Think of it this as your swan song: show me what you got. =)
Make connections. Be specific. Use quotes. Show examples. Dialogue with one another. Feel free to be creative, though, not "creative": it should be be a work of reality not fiction (as much as a class on vampires can be a reality).
There are no other specific guidelines because I want to see what you can give me.
Due by class time, Thursday, May 31, 2012.
If the vampire had not already been humanized, which it had, then in my mind, because this class, the vampire has undergone a complete and total human transformation. We have learned, through our readings and discussions, about the ugly and distasteful qualities of the vampires, but it doesn't really even matter because I have become so accustomed to speaking about and trying to relate to the vampire, that it has essentially become completely anti-alien. I know the vampire just as well as I know my sister, and I'm fairly certain that she is human. It was odd, in a sense, trying to decipher certain “deviant” aspects of the vampire towards the end of the class because of this transformation. I no longer viewed the vampire as some sort of deviant.
ReplyDeleteMy research for the research paper was partly about deviant sexual behaviors such as masochism and auto erotic asphyxiation. After reading a few articles concerning these sexual paraphilias, I was completely disgusted, but at the same time I was never really disgusted, except in the very beginning, about the fact that vampires are known to viciously attack humans and consume their blood. It's very strange how a heightened familiarity with a subject, even one as brutal and sexual as the vampire, can lead to a totally different understanding of the subject.
I spent a fair amount of time writing blog posts which cited some Halberstam's chapters. One of her main point dealt with uncertainty within gothic literature. And, since the vampire is part of the gothic genre, it also relies heavily on uncertainty in order to produce fear and anxiety within the reader. At first, I found this to be very interesting because it was a sort of abstract argument, but at the same time it made quite a lot of sense; we don't know that the monster is around the corner, and that's why we jump when he pops out. We don't know much about the vampire, or monsters similar to the vampire, and that is why we are scared. Now, however, I can say that I actually do know more about the vampire than most, which means that fear has all but completely left the vampire. Halberstam's point really no longer applies to me.
What are the implications of this? Is this a good thing or is this a bad thing? To be perfectly honest, I'm a little ticked off at this class for providing me with such a familiarity with the subject matter. It's tough to continue to love a creature that you don't fear, when the creature was essentially created in order to inspire fear into his subjects. I stopped watching The Vampire Diaries not only because it was a little to “lovey dovey”, but also because the vampires in the story became boring. They no longer had that edge, that slight fear-inducing golden aura that they once had. When the fear left, my interest left with it. Perhaps, the subject matter can somehow be defamiliarized. Perhaps, I must rediscover the vampire by watching an intensely frightening vampire flick or something like that. It is quite possible that I have spent too much time watching non-frightening TV shows like The Vampire Diaries, and not nearly enough time watching gruesome vampire horror movies.
I think I was really surprised by how much I actually learned about the vampire in this class. At first I thought this was going to be a class full of people who were just obsessed with Twilight and Edward Cullen. And honestly I thought it would be kind of pointless. After all, I’m not a huge fan. But then I realized how far the vampiric genre extends and how it can relate to so many different aspects of society through media ecology theory. I was surprised at how the subject could actually relate to real life and social situations. This realization got me much more interested in the class itself and in my research paper topic about how religion is reflected in literature.
ReplyDeleteLike Eric said, I feel that learning more about the vampire and what it represents has completely changed my perspective on it. Now when I watch vampire movies or read vampire books I don’t think “Oh this is really frightening” or “This is disgusting.” Instead I think more along the lines of “What is this vampire representing? What message is it trying to convey?” This is both a blessing and a curse. While I feel super intelligent trying to theorize about vampires, I do not think that is necessarily what the author/director intended.
Overall, I enjoyed this class and I got a lot out of it. I learned about media ecology theory and the history of vampires as well as theories about why vampires exist. Having the vampire at the center of the class allowed me to learn all of this in an interesting way. It also allowed me to write a much more creative research essay than a different class would have. Being able to write about an interesting and different topic really made me enjoy the research process much more and I feel like that is the key to writing.
The Vampire is a conglomeration. Upon signing up for this course, my understanding of the vampire was fairly simple. Of course you had your fangs and blood, and if it was a modern vampire you almost always had to throw in a sprinkle of an existential crisis. But overall the vampire was a very simple being in my opinion. I didn’t see how there was much else to learn about the vampire, but I turned out to be very wrong on that front. I came into this class dreading it, expecting it to focus on Edward Cullen, or Sparkles as I have so lovingly dubbed him, and others like him. I didn’t expect our conversations on media ecology or to come out of the class with a whole new definition of the vampire.
ReplyDeleteAs I said before, I now understand the vampire as a composition in and of itself. The vampire is a representative of the society that created it, and a complex being filled with myths and ideas from cultures around the world. The vampire is ever changing, something that I recognized before this class but now I know understand that the vampire changes for a reason. It is a response to the world around it. It is a medium, and it is a message.
I learned in this class to look very intricately at the vampire in this way. Through countless blog posts and a research paper that was based on this very idea. My research paper was born from a blog post about fear, and became fifteen pages on the vampire as a reflection of disease. The vampire displays psychological issues and fears as well as other elements that I did not have the space to discuss. I came to know the vampire as a collage; a collage I now know more about than I perhaps cared to before entering this class.
With this reading of the vampire, I can’t help but wonder where do we go from here? With this class I became so caught up in the research topic because I was actually interested in it for once, and now I want to know more, not just about vampires, but also about how media ecology can be applied to other areas. I wonder in our changing society where the vampire will go, because at the moment it’s not that far off from being human any more. Will that line begin to blur as society changes or with it strengthen again? I don’t know, but I am interested in finding out
It may be expected that I learned a lot from this class, and that this new information filled in my knowledge gap leaving me satisfied and content. This is not the case. Yes, I learned way more about vampires than I initially knew existed, but I have been left with even more questions than when I entered the class. What this class did for me was teach me enough about Media Ecology and dissecting the message of the vampire to stimulate curiosities that I didn’t know possible. If I was to give an example of this it would be the concept of the immortality of the vampire:
ReplyDeleteImmortality is something we are drawn to. Through discussion in class, literary examples, and research for my essay I learned a lot about the immortality of the vampire. The thing that struck me most odd about this is how mortal these immortal beings seem to be—both historically and in modern day. Regardless of any transformation or humanization that they have undergone, as Eric notes in his post, the superhuman “monster” has carried fatal susceptibilities with it through the ages. So if we are drawn to the vampire because of attributes it possesses and we desire, why make one of the strongest draws moot? Perhaps we still view the vampire as a monster, regardless of its transformation, and thus want to make it able to be defeated? If it is still a monster then where are the monstrous embodiments in characters such as Edward? Why create such a popular monster? Or maybe the vampire truly has transformed, such that it is “not only cool to love one, but it’s cool to be one” (Jenkins 7). Then do we truly desire immortality, as many theorists believe, or do we fear the possibility of not having the choice so create a loophole in the immortality part of the deal? Then since vampires are both media and message, does this mean that the not so immortal media creates new messages? I could continue for a very long time with my new way of viewing vampires, but I believe that I have made my point. I could very well explore this immortality (or not so much) curiosity through another 15 page essay and extensive research, but I think that if I did that for fun we should probably evaluate my mental well-being.
Another striking aspect which I took away from this class was the vampire as a character of gothic horror. My exposure had consisted solely of the new-age pretty, loving, and admirable vampire. To read Dracula and discover the monstrous vampire was a really fun experience. I felt like I was discovering an entire unexplored genre. I have done my fair share of science fiction reading, but now I feel like I have been shown a new world where my current conceptions of inhuman beings are all twisted. I am eager to see what I pick up on in my media exploration with this new awareness.
Rai’s point about the vampire as a punctum in time or an evolution of predefined elements has strongly stuck with me. Rai enabled me, above all of the authors we read, to relate vampire concepts to my everyday world. Each person that I encounter comes with a history, a story. It can be nice to believe that we can define ourselves any way we desire at any specific time. It is nice to believe that we can be independent of our stories, especially if they are not happy ones. However, every person cannot be a punctum of space and time, much like a vampire cannot. We have histories, we have experiences that shape our characters and make us evolve into who we are today. To look at yourself in one distinct moment and say that that is who you are cannot begin to explain the depth of one’s character.
This class has been both informative and insightful. I gained an ability to conduct research and find key themes between many sources. In addition to this I have found my analytical process greatly improved. The fundamental concepts with which I view messages have been altered. Everything is all twisted now and nothing makes sense, or perhaps it makes even more sense. Hooray for media ecology and its effects on our perceptions.
I first came into this class believing that I knew quite a bit about vampires. However, I was very wrong in this regard. Much of my experience with vampires has come from Dracula and stories related to it and, while this class showed that a lot of the typical vampire traits come from Dracula, it also showed me that there is so much more history to the vampire, both before and after Dracula. My research paper focused on the effects the vampire had in cultures around the world and its evolution throughout the years and I chose this topic because what we had begun discussing in class had really intrigued me. I knew there was more to the vampire than just Dracula and Twilight, but I didn’t realize just how much there was. Digging further back into history yielded some very interesting results: The original vampires weren’t like Dracula at all, apart from being a reanimated corpse. In the same vein (pun intended), later vampires such as Louis from Interview with the Vampire and Eli from Let the Right One In don’t resemble Dracula much at all apart from the basic vampire-ish tendencies.
ReplyDeleteI have known that the vampire was a sort of representation of our human fears, but the more I read about media ecology and the vampire, the more I see that the vampire isn’t just a monster, much like Frankenstein’s monster or the Wolfman aren’t just monsters. The medium is the message and the message the vampire represents is as varying as the appearance of the vampire. Like Haley, I now see the vampire as a composition, an assembly of literary tropes and clichés that can be rearranged into a new, but still noticeably vampiric, creature.
This brings me to the second focus of our class – media ecology. I entered the class knowing nothing about media ecology and I can now honestly say that (while I do believe that media ecology is essential for analyzing texts) I have had enough of media ecology to last for quite some time in this past 9 ½ weeks. Media ecology is definitely applicable to the vampire, and, though the analogies used to describe media ecology aren’t always the clearest (Fuller’s example of a microphone attached to your mouth while you have a tree on your back, are chained up, and standing on vegetable oil stands out as the weirdest thing I read all quarter), our class discussions have greatly helped in my understanding of media ecology.
So where does this leave me personally? As a result of this class, I broadened my film horizons, learned about media ecology, interviewed a vampire scholar, wrote a lot of papers, and expanded my understanding of the vampire. I definitely came out of this class knowing more than when I went in, unlike some other classes I have taken in the past. The vampire isn’t just a cape, fangs, and castles. It’s more than that, even if the authors using them don’t realize it. The vampire is speaking out to our fears and desires, however muddled and twisted those may be. We can learn a lot about our present by looking at the past, and this is true with the vampire as well. I don’t think that I would have taken it upon myself to study vampires if I wasn’t in this class.
Going into this class I feared one of the most dreadful things I could imagine would be forced upon me: I might actually have to read Twilight. It was with this mentality that I went into the class, and it was that same mentality that was completely shattered by the end of these ten weeks. Previously, I had considered all of the new, pretty, sparkling vampires of today an abomination to the legacy of the vampire.
ReplyDeleteThrough Bitzers, Halberstams, Rais, McLuhans, Jenkins, Fullers, and too many research sources, I discovered that the preconception of the vampire I had entered the class with was the true abomination to the vampire legacy. Every piece of theory and research covered in class ultimately led me to this: The vampire is more than a “punctum.” Over time, the vampire has evolved and changed to become an assemblage of the past and present. The vampire can’t only be seen as Count Dracula, or Louis, or the Cullens. Rather than completely new monsters, new interpretations of the vampire have arisen to create an evolutionary process for this timeless entity.
After ten weeks of media ecology theory and vampires, I can honestly say I’m a fan. Not necessarily of any particular vampire character, but of the vampire as an assemblage of monstrosity through time; a reflection of the fears, values, identity, and nature of societies and cultures over the ageless lifespan of the vampire.
By going through the seemingly endless research process to discover the truth about the vampire, I also became a better writer. The countless blog posts and writing assignments not only made me thing more critically on all topics regarding monstrosity, but also made me discover who I really am as a writer. I’ve learned that “the medium is the message,” and that rhetorical situations drive the rhetoric itself. I feel like I’m now beginning to actually understand what writing is, both in purpose and nature, and it was only through delving into rhetoric and media ecology theory that I was able to learn this.
Taking a zombie class first quarter, I honestly believed that my monstrosity minor was basically complete. I knew that monsters portrayed our internalized fears and mirrored the current political, economic, or social climate and media ecology theory to me sounded like a concept scarier than geospatial data or advanced statistics. After 9 ¾ weeks though, I understand that the vampires represent a mixture of our fears and desires, the medium is the message, and both are shaped by their predecessors.
ReplyDeleteWith a hard third quarter, I went through a mild version of the five stages of depression with taking a vampire class that was a writing class, English not being my favorite subject, and seemed like a joke to my fellow students.
Denial
When first signing up for a class entitled “The Vampire Exposed: Exploring the Sensations of the Body” – I was not sure of my fellow student’s reaction. Taking a zombie class is cool, but taking a vampire class too – well you start to look like you are trying to get the easy way out. I was hesitant to admit that I frequently bash Twilight and feared, like Alex, that we would be dissecting the deep plot. When asked, I told everyone it was the only one that fit into my schedule. My views on vampires were simple – I knew the legends, had watched my fair shared of vampire related media, but other than that saw vampires as simple monsters – meant to scare their audiences.
Anger
One of the first weekends we had a writing assignment, reading, and needed to start Dracula - I was angry. I was angry at the workload, angry with myself for not reading media ecology theory deep enough to understand it, and angry for leaving my blog post to the last minute again. It was one of the times we had Rai’s post and I felt frustrated. I seemed unable to comprehend the stream of consciousness and random words he used. Decoding “The monster then would be a kind of probe head for morphogenesis” for example took forever.
Bargaining
I felt unconfident in my knowledge of media ecology theorists – so jeopardy seemed terrifying and when we were assigned Rai’s posts for our SRR I almost fainted. Was there anyway we could get around this? With a blog post, little help was available and I finally had to admit defeat and trying to dissect Rai’s post. As Ali said, his messages “about the vampire as a punctum in time or an evolution for predefined elements has strongly stuck with me.” Playing jeopardy reaffirmed that I might bargain for less homework on media ecologists – I was really starting to learn something.
Depression
There came a moment when transforming my already seven page final research paper into a more satire, snarky, and sarcastic paper seemed impossible. I knew finals were still two weeks away but I was getting desperate for sleeping in and reading for fun again, although Interview with a Vampire was a fangtastic read. For a long time I denied myself a good working environment to avoid my paper, getting wrapped up in outsider’s conversations.
Acceptance
All right, I admit I liked doing the research paper. All right, I also admit I wanted to take this vampire class. It did not just “fit into my schedule,” it was actually pretty much sort of a hassle to get it into it. Luckily my choice paid off and I wish I had taken more pride in the class itself rather than using the people (an amazing group) as my excuse for liking it. I found that I was extremely lucky and content to spend my quarter researching the ties between politicians and vampires.
Earlier in one of my blog posts I theorized that the vampire has been “defanged” because we are no longer afraid of what they represent. This is not the case though; the vampire is in a constant state of being idealized and feared so the defanging is just the relocation of how society expresses our desires and fears.
I don't think I ever made it to the acceptance stage...
DeleteThe first day of class was kind of uncomfortable when we were going around the room explaining why we took the class and we all heard, “it fit in my schedule, it fit in my schedule, it fit in my schedule, I don’t want to have to sit in traffic when I’m trying to drive home, it fit in my schedule, I’m a Bio major, it fit in my schedule, my girlfriend made me read twilight and I kind of like it, I’m a Bio major too, it fit in my schedule, it fit in my schedule, I’ve seen True Blood.” It was kind of easy to tell that Dr. T was initially unenthused with our “interest” in vampires. However, I think our relative ignorance made for a pretty enthusiastic learning environment. No one had vampire egos that might have led to weird arguments, or preconceived notions that made learning difficult. For the most part, we were all united in our ignorance.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think it was the aforementioned ignorance that made the research project so beneficial. I gather that the main point of Honors Writ 1733 is to give honors students practice in the research process so that the thesis we’ll all have to write is a little less daunting when we start working on it in a few years. I think the vampire class did that better than most for a few reasons. First, for the most part none of us had substantial back-round knowledge in vampires and I’m pretty confident that none of us had even heard the phrase “media ecology theory.” Subsequently, we were all forced to do research in uncharted waters, which is kind of like training for a 5K by running a marathon. It’s way harder to do research and write in an area that you’re unfamiliar with, which should make our thesis (written on a topic of our choice) that much easier. Second, I don’t particularly like writing about vampires. It’s not that I don’t find the subject matter interesting – I enjoyed researching miscegenation and watching vampire movies through a different lens – I just feel silly using words with more than two syllables in the same sentence as the character name “Blade.” But, if I can manage to write almost 5,000 words on vampires then I can write 20-30 pages on some element of international relations. Third, while the academic literature base for vampires is much larger than I thought it would be it was still pretty small. I’m going to be hard pressed to pick a topic for my thesis that offers fewer sources than vampires and miscegenation. It’s kind of like being asked to find the needle in the haystack and then being told that you actually just need a fistful of hay.
My connection between all of this and media ecology theory is as follows: our ability to successfully write our thesis is going to be based, in large part, on the circumstances under which we conducted one of our first and largest research papers. Thus, the medium that is the message in that the medium of the vampire class will inform the message of the thesis (McLuhan). I know we’ve all fallen back on that catchphrase more than any other aspect of media ecology theory, but in my opinion it’s by far the most concrete idea we discussed in the class (and alliteration is easy to remember).
Moral of the story is that other writing classes don't have shit on us.
DeleteTrue dat homie
DeleteHell ya
DeleteFirst off, let me say: Alexis, I’m angry with you. Twilight is amazazazing. Yeah, take that.
ReplyDeleteSecond, this blog post. I was FREAKING out when I came into this class. We had Holden and his glasses and stylish looks, who basically made us all feel like we were screwed. He knew a lot about vampires and I only knew that Edward Cullen made me light headed. We then had Miles, with his eloquent-ness and his debate skillz, who, through his beautiful language/speaking abilities, made me really nervous. Then we had Jordan, who didn’t know what was going on most of the time but always managed to pull through because according to him, he is a great bullshitter and I totally agree. Kinda jealous. Whenever it came my turn to talk, I would always be like, “yeah, well, uh, Rai’s blog, uh, after reading it, uh, um, 200, uh times, uh, I guess he was saying that like, uh, the vampire as punctum in time like takes the like monstrosity out of the like monster?” Kill me. I was pretty nervous about this class because I am not an excellent speaker/writer and you will all see that my play-doing skills are also sub-par today when we do our play. YAYyy. At least I’ll try my best.
Anyway, after reading the theoretical stuff and moving on to Dracula and more fun things, I became a bit more confident. Mostly though, I was so happy because I was finally getting grades that reflected my effort in this class. I would work really hard, and instead of getting back a C for my “okay” writing, I’d get back a B+ or an A. I guess it was nice to feel like my work was being appreciated.
I absolutely loved this class. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed any of my classes at DU this much. I love the people in the class, which helps so much. I really don’t feel nervous to talk in front of any of them and I feel as if we can all make light-hearted jokes to each other and everything’s fine. It’s hard to find a cohesive group of people, where everyone knows each others’ names and can joke to each other, be it about someone’s stupid blog post or someone’s weird comment they made in class.
I don’t even know where I’m going with this. All of that was the “swan song” part. In terms of actual vampires and media ecology theory, I can say, with confidence, that I have learned a lot about them. Maybe more about vampires than I did about media ecology theory, but I don’t think there’s one person in this class that learned more about media ecology theory than they did about vampires. I really had only heard about Twilight. Now, I know about Dracula, and about Interview with the Vampire. I have 3 more vampires to add to my list!! Dracula, Louis, Lestat, and I guess Armand and those weirdos.
That movie was super duper depressing by the way. And quite sexual, if you ask me.
I also learned that I’m not a horrible reader, either. Once I got myself into the mindset, I actually successfully read those theoretical readings from hell, and I understood them. Usually, I BS my way through, pretending like I read them, but for this class, I actually had the enthusiasm to read them and try to understand them. Yes, I wasn’t ALWAYS successful, but I did my best and wrote what I could about them.
Overall, this class was awesome. Be it the professor, the students in the class, or my actual success in it – I really loved coming to class every day.
Awww :)
Where's my shout out?!?!??!
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DeleteIf this was facebook I would have clicked "like" for your post
DeleteAnd Billy would always freak out about the page limit, then realize he was completely fine and that 12-15 pages double spaced really wasn't THAT much. But always, when Dr. T gave us a ballpark page amount, we'd all look right at Billy to see what his reaction was.
DeleteThings I've learned this quarter:
ReplyDelete1) English professors are allowed to come up with theories too.
2) Those theories make no sense.
3) Camomile tea makes a great chaser.
4) Johnny Depp should stick with being a pirate.
5) Kona bar and grill has a great happy hour
6) Don't skype with Elizabeth
7) If some kid talks really really really good, assume he's a national debate champion.
8) Don't do leg press with a vampire.
9) Honor's celebrations have lots of really really cool activities.
10) Vampires are real.
This class has been a great experience. Because I'm a total nerd and because there was a chili pepper on rate my professor this class seemed the natural choice for me. What I did not expect however was the ease with which I would write and enjoy the projects we were assigned. The greatest thing I've learned has very little to do about vampires, but more about the power of human perception. My entire project was a compilation of a seemingly very shallow topic of the dynamic relationship between vampires and werewolves. The idea I fell in love with however was that through this project I realized how truly powerful collective human ideals can be. The entire nature, the meaning of the vampire and the werewolf have evolved because of the minor shifts in the mediums through which it is expressed. The power of this concept appeals to so many facets of what occurs in everyday life. The idea that kept popping into my head during my project was actually from the Eragon series (no-nerdo). In these books certain objects have “true names” that absolutely describe an object to the most root of its meaning. However, the name of someone or something, can change if the very meaning of that thing changes. For example, if someone redefines themselves, their true name would change. This concept is exactly what I've realized in this class. Of course were not living in never-never elfen nerd land, but the idea of the very being of something changing became very real because of this course.
This probably seems totally abstract, but in all reality it is the idea that I've taken to most strongly because of this course. It compounds on my homie, Marshall McLuhan's idea of changing medium impacting message and in turn human perception can redefine an entire idea. This class has been a pleasure for both my awesomely cool self and my nerdy alter ego which never gets his chance to shine.
Jordan Rook, Signing Off.
McCluhan is my hero
DeleteA terrifying creature flies through the night. It grabs an innocent girl and quickly buries its teeth into her neck. The girl doesn’t have a chance to scream before her body goes limp and blood flows from her neck. A hooded figure emerges from the dark. Its teeth are stained with blood and a grin dances across its face. This is what I imagined the vampire to be before this class. In fact, this is the same image I see in my head when I think of the vampire, even after ten weeks of this course.
ReplyDeleteThen what have I learned, you might ask? Obviously, my understanding of the vampire has not changed. I still see it has a gruesome mythical creature that kills and seduces innocent victims in films and books. In fact, this class has only reinforced my understanding of the vampire. Then what has changed? The perspective through which I see the vampire has completely shifted Instead of interpreting the behavioral characteristics of the vampire, I now see what the image of the vampire represents. One particular quote sticks out in my head when I think of my personal interpretation of the vampire. In fact, this quote sticks out in my head whenever anyone mentions the word “media.” If there is one thing that I will remember from this class forty years from now, it is that “the medium is the message”. McCluhan makes this concept clear in his composition addressing media ecology. This very simple, yet crucial, concept is not only applicable to forms of modern media such as television and the internet, but it also seen in the personification of the vampire through movies and novels. When I first read this statement, I was convinced that McCluhan had no idea what he was talking about. How in the world can a television communicate a greater message than the documentary that it is featuring? And how can written text be the true message that Nathaniel Hawthorne intends for his audience in the novel The Scarlet Letter? It didn’t make any sense. In fact, this concept wasn’t clear until I was able to bridge the gap between media ecology theory and the vampire. Weird, huh?
The vampire serves as a medium. A medium is any catalyst for information transfer. McCluhan believes that media is “an extension of ourselves.” It is inescapable and unavoidable in today’s society. Something as simple as light can serve as medium, according to McCluhan. It provides an opportunity for visual experience and further information transfer. After reading several more of McCluhan’s “stimulating” pieces (unfortunately), I suddenly came to a realization. Maybe we are misinterpreting the content of the vampire for its message, when it’s the essence of the vampire, its ontology, that serves as the purest form of the message. Too often do we associate the sinful behaviors of the vampire with its representation. However, when we look at it in its simplest form, the vampire is a creature of power, attraction, and lust. This class has opened my eyes up to the vampire as a medium and as a message.
Deep, right? I think media ecology has become a medium by itself. Instead of leading me directly to new information, it has been a catalyst for exposure to new mediums. McCluhan is only the tip of the iceberg in media ecology. And he has opened doors to different mediums that will lead to new knowledge on how information is processed in our society and in our mind. Similarly, the vampire serves a medium to other mediums. What the vampire represents is only the mask to deeper connections that can be made to sociology, history, psychology, and more.
The sad part is that I have found myself screaming “THE MEDIA IS THE MESSAGE!!” in quite a few of my other classes. Jordan and Alec shake their heads while the rest of the class gives me a confused stare. So Ali, I totally understand where you are coming from. Media ecology has not given me any answers. It has simply opened doors for new questions to arise. So can I still say that we technically didn’t really learn anything in this class? :P
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ReplyDeleteLOVE- L-Life’s! O-Only! V-Vibration! E- Everlasting!
ReplyDeleteThis class has been the epitome of this term day in and day out for the past several weeks! I have encountered all facets and degrees of this word in multi-dimensional schemata. From the first day each of us became individualized by our own expressions (THUMBS UP vs. THUMBS DOWN), I fell in love with the carefree nature and personal interactions this class soon proved to embody to the highest caliber. Followed by the incomparable introductions, the next events that transpired were ones I will hold near and dear to my heart.
First impressions are not always correct.
1.) The big, black, intimidating, and grumpy Jason is an entertaining and slacker-of-a-classmate. INCORRECT! He added insight to the class that was more than just amusing, but also thought-provoking. He demonstrated how initial interactions do not accurately depict an individual. It is not only unfair to judge someone from the first introductions, but incomplete. I would have missed out on gaining a lasting friend and thinking about vampires in a different light without embracing Jason’s profound thought processes.
2.) Cute, tiny, and feisty Writing Professors do not have the potential to be intimidating. WRONG! Dr. Kt proved to be quite the anxiety-provoking professor due to her overwhelming abundance of knowledge on vampires. The history and potential of the vampire is much more than it seems.
3.) Learning about valuable writing techniques or life-impacting lessons will not occur from a course centered upon vampires! BUZZER WRONGO! This was validated as inaccurate the moment class discussion began surfacing, not only did learning about vampirism lead to understanding societal perceptions and human relationships, but life lessons were acquired in regards to appreciating individuals and how their life experiences have molded who they are and their take on the vampire.
“The medium is the message,” Marshall McLuhan’s famous line became more than just an overworked phrase, but the epitome of this class as a whole and life in general. People and course content cannot be solely arbitrated by the message they are sending, but rather the medium that is presenting it is a more genuine depiction of the rudimentary meaning.
As this course progressed, I became aware of just how many features and facets encompass the vampire. From all corners: origins, to interactions with supernatural creatures, to popular portrayals, to religious ties, the vampire became more raw and unearthed than I had ever expected. I did not know a single entity could comprise such a plethora of facets. It stuns me to look back on my experience in this class and see how much we crammed into such a short span of time. I utterly dumbfounded!
I agree wholeheartedly with Ali when she states, “Rai’s point about the vampire as a punctum in time or an evolution of predefined elements has strongly stuck with me. Rai enabled me, above all of the authors we read, to relate vampire concepts to my everyday world. Each person that I encounter comes with a history, a story.” The fact that each person and fantasy creature, such as the vampire, comes with an individualistic string of events and culmination of circumstances has reverberated pungently. This class has been a true treat in providing not only knowledge on media ecology and vampires themselves, but allocating insight into myself. Being able to construct a research project that incorporated a vehement passion of mine, love, was an indispensible opportunity I will perpetually cherish.
LOVE! L- Life’s O-Overall V- Varnish E- Enduring! Love is the only gloss of paint that withstands the oscillating obstacles of life. I have come to love this course, vampires in general, and people as individual beings.
As this is an English class, and the first assignment I ever did on my own in English class, I figure why not end with one? So then, what did I learn in this class? What did I really get from it? I guess you could say that the medium really is the message: (Notice the clever use of some media ecology theory. Get it? The medium is this acrostic poem using the word vampire. So that’s the message and stuff. I felt I had to explain this just to make sure everyone got it because if there’s one thing I have learned in this class it’s that I often “don’t get it” and am “confused” about things).
ReplyDeleteV – Verisimilitude. According to dictionary.com this word means “something, as an assertion, having merely the appearance of truth.” This is what I came into class with. I thought I knew the truth about vampires just as many of my classmates did: the fangs, the blood sucking, the serious need for sunscreen. What I didn’t realize is that this was “merely the appearance of truth.” I learned that the vampire is far deeper than its surface level appearance and there is a reason for every trait we know about the vampire.
A – Assemblage. I had to throw in a few of the buzzwords from the media ecology we learned this quarter! As I said when talking about verisimilitude, the vampire is not a surface level monster. It is very deep and is actually the accumulation of a ton of different things.
M – Media Ecology Theory. Also known as, making a fairly simple concept into something that is so confusing that I sometimes doubt if Rai understands it completely. I have never encountered a theory that has confused and annoyed me as much as media ecology theory. I have taken a class on 20th century philosophy, read the works of Foucault and Aristotle, and studied the theory of solipsism. None of these were as confusing to me as media ecology theory. At this point, however, I feel that I really do understand the theory and see the great importance of it when analyzing literature and film, but still feel that the way it is described by the authors we read is really just…
P – Preposterous. This class was an absolute blast. Don’t let me tell you otherwise, but at times I definitely felt that I was out of my league and studying a subject I had never heard of in a language I didn’t understand. I think this is just the nature of the beast that is theory in writing, but it just confused me (as I told you thousands of times). In the end though it was really good for me to have to push my boundaries (and spend over an hour per double spaced page on a literature review) because it showed me I could. Even in a subject that I do not love I was able to survive and actually learn a lot.
I – Intelligence. This class was damn smart. Plain and simple. This was my first honors class that was discussion based so it really was the first time I was able to see the intelligence that the students bring. It was refreshing. In my previous writing classes in college I have been blown away by the other students that are in these classes… and not in a good way. This class was the opposite and I feel significantly smarter because of the discussions we had in class and the things we talked about.
Part 2...
ReplyDeleteR – Rai. I could not think of a better word to represent the letter R. Talking with Rai was definitely one of the highlights of the quarter. He was hilarious and actually down to earth. This surprised me a ton as I expected to talk to a pretentious man who sat in a dungeon reading old theories all day (no offense). I learned a lot from him and really enjoyed the experience as a whole.
E. End. The class is done. This quarter was brutal, partly because it’s spring and being in class is the last thing I want to do and partly because this class was just plain difficult for me. I am happy to be done with the work aspect of this class (almost at least. I still have that dang portfolio to complete), but am sad to be leaving the class. It was definitely the best class I have ever been in, in terms of the students and professor (yes that’s you! ☺) that I have been in. I loved the discussions we had, the jokes we shared, and the collective misery us students shared in the night before a large paper was due. Heck, I reckon I will even miss the blog posts… Well, maybe not. But still. It was an absolute pleasure to be in this class and I hope I didn’t tick you off too much.
That’s all I have to say. To echo the words of my brotha’ from anotha’ motha’, Jason in one of his infamous blog posts “… pause for effect…” (Boykin, Rhetorical Situation).
PEACE!
William Franklin Wallace V