The hyperreal and 48 FPS (Skip to the part about the Hobbit films about 9:00 in)

These nerds talk about how 3D and higher frame rates impact video and film. (Traditionally shot at 24 frames per second, or FPS) They seem to be mostly scared and confused. It (according to their own words) makes them feel like it's both more real and more fake. Just thought it was interesting and would pass it along.

Rhizomes - I wish I had a more clever title.

Rhizomes

When I opened up the Deleuze writing, for a second I thought I mistakenly downloaded a PDF on botany. I read on, and realized that I could only be so lucky...

I kid.

Rhizomes versus Tree

Deleuze begins this article by discussing the nature in which discourse was originally examined comparing the structural method to that of a tree (the genealogical approach). We have item Z (film, speech, art, etc.) and we trace back to item A, its origin. Along the way, we make stops from Y to B, and so on and so on. It’s a simple narrative form- beginning, middle, end or in this case the tree metaphor- leaf, branch, trunk, root.

Deleuze takes issue with simplistic, rigid method. Instead, he offers the alternative method of approaching discourse- the rhizome. 

Deluze begins with a lesson in ginger and couch grass, “A rhizome as a subterranean stem is absolutely different from roots and radicles.” (29) The botany lesson quickly proves its validity and essential to study of this method. The examples of tubers and bulbs illustrate the idea that a rhizome acts as a singular point, a node, from which a variety of roots and shoots arise. The rhizome can also be broken down into its individual pieces, which then can be used to grow new plants.

Deleuze breaks down the characteristics of the Rhizomes into six categories. (With 1&2 and 5&6 being lumped together.)

1 and 2: Principles of connection and heterogeneity

“Any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be.” (29)

In this section, Deleuze focuses his argument to the field of linguistics. 

Linguistics seeks to define language in binary terms, as a friend of mine in the field (a doctoral candidate at Iowa) put it, “linguistics tries to establish "right" and "wrong" language. It does this by mapping out speech and drawing boundaries between dialects (through things like morphology, syntax and phonology).” The linguists, like Chomsky, are drawing these lines and creating these hierarchies and genealogies to describe it.

Deleuze rejects this entire system, charging that it is too concrete, too rigid “Our criticism of these linguistic models is not that they are too abstract but, on the contrary, they are not abstract enough...” (30) Deleuze points out that the linguists are almost far sighted, seeing individual trees, but missing the forest at large. While linguistics focus on the words- how they’re constructed, the phrases they create, and their sounds- they miss the surrounding components like the “perceptive, mimetic, gestural, and cognitive.” (30)

Essentially, Deleuze argues that the idea of attempting to place a rigid structure onto the study of words is flawed. There is no universal language, or "mother tongue", only a dominant group with political roots and stems that spreads from a central node. The language is never exclusive (and therefore cannot be looked at isolated in a bubble), it’s a part of bigger system.

3: Principle of Multiplicity

Multiplicity deals with rhizomes and the importance of their inter-connectivity. We take the multiple, the node, and recognize that it does not stand-alone. Rather, each multiple must be directly tied to surrounding concepts and ideas.

Deleuze references psuedomultiplicities, these are the unconnected or weakly connected bits of discourse that crumble upon close inspection. (It’s kind of like trying to pick up a wet clump of sand. It seems viable, but quickly disintegrates.)

The way I consider multiplicity is the raster image:

The raster image (think bitmaps, jpegs, photoshop files, MS Paint, etc.) creates its complete picture by combining many little pixels (or to use a Deleuze term- multiples,) to create an image. Each pixel is its own entity- they can be differentiated by hue, saturation, brightness, darkness, and so on and so forth. 

Now, consider a high-resolution image (on a digital camera or via painting or image creation in Photoshop.): it’s jam packed with a lot of unique pixels, which are a part of this large mosaic that creates an image. The greater number of unique and varied pixels that are connected, the higher quality the photo from a clarity, contrast, and color reproduction standpoint.

A low-resolution photo, like the insert on the flower shot above, does not have as many pixels available to it. It's connections are flimsy and weak. As the pixels get larger their bonds weaken. There is less variation, less diversity. Upon manipulation, the low-resolution photo will fall apart, become distorted and lose all meaning- it seems like an excellent example of the pseudomultiplicity.

4.Principle of asignifying rupture

"A rhizome may be broken, shattered at any given spot, but it will start up again on its old lines or on a new line...Every rhizome contains lines of segmentarity according to which it is stratified, territorialized, organized, signified, attributed, etc., as well as lines of deterritorialization down which it constantly flees. " (30)

The asignifying rupture is what gives fluidity to the rhizome. Think of it as something along the lines of an oil spill. The oil pools outward from its source, creates paths, separates, and diverges. It's a free form that moves entirely in a natural, smooth motion.

Another example of the asignifying rupture came with the advent digital editing for film and video.

In film based editing, great care had to be taken and large amounts of consideration had to be placed on each and every cut entered into the film. The physical film footage (as in a process negative) was cut and spliced back together to take raw footage from a mass of individual shots and convert it into a coherent narrative piece. This was known as destructive editing because while every cut contributed to the completion of the film it also destroyed a small bit of it as well.

Digital editing changed all of this by introducing a system that was known as non-linear and non-destructive. This meant that all of the footage (regardless of whether it was captured on film, shot digitally, etc.) could be edited over and over again with causing destruction to original material- with even allowing for different versions of the film to be saved at a time. Shots, scenes, sequences could all be lifted, moved and replaced at the will of the filmmaker. Each new cut and new tweak unlocking new meaning in the film and allowing the take chances and be able to dig for new ideas and thoughts to share.

The technological advancement turned film from finite to infinite, from dead artifact to living organism, from structure to rhizome.

Deleuze uses the heterogeneous relationship of the orchid and the wasp to illustrate deterritorialization and reterritorialization.

The orchid deterritorializes itself by making itself appear to be a female wasp, "tracing the wasp" (32) The wasp in turn reterritorializes itself on to the orchid's image of a female, which begets the deterritorialization of the wasp as a piece of the orchids reproductive puzzle and that ultimately leads to the reterritorialization of the orchid when the hornet transports the pollen for the Orchid.

It's very much like a dance, which when seen in action (in the YouTube video above) is even further illustrative. A brilliant visual representation of the rhizome overlapping itself and weaving in and out of its own path, two processes- the desire to mate on the part of the wasp and the desire to propagate on the part of the orchid- overlap and intersect to a degree where there is no signifier, just the dance.

5 and 6: Principle of Cartography and Decalomania

"A rhizome is not amenable to any structural or generative model... The rhizome is altogether different a map not a tracing."(35)

The tracing is built on the "use of the genetic axis and a profound structure."(35) What exactly does he mean by that? Tracing, in the sense of its relationship to rhizomes, is incredibly literal. When we trace, we draw the lines from point to point, it seems analogous to a coloring book or a maze- it is more primitive and simplistic. You simply start at a given point and work your way back to some sort of point of origin. It's matter of fact.

A map, on the other hand, represents something all together different according to Deleuze. It's a part of the rhizome. The map itself is almost like a living organism. “It is itself a part of the rhizome. The map is open and connectible in all of its dimensions; it is detachable, reversible, susceptible to constant modification. It can be torn, reversed, adapted to any kind of mounting, reworked by an individual, group or social formation...it always has multiple entryways” (35)

And of course, whenever I hear living map, I'm always reminded of this.

Control Societies (Empire and Deleuze)

Deleuze kicks off this piece with a shout out to his boy Foucault with a discussion of the demise of the "disciplinary society" and the rise of the "control societies."

According to Deleuze (via Foucault), disciplinary societies are usually associated with the eighteenth and nineteenth century, reaching its "apogee at the beginning of the twentieth century." (Deleuze, 177) They operate by organizing "major sites of confinement- family, school, the barracks, the factory, the hospital from time to time, and maybe prison, the model site of confinement." (Deleuze, 177)

The control society is a more tailored approach to the individual oppression than standardized approach of a disciplinary society.


So, the confinement society worked off a program of analogical molds, meaning there's a shared language/experience and despite the confinement, we were not separated. We can still relate from person to person.

 "The behaviors of social integration and exclusion proper to rule are thus increasingly interiorized within the subjects themselves." (Empire, 23)


In the society of control, on the other hand there has been a shift and push to eliminate that bond that people share in their suffering. The term digital modulation refers to each person's experience dealing with control. It is just varied enough that the individual remains alienated from his fellow sufferer.


The new order of the control society, has also created a shift from the factory to the business. This represents an even further push towards the individual control and suffering. Factories brought individuals together to work as a part of a greater good type scenario, with people banding together to achieve a common goal. 


Now, businesses have implemented "friendly competitions" (Deleuze, 179) to pit co-worker against co-worker in order to maximize productivity and drive a wedge between each other and dividing each within themselves. So, just know that the next time you go to Walgreens and they offer you a candy bar that's on sale at the register, you're promoting the new order control society machine. :)


These friendly competitions have spilled over into education as well. Schools and the governmental funding agencies behind them have adopted a "may the best everyman for himself win" policy.


On a University level, among faculty and students, the capitalistic re-imagining of academia has left people who should be friends and colleagues often pitted against each other for scholarship and grant moneys, tenure track positions, and entrance into prestigious programs, fellowships, etc. It's sort of cut throat out there right now and while it may promote more productivity at what cost is the trade off? 


On a lower level, from High Schools down through Grade School, states have implemented a battery of standardized tests- in order to assure that the student body is fit to graduate and proceed on to higher education or join the workforce and that the teachers are qualified enough to retain their jobs. 


My sister is a 7th grade English teacher near Toledo, OH. By the year students reach her classroom, they will be preparing to take their fifth round of the Ohio Achievement Assessment not to mention having to also pass the state's graduation test as well as taking SAT and ACT tests to get into undergraduate programs. 


While these standardized test do help to create a good little group of motivated, competitive children, or occasionally a defeatist group in poorer/underfunded areas, they serve even better as an excellent example of turning education into a business.

"In disciplinary societies, you start over again and again... while control societies you never finish anything." (179) 

Orson Welles' The Trial 1962 Based on the work of Kafka. Apparent Acquittal and Endless Postponement

  

Society of Control is a variation on the panopticon. "Power becomes entirely bio political, the whole social body is comprised by power's machine and developed in its virtuality. This relationship is open, qualitative, and affective." (Empire, 24)

"Life has now become... an object of power." (Foucault)

"Biopower extends well outside the sites of social instituations through flexible and fluctuating networks." (Empire, 23)

  

Lastly, in a control society the key that unlocks the door is no longer a signature, but a password. (I feel like you could extend this to also include things like usernames, avatars, the general online identity at large as well). 

Individuals are reduced to 'dividuals' (divided selves), masses are simply data, samples, markets, or banks. 

Even places where you shop, rent movies, or watch tv want to know more and more about, with the express idea of breaking you down into your data like some sort of post modern scrap heap.

The concept of the dividual also puts me in mind of places like Bank of America and Wells Fargo that charge you fees for you using the debit card that they gave you to access your money that you gave them. 

And on that depressing note let's go to the questions:

1. Locate and describe the society of control in your daily life.

2. How does the concept of rhizome function in light of structuralism and post structuralism?

3. Who would win in a bar fight Deleuze or Baudillard? 

4. Compare and contrast the theory of Empire with Rhizomes.

More Prometheus!

http://mashable.com/2012/04/17/prometheus-david-ad/

I'm totally stoked for this movie. Here's something super creepy that kinda ties in with Simulacra.

Globalization

Empire

    Over the years we have seen an increase in the interaction and integration among people and cultures. Hardt and Negri said that we have witnessed an irresistible and irreversible globalization of economic and cultural changes. Along with the global market and gobal circuits of production has emerged a global order, an "Empire", which focuses on a new global form of sovereignty. Empire is the political subject that effectively regulates these global changes, the sovereign powers that govern the world (xi). Hardt and Negri sought to interpret how this order came into its formation. Against other theories, they came up with their own and claimed that sovereignty had taken a new form composed of a series of national and supranational entities unified under a single logic rule. This new global form of sovereignty is called Empire. Sovereignty of the nation-state was the foundation of the imperialisms that that European powers constructed throughtout the modern era. For Hardt and Negri, Empire is different form imperialism due to the boundaries set by the nation-states that were instrumental in their progression. Imperialism was just an extension of sovereignty of the European nation-states beyond their own boundaries. It policed the purity of its own identity and excluded others by constructing a Leviathan. But the Empire establishes no territorial center of power and doesn't rely on fixed boundaries or barriers. It is, however, a decentered and deterritorializing apparatus of rule that includes all the entire realm within its open, expanded frontiers. This unversal form has emerged from the declining of modernity.
    Hardt and Negri says that many locate the ultimate authority that rules over the processes of globalization and the new world order in the United States. They claim that many critics charge the U.S. of repeating the practices of old European imperialist, while others believe they're getting right what the imperialist got wrong. According to the authors' beliefs, imperialism is over and no nation will be world leaders in the way modern European nations were. They believe that although the U.S. does hold a privileged position in Empire, it's privilege comes from the differences rather than similarities of old European imperialist powers.
    Hardt and Negri says the concept of Empire lacks boundaries and has no limits. The concept of Empire posits a regime that rules over the entire "civilized world". Secondly, it must present itself as an order, suspending history and fixing the existing state of affairs forever. Third, the rule of Empire functions on all levels of the social order, extending down to the social world and presenting a paradigmatic form of "Foucalt's "biopower", regulating social life in its entirety. And finally, although the practice of Empire is continually bathed in blood, the concept of Empire is always dedicated to peace-a perpetual and universal peace outside of history (xv). Hardt and Negri's description of an Empire is that of an ideal world, a "utopian society". According to them, the Empire we are faced with wields enormous powers of oppression and destruction, but should not make us yearn for old forms of domination, for the access to Empire and its processes of globalization offer new possiblities to the forces of liberation.

The Clash of Globalizations

    The dominant tension of the decade was the clash between the fragmentation of states (and the state system) and the progress of economic, cultural, and political-in other words, globalization (Lemert, 603). Hoffman talks about the events of September 11 and implied that it was the beginning of a new era. He said that in the conventional approach of international relations, war occurred among states. But the events of 9/11 was carried out, as he described, by "poorly armed individuals, challenged, suprised, and wounded the world's dominant superpower. He believes that because of globalization, it made it easy for terrorists to commit this violent act. Globalization, which has various meanings, can be defined as interaction and integration among cultural and economic exchanges. Although globilization has its benefits, it can incite conflict and terrorism. Terrorism, although a complex term, is a violent act used to instill fear. Hoffman describes it as a bloody link between interstate relations and global society (603). With individuals and groups becoming more involved globally as "global actors", there is a sense of insecurity and vulnerability growing.

 Hoffman identifies three forms of identification, each with its own issues: economic globalization, which results from recent revolutions in technology, information etc. The main actors are companies, investors, banks, private service industries, as well as states and internal organizations. This form of globalization was foreseen as being an issue by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. They believed it posed a dilemma between efficiency and fairness. The problem with economic globalization is an issue between the "haves and the have-nots". Cultural globalization leads to interaction and interconnectedness. It stems from the technological revolution and economic globalizing, which together promotes the flow of goods. Americanization and diversity are key choices.

The result is both a "disenchantment of the world" in (Max Weber's words) and a reaction aginst uniformity. The issue comes when the latter takes form in a renaissance of local cultures and languages as well as assaults against Western culture , which is denounced as a mask for U.S. hegemony (605). Political globalization is characterized by the domination of the United States, its political instituitions and a vast array of international and transgovernmental networks. The issue hangs over the fate of American hegemony, which faces significant resistance abroad  and is affected by America's own oscillation between the temptations of domination and isolation (605).

The Spirit of Terrorism

The 'mother' of all events, the attack on the World Trade Center, the pure event uniting within itself all the events that have never taken place.                                                                           

The moral condemnation and holy alliance against terrorism are on the same scale as the prodigious jubilation at seeing this global superpower destroyed-better, at seeing it, in a sense, destroying itself, committing suicide (Baudrillard, 4). For it is that superpower with too much power that stimulated the violence throughout the world and with our unconsciously terroristic imagination that lives in us all unknowingly. The fact that we dreamed of this event, that everyone without exception has dreamt of it because no one can fail to dream of the destruction of any power that has become so dominant. It is unacceptable to the Western moral conscience (5). Baudrillard says that we longed for it to happen. If we don't take it into account, then it's purely an arbitrary act, the murderous illusion of a few fanatics would then only need to be eliminated. But we know that this isn't how it is. It goes far beyond hatred for the dominant world power by the deprived and exploited, those who have ended up on the wrong side of the order. Allergy to any definitive order, to any definitive power is - happily universal - and the two towers of the World Trade Center were perfect embodiments, in their twinness, of that order (6). Baudrillard claims a rise in the power- increases the desire to destroy it. The symbolic collaspe of a whole system came about by an unpredictable complicity, as though the towers, by collasping on their own, by committing suicide, had joined in on the event by lending a helping hand in the action. The more concentrated the system becomes globally, ultimately forming one single network, the more it becomes vulnerable at a single point (8).


Discussion Questions

1. How is globalization transforming the meanings of culture in today's world? Is it a threat to cultural identity?

2. What impact does globalization have on developing countries?

3. How does globalization relate to terrorism?

Telephone, Mind Control and Disney?

I was reading this article and decided I may as well throw the link up here.

What do you all think of this?

Performing Postmodern Identity

 This band Gogol Bordello are my country-men - Ukrainian Jews - and a self-described gypsy punk band.  I really dig them and think you should check them out.  However, I also believe that they are experts at performing the Eastern European identity, which goes along with the whole gypsy motif.  Anyways, check it out and let me know what you think on Monday:

Lady Gaga

My avatar in Second Live has a Facebook profile

Postmodern art, postmodern architecture, postmodern philosophy, postmodern literature, postmodern music, postmodern criticism, postmodern this, and postmodern that.  “…when it becomes possible to describe all these things as ‘postmodern’ …then it’s clear we are in the presence of a buzzword (CTPC p182). 

OK, so everything is postmodern, but what does that mean?  What ties postmodern art to postmodern philosophy?  Basically, it is the rejection of a belief in Truth (with a capital T).  Postmodernism argues that all the rules, laws, and the natural order of things do not really exist.  They are only social constructs which change as society changes.  Postmodernism is the questioning of all the things we used to be so sure about.

Lyotard

Lyotard argues that while the metanarratives or grand narratives of modernity have collapsed under “‘positive’ science” (466) to liberate humanity (185), science has arisen as postmodernism’s grand narrative, however up until this point science had been seen as independent of narrative. Science is supposed to be purely “denotative” (466) or made of facts, true statements. Its denotative nature legitimated it; however Lyotard uncovers the flaw that science’s denotative nature presupposes a narrative developed during the Enlightenment which is universality (466). “A science that has not legitimated itself is not a true science if the discourse that was meant to legitimate it seems to belong to a prescientific form of knowledge, like a ‘vulgar’ narrative, it is demoted to the lowest rank, that of an ideology or instrument of power” (466). Lyotard shows that science does not legitimate itself, but the language of legitimation is dependent on “the Life of spirit” something like the “vulgar” narratives dismissed in lieu of science. Science becomes “the general mode of knowledge” or “the metanarrative” that umbrellas other disciplines (466). The metanarrative is a “language game” that tries to construct the self-evidence and primacy of science but fails which Lyotard says is evident by the “dividing of reason” into theoretical and practical according rules based on its relevance in the hands of practitioners of the “ethical, social, and political” (467). Science is not given, irreducible, nor self-legitimating—there is no “universal metalanguage” to declare its Truth (468).

Baudrillard

A woman came up to me after a presentation I gave at FedEx Corporate HQ a couple of weeks ago.  She introduced herself and said she worked with my father (also Kevin Gallagher) a few years ago at another company and had recently re-connected with him on Linked In.    She was shaken and a little confused when I informed her that my father had passed away in 2010.

As I was working on this blog post, I received the following email:

Between the email and the readings, I started thinking about the Facebook friends I have.  I have never met some of these people.  Others I haven’t seen in 20 years or more and wouldn’t recognize them if I passed them on the street.  Despite the lack of physical connection, I would say I am very close to some of my FB friend.  I chat with them regularly, follow their lives and careers, laugh with them, send birthday greetings, and try to comfort and encourage them in difficult times.  But would I know if they died?  I can’t even say with certainty that some of my close “friends” are or ever were real people.  They could be fictitious personas created by some third party.

This is not the only intersection between “real” life and virtual life.  In fact, the digital world has not only grown exponentially in the past two decades, it has become deeply integrated into daily life.  Web presence is not just a convenient side part of a business; in many cases it is essential to profitability.  Not so long ago, having a website was optional for a business.  Now, having a business is optional for a website.  Although Amazon is one of the nation’s largest retailers, it does not have a single store.  At least they sell real things.  Real world courts have been asked to rule on disputes between virtual people over the sale of virtual property using virtual money.

A decade before the internet and two decades before Facebook, Jean Baudrillard described the increasing dominance of the unreal over the real.

 “It is no longer a question of imitation, nor of reduplication, nor even parody.  It is rather a question of substituting signs of the real for the real itself; that is, an operation to deter every real process by it operational double, a metastable, programmatic, perfect descriptive machine which provides all the signs of the real and short-circuits all it vicissitudes.  Never again will the real have to be produced: this is the vital function of the model in a system of death, or rather of anticipated resurrection which no longer leaves any chance even in the event of death (p480).

In the case of my father, his Linked In profile continued on two years after his death.  For those who interacted with him only through Linked In, he did not die until last week when I had them pull the plug.  Had he wanted to, my father could have scheduled messages to be sent long after his death.  Or, I could have taken over his account and he would be alive today.

Simulated breast milk for better brain development in a Postmodern world.

As stated earlier, objects, people, and other things which are replaced by simulations are the simulacra.  But what of creations which are meant to represent something which never existed?  For Baudrillard, this is the hyperreal.  “Hyperrealism, he claims, is the characteristic mode of postmodernity.  In the realm of the hyperreal, the distinction between simulation and the real implodes" (p187).

Jameson 

Where Lyotard points to the fall of metanarratives or grand narratives, it seems that Jameson points to history, a metanarrative that must be uncovered, grasped again to understand what capitalism is doing now. Jameson references the word whole like “whole global…postmodern culture,” “whole new economic world system,” “whole object world” (3-7). There is an ongoing, whole system at work that has been made inaccessible by components of postmodernism such as pastiche. Jameson explains: "Pastiche is, like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique, idiosyncratic style, the wearing of a linguistic mask, speech in a dead language. But it is a neutral practice of such mimicry, without any of parody's ulterior motives, amputated of the satiric impulse, devoid of laughter and of any conviction" (17). Pastiche as “dead language” keeps the artists saying nothing with the intent to say what was said. At best it is allusion to stereotypes of a mythic past. Jameson uses the example of nostalgia films where “the desperate attempt to appropriate a missing past is now refracted through the iron low of fashion change and emergent ideology of the generation” (19). The films try to regain and reminisce the past through distorted “pastness” or semblances of the past in films from the 1930’s and 1950’s (19). Pastiche makes it necessary to cannibalize “all the styles of the past” (18). This is also the case with historical novels, “it can only ‘represent’ our ideas and stereotypes about the past” (25). Ultimately Jameson wants to point the reader to accept “the dissolution of an autonomous sphere of cultural sphere,” in fact everything has become “culture” (48). Storey restates that everything has become culture at the expense of “critical space,” which makes culture the vulnerable mechanism of capitalism (194).  

10 Commandments (God, 1200 B.C.E.)

Discussion:

1) Consider the power of the image.  God thought representations of other gods (which may or may not exist) could be powerful so he banned them.  What other images or simulations affect your daily life, despite the fact that they represent things that do not really exist?

2) Discuss the importance of 3D in Avatar.  In particular, if the film is a contemporary version of Orientalism, how does the added dimension affect the meaning or impact of the film?

3)  (The authors of this blog post have intentionally left the third discussion question open to your interpretation. Please elaborate in your response.)

Race Theory

Decolonization

Decolonization is a violent process, but colonization is most violent. Colonizing is a regime of violence against and in a nation of people by a small group deployed to occupy, appropriate, and terrorize on behalf of another nation.

Frantz Fanon highlights the violence involved in breaking with colonialism both at the physical, geographic level as well as the cultural and theoretical level by pointing to the unrestrained violence against those who were colonized. That same lack of restraint by which they were colonized must be used to decolonize-- "to  smash every obstacle encountered" even to have a "murderous and decisive confrontation" (365). The colonized must be willing to resort to "every means" by which the order of society is constructed to destroy it.

The colonized are up against "a world divided in two" (366). First by physical/geographical barriers "the borders" set by "barracks and police stations"; second by controlling bodily mobility through agents of the colonies (both "spokesperson for the colonizer" and surveillance) such as police officers and soldiers; and third through compulsory education both moral and academic to smother them in "a mood of submission and inhibition" (366).

--"As soon as they are born it is obvious to them that their cramped world, riddled with taboos, can only be challenged by out-and-out violence" (Fanon in ST 366).

The movie Sarafina demonstrates the struggle of students living in a colonized apartheid South Africa who use the very classroom intended to enforce their submission for a site of resistance. They are emboldened by their instructor's alignment with their resistance.--

Through these means of colonization Fanon plainly states, "It is the colonist who fabricated and continues to fabricate the colonized subject" (365). The colonized are known and know themselves in contrast to the colonizer.  Rationalizing the subjugation of colonized people necessitates an ideology of "difference" (512, 522). Fanon points out that although black Americans' "existential problems differed from those faced by the Africans" that the "common denominator" was "that they all defined themselves in relation to whites" (366). The attempt to demystify the fabrication-- identifying it as an unnatural, artificial rhetorical/discursive project--is through the violent struggle of identity.

Identity and Race Theory

When considering race theory, one must consider the concept of identity. How is identity shaped? What does it mean to struggle for identity individually and communally against a backdrop of oppression that seeks to—and often succeeds at—questioning your very humanity.  Storey, West and others point to the idea that White identity was formed as an oppositional binary to “others.” White became an identity only when Europeans encountered non-white people. When non-white peoples were “discovered”, it became the trend to seek to devalue them based on concepts of “reason.” “The urge toward the systematization of all human knowledge (by which we characterize the Enlightenment) led directly to the relegation of black people to a lower place in the great chain of being…” (523).

Phyllis Wheatley

Henry Louis Gates outlines the way that writing—considered by Enlightenment minds to be “the medium of reason’s expression” (523-524)—functioned as a tool to dehumanize as well as a site of contestation and human identity formation for enslaved Africans in America during the 18^th century. Those who sought to devalue African Americans’ humanity suggested that the illiteracy of enslaved African was proof of their sub-human status. Gates does not ignore the irony of the fact that many enslaved Africans were illiterate only because it was illegal for them to be taught to read or write.  Gates argues that the literature that was produced by enslaved Africans such as Phyllis Wheatley “indicted the received order of Western culture, of which slavery was to them the most salient sign” (526). The activity of the African American early literary personalities did not have the full desired effect, however. “We accepted a false premise by assuming that racism would be destroyed once white racists became convinced that we were human” (526). Instead, black literature became another way of differentiating the “race” from the norms of Western literature. Black people had achieved human identity, but that did not, as they had hoped, produce freedom or equality.

Writing is not the only way in which people of color have sought to carve out identity. West argues that black people in the West have struggled for identity amidst a “modern Black diaspora problematic of invisibility and namelessness” (517). This falls in line with many theorists as Black people are often forced to forge identities in environments where their humanity is treated as an absence.  The site of struggle for Black identity for West resides in “Black efforts to hold self-doubt, self-contempt and self-hatred at bay” (518). West cites strategies that have been used historically to attempt to create a Black identity that could combat the negative representations of Blacks created by Western pseudo-science and politics as “moralistic in content and communal in character” (518). The content of this strategy had to do with convincing the world that Blacks were morally similar to Whites. The communal character of the strategy lay in the monolithic characterization of Blackness that was presented to the world. ‘We are just like you and we are all alike in our quality of character’ is the nature of this attempt to forge a positive identity. For some, this strategy was the weakness of the civil rights movement. What might happen if those who were invested in this assimilationist strategy were forced to encounter today's Black culture? Here's ONE idea (ok I jut really think it's funny but QUITE relevant.)

 

(I apologize in advance if this offends)

West challenges the validity of these strategies based on the fact that the strategies were assimilationist in nature and had a homogenizing influence on Black identity. These strategies sought acceptance by denying difference. West argues that true and powerful identity for Black people can only be achieved if we embrace difference and investigate the places of difference in culture by demystification of power relations and suggestions for transformative praxis that highlight human agency.

Gloria Anzaldua writes of her identity as a lesbian of color with a background of Indian/Spanish (Mexican) descent. She speaks of the horrors of American appropriation of the land of her people and the dangers of living in the borderlands as integral to the shaping of her identity. Anzaldua acknowledges that, “unlike Chicanas and other women of color who grew up white or who have only recently returned to their native cultural roots, I was totally immersed in mine” (558). Anzaldua is careful to neither reject her heritage simply because it has, on occasion, rejected her as a woman and a lesbian nor glorify it to the extent that she does not address the problems in it. As a matter of fact, she sees her critique as part of her culture’s traditions. She writes, “My Chicana identity is grounded in the Indian woman’s history of resistance. The Aztec female rites of mourning were rites of defiance protesting the cultural changes which disrupted the equality and balance between female and male” (557-558). Anzaldua believes that to live well in the space of her identity requires honoring her culture with integrity while critiquing it with that same integrity. She cites her full immersion in her culture and her exposure to influences beyond her culture as the space where her identity exists and finds its uniqueness.

The Matrix of Domination and Black Feminist Thought

Gloria Anzaldua’s position as an outside insider in her community points to another concern that has become prevalent in race theory (as well as feminist theory) in recent years. This concept is the Matrix of Domination. Because Anzaldua is a woman of color and a lesbian, is vulnerable to racism, sexism and heterosexism. Because she comes from people who have been historically exploited and whose citizenship and humanity are constantly questioned and contested, she is vulnerable to classism. These oppressions cannot and should not be considered apart from one another according to those who study the matrix of domination. They should, instead be considered different axes in a matrix. The axes intersect one another at the levels of personal experience, community engagement and social institutions. The forces acting in the matrix, instead of a series of separate oppressions, are a set of “interlocking oppressions” (541) where, “each system needs the others in order to function” (542).

For Patricia Hill Collins, the best articulation of the matrix of domination as experienced by Black women is the intersection between race, class and gender. This is not to say that Black women do not experience domination on other axes nor is it to say that Black women are the only people who experience the matrix along these three axes. These three axes are just the most likely to be experienced by all women of color to varying degrees. The matrix of domination affects everyone.  No one escapes it and there are “few pure victims or oppressors” (546). Everyone can identify a space in which they are oppressed and some space in which they might be privileged.

Besides varying degrees and the multiplicity of axes upon which domination can operate, Collins also points to different levels of domination, “the level of personal biography; the group or community level of the cultural context created by race, class and gender; and the systemic level of social institutions” (545). The individual biography helps the woman to make meaning. That meaning is validated, invalidated or adjusted within the community context and helps the woman navigate institutions. The importance of the individual biography and the cultural context for meaning-making in Black Feminist Thought is the reason why, unlike other feminisms requires, “Living as an African American woman,” is a “necessary prerequisite for producing Black feminist thought” (547).

If only Black women can participate in Black feminist thought, how can they challenge the matrix of domination on any real level? Collins argues that the space for challenging the matrix consists in the understanding that all knowledge is situated, subjugated and partial. If we remain conscious of these conditions of knowledge, then we become capable of having, “dialogue with empathy,” which includes centering each voice as it speaks in the larger dialogue while acknowledging the partial nature of all standpoints (551). All voices can be heard and all subjects understand each other as speaking from separate standpoints in the same discourse.

Questions for Reflection:

1) Do you see yourself in your current situation as oppressed within the matrix of domination? Do you see yourself as privileged? Explain how for each.

2) If you were asked to define your primary identity in ten words or less, how would you do it. Would race be a factor? Would the races of others who are different from you be a factor? How so?

3) Has decolonization thoroughly taken place? Is the removal of physical barriers and the scientific acknowledgement that "Human biology does not divide people into different 'races'" end colonization (167)?

4) According to Fanon, West, and Gates, what is the role of the intellectual or the teacher in the struggle against "essentialist rhetorics" deployed against people of color  (519)?

Feminism and Queer Theory

Gender and Sexuality

            ‘Finding a voice,’ a metaphor for self-transformation is what African- American feminist theorist, bell hooks, describes as the oppressed woman speaking out and writing for the first time. She says speaking allows oneself to transform from an object to that of a subject and “only as subjects can we speak” (p.175).

 

     Feminism is a way for the oppressed to ‘find their voice’. It is feminism that has placed gender on the academic agenda (Storey, 135). It is not a monolith, but diverse. Storey states that there are four different feminisms: radical, Marxist, liberal, and dual-systems theory. They are all diverse in terms of the conclusion that they each draw from their feminism issues. Radical feminism is seen as the model for all other kinds of oppression. The argument is that women’s oppression stem from the patriarchal system. It is seen as the root of their problems. There is the belief that men must change before equality between men and women is achieved. Marxist feminist analysis ultimate source of oppression is capitalism.

            The domination of women by men is seen as a consequence of capital’s domination over labour (p.135). There is economic inequality between women and men. Liberal feminism is different form radical and Marxist feminism because it does not present a system that decides the oppression of women. It, on the other hand, tends to see the problem in terms of male prejudice against women, embodied in law or expressed in the exclusion of women from particular areas of life (p.175). It takes on an individualized approach, stressing individual empowerment and it is characterized by the belief that women have the ability to attain equality. The women have to prove themselves as equal to men and the only way to accomplish this is for laws to change that are disadvantageous to them. Finally, the dual-systems theory represents the coming together of Marxist and radical feminist analysis in the belief that women’s oppression is the result of a complex articulation of both patriarchy and capitalism (p.175). 

 

Women at the Cinema

            LauraMulvey’s account of the ‘male gaze’ has had an enormous influence; however, it has not been met without criticism. Some feminist doubted the ‘universal validity’ of her account of the ‘male gaze’ and whether it was always the male doing the ‘gazing’ or could there be other ways of seeing, particularly by the female.

 

Lorraine Gamman and Margaret Marshment advocate a cultural politics of intervention: ‘we can’t afford to dismiss the popular by always positioning ourselves outside of it’ (p. 137). They go on to say that the entertainment and information that we in society receive is from popular culture. It is here that women (and men) are offered the culture’s dominant definitions of themselves. It would therefore seem crucial to explore the possibilities and pitfalls of intervention in popular forms in order to find ways of making feminist meanings a part of our pleasures (p.137).

            Jackie Stacey conducted her own analysis based on responses she’d received from women that were mostly working class and over the age of 60. These women were avid movie-goers in the 1940s and 1950s. Escapism, identification and consumption, were three discourses that the analysis generated responses for and through her analysis it was revealed that the main reason the women went to the cinema was for escapism. The women wanted a time-out from the world around them. It was more than just the Hollywood glamour. The physical space of the cinema provided a transitional space between everyday life outside of the cinema and the fantasy world of the Hollywood film about to be shown (p.138). 

      Here they are able to forget their problems for a short amount of time. Stacey’s second analysis is identification, ‘by which women collude and become implicit in their own oppression’ (p.139). However, she claim that identification can be shown to work quite differently by shifting the focus from the female spectator constructed within the film text to the actual female in the audience in the cinema (p.139). There is this fantasy and dream-like state that the female spectator is in while in the cinema. Consumption, she insists is ‘a site of negotiated meanings, of resistance and appropriation as well as of subjection and exploitation’ (p.139).  

The Problem That Has No Name

            Betty Friedan acknowledges a problem that women had placed on their minds for many years and was afraid to ask—“Is this all?” Women were ‘unhappy’ and ‘dissatisfied’ with their lives as housewives and wondered if it was more to life than a housewife’s daily work routine. Experts would write columns and books ‘telling women their role was to seek fulfillment as wives and mothers’ (Lemert, p.362). But these were educated women who had a longing to do something else with their lives bedsides being a housewife and mother. Friedan blames the media (the so-called experts) for this idealized image of the beautiful stay-at-home wife and mother. Experts would tell the women ‘how to catch a man and keep him’, bear children and put the needs of others before her own. According to Friedan, this mystique of feminine fulfillment became the cherished and self-perpetuated core of contemporary American culture (p.363).            

      Many women mirrored their lives in the image of an American suburban housewife kissing and sending her husband off to work, children off to school and cleaning house. This was an ideal image for them. They all wanted to marry, have children and live in a nice home in the suburbs. But Friedan believed that women were given a false perception of what true womanhood was. In the 1950s and 1960s, if a woman felt there was something wrong with her, she attributed it to her marriage or herself.

            She was reluctant and ashamed to admit her dissatisfaction and it was hard to understand and discuss with others. For some, they wouldn’t admit to even having a problem at all. But Friedan concluded that ‘the problem that has no name’ stirring in the minds of so many American women today is not a matter of loss of femininity or too much education, or the demands of domesticity. It is far more important and can no longer be ignored. A woman can no longer ignore the voice within that says: “I want something more than my husband and my children and my home (p.364).

 

Masculinity 

    As it has been pointed out there are numerous works centered on feminism and feminist theory. Shifting from femininity the text briefly examines masculinity and Queer theory (specifically focusing on the work of Judith Butler). Feminism has been the lens through which researchers have examined countless topics.  Mens studies, at least in my opinion, seems to be something that is a newer approach (even though feminism researchers have problems with this approach). However, researchers have raised concern because according to Schwenger, “ for men to think about masculinity is to become less masculine” (CTPC, 159).

            Much like Queer theory, masculinity researchers believe that masculinity, like gender and sexual identity, is a cultural construct- it is not ‘natural’ and often a heterosexual myth. “Dominant masculinity” or what Nixon’s called the “new man masculinity” is often projected onto society through mass media-different types of advertising, clothing stores and magazines (CTPC, 159). With this being said it seems that there is a bright future for those who are interested in deconstructing masculinity in similar ways that femininity has been examined.

Is this the 'new man'?

Queer Theory

     Queer theory is a field of study that examines and critiques the “relationship between lesbians, gay men and the culture which surround and (for the large part) continues to seek to exclude [them]” (CTPC, 160). As laid out in the text Queer theory seeks to “attack” what modern society has constructed and preached, natural gender and heterosexuality. Throughout Queer research you will find that many of the scholars focus on performance.

     

      Judith Butler is probably one of the most influential and well-known scholars in this field. de Beauvoir believed that “one is not born a woman, but, rather, becomes one’ (p.160), this statement seems foundational for Butler’s argument that sex and gender are culturally and politically constructed identities that we learn to perform. For Butler gender is not any more natural than femininity and masculinity. In fact, they are “cultural performance in which naturalness is constituted through discursively constrained performative acts” (p.161).

            This idea of performativity, for Butler, comes from J.L. Austin’s work which views language in two ways: constative and performative. Constative is descriptive language, while performative does more than describe, it brings something into being (p.161). We see this at play in Butler’s piece Imitation and Gender Insubordination. In this essay she spends time talking about ‘coming out’ and how the language of coming out continues to produce new ‘closets’. Butler states, “If I claim to be a lesbian, I ‘come out’ only to produce a new and different ‘closet’…the ‘you’ to whom I come out now has a different [view]…before you did not know whether I ‘am’, but now you do not know what that means…” she goes on to say “being ‘out’ always depends to some extent on being ‘in’...the sense of ‘outness’ can only produces a [new closet]” (Storey, 564).

            I believe that Butler gives us an interesting example how performing the discourse of ‘coming out’ both provides some freedom but only to the extent that it creates a new discourse for what it means to be in the closet. How lesbians and gay men choose to ‘come out’ is a performative act, but when this act takes place they are setting the ‘norm’ for those who are still in the closet. Think of examples we have seen of people ‘coming out’- maybe a friend caught them with a same sex partner, maybe a conversation was had with parents- all of these acts set the norm for how one should ‘come out’. When closeted individuals choose to not perform these acts, but choose a different option, they are not only setting new norms but they are reinforcing the closet.

            Just like ‘coming out’, Butler believes, that gender is a performative reality that we create through social performances and these performances count on consumption. Michael Warner said it best when he connected gay culture and consumption (and the same can be said of gender norms) we are part of the capitalist machine. Society produces images and products that are “so me” and when we buy or use these things we are creating performative acts. So if a gay man goes to a gay bar, he is buying into the image that this is what gay men do. He is part of a discourse that says if you want to be a cool gay man you have to go to this bar.

Taking a page from Brian's book. Look at these pictures of me (Crystal). What performative acts had to take place to transform me from tomboy to children's pageants? Think back to de Beauvoir belief that "one is not born a woman, but, rather, becomes one." 

You can't even tell my gender here? In fact I look like my brother!

In this one you can tell that my hair is longer at least giving the appearance of a female child.

Obviously there were some performative acts (whether it was my choice or forced by my mother) that took me from the photos above to this.

1. Does feminism have too much influence on today’s society?

2.     What are the issues you have with the four types of feminism? Explain why it’s an issue?

3.     What performative acts must you do on a daily basis in order to maintain your femininity or masculinity? If you believe you go against the grain and do not perform such acts explain if you are treated different? Do people acknowledge that you are not performing your gendered norm?

4.     What are your thoughts and reactions to the following quote: “Drag is not the putting on of a gender that belongs properly to some other group…there is no proper gender, a gender proper to one sex rather than another, which is in some sense that sex’s cultural property” (Storey, 568).