coolbeans, 1/24

Last class we discussed tmesis and the class before that we discussed the signified versus the signifier. Both of these concepts involve what we take from what we see. It was interesting to see everyone’s different reactions to the “a short story” exercise and how at first most people had the same or a similar reading of the words but as more and more changes were made each person had a different reading of the words. It was also interesting that once a famous author was referenced at the end of the words everyone automatically changed their reading of the words to be something that was written by the author. Maybe this can even be seen as an example of cultural hegemony in that we changed our readings of the words because a higher authority (Dr. Casey) said that a prominent author (Ernest Hemingway) had written the words, without even knowing for sure if they truly were written by Hemingway.

Tmesis is an interesting concept to me because I never realized how differently people can read a certain text. The fact that after reading a couple words strung together and everyone having all of the different reactions to it seems crazy because it is strange to think that every time we read a text there will be other people who may have completely different readings from us. Even though the author/creator of a text may have certain intentions in creating the text, he/she cannot fully control how people are going to read it. So while they can steer the readers of the text in a certain direction with their readings of it, maybe the authors choose to leave some gaps in their texts in order to allow their readers to personalize it a little bit, making the story/movie/etc… feel more like a life experience for the audience.

post-it note, 1/20/2009

Watching the video of confusing signs made me think about their purpose. This montage was ironic in that the signs being offered create confusion rather than clarify instructions, the reason that they are so funny! Is this an example of the saturated world of language that we live in? I think that the signs shown were proof that the technological times have created an era where intelligence is not entrusted for safety, but a reminder that people have traveled the road that someone is traversing, offering security.

I find security through communication. Without text messaging, e-mail, telephone, iChat, Skype or Facebook Chat, I know that I would feel like a loner. Although physically being alone is usually never the case when using these modes of communication, being alone has come to mean being out of touch with other human beings. Being REALLY alone REALLY scares me!

Looking at other generations, such as my parents, they prefer to forget technology for some time every day. This relaxes them. For me, a day without technology and two-way communication to ensure that other people are still living and breathing creates a sense of urgency and distrust in my environment.

The show LOST is probably my worst nightmare. The show depicts a group of strangers crash-landing on a “hard-to-find” island. What would I do without my GPS!? How would I know what plants to eat without “Man vs. Wild on my television? The necessary facts of life are no longer stored in the brain because the internet has become the brain of developed civilization. A reason why the iPhone is so popular…no longer does anyone have to go home to look up the recipe for dinner, they can follow along while in their grocer’s freezer section.

As for those road signs, they are funny, but also unnecessary. They are reminders of what too much information can do to a society, and to a driver. We all know how to drive, and to slow down when turning ‘round a bend, but do we want to slow down becomes the real answer. 

Happy Birthday!, 1/23

Yesterday's class was very intriguing and engaging. I found myself completely interested in everything being talked about. I think tmesis is one of the coolest processes I've ever learned about. Again, it's something I was doing constantly without knowing...but I didn't have a formal name for the act. Already, I've learned so much!

Although, one thing I would have to disagree with that we discussed is that the author cannot predict tmesis. Barthes states, “The author cannot predict tmesis.” (109) I know the author cannot predict what it’s reader will feel because we all have different realities, morals, opinions, visions, etc. Yet, I believe authors can sometimes control the reader’s feelings to evoke a certain emotion. For example, different genres of writings exist today and appeal to certain types of people because it evokes a particular emotion out of that person. Yes, sometimes maybe that person doesn’t feel exactly how the author may have felt and the author cannot control exactly how its audience may feel, but I’ve always learned that there is a certain tone to an author’s writing. This tone sets the mood for the piece therefore giving the reader a sense of emotion.

In CMC 200 I learned that a large percentage (not sure of the exact numbers) of women read Romance novels because it fills an empty void they may be experiencing with their spouse or loved one. Authors of this book create this type of story to evoke certain emotions out of these female readers, or else they would not be so popular. Women described romance novels as escaping from their reality and into a fantasy world, which they can have that perfect (yet unrealistic) romantic life. This supports my claim that authors write in a certain style and with a certain tone to evoke a certain emotion.

Dot, Tmesis, 1/23

In class yesterday we discussed "tmesis" and the idea behind it. I think it is a very interesting concept and I was intrigued to learn more. Like many things in our lives, tmesis is something that we do not always realizing we are doing.  We employ in our everyday lives, but have become so used to the process that we hardly recognize the connections and assumptions we make when viewing any kind of text.

As we found in class, it is extremely difficult to look at something and not have assume something. This is mostly due to the preconceived notions we have due to the fact that once a person has a basic meaning or connection to something it is nearly impossible to get rid of it and not to think about it when viewing something new. Especially in our language when one word can mean so many different things, it is hard not to infer and make ties with what we have just seen to what we already know.

As I am sure we can all infer and as Barthes claimed, "the author cannot predict tmesis", meaning that there is no way to definitely know what a person will think about when viewing a certain text. Also, it is very rare that two people will view the same text in exactly the same way. We have all been exposed to different things and therefore take different meanings from different words and images, making it nearly impossible to fully predict what a person will infer from a text. 

For instance, the following image, a sign that many of us have probably seen before, can be interpreted in many different ways. We can assume that the creator of this sign meant it to be used in parks, playgrounds and neighborhoods where children play to signify that people should drive slowly. When I first saw this sign though, I thought of slow as describing the children as mentally slow and that they were playing. Someone else may get a different meaning from this sign. This just proves Barthes theory of tmesis and it's importance in our lives. 

  

killacam32, 1/22

Toda was the most interesting class yet. Casey explained all about how our mind rewrites the things we read. Its so true that our mind automaticaly readys between the lines using Tmesis. Its cool know that our brain looks for deeper meaning in texts wihtout even trying. Its so true that when talking with friends as soon as the finish their first sentence your already relating their thoughtsto yours. Its amazing. INtertextualit is an amzing concept that really intrigues m. I love that every text is connceted. I really makes true the quote what is not written on the board is what needs to be studied.

About barthes way of making everyone not worry abou every other persons view of text is not the way to solve problems because peopl read very different text is fundmentalism of thir own text is taught tothem from when they are young which makes them very wired to what they know. Its hard for them to see any difernt type of view.

000ooo000ooo 1/22/09

In class today we discussed the concept of "tmesis". As I understand it is meanings and feelings that arise from a text that can not actually be found within the text. Dr. Casey explained that authors or creators cannot control what tmesis takes place within their texts because they don't know what pre-dispositions their audience might have. I would disagree with this. I think that the cornerstone of successful advertising and marketing is the controlling and prediction of tmesis.
We have learned throughout the CMC core courses about how advertisers use certain symbols and signifiers to make us think things without actually having to say them. Often this is necessary because if they had to say their message outright it would sound ridiculous and people would reject it. This idea connects to what we were talking about in class, that often tmesis takes place outside of your body or logical mind. Granted an author cannot literally control tmesis but it can be predicted and in some ways controlled through time.
For example, it is very typical for a clothing advertisement to have a man dressed in the advertised clothes, surrounded by women who are also dressed in whatever product is being pushed. All the women will be looking at the guy very sexually or admiringly. This formula has been used over and over again. Advertisers know that this is a successful combination and they know it will be successful because they can predict the tmesis that will take place for the majority of the population. Granted, many of us CMC majors will have a different opinion because of our education, and many other in society will as well, but a large but of society will read this ad in much the same way. Advertisers know that guys will see man surrounded by beautiful women and think how that is not what their life is but they wish it was and so maybe if they bought these clothes their lives could start to resemble this. This is not really logical but, as established, tmesis often isn't. Girls will see the advertisement and think that they like the way the females in the advertisement look and they would like to look like that so maybe they should buy the clothes.
In this example, the advertisers do not have full control over people's tmesis or the ability to predict what every single person will think. However, the process of successful advertising is to create as many different signs as you can that will play with people's unconscious just as much as their conscious and will illicit favorable emotional and mental reactions. This is one major reason why most products try to sell a value or a lifestyle more so than a product - few of us have emotional reactions or experience strong tmesis with products, but we can all relate to lifestyles and emotions.

jl0630 - 1/22/09

This past class about language hit especially close to home for me after having traveled to many foreign places and being acquainted with many language and interpretation barriers. As history repeats itself, as we talked about, barriers have resulted in war. I have two different angles I would like to relate and oppose this theory to. Before I went abroad I would go on vacations, typically to tropical places like Mexico, and have preplanned trips to explore the country, lay on the beach, and collect souvenirs on the way. Never would I especially worry about language as long as I had the names of the places I wanted to go so I could be brought there. When I thought about Mexico, I thought about the place that had exceptionally beautiful weather and was inexpensive – a pretty narrow reference; a narrow reference like the narrow fundamentals of politics and religion that we talked about. As I traveled throughout the world however, I started to gain the most satisfaction in communicating, making friends and getting to know the areas in which we were stepping foot in. I befriended many people and learning/adopting many things about the different ways of life and living. I reported back home and I will never forget my mom telling me that befriending people is the most important thing you can do wherever you go, especially in days like these where there is war and destruction happening all over. When you can start making references, things begin to take on a whole new meaning. To sum it up, without language/communication, there are no references – only beaches, souvenirs, and the fundamental conflicts between right and wrong. With language/communication, however, there are associations, similarities, and an understanding/appreciation that politics and religion have failed to reach, thus, “conflict is nothing but the moral state of difference” (110).

Smiley Face - 1/22

The part of class that fascinated me most was Tmesis, the gap. I don't think we realize how much of what we interpret in influenced by ourselves. Being a double major with English, all of the literary texts I have to read are writerly texts that depend on the input of the reader to make the reading experience enjoyable. Even today in my English class there were 5 very distinct opinions in regards to the author's intention with his work yet at the same time all of them were correct.

At the same time there are some cases in which authors write a letter to a friend of some sort describing their intentions with their text, as found accompanying 'The Faerie Queen' by Edmund Spencer. It is helpful to the reader to know of what the author was aiming for, yet there is still 'the gap' in which only the reader can fill. This could be described as a form of voyeurism from the authors part. There were any many 18th century writers who would take their literary form as a letter giving the reader the feeling that they are sneaking a peek into the life of the narrative when they are not meant to. This was a very popular form Furthermore, there are other case in which author abuse their ability to open a window of voyeurism, as found with the literary piece 'Utopia' by Thomas More. Here he writes a number of fault letters to real people in an attempt to draw a bridge between the real world and fantasy: to make Utopia seem like a real place. A more modern day version of this would be found with 'The Blair Witch Project', when just before the movie's release information was released about its authenticity when really it was fake.

For hundreds of years authors have consciously or subconsciously picked up on the importance of readers and their input into a text that fundamentally completes it. Authors have also recognized the joy readers take in believing that they are looking into a window they should not be. The ability of seeing the world from a different perspective, to pervert the world if you will, is a key element to being an author of text and acting as that catalyst to their reader.

LightningBolt, 1/22

Today in class we discussed the concept of tmesis. I have never heard of this concept by name before. I think that people can be prone to different amounts of tmesis, meaning that some people are able to read through a text and perceive it as a “readerly text”. Their mind will not wonder or exaggerate the reading. While other people, like myself, are not able to read any thing without it triggering another thought and your brain runs with that thought. I feel that everything I read is a “writerly text”. I find my imagination running and making things up all the time. I could look at a grocery list, see the word butter and my mind will wonder back to when I was little and would sneak into the refrigerator to eat sticks of butter. When there is a simple sentence with what to most people seems to be a fairly obvious meaning I will find myself finding alternative meanings and subconsciously convincing myself that is what the author meant.

There is no doubt to me that people are prone to different amounts of tmesis but I am not sure why. Is it nature or nurture? I think that it may be more nature. Every ones brains must differ in some ways when we are born and some people must be more prone to elaborating and creating stories. I could also see how it could come from nurture. As a young child if one kids parents always had them doing creative activities and telling them they were correct every time they read the meaning of a text “the wrong way,” wile another child’s parents raised them with no creative activities. Perhaps had them do a lot of math facts? At times I like being prone to tmesis but it is also frustrating at times when I am trying to concentrate on a reading and find myself creating elaborate stories about the gaps.

Kuloco, Macherey

“Il n’y a pas de hors-texte.” –Derrida

Although this is not a quote from Macherey, I found this quote from our syllabus to pertain to all the questions I asked myself while reading from A Theory of Literary Production. A serious pet peeve of mine is when someone contradicts themselves. I had a hard time in Philosophy class and encountered the same problems when reading Macherey.
The first encounter I had with Macherey’s contradiction was with the idea of the text being self-sufficient. On page 16 he states, “Yet it remains obvious that although the work is self-sufficient it does not contain or engender its own theory; it does not know itself.” I understood him to go on to explain that even though there are pieces missing, the text itself is complete and critical thinking should not be done to try and bring the problems of the text to life or add to it in any way. However, three paragraphs later, he states that: “Thus, the book is not self-sufficient; it is necessarily accompanied by a certain absence, without which it would not exist.” I understood his explanation of this absence to be the silence, which he believes completes the thoughts stated in the text.
This relates back to the Derrida quote, translated: “There is nothing outside of the text,” because it is in complete opposition to Macherey’s second point about the text not being enough. The reading quotes Freud in saying that: “in order to say anything, there are other things which must not be said.” This is also in complete opposition to what we were taught in the past. I understand that the critic is supposed to question the text but not add to it, however, there seems to be a fine line between right and wrong in this case.
The other main contradiction I found was the quote on page 17: “Silence reveals speech—unless it is speech that reveals the silence.” Besides the fact that it also contradicts what Derrida has stated, I have to question how we, as critical readers of any text, can learn from what is there if we don’t question what the silence is saying or even question the speech that we are assessing. Macherey’s answer was, from page 19, “The error belongs as much with the one who reveals it as it does with the one who asks the first questions—the critic.” However, even though we, as critical readers of all different texts, are told not to fill in the gaps, I would have to question if we would live in the same world today if throughout history no thinker questioned what he read or what was never written down.

weezy27-9/22 semiology

Dr. Rog
In class on Tuesday we talked about semiotics which is the study of signs. In the Saussure reading we learned a lot about the importance of language as compared to thinking. I think this is an interesting concept because Saussure claims that one cannot even think without language. This is something that I never stopped to think about. Oddly enough, something that really stuck with me in relation to this topic was someone’s comment on babies and language. I can’t remember who it was but they mentioned that when a baby is younger and cannot speak we sometimes wonder “what is he/she thinking?” Well, in accordance to Saussure that child is literally thinking about nothing. Nowadays, it is difficult for me to think that it is possible to have no thoughts. This is because I am so accustomed to constantly having a thought in my head. In class Dr. Rog kind of mentioned this by saying that he was once told to meditate and try to keep all thoughts from his head and this was almost an impossible task for him to accomplish. Furthermore, we talked about separating image from sound. This means that we are trained to see something and call it exactly what we learned it to be. For example, if I see a cat I automatically assume the word “meow.” This is also an interesting concept because our brains are trained to not stray away from this type of thought. Also in class, someone mentioned language as a prison house meaning one can never stray from the rules of language which is similar to the concept of separating image from sound. Lastly, we looked at a bunch of slides with random symbols and logos from different well known corporations. We discussed with the BP logo that even if the logo had been shown in black and white almost everyone in the room still would have been able to color in the correct colors where necessary. This introducers the idea of the signifier and signified, the signifier is just the BP logo as a picture with no meaning but the signifier is the meaning of this picture which could be interpreted many ways.

brookes77, Macherey

The two readings this week complement each other well. In the first reading for this week and in class we talked about signifiers, signified, and signs. An example of this was the gas station sign that just had the credit car “visa”. This was a sign that the gas station had a visa credit card sign on a billboard without blatantly stating that they take visa credit cards at the gas station; but everyone understands that. Another example of this would be a symbol of a person on a wheel chair at a restaurant, store, etc. Everyone would know after seeing the picture that the restaurant or store was wheel chair accessible. This would just be understood; it is a sign that without stating the point using words. Signs have a lot to do with silence. In the second reading for the week. When Macherey states “ Speech eventually has nothing more to tell us; we investigate the silence, for silence, that is doing the speaking”; (17). This quote shows how silence says more then words. In our culture this has become the “fast route” the signs such as this handicap sign and the visa symbol are both symbols of language, but with signs/symbols such as these we have created silence and when we see the signs we have a cultural understanding without having to speak. I tied the two readings for the week together because when I think of signs I think of silence and both of these terms were relevant in the readings for this week.
“ By speech, silence becomes the centre and principle of expression, its vanishing point. Speech eventually has nothing more to tell us: we investigate the silence, for it is the silence that is doing the speaking.” (17) This is very significant because the quote is explaining that silence is the vanishing point of speech, it holds the basis and significance of what one is speaking about. Silence holds the most value in language. With speech one can sugar coat stuff, beat around the bush, but silence. When talking to someone they who is upset they can fake it all they want yet you can tell by expressions which are signs and silence that they are not doing well, with out even saying anything.
“ Is what I am really saying what I am not saying”. (17) Silence is the most powerful tool one can use, silence can signify what you want to say with out saying it.

WoolyBully7, Macherey

After finally getting somewhat of a grasp of the reading, it finally fell into place what this reading was telling me. What I got from Macherey is to look beyond, to look past what is presented in front of you and look beneath the surface at what you are subjected to. What is this speech or text hiding, or distracting me from really seeing? On page 19 Macherey says that when work reveals itself it does so in two different ways, to create the visible, and the invisible. By a text presenting itself, it silences something else, making it invisible.

So when I watch TV shows, especially new age reality shows, I see reoccurring themes and what they represent. By looking deeper, I can now realize what in society makes me think what I do about those certain themes. I can now tell why and how I am affected by society and media to make me believe certain things. Now I am realizing that I need to look deeper into those common themes and beliefs to question if I really believe what those outlets are trying to make me believe.

Another thing I thought about was that “actions speak louder than words.” This relates to the reading in that Macherey says silences are often more significant than speech. It is not necessarily what people say that makes them who they are but what they do in everyday life that makes them who they are. Sure, anyone can talk about themselves and what they believe in and what their goals in life are but I have seen that very few people actually try to fulfill those statements. When it comes time to act, many people simply either don’t have the inspiration or the discipline to own up to what they say. For instance, in sports you can say you have a goal and want it really bad, but then don’t log the practice hours and sacrifices then your actions are practically meaningless. But if you say you have a goal and then are in the gym, practicing every day, not going out when all of your friends are since you have a practice or competition, those actions are how people notice commitment and drive. Actions do speak louder than words.

killacam32, macherey

"Silence shapes all speech."

This part of the reading really stood out to me. I think that it made allot of sense that in order to say anything, there must be things not said. This makes sense because, like we went over in class, our thoughts are arbitrary and pretty much random. When talking you cant just spit out a bunch of thoughts at once they have to come one after the other waiting in silence. I totally understand that to be spoken the thought must envelop itself from the unconscious first. What i don't get is, what is it that makes able to pull these thoughts from the back to the forefront of our mind? If silence is hidden how do we find it? that was an very intriguing part of the reading.

IN class the quote we went over about language and dividing sounds from thougth was also very interesting. I found myself trying to separate though from sound and found very impossible. I also think that it is impossible to divide sound from language for the simple fact that we learn our language that way. Fromt he time you are a kid learn to associate images to names. For example as early as i can remember I knew the names of my VHS tapes by what they looked like even though i couldn't read. Even kindergarten you learn what htings are and sounds of the alphabet by associating images with letters. Its how we've brought up.

I also found myself thinking about the quote the little girl said,"Th . is is this, This is not this." That quote made total sense to me and helped me understand the sign and signified theory even more. By distinguishing things by what they aren't we know what they are.

PetiteEtoile, Macherey

When I first began reading this I read the first page and thought, “now...what did I just read?” and I could not answer the question for myself. My first reaction was to become angry at how ridiculously worded this assignment was, but then I slowed down and read each sentence as if it were a puzzle to uncover. Then I started to make sense of it, or at least I think I did, so this is what I think all of that ridiculousness means. I could be terribly off.. but here goes. One should listen to what people do, not what they say. Not necessarily because we are assuming that all people are liears, although some are, but because because don't truly know themselves what they believe. Some people are so convinced they believe something even though they really dont. Such as a man who claims he is not racist, but perhaps deep in his subconscious he feels he is better than other races. Also, a subject can never really be fully explained. There will always be something missing or something left unsaid. And because of these gaps in what has been said there is always room for criticism. Criticism explicates things, it unfolds them, examines them, explains them better. So criticism is an important part of what is being said because it makes it more clear to understand what had been said. The explicit is something that has been discovered, is accounted for, is understood. The implicit is the undiscovered and the unexplained. So in order for a book to fully tell it's story, it needs the accompanying criticism. We cannot just allow the writer to speak, or simply read the book, in order to fully understand what they are saying. We must already have a general knowledge about what the writer is talking about.
In order to say anything there are some things that must be left unsaid. That is, in order to make speech important, we must choose things to not say. Freud name these unspoken words which “frame” the spoken words as the unconscious. Therefore the foundation for all speech is silence. Silence assigns speech its exact position and where it can go and where it cannot go. But does silence reveal speech? Or does speech reveal silence? It is not that either the implicit or the explicit has meaning, but it is the relationship between the two of them that was meaning. There is also a large difference between what speech doesn't say and what it cannot say and what it refuses to say. Each implication greatly changes the meaning of the speech. But the main question is can we study this and figure out which is which? When someone shows us something we ask, what are they hiding by showing us this/ What are they trying to distract us from? What emotions are they attempting to rile up? These type of questions are insiduous questions because we think them but do not speak them,

CMCstudent, Macherey

"Silences shape all speech, Macherey" says. The sound of spoken and unspoken is language just as the difference of sound and is language. When a person pauses, it means they are moving onto a new sentence, topic, or paragraph. If one asks a question and stops speaking we know that the speaker is expecting us to respond to them. If the speaker asks a question and keeps going with his lecture, we presume it was a rhetorical question. The same idea goes that if I told a joke and there was complete silence after, I would feel really stupid and that my joke was not funny. However, if I told a joke and people immediate responding by laughing, I would feel successful in my joke telling.

Silence can be more valuable than words. Silence can be a good thing and a bad thing because it can be read in so many different ways. For example, when the President leaves a pause after his speech it can be interpreted in many ways. His silence could be to let everyone think about what he just said, let him catch his breath, or maybe he forgot his next line. Depending on social and environmental factors one may perceive silence in a varity of ways

Often silence speaks more strongly than words do. If I asked somebody if I was fat they could try to convince me I wasn’t. However, if when I asked they responded by being silent and not answering me I would be offended. Their saying nothing at all said it all.
Silence or unspokenness is a universal concept although it may signify diverse things in different cultures. One may go anywhere in the world and find silence among people

Yellowdaisy4, Macherey

I found this continued reading on structuralism to be more complex and difficult to understand than the first one. Macherey talked about inplicit and explicit which I believe have to do with what is unspoken and spoken by the author in a book. I found the concept of how silence shapes the speech of the book interesting because you wouldn't normally look for what isn't said over what is said in a book. However, after reading this I agree witht Macherey's point that "in order to say anything, there are things that must not be said." I find this and the fact that we "investigate the silence for it is the silence that is doing the speaking" true because when using criticism you must find what is missing and needs to be added and what is missing on purpose to add a certain aspect. An author can use "silence as a source of expression" by not saying it at all. An example of how silence is used as expression or doing the speaking is when someone gives you the silent treatment.That silence can be so powerful that even though you maybe don't want to deal with the problem eventually you rather be screamed at or beaten up then completely ignored. If just the silence lasts long enough between people, even without a fight that relationship is broken. Silence can really get your point of being angry or being sad across to someone sometimes more than outright telling them that you are upset.
What I did find hard to grasp was the part of the reading about the two questions. I'm not sure what he was getting at or how it related to inpicit, explicit and silence of books.

MerryChristmas!, Macherey

Macherey reveals a new dynamic to the reader, the idea that there is another side to text and language than the explicit presence of the text or words. He correlates this idea to Freud's idea of the unconscious and the possibility that there is much more than what is spoken because language limits our abilities to fully express ourselves. While I read about the explicit vs. the implicit as well as the spoken vs. the unspoken, a form of media that is both spoken and written came to mind. This form of media is Ben Harper's song, Amen Omen. The song implies that someone very close to him has passed away, that he never got to say goodbye, and that he hopes to one day see that person again. The lyrics that came to mind are,

"I listen to a whisper slowly drift away,
silence is the loudest parting word you never say,
I put your world into my veins,
Now a voiceless sympathy is all that remains."

These lyrics are really deep, however, Macherey's ideas reflect Ben Harpers. Although the person does not speak because they are no longer with us, Ben Harper describes silence as being loud. He also says that there is a voiceless sympathy. These statements may be oxymorons, but they are complimentary according to Macherey. In his text, "A Theory of Literary Production", he says "this silence gives it life" and that "silences shape all speech". You may ask, how can silence give something life? How does silence shape all speech? Without silence, our words would be insignificant. That is what Macherey and Ben Harper are trying to show. Although the person who Ben Harper is singing about was silent, Ben Harper is always going to think about what could have been said if they were alive. That is why silence is "the loudest parting word you never say". Saying goodbye before one dies closes the door for that persons life and gives closure to the relationship. However, Ben Harper never got that comfortable good-bye. Instead the silence rings in his ears. Macherey and Ben Harper try to show the reader or the listener how significant silence is to our lives and without its presence, words are not significant.

Super!Geek, 1/22, Macherey

I would like to preface this post by stating I could be way off, because I feel like I might have understood the reading, but I'm sure once I get to class tomorrow, I'll discover I didn't have a clue.
Macherey seems to largely focus on the barriers language restrict us to. be language is many and varied, we must rely on more than what is said, but also what goes unspoken. Machery states, "Silence reveals speech- unless it is speech that reveals silence." In this statement, Macherey reveals the complexities behind speech and communication, asking us to question how it is we even interpret the spoken and unspoken. Further, he interprets Nietzsche in offering how we are trapped and confounded within language. We are looking beyond what is said to examine what is really meant. In discussing Nietzsche, Macherey introduces the concept of two questions, beginning in a model of an utterance and a question, which form to create a second question, that corrects the error of the first question. The simple critic, yields only at the first question, but it is in the second that true meaning is found. Macherey asks us to look beyond the explicit question and the response it offers to discover the real question that will allow us to make meaning of the text.

Murphy, Macherey

This week's continued reading on structuralism was harder to grasp first time around, than last weeks. Macherey's "Theory on Literary Production" immediately dove into implicit versus explicit. By the end of the reading I began to consider implicit and unspoken as synonyms. And at the same time I began to consider explicit and spoken as synonyms. To paraphrase Macherey, the book "is not self-sufficient, it is accompanied by a certain absence, and without it, would not exist." There seems to be very specific rules on what should be considered planned silence, and unconscious silence by the writer. Macherey goes on to write,"The silence gives it life." This idea that without saying everything there is to say, and without going into specific detail on every subject addressed in the book, there is an entire unwritten, important part of the story that is being told.
Previously I mentioned the word "unconscious", which is what Freud named the "absence of certain words". Macherey elaborates on this idea to say that "silence reveals speech, unless it is the speech that reveals the silence." This phrase alone could be studied and analyzed for weeks on end. To me the main point of it is that there is no way to have a writing that includes one, without the other. Together, the spoken and unspoken, create a structure that is legible and coherent for the reader.
The most perplexing part of the reading for me was relating to "The Two Questions". After reviewing this section I am at the same place I started. Reading a work involves questioning, evaluating, and critiquing it, to better understand its argument. The details of what question should be asked when is hard to grasp.

coolbeans, Macherey

Macherey states that speech consists of the spoken and the unspoken. He states that silences shape all of speech. The spoken is what we actually say versus the unspoken which is what we mean by saying something. I take this to mean that what we say and what is implied by what we say can have two different meanings. There are many examples of this in society today as well as the media and pop culture. We as a society tend to say things just to say them. For example, when people write “haha” in a text message are they really laughing? Sometimes we just do these things to respond in some way even though what we say isn’t truly what we mean. Another example, is if someone asks, “how was your day/weekend etc…?” and we respond with, “It was good.” We say that the weekend was good but fail to speak of what was good about it. Saying that the weekend was good is what we speak of, but the unspoken are the events of the weekend that made it good. An example of spoken versus unspoken that has become popular through the movie mean girls is the scene when Regina George tells a girl that her skirt is nice. The girl says thank you and Regina turns around to Kady and says, “that is the ugliest skirt that I have ever seen in my life”. Regina told the girl that her skirt was cute but what she really meant was that she was just complimenting her even though she thought the skirt was ugly.

On a funny note, http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1765288 here is a post on collegehumor.com entitled Thanksgiving Translated. It has some funny examples of what some people might say during a Thanksgiving dinner and what they actually mean when they say it.

Marie89, Macherey

“By speech, silence becomes the center and principle of expression its vanishing point. Speech eventually has nothing more to tell us: we investigate the silence, for it is the silence that is doing the speaking” (Macherey 17). According to Macherey, it is not what is said, but rather what is implied through what is said and what is selectively left out that contributes to the overall meaning of language. After reading this selection, I could not help but think of the power that silence has in our society. Americans are programmed to speak, discuss, gossip, etc. as language and communication are a large part of the society in which we live. Because of this aspect of our culture, we find it awkward when there is nothing to say or when silences are not easily filled. This is why silence is so powerful. Silence creates uneasiness and discomfort among individuals, making a much larger impact on one’s emotions or considerations of a conversation or reading. Although what is said may also have a large impact on the ideas and emotions of a person, what is not said is more impactful sometimes because it is abnormal. For instance, if I was to get in trouble with my parents for something, I would prefer that they scold me and tell me what I did wrong and why it upset them, rather than have them say nothing at all. By saying nothing at all, there is an implication that what I did must have been so terrible, that words could not even express their disappointment. I would be left with a sense of uneasiness and discomfort as a silence would fill the room. Silence connotes a sense of emotion so great that it can not be spoken or written. Another example of this idea could be that of a woman asking a man how she looks in a certain outfit. If the man says nothing at all, the woman would most likely become upset as she would expect him to say something if she looked good. By not saying anything, we are programmed to assume the worst or make assumptions based on irrational ideas. Again, the power of silence in our culture.

Savvy. Macherey. 1/21/09

The major quote that I took away from this reading is located on page 17,"Yet the unspoken has many other resources: it assigns speech to its exact position, designating its domain. By speech, silence becomes the centre and principle of expression, its vanishing point. Speech eventually has nothing more to tell us: we investigate the silence, for it is the silence that is doing the speaking." When reading thing quote I thought about how true it is that silence can make a point in a speech or when talking. When I recap on the past few months and take a closer look at newly elected President Obama's speech, I think of what an impact silence had in making his main points. Not only was silence used to stress points, it was also used to push the viewers and listeners to think and reflect back on what he was saying. Silence allows for individuals to stretch their minds and think about what is being presented in front of them. Silence can either stress and explain a point, or it can be used for listeners to interpreter speech. I personally know that when I give a speech, I pause after making certain points. I do this because I want the audience to think, reflect, and interpreter what is being said in my speech. I found this reading to be a perfect follow up to Ferdinand de Saussure and Semiotics. With semiotics we were looking at how signs and language are interpreted and with Pierre Macherey the discussion was really about the discussion of the meaning and power of silence.

DBA126, Macherey

Smiley Face - Macherey (1/22)

Macherey discusses the means of criticism and literary production from the absence of words; by avoiding the many 'langues' available to choose from when describing something. To the untrainined eye this seems like a contradiction to talk about a topic by remaining silent, yet Macherey makes a point to make clear that it is not only the words we use that evoke meaning but it is also the words that we do not choose to use (whether aware to us or not) that simultaneously describe that same topic.

Macherey's recognition of criticism is that it extends the work of an author but attempting to make apparent the words that were missing from the original piece. Coinsidently, this week for my Enlgish Literature class I was assigned to read 'An Essay on Criticism' by Alexander Pope, written in 18th Century Britain. Pope does on to describe criticism as part of human nature and being important to the development of litrature and language. He also goes on to reference the Ancient Greeks and Romans for their excellent knowledge in writing and criticism and how we should be knowledgable of them in order to pursue criticism in writing.

Pope and Macherey both make excellent observations in defining what criticism is and how it is applied. While Pope's work is written in the form of a poem with rhyming couplets and epigrams (short witty stanzas), the points he make are paralleled in Macherey's work, for Macherey focuses on the silence that is not disclosed however does recognise the desire to find out. Although written over two hundred years apart there is still evidence that the nature of criticism, the evaluation of literary works, has remained fundermentally the same.

Juice15, Macherey

From the Macherey reading there is one word that was reoccurring and stuck out the most to me. This word would be silence. In my own thoughts there are a few different types of silence that can exist. There can be a silence in which no noise is occurring, an awkward silence between people or a moment of silence for various reasons. Silence used as a pause between sentences or after a comma. The word itself can be written or spoken as a command. Sometimes silence can last for just a second or it could last forever. After the reading silence can be looked at many different ways and is much denser and in depth than I previously thought.

“What is this silence-an accidental hesitation, or a statutory necessity” (Easthope 16). This was the question presented at the beginning of the portion on silence.

As this chapter started to describe absence I started to wonder if absence or omission of something or any kind of information could be considered silence. What if this is accidental omission or done purposely? I feel that many advertisements especially the tobacco company advertisements use this silence as a way to keep information from use. This can tie into the hiding and diverting attention of the reading.

Rico72, Macherey

While attempting to understand what I was reading, I found the idea of the two questions interesting.  The model was there is a statement or "utterance" that is followed by "question 1."  However it is "question 2" that is interesting or challenging.  This seemed to apply to school and how we are taught to look at text and media.  We are taught to see the message that is trying to be delivered to the audience and the first question is something immediate that still helps deliver the message.  The second question is the one that gives us something more from the text/media.  

This also seemed to further support the section that discusses what text specifically states and what is left for the audience to take from it.  I remember when I was younger (and even now sometimes) reading a book for school and going in the next day discussing themes and metaphors that never made any connection to the book.  It is from these discussions that text can stay current and relevant even if it was written fifty years ago.  We are still being taught how to ask that second question and not fall into the trap of asking the first question.  

Dot, Silence, 1/21

The Pierre Macherey reading from "A Theory of Literary Production" was incredibly dense and I can only hope that I somewhat understand his full message. I was however struck by his idea that “silence reveals speech – unless it is speech that reveals silence” (Easthope and McGowan 17). Would we know of silence without speech? Do the two not go hand in hand? If we did not have speech, no one would recognize the constant silence as anything significant because it would be all that we had ever experienced.

Also in his piece, Macherey tells of silence as a “source of expression” (Easthope and McGowan 17). I truly believe that silence is one of the most powerful sources of expression that we as human beings possess. When one is silent, they can reflect many different emotions and relay multiple feelings to those around them. It is very uncommon for a person to come right out and say, I am really sad or really depressed; but rather a person in one of these situations is normally silent.

            One can also relay this idea of silence to the print advertisements we are constantly bombarded with. They are not verbally telling us anything, and some do not even have written language on them, but the majority of people who view them can understand the message they are trying to send.

            What does it say about our culture if this silence has become such a big part of our lives that we can derive meaning from it? If there a culture that does not use silence in this way? 

LightningBolt, Macherey

“Are there books which say what they mean, without being critical books, that is to say, without depending directly on other books?” (16)

Pierre Macherey’s quote caused me to start thinking about the context of books. While reading a book one assumes that the material and ideas they are reading are those of the authors and do not depend on any other sources. After thinking about this I have realized that this is not the case and it would be impossible to write a book and not depend on any previous writings. If there is nothing to compare an idea to then how can one evaluate the thought? There is no way to judge whether the idea is an intelligent development without looking into the past.

A book does not need to directly quote another book or author in order to be depending on them/it. Just assuming that the reader has previous knowledge on the subject is depending on the fact that they have read that book or whatever other media source they are relying on. For example when authors refer to the world and its structure they are assuming that the reader is familiar with the bible, or the big bang theory, or whatever other belief they choose to follow.

No one single person can do all the research in the world on one topic. When an author writes a book they must rely on previous assumptions, research, and data. This is no fault of the author; it is just how the world works. People are filled with information their entire lives, and once you know information you use it to shape your worldview. Even if a person was in a room by themselves for the first 20 years of their lives, receiving no information on anything and then was told to write a book, they could not. First of all because they wouldn’t know language but also because they would have no information to critic, better, or expand on.

asyouwish, Macherey 1/21

Having always been visually analytical I greatly agree with Macherey's statement "What is important in the work is what it does not say." While Macherey is mainly talking about written text I believe his statement is equally applicable to the visual texts. Therefore for a change in pace instead of discussing this chapter in relation to literature I have chosen to relate what Macherey is saying to artwork. Having always been a lover of art and done a lot of it myself I believe that a lot of Macherey's concepts are applicable not only to literature but to other fields as well.
Growing up I lived in an apartment building directly across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Needless to say, I paid a visit to the museum as much as I could. My favorite exhibits were always the photography exhibits that the museum would temporarily have on display. Now reading Macherey I realize the reason I was so passionate about viewing the photographs was because I could make my own story about what was going on in the photo before me. As we all know most artworks have titles but they rarely give us insight into what we are seeing. By observing the photographs I was able to decipher the art in anyway I wanted. A girl in a chair looking into the distance scared, became a girl scared by her loneliness. Much of what an artist puts into his creation is influenced by his unconscious. Freud as discussed in this chapter was the psychologist behind the concept of the unconscious, a place where unknown thoughts were stored. Freud's unconscious theory was not only applicable to language but also visuals. As you can see the theory of literature production is much like that of the theory behind the production of artwork.

ginger griffin, Macherey

Explicit and implicit, two oppositions that "derive from the distinction between the manifest and the latent, the discovered and the concealed"(15). Never have I ever been so confused in understanding two opposites before. So I asked myself what is explicit? Macherey states, "That which is formally accounted for, expressed, and even concluded, is explicit: the 'explicit' at the end of the book echoes the 'incipit' at the beginning, and indicates that 'all is (has been) said'." After reading this I believe that explicit is everything we know and implicit, is everything we don't? I am still a little questionable on this reading and hope to better understand it in class.

Silence. The words unspoken are another language in itself. the words unspoken give the words more meaning. it is everything that it is not, made it everything that it is. We touched base a little bit about this in our last class about De Saussure and Barthes. On page 17 Macherey states, "...for in order to say anything, there are other things which must not be said." When writing you have to leave things out in order fully understand something. Silence is not something that means nothing. There is a reasoning behind it. Macherey relates to De Saussure by stating, "...it is impossible to dissemble the truth of language" (19).

The Two questions were confusing to me. When the book started talking about them I immediately got confused and almost shut down. I certainly understand the spoken and the unspoken but the two questions i am having a hard time with. In tomorrow's class I am hoping to get a better understanding of it. I understand on page 23 he lays the first and second question out but I am still struggling with the concept of both.

asyouwish/De Saussure/ 1/21 post response

The idea of thought being vague without language has always been an interesting concept to me. I have experienced frustration when trying to explain things in the past and not having a word for what I am meaning to say. While taking a religion class at Rollins called Love, Eros and Religion our professor discussed with our class the differences in the meaning of love throughout the world. In America we love everything and it is confusing for foreigners to hear us say "Oh I love ice cream" and then use the same word for something we truly have deep feelings for such as saying "I love my husband". The word love in American culture is a word that has too many meanings. In the Chinese tongues there are hundreds of words that represent different types of love. The Chinese language has different love words for the love of an activity, a thing, a human, a friend, a pet or even a place. However the American language as stated before has one word to encompass it all and in my opinion causes the word to mean less. Saying I love the Yankees and then telling your boyfriend or girlfriend or family member you love them is not as meaningful as if you had said it in Chinese. Then as discussed in class is the concept of words meaning multiple things, we use language as a way to get our points across clearly and yet as slang terms or other cultures influence our language, understanding each other becomes more difficult even in ones own country. Words such as gay which used to mean happy have come to only mean homosexual or stupid when used in context such as "wow thats so gay". I was watching a very Brady Sequel the other day and such a language gap occurred. The Brady's stated they all wanted to be gay and the man at the concierge desk who they were talking to thought that they all wanted to be lesbians and homosexuals and showed a look of disgust. Even words like tight, sick, bomb, dough and cool have experienced slang changes to their meanings. It seems even our own language can confuse us with its words that mean multiple things. If we can't keep track of our own lingo, how are we supposed to expect others to?

ginger griffin 1/20

Language can be used as a powerful tool. It can also be turned against you if used in the wrong manner. We, as Americans, may see something (a sign, a word, a billboard, etc.) that can be inferred by many different people across the globe. even as Americans we see things differently. The point I am getting at is there is no such thing as a universal language. just because I see a tiger on a Billboard doesn't necessarily mean that it is the "frosted Flakes" brand.

In class we talked a lot about language, signifier,signified, and signs. I am not sure if this is correct but I believe that the word "mug" is signifier, the "mug" is the signified, and the two of them together is the actual mug. I am not sure if that is 100% correct but that is what I got out of class on Tuesday.

We got a lot of quotes from De Saussure, but the one that stuck out the most was, "In Language there are only differences." This is true because like I said earlier there is no universal language and in class we said that there are only two words known globally, "okay" and the other seems to escape me right now, but in the nineties the globe knew another word, "Michael Jordan".

Overall, I feel that language is not something that we should all try to understand. I feel that if there were a universal language then everything would be the same. Language is simple and language is complex, language is everything we see around us and we can not escape it.

Happy Birthday! 1/21

I have never doubted my thoughts more in a single reading than I have in this one on the “implicit and explicit” and “two questions”. Statements like, “…for in order to say anything, there are things which must not be said” and “…if the author does not always say what he states, he does not necessarily state what he says” really play tricks on one’s mind. I tried to think of some examples relating to this in my life, and I came up with the petty fights I get into with my sisters. There’s always a silence to what we are feuding over, and each of us hopes that the other will discover that silence, because neither of us wants to reveal it. Then, according to Macherey, “Silence reveals speech”, and he is correct…the silence always comes out when fighting. I think this is a really important and useful tactic used all around me that I had never really noticed. Or maybe I have noticed it, but I never referred to it as silence, I always referred to this notion of leaving out certain information as implying your ideas and thoughts. This is seen today all over our media and Macherey is just going above and beyond and explaining it in a more depth analysis.

I made a slight connection with Macherey’s writing to De Saussure’s writing. Macherey states, “Since it is relative silence which depends on an even more silent margin, it is impossible to dissemble the truth of language.” (19) This is De Saussure’s point he was trying to make when he was writing about language. He says that language is about the otherness and exclusion, and WE are wired to find the differences (just like Macherey points out). De Saussure stresses that our thought process is arbitrary and does not make sense because it is based on language, and language is different to everyone based on their culture and community.

In all this reading was very thorough and brought light to something I had always known…but had never explicitly noticed.

000ooo000ooo, Macherey

"... if the author dos not always say what he states, he does not necessarily state what he says." (pg. 19)

For some reason linguists love using phrases like this that bend your mind inside out, daring you to make sense of them. I've always thought this was strange; if language is your profession, you should be really good at making yourself understood, not confusing people. In any case, I guess this is just the way it is.
Regardless of the confusion caused by this phrase, it still struck me as profound and very summarizing of this idea as a whole: that the words we literally speak or use do not convey the whole message we wish to get across. The difference between "saying" and "stating" is minute and I'm not sure I understand which is which, luckily I think they can be used interchangeably. One of them - I'll just choose say - is what we literally say and the words we literally use to describe something. The other - to state - is the message that this sends to people. They are not the same. For example, if I say "I threw a ball and my dog didn't chase it", then what I am literally saying is that at some point in time I threw a ball and for some reason my dog did not chase it. Very simple. However, the message of this statement can change depending on the context and for this reason it is critical to ask questions. What I have left out can say just as much as what I did say. As Macherey explains, a work is not fully contained within itself - if a dog doesn't chase a ball there must be more to the story and the only way to know the whole story - or at least a greater part of it - is to identify the silences and ask questions.
This saying can make a number of statements. For example, if I have one of those stupid little dogs from Park Avenue that wear sweaters, and I tell you that my dog didn't chase a ball, this saying would become more of a statement on how lame my dog is and how separated it has become from its animal instincts. If my dog is getting old and I say that, it is probably a statement about the worsening condition of my dog. However, there is always more to know as well. For example, did my dog ever chase balls? If not, there is really no significance to the fact that he doesn't want to chase them now. People could interpret this question a number of different ways and the questions they ask will reflect this.
This is a very elementary example but one that I hope displays what Macherey is talking about at least on a basic level - that there is always more to a text than what we see and the no text can ever be "complete". There is always something that is not stated or that can be asked. For a text to be complete it would have to embody nearly everything in the world because everything is connected and related in one way or another. Given this, the message the is put forth by the words we use may not coincide with the actual words we use, it is all a matter of the reader's perspective and former knowledge. This must be acknowledged in a text or the text risks being misinterpreted - much like the Chevy Nova.

thestig, Barthes

posted this earlier, but now it isn't showing up... here it is again:

I’m going to take a crack at this quote and see if the connection I make here is relevant – please do offer your feedback.

“Our very avidity for knowledge impels us to skim or to skip certain passages in order to get more quickly to the warmer parts of the anecdote: we boldly skip descriptions, explanations, analyses, conversations” (Barthes 108).

Barthes wrote this quote in 1973, seven years before his death. What would Barthes say about today’s society. To me, Barthes laid down the tracks to what life is like today. Here we are now in the 21st century – the world is in our pocket; at our fingertips. It’s as simple as TI puts it: “You want it, I got it, go get it, I buy it.” The web offers a 24-hour global environment in which you can research or buy pretty much anything. You can even live on the Internet through a cyber character in Second Life – you can even visit Rollins, if you so desire.

The problem is not the Internet, nor the life that you live through vicariously, but the content and execution of the information made available on the Internet or in print by media companies. It isn’t necessarily what the media publishes, either – it can be initiated by the media, and followed through by the consumer (i.e. text messaging). The point of text messaging is to get to the point quickly. Isn’t the beauty of language and rhetoric lost with this technology? That girl who sends/receives 14,000 text messages a month --- what the _ _ _ _(four letter interjection of your choice) is she doing with her life?

I think this can also be applied to video games. Rockstar games, EA games, etc all make some pretty incredible games. The graphics, the game play, and story are remarkable. I used to play racing games in which you could only drive certain cars if you unlocked them. There are two ways of unlocking them – the honest way, or cheating. Well, I tried the honest way, but got pretty bored, so I cheated. Cheat codes are made available by the video game company and on the Internet. So what would Barthes say? Here I am, skipping the “descriptions, explanations, analyses, and conversations” of a video game… the intricacies of someone’s hard work, and potentially my enjoyment/education, but yet I decide to sacrifice it to get to what I think is going to be “the good stuff.”

post-it note, Saussure

Isn’t “tree” a funny word?

Yeah. So is lake. The more you say it the weirder it sounds! Lake. Lake. Lake. Lake.

Such conversations as these are my earliest recollections of my own personal theoretical analysis of words. Little did I know that my thoughts were not original at all, but the realization that all words are abstract was just an observation probably being made by my schoolmates too.

Now that I am older, language seems amazing to me because of all of the words that humans are able to know, understand and use to express themselves. Many of my friends are bilingual. They know most of the words that I know and the same set of expressions in another language. That amazes me. But when I read, and then re-read Saussure’s Course in Ganeral Linguistics, it made me realize how much more is associated with words. The spoken language requires an understanding of emotions and concepts in order to combine sounds and ideas together in a way that makes sense. The word tree is an understanding of one object by one person. When many people understand the meaning of “tree” along with the meaning of many other concepts, linguistics becomes possible and conversation can occur that provides clarification and understanding instead of confusion and random sounds.

I never could understand when one of my friends gives me a look of disappointment when he could not describe the meaning of an English word as translated in Russian. It seems like he always has to use one or two Russian words to describe an English word. Now I can only realize that the signifiers of the English word are not accurately described with only one word, rather the English version of many ideas is developed in one very descriptive word.

The English language has over 750,000 words (Encyclopedia Americana). This is more than any other language. This only means that there are more ways to describe the world around us. There are many avenues available to us to describe anything. A tree is a tree, a lake a lake. And I know that my world is going to become more complicated as we continue to read about critical and cultural theories, in which the concepts given are simply words strung together without significance.

Encyclopedia Americana. Volume 10. Grolier, 1999.

dmariel, Saussure/Barthes

As I was reading the Barthes assignment, I found myself briskly reading through sentences, picking and choosing which I thought were most important. Funny enough, I then came to realize that the reading was describing exactly that: “we do not read everything with the same intensity of reading; a rhythm is established, casual, unconcerned with the integrity of the text; our very avidity for knowledge impels us to skim or to skip certain passages in order to get more quickly to the warmer parts of the anecdote”. As a college student, I find myself do this more often than not. Not only do I do this when reading school books, but as well as books that I read for pleasure. I can even remember when I was younger, I would start a book and skip to the last few pages in anticipation to find out the ending of the book.
I found that the difference between text of pleasure and text of bliss to be very interesting. Text of pleasure encapsulates ones mind, providing a sense of euphoria and comfort to the reader. On the other hand, text of bliss causes discomfort to the reader by unsettling ones values, causing a state of loss. The comfort and discomfort stem from ones culture and the boundaries and values that are attached. After differentiating between pleasure and bliss, I had to read the following sentence numerous times to attempt to understand it: “..He enjoys the consistency of his selfhood (that is his pleasure) and seeks its loss (that is his bliss)...He is a subject split twice over, doubly perverse”. After breaking it down, this sentence perfectly explains the difference between the two types of text.
In retrospect to both the Saussure and Barthes readings, the connection that I was able to make is that every culture has their own system of values, therefore its own language. On another level, every individual has their own “avidity of knowledge” compelling one to read and process words on a unique level. As our first readings, I had to go over them multiple times to get a good chunk of meaning out of it. By examining each sentence as a whole the meaning of the theorists began to fall together., much like Barthes describes, it is important to be an aristocratic reader.

thestig, Barthes

Smiley Face - Barthes

What I took out of the two readings from this week is a different understanding of language. Language is taken for granted in the way that it is used to flippently, yet it is underestimated in its powers to communicate ideas through sound. CMC 100 had taught us about the different between signified and the signifier, yet this reading opened my mind to the way that language can be deconstructed to its basics of sound and ideas and applied it to our previous knowledge. The system of meaning behind understanding a word, when placed among other words, represents the culture in which language is being used, and the ideologies of society shape the way that the meaning of words change.

Now extending this reading of language to Barthes piece on 'The Pleasure of Text,' the readers approach to language in text has changed. There are those who 'skim-read' for the tmesis of the piece while others read a text word for word. Society has an emphasis on the need to not waste time, which has subsequently affected way that people now approach reading. There is the belief that quicker is better yet with reading let of the piece can be absorbed and understood. Another reason culture had encouraged the need to read faster is through the emphasis on sexuality in media, as confronted by Barthes in the opening of the reading when he described the 'appearance as disappearance' whereby people enjoy the idea the chase rather than the catch if you will. Furthermore, another way that culture has encouraged faster reading is through the technologies available to read on. We can even go as far back as monks who were the earlier version of photocopiers with calligraphy hand-writing, while today you can find sans serif fonts which are a lot easier to read.

Readers find themselves taking the values of words from their system of meaning, with reference to their culture, and applying it to the set of words before them placed together. The words representing ideas and meaning find themselves changing each time on readers them depending on the way it is read, but if culture continues to encourage the tmesis of a piece to be reached before the build up to it, when will there ever be appreciation for the pleasure of the text when it is found straight away. How can you enjoy the destination if you didn't go on the journey to get there?

Trapnest, Barthes

The pleasure of text is an interesting notion. Many reflect to when they were younger or even now, and recall hearing themselves or their friends adamantly stating, “I hate reading.” In fact, reading is likely the most begrudging task many college students undertake as they gaze overwhelmed upon their stacks of papers and books.

Yet, Barthes seeks to explain (I think at least) how text in general gives us innate pleasure. He even says at one point that the brio of the text (which is essentially saying the purpose of the text) is the will to bliss. He begins by explaining the pleasure we gain from the intermittence, the starting and stopping of something. It is related to the flash of skin one may see between the shirt and the trousers, or between edges. However when applied to text this is the reader’s understanding as the story unfolds before them.

How this story unfolds is dependant upon the system of reading the reader applies, Barthes argues. Many people read with Temesis, which comes from Aincent Greek meaning “a cutting.” In literary terms it descries the intersection of one or more words between components of a compound word. Barthes applies this cutting mentality in a different way, referring to how readers will often skip through a text over the “boring” parts, to the “more interesting” sections that they will gain more pleasure from. It is a rhythm the reader develops that alters with every reading, even of the same text. This relates to the system of reading where the reader skips straight to the summary, looking for the broader picture of things. While the reader does not loose any of the words in this method they loose some of the deeper meaning of the text. The other way that Barthes explains that people can read is where the reader covers the text very carefully, looking through it for the layers of meaning.

What I personally did not understand with this particular section is what Barthes meant when he spoke of “…what happens to the language does not happen to the discourse…” and proceeding “… to be aristocratic readers.”

Rubber Soul, Saussure/Barthes

Saussure provided an example of how language has differing values--"Distinctions of time, which are so familiar to us, are unknown in certain languages. Hebrew does not recognize even the fundamental distinctions between the past, present, and future" (8). It's hard to imagine how communication would be possible without distinguishing tenses, but it's inevitable for varying cultures to weigh concepts differently. American society strongly stresses the concept of time. Barthes states, "...so strong is the belief that one need merely go fast in order not to be bored" (109) It is implied that if too much time passes without immediate entertainment, people will go elsewhere when their sense of time is so valuable to them, that they believe it should not be wasted on anything that is not apparently stimulating.

 When thinking of ways to connect the two readings of Saussure and Barthes, I thought maybe since we put different values on words, the words that are chosen to be used in some texts determine the degree in which we are drawn to or relate to the text. Much like how we put different values on objects, we would be more apt to visit a store that has those types of objects in it. But then Barthes goes on to explain the differences between a "text of pleasure" and a "text of bliss."  The former is described as content that grants euphoria by conforming with culture and does not break from it, "a comfortable practice of reading." The latter means that the content is discomforting in the sense that it disrupts the norms of the reader's "historical, cultural, and psychological assumptions" and ultimately brings to the forefront values that had never been considered. So now we enter a store with objects that we don't consider valuable, but then again we've never taken the time to really try them out for ourselves. The store metaphor seems a bit consumeristic, still I think it gets the point across that we might not immediately identify with certain concepts in certain texts, but if we don't give the texts a chance we will only ever identify with what we already know.  

"It is understood that concepts are purely differential and defined not by their positive content but negatively by their relation with the other terms of the system" (9)

Murphy, 1/15

The first experience I had with learning about Postmodernism was in my Visual Art History class. I think there are some parallels that I will be able to draw throughout the semester between that class and this one. When we were learning about cultural revolutions related to postmodernism, more specifically how we forecast whats next after seeing and experiencing what has happened in the past the first thing that came to mind was the movie Revolutionary Road. Not only does the title contain the word being used in this lesson, but the universal idea of the 1950's family fitting into a specific mold is carried out in this film. The "radical shift" we heard about in class will forever be an interesting subject to learn about, because it lead to where we are in today's society.
Another topic that stood out to me in this lecture was the idea that "We're not creating anything new anymore, we're just re-creating." There are infininte possibilities in business and entertainment, but our culture, as well as others, seem to have the desire to reinvent past ideas. The more important and bizarre factor is that the consumers see these reinvented products and ideas and still buy them. When a person turns on the television they can find three similar shows on different networks being aired at the same time. In some cases one network, such as MTV, will have one show after the other that have the same plot line and characters. The lack of individuality builds on the point that television is mindless.
The overall concept of defining postmodernism and what it means to our culture and society will be a challenging task throughout this course. The first lecture was interesting and left me wanting to know more and understand the idea better.

jl0630, 1/18/09

Class today reminded me of a similar topic we talked about in my CMC 100 class last year. Mindlessness in watching TV, and ‘restless leg syndrome’ being an example we used in class, is part of the absurdity in our mainstream culture today. The arguments that were made in my 100 class about a similar advertisement to restless leg syndrome had two parts of the equation to think about. On the one hand, we’re being enlightened and enabled to spot and make self-diagnoses. On the other hand, there is an ethical issue being made that large drug companies are putting in a significant amount of time and money into making commercials to ‘spark awareness,’ where instead they could be putting that time and money into other places such as scientific research and testing. This is one of the many grey issues of networking and media that I have been faced with, because I believe that these advertisements have in fact truly helped people prevent, diagnose, and cure potentially harmful diseases – but on the other hand, I think the money that has gone into the mainstream, like ‘restless leg syndrome,’ is part of the mindlessness, absurdity, and surrealism we began talking about in class.

killacam32 1/18

The first class of cmc 300 very interesting. The quote that calls postmodernism "an aura, not an era" really changed my perception of what postmodernism is. Its cool to look at postmodernism as always being there, putting elements in events all throughout time. I really enjoyed learning how Barack had a postmodern view and mccain had a traditional modernist view. I really enjoyed learning about how our culture is the culture of fear and how our culture is obessed with the faster is better concept. I feel that that is a great representation because all i seem to see everywhere is fast food restaurants, fast computers, quick downloads, faster runners, and things to make athletes play faster and better. Anorything is so diferent ther element of postmodernism that i really feel connects to our culture is that we are the culture that doesnt want to feel pain. People want to take all types of medicines ad vitamins and treatments to make eveyrhting better when there is really nothing wrong. These thigns lead to other problems whilc in the end create neevr ending problems. 

Yellowdaisy4, 1/15/09

I found the quote about postmodernism being “an aura not an era” very enlightening because it is true that the concept is more than just a time period. The many events listed such as the atomic bomb, the riots in the 1960s, the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11 to be great examples of how postmodernism came about. It was events like these that changed our culture over time. The concept of “fear is the aesthetic du jour” really connected well to these events. I definitely agree that our culture now is completely paranoid and obsessed with what can kill or hurt us. The news, commercials, magazines and even popular movies like SAW all deal with the concept of what can kill us, what can fix us or any worst case scenario situations. New drugs are being prescribed everyday to treat diseases that people don’t even know they have just so they can make themselves feel safer even though if it’s a false sense of security.

This leads me to the concepts we discussed about analgesia and anesthesia which was about how our culture doesn’t like to feel pain. People will take anything they can for the slightest ache or pain or diagnose any different kind of behavior of something that needs to be treated with drugs. An example of this is how a lot of parents or doctors are so quick to prescribe some kind of depressant drug to a child who may be a little bit of a handful and label them with any disorder before really diagnosing them with anything.

I also found the idea of speed being an aesthetic very true in that our culture sees faster as not only better but the only way for things to be. If a computer doesn’t load something in two seconds it must be broken or if someone takes too long to do something they must be stupid or if an event takes too long to start it must be not worth staying for. It’s sad that our society needs everything quick and now because you lose appreciation for a lot of things or miss out on something because you were too impatient. I’ve always agreed with the famous quote “it’s not the destination, it’s the journey.”

PetiteEtoile - 1-15-09

The first class was very intriguing and eye-opening and sparked my interested for the rest of the semester. Post-modernism appears to me to be a way of seeing things for what they really are or to see the deeper meaning. I had never thought that the atom bomb was more than just a weapon, but the realization that man has the capacity of self-destruction. And that such a realization has an effect on man and on the world, not only in the most obvious forms, but in a deeper subconscious way. It's as if post-modernism not only sees the leaf falling upon the water, but also the ripples in the water that come from the leaf and the way those ripples affect the rest of the body of water. I had never thought that the generations that grew up during vietnam fearing bombs and learning even as children that they might be killed at any moment would have an affect on their psychii for the rest of their lives. Although now that it has been said to me, it seems like common sense. Or how even the smallest detail that children of this generation use hand sanitiser and are brought up to fear something they cant even see would have an affect on their phsychii. It had never occurred to me that our society enjoys being scared and watching horrible torture as entertainment and that at some point previously this was not normal. And that this says something about our society as a whole. I'm excited for this course as I feel I will never see the world the same again, that I will see the deeper meaning in things and what it is people are trying to sell me or convince me of rather than the shallow level I have been seeing.

Savvy, 1/15/09

 The idea that faster is better is something that really stood out to me in class on Thursday. I had no idea the  answer to Dr. Casey's question, "Why do we think faster is better?" I suppose that this notion was just ingrained into my mind since I was child. We have grown up in a society where we have been taught that to do things faster is better. When Dr. Casey was telling the class about his story with the taxi driver, it made me think back to when I was learning the multiplication facts. I can remember the teacher giving us all pasta noodles in class to learn visually when multiplying. At the end of the week we were to have a test on the times tables. When I went home and was studying with my father, he whipped out a bunch of flash cards that he had made. I can remember being disappointed because I liked learning with the pasta noodles. When I asked him if we could use the noodles like I had done he said no. I still to this day can remember him saying, "This way is better." At the time I was very little and I can remember asking my father why it was better. He said, "It's better because it is faster." I still to this day can remember thinking to myself, why is faster better? 

Another point that we discussed in class was the explosion of communication. Today we live in a society where we communicate through cell phones and the Internet. It is common to receive text messages and e-mails instead of calling someone. In CMC100 my final group project was about Facebook and how it has become one of the largest means of communication. College students especially use facebook as one of their main means of social networking. I was shocked when the slide in class showed a text message from a ten year old. I could not understand it. It was like a foreign language to me. I think that this really proved the point that with the advancement of technology comes new means of communication, and in some cases like with the text message new languages. 

Asyouwish 1/18

After viewing the postmodern powerpoint and being informed that postmodernism revolves around an aura rather than an era, I have formed some  various ideas.  First off when asked what we thought was the event or series of events that brought on our postmodern society, I have deemed it almost impossible to pick only one.  Each event over the last few hundred years have added up to bring us to where we are today in society.  I believe the aura of Postmodernism is created by how people and their cultures react to a phenomena such as the taking down of the berlin wall, the atomic bomb, 9/11, MLK Jr., and many more that were not mentioned in the slide show.  A few of these phenomena that came to mind were Pearl Harbor, the JFK assassination, and  John Lennon's assassination.   Speaking of Lennon, I greatly believe the Beatles were a huge part of postmodernism.  The Beatles were, still are and will probably always be the the most famous and most influential band of all time.  People followed them, their style, way of life and some even lived by their words.  If I had to pick which event related to the new postmodern, I would say it would be the historic influence the Beatles had on America and the world.  The Beatles songs discussed what the world outside was like, the fighting, the love, the ignorance, the bliss, the confusion and even the drugs and chaos, all of these still hold true to the aura we see around us today. Their lyrics in their songs encompass it all.

A similar discussion was brought about in another one of my classes, Sociological Theory with Dr. Royce.  While discussing postmodernism we were asked what would classify postmodernism today and the most prominent response was technology.  However, we learned that postmodernism actually started when industry and factories came into play.  And thus began the feeling of being able to count on a machine to do ones work.  Today we still rely on machines and technology and their use has expanded  to the point where almost everywhere in this country relies on communication through mechanical objects.  As a few of my classmates have also discussed briefly, I believe the creation of technology has greatly impacted how people behave and how society works.  In my opinion the aura we live in has been turned into one of dependence, due to the creation and easy assess to machines that can do tasks for us people have become lazy.  It seems the little things that people once considered important are rarely done anymore because their are easier technological ways of doing that task.  For example, my mother has always been big on writing thank you notes, but when she asks me to write them for gifts I have received I tend to always ask her for the person's email address, so that I can quickly shoot them a message without having to go through the trouble of handwriting the message, postmarking it, and stamping it.  

brookes77, 1-15-09

Postmodernism began when people stepped out of their expectations and rebelled against what was thought of to be normal, the right way to live, paint, sing, etc.
When talking about Postmodernism I thought it was really interesting that it was explained "aura" not an "era". I use to think that postmodernism is an era, a time of rebellions, riots, murders; a time of chaos. But when it was explained to me as an "aura" i really understood that it was a feeling not a time period. TV shows were filmed showing the perfect family, each member in ideal roles, aiming for the audience to feel like they should want that in a family too. The media was beginning to tell us what we should want, and what we need. I thought it was interesting that we learned in class that we are a cultural of that suffers from fear of everything, we are always paranoid. We think that we should not have to deal with pain and we are obsessed with doing thinks and traveling faster and that is so much better. We have become a cultural that rushes through life, avoiding actual pain, problems, and fear that is a part of life.
"Reality ain't what it use to be", this is one of the most truthful quotes. Reality is not reality anymore. We take everything away with a pill, or other solutions. We have an answer that will ignore the problem. Medicine prescribed to take the pain away, to take the fear away; the TV shows like second life that is an escape from one's real life, family, etc. We have made our world unreal, and obsessed with easing our worries. It was really interesting to learn about this in class because without these imperfections being voiced, one does not realize what we have become.

LightningBolt, 1/15

The concept we discussed in class – faster is better- is something that I have recently put a lot of thought into. When I was abroad I traveled to many different countries. I started to notice, mostly at restaurants and stores, that the concept or time did not occur or shape these peoples lives. In America when we go to a restaurant we expect fast, attentive service. Everywhere else in the world people expect a relaxing, leisurely experience. When I started to think why we as a culture differ so drastically when it comes to time I realized that it is because we are so busy. We tend to take on so many activities, jobs, tasks, as well as having many interest and activities that we like to do for fun and pleasure, that it becomes difficult to fit everything into our days. We have the notion that the faster we do things the more we can accomplish. We do not realize that although we are fitting more things in the quality and effort put into each activity is drastically lessened. Americans would rather have many activities or skills that they are capable of, while other cultures choose to pick one skill and become a master at it. Who is to say which was is better? Just because our cultures have evolved differently and as a culture we have developed a fast past work habit, does this mean we are less superior to other cultures? Something I did notice while traveling is that people living in cultures living as a slower pace seemed to be much happier than Americans. Living life at such a fast pace puts a lot of stress on people.

How did we begin to evolve into this life style? I think it is because our culture provides so many options. Everything we want to do we have to decide which one we want to go to or which one we want to watch. We begin to get the feeling that we want to be able to try all of these different options, whether it be a restaurant or a TV show. Other cultures seem to have so many less options and choices to make in their day to day lives. Perhaps this is why they can relax and take the time to enjoy life.