ENGL 7453: Modernism In/And the Archive

Using the Voyant Tools lab to view The LIttle Review was another really interesting process for me. Again, i am not a visual learner so I felt that a lot of it would be lost on me. Some was, but I did appreciate the way in which we could view the relationships that different words, ideas and issues of the magazine fit together. It was especailly intriguing to view the word frequency through the context of hisotry. For example, the word war dropped off almost completely in 1918, just before the Armistice. Additionally, the word feminism was used several times in early issues of the journal and then dropped off completely for te rest of the issues. 

I think it would be good to do the lab with a more targeted goal. For example, if certain people were given certain words to research both in the context of the magazine and in the history surrounding it. I know that we were just playing around with it to familiarize ourselves. However, I think I personally would have gained more from the lab with a litle more direction. For instance, I learned that "burger" was not a slang term used in the early 1900's, but hamburger was mentioned in one issue several times. That's a fun fact but not super useful in understanding the actual journal and it's content. 

The Gephi visualization of The Little Review was an interesting experience for me. I am not naturally a visual learner, so I was skeptical about its merits. I felt really apprehensive about dealing with a beta computer program that I ws unfamiliar with as well. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the lab. The original cluster of dots and lines was confusing and stressful, but when we began to pull about the different words and view their connections to each other, it began to make more sense. It was fascinating to see simple concepts, such as poetry, having so many connection in one issue. 

It also helped me to view the spreadsheet as I was working through Gephi. There was something about using a program that I was familiar with to help navigate an unfamiliar one that I found helpful. It also added a lot to my viewing of the site to work through it with someone else. Miranda Dabney and I played around with the site together because it was having trouble downloading on her computer. I think it would be really helpful in the future to do small group analysis of the different sections. 

When searching through the archives, I was immediately drawn to a publication from the early 1900's titled The FreWoman. The Freewoman is a weekly feminist review. I found it quite interesting because at that time in history, the majority of women were focused on the right to vote and nothing else. This publication, however, focuses on many complex women's issues that we are still facing today. The journal, while full of thought provoking and beautifully written essays and articles, struggled financially and was only in publication for a year. This fact makes the existing volumes even more valuable. 

After much careful searching, I decided to focus exclusively on an essay entitled "Feminism Under the Republic and the Early Empire." I took two years of Latin here at TU and in that time, I learned a great deal about Roman culture and famous poets, so I found this piece to be especailly intriguing. It takes a look at feminism, or lack thereof, in Roman times. It depicts the role of the Roman wife, along with her duties and expectations. It also describes that state of the laws of the time. Women were mostly prohibited from education and legally, were unable to attend any political or monetary power. Women were simply in a state of submissive to whomever the most prominent male in their life was. They were passed from father to husband and sometimes, in the case of the husband's death, to the son's control. 

This essay was written on November 23, 1911. It is classified as an essay. It features topics such as Women, Feminism, and Women's Issues. It is featured on pages 7-9 in the journal. The Freewoman, and this piece in general, is still relevant to women's issues today. It is important to know the history of our gender in order to know where our gender needs to focus in the future. This essay relates not only to other esays and articles in the Freewoman, but to The New Age publication as well. Many female writers at the time wrote for both. 

In The Bookman: an Illustrated Magazine of Literature and Life Vol. 32 No. 3, on page 41 in the advertisement section, I found an ad for a picture of the destruction of Richmond during the Civil War. The main hook is that everyone that fought in the Civil War is dead and the only ‘witness’ that never dies is a photograph. There is a big image of the picture printed at the top and the bottom is split into another description and an order form.

It’s next to other advertisements, some for books and one for travelling. Since this is just an advertisement, the rest of the journal doesn’t specifically relate to this. This issue had a lot of advertisements, but this one stood out because the whole top half was a picture. The other thing that made this one stand out was that the bottom half was separated diagonally instead of rectangularly like most of the other ads.

The Stolen Archive was an interesting piece of work to explore. In the author's statement, Alice Gambrell lays out her vision and goals for the work. 

"As an experiemntal archive, Stolen Time means to encourage visitors to think about the mixed significances communicated by any public collection of pirmary doecuments and objects; an archive is a practical resource, of coures, but it is also (by virtue of practices of inclusion, exclusion, arrangement, annotation, display and mode of access) a kind of argument. 

This attitude, and the set up and functions of the archive remind me of Werner and Voss's text, which we read earlier. The idea of an archive serving as multiple functions is definitely embodied here. The archive is the site, yet it is also what every indidvudal does on the site. By observing research, more research is observed. It is an extremely experiemntal way in which to observe the writing process. 

I'm not sure how effective I think it is. I really enjoyed reading both the author and the designer's statements and views more than the actual archive experience itself. 

From foucault's assessment of the temptation it would seem as if it was precursory guide for works like The Wasteland. Foucault explains that's the essential relationship to books may represent more than a mere history in the western imagination; it opens a literary space wholly dependent on the network formed by books of the past: as such it serves to circulate the fiction of the books.
I feel as if the Wasteland does this but not just for books but history as well as religion. For culture and its mundane components.
As the temptation "recovers other books, it hides and displays them in a single movement, it causes then to glitter and disappear"

Works like these are not created to "foster the lamentations, the lost youth, the absence of vigor and the decline of inventiveness. . .but to unearth an essential aspect of our culture"

I truly enjoyed when the Werner and Voss article began with a comparison of both the physical and imaginative space that defines an archive. While most people picture an old library full of stacks when they hear the word "archive", that is quickly changing. I appreciate that authors and English critics are beginning to notice the change and acknowledge. It does beg the question, however, of how society feels aobut this change. Our generation is so accustomed to technology, that I don't think it's something we often ponder. Are we all okay with digitizing all of our archives? Has anyone considered the possibility that our internet system may fall, and as such, we would lose as many irreplacealbe texts as we lost in ancient socieites. I know that personally i resent the move to digital, yet I am forced to accept it because of the aid it provides to me visually. 

The Werner and Voss article also poses a great question about The Waste Land iPad app that I just studied for our wiki project. Would that app be considered an archive? It has all of the resources of an archive, but lacks the physical space discussed in the article. It is also an expensive application, as far as applications go. Is it fair to have an archive that is not accessible to everyone? I realize my blog post has raised way more questions than it answered, but that's just the kind of mood I'm in tonight I guess. 

My name is Brooke Boutwell and I am a senior majoring in English and Psychology with law schol aspirations. I am from the tiny town of Piedmont, Oklahoma where we don't even have a stoplight. Growing up in such a samll town was an incredible experience that irrevocably shaped the person I am today. Picture my high school life in the terms of a Miranda Lambert song and you are pretty close to accurate. However, my hometown also instilled in me a great desire to leave. I told my parents in my harshly bratty teenage voice that under no circumstances would i attend college in this tiny midwestern state. Then the summer before my senior year, I came to Tulsa over fourth of July weekend like my family does every year and agreed under duress to a visit at the University of Tulsa. I immediately fell completely in love with the campus. I loved all the wide open spaces and the small town friendly feel on campus. A couple of months later, when my scholarship came in, Tulsa became an offer I couldn't refuse. 

Other fun facts about myself include that I am a Type 1 Diabetic and I also have a rare eye disorder called achromatopsia, which basically means I"m completely colorblind, legally actual blind and my eyes are sensitive to light. If you ever see me squinting in class, I'm not mad or confused. Also don't ask me if I know what color something is. I don't. Additionally, I am a Kappa Kappa Gamma, a University Ambassador, the Student Association Executive Secretary and I serve on the Relay for LIfe Committee and the OSGA Student Advisory Board. 

Although technically I'm communications and film, English is probably been my favorite subject from grade school until now and I still very frequently take English classes. Firstly because I think it compliments my film writing aspirations and also because dissecting and analyzing literature is something that I really enjoy and like to think I'm pretty good at.

So far, I reallly like the depth and variety of classes in college (as opposed to high school). For example, last year, in a course called Gender and Gaming I dissected how our perceptions of masculinity and power structures influenced the writing of Bioshock: Infinite and GTA V. Far and away my favorite literary research paper however was analyzing the Portal series and how it pertained to Donna Harraway's concept of cyborg feminism.

Having the internet at my fingertips, especially for research, is like having an extension of my own knowledge base. I may not know anything about a sepcific subject right now, but give me ten minutes and a Wifi connection and I could give a presentation about it.

Through my communication/media studies major, I’m able to learn about a wide variety of communication and media theories while also exploring pet interests like music and typography. I’ve crafted my own independent study – On Sound and Symbol, which explored sound studies, typography, and cryptography – and explored topics including why people have strong feelings about plot spoilers. My two minors, English and philosophy, came about through classes that complemented what I was already studying. For example, a linguistics class taught me a more specialized vocabulary to discuss semantics while a class on St. Augustine explored semiotics (the study of signs, which is a recurring theme in TU’s communication classes). The main research I’ve done is focused on the word “forum,” especially its historical context and digital characteristics (you can read the current draft over at Culture Digitally). I’m also a student research fellow for the Oklahoma Center for the Humanities this year, where we’re studying privacy.

I haven’t really considering how I think with technology; about technology, well, that would be a very long post, but I think the idea of thinking with technology is intriguing and I don’t have a great answer for it right now. As far as using technology, the context and application matter. I craft essays and papers on the computer because I jump around adding things where they fit most suitably. On the flip side, I’m terrible at remembering things I read in e-books and enjoy many aspects of reading paper books: tactile elements of reading a book, scribbling in the margins, seeing/feeling how many pages are left, and so on. Similarly, I remember class notes better when I handwrite them (The Atlantic actually just recently had an article about this – apparently I’m not the only one!).

I did not begin my college career as an English and Communication major. When I came to TU as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed freshman, I was dead set on an Economics major and a pre-law concentration. While law school may still be looming in my future, the picture is not as clear as it used to be. I think I probably went through the possibilities of 8 or 10 different majors before settling on English. With my parents pushing me for a (what they call) 'useful' degree, English was not even in my peripheral vision. Last semester, I took a class called Beyond Bella, an English course cross-listed with Women and Gender Studies. It was that class, and partially Dr. Stevens, that prompted my search of possible careers utilizing an English degree and consequent decision to pursue a career in publishing and/or editing.

My experience with being an English major thus far has been a bit exasperating. When I tell someone my major is English, usually the first respone out of their mouth is, "Oh, so you want to be a teacher?" Now, I have nothing against English teachers; I just know that I would be terrible and it is a bit frustrating that most people only think an English degree is useful to teachers.

When using technology, I have realized that I actually tend to think less, especially when I'm reading an ebook. For some reason, it is much easier for me to read an entire paragraph or page and not remember what it was about when I am  reading on an iPad. Yes, e-readers are much more convenient than actual books, but I definitely prefer the sturdy paper pages over an illuminated screen. Even if I'm not reading, it is so easy to use technology for brainless entertainment, and even though I know it's not productive, it's still a little addicting (YouTube definitely). Regardless, I know I will continue reading on my iPad and watching YouTube videos about sneezing pandas, hilarious cats, and zombie kids that like turtles.

As the new school year has kicked off, I have had the opportunity to meet a vast number of people. As with any introductory conversation, various questions were asked and answered, such as: Where are you from? What are you involved in on campus? And, of course, What is your major? Being at TU, I have met countless engineers. My response to their major is usually, "I should have guessed that." Of course, like any polite human being should, they return the question: What is your major? With a moderate level of enthusiasm, I simply respond, "I'm an English major." Being a male English major at one of the nation's most renowned engineering schools has been an interesting experience. I find myself having few classes with the majority of my friends and fraternity brothers. I often find myself involved in conversations of a very technical,scientific, mathematical nature with no idea how to contribute any thoughts. It has been quite the black sheep experience.

Don't get me wrong, though, I have loved it. I tried the whole engineering thing my first semester at TU and I was not a fan. Over the last three semesters, I have found a love for Modernism. I find myself fascinated with fragementation. I love shifting perspectives. I love unhappy or unresolved endings. I love brutal realism hiding behind carefully crafted images and texts. In addition, I find that I can often express myself more accurately (and eloquently) through writing.

Recently, I have noticed that I speak somewhat differently than I type. In this instance, I am referring to text messaging. I often text my friends and love to keep in contact with them. However, I find myself putting an extreme amount of care into crafting each message. I simply care a lot about how a message looks. I care about how the words appear on the screen, and how that appearance relates to my meaning. I find this to be an interesting connection between thinking and technology because it certainly impacts my communication. All in all, technology seems to cause me to pay special attention to the visual.

Hi everyone!

I'm Justin, and I'm a junior English major and psychology minor. I grew up in Tulsa and went to Jenks. I had originally committed to OSU during my senior year of high school, but upon visiting campus for their Senior Open House, I noticed that half of my graduating class was there. Not wanting high school, part II, I applied to TU. I visited the campus shortly thereafter and fell in love with it. On campus, I am heavily involved in Student Mobilization (StuMo) and my fraternity (Lambda Chi Alpha). After college, I would love to move to India for long-term missions. Honestly, I'm pretty open to whatever the future holds. I'm excited for this class and for getting to know each of you over the next semester!

Hi, I'm Megan Grier. I am a sophomore English and Communication major. I'm from Texas, something I probably talk about way too much. In regards to literature, I'm going to be honest here and say YA fiction is my favorite, but yes I acknowldge the fact that they are generally extremely cheesy. I want to be a book publisher or editor, preferably for young adult literature, so I'm really interested in what makes certain literature popular and how it spreads so quickly from one place to another, specifically through the use of social media.