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Week 13--Thinking About Writing and Viewing

Anne Dalke's picture
This Tuesday, with the help of Susan Stryker and Jessy Brody, we'll be thinking about academic writing-that-is-also-personal; on Thursday, with the help of Zana Briski, we'll be talking about viewing-a-film-made (in part) by-its-subjects.  What are your responses to the materials you've read and seen in preparation for these classes? What specific ideas and responses do you want to explore with Jessy?
jzarate's picture

language and form

In another class we were discussing how the "language" of the Western gay/queer/bisexual/lesbian movement has affected sexual identity movements in other countries. Some claim that by using the terms from the Western culture, these nations have also adopted the Western homophobia attached to them. I wonder if the terms themselves carry any connotation. It seems that usage and dictionary definition can be very different.  It is similar to our varying definitions of feminism. Depending on various aspects of identity a person’s “definition” of feminism may vary greatly.

 

This variation in personal connotation and definition of words makes me wonder about writing. In class we discussed the effectiveness of our writing style, in the way it impacts the reader. But personally, when posting online I could care less about the reader (I can’t narrow the audience or know the audience), so I write for myself. Therefore, rather than considering the impact I’m having (or not) on some unknown reader, I will consider the effect it had/has on me as a writer. I experimented with placing myself in this third essay (look at the form), by placing myself in some sections while remaining more distant in others. In the end, I found the entire essay enjoyable to write just in different ways. The impersonal seemed more concrete and scientific, while the personal was a more rewarding manner of expressing my experiences and emotions.

hpolak's picture

I agree

I agree with what you are saying. I feel that when I am posting online, although it available for all to see, I think about myself. I am letting my thoughts spill out and I am working to construct my ideas in a way that seems fit to me. It is hard to narrow down the audience, especially when literally anyone can see it. Therefore I do not specifically tailor my online posts to any type of person in particular, and it is essentially a personal experience.

There are times when I consider what other members of the class will think when I post something, but beyond that I try to allow myself to write my thoughts exactly and not censor myself.

EG's picture

honesty in images

ebock, I'm glad you brought up our class discussion -- since there's not another forum to use, I'll just use this one to continue it and hopefully spark a little more conversation.

I claimed last class that photographs and videos are more "honest" than words, and that this "honesty" is what gave Born into Brothels more potential to be compelling than an essay or non-fiction piece.  I know that's a loaded statement; "honesty" is a loaded word.  So I think it's important here to define what I mean by honesty: in this case, I mean that which must be true.  That is not to say that truth cannot be interpreted in different ways, manipulated, or created/taken out of a context.  But it had to have happened, because there is photographic or video of evidence, and so it must be true.

Words, on the other hand are more flexible.  Because we don't have "proof," an idea presented in words needs to work harder than one with images.  If shaped well, words can outdo images, be more compelling, and CAN be just as honest -- but they don't HAVE to be.  Reading about the holocaust, for example, is a different from watching the footage; there is honesty: it MUST be true, something that words have to work much harder to achieve.

I think this brings us back to the sort of unfortunate concept that the English language may not be flexible enough to bring the honesty we see in snatches of real life to words.  It is a skill in writing to bring many dimensions into a description or narrativie; in a video and photography, it is a given.

rchauhan's picture

eve, i totally agree w/ you!

eve, i totally agree w/ you! video/photographs give you evidence that is harder to question. this past weekend, instead of doing my hw, i watched the britney spears documentary on mtv.com haha. and this documentary was like born into brothels where you see an interview with the main person and also see that person go bout their daily activities. and you kind of have to believe that it is honest/true because youre seeing the person answer the question instead of reading the interview in an article where the writer could have manipulated the quotes. 
ebock's picture

knowledge/truth

We ended class talking about whether or not documentary film was "honest" or the "most honest" medium of art. I couldn't help but think of Spivak's claim that we can't actually know anything (hope I didn't butcher that haha). Thinking of documentary film in that light, does that mean that we can't actually know if the documentary is entirely honest or does that mean maybe that nothing can be true because we can't fully know anything?

I've just been rolling this around in my mind since class and wondered if anyone had any thoughts.

Ann Dixon's picture

Serendip as the Personal

It's interesting that noone has challenged the assumption that "For me, Serendip is very interesting, but because it does not involve the personal, I think it can be less controversial and less vibrant than personal journals."

Please see some other Serendip pages outside of this course:

Mifestrone: The Abortion Pill

Sleep Paralysis

Sleepwalking

Measure for Measure (explores eating disorders)

Among others, these web postings describe real fear and real nitty-gritty interactions between people. I enjoy what you all do and write on Serendip, but it is a construct of your class and yourselves, not limited by Serendip's identity and range of published experiences.

ssherman's picture

When Jessy asked us

When Jessy asked us yesterday what kind of writing we did that wasn't academic, my first thought was nothing.  However ashamed I am to admit it, I have a livejournal, but I hardly ever write in it anymore.  But when people started saying email, and Jessy suggested ims, facebook, and texts, I was intrigued and have spent some time reading over things I write- like email, facebook wall posts/messages and texts.  Someone suggested that these things weren't writing because they weren't published.  But couldn't one make the argument that anything one posts online, whether on serendip or facebook is published?  When I write on someone's facebook wall, I realize that what I am writing can be read by others, including people I don't know.  So I don't put things that I wouldn't want to share with people I don't know in wall posts.  Besides the "i miss you" posts, for the most part I do put some thought into what I'm writing.  Especially if someone writes something witty and I want to write something witty back.  I feel like we all feel a little vulnerable having everything on serendip available for anyone to see, but really even on facebook, where only your friends can see things on your profile, you are really exposing yourself more than you may realize.  Last year, sometime in the spring, my 11th grade math teacher (who is so awesome and has a facebook) wrote on my wall, "Everything you do on Facebook amuses me.  And you do a *lot* of things on Facebook."  I would say up until that point I never really lot about all the things I did online could be viewed and interpreted any way someone wants to.  And I think that really allowed me to realize what I did and didn't want the world to see.  And now that my campers from this summer and all have facebooks and are friends with me, I not only watch what I put on facebook, but what others put on facebook that involves me.  I really think I totally just got off whatever my original point was, but I really do believe that any form of writing, be it im, texts, facebook, or email, are real forms of writing.
rfindlay's picture

Katie, THANK YOU for your

Katie, THANK YOU for your posting about...posting. I am not one of those people who enjoys trying to catch all my thoughts and explain them in person, but I would rather do it in person than in any other way--the audience is too broad and unresponsive elsewhere.

One of the reasons I am posting so late is because I don't know what to say, or if I'm entitled to say it. I didn't love see, minotaur. Before I meet Jessy, I feel as though I am not allowed to try to make sense of the speaker. Mostly because I am pissed that the poem basically assumed I would/could/refused to understand the person writing it.

I understand, Jessy, that you must be more pissed off than I can ever be for not finding the language to explain yourself, but how can you be angry with the audience for not seeing you in your writing if you don't see yourself?

 

Here's a thought: instead of using third person pronouns, why not make them all second person, and invite the person to respond?

Anne Dalke's picture

using the second person

I'm reading Ahab's Wife with my CSem class right now, and today we spent some time with a passage that had been written in the second person. The students were totally creeped out by its presumptiveness. The narrator, Una, says,

But do you know me? Una? You have shipped long with me in the boat that is this book. Let me assure you and tell you that I know you, even something of your pain and joy, for you are much like me. The contract of writing and reading requires that we know each other....I try on your mask from time to time...become a reader, too, reading over what I have just written....I am also your comrade. Feel me now, standing beside you, just behind your shoulder?

kgbrown's picture

Thoughts on Reclaiming and Self-Identifying

I have always wondered about the act of "reclaiming," chaning the meaning and connotations of language and terms that have been used as methods of oppression.  Susan Stryker comments that "words like 'creature,' 'monster,' and 'unnatural' need to be reclaimed by the transgendered.  By embracing and accepting them, even piling one on top of another, we may dispel their ability to harm us" (Stryker 246). My curiousity with reclaiming relates to the change in connotation that only seem to be prevelant and understood in that specific culture.  By adopting the terms that have been used to marginalize and then adapting them in an effort to unify, it seems as though the words would have lost all power.  Reclaiming also seems exclusive, as it does not attempt include outsiders, excluding those that may one day become insiders.   This idea is similar to the conversation we have had in class about the term "feminist" and whether or not it is possible to identify with a term you do not fully understand.

Jessy seems to be addressing the same issues with language in "see minotaur": "There aren't any words for what I am, not real words, that just anyone would understand....  I'm never what they have in mind" (Brody 2).  Jessy's situation seems to be a little different as it is an attempt to define the individual and not a group.

I am wondering how it is possible to define yourself within a group?  If you identify as female, you are not solely female; instead that characteristics makes up only one part of your personal identity.  I would what the role of language (and naming and reclaiming) has to do with the way in which we define ourselves as individuals and in groups.  By placing ourself in one group (female, male, transgendered), are we not thereby assuming that we understand that group and thus can define it?  How does the relate to the conversations we've been having  in class about identifying as a "feminist"?

ebock's picture

Jessy--

So I'm just wondering where you're at  now at "bridging the gap."

What seems like the best way that you've seen so far to be a "scholar and the object of study?"

How can one determine the effectiveness of their work when breaking off from an attempt of "objectivity?" Is there even a way?

I'm really glad that we got to read your work. I've been thinking a lot about similar issues in academia and it was really helpful to see your insight.

anorton's picture

Personal and public definitions

In "see minotaur," Jessy writes, "There aren't any words for what I am, not real words, that just anyone would understand" (2).  This sentence seems to capture the trouble we've been having in trying to define "feminism": We can't say the word in a broad context—a context of "just anyone"—and expect that it carries the same connotations for our listeners as it does for us.   This can be problematic when we care how people are interpreting our words, twisting them to mean something other than what we intended.  Maybe we don't care enough about the opinions of people who think "feminist" = "man hater" to explain our personal philosophies to them, but surely sometimes we want to express our versions of ourselves using conventional language.  

I was struck by Stryker's insistence that "words like 'creature,' 'monster,' and 'unnatural' need to be reclaimed by the transgendered.  By embracing and accepting them, even piling one on top of another, we may dispel their ability to harm us" (246).  I understand the idea of the reclamation of words, but does the intent of the speaker truly not matter once those words have been reclaimed?  Even if you can embrace words that you previously found offensive, can you always avoid taking offense to them when someone inteds to offend?

sarina's picture

Word reclamation

I think that word reclamation takes time and many people to really work. Once it is complete, then it would be easier to not take offense even if someone means it. It would still take a lot of self-esteem and defiance to be able take a cruelly intended comment and not be offended.
aaclh's picture

personal v. private

These readings made me think about audience. The whole wanting to feel hailed and recruited is still on my mind. Maybe people just want to feel acknowledged in the various roles they take on. Is the reason someone would want to write a journal online the same reason someone wants an academic paper published in a paper journal or the same as why we want our relationships validated socially/publically or the same as why we want people to recoginize our gender or other category on sight or perhaps on (any type of) contact? For this course it is required that we post online, for anyone with access to an internet connection to see. Is this useful? Why is this a requirement? Why not have a closed forum just for the class? Is it more feminist for everyone to be able to know everyone else's ideas? Would the erasure of elitism mean the erasure of all private life? The erasure of all exclusive groups?
sarina's picture

Personal journals, academic papers, and this public forum

I feel that public online personal journals are often written because of the widespread draw to public exposure in a private way (it's important to note that people certainly have many reasons for personal journals, and I am not covering all here). Someone can write a public journal under a made-up screen name (puppetry, anyone?). While publishing an academic paper in a printed journal is public exposure, I think it's very different because it is about the ideas, not the author. The very purpose of a personal journal is to showcase one's life and interests, while maybe going through some personal reflection. An academic paper is usually not about one’s life; it’s about the research and conclusions from scholarly work. An audience may draw conclusions about the author of a paper after reading it, yet the level of judgment is much lower than that of an audience reading a public personal journal. This is a stark contrast from a personal journal.

I find the requirement to post online in a public forum useful because it forces us to acknowledge the “outside” world, outside the college bubble.  Even though we rarely see posts from people outside the class, just knowing that anyone can see it provides an audience very different than the one students usually think about (the professor and/or the rest of the class). I think it’s a requirement in this class because Anne wants us to think about presenting our ideas to an audience that may not be looking to hear them, perhaps to someone who stumbles upon Serendipity by a Google search. I wonder where it falls in the magic Google algorithm. How feminist is an search engine algorithm?

EG's picture

I too am interested in the

I too am interested in the relationship between blogging and feminism, and emerged from reading the blog excerpt with some of the same questions as jlustick.  

In what ways does a blurred, or not-so-blurred, line between academic and personal blogging interfere or gel with your definition of feminism, and in what ways does your insistence on rules on your blog do the same? 

 Who is your audience, for the most part? 

Dawn's picture

Jessy- Your piece, see

Jessy-

Your piece, see Minotaur, really interested me. I have a couple of questions about it. Were you writing for a particular audience, and if so, for whom? Also, what made you choose the particular style of writing that you used?

sarahk's picture

Jessy- I just wanted to say

Jessy-

 

I just wanted to say I thoroughly enjoyed your essay, and it shed so much light on a lot of issues I have been thinking about a lot lately. I, too, have a personal online journal, and it is a strange mix of personal and academic writings, and every day I ask myself, "who do I want my audience to be for this? Why am I writing for other people to see instead of just myself?" Who do you think is your audience, and what would you like your audience to be? What is your objective(s) in having a livejournal?

 

For me, Serendip is very interesting, but because it does not involve the personal, I think it can be less controversial and less vibrant than personal journals. It doesn't allow itself to get to the nitty gritty honesty of our real life sexism and the real dynamics between people of different genders in their every day personal lives. Do you agree with this?  

mpottash's picture

In "My Words to Victor

In "My Words to Victor Frankenstein...", Susan Stryker writes of "the inability of language to represent the transgendered subject's movement over time between gendered positions in a linguistic structure." (247).  Do new or different, "non-traditional" forms of writing, such as personal writing or blogging, help us to overcome this inability?  Does the inability of language to represent certain feelings or situations arise from the inadequacy of the words themselves, or from the fact that academic writing usually occurs at a distance from the author?  If the latter is the case, then it seems that exploring new forms of writing can help us express ourselves in new and better ways.  It can also be the case, however, as we have discussed in class, that words themselves cannot express the complexities of the human experience.

I was also struck by Stryker's section headings, as she switches from the academic ("Criticism", "Theory") to the personal ("Journal").  It seems that the varied nature of her piece is an attempt to try out different styles, or to illustrate that a variety of styles are needed to represent herself; or, then again, that none of these styles are sufficient. 

For Jessy:

- Why do we need a distinction between academic blogging and personal blogging?

- What do you see as the relationship between blogging and feminism?

And in relation to our class: Does the fact that we use Serendip help the class to be more "feminist"? 

kscire's picture

Blogging

I think that academic blogging is ridiculous. I do think that all academic papers are in some way personal and maybe even more personal than bogs/online journals etc. Because the personal is not as explicit it allows the person to be more truthful because their person is not as easily exposed. Bloggers come across to me as exhibitionists and in this sense they are fake to me because I know I cannot truly understand their experiences (even after reading their works). At least with academic, third person, papers I can acknowledge that the political is personal but also recognize that I cannot possibly comprehend everything about that person's point of view. 

All of the online conversations that takes place in forums, e-messages, aim, etc. devalue face-to-face human interaction.  How intimate is a person being with you sharing their ideas on some virtual plane? There's a sort of sacredness about ideas that is unable to be expressed without the face-to-face interaction. 

rchauhan's picture

In Bitch PHD, there were

In Bitch PHD, there were some things that I liked/agreed with her about her definition of feminism and others that confused me. I feel like the new def of feminism is all about equality for everyone, but one thing that I liked from her def was that she knows and makes it aware that there are differences between men and women, which is true. Not just physically but mentally and personality wise, probably with the help of society, but nonetheless there are differences.  Towards the end, she says, "I believe in principles, including the principle that people matter. I believe in forgiveness and second chances..." I noticed that she starts to almost give a summary of her personality/beliefs. I always figured that defs of feminism were about the general public...not really about one's personal beliefs of how they look at life. 

 

I never got interested in the whole blogging rage like livejournal and what not. and i always wrote papers without using "I" and strictly in the third person format.  Why do you think these two (personal and academic) styles should merge? Should there be a separate genre for this? 

lrperry's picture

Hi Jessy, In See

Hi Jessy,

In See Minotaur, in a portion skumar previously quoted, you write that you "suppose the best term is genderqueer". In Stryker's manifesto she uses the term "genderfuck", as in "I stood at the podium wearing genderfuck drag" (245). Are the two terms different in significant ways? Is genderqueer less about appearance, and more about one's own inner self? I feel like I've heard 'genderfuck' used to refer to a movement, or to a fashion sense, but I've heard genderqueer used mostly to talk about individuals.

At one point, you seem to make a distinction between the 'you', which i interpreted to mostly refer to the audience/the blob of people out there potentially reading whatever it is you've written (but perhaps it is meant for a more specific you?), seeing and listening. You write "youcantseeme", but then immediately ask "Are you listening to me!?!?" Is there something better, or more necessary, about listening?

Is seeing an act of judgment or objectifying (as we've talked about in some of our classes), while listening is about communication? Should we have read your texts out loud instead, or is the act of representing and then us reading already too far gone? Is that why you instruct, in Part Two, "Don't imagine a book"?

 

jlustick's picture

A few thoughts

There were several aspects of the Bitch Ph.D. blog excerpt that interested me. First was her statement that her site is "a feminist site, it is also leftist and, in the end, a personal site as well. If feminism pisses you off..." I thought it was signficant that "feminist" does not include "leftist" or "personal." Though I understood her separation of "leftist," I was jolted by her separation of "personal," given our discussions surrounding the "feminist" notion of incorporating the personal with the academic and locating oneself within academia- a concept that Jessy also addresses in her piece. It is also interesting that bitchphd does not define "feminist" or "feminism" though clearly both are potent enough to piss someone off. The second thing that perplexed me was the force with which bitchphd draws lines betwen what's allowed and not allowed on her site- in doing so, she creates a kind of elitism.

In more direct response to Jessy's essay "The Practice of Blogging," I was curious about the statement that "I made a few entries in my Serendip blog last semester which I wouldn't make now." Why is this? What has changed about you/your beliefs?

Two questions for Jessy...

How important do you think it is that your writing be accessible to the audience? How does labyrinthlanguage make your writing more/less accessible?

Why do you think there is a tendency to separate the personal and academic? What are the consequences of separating them? Of not separating them?

 

jzarate's picture

Jessy,   It seems

Jessy,

 

It seems that you have experimented with your style of writing quite a bit. I was wondering how this experimentation has developed your personal identity, your public persona, and your identity as a "feminist"?

Also, your writing seems very personal. Where do you think the boundary of public/private should be in academic writing? Is it possible to write for one's self when inherently there is an audience?

skumar's picture

writing and reading... as therapeutic?

Jessy,

In your generic experiment, you write: "I had been saying for months that I didn’t think of myself as a woman. I hadn’t pursued that line of thinking any further. Susan Stryker showed up – readings in two of my classes, and she herself there as well. Suddenly, there was a mirror, and I raised my eyes to it, and that’s how I came out." Then, in "See Minotaur Or, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Minotaur," you write:

 

And now I'm plowing through readings on trans/intersex issues in recent American history and googling all kinds of things, and I'm very quietly freaking out again. And I don't know why. My hypothesis is because I lack a vocabulary to describe my own gender identity, and this sort of thing gets it all stirred up. I suppose the best term is genderqueer, but … I guess I don’t know what I mean by that. I’m not transsexual. I don’t feel like my body is wrong, or that … I mean, I don’t think of myself as a woman, and I don’t like the word woman, but I certainly don’t think of myself as a man, either.

 

Thus, I would be interested in knowing how Stryker's essay was therapeutic for you. What exactly in the text resonated with you? helped you? comforted you?