Tuesday, November 25, 2008

rhetoric of the body

to talk about the use of 'sexy' pictures on myspace i've been reading about rhetoric of the body, and the power patriarchy takes to write lack of power onto women's bodies. it's pretty interesting that we are taught and teach cultural norms to reinscribe this power without even realizing it. telling a little girl it's ok to cry is reinscribing that power, or lack of power. it's teaching her to use her emotions and be ok with her emotions, which in patriarchy is the opposite of rational thought. since she is comfortable with emotions, she must lack rational thought (according to patriarchy) and she's put into a lower position in society, again. just because of a few tears

Sunday, November 23, 2008

i write about myspace as part of my grad english studies. this semester a fellow student sent me a call for papers for redefining 'celebrity.' i'm using myspace and the myspace starlet as the example of how celebrity has been redefined. so now my myspace page is littered with blog posts from these myspace starlets who participate every day on myspace to create and maintain their fan base. i can't even imagine putting that much effort into a fan base. but here i am writing a blog, is this really much different?

Friday, November 21, 2008

CSA

so we joined this community supported agriculture 'club' thing. it's so random and awesome all at the same time. you pay in advance, and then pick up your veggies once a week. our pick up is thursday. next week it will be wednesday due to thanksgiving. so last night we got a japanese melon. it's delicious. we also got tons of lettuce, and acorn squash. there were also navel oranges which were still a little green. so then there was a big discussion about the forced organe-ing of oranges in grocery stores. people take their food very seriously.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

it's almost thanksgiving


because my family has been so accepting of my vegetarianism i always forget that thanksgiving is essentially a meat celebration. http://www.newsweek.com/id/169906&GT1=43002


here's hoping it won't always be that way . . .

today it's 18th century women's reader reception. to get the necessary books i went to the library bright and early. i can't believe the number of students writing papers at the library at 7:00am. i was so lucky to be an undergrad and now a grad student with a home computer!
while at the library i visited the z section. i can't believe the books go up that high. i also can't believe that the books about women writers from the 18th century are pushed all the way back to the z section. is there some weird higherarchy in the sequencing of books?




Wednesday, November 19, 2008

so i read this book . . .

I read this book about Oprah's Book Club (OBC) for a class i'm taking. There were chapters of it that were so enlightening, the author actively discussed changing the academic opinion of OBC to give some power back to the average reader, namely women who are the primary market for fiction novels. But the second half of her book her entire argument fell apart. She criticized some of the books selected, she focused on very academic views of what reader's do while they read. I was so angry by the end of the book I felt like throwing it. But, at the same time, it has really been a while since a book has made me feel that much. . . .