Filed under: Dissertation
Relegated to the couch for the weekend due to an infection on my elbow, I’ve been able to watch a few movies that I haven’t seen in some time but I can’t shake my dissertation when viewing them so it starts to feel like work. Take The Big Lebowski, for instance, in which the trope of listening functions as a meditative process (when the dude listens to a bowling match on a walkman while laying on his floor, just before the trippy dream montage wonderfully accompanied by Bob Dylan’s “The Man in Me”). Listening, or the refusal to do so, functions as a symbol of lost opportunity too. For example, Walter refuses to listen to Donny during some of the early scenes (in fact, Walter listens to Donny only when the latter is referring to bowling), which he may very well regret later when Donny passes away two-thirds through the film. Finally, not listening functions as a form of rebellion when the dude tells the police officer (towards the end of the film) that the former was not listening to the latter, an act of defiance for which the law officer pummels every dude out there.
Filed under: Academic
Up late most nights, I often find myself catching some wonderful films on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). For instance, right now, Lew Adler’s Ladies and Gentlemen the Fabulous Stains (1982) (perf. Diane Lane, Ray Winstone, Peter Donat) is on.
Since it’s late, I have the volume down, which helps me analyze the visuals. I notice the movie is about a band on tour. The tour bus and the stage performances remind me of Cameren Crowe’s Almost Famous (2000), which leads me to thinking: This fall, I could teach a course on music and the road in post-World War II American film and lit. A la Professor Charlie Bertsch, I could assign documentary as well as fictitious texts.
Tentative list of films:
- A Hard Day’s Night
- Don’t Look Back
- Gimme Shelter
- Last Waltz
- Ladies and Gentleman the Stains
- This Is Spinal Tap
- Almost Famous
Possible literary texts:
- ???????????????????
Filed under: Personal
We just keep gettin’ wiser and wiser, no?
As Susan has said: some days, if you write one sentence on your dissertation, you will consider it progress.
Today, I met with Laura G., who helped me decide to focus on more than minority literature in my dissertation. Since I will weave Hitchcock throughout the chapters, I’m not too worried about demonstrating my ability to work with more canonical texts. Of course, she’s perfectly correct in reminding me to include the likes of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Kerouac, Pynchon and DeLillo–not to mention Raymond Chandler and other authors working in the Hollywood studio system.
By including a variety of authors–many canonical and a few non–I hope to reach a point in my argument where I can argue on behalf of those authors unheard within the discipline. Thus, while I appreciate (not to mention love) most canonical authors, my ultimate interests concern the way in which the canon listens, if you will, to the subaltern.
Then, at home this evening with my wonderful wife, I inserted color-coded sleeves into my dissertation binder, which makes the four-or-five major sections pop out. To most of you, this will sound negligible but it makes for a good day if you ask me.
Plus, I decided that the anti-hero will play an important role in my diss as the cinematic term describes many of the characters to whom I am drawn when thinking about twentieth century film and literature.
When writing on The Kolog, I try to practice a degree of discretion when it comes to political issues in the area of higher education, but this issue is too important.
The state of Arizona has instituted decimating budget cuts, which has the academic community nervous to say the least.
To learn/do more, check it out.
I need to whittle my extensive list of functions concerning the trope of listening in twentieth century American film & lit down to four or five overarching functions. I know that Richard Wright’s Native Son, Piri Thomas’s Down These Mean Streets, Oscar Zeta Acosta’s The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo and Alfredo Vea’s God’s Go Begging will serve as primary novels in several chapters of my dissertation. Oscar Micheaux’s Murder in Harlem; John Ford’s Stagecoach, Fort Apache and The Searchers; Alfred Hitchcock’s Blackmail, Shadow of a Doubt, Rear Window and North by Northwest; Francis Ford Copolla’s The Conversation; Steven Spielberg’s E.T., Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing and anything by Dorothy Arzner will serve as some of the films analyzed in the diss. If I can lasso these seminal texts into four or five chapters defined by the definitive functions that listening serves within the narrative as well as without, I just may have the skeleton of my argument. Thanks for the help today C.
Filed under: Dissertation
- I want to include a discussion of the trope of listening in Frantz Fannon’s Black Skins, White Masks (listening functions within process of interpellation), what do I need to know about Fannon?
- I have discovered two articles on Emmanuel Levinas (one in conjunction with Nietszche and “the listening eye”), would a discussion of Levinas and possibly Nietszche work well with my theoretical thesis regarding the trope of listening functioning as a means of recognition in Hegel?
- How does listening function within Lacanian theory (think: “Every representation is represented to” implying a listener for every voice)?
- Who do I need to read re: Oscar Zeta Acosta?…Piri Thomas??…Richard Wright???…Ralph Ellison????…Kurt Vonnegut?????…Alfredo Vea??????
- What do I need to know about Alexandre Kojeve and where can I find it?
- What films can I incorporate into my argument concerning Oscar Zeta Acosta–Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and???
- What films can I incorporate into my argument concerning Piri Thomas?
So, everyone knows about the phrase “hear me out,” right?
Believe it or not (care or not), Jack Bauer, from the TV series 24, made me think about it just now as he pleaded for his and his friend’s life . Anyway, as my wandering mind perpetually returns me to my dissertation these days, I thought: Perhaps I could explore the life of that phrase.
A few weeks ago, Susan suggested that I think of my argument along the lines of Foucault, which would work well as a critical model in this case. What is the history of the phrase “hear me out”? Where did it come from? How does it function throughout history (i.e. contextually–at various times and in various places)? Where and how has it manifested in literature and film (nevermind televisual programs such as 24)?
Filed under: Personal
As one or two of you know, yesterday the Arizona Wildcats men’s basketball team beat Houston in overtime.
My dad invited me to the game, which was rather uneventful for thirty-nine minutes. Even so, with three minutes-to-go in the second half, I remember thinking (and perhaps uttering) that we should not leave early–you never leave a game early, never!
Well, as has been his fashion for the past thirty or so years, my dad turns to me–with a little over one minute left in the game–and says: “let’s go.” Arizona was down by ten, and again, had showed no signs of life all day. The majority of older fans (with their backs arched to the court in paternal disappointment) were walking up the aisles, which should have been my first sign to stay. But Dad and I left, certain that Arizona had just played themselves out of the NCAA tournament.
Immediately upon getting into the car, my dad, as he always has, tuned the AM radio to the local sports station that was broadcasting the game. Three miles from the arena (four miles from my house), we pulled up to a red light and listened to Brian Jeffries as he called the miraculous comeback. Arizona had tied the game and forced overtime.
With the excitement of a teenager in his voice, my dad says: “Should we head back?” There was no question about it.
He had already made the u-turn by the time I had the chance to respond: We needed a timeout. Delayed by another light, only half-a-mile from the gym, our wish was granted. Houston called timeout after the Cats took an early lead in OT.
After running through the parking lot, we found the south set of doors to the arena locked. But, fortunately, a kind woman was attending the north set. Running through the cavernous walkways of an old gymnasium and listening to the thudish roar of the home crowd made me feel like I was in Hoosiers (you either understand or you don’t).
We made it with two-and-a-half minutes to go in overtime and the Cats had begun to pull away. As a result of being forced to enter the north side of the arena, we found ourselves in a section of seats across from those stamped on our original tickets. Much to our luck, we were now above the tunnel to the Arizona locker-room.
As the players ran off the court, I and many others screamed with enthusiasm and encouraging chants. In fact, a player tossed his towel in the airand it floated right in front of my face–I had to grab it. And, when you think about it, what a souvenir; however, I can’t help but think of how much more excited about the towel I would have been had that moment occurred twenty years ago.
Of course, even as it was happening last night, I was so appreciative to have experienced the thrill of rushing back for a barn burner with pops. So, I love you Dad, but never (ever) leave a game early again!
Of possible foundational films for a unit/seminar on the U.S.-Mexican border:
Border Incident (Anthony Mann)
Touch of Evil (Orson Welles)
The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez (Robert M. Young)
And possible novels to pair with the films:
Death Comes For The Archbishop (Willa Cather)
Bighorse The Warrior (Tania Bighorse)
Blood Meridian (Cormac McCarthy)
And the critical text:
Borderlands / La Frontera (Gloria Anzaldua)
