Day 18: Manifesto—Sergio Reyna-Muñoz

I have very mixed feelings about this piece. On one hand, at times it gets close to warming my heart and making me feel good about. On the other hand, it elicits a feeling of contempt towards the delusional. To elaborate on the latter, Saunders talks about people of all kinds being members of this organisation. What kind of people is he referring to? Average people, everyday people, people’s people. Given my summarily negative thoughts about human nature, this thought experiment or hypothetical situation of everyone being nice/not mean for one day is simply an exercise in delusion. However what most irks me, to my very core, is the last paragraph:

“This is PRKA. To those who would oppose us, I would simply say: We are many. We are worldwide. We, in fact, outnumber “you. Though you are louder, though you create a momentary ripple on the water of life, we will endure, and prevail.

This paragraph makes many words come to mind; mediocrity, normality, banal, lazy, status quo, norm. Of course, I’m aware he means that in the sense that mean people or non-member will always be outnumbered by members, but I can’t help but think that a layer of his meaning, whether he is conscious of it or not, is simply an ode to normality. Next.

Day 15: Revision—Sergio Reyna-Muñoz

Given from what he has written in Revising Attitudes, Mr Dethier, by saying “for most of us reason the only road to success,” meant that in most cases people need to revise in order to get their work to an acceptable level. He uses a metaphor early in the text, that less proficient students learn that revising is the only way in which they can achieve an A. Additionally, he mentions that the few people who can get by without revising actually do so continuously, in their minds. 

Personally, I absolutely agree with him. But for the sake of the way I view things, I must highlight that revision can range from anything from grammar and spelling to a rehash of the main idea of the text. 

I personally dislike explaining complex ideas with the aid of every day metaphors or similes, for stylistic reasons. I only do it when the use of these metaphors would result in achieving a clear objective such as increasing my own understanding of the idea its describing. In this case, I hope it achieves that. But, I’ll do it because it is the task. A partial metaphor I have for revision is art. One can change it endlessly, but it will never be objectively worse or better than before. It will simply be different, unless and only unless, you’re using a sort of benchmark or standard to qualitatively measure the change such as if it is better from an ease-to-understand standpoint. 

“A piece of writing is never finished.” The previously mentioned metaphor is a good way to examine this view from. Writing, due to its inherent nature, is not something you can reach a certain point with and proclaim perfection—unless there’s a specific task associated with it, and even then only maybe. Writing is a never ending set of words that can have endless combinations and achieve endless layers of meaning. You can never finish it. But, you can get awfully close to using it for a specific something, and that is a final draft. 

Thesis and Review — Sergio Reyna-Muñoz

What’s the Point?

Literally, what is the point of an essay, what is the thesis. It can be conceptualized as the main claim one is making in the paper. There’s some conventions behind it, but ultimately the only important things are its clarity and properly fitting the essay. In order to begin the process of developing a thesis one can start by questioning what should be answered by the paper. This questioning is flexible in nature and a gradual process starting from broad to narrow, wherein you finalize with a highly polished question from which the thesis is derived.

Responding—Really Responding—To Other Students’ Writing

Reviewing a peer’s work as a student is often a tricky thing. There’s a certain balance to be achieved if one wants to do so successfully, while avoiding faux pas’ such as hurting sensibilities. A good place to start is to gestate oneself as a friendly reader. This way one can avoid overly critical reactions, while still being able to give constructive feedback. Additionally, one should primarily focus on content, clarity, logic, etc vs pinpointing every single minor perceived fault. All in all, when critiquing a peer’s work, your goal should be to deliver clear, constructive feedback on aspects of the essay which are harder for an individual to assess themselves.

 

Day 6: Project Pitches — Sergio Reyna-Muñoz

The aesthetics of violence in A Clockwork Orange, film by Stanley Kubrick

+Love the topic

+Great source material

+Interest of portrayal of controversial concepts aesthetically

-Would have to narrow it down a couple magnitudes of scale

The absurdity of portraying absurdity in The Stranger by Albert Camus

+A fan of this particular line of philosophy, albeit not a complete subscriber

+Makes for some interesting writing

-Choosing a particular position in which to articulate thoughts about absurdism from could prove quite hard

The post-modern sexiness of Soft Porn by Puma Blue

+Enjoyable source material and topic for me to analyze

+Something I want to analyze and look more in depth, but would not do so otherwise unless compelled by a greater motive

+Good music (back to square one)

-Perhaps too little source material due to its rather short lyrics. Additionally, the artist’s low profile and short history as such. 

-Risk of over-intellectualizing something as transient as music and stopping to enjoy it as much

 

Qs: Which one of these is the intersection of something that will serve the assignment’s purpose, and amuse me in the process?

Intersectionality Readings, Sergio Reyna-Muñoz

Dancing Around Objectification

Down to its core, this article is a simple “compare & contrast” of  two different fictional characters. One is a black woman, one is a white woman. They are both exotic dancers. While they are both in very similar situations and are “idealized and dehumanized,” the author draws a line based on the racial difference. The main takeaway is that the white woman, while still not at the top of the totem pole, is high enough in status that she can use this privilege to take back her own agency, while the black woman cannot.

 

Intersectionality 101

This reading as the title suggests, is quite literally Intersectionality 101, this is to say; a short introduction to the theory of intersectionality. It starts by defining it: “a methodology of studying “the relationships among multiple dimensions and modalities of social relationships and subject formations.”…” Gives a little history about the term; coined in 1989 by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw. And, explains the three approaches used to study and conceptualize intersectionality; interlocking matrix of oppression, standpoint theory, and a third unnamed one (resisting oppression.)

 

The Urgency of Intersectionality

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, the speaker of this ted talk, explains intersectionality in such a way that a layman could understand. According to her when a person has more than one feature placing them at a disadvantage and/or unprivileged position, it places the person in the intersection of 2 or more roads, which could be race, gender, sexual orientation etc. Being aware of that and analyzing it is what she calls intersectionality. She heavily uses black females as groups to derive examples from, as she is a black female herself.

 

The Bechdel Test

The Bechdel test, first coined by Alison Bechdel in the 80’s, is a method to evaluate the portrayal of women in creative works. It consists of 3 rules. There must be at least 2 women in the work. They have to talk to each other. They have to talk about something else than a man. This test is often modified to suit different objectives and whatnot, but overall they are all at least tangentially related to evaluating the portrayal of women in fiction. It’s been criticized for being too shallow, and there’s been a barrage of new tests/methods created as superior alternatives such as the Mako Mori test.

 

Response

 

While I do believe “intersectionality” is an extremely important concept be aware of in order to understand the interactions between defining features of people and discrimination (amongst other things) I think it’s too try hard to actually label something that should come naturally when thinking about these “intersections.” It’s basically common sense to see how they all connect and interact, so I think this is just over-intellectualizing something that should be tacitly understood. I’m probably wrong though, since I’m out of touch.

Regarding what we’ve done and seen before in class, this topic clearly correlates to it in numerous way of which i’ll detail one. The labeling of this concept, and all the massive theory surrounding it, is rhetoric in its purest form. A framework which these people use to push this onto the general population, the masses, so they can use this tool to understand the experiences of people situated in intersections and more.

 

Question

How do complex theories like this trickle down to knowledge in the unconscious collective?

 

tools for analyzing texts, Sergio Reyna-Muñoz

Summary

This reading first states an important thing. Rhetoric is in basically everything. If there’s an object out there, with an intention, there is rhetoric within it. Thus, we humans analyze rhetoric all the time on our everyday lives, whether we’re conscious of it or not. However this is always done in a superficial fashion. In order to truly analyze rhetoric, such as the one found on written text, one has to look beyond its content and see things from a macroscopic point of view. A meta view if you will. From thereon there is a variety of lenses to be used for analysis. Things to be considered are the intended audience, genre, purpose, platform. The context in which the text was written is also a very important thing to consider when analyzing. 

Response

I agree with the text. There’s so much content to any piece with rhetoric, which people naturally and unconsciously extract, on varying measures. However, once you are trained in analysis, a whole new world of content opens to you, as you begin to be able to derive huge amounts of contextual, meta information from any piece of communication with an intent. 

Question

What’s more important, the author’s interpretation or the people’s interpretation? Perhaps Hegel’s dialectic could solve this?

Ad Addy Adder Add Aall — Sergio Reyna-Muñoz

I saw this advertisement while looking at my Instagram stories. There’s quite a lot of them, which I unconsciously filter out, but this one actually managed to grab my attention for two simple reasons. I was hungry at the moment, and the ado toast depicted looks amazing. After doing some research the company behind it, Tender Greens, is a conceptual restaurant chain focusing on ingredient focused everyday meals. Analyzing the ad, the avocado toast itself is what catches your eye, however the “retainer,” the thing that keeps a viewers interest would be its description which lets you know about the quality of ingredients and recipe behind it. The kind of people interested in this type of food, their target market, would ultimately “swipe up,” to learn more, and they would be introduced to the restaurant, thus potentially earning them new customers. All in all, I think it’s a good ad. 

Rhetoric, Sergio Reyna-Muñoz

Even though I was already aware of the writing center, being reminded of it is key, due to my forgetful nature. Having gone there before once, I think it’s an amazing resource. Unfortunately I forgot about its usefulness until I was reminded about it now, so I’m thankful for that.

According to this reading, rhetoric is a completely natural way of communication. It emphasizes how it’s not inherently manipulative or deceptive in nature. These are two key takeaways. Additionally, going into more detail, rhetoric is the framework in which communicators, writers in this case, frame what they’re saying in order to convey these thoughts in a way where its persuasive to their intended audience. Finally it explores what can rhetoric mean for the audience, readers in this case. It is ultimately their own individual understanding and interpretation of the content conveyed. That is, the author’s thoughts, after being framed in a particular way to suit their purpose, are received by the reader, who adds an additional filter made of their own preconceptions and biases, that results in their own personal interpretation, rhetoric!

Me, but not really [Sergio Reyna-Muñoz]

Writing about myself is always awkward. If you think about it, it’s just such an unnatural thing. But, I’ll prematurely end that train of thought, inspired on the old adage “why not.” I don’t like talking about myself either, for the same (unelaborated) reasons. It’s rather weird considering I’m a bit of a narcissist, but it is what it is. 
Thinking about more boring stuff, I was born and raised in Lima-Perú, excluding a year and a half stint in south Brazil. Moved to the city on my own about 2 or 3 years ago. Travelled quite a lot before and during. My blood type is O-, which means I can donate blood to everyone, but no one can donate to me. And, I use rambling as a way to divert attention, often unconsciously.
I don’t know what I like to do, but, in all honesty I probably just don’t want to put it on words. I mean, who likes subjecting themselves to a label right? I digress. It’s 2 AM and I’m slow frying (is that a thing?) some overpriced chicken breasts I got earlier, on butter because I keep forgetting to buy coconut oil. I think that conveys the idea of me better than anything else. I am also reading a blog of a classmate talking about his extremely irritated bowels. My bowels are irritated too on occasion. I just wanted to share that. 
_____________
Me as a writer? I wish I could stop writing now, because a lack of answer would be—objectively—a way better answer than an actual one. Unfortunately, that’s most probably not the purpose of this task. 
Sometimes I am able write formulaically and methodically, but I don’t enjoy that. The way I see writing is analogous to knitting a blanket. It should probably be knit in a logically consistent manner. Patterned and ordered. But I’d rather make a jumbled mess full of (carefully chosen) holes and chaos. 
Of course, I am currently rationalizing the mediocrity of my own writing. This is because I have been a lazy writer for a while now. Simply spitting every thought that comes to my mind into written words, not even caring enough to polish it up a bit. But, I want to change that. I want to learn more formulas. More methods. More structures. More crutches, to such an extent that they couldn’t be called crutches anymore.
 That is me as a writer, someone aware of their own mediocrity, but unable (or unwilling?) to change that. Perhaps I’ll try… yeah I’ll try. That is me as a writer now, a trier!