Monday, April 28, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
No Blog this week - Final Presentations
Discussion forum for final presentations:
- Every student must open up a forum by posting a new blog under the name of his or her movie. If you would like to write one or two sentences about your argument in the body of the blog, that is acceptable.
- Audience members and fellow panelists can post questions to this blog post in the "comments" section.
- Make sure to check up on your blog so that all questions are addressed
- Forums should remain open and active until Sunday, May 4 in order to address issues raised in the last panel.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Prompt 11
Sex and Violence: Rhetoric of the Body?
Inspired by the common class reaction to Videodrome, as well as the second and third parts of the film, I thought we could focus our blogs this week on violence. In the film, Professor Oblivion remarks that what you see on television emerges as raw experience for the viewer, and I think we've seen this to be the case from several of your colleagues' reactions to the movie. Violence is obviously an important part of Cronenberg's movie and, as we've seen this week, it is violence that allows the Videodrome signal to penetrate the body. The question this week is: why is this? Why does Cronenberg choose violence (and sexualized violence at that) as the means of "infection"? This week, I want you to discuss this issue of violence in the movie and make sure to reflect on how violence focuses or complicates an argument about the body and technology. I will give you a couple of ideas to start, but feel free to investigate your own interest in the topic.
Inspired by the common class reaction to Videodrome, as well as the second and third parts of the film, I thought we could focus our blogs this week on violence. In the film, Professor Oblivion remarks that what you see on television emerges as raw experience for the viewer, and I think we've seen this to be the case from several of your colleagues' reactions to the movie. Violence is obviously an important part of Cronenberg's movie and, as we've seen this week, it is violence that allows the Videodrome signal to penetrate the body. The question this week is: why is this? Why does Cronenberg choose violence (and sexualized violence at that) as the means of "infection"? This week, I want you to discuss this issue of violence in the movie and make sure to reflect on how violence focuses or complicates an argument about the body and technology. I will give you a couple of ideas to start, but feel free to investigate your own interest in the topic.
- Violence and pleasure (either the spectacle as entertainment or the sexual interest we see expressed in Nicki's character)
- Violence and affect (disgust, how violence affects a viewer physically)
- Vigilantism
- Violence and redemption
Monday, April 7, 2008
Prompt 11
Blog and comments due Sunday
This week we began looking at film as we continue our investigation of the body and technology and how this relationship affects how we imagine the body of the future (or future bodies). In doing this, we've also started to prepare for the final project and I want you to use this blog entry as a space for invention for your final presentation. This means that you will need to watch your movie by Sunday because you'll need to complete a blog entry that offers one or multiple ways in which your assigned movie makes an argument about the body's relationship to technology. This does not have to be polished, as your final presentation should be, but rather serve as an initial inquiry into the study and source at hand. A good place to start may be the idea of cinematic language that we discussed in class. Your presentation will focus not only on the what (claim) but also the how (evidence) and investigating the various techniques that fall under the term cinematic language will be helpful in initiating your analysis.
In your comments, you should provide the writer with helpful feedback that either furthers the argument or suggests other ways to pursue the topic. You need not restrict your responses to those movies you have seen; an interaction with the author's analysis itself should be helpful as you all work to develop ideas you may want to present.
This week we began looking at film as we continue our investigation of the body and technology and how this relationship affects how we imagine the body of the future (or future bodies). In doing this, we've also started to prepare for the final project and I want you to use this blog entry as a space for invention for your final presentation. This means that you will need to watch your movie by Sunday because you'll need to complete a blog entry that offers one or multiple ways in which your assigned movie makes an argument about the body's relationship to technology. This does not have to be polished, as your final presentation should be, but rather serve as an initial inquiry into the study and source at hand. A good place to start may be the idea of cinematic language that we discussed in class. Your presentation will focus not only on the what (claim) but also the how (evidence) and investigating the various techniques that fall under the term cinematic language will be helpful in initiating your analysis.
In your comments, you should provide the writer with helpful feedback that either furthers the argument or suggests other ways to pursue the topic. You need not restrict your responses to those movies you have seen; an interaction with the author's analysis itself should be helpful as you all work to develop ideas you may want to present.
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