On the first page of the Subjective chapter, towards the end of the page, the book says that “we call something subjective when it is relative to a person and his or her opinions,” which is something I very much agree with. I always like to tease friends with the short phrase “perspective is objective,” because I […]
Authority, Authorship, and “Han Shot First”
I suppose the subject is completely open-ended based on our responses to any of the reading, so I will write about what interested me the most: the question over authorship and authority. Is interpretation limited to the intent of the author? Or is it for the reader to decide on the material presented, as an […]
Lost and Found
The readings made me question weather I am suited to be a writer and weather I am worthy of this path or not. What immediately came to mind was The Graduate. Dustin Hoffman conducted a work of art with that piece of film, and in many ways, it hits home. Causing one to question their purpose as a […]
Reading/author(ity)
I believe authority in the sense of knowing what the meaning of a text is should be passed throw two rules of thumb 1. Is the work of the author understood by the public and 2. Are both the majority of public and the author in agreement on the meaning. I’ve come to this […]
suspect of authority
The Working Question on page fifteen in relation to authority of meaning rose many questions to mind. The question asks who subsequently determines the meaning behind any piece of written work: the reader or the writer? In this particular example, a close friend has written a poem about their grandmother’s funeral and I’ve perceived the […]
It feels like aesthetics philosophy all over again.
At first, I found the assigned readings for today frustrating- turned existential crisis inducing (at best). Let me explain: I saw three chapters all leading up to the resounding ‘well anything can mean anything’ because everything is ‘subjective’. Sure the chapters dance around it but it all seems centric to a broad notion of: why do we […]
Working Question–Advertisements
I haven’t been able to decide what to write about, so I just picked one of the “Working Questions.” There’s one at the end of the Subjectivity chapter that asks something like: Most of us would agree that advertisements have relatively little effect on our decisions, so why do advertisers advertise? This reminded me of Stanley Kubrick’s […]
Self, Subject, and Truth
Before I started delving into the readings assigned for this blog post, I took a glance at the reading schedule (formally known as “2016 Schedule” on the ENGL 299 website) and had a feeling that I was going to be writing about the chapter entitled “Subjectivity”. Well, here I am, writing about subjectivity. We […]
Subjectivity of Self
Within the chapter Subjectivity in the Theory Toolbox, we receive insight into the definitions of the idea of “self” and the idea of “subject”. Before reading this, I had never put a lot of thought into the the ideas that are presented about how there really is no way a person can be an individual, […]
Theory Module 1
During the first four weeks of the semester, we will be covering some crucial and complex theoretical concepts. In order to document what we cover and discuss in class, I will offer a brief overview of what we covered during the previous week and pose some general questions that you should keep in mind as […]