Dear Dr. Harkey:
I was going to write you a Thank you note via Email, and then I thought it will be more like a surprise to post it on my blog.
So... Frankly speaking, I was always hoping to get out of the class so I don't have to do the time-consuming and demanding work anymore, but now I am really missing our class, especially during 4-5pm when we regularly meet.
I just heard the feedback you gave us. Thank you very much. We agree with every single one of the suggestions you provided. That must be a great amount of work to record for the groups for all 3 of your classes. We really appreciate your hard work!
I want to say that Eng1101 is unique from any other English classes I have ever taken. It is more than just "essays", I really learned how to think and generate ideas in the region I have never touched before--"Realness and Reality". You made us use new media to express our thoughts, such as Prezi, audio and video, and Pucha Kucha(really hope we had time to do it). I feel like I am exploring a brand new world of advanced technologies and I definitely need to use them when I make presentations in the future--I bet that would be eye-catching and breath-taking!
It is a shame that I wasn't able to select your English 1102, I am taking 21 credit hours next semester and it was so hard for me to choose the classes I want. But still, I will see you around and say hello to you! Good luck on grading our assignments. (I cannot imagine how hard will it be to read our 1000 words essays and grade them (plus the blog post) in just a couple of days. If you can do it, you are awesome!)
Thanks, one more time. You are one of the most wonderful teachers I have ever met!
Merry Christmas!
Wen Qiu
12/13/2011
2011年12月13日星期二
Final Wrap Up[5-Final Essay]
Wen Qiu
Professor Harkey
English 1101
7 December 2011
Street Art or Reality TV: Which One is More Real?
Consider two groups of audiences, viewing two genres of art: one is watching the three-dimensional, market-driven and derived Reality TV while sitting on the couch , and the other is enjoying the two-dimensional, inspiration-driven and original street art while passing down the road. Which group of audiences will receive more perception of realness? Although based on theirs names, Reality TV is meant to be more authentic and original, I argue that street art will provide its participants more realness because it is an art form that expresses the very basic and pure information.
Firstly, any three-dimensional show (the making of motion pictures) is a form of “le septième art” (also called 7th art), which means syncretizing the static and the dynamic, time and space. Since the perception of realness not only refers to the physical fact but also to the mental process, the more information one receives, the less space is left for him or her to ponder and link the information with reality. Different from Reality TV, street art is the two-dimensional work that keeps the artists from overloading information and limits them to express nothing but the very essence. By looking at street art, the audience will be provided with more freedom to relate the artwork with real happening. Moreover, in terms of participants’ involvement, two-dimensional street art is easily approachable while Reality TV shows are untouchable, thus viewers can be involved in street art more than Reality TV. Since “reality” is unique to every single person, only the thoughts and feelings generated from the audience based on his or her own outlook will not result in a digression from concrete “realness”.
Secondly, it is self-evident that Reality TV is driven by the market for profit. In order to survive the competitive environment, directors and editors must select a compelling narrative that audiences are interested in, thus most of the themes and subjects are derived several times from the exciting and scintillating stories, in ways the show turn out to be “a hybrid mutant of documentaries and stories.” (Shields 109) In other words, the quality of so-called “Reality TV” is not determined by how real it is, but by how intriguing it is. On the contrary, street art is purely inspiration-driven, providing viewers the initiative of insightful and provocative thoughts. Although street artists are driven by various motivations and objectives, there is a strong current of activism and subversion in street art, which serves to draw the pedestrians’ attention effectively. Consequently, street art can be a powerful platform to reach the general public, and motivate the audience to think thoroughly about the unveiled side of the society and reality.
Banksy is a pseudonymous English graffiti artist; his street art One Nation Under CCTV shows that the policeman and dog are appreciating the person painting the words without interrupting while the real closed circuit television is being placed there not doing anything. Although people may have various standpoints about the piece depending on their attitudes towards surveillance and street art, they share the perception about the police, common utility and general public based on their own definition of reality.
Lastly, in the field of Reality TV, most of the shows are reshaped several times from the real stories before they come out to the public. Even producers themselves, claimed that “the program's biggest challenge is creating format twists to maintain originality” (Ross) and “it is important that we go 'outside of the box' to find ways to facilitate treatment with the audience.” (Trites) For example, the American reality show Survivor is derived from Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe that is derived from a true story of Alexander Selkrick on The Englishman. By the time a real story is adapted to a Reality TV show, it no longer resemble the realness. Although all forms of art are not concretely authentic, compared to any other genre, street art obtains the shortest distance from the artist’s inspiration and thoughts to the final piece of work because it is separated from production and adaption. Since the degree of originality and reality is proportional, the most original means the most real.
Some might argue that majority and popularity define reality. In terms of general exposure, Reality TV is watched by millions of audiences who are not necessarily well educated and extremely intelligent, while street art (usually politics-related and social issues-relevant) is viewed by many people but only appreciated by the limited number passing pedestrians who are insightful and cognitive. Although Reality TV is a form of art that is more generalized because it is easy to be accepted, and that might mislead people to think Reality TV is more authentic and original, David Shields gives the precise and professional definition of what is considered to be real as “a deliberate ‘unartiness’: raw material, seemingly unprocessed, unfiltered, uncensored, and unprofessional.” (5) Street art, which is completely removed from information overload, commercial enterprise, and prevalent derivation, perfectly fits in the description given by Shields. Thus, as it is elaborated above, street art is more real than Reality TV.
Final Wrap Up[4-Audio&Video]
This is the link for the revised video for our third assignment, it's my favorite and most satisfied one!
Just found an interesting video of Reality Hunger!!
It's so much fun to watch it after we've gone through a great portion of the book. Although the video is pretty much a introduction for Reality Hunger, it helps me to review the sections and our class!
Here we go!
2011年12月9日星期五
Nietzsche's Thought of Morality as Anti-nature
I accidentally came by some of the articles that I was really interested in when I searched natural and unnatural. They were about Nietzche's thought towards morality as anti-nature. I was attracted by the seemingly "unreal" but actually logical reasoning, and the paragraphs below are my thoughts pumped up in my head while I was reading:
People always question the point that whether one should view morality as anti-nature. While some people argue that there should be and exists moral pronouncements that human beings need to follow and preach, particularly in a Christian-sight, the gospel in the Bible and the praise of God. Other philosophers, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, point out that morality is anti-nature. Nietzsche considered moral rules and laws as a stratagem of the weak to dupe the strong. He also believes that morality is the negative valuation of life and the attempt to suppress passions, and will-to-power is the basic internal drive that dictates all human thoughts and actions. It is people's instinctual need to manifest power over nature, to immerse ourselves in the belief that we can understand the world.
Nietzsche clarified why morality is anti-nature by providing the points that passion shouldn't be castrated and extirpated, religious morality prohibit various forms of sensuality and the accepting of instinct with numerous evidence.
Like he said, all passions have a phase when they are merely disastrous, when they drag down their victim with the weight of stupidity. While a strong-willed and reasonable person can dip into the passion, reap the benefits but avoid drawbacks, most people are not so strong and controlled, their passions tend to take over them and people turn out to suffer the results, people craft moralities that label the passions themselves as evils instead of their weaknesses, in other words, it is often the very weakest who impose absolutist and often irrational barriers against that which tempts them most, then hypocritically declare themselves immune.
Religious morality also prohibits various forms of sensuality, he clarifies and capsulizes his view of the opposition of religious morality by saying that “ant-natural morality—that is, almost every morality which has so far been taught, revered, and preached—turns, conversely, against the instincts of life: it is condemnation of these instincts, now secret, now outspoken and impudent" (Nietzsche). which means that one should learn to respect his instinct and try to go with what one feels to do instead of what one ought to do.
At the end of the excerption, Nietzsche points out that one should live his unique life by the very natural instincts and be aware of the four great errors which are confusing the effect and cause, positing the mental thought as a cause, positing causes where there are none and considering “free will” as the cause. These are the factors that fooled people to take the views of Moses, Aristotle, Jesus, Muhammad or any other kind of godly hero images for granted to seek true virtue, according to Nietzsche, truly good deeds had to exist, like love, beyond the moral rules and laws.
In addition, Stephen Jay Gould’s view of nature and morality is in the same direction as Nietzsche’s but slightly different. He questioned the existence of god by presenting the dilemma that “If God is good and if creations reveals his goodness, why do nature’s victim suffer?" (Gould). His also uses the life span of parasitic ichneumon wasp to illustrate a scientific view that natural lives such as animals are living nonmoral lives. From Gould's words our failure to discern the universal good we once expected does not record our lack of insight or ingenuity but merely demonstrates that nature contains no moral messages framed in human terms, one can safely draw the conclusion that Gould's viewpoint supports Nietzsche’s thesis that no morality exists in the very natural world and its creatures, yet at least animals, are living by their very instinct, they can be content without being rewarded the satisfaction of obeying the rules of religious morality.
2011年12月4日星期日
Response in Reading "Tha Realness": In search of Hip-Hop Authenticity
I feel like reading "Tha Realness": In search of Hip-Hop Authenticity by Jonathan D. Williams from University of Pennsylvania contributes a lot in generating, writing and polishing our final essay. I absorbed a great amount of insightful thoughts, good ideas of structuring and MLA formatting tips while reading the essay. I'm sure I will be using some of them in my essay.
About generating ideas:
1. If you are able to highlight your thesis using an unusual way. It will be great to put it at the beginning of the second paragraph... After having a brief look at the basic introduction and background, the thesis statement will as a matter of fact make a stronger sense. However, we need to make sure that it is recognizable enough, or it may confuse people.
2. There is no need to write something that is irrelevant to the statement you are making. A straight forward opening for the statement will contribute more than anything else.
3. Counter argument is very necessary in order for us to form a complete and balanced essay.
4. Paragraphs needs to be interrelated-- in other words, try to polish the essay as smooth as possible-- pay more attention into linking the paragraphs.
5. A few quotes and citations can be great back-ups for elaborating and convincing your thesis to the audience.
6. Try to quote the citations in your own way, i.e., instead of putting the whole sentence in the paragraph stubbornly, it helps a lot to just use part of it. This is a great way to demonstrate your writing skills and you understand both the topic and the reference really well.
About MLA Formatting:
1. Last name+ page number located on the top of the page.
2. 1 inch's space from the first line. Half of a inch from Last name+ page number.
3. First line of the paragraphs needs to be indented.
4. No extra space between paragraphs.
About generating ideas:
1. If you are able to highlight your thesis using an unusual way. It will be great to put it at the beginning of the second paragraph... After having a brief look at the basic introduction and background, the thesis statement will as a matter of fact make a stronger sense. However, we need to make sure that it is recognizable enough, or it may confuse people.
2. There is no need to write something that is irrelevant to the statement you are making. A straight forward opening for the statement will contribute more than anything else.
3. Counter argument is very necessary in order for us to form a complete and balanced essay.
4. Paragraphs needs to be interrelated-- in other words, try to polish the essay as smooth as possible-- pay more attention into linking the paragraphs.
5. A few quotes and citations can be great back-ups for elaborating and convincing your thesis to the audience.
6. Try to quote the citations in your own way, i.e., instead of putting the whole sentence in the paragraph stubbornly, it helps a lot to just use part of it. This is a great way to demonstrate your writing skills and you understand both the topic and the reference really well.
About MLA Formatting:
1. Last name+ page number located on the top of the page.
2. 1 inch's space from the first line. Half of a inch from Last name+ page number.
3. First line of the paragraphs needs to be indented.
4. No extra space between paragraphs.
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