Students entered to the repetitive sounds of Laurie
Anderson’s “Language is a Virus.” I do try and match the sounds at the start of
class to topic (or one of the topics) for the day. I know the connections, but
I suppose I should ask the students to begin to think about this. I did feel
compelled to show the Family Guy clip mainly cause I felt it worked to deflate
the rather oppressive start of day one. Since postmodernism raises questions
about the fallibility of authority it is hard to teach this class without at
least questioning my own.
So – then we warmed up and I gave the students a group
project focused on language. I realized in going back over the book they are
reading on postmodernism that it includes quite a few theory ideas (semiotics, deconstruction,
Foucault, Baudrillard, etc). Reading about this is one thing, but if we can use
the opening fifteen minutes or so to do an exercise on these ideas I feel that
the students will have a greater understanding of them. Today, for example, I wanted
to talk about semiotics and signs. So – I broke the students into four groups
and have them four words to define: Red, Game, and Meaning. It is always
interesting to see what each group comes up with and what elements are similar
and where they differ. Great spinning out of these words to deal with images,
emotions, ideas, etc. I then made a list of how they defined these three words
and suggested that they now needed to define all these other words.
The whole point with this was to explore the deferring
quality of language. That is, it is hard to pin things down with words since
meaning can often be very slippery. I then got into teacher mode and talked
about Wittgenstein’s notion that to imagine a language is to imagine a way of
life, Saussure breakdown of a sign into signifier and signified, and finally
Derrida’s idea of Différance.
A lot to throw at the students the first few days.
We then
moved to discuss the starting points for all of the P2P classes. LeeAnna’s on
the concentration camp always yields good conversation, but there were great
crossover points between that and Mike’s grid, Kry’s rulers and people, Janna’s
uncertainty, and Betsy’s football lists. I asked questions, but I probably
railroaded though my ideas more strongly than I should have. I know that,
particularly with this subject, it will be a struggle all term between just
telling the students things and letting them come up with the answers
themselves. I need to find a way to be more of a guide and less of an “authoritative”
voice on the subject. Yes – I could spend the whole term explaining
postmodernism to them, but they have lived it so I would much rather hear what
they have to say. For example, I loved the connection in the first section
between the grid and how grocery stores are laid out. I never would have made
that connection.
With
changes in the syllabus to accommodate a meeting in Chapel Hill the students
have two projects to execute back to back. The first – due Thursday – is basically
a show n’ tell on something that fits a list of modernist criteria. The second,
due next Tuesday, asks the students to place two or more pieces in proximity so
that the pieces comment on each other. The example I tossed out was how Duchamp’s
urinal recontextualizes the museum as well as the art within it. This space
also works to “legitimize” Duchamp’s readymade as a “work of art.” Here is
hoping I talk less in the next two classes and listen more.
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