First Assignment Reflection

The assignment that we've just completed was the essay about authorship in pop culture. I actually had fun researching for and writing this paper. It's been a very long time since I have been able to say that I had fun writing a paper for school. For some reason, this assignment didn't seem like work. I was very interested in relating what we have been learning in class to something more familiar to me. My paper focused on Barthes' idea of authorship from his article "The Death of the Author" in comparison to the movie 8 Mile. When I first thought of the two, I didn't see any connection, and thought, "This should be an interesting challenge..." But when I started watching the movie again, with Barthes in the back of my mind, so many similarities/oppositions stood out to me, that I began to see the movie in a whole new light. In addition to seeing the movie differently, I also understand Barthes' article much more than I did at first. I think this is an awesome way to increase interest in these philosophical texts--by relating them to what we know and are interested in.

While watching 8 Mile, I noticed many things that opposed what Barthes said in his article. The one that kept appearing in the movie was the idea that there is a relationship of "life" between the author and reader. Barthes' main idea was that when an author writes, s/he "dies" and essentially the reader is "born". However, in 8 Mile, it's more like the author (played by Eminem) is still "alive" when he raps and the audience is "born". He raps so much about himself (where he came from, his race, his life story etc.) that the audience has no choice but to hear him along with the language.

I couldn't get the video to upload on this blog for some reason, but if you have a few mins (~2), and you want to see this example of authorship from 8 Mile, check out this video of Jimmy (Eminem) rapping about himself in a battle.

Authors in Pop Culture

For our Authors in Pop Culture assignment we are supposed to use an example where an author is portrayed in the narrative to argue a point from one of our readings so far this semester. I have decided on using the movie 8 Mile (one choice on Scot's list) because I am very interested in the Hip-Hop culture. Although I have seen this movie many times, it should be very interesting to watch the movie with a critical eye. It'll probably be a little weird thinking of Eminem as an "author", because I have never really looked at him as that. But after defining the term "author" in class, I now see how broad it can be. I am very excited to re-watch 8 Mile with the knowledge and questions I've aquired from the readings discussed in class. Analyzing something I am actually interested in should make this assignment pretty easy, if not fun.

"Language" Barriers

So these past 2 articles we've read seemed very complicated at first...but after discussing them a little, the idea seems much simpler. Barthe's article describes the author-reader relationship as one of birth and death, however, where does one begin and the other end? In a way, an author creates a segway for analysis by readers. There are endless possibilities to analyzing simply one work. However, is this what the author wanted? Or did he/she only mean the text to be interpreted one way? Although many of us see writing as a form of creativity and expressing ideas, it also creates "language" barriers, where the author's intentions could totally be dismissed and replaced with new interpretations from the reader.

My First Blog

This is the first time I've ever posted a blog and it's for Intermediate Composition-an English class. I'm not sure if I'm going to end up loving or hating them... Maybe they'll become completely addicting like Facebook has become for so many students. Since this is my 3rd year at UW-Madison and I have never blogged, I am a little excited about learning something new. I guess we'll see what happens as the semester goes on...