So what do you all think of the lyrics and the video?
Saturday, October 8, 2011
The Group Who Couldn't Say
Lesley shared this video with Blake and I a couple of weeks ago, and I kept forgetting to post it here. The band is Grandaddy, and the song is "The Group Who Couldn't Say."
So what do you all think of the lyrics and the video?
So what do you all think of the lyrics and the video?
Friday, August 5, 2011
Mock Conference Presentation
[Jay Jay]
[From my note cards.]
Thesis:
Sarah Kemble Knight participates in enforcing the dominant patriarchal ideology of her culture by describing the land she encounters as an object rather than subject, and women, Native Americans, and African American slaves as othered objects in her journal. Ecofeminism reveals the connection between the degradation of nature and the domination of women in Knight’s journal, which is expressed in terms of subject and object.
Intervention in scholarship:
There is work being conducted by scholars on ecocritical and ecofeminist theory in the early American time period. The essays by Timothy Sweet and Daniel Philippon are critical because they illustrate that scholars are still proving to each other that it is a sustainable project of value – still defending their position of ecocritical theory in early American studies, so to speak. My paper serves as an exploration, meaning that I myself am still unsure of the ecocritical and ecofeminist field; my intention is not so much an intervention as an introduction to the field for myself as a student.
Examples from paper:
Rivers are the most frequently mentioned obstacle and source of terror for Knight during her journey, perhaps because they are the least tamed and urbanized aspect of the wilderness. Roads, even if in poor condition, provide Knight and her guides access to the land, but not all of the rivers have proper ferries, bridges, or canoes that will not flood. The rivers are “bad,” “dang’ros,” “difficult,” “hazzardos,” or “navigable,” illustrating the polemical landscape theory proposed by Peter Kratze, representing extremes: good or bad, never in between.
The problem with examples of Knight’s interaction with “othered” humans is they are presented so briefly – little snapshots. They exist as caricatures, as objects rather than subjects.
Mr. Devill’s daughters “look’t as old as the Divel himself, and quite as ugly” and live in a “habitation of cruelty.” The old woman at Knight’s next stop is a “pretty full mouth’d old creature” who violates proper manners by loudly telling the French doctor her maladies in front of company. Knight’s “tattertailed guide” is described as “an Indian-like Animal,” implying that Native Americans are animal-like rather than human, objects rather than subjects. To be “animal-like” is to be uncivilized, and towns and civilization are highly privileged in Knight’s journal. The “negro slave” in her theft story is never given a name, and the story is included in her journal as a means of mocking the bumpkins of the countryside.
Further explorations:
A comparison of Knight’s journal with the brief account “Memoir of a Journey from New London to Boston” by John Winthrop (the governor’s son) would prove interesting because the parties took the same route within three months of each other. Locating other travel narratives by both women and men during the early 1700s would expand the boundaries of this brief investigation, allowing for a stronger claim that the ecofeminist lens provides valuable insight into the society and cultural hierarchies and their relationship to the nonhuman environment of this time period.
Dr. Murphy suggested that I turn to the poetry of Anne Bradstreet, a predecessor to Knight, to examine her treatment of nature.
Blake suggest that I look at post-colonial theory to flesh out the relationship between the Native Americans and African American slaves as objects and their connection to the degradation of nature.
[From my note cards.]
Thesis:
Sarah Kemble Knight participates in enforcing the dominant patriarchal ideology of her culture by describing the land she encounters as an object rather than subject, and women, Native Americans, and African American slaves as othered objects in her journal. Ecofeminism reveals the connection between the degradation of nature and the domination of women in Knight’s journal, which is expressed in terms of subject and object.
Intervention in scholarship:
There is work being conducted by scholars on ecocritical and ecofeminist theory in the early American time period. The essays by Timothy Sweet and Daniel Philippon are critical because they illustrate that scholars are still proving to each other that it is a sustainable project of value – still defending their position of ecocritical theory in early American studies, so to speak. My paper serves as an exploration, meaning that I myself am still unsure of the ecocritical and ecofeminist field; my intention is not so much an intervention as an introduction to the field for myself as a student.
Examples from paper:
Rivers are the most frequently mentioned obstacle and source of terror for Knight during her journey, perhaps because they are the least tamed and urbanized aspect of the wilderness. Roads, even if in poor condition, provide Knight and her guides access to the land, but not all of the rivers have proper ferries, bridges, or canoes that will not flood. The rivers are “bad,” “dang’ros,” “difficult,” “hazzardos,” or “navigable,” illustrating the polemical landscape theory proposed by Peter Kratze, representing extremes: good or bad, never in between.
The problem with examples of Knight’s interaction with “othered” humans is they are presented so briefly – little snapshots. They exist as caricatures, as objects rather than subjects.
Mr. Devill’s daughters “look’t as old as the Divel himself, and quite as ugly” and live in a “habitation of cruelty.” The old woman at Knight’s next stop is a “pretty full mouth’d old creature” who violates proper manners by loudly telling the French doctor her maladies in front of company. Knight’s “tattertailed guide” is described as “an Indian-like Animal,” implying that Native Americans are animal-like rather than human, objects rather than subjects. To be “animal-like” is to be uncivilized, and towns and civilization are highly privileged in Knight’s journal. The “negro slave” in her theft story is never given a name, and the story is included in her journal as a means of mocking the bumpkins of the countryside.
Further explorations:
A comparison of Knight’s journal with the brief account “Memoir of a Journey from New London to Boston” by John Winthrop (the governor’s son) would prove interesting because the parties took the same route within three months of each other. Locating other travel narratives by both women and men during the early 1700s would expand the boundaries of this brief investigation, allowing for a stronger claim that the ecofeminist lens provides valuable insight into the society and cultural hierarchies and their relationship to the nonhuman environment of this time period.
Dr. Murphy suggested that I turn to the poetry of Anne Bradstreet, a predecessor to Knight, to examine her treatment of nature.
Blake suggest that I look at post-colonial theory to flesh out the relationship between the Native Americans and African American slaves as objects and their connection to the degradation of nature.
Conference Paper
[Jay Jay]
This paper functions as an exploration of Sarah Kemble Knight’s The Private Journal of a Journey from Boston to New York through an ecofeminist lens by examining the representation of human and nonhuman in the text. Specifically, I investigate the relationships forged by Knight between human and nonhuman entities through her use of language, rendering the entity as either subject or object. Vivid descriptions of urban and rural lands are provided by Knight, as well as numerous interactions with people she encounters during her five day journey between Boston and New Haven. Knight participates in enforcing the dominant patriarchal ideology of her culture by describing the land she encounters as an object rather than subject, and categorizing women, Native Americans, and African American slaves as othered objects. Ecofeminism reveals the connection between the degradation of nature and the domination of women in Knight’s journal, which is expressed in terms of subject and object.
Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola examines Knight’s relationship with the land through the filter of the picaresque genre in her essay “The New England Frontier and the Picaresque in Sarah Kemble Knight’s Journal.” The frontier becomes “literary, colonized, domesticated, ‘urbanized,’ dangerous, comic, practical, and amoral” through Knight’s use of the picaresque (123). Knight’s amoral descriptions of the land challenge the Puritan dialectical view of the land, rendering Knight’s voice unorthodox. Additionally, Knight’s portrayal of the land is not informed by the garden metaphor found by Annette Kolodny in other women’s writings; in contrast, Knight often “urbanizes” the land she travels through, referring frequently to towns rather than the frontier. Despite her unorthodox voice, Knight still enforces dominant patriarchal ideology, privileging the urban over the wild.
Robert O. Stephens claims that Knight describes the land in two manners: the world or the actual, and the underworld or the mythic. He argues that scholars should focus on the mythic elements found within the journal rather than take the journal as a “literal diary.” Stephens’s essay resituates Knight’s work within the “fruitful tradition of colonial American, and particularly New England, literature” (254). Peter Kratzke states that whether Knight uses mimetic or mythic language and imagery, both are polemical in nature. The body and spirit, and human and animal imagery are addressed briefly, and Kratzke notes that the “polemical landscape is blurred by very real physical danger,” which is of interest to this project (48). Rivers in particular are the most frequently mentioned aspect of the land in the journal as Knight records her struggles to cross them without drowning. If the landscape is the only imagery that escapes clear cut polemical categories, how does this affect the relationship of human to nonhuman in the journal?
Sarah Kemble Knight’s Nonhuman and Human Encounters:
Hazzardos Rivers, Terrifying Darkness, and Surly Old Shee Creatures
This paper functions as an exploration of Sarah Kemble Knight’s The Private Journal of a Journey from Boston to New York through an ecofeminist lens by examining the representation of human and nonhuman in the text. Specifically, I investigate the relationships forged by Knight between human and nonhuman entities through her use of language, rendering the entity as either subject or object. Vivid descriptions of urban and rural lands are provided by Knight, as well as numerous interactions with people she encounters during her five day journey between Boston and New Haven. Knight participates in enforcing the dominant patriarchal ideology of her culture by describing the land she encounters as an object rather than subject, and categorizing women, Native Americans, and African American slaves as othered objects. Ecofeminism reveals the connection between the degradation of nature and the domination of women in Knight’s journal, which is expressed in terms of subject and object.
Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola examines Knight’s relationship with the land through the filter of the picaresque genre in her essay “The New England Frontier and the Picaresque in Sarah Kemble Knight’s Journal.” The frontier becomes “literary, colonized, domesticated, ‘urbanized,’ dangerous, comic, practical, and amoral” through Knight’s use of the picaresque (123). Knight’s amoral descriptions of the land challenge the Puritan dialectical view of the land, rendering Knight’s voice unorthodox. Additionally, Knight’s portrayal of the land is not informed by the garden metaphor found by Annette Kolodny in other women’s writings; in contrast, Knight often “urbanizes” the land she travels through, referring frequently to towns rather than the frontier. Despite her unorthodox voice, Knight still enforces dominant patriarchal ideology, privileging the urban over the wild.
Robert O. Stephens claims that Knight describes the land in two manners: the world or the actual, and the underworld or the mythic. He argues that scholars should focus on the mythic elements found within the journal rather than take the journal as a “literal diary.” Stephens’s essay resituates Knight’s work within the “fruitful tradition of colonial American, and particularly New England, literature” (254). Peter Kratzke states that whether Knight uses mimetic or mythic language and imagery, both are polemical in nature. The body and spirit, and human and animal imagery are addressed briefly, and Kratzke notes that the “polemical landscape is blurred by very real physical danger,” which is of interest to this project (48). Rivers in particular are the most frequently mentioned aspect of the land in the journal as Knight records her struggles to cross them without drowning. If the landscape is the only imagery that escapes clear cut polemical categories, how does this affect the relationship of human to nonhuman in the journal?
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Abstract #5
[Jay Jay]
Philippon, Daniel J. “Is Early American Environmental Writing Sustainable? A Response to Timothy Sweet.” Early American Literature. 45.2 (2010): 417-23. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 23 June 2011.
Daniel J. Philippon’s essay addresses the contributions of American literary history to the project of ecocriticism, and the ways in which early American concerns do apply to works from later periods, which should not be dismissed by ecocritics. Philippon identifies the inclusion of the “nonhuman world in literary and cultural criticism” as “an unqualified good on both philosophical and biological grounds” (432). It is important to acknowledge that environmental problems cannot be solved without the cooperation of academics and professionals from fields of science, technology, and humanities. The essay by Timothy Sweet clearly demonstrates the benefits of interdisciplinary study, which ecocritism relies upon, by pursuing both a temporal sense and spatial sense of “the continuities and discontinuities of environmental discourse” (433). While Sweet prefers the eco-economic approach, Philippon broadens the perspective by including the “three pillars” approach or the “triple bottom line” (“social, ecological, and economic” and “people, planet, and profit”) (434). An additional criticism of Sweet’s essay includes too little emphasis on the discontinuities between early and later periods, especially “in terms of the pace and scale of technological change,” such as biotechnology and information technology (435). Lastly, the georgic critical approach ignores texts that “exist outside the purview of the pastoral” as well those that include a “built environment” (436).
Philippon, Daniel J. “Is Early American Environmental Writing Sustainable? A Response to Timothy Sweet.” Early American Literature. 45.2 (2010): 417-23. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 23 June 2011.
Daniel J. Philippon’s essay addresses the contributions of American literary history to the project of ecocriticism, and the ways in which early American concerns do apply to works from later periods, which should not be dismissed by ecocritics. Philippon identifies the inclusion of the “nonhuman world in literary and cultural criticism” as “an unqualified good on both philosophical and biological grounds” (432). It is important to acknowledge that environmental problems cannot be solved without the cooperation of academics and professionals from fields of science, technology, and humanities. The essay by Timothy Sweet clearly demonstrates the benefits of interdisciplinary study, which ecocritism relies upon, by pursuing both a temporal sense and spatial sense of “the continuities and discontinuities of environmental discourse” (433). While Sweet prefers the eco-economic approach, Philippon broadens the perspective by including the “three pillars” approach or the “triple bottom line” (“social, ecological, and economic” and “people, planet, and profit”) (434). An additional criticism of Sweet’s essay includes too little emphasis on the discontinuities between early and later periods, especially “in terms of the pace and scale of technological change,” such as biotechnology and information technology (435). Lastly, the georgic critical approach ignores texts that “exist outside the purview of the pastoral” as well those that include a “built environment” (436).
Abstract #4
[Jay Jay]
Sweet, Timothy. “Projecting Early American Environmental Writing.” Early American Literature. 45.2 (2010): 403-16. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 23 June 2011.
In order to successfully connect the concerns of early American environmental writing with the issues of later periods, Timothy Sweet proposes three different models: the contrastive model, the early American origins model, and the environmentally inflected origins model. The essay addresses the concept of ecological-economics theory as a filter for these three models. Eco-economic theory takes into account the differences of human-made capital and natural capital, unlike neoclassical economic theory. Additionally, eco-economics makes a distinction between pastoral and georgic: pastoral is based on human alienation from nature and requires a “movement of retreat and return,” whereas georgic denies this movement because it claims we never left nature. Sweet states “place-connectedness, regional identity, and the moral value of ‘nature’” can be located within the early American pastoral’s literary legacy (423). Nostalgia can be revealed through a biogeographical approach because it takes into account a global context, including America’s legacy of European colonization and its relationship to our growth narrative of “land of abundance” (425). Sweet concludes with the necessity of aaplying the biogeographical frame to the field of natural history because American colonists utilized the genre. The genre of natural history has since evolved to accommodate paradigm shifts in the ensuing centuries, including the shifting boundary between literary and nonliterary/subliterary.
Sweet, Timothy. “Projecting Early American Environmental Writing.” Early American Literature. 45.2 (2010): 403-16. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 23 June 2011.
In order to successfully connect the concerns of early American environmental writing with the issues of later periods, Timothy Sweet proposes three different models: the contrastive model, the early American origins model, and the environmentally inflected origins model. The essay addresses the concept of ecological-economics theory as a filter for these three models. Eco-economic theory takes into account the differences of human-made capital and natural capital, unlike neoclassical economic theory. Additionally, eco-economics makes a distinction between pastoral and georgic: pastoral is based on human alienation from nature and requires a “movement of retreat and return,” whereas georgic denies this movement because it claims we never left nature. Sweet states “place-connectedness, regional identity, and the moral value of ‘nature’” can be located within the early American pastoral’s literary legacy (423). Nostalgia can be revealed through a biogeographical approach because it takes into account a global context, including America’s legacy of European colonization and its relationship to our growth narrative of “land of abundance” (425). Sweet concludes with the necessity of aaplying the biogeographical frame to the field of natural history because American colonists utilized the genre. The genre of natural history has since evolved to accommodate paradigm shifts in the ensuing centuries, including the shifting boundary between literary and nonliterary/subliterary.
Abstract #3
[Jay Jay]
Derounian-Stodola, Kathryn Zabelle. “The New England Frontier and the Picaresque in Sarah Kemble Knight's Journal.” Early American Literature and Culture: Essays Honoring Harrison T. Meserole. Eds. Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola and J.A. Leo Lemay. 122-31. Newark: U of Delaware P, 1992. Print.
The author posits that Sarah Kemble Knight’s journal is not easily contained by “generic categorization,” and this theme of defiance continues when she states Knight more closely resembles a picaro rather than a picara within the picaresque tradition. The essay defends the idea that “Knight filters the frontier through the picaresque and presents it as literary, colonized and domesticated, ‘urbanized,’ dangerous, comic, practical and amoral” (123). These transformations of the frontier by Knight are significant because they challenge the Puritan’s dialectical view of the land. The work of Annette Kolodny claims that women viewed land as a garden to be domesticated, but Knight challenges this viewpoint by “urbanizing” the land, and emphasizing town. This urbanizing is made possible through Knight’s use of the picaresque tradition. Derounian-Stodola identifies three aspects of Knight’s writing as picaresque: popular literary terms represent Knight’s “unorthodox” view of the wilderness; stereotypical secondary characters are provided by presenting the frontier as colonized and domesticated; and the land is “intrinsically amoral” and lacks “symbolic or typological significance” (125, 128). In conclusion, Knight’s journal is not only “the earliest American female picaresque,” it also holds more firmly to the picaresque principals than later works of the eighteenth century (130).
Derounian-Stodola, Kathryn Zabelle. “The New England Frontier and the Picaresque in Sarah Kemble Knight's Journal.” Early American Literature and Culture: Essays Honoring Harrison T. Meserole. Eds. Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola and J.A. Leo Lemay. 122-31. Newark: U of Delaware P, 1992. Print.
The author posits that Sarah Kemble Knight’s journal is not easily contained by “generic categorization,” and this theme of defiance continues when she states Knight more closely resembles a picaro rather than a picara within the picaresque tradition. The essay defends the idea that “Knight filters the frontier through the picaresque and presents it as literary, colonized and domesticated, ‘urbanized,’ dangerous, comic, practical and amoral” (123). These transformations of the frontier by Knight are significant because they challenge the Puritan’s dialectical view of the land. The work of Annette Kolodny claims that women viewed land as a garden to be domesticated, but Knight challenges this viewpoint by “urbanizing” the land, and emphasizing town. This urbanizing is made possible through Knight’s use of the picaresque tradition. Derounian-Stodola identifies three aspects of Knight’s writing as picaresque: popular literary terms represent Knight’s “unorthodox” view of the wilderness; stereotypical secondary characters are provided by presenting the frontier as colonized and domesticated; and the land is “intrinsically amoral” and lacks “symbolic or typological significance” (125, 128). In conclusion, Knight’s journal is not only “the earliest American female picaresque,” it also holds more firmly to the picaresque principals than later works of the eighteenth century (130).
Abstract #2
[Jay Jay]
Gifford, Terry. “Post-Pastoral as a Tool for Ecocriticism.” Pastoral and the Humanities: Arcadia Re-Inscribed. Eds. Mathilde Skoie and Sonia Bjørnstad Velázquez. Exeter: Bristol Phoenix, 2006. 14-24. Print.
Terry Gifford addresses two common and current issues plaguing the concept of the pastoral: “ungoverned inclusiveness” and “assumptions of naïve idyllicism” (15). Rather than utilizing the term “anti-pastoral” to address these concerns, Gifford has created the term “post-pastoral.” The essay focuses on three post-pastoral contemporary American books to address the necessity of examining the insights into environmental and cultural crisis Americans currently face: The Roadless Yaak: Reflections and Observations About One of Our Last Great Wild Places, As Eve Said to the Serpent: On Landscapes, Gender, and Art, and Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing the American Landscape. Post-pastoral literature is clearly defined by Gifford as “that which escapes the closed circuit of the idealised pastoral and its anti-pastoral corrective” (17). Six critical questions are offered as a means of identifying post-pastoral texts, which highlights Gifford’s believe that post-pastoral is not a temporal concept. For example, he argues that William Blake’s poem “London” and works by contemporary poets such as “Gary Snyder, Rick Bass and Adrienne Rich” can be categorized as post-pastoral (18). Because the ecocritical movement seeks to connect “the critical and creative imaginations,” Gifford argues the pastoral can successfully provide us with “an image of an accommodated way of living” that heals the boundaries separating nature and culture (16, 24).
Gifford, Terry. “Post-Pastoral as a Tool for Ecocriticism.” Pastoral and the Humanities: Arcadia Re-Inscribed. Eds. Mathilde Skoie and Sonia Bjørnstad Velázquez. Exeter: Bristol Phoenix, 2006. 14-24. Print.
Terry Gifford addresses two common and current issues plaguing the concept of the pastoral: “ungoverned inclusiveness” and “assumptions of naïve idyllicism” (15). Rather than utilizing the term “anti-pastoral” to address these concerns, Gifford has created the term “post-pastoral.” The essay focuses on three post-pastoral contemporary American books to address the necessity of examining the insights into environmental and cultural crisis Americans currently face: The Roadless Yaak: Reflections and Observations About One of Our Last Great Wild Places, As Eve Said to the Serpent: On Landscapes, Gender, and Art, and Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing the American Landscape. Post-pastoral literature is clearly defined by Gifford as “that which escapes the closed circuit of the idealised pastoral and its anti-pastoral corrective” (17). Six critical questions are offered as a means of identifying post-pastoral texts, which highlights Gifford’s believe that post-pastoral is not a temporal concept. For example, he argues that William Blake’s poem “London” and works by contemporary poets such as “Gary Snyder, Rick Bass and Adrienne Rich” can be categorized as post-pastoral (18). Because the ecocritical movement seeks to connect “the critical and creative imaginations,” Gifford argues the pastoral can successfully provide us with “an image of an accommodated way of living” that heals the boundaries separating nature and culture (16, 24).
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