So, I have this "reading list" for the summer. The idea is that if I make a list of books that I want to read (and check them off as I read them), I'll actually read them...it's kinda working. The problem thus far has been that I'm reading stuff that's not on the list - such as Delillo's The Falling Man, Saramago's The Double, and Urrea's The Devil's Highway (this is the book for next year's first-year composition course).

Still, I'm making my through the list. I've worked my way through Ulmer's Internet Invention. I wanted to read this book to see what Ulmer's up to (I had skimmed Teletheory and some other texts) and also to see if I wanted to use the book for my Computers and Writing course this fall.

Well, I think I am going to use this book, but I'm a bit worried about doing it. It's a really difficult text, and a lot of the stuff in it will go over students' heads (shit, some of it was way over my head). His references to Barthes, Jameson, and Althusser make it difficult, but I also think the text does some things that I've been looking for from a textbook. It ties together theory and pedagogy. It also doesn't pretend to speak from "nowhere." That is, Ulmer is very up front that he speaks from within a discipline (English studies), and this is something that a lot of rhetoric texts don't do. For this reason, it avoids some disciplinary imperialism...but this also means that it operates within a very specific language game. Anyone using this book will have to prepare themselves and students for a lot of "Huh?" moments. I'm okay with these moments. In fact, I think these moments are the most useful moments a teacher can have. However, I don't think this book is for everyone.

The best part about the book is that it forces students to take note of how they've been interpellated...how their way of viewing the world has been shaped by a number of factors. At the beginning of the text, I was concerned that it might be (at least partially) participating in what Michelle Ballif would call an "identity disclosing pedagogy" (I blogged about this). However, after reading the text I'm convinced (for the most part) that Ulmer is not guilty of this. I am still not completely comfortable with the "coherence" he attributes to the mystory. That is, students are developing a web site called a "mystory" that narrates the different parts of their lives (family, career, entertainment, community) in a way that makes connections between these different parts. At times, this search for connections makes it sound like he wants students to look for the narrative strand that carries through their entire life. These are the moments that I'm not entirely comfortable with...but I'm willing to give this text a try anyway. I'm especially excited about using the Google Maps API for Ulmer's mapping exercise (an exercise that asks students to play cartographer and map the different institutions in their community - this allows them to think about the ways those institutions shaped them).

Has anyone out there used this text? Do you have suggestions? Comments? Thoughts?

Chapter 2 of Internet Invention asks me/us to use Roland Barthes theories of photography to examine some photos. Barthes explains two sets of meaning in a photograph:

1) Studium: "meanings that are nameable," "given cultural meanings that we understand at once" (44)

2) Punctum: "a personal memory based not on the public archive but a private repertoire," "stings the viewer...some detail (some accident in the photograph)" (44); "occurs when there is a match between a signifier in the scene (in the photograph), and a scene in the memory" (45)

Let's give this a shot:

I got this image from Rodney's Flickr page.

Studium.
Well, we've got the Texas flag which actually appears to be higher than the Stars and Stripes (in actuality, it's probably the same height - Texas is the only state that can do this, right? Have the state flag as high as the U.S. flag?) There is shrubbery and green grass. Rodney's page claims that this image was taken in Giddings, TX, but it seems too green to be Texas. We have had a lot of rain lately. Then, of course, the "Dime Box" sign. Rodney is so witty...I wonder if he took the picture at 4:20?

Punctum.
Rodney's picture of the Dime Box sign (classic "dime bag" humor) brings back memories of "The 10 Spot" on MTV. I have no idea what The 10 Spot was (I think it was just a way for them to package what was on at 10:00pm?), but in college we always called it the "dime bag."

One more:

[Image courtesy of slhr_zulu

Studium.
Auburn Hair. Knot in the hair, or maybe just bed head? Black light poster in the background? Probably a dorm room.

Punctum.
The MySpace Angles. Pictures like this are part of a whole new genre of photography. This is explained best in MySpace: The Movie:

She's got the angles. It's only a shot of her face, a shot of her butt, a shot of her thigh. There's no full picture!

Now, in the movie, the discussion of the angles is about how "ugly chicks" on MySpace present themselves. But that's not always the case. It's not about hiding bad features - it seems to be more about mystery, or about amateur photographers getting creative, or about digital photography in general. You can take crooked shots, partial shots, and know instantly whether it "worked" or not. There's no worry about wasting film.

Moving on to Chapter 3 in Ulmer: Home and Family.

"To find the wide image requires sorting out and noticing the singular way in which I relate to the default mood of my culture and civilization" (Ulmer 59).

I"m in Chapter 2 of Ulmer's Internet Invention now, an one of the exercises asks me to recall an "Illumination." The example Ulmer offers is Jean Genet's experience on a train: "One day, while riding in a train, I experienced a revalation: as I looked at the passenger sitting opposite me, I realized that every man has the same value as every other" (Genet qtd. in Ulmer 62).

Genet goes on to describe the man and his revelation, and Ulmer asks us to think about a possible "moment of insight" we once had. Here's mine:

I remember a long car trip (we took quite a few of these when we lived in Philadelphia - we were always doing that cross-state trip from Philly to Pittsburgh to visit family). During this car trip, I remember saying to my parents that the highway and the cars on it offered a pretty good metaphor for life. I think I was probably about 11 years old. This would explain why this "insight" is not exactly a profound one. However, Ulmer claims "the insight need not have been profound" (64). So, I'll go on. My basic thought was that you travel in a car with those close to you, and you are surrounded by familiar people here and there. There are always those cars on a long trip that are traveling at a similar rate. You pass them, they pass you, repeat. But, until someone needs to stop for gas or food, you're traveling together. This might be a certain level of friendship. Then there are the folks you blow by - the ones traveling the speed limit. Then there are the ones that blow by you - the ones that are going too fast (Note that in our car, we are going the "correct" speed - not to fast, not too slow. In fact, we are most likely going 10% over the speed limit. This is what my grandfather - a retired cop - always told us was the accepted buffer zone. No cop will pull you over for 72 in a 65...)

So, folks are going too fast or too slow or just right, but you're really only immediately surrounded by those close to you - those who are on the road trip with you. I must have been pretty young when I came up with this idea because I remember my parents being pretty impressed. It is not a very impressive idea.

So, there you go Ulmer...there's my completely un-profound insight.

[Warning: As you can probably tell from the title, this is a blog post that is meant to kick start writing. This means that it involves rambling. Be advised.]

Okay, so I can't quite get things rolling on this summer writing thing. I find myself wanting to read a lot (and not even doing that), and I (of course) find myself inspired to write at strange moments. I'm hoping that the blog will trigger some things for me.

In a moment of frustration yesterday - as I looked at a list of rhet/comp. citations on intellectual property, rhetorical agency, and community - I went back to Ulmer's Internet Invention. I've been thinking about using this book for my Computers and Writing class in the Fall, and I'm working my way through it. I've also been wanting to start in on some of Ulmer's work anyway, and this seemed like one way to do it.

So, this got me thinking that I should start my own "wide image" or "mystory" as a way of triggering my writing process for the dissertation. Ulmer's concept of Mystory is a response to Hayden White's assertion that history would be written differently had it been developed in the 20th Century. Ulmer attempts to develop a method of "electracy" (as opposed to literacy), and I find his model really intriguing. It allows students (and instructors) to discover the ways in which knowledge is structured in the different spheres of their life: career, family, entertainment, community. Following Kuhn and others, Ulmer encourages us to look at the stories/artifacts/people that shape each of these spheres. What tropes drive our research? How do disciplines create knowledge? Ulmer has us looking for our "image of wide scope" or "themata": "the clusters of presuppositions and 'gut' assumptions which each scientist has about the universe" (Briggs qtd. in Ulmer 20).