Nicole's Argument/ Evidence Sources

Sorry this is really rough...I am going to have to work on it more after class.
I am having trouble finding sources that talk about different functions of Guernica, other than as an anti-war sentiment....so I was trying to find sources that talk about art in general.
Argument Source 1: "Abstractions in art with implications for perception"
by Robert Zimmer
He talks about the purpose of art and how there is this "two-way effect" of how artworks are creations and yet we are also created by artwork.

Evidence 1: "Picasso's 'Guernica' in Its Historical Context"
by Werner Hofmann
This will help me get some background information on the bombing of Guernica/ what motivated
Picasso to make the painting.
Evidence 2: http://records.viu.ca/~lanes/english/hemngway/picasso/guernica.htm
Image itself
Evidence 3: http://www.isreview.org/issues/52/guernica.shtml
Picasso describes art as being "an instrument of war for attack and defense against the enemy."
Evidence 4: http://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/guernica/glevel_1/5_meaning.html
Picasso talks about the painting's anti-war sentiment and talks about the symbolic meaning of the bull/ other images in the mural.

Straying from the Limelight: The Release of College Partying

For my research essay, I plan to explore how the partying culture of college operates as a form of release from societal pressures to succeed. Partying – being generally defined as sex, drugs and alcohol – allows one to enter into an alternate form of reality, essentially an escape from the intense pressure to be accepted into a good school, the pressure to get outstanding grades and an outstanding job. American society sets these intense pressures to succeed while simultaneously encouraging partying as an outlet. This outlet – this release – allows one to return to the vigorous, fast paced and burdening roles one is forced to carry due to societal pressures. I will specifically show how the April 26 2007 car accident of two high school seniors in Bellmore, New York demonstrates that persons extremely involved with societal pressures to succeed need a form of release. Two 17 year old seniors, intoxicated and reaching speeds up to 98 mph on the freeway, crashed and were ejected from their car on Long Island in April 2007. These teens were otherwise ‘perfect kids’: excellent grades, good reputations, volunteers, and were accepted to prestigious universities. This pressure to succeed forces young people – from middle schoolers to college students – to search for a way in to escape from this pressure. Historian John F. Kassoon makes a similar argument about amusement parks in his book Amusing the Million. Kasson says, “Coney Island acted as a safety valve, a mechanism of social release and control that ultimately protected existing society…In an age of mass culture, amusement emerged as the new opiate of the people” (109). In short, Kasson argues that Coney Island – and amusement parks in general – allowed a physical and psychological release from the new industrial pressures of society. I am building on Kasson’s message by arguing that partying in college offers the same form of release that amusement parks offered in a newly industrial society. It allows one to escape from the everyday pressures – and, through this escape, reaffirms these pressures. I will also build on Asher Roth’s latest song “I Love College”. This song’s chorus: “That party last night was awfully crazy I wish we taped it/ I danced my ass off and had this one girl completely naked/ Drink my beer and smoke my weed but my good friends is all I need/Pass out at 3, wake up at 10, go out to eat then do it again” illustrates that society actively encourages students to use this as a release. I will thus argue that just as industrial society of the early 1900s set Americans up in search of a release, societal pressures to succeed placed search of a release – to college students, what becomes known as partying.

research paper

For my research paper, I will continue to look at the issue of steroids in baseball using the exhibit of the recent Alex Rodriguez scandal. I want to see what impacts the scandals surrounding steroid use has affected the game of baseball. This is different from looking at the use of steroids itself, which has led to more power hitters, home runs, etc. I want to see whether or not the game has been tainted and how players, managers, and fans perceive the scandals and what it says about American culture and society.

article link: graffiti

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4946378.stm

http://www.newstrend.com/2005/09/graffiti_tags_murals_outlaws_a.html

Research essay topic

My topic is street graffiti and the controversial question weather graffiti is a form of expression or vandalism. My prime exhibit is an on-line article from BBC News listing the pros and cons that come along with the world of graffiti art. One distinction that must be identified is the idea of illegal and legal graffiti that takes place. Private property is an obvious situation of where graffiti is vandalism but the question is what about graffiti that is painted on empty walls within the city. Areas where there is a sense of dullness and available space to paint on a wall. The exhibit recognizes this and sympathizes with property owners, but graffiti art is a form of expression. This expression creates communication and color to the city therefore not all graffiti art is vandalism.

Research Essay Exhibit

For my conversation research essay, I will explore the world of drug trafficking and drug wars in Mexico and the countries it does the illegal business with. My exhibit will be a crime committed by a drug cartel against an innocent victim. This will illuminate the sources of the drug trafficking problem and its close ties to violence and politics. The conversation will be about the best possible solution to this severe problem. The conversation will be between experts who believe drugs should be legalized to take the money and power out of the system, and those who believe that legalizing drugs would cause an increase in junkies, further fueling the business. My own opinion will probably be a middle ground, with a heavy government involvement. 

Blaise's Research Topic

For my research essay, I am going to look at the architectural advancement. My exhibit will be The country of Dubai because in the last 20 or so years they have become the frontrunner in the architectural innovation (ie. rotating buildings, underwater hotels, the world islands, etc.). There are many arguments on whether these multi million dollar investments are beneficial  projects and I plan to take a closer look.

Emilia's Essay Topic

For the research paper, I would like to analyze Amazonian Indians and their role in the “eco-politics” of rainforest conservation efforts. Specifically, I will look at how the interaction of Brazilian Amazonians and Western environmentalists is creating a convergence of the two cultures; incidentally, the meeting of native and foreign societies has allowed Indian shamans to gain political leverage in the indigenous rights/rainforest preservation movement. Although the shaman’s emergence in global eco-politics has been beneficial in raising awareness of the Amazon’s environmental issues, it has also prompted local non-Indian Brazilians to label them as pawns of Westerners intent on implementing environmental “imperialism.” I was intrigued by the domestic issues at play here – namely, how the creating of a new political role for native shamans has led to an internal rift between different groups of Brazilians. To me, it was interesting to examine the merging of Amazonians and Westerners under the banner of environmental action as having possibly divisive implications for local Brazilian society.

Geoff's Research Essay Topic

For my research essay, I would like to investigate the role of mathematics education and how it is relevant to everyday life. The main question that I will try to answer is "Is Everyday Mathematics Truly Relevant to Mathematics Education?" My exhibit will most likely focus on a mathematical equation and its application to everyday life. One of the sources I will use to explore this topic is David W. Carraher and Analucia D. Schliemann's work in the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, which I found at JSTOR.

Nicole's Research Essay Topic

For my essay, I think I would like to try to answer the question of what is the purpose of art. For my exhibit I want to look at the painting Guernica by Pablo Picasso and possibly some quotes written about the painting as well. I think that this painting will be an interesting exhibit for my topic because the painting itself has multiple functions: educational, cathartic, eye-catching, etc. It will be interesting to see what my conversation authors include and leave out of their analyses on the purpose of art and how the painting Guernica might add to their analyses. 

essay idea

I would like to expand on the Kimmels idea of baseball as a way of reconstructing American masculinity and a way of teaching values and ethics and apply them to sports in general, particularly football. As an exhibit I would like to use ivy league football which was dominant and extremely popular at the time. I would use "Ivy league football, orgins of an American obsession" by Mark Bernstein for a possible source of evidence. I would also like to talk about why the Ivy league was so proud of athletics and why schools felt it necessary for a complete education.

Sarah's Essay Topic

I would like to examine street performers in society.  So far, I have found evidence that street performers (buskers) do not merely perform as they wish, interacting only with their audiences; rather, they are heavily regulated by the government, which defines busking and restricts the times and places in which it may occur.  This fascinates me--busking seems so spontaneous and free, yet there seem to be actors at play that might be shaping the spectators' cultural experiences on the street.  For an exhibit, I would probably use a written government policy that I found from Ballina Shire, Australia, which lays out the Shire's definition of, and restrictions on, busking.

Essay idea

I want to look into the influence of journalism on young kids.  Specifically I would like to look at magazines influences on young girls.  Either looking at a magazine like Cosmo or Vogue and see how it influences girls sexual relationships or eating disorders with young girls that would like to be more like the models in the magazines they are reading.

Citations for Lethem Essay

1. We have to remain constantly vigilant to prevent raids by those who would selfishly exploit our common heritage for their private gain. Such raids on our natural resources are not examples of enterprise and initiative. They are attempts to take from all the people just for the benefit of a few. Truman, Harry S. “Address on Conservation at the Dedication of Everglades National Park”

Jonathan Lethem quotes Harry S Truman when he is talking about the “cultural commons.” He uses the quote to emphasize the necessity of protecting the commons so everyone can use it, rather than having one individual control everything. I chose this citation because it was well written; I had underlined it during my first run through of the essay. I was surprised to find out that Lethem ripped it out from Truman.

2. The kernel, the soul--let us go farther and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances in plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are second hand, consciously or unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources and daily use by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral caliber and his temperament, which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing. Letter to Helen Keller from Mark Twain excerpted from Copyrights and Copywrongs by Siva Vaidhyanathan.

Lethem employs this quote to drive in one of his main points: we all plagiarize. Plagiarism can be found in all sorts of texts. I chose this citation because I thought it poignantly summarized his argument. Lethem’s citation section explains that this phrase came from Mark Twain’s letter to Helen Keller when he was trying to cheer her up after she was accused of plagiarism. I never knew that these two famous American figures were friends, so I wanted to find out more about this letter.

3. But Jefferson's vision has not fared well, has in fact been steadily eroded by those who view the culture as a market in which everything of value should be owned by someone or other. Boynton, Robert. “The Tyranny of Copyright?” The New York Times Magazine

Boynton doesn’t make any claims in his article, “The Tyranny of Copyright?” Instead, he illuminates the conflict between the government and the Copy Left. The Copy Left says that the government should loosen up on copyright laws because the copyright laws are hurting creativity instead of nurturing it. The internet is one area of contention because people disagree on how it should be used. Should the public have total access to everything posted on the web, or should a select few entities be able to regulate the public’s access to certain materials? This type of question is relevant to Lethem’s idea of a “usemonopoly” since he defines a usemonopoly as a “government granted monopoly on the use of creative rights” (64). Lethem asserts that monopolizing the rights to creativity hurts the public.

I chose this citation because I’m interested in how copyright laws apply to us and how they are enforced by the government. At times, it seems that a corporation arbitrarily sues someone for violating copyright laws. For example, the RIAA sues people who download music illegally. Yet, people continue to download music. Piracy of this sort is a cultural thing; it would be very hard for the government to prevent everyone from illegally downloading music. Should the government even bother trying to enforce these copyright laws? That was the question I had in mind as I read through this passage in Lethem’s essay.

Sweatshop Sublime Citations

Robbins quotes Raymond Williams in his Culture and Society; The quote specifically talks about the "pulling the wrong thread" out of the metaphor for society as a "tangled web." When trying to untangle this web you can't tell which thread to pull because each has a different result that creates a different outcome. This specifically interests me because I have always been interested in the past and the future and how each decision you make creates a different future. I always find it interesting to examine what could have been done. 

Robbins quotes Barbara Ehrenreich and her view on menial labor. Ehrenreich talks about how "everything we buy is a product of some other person's suffering." This interests me because she states that there is "no way to avoid it all together unless you live in the wilderness on berries." Throughout my childhood, my parents taught me to buy things made in the U.S. I'm not sure what the reason for this was, bug I guess that from Ehrenreich's point of view this did nothing. Ehrenreich's essay is one that we have already read, "Maid to Order." The main argument in this essay is to depict how maids are primarily women and of a minority group. 

Robbins quotes Fredric Jameson  and his opinions on products produced by sweatshops. He states that people are in a sense freed from the guilt induced by knowing how their toys and furnishings if they don't remember how they were created. This interests me because today it has become a habit to not even check where your clothing came from. If this ignorant habit were not in existence, would something have been done about this sweatshop labor by now?

Citations for “The Sweatshop Sublime” by Bruce Robbins

1) Robbins portrays the consumer’s momentary insight into the complexity and immensity of the labor process as something that is sublime; in doing so, he quotes passages from George Eliot’s Middlemarch, including the following:

“If we had a keen vision and feeling of all
ordinary human life, it would be like
hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s
heart beat, and we should die of that roar
which lies on the other side of silence” (88).

Here, Robbins is able to connect Eliot’s poetics with his argument that one’s realization of being “the beneficiary of an unimaginably vast…social whole” (84) is often so transcendental that it makes one become a “purely disinterested” (88) person of apathetic inaction. In other words, when we “hear the grass grow” by recognizing the tremendous intricacy upon which the commodities of our daily life depend, we “die” and accordingly retreat back into the safety of our “everyday smallness” (Robbins 85) to escape the world’s deafening “roar.” My interest lies in how the effects of the latter compare with the influence of the inherent inaction that Robbins states is “built into [our] conceptual structure” (89) and that appears when action is called for. Does our failure to act then result from the stagnation that already exists within our natures or from the inertia that overwhelms us after we experience moments of “hearing the grass grow?” After reading this passage, I was thus intrigued by the relationship between these two seemingly separate descriptions of the origin of our inactivity in light of the sweatshop problem.

2) In addition, Robbins makes use of the term “national-popular” that appears in Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (compiled by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Smith). Specifically, Gramsci expounds on the capability of linking “the thoughts and feelings of ordinary people to the fate of others” (Robbins 86) in order to trigger nationalism. I was interested in how Robbins extended Gramsci’s idea of collectivizing fates from a national to an international domain in order to spur anti-sweatshop action [hence his conception of the “international-popular” (86)] and how specifically he would suggest the implementation of this. Where would the movement start – at the level of the individual consumer or at that of a global organization?

*3) Frederic Jameson states in his Postmodernism; or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism that “in consuming culture, [we do not] particularly want, let alone need, to forget the human producer” (95), and thus effectively makes the claim that there is a common desire to not hide the “traces of production” (Robbins 95) that go into the making of art. Jameson justifies his point by arguing that because these products of culture are “signed” (Jameson 315), the consumer wishes to recognize the artist behind the signature. According to Robbins, if this yearning to actively acknowledge the human producer in art can be channeled into realms that generate other products, it can be used as a motivational force for action in support of the anti-sweatshop movement. The shared sentiment of wanting to “remember” (Robbins 95) the human producer, in other words, can serve as a means of uniting people and inciting universal action through a shared recognition of the many actors who occupy the stage of global labor. I was interested in this citation because of the way in which Robbins compares its original conception of the consuming of art to the consuming of other parts of culture (in the sense that in both these cases, the consumer may want to know who “signed” the product). In short, I wondered whether another parallel between the two “products” also applied, namely that of the “artist” sometimes forsaking his signature and preferring to remain anonymous. Even if we desire to know the identity of the human producer, the creator of the culture we consume, is it possible that the individual artist might conversely desire to shield what we want to remember in an effort to preserve his or her anonymousness? Or does that phenomenon occur solely in the realm of art, and thus should we assume that other human producers (including those working within the division of labor) generally do wish to sign their products and have their presence be known?

3 citations- Cronon

The Trouble with Wilderness- William Cronon

1. Cronon uses William Wordsworth's poem, The Prelude, where he recalls climbing the Alps and going across the Simplon Pass.  I like this citation because I think that it adds another element into Cronon's essay.  It is no longer just his words or prose for that matter.  By adding in the poem there is a change in the wording and flow of the paper.  I also think that the description poem is able to give is a lot easier for the reader to relate to so it adds even more emphasis on the visual and emotional ties humans have with nature.

2. Cronon references the historian Frederick Jackson Turner from his writing in 1893.  Cronon uses him in three paragraphs right in a row, emphasizing Turners points and linking them to his own.  This part of his essay talks about how the frontier was being lost and the free land that Americans were taking to live and survive would be gone because it would all be settled.  The losing of the 'free' land was during Turner's time and with Cronon quoting his writing there is a direct reference to the time period Cronon is describing.  This adds strong evidence to back up what Cronon is trying to get across to his readers.

In Turner's essay The Significance of the Frontier in American History talks about how in this time, around the 1890s, most of the frontier had been broken up by isolated settlements of people.  He uses census facts to show how the frontier was limited in the beginning of the essay.  He also makes sure to distinguish the difference between European and American frontiers.  Throughout the essay his strategy seems to be an attempt to describe the advances of the Americans throughout the expansion from east to west.  He also touches on reasons why people would move; ranching, hunting, or for fun.  He argues that exploring the frontier is what brought America to the point it is at today, including its customs, development and power.  Turners essay goes together with Cronon because Cronon sets up his essay with the idea that the wilderness, which had perviously been seen as the frontier, was only present in areas where humans distinctly kept it.  Where Turner saw how how unused land was becoming extremely scarce and therefore land opportunities were diminishing, Cronon sees that this land serves a different purpose now.  This citation interested me because it made Cronon's argument more concrete in the past as well.  I think using Turner utilizes American history and how in his time the free land was diminishing.  This was a turning point for America that eventually led to the fight to preserve what wilderness we have left.   

3. Cronon cites Dave Foreman, founder of Earth First!.  Foreman talks about the separation of humans and wilderness.  I think that the Earth First! sounds like an interesting organization benefiting Cronon's argument with more recent data.  Foreman hits on the main focuses that Cronon has so it reinforces that what he is trying to say is actually relevant.

1. Kimmel quotes Donald hall's book , "Fathers playing catch with sons" I find this quote interesting in that he claims baseball is something fathers and sons do together but football is something that only brothers do together. I think the idea of a father and son playing catch with a baseball could easily be replaced with a father and son playing catch with a football. Also in this quote he links all generations together simply by the fact that everyone has played baseball and because of this it encloses what we are.

2. Kimmel quotes Chief boy scout Ernst Thomson Seton in David Mclouds book " Building character in the American boy" saying that consumer society had " turned robust manly , self reliant boyhood into a lot of flat chested cigarette smokers with shaky nerves and doubtful vitality" I find this quote interesting because it adds to his argument of the crisis of masculinity at the time. I also found this interesting because of the general theme of what was considered masculine or in masculine at the current time.

3. Kimmel quotes Teddy Roosevelt in Thompsons book Vigorous men, A vigorous nation, " the greatest danger that a long period of profound peace offers to a nation is that of creating effeminate tendencies in young men". This quote from Teddy Roosevelt adding to the general theme of what was consider masculine at the time period. I found this interesting because he also quotes Teddy in other places in the essay, he seems to be an ideal figure of what was masculine at the time.

Oops! These are Sarah's citations

Citations from Jonathan Lethem's critical essay The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism

"Art that matters" to "bought and sold." Hyde, Lewis. The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World.  Knopf Publishing Group, 2007.

In The Gift, Hyde proposes that art is not only bought and sold, but it is also a gift to those who experience it.  This is because a work of art produces an effect (emotional, spiritual, intellectual, etc.) on its audience that cannot be quantified, or even adequately described.  This experience is the artist's "gift" to his audience, and it coexists with the commercial relationship between audience and artist (i.e., the relationship in which the audience members pay a fee to experience the work).  Hence, there are two economies, a gift economy and a market economy.  The gift relationship in the artistic world constitutes the main difference between the artistic and commercial spheres, and it is also what allows works of art to endure for long periods of time.  Art could survive without the market economy--yet without the gift relationship, art necessarily perishes.

Jonathan Lethem uses exactly this concept of two economies in The Ecstasy of Influence as part of his argument that plagiarism in the cultural sphere may be acceptable, even desirable, despite current laws regarding intellectual property.  The artist, by displaying his works, is giving his audience a gift in the form of whatever they take away from it spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, etc.  Thus, because of its status as a gift, art should be part of a cultural commons (public domain is another way to think of it) in order to allow all potential artists to build upon the ideas set forth in any particular work--without being penalized.

I chose this reference because I find the concept of two different economies that can coexist highly interesting.  I also gained a new perspective on the split between the artistic and commercial worlds: before, I had accepted that the two were separate and in some ways fundamentally different, but I had never thought of them as two economies.

"...enabled by a kind...freely reworked."  Mcleod, Kembrew.  Freedom of Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity.  Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2007.

Lethem uses this source to discuss blues and jazz musicians who have freely and directly copied others' works (melodies or song fragments) without anxieties about originality and with positive results.  This caused me to think further on the merits of plagiarism.

"the primary objective..." to "unfair nor unfortunate."  Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co.  No. 499-340.  Supreme Ct. of the US.  27 March 1991.

This reference offers a new perspective on the purpose of copyright: Lethem proposes that the objective of copyright laws is not to "reward labor" (68), but to encourage the growth of the arts and sciences.  People should therefore build freely on what others have produced, an idea Lethem believes to be perfectly fair and beneficial.  I chose this reference because I had never considered the purpose of copyright in this light before.

Sarah's Citations