereotypical. Literally, we are referring to the archives we create as a "book of scraps," which feels a bit underrepresentative of the thought going into this professor's project as a whole. Yet there is also the connotation of womanhood and a woman's art similar to that of quilting, which may be positive yet, historically, has been underappreciated, as my cohort explains in her dissertation proposal:
One of the most liberating aspects of being in a cultural studies program is the methodological freedom. It doesn't even extend simply to what methods I can use for my own work, but to the texts of those we study/with whom we study as well.
(A Cultural Studies-y critique how Twilight romanticizes stalking, via a dialogue with Whedon's self-proclaimed feminist vampire dramedy, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer.)
In particular, I had the pleasure of understanding research surrounding South Africa and the world cup from a variety of affiliated voices through a number of media types, including video, theoretical research article, autoethnographic article, newspaper article, unscrapbookery, and lecture. Two of the larger products of this research (these researches) was Krabill's book Starring Mandella & Cosby and the My World Cup project. Yet even within these methods, other media types are brought in, such as song, dance, and graffiti art. One of the pieces that most resonated with the research slipped into my recent novel, was the video "Waka Waka: The Official World Cup Anthem":
Waka Waka from Angelica Macklin on Vimeo.
What is so wonderful about this video to me is the way it addressed various viewpoints surrounding the song "Waka Waka." It is a joke within my CS cohort that our work is producing no answers, only more questions, which is certainly exemplified by the contradictory opinions on Shakira's primary involvement in the performance of the 2010 World Cup anthem. Yet, this video was produced in South Africa, so it would be interesting to include viewpoints within other countries as well, such as Shakira's native country of Colombia. For example, Shakira is an extremely important figure for many Latin@ Americans, because she is such a success in the U.S. while simultaneously producing songs in her native Spanish. The professor of my core CS course this quarter spoke similarly about the many perspectives surrounding Christopher Columbus, primary: 1) CC as the discoverer of the U.S. and a hero, 2) CC as a murderer of native peoples and whose crews mutinied on him twice, 3) CC's importance as 1 for Italian and Latin@ Americans as one of the few U.S. national heroes with whom they/we can relate.
Another speaker in this series spoke about her work with the Senegal-based non-profit Tostan, including the production/writing of a pamphlet on the organization and an academic article co-authored with the Tostan founder. Before this lecture, I had already shied away from non-auto ethnography due to an unfortunate reading of Snyder and Mitchell's chapter on "Compulsory Ferali-ization" in Cultural Locations of Disability. In this piece, the authors essentially argue against any type of disability studies in the academy, citing that people with disabilities (hereafter PWDs**) have been mistreated by the academy for long enough and that modern approaches to working with PWDs as research subjects are in no way superior to the sequestering and subsequent study of PWDs a hundred years ago (200). Since the last thing I want to do is "reproduc[e] aspects of an oppressive culture"(201), I switched my research so that I will no longer be interviewing with other people with chronic pain***, but instead drawing from my own experiences as one with chronic pain.
Yet, this professor's talk on her work with Tostan and the ethical considerations of working with predominantly Black poor East Africans as a White U.S. American member of the academy was eye opening. One of the ways in which Western imperialism is addressed in the organization, as explained by Gillespie, is through a bottoms-up, community-led approach, wherein the people in the towns where the organization's programs are implemented are the leaders:
Steampunk'd: How Cultural Studies Bogarted My Novel
Without further ado, I will dig into how cultural studies infiltrated Clover in November 2010. I will do it via a list, because numbers make me feel quantitative, even if it is merely an illusion.
Anyway, at risk of even more ostentatiously allowing my "geek flag" to fly, I will need to briefly sum up this year's novel. So, basically, steampunk is a science fiction sub-genre wherein one reimagines the Victorian era with futuristic advances, traditionally with inventions steam-powered (popular examples: The Time Machine, the new Sherlock Holmes, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea). Of course, as all good ideas tend to do, this one went off in far less solidly-defined directions (a lot has been done with the U.S. American Civil War), before becoming an un-sub-genre of sorts.
So Clover essentially follows a plot based around the idea of a new sort of plague (ever so Star Trek-ian-ly referred to as "The Disease") hitting the world as a problematic whole in a more-or-less modern-ish era. As is the usual course of apocalyptic action, groups with money and/or power head up to the skies to escape the airborne disease. Our hero is a young boy who sneaked aboard one of these ships, and has had the cure hidden in his bloodstream.
Well, I never did claim to be Shikibu (if that was her name). In any case, this rather silly, and rather purposefully silly, novel considered a number of cultural studies concepts. Seriously. At least three, if you're to believe my fancy list. And here they are:
Formulating Silences- Trouillot speaks of how certain historical events are made to become invisibilized, particularly explaining formulas of erasure and banalization (96). In particular, Trouillot considers the virtually disappearance of the Haitian Revolution from U.S. (and other countries') history textbooks, and how this came to be. He talks about how the Haitian Revolution is often listed as simply an independence struggle that occurred by following the examples of the U.S. and France (banalization), and how nobody discussed the revolution in Haiti even at the time-- a strong, and fairly successful, attempt was made to hush up its existence as a whole (erasure).
One of the major historical events in Clover is the period when the airships took off, leaving everybody else behind to die. Well, it would be pretty difficult to invisibilize this event for the folks left on the ground, but I wanted to consider how the event would be portrayed for survivors on the airships. In any event, this process most unintentionally followed Trouillot's explanation in "An Unthinkable History: The Haitian Revolution as a Non-event." Thus, if the abandoned earth is to be as Haiti, wherein the history of the separation is well understood, then the airship dwelling elite more or less ignore that the separation occurred. It is portrayed as one of many such unfortunate but necessary happenings; commonplace and, well, banal. Furthermore, the control of information makes it such that one cannot access non-Manifest Destiny-type understandings of this event.
In fact, the rhetoric also largely draws from a key scene in Doctor Strangelove when the eponymous Strangelove plans for how humankind is to outlive a nuclear holocaust. Although the scene is part of a comedic film, some of the elements as well as the tone are sadly realistic. In particular, the nostalgia meant to be associated with the dead-- a rhetorical device similarly attached to the lives of those lost in war (fighting the good fight and all that). Similarly, the way in which the power to survive is portrayed as a necessary burden rather reeks of the White Man's Burden.
Spaces Within Spaces- The idea of space was considered in far more depth this year than the previous novels. In particular, Neil Smith's "Contours of a Spacialized Politics: Homeless Vehicles and the Production of Geographic Scale" and scales of space most surreptitiously slipped into my thinking. Smith outlines the following spacial regions: body, home, community, urban, region, nation, and global (66).
In particular, the concept of body as space is deeply considered and perhaps plays a key role in the motivation for the creation of this piece. In particular the idea of the body as an inescapable space for one with chronic disease, and the body as tool in a Kantian sense are two of the key philosophies considered in this work. Throughout the novel, people with the Disease are continuously put into forms of quarantine, yet it might be argued that the diseased body is in itself the quarantined space, wherein one is made to become other. Yet the body of the story's protagonist is further the space of cure, and he is come to be treated much as Kant's second premise of the Categorical imperative teaches against: "conduct is 'right' if it treats others as ends in themselves and not as means to an end" (30).
Yet the prison of external space is also considered in relation to the idea of perspective, particularly drawing on Hejinian's metaphor of Kaspar Hauser:
Essentially, this thinking infiltrated my own less overtly cultural studies-y writing with regard to classic and contemporary sci fi alliances and resistances. For example, Star Trek has the United Federation of Planets, Star Wars has Rebel Alliance versus the Galactic Empire, and Firefly has the Alliance versus the Independent Faction. While a sometimes nefarious but also sometimes positively portrayed hedgemonic power is put in place, there generally is a simple singular rebel faction. This line of thinking was questioned in this novel through the existence of resistances on multiple fronts, often working actively against one another and with various motivations.
A singular in-power group versus a singular working-for-power group is thus problematized.
** Referring to people with disabilities as PWDs is probably very problematic. But, quite frankly, I find all terms referring to people with disabilities either offensive or annoying, and I am quite tired of typing out "people with disabilities" seventeen times a day, often in reference to myself. "Handy-capable" has the feel of "Freedom Fries," by the by.
*** You see what I mean? Getting that we don't want to be defined by our disabilities [insert Derrida quote here], I still get exhausted with all the wordplay involved.
**** Because, really, how is "go fuck yourself" an insult? In fact, I was once told this by an ex-lover, to which I may have replied, if I'd been more quick on my feet, "Well, I suppose that is the way it will go tonight, but I imagine it'll be far more satisfying than any fuckery done with the likes of you."
Brown, Debbie. "A Dissertation Research Proposal Overview." 2010. Unpublished. Print.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Video. 1964.
Gillespie, Diane, and Molly Melching. "The Transformative Power of Democracy and Human Rights in Nonformal Education: The Case of Tostan." Adult Education Quarterly XX.X (2010): 1-22. Print
Hall, Stuart. "Cultural Studies and its Theoretical Legacies." Cultural Studies. Ed. Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula A. Threichler. New York and London: Routledge, 1992. 277-294. Print.
---. "The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power." Formations of Modernity. Oxford: Polity in Association with Open University, 1992. 276-295. Print.
Hejinian, Lyn. "Figuring Out."How2 1.7 (Spr. 2002). 3 Dec. 2010. Web.
Kant, Immanuel. Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals: On a Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns. Trans. James W. Ellington. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993. Print.
Krabill, Ron. "Surfing Into Zulu." Starring Mandela and Cosby: Media and the End(s) of Apartheid. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2010. 65-180. Print.
Krabill, Ron, Anjelica Macklin, and Georgia Roberts. "My World Cup." Lecture. University of Washington, Bothell. 7 Dec. 2010.
Martin Sandino, Amanda. Clover. 2010. Unpublished. Print.
---. Dedication. 2008. Unpublished. Print.
---. The (Mostly) True Story of Ms. Bertha P. Collins, Grandmother, Showman, and Sometimes Usurper, as Told By the Terribly Unfortunate, Blister-Thumbed, Hortensia Higgory Hernandez, Volume 1. 2009. Unpublished. Print.
---. Shiver in the Distance. 2007. Unpublished. Print.
"My World Cup: 2010." University of Washington. 7 Dec. 2010. 11 Dec. 2010. Web.
Smith, Neil. “Contours of a Spacialized Politics: Homeless Vehicles and the Production of Geographic Scale.” Social Text 33 (1992): 54-81. Print.
Snyder, Sharon L., and David T. Mitchell. "Conclusion: Compulsory Feral-ization." Cultural Locations of Disability. Chicago and London: U of Chicago P, 2006. 185-203. Print.
Tostan: Community-Led Development. Tostan. 2010. 9 Dec. 2010. Web.
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. "An Unthinkable History: The Haitian Revolution as a Non-event."Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995. Print.
"The oxygen and hydrogen will now have the honor of combining before Your Majesty."
- John Henry Pepper (creator of the illusory technique Pepper's Ghost) to Queen Victoria, quoted in Jim Steinmer's Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear, also quoted in Clover as a cheesy metaphor for love.
It is astounding to me the number of ways in which my academic and nerdy artist lives have intermingled over the past year. I've written poems drawing upon Audre Lorde's theories of poetics, made a radio show in tribute to hooks, Said, Halberstam, and others, and, alas, as of November 30th, written the great Cultural Studies U.S. American novel. I use the word "great" loosely, as, so far as I know, I'm the only one to have written a cultural studies novel at this point, though I'd be pretty thrilled to be proved wrong.
I've always been pretty self-reflexive as a fiction writer, which is possibly the main reason why I never get any novels done save during National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) each November, when would-be novelists are encouraged by the Office of Letters and Light to write 50,000 words of a novel starting at November 1st at 12:00 a.m. and ending at 11:59 p.m. on November 30th. For the past four years, I have been successful in these attempts, writing A Shiver in the Distance (general fiction, 2007), Dedication (general fiction, 2008), The (Mostly) True Story of Ms. Bertha P. Collins, Grandmother, Showman, and Sometimes Usurper, as Told By the Terribly Unfortunate, Blister-Thumbed, Hortensia Higgory Hernandez, Volume 1 (children's fantasy, 2009), and, most recently, Clover (steampunk, 2010). All of these books were written while attending university, the first while an Asian Studies student at Seattle University, the second in the same program but as an exchange student at 上智大学 (Sophia University) in Tokyo, and the third and fourth while a cultural studies grad student.
This most recent session, I was even more self-reflexive (self-critical, panicky about undermining my own intentions, and harried) than the previous years, while simultaneously considering whether or not the novels written in the first two years of my Nanowrimo experience ought to be trashed. We do a lot of critiquing in cultural studies, but, in my eyes, no one is more harshly critiqued than the self.
Cultural Studies and Zombies
I've also been interested in linguistic questions, such as the idea of cultural studies as a non-discipline/anti-discipline. Recently, at a graduate research colloquium, a certain professor demonstrated an archive of multi/mixed media materials pulled together during a summer 2010 study abroad to South Africa, expressing displeasure at it often being referred to as a "scrapbook." Perhaps a better term might be "non-scrapbook"? In any case, I've been considering the linguistic understandings of non/anti-discipline in terms of the word "undead" to refer to zombies and the like, the reanimated dead as it were (and vampires, sometimes, but let's not get into polemics). What does it mean to be "undead"? Well, realistically the undead are dead, technically, as they have died in some form, but this death has far more implications than the conventional death. After all, this isn't an idle death, but one full of transformation and movement, as well as the continuous daming (not too be confused with "damning"--"siring" simply felt too patriarchal) or turning of the living.
What does this mean in terms of cultural studies? Well, in case you haven't followed my rather obtuse metaphor, cultural studies as a non-discipline works outside of traditional understandings of a discipline. Stuart Hall, a grandsire of cultural studies in a strictly Whedonian sense, explains:
Cultural studies has multiple discourses; it has a number of different histories. It is a whole set of formations; it has its own different conjunctures and moments in the past. It included many different kinds of work. I want to insist on that! It always was a set of unstable formations. It was "centered" only in quotation marks, in a particular kind of way which I want to define in a moment. It had many trajectories; many people had and have different trajectories through it; it was constructed by a number of different methodologies and theoretical positions, all of them in contention... Now, does it follow that cultural studies is not a policed disciplinary area? That it is whatever people do, if they choose to call or locate themselves within the project and practice of cultural studies? I am not happy with that formulation either. ("Cultural Studies..." 278, emphases mine)In Barnes and Noble, cultural studies as a "genre" seems to imply "something that just didn't really fit anywhere else" or anthropological investigations of subcultures (Fruits, a Japanese magazine on street fashion, was once found there). When I search the store for books needed for classes in the cultural studies program, however, I have found authors in various sections: bell hooks alone spanned Education (Teaching to Transgress), Memoir (Ain't I a Woman?), Cultural Studies (Teaching Community), African American Studies (Killing Rage), and Literary Studies (Feminist Theory from Margin to Center). While inconvenient, this spanning is demonstrative of the undisciplinary nature of cultural studies. Even when one of our number makes a "scrapbook" it is far more than a conventional scrapbook-- the text is not simply a memory book of random photographs, captions, dates, and aesthetics-- it also acts as a critique of the traditional scrapbook in itself. The photographs are driven by theoretical understandings of what a photograph can do and mean. A photojournalist in my program uses his photos to critique racism, and considers what race means in terms of photography. In a recent mapping assignment, dates were reconsidered in less quantitative terms, drawing instead upon significant news items, popular songs, and television shows of those particular times to create a greater understanding of the dates she discussed.
Even the word "scrapbook" has a number of connotations, many negative and perhaps a bit stereotypical. Literally, we are referring to the archives we create as a "book of scraps," which feels a bit underrepresentative of the thought going into this professor's project as a whole. Yet there is also the connotation of womanhood and a woman's art similar to that of quilting, which may be positive yet, historically, has been underappreciated, as my cohort explains in her dissertation proposal:
Economic models all look at the same three categories: production, distribution, and consumption, but they leave out a critical fourth category, resource maintenance (Sampson, 2008). These crucial jobs include social reproduction, caring labor, domestic labor, community building, and care of the local environment. These activities are the crucial foundation of any economy, yet are ignored because they are feminine, or femin-ized work. If women did not perform these services, the entire economy would collapse, yet no one has made a development model that valorizes these activities. (Brown 1, emphasis in original)Methods (of Vampire Slayery)
One of the most liberating aspects of being in a cultural studies program is the methodological freedom. It doesn't even extend simply to what methods I can use for my own work, but to the texts of those we study/with whom we study as well.
(A Cultural Studies-y critique how Twilight romanticizes stalking, via a dialogue with Whedon's self-proclaimed feminist vampire dramedy, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer.)
In particular, I had the pleasure of understanding research surrounding South Africa and the world cup from a variety of affiliated voices through a number of media types, including video, theoretical research article, autoethnographic article, newspaper article, unscrapbookery, and lecture. Two of the larger products of this research (these researches) was Krabill's book Starring Mandella & Cosby and the My World Cup project. Yet even within these methods, other media types are brought in, such as song, dance, and graffiti art. One of the pieces that most resonated with the research slipped into my recent novel, was the video "Waka Waka: The Official World Cup Anthem":
Waka Waka from Angelica Macklin on Vimeo.
What is so wonderful about this video to me is the way it addressed various viewpoints surrounding the song "Waka Waka." It is a joke within my CS cohort that our work is producing no answers, only more questions, which is certainly exemplified by the contradictory opinions on Shakira's primary involvement in the performance of the 2010 World Cup anthem. Yet, this video was produced in South Africa, so it would be interesting to include viewpoints within other countries as well, such as Shakira's native country of Colombia. For example, Shakira is an extremely important figure for many Latin@ Americans, because she is such a success in the U.S. while simultaneously producing songs in her native Spanish. The professor of my core CS course this quarter spoke similarly about the many perspectives surrounding Christopher Columbus, primary: 1) CC as the discoverer of the U.S. and a hero, 2) CC as a murderer of native peoples and whose crews mutinied on him twice, 3) CC's importance as 1 for Italian and Latin@ Americans as one of the few U.S. national heroes with whom they/we can relate.
Another speaker in this series spoke about her work with the Senegal-based non-profit Tostan, including the production/writing of a pamphlet on the organization and an academic article co-authored with the Tostan founder. Before this lecture, I had already shied away from non-auto ethnography due to an unfortunate reading of Snyder and Mitchell's chapter on "Compulsory Ferali-ization" in Cultural Locations of Disability. In this piece, the authors essentially argue against any type of disability studies in the academy, citing that people with disabilities (hereafter PWDs**) have been mistreated by the academy for long enough and that modern approaches to working with PWDs as research subjects are in no way superior to the sequestering and subsequent study of PWDs a hundred years ago (200). Since the last thing I want to do is "reproduc[e] aspects of an oppressive culture"(201), I switched my research so that I will no longer be interviewing with other people with chronic pain***, but instead drawing from my own experiences as one with chronic pain.
Yet, this professor's talk on her work with Tostan and the ethical considerations of working with predominantly Black poor East Africans as a White U.S. American member of the academy was eye opening. One of the ways in which Western imperialism is addressed in the organization, as explained by Gillespie, is through a bottoms-up, community-led approach, wherein the people in the towns where the organization's programs are implemented are the leaders:
Tostan honors the local context of our participants. Our classes are held in local African languages, and we hire and train culturally competent and knowledgeable local staff. Classes are taught in a participatory manner and emphasize dialogue and consensus building, highly valued skills in African societies. Learners create songs, dances, plays, and poetry inspired from traditional culture to reinforce new knowledge. (Tostan website)In my own research, I am predominantly focusing on the creation of a poetry chapbook, a theoretical essay considering the self-other problem in relation to pain, and an autoethnographic paper on pain depictions inside and outside of medicine, drawing upon my poetry as one with chronic pain. Yet, I also work through blogging, have created a website, and consider my research through a variety of other methods. I hope to be less panicky at the prospect of ethnography in the future, however, because Gillespie's work has helped me to remember that, while no research can be perfectly ethical, particularly since "the good" is in itself subjective, researchers have come a long way, generally speaking, in self-reflectory and well-meaning research praxes. Furthermore, wide generalizations, such as those of Snyder and Mitchell, should be considered as problematic in themselves (which is academese for Snyder and Mitchell can go fuck themselves in an ultimately unsatisfying manner****).
Steampunk'd: How Cultural Studies Bogarted My Novel
Without further ado, I will dig into how cultural studies infiltrated Clover in November 2010. I will do it via a list, because numbers make me feel quantitative, even if it is merely an illusion.
Anyway, at risk of even more ostentatiously allowing my "geek flag" to fly, I will need to briefly sum up this year's novel. So, basically, steampunk is a science fiction sub-genre wherein one reimagines the Victorian era with futuristic advances, traditionally with inventions steam-powered (popular examples: The Time Machine, the new Sherlock Holmes, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea). Of course, as all good ideas tend to do, this one went off in far less solidly-defined directions (a lot has been done with the U.S. American Civil War), before becoming an un-sub-genre of sorts.
So Clover essentially follows a plot based around the idea of a new sort of plague (ever so Star Trek-ian-ly referred to as "The Disease") hitting the world as a problematic whole in a more-or-less modern-ish era. As is the usual course of apocalyptic action, groups with money and/or power head up to the skies to escape the airborne disease. Our hero is a young boy who sneaked aboard one of these ships, and has had the cure hidden in his bloodstream.
Well, I never did claim to be Shikibu (if that was her name). In any case, this rather silly, and rather purposefully silly, novel considered a number of cultural studies concepts. Seriously. At least three, if you're to believe my fancy list. And here they are:
Formulating Silences- Trouillot speaks of how certain historical events are made to become invisibilized, particularly explaining formulas of erasure and banalization (96). In particular, Trouillot considers the virtually disappearance of the Haitian Revolution from U.S. (and other countries') history textbooks, and how this came to be. He talks about how the Haitian Revolution is often listed as simply an independence struggle that occurred by following the examples of the U.S. and France (banalization), and how nobody discussed the revolution in Haiti even at the time-- a strong, and fairly successful, attempt was made to hush up its existence as a whole (erasure).
One of the major historical events in Clover is the period when the airships took off, leaving everybody else behind to die. Well, it would be pretty difficult to invisibilize this event for the folks left on the ground, but I wanted to consider how the event would be portrayed for survivors on the airships. In any event, this process most unintentionally followed Trouillot's explanation in "An Unthinkable History: The Haitian Revolution as a Non-event." Thus, if the abandoned earth is to be as Haiti, wherein the history of the separation is well understood, then the airship dwelling elite more or less ignore that the separation occurred. It is portrayed as one of many such unfortunate but necessary happenings; commonplace and, well, banal. Furthermore, the control of information makes it such that one cannot access non-Manifest Destiny-type understandings of this event.
In fact, the rhetoric also largely draws from a key scene in Doctor Strangelove when the eponymous Strangelove plans for how humankind is to outlive a nuclear holocaust. Although the scene is part of a comedic film, some of the elements as well as the tone are sadly realistic. In particular, the nostalgia meant to be associated with the dead-- a rhetorical device similarly attached to the lives of those lost in war (fighting the good fight and all that). Similarly, the way in which the power to survive is portrayed as a necessary burden rather reeks of the White Man's Burden.
Spaces Within Spaces- The idea of space was considered in far more depth this year than the previous novels. In particular, Neil Smith's "Contours of a Spacialized Politics: Homeless Vehicles and the Production of Geographic Scale" and scales of space most surreptitiously slipped into my thinking. Smith outlines the following spacial regions: body, home, community, urban, region, nation, and global (66).
In particular, the concept of body as space is deeply considered and perhaps plays a key role in the motivation for the creation of this piece. In particular the idea of the body as an inescapable space for one with chronic disease, and the body as tool in a Kantian sense are two of the key philosophies considered in this work. Throughout the novel, people with the Disease are continuously put into forms of quarantine, yet it might be argued that the diseased body is in itself the quarantined space, wherein one is made to become other. Yet the body of the story's protagonist is further the space of cure, and he is come to be treated much as Kant's second premise of the Categorical imperative teaches against: "conduct is 'right' if it treats others as ends in themselves and not as means to an end" (30).
Yet the prison of external space is also considered in relation to the idea of perspective, particularly drawing on Hejinian's metaphor of Kaspar Hauser:
He [Kasper] encounters the enigma of space. Daumer [his teacher] points to the tower at whose top is Kaspar’s room. But that’s impossible. When in the room, Kaspar sees it everywhere around him. When standing below the tower which is said to contain the room, he can turn his back and it is gone; Therefore the room is bigger than the tower. (n.p.)"The Resistance" or "The Resistances"?- One of the key concepts considered in my first quarter as a cultural studies grad student was that cultural studies as an un-discipline did not originate in a single location and does not have a single grandsire. While there may be one attributed university wherein cultural studies first developed (Birmingham) and a number of names most tightly associated with its origins (Stuart Hall, Raymond Williams), additional programs and people are further considered, including by Stuart Hall, existing outside of both the academy and the West.
Essentially, this thinking infiltrated my own less overtly cultural studies-y writing with regard to classic and contemporary sci fi alliances and resistances. For example, Star Trek has the United Federation of Planets, Star Wars has Rebel Alliance versus the Galactic Empire, and Firefly has the Alliance versus the Independent Faction. While a sometimes nefarious but also sometimes positively portrayed hedgemonic power is put in place, there generally is a simple singular rebel faction. This line of thinking was questioned in this novel through the existence of resistances on multiple fronts, often working actively against one another and with various motivations.
A singular in-power group versus a singular working-for-power group is thus problematized.
** Referring to people with disabilities as PWDs is probably very problematic. But, quite frankly, I find all terms referring to people with disabilities either offensive or annoying, and I am quite tired of typing out "people with disabilities" seventeen times a day, often in reference to myself. "Handy-capable" has the feel of "Freedom Fries," by the by.
*** You see what I mean? Getting that we don't want to be defined by our disabilities [insert Derrida quote here], I still get exhausted with all the wordplay involved.
**** Because, really, how is "go fuck yourself" an insult? In fact, I was once told this by an ex-lover, to which I may have replied, if I'd been more quick on my feet, "Well, I suppose that is the way it will go tonight, but I imagine it'll be far more satisfying than any fuckery done with the likes of you."
Works Cited
Brown, Debbie. "A Dissertation Research Proposal Overview." 2010. Unpublished. Print.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Video. 1964.
Gillespie, Diane, and Molly Melching. "The Transformative Power of Democracy and Human Rights in Nonformal Education: The Case of Tostan." Adult Education Quarterly XX.X (2010): 1-22. Print
Hall, Stuart. "Cultural Studies and its Theoretical Legacies." Cultural Studies. Ed. Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula A. Threichler. New York and London: Routledge, 1992. 277-294. Print.
---. "The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power." Formations of Modernity. Oxford: Polity in Association with Open University, 1992. 276-295. Print.
Hejinian, Lyn. "Figuring Out."
Kant, Immanuel. Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals: On a Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns. Trans. James W. Ellington. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993. Print.
Krabill, Ron. "Surfing Into Zulu." Starring Mandela and Cosby: Media and the End(s) of Apartheid. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2010. 65-180. Print.
Krabill, Ron, Anjelica Macklin, and Georgia Roberts. "My World Cup." Lecture. University of Washington, Bothell. 7 Dec. 2010.
Martin Sandino, Amanda. Clover. 2010. Unpublished. Print.
---. Dedication. 2008. Unpublished. Print.
---. The (Mostly) True Story of Ms. Bertha P. Collins, Grandmother, Showman, and Sometimes Usurper, as Told By the Terribly Unfortunate, Blister-Thumbed, Hortensia Higgory Hernandez, Volume 1. 2009. Unpublished. Print.
---. Shiver in the Distance. 2007. Unpublished. Print.
"My World Cup: 2010." University of Washington. 7 Dec. 2010. 11 Dec. 2010. Web.
Smith, Neil. “Contours of a Spacialized Politics: Homeless Vehicles and the Production of Geographic Scale.” Social Text 33 (1992): 54-81. Print.
Snyder, Sharon L., and David T. Mitchell. "Conclusion: Compulsory Feral-ization." Cultural Locations of Disability. Chicago and London: U of Chicago P, 2006. 185-203. Print.
Tostan: Community-Led Development. Tostan. 2010. 9 Dec. 2010. Web.
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. "An Unthinkable History: The Haitian Revolution as a Non-event."Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995. Print.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Tokyo for Cheap- A Map
Stage One: The Map and Blog Post that Started it All
Here is an artist's map of our route, rendered in lively colors for your enjoyment:
Glaciers, I'm beat. I also got some fun shopping done. Bought Bridget Jones II, the book, because I need something light for the airplane (there is not much that is lighter). Also an Ozaki tribute album (as though you know what I'm referring to ^^*) and THE Spice Girls Album (I guess there were more than one, but only one made number one, yo!). Also got some Matcha Candy at Meiji Jingu. I wanted to get the tea but it basically just looks like normal tree leaves and I didn't think it'd make it past customs. Pooooooh! T.T
Anyway, I's gotta get to bed so's to get up early and bring my sweet self over to Kawagoe. EXHAUSTED.
<3
Stage Four: My Second Map
Available here, because I cannot load PDFs to Blogger.
Stage Five: The New Map
View Tokyo- Cheap in a larger map
| Subject: Mandy, the Cartographer | Reply Quote Modify Set Flag | ||
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Stage Two: The Blog Entry that Started it All...First?
Saturday, January 17, 2009
*Walked EVERYWHERE*
I think Kayoko and I walked for like 3 or 4 hours straight. It was intense. We went from Meiji Jingu Mae to Ebisu Metro Station by foot, and pretty much back. My old old body aches. Crazy men tried to pick us up, and, strangely, we both pretended we didn't speak English ^^*****. Well, you know how it goes.Here is an artist's map of our route, rendered in lively colors for your enjoyment:
Glaciers, I'm beat. I also got some fun shopping done. Bought Bridget Jones II, the book, because I need something light for the airplane (there is not much that is lighter). Also an Ozaki tribute album (as though you know what I'm referring to ^^*) and THE Spice Girls Album (I guess there were more than one, but only one made number one, yo!). Also got some Matcha Candy at Meiji Jingu. I wanted to get the tea but it basically just looks like normal tree leaves and I didn't think it'd make it past customs. Pooooooh! T.T
Anyway, I's gotta get to bed so's to get up early and bring my sweet self over to Kawagoe. EXHAUSTED.
<3
| Subject: RE: Mandy, the Cartographer | Reply Quote Modify Set Flag | ||
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Stage Four: My Second Map
Available here, because I cannot load PDFs to Blogger.
| Subject: RE: Mandy, the Cartographer | Reply Quote Modify Set Flag | ||
| Author: Amanda Martin Posted date: Saturday, November 13, 2010 7:43:30 PM PST Last modified date: Tuesday, November 16, 2010 8:38:17 PM PST Total views: 31 Your views: 13 |
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Stage Five: The New Map
View Tokyo- Cheap in a larger map
Gabriel García Márquez Quote
When it was opened by the giant, the chest gave off a glacial exhalation. Inside there was only an enormous, transparent block with infinite internal needles in which the light of the sunset was broken up into colored stars. Disconcerted, knowing that the children were waiting for an immediate explanation, José Arcadio Buendía ventured a murmur:
“It’s the largest diamond in the world.”
“No,” the gypsy countered. “It’s ice.”
José Arcadio Buendía, without understanding, stretched out his hand toward the cake, but the giant moved it away. “Five reales more to touch it,” he said. José Arcadio Buendía paid them and put his hand on the ice and held it there for several minutes as his heart filled with fear and jubilation at the contact with mystery. Without knowing what to say, he paid ten reales more so that his sons could have that prodigious experience. Little José Arcadio refused to touch it. Aureliano, on the other hand, took a step forward and put his hand on it, withdrawing it immediately. “It’s boiling,” he exclaimed, startled. But his father paid no attention to him. Intoxicated by the evidence of the miracle, he forgot at that moment about the frustration of his delirious undertakings and Melquíades’ body, abandoned to the appetite of the squids. He paid another five reales and with his hand on the cake, as if giving testimony on the holy scriptures, he exclaimed:
“This is the great invention of our time.”
- Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
“It’s the largest diamond in the world.”
“No,” the gypsy countered. “It’s ice.”
José Arcadio Buendía, without understanding, stretched out his hand toward the cake, but the giant moved it away. “Five reales more to touch it,” he said. José Arcadio Buendía paid them and put his hand on the ice and held it there for several minutes as his heart filled with fear and jubilation at the contact with mystery. Without knowing what to say, he paid ten reales more so that his sons could have that prodigious experience. Little José Arcadio refused to touch it. Aureliano, on the other hand, took a step forward and put his hand on it, withdrawing it immediately. “It’s boiling,” he exclaimed, startled. But his father paid no attention to him. Intoxicated by the evidence of the miracle, he forgot at that moment about the frustration of his delirious undertakings and Melquíades’ body, abandoned to the appetite of the squids. He paid another five reales and with his hand on the cake, as if giving testimony on the holy scriptures, he exclaimed:
“This is the great invention of our time.”
- Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
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