Finding Sources

So I was just browsing for maybe 10 minutes and found maybe 10 sources total for everyone's papers (i have emailed those people letting them know about sources).

Finding possible sources should feel like binge drinking. Let me explain. You should be constantly clicking and typing--looking at bibliographies and searching those articles, etc. etc. You aren't worried about the effects its going to have on your body--you just want to get drunk (with texts)--you want to saturate your possibilities until your body can't take it anymore! Once you start reading and reflecting, undoubtedly some of it will be indigestible, or useless to your body--that will be expelled and you will never have to deal with again. But after you expel it, you will feel refreshed. At first, it might hurt---your head with pound with a swirl of titles and word searches, but eventually you will regain your composure and be ready to sit down and eat a good meal (or write a good paper). Your annotated bibliography will be the small amount of stuff left in your body after a good ol' next-morning purge.

Another metaphor: Research should feel like you are romping through a field of research at warp speed plucking flowers without bothering whether or not they make a pretty bouquet.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret: researching is different than reading (I may have already said this in a previous post). Researching is about gathering possible useful material--researching is fast, furious, and almost unreflective (at first). Researching is RE-SEARCHING or RE(S)EA(R)CHING --reaching. . .reaching out.


Reading Articles (a process) 

To narrow down your article selection:

1.) Read abstracts
2.) Read the first couple paragraphs (quickly)
3.) Read the conclusion. 
4.) If it still seems relevant, skim paragraphs. 
5.) If it is a "useful" article, read most of the article and write an annotated bibliography.

My Susan Bordo Source

So, I know I told you all to focus on a textual source. But I am going to suggest that one of the most popular sources that you all found, "“It’s a Face-Lifted, Tummy-Tucked Jungle Out There,” New York Times, June 9." by Amy Spindler, is exemplified in the brilliant corporate satire/horror film American Psycho. 


This film portrays a corporate sociopath, who murders people--women and men--for no real reason. Below is the opening scene of the film, which suggests a creepy marriage between corporate life, beauty, and violence. Unfortunately, youtube will not let me embed this, so I have to merely provide a link: 


Patrick Bateman's opening scene


"There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman. Some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me." 

Synthesis Essays--Class Notes

Class,

I was pretty happy overall with the synthesis essays. I think that our work with organizing paragraphs and the sense of an argument's "movement" really helped you all improve your writing. I also think that the out of class peer review had something to do with the overall improvement of the writing. I'd like to believe that you all took a lot from each other's reviews. Yeah getting those out of class peer reviews in were a pain--not to mention, a pain to grade--but I think it ultimately served a purpose.

I hope that the style lecture on Friday helped you think about your writing on a more sophisticated sentence level. Feel free to review it via the embedded Prezi.

A couple of grammar/style/convention things I saw all across the board:

1.) Titles of essays are ALWAYS in "quotations." Italics are for books and full length featured films (among other things). Thus,  "Achievement of Desire," and not Achievement of Desire.


2.) In-text citations always go at the end of sentence right before the period. Thus, 


Rodriguez introduces the concept of the "scholarship boy," a concept culled from Richard Hoggart's Uses of Literacy (Rodriguez 516).


3.) Punctuation and quotation marks: If you are citing part of a text and you use a comma afterwards, the comma goes within the quotations. Thus, 


Wallace writes that education's purpose is to "just a little less arrogant," a little bit less self-certain (Wallace). 

4.) If you cite a passage that is 4 lines of text, use a bloc quotation, indented 1 full inch to the right. Bloc quotation do not have quotation marks around them. 


5.) A semi-colon can only be used when you have two independent clauses (two complete sentences) to join together.  Thus, 


Correct: Rodriguez argues that the scholarship boy is a great mimic; Freire would agree with this. 


Incorrect: Rodriguez argues that the scholarship boy is a great mimic; and Freire may see it the same way. 


With the addition of the "and,' the second clause becomes a sentence fragment. 


6.) In general, Watch out for run-on sentences. Sometimes we get too carried away and forget to PUNCTUATE. 

Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace

Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace on Prezi

Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography on Prezi

Student Summary/Analysis example take 2--More on Transitions

To transition means to "cross over." Transitions can take lots of time, but I hope I have no mystified them. Transitions should flow easily if the paragraphs are in the "right" order. Transitions are mostly about signalling to the reader where you have been and where you are going. As writers, it is our responsibility to "signal" to readers.

An example (from the previous student example):

In addition to body language, Kanye West’s choice of words to describe himself and to address his critics highlights his egocentric personality. West admits that he “embodies every characteristic of the egotistic,” and in the chorus, he refers to himself as a “21^st century schizoid man.” Schizoid, according to the Cleveland Clinic, is a type of personality disorder characterized by aloofness and detachment from others, little desire or enjoyment for close relationships, “difficulty relating to others, indifference towards praise or criticism, and daydreams or vivid fantasies about complex inner lives.” These characteristics may well describe Kanye West, but it is the deliberate insertion of the phrases “embodies every characteristic of the egotistic” and “21^st century schizoid man” that one realizes that West is fully aware of his arrogant, self-centered personality. This awareness empowers him to ward off any form of criticism hurled at him.

 

The above paragraph deals with the concept of "schizoid." A part of 'schizoid' is an "indifference to praise and criticisms." The writer makes the claim that Kanye West is aware of this condition (because he is referring to himself as the "21st Century Schizoid Man") and argues that this awareness (from the previous sentence) empowers him to ward off criticism. 

 

The below paragraph, then, deals with this "criticism." The topic sentence does not directly say "criticism," but describes criticism: "In the music business, great power draws greater scrutiny from the media and the public." If we wanted to maybe connect these two paragraphs even further, we could start with the word criticism: "Criticism from the media and the public at large is a common phenomenon in the media and the public." This both makes it clear how it connects to the previous paragraph, as well as tells us what the writer will discuss in the next paragraph.  

 

 

              In the music business, great power draws greater scrutiny from the media and the public. As Kanye West points out in his lyrics, many of his critics believe that West is an “abomination of Obama’s nation” or a hated figure in present-day American society.  While such a comment may have at first offended West, West simply shrugs it off and reminds critics that “at the end of the day goddamn it he is killin’ [it]/[he] knows damn well [his critics and supporters] are feelin’ [it].” In other words, despite people’s abhorrence toward him, he continues to excel in both album sales and song charts. His music still resonates with people, and based on his prolonged success in record sales and on billboard charts, people continue to value his music, which is what matters to him most.    


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A less "powerful" transition, because there is not as much connection on a "thematic" level, comes from the same paper:


. . .West deliberately positions these Athenian female characters below him to indicate that women are inferior to him. Throughout the entire video, West stares straight ahead

at the viewer, paying no attention to the characters surrounding him; by doing so, West insinuates that his focus is on his career and that he will not let anyone keep him from attaining and maintaining success in the music industry. 

 

The previous paragraph is mostly "summary," but focuses primarily on body language to show West's opinion of his own position. The next paragraph begins with a simple "cue" to the reader that they are moving on to another point: "In addition to body language. . .etc." We are to assume that body language also "highlights his egocentric personality" (which is less explicitly said in the previous paragraph, but his clearly implied-- "by doing so, West insinuates that his focus is on his career," etc.). Still, the "in addition to body language" signals to the reader that this is another "aspect" that highlights the same thing. Consider how there is a difference between that and merely saying "Also, Kanye West's choice of words." This is still acceptable, but the reader is not reminded of the previous point, which makes it seem as though this is a tacked on point, a "by the way, I also noticed this." 

 

In addition to body language, Kanye West’s choice of words to describe himself and to address his critics highlights his egocentric personality. West admits that he “embodies every characteristic of the egotistic,” and in the chorus, he refers to himself as a “21^st century schizoid man.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope these two close-readings of transitions helped you understand what I am looking for.

Synthesis Theses

Through speaking with a student, I have figured out a way to explain how to come up with (or "generate") a thesis for the synthesis. The general structure of a synthesis thesis is something like:

All these essays relate to one another, but. . . .

The key is to make this relation and these differences meaningful by making the thesis specific to the three essays.

The only way to do this is through READING and RE-READING. Your thesis may be the last thing that you actually write down on the page. It is only through moving through these essays, noticing patterns and divergences, similarities and differences, that thesis (and thus, meaning) will emerge, as I noted in our lecture. Its through looking at the concrete connections and then distinguishing them that paragraphs will emerge, which will lead to an organization, which will lead to your own thoughts about the essays. You already have ideas about each of the essays independently, the task now is to think about all three essays as a whole.

If you do not have a thesis, but have "readings" of each of the texts, hopefully your peer reviewers can help you draw one out.

I recommend that you write a little paragraph TO each of your peer reviewers about what you feel like you need to work on that your peer reviewers can help you with (in addition to the assigned tasks). I want you to read each other's papers as if they were your OWN papers that you would have to turn in. I want you to help each other write each other's paper as a collaborative effort. This is not "cheating"--this is collaboration and realizing that meaning rarely comes from one's own head alone.

Good luck!

Organizing Paragraphs

Today, I will be sending you a Word document of the completed (rough draft) of my essay with explanations about the paragraphs and organization.

I hope that I have shown the importance of organization and topic sentences. I feel like when I first learned about topic sentences that they would make my writing sound mechanical and boring (and indeed, I learned topic sentences out of the context of an actual paper). But really, they (along with transitions) are essential aspects of a paper.

As such, this will be something heavily weighed in the Synthesis assignment.

Thank you everyone for such great classes today. Participation was great (due to the very helpful suggestion to return to the cards) and I felt like we were all engaged.

Liberal Arts, Politics, and Education: A Response to Rick Scott, Rick Perry and university education reform

Class,

I'm not sure if this will be of interest to you, but figured I'd post this on both my academic blog and this class blog:

"This university without conditions does not, in fact, exist, as we know only too well. Nevertheless, in principle and in conformity with its declared vocation, its professed essence, it should remain an ultimate place of critical resistance--and more than critical--to all powers of dogmatic and unjust appropration" --Jacques Derrida, "University without Condition"  


In class, we have been discussing endlessly the idea of "education," as understood in Richard Rodriguez's "Achievement of Desire," Paulo Freire's "Banking Concept of Education," and David Foster Wallace's "Address to Kenyon College." All three of these pieces, we could generalize, are inspired by the spirit of the liberal arts, a spirit that maintains that education is more than information or "knowledge." It involves, to use Freire's terms, a "humanization" of the world. As such, a lot of emphasis is placed on the power of the humanities. The university, although it has extended its range (particularly as a state university) has always been rooted in 'humanistic' discourses, as even the notion of "science," in the classical university hardly concerns the producing of "jobs"--which seems the primary goal of Rick Scott: "“If I'm going to take money from a citizen to put into education then I'm going to take that money to create jobs,” Scott said. “So I want that money to go to degrees where people can get jobs in this state.” Rather, the university has always been a place of discovery and invention of knowledge.

Now, I am a far cry from disagreeing that we need jobs in the state and people that are qualified for those jobs. However, is it not the case that most jobs are a function of "on the job training"? In other words, does it hurt people that  majored in English, Philosophy, Sociology, or Psychology? Is the University supposed to give anyone the practical know-how to succeed in a job right out of college? Are there not other institutions, aside from the four year State university that can prepare someone for a job better? Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, is not "humanistic" thinking conducive to innovation. I mean, is it an engineer's courses (for example) or their creative thinking that will lead to innovation? Is it not precisely the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that comes from an individual's creativity that "creates" new jobs.

I realize that I am asking several questions rather than giving answers. I guess what intrigues me about this whole "university reform" thing is how the terms of the argument keep slipping. At the beginning of the article, we have the idea that they want to eliminate Humanistic disciplines. Somehow this is linked to other changes, such as "weeding out unproductive professors and rethinking the system that offers faculty job security."

We might ask what he means by "unproductive professors." At University of Florida, we have, for example, and insanely productive faculty in terms of publications, research, and conferences. Of course, because English would be considered one of the degrees with the "least" job prospects, I suppose this makes English research irrelevant. So "unproductive faculty" seems to be a euphemism for professors who are producing "humanistic research," which, these politicians may argue, is not "research" at all.

And so we get to the other issue: Job security. Namely, that term that makes every conservative politician shutter: tenure. Tenure, people like Texas businessman Jeff Sandefer (who wrote a policy paper for Perry), argue "places too much emphasis on research. To be promoted, faculty must publish original work. As a result, they spend less time in the classroom and often delegate teaching to graduate students" ("Liberal Arts"). Agreeing with this sentiment, former Wall Street Journal Editor Naomi Riley claims, "there really needs to be a refocus on the students in front of you [. . .] They use the people at the bottom to do the teaching" ("Liberal Arts").

Ok, so, the logic is that by abolishing tenure, professors will focus less on research and more on students, which will somehow help produce jobs? But, again, I ask, are the courses that "Science and Math" students take going to help create jobs or simply qualify them for jobs that already exist? Is it not the case that abolishing research (in the sciences) will not allow such benefits of research that should eventually benefit our society?

Riley (Naomi Riley, above--not me--god I'm embarrassed that I have the same name as this person) claims that " top professors produce the kind of work that ensures job security, making tenure irrelevant" ("Liberal Arts"). But as many better and more qualified writers than me have pointed out, tenure is less about merely "job security" and more about academic freedom (see Cary Nelson) . Academic freedom allows professors to inquire and research into what they want to research in. It allows academics to research topics that may not align itself with certain ideologies or market imperatives, thus allowing the research (ideally) to be less influenced by people who, say, might threaten their livelihood if they don't produce the right results. This freedom is just as important in the sciences as it is in the humanities (think climate change research). Thus, tenure is not irrelevant, because it keeps people like Rick Scott from getting rid of departments that don't seem to be doing the right kind of research that supports a particular conception of a university's purpose.

So who is focusing on our students? Well, first off, tenured professors. In the English department, our faculty not only prolifically produce research, but most are teaching undergraduate courses in English. So the fact is, faculty, at least in the Humanistic disciplines, are focusing on undergraduates. Furthermore, it is true that a lot of our basic "survey" courses in English are taught by Ph.D. candidates. My question is, how exactly are we the ones "at the bottom" as if we were completely unprepared to handle undergraduates? Why can't we think about these people positively as those "future professors"?

If teaching in the Humanities is less about merely "transferring" knowledge--if teaching is instead about a co-creation of meaning and knowledge, about facilitating and creating conditions inside and outside the classroom for students to explore and learn, then how does a Ph.D. qualify me any more or less to teach survey courses in English, or, as I do, composition courses? A Ph.D. would qualify me as an expert in my field in research. This is why tenured faculty do research as well as teach.

Clearly, although the politicians try and justify what they do through utilitarian arguments about jobs and the functioning of society, this kind of thinking is an attack on thinking that disrupts the status quo's values. Although I am not someone who believes that my writing heralds the coming revolution or creates the possiblity for utopia, my research and thinking that I do in graduate classes produces the ideas and attitudes that I teach even in my composition class. For me, as for those like Blanchot, writing is disrupting and ambiguous. I would extend that and say that the "humanities" are ambiguous--even the status of humanistic "knowledge" is ambiguous. We deal in questions of value, questions of value that sometimes exceed immediate market gain or merely economic progress in terms of jobs. However, I would argue that it is precisely creative, innovative, and resistant thinking--in whatever discipline--that creates jobs and, ultimately, new human possibilities.By eliminating fields of knowledge,  we close down the possible and, perhaps, more importantly, the (im)possible.  As Jacques Derrida writes,

"I will speak of an event that, without necessarily coming about tomorrow, would remain perhaps--and I underscore perhaps--to come; to come through the university, to come about and to come through it, thanks to it" (Derrida 213).

Works Cited

Taking the liberal arts out of a state university education?

Derrida, Jacques and Peggy Kamuf. "The University Without Condition." Without Alibi. California: Stanford University Press, 2002. Print.

Synthesis Outline

Technology's Peril and Potential 

I. Introduction

       Introduces context

       Summary of texts

       Synthesizing thesis 

II. Compare and contrast of text's "problem" focus

      provides examples and elaboration

III. Compare and contrast text's "response" to this problem

      provides examples and evidence to support point

IV. Synthesis on "moral" questions

      Provides examples from own life/student's "own" thinking

V. Conclusion: reiteration of points, shifting to "we," offers reflection on "warnings" of technology. 

This is a basic outline of the article I sent you all as an example. Again, I'd like to reiterate that you can use these three texts in different ways in order to get your point across. However, the main thing I will be looking at in this synthesis is the flow/structure of the argumentation. I want you to "get somewhere" in the paper.

DFW blogs and Future Synthesis

A lot of you definitely got what DFW was saying in the commencement speech. I realize that this was the "easiest" piece we have read because it was originally given orally and it is a genre that we are all familiar with. Freire's work in particular is of a "theoretical/philosophical" genre that makes it more difficult to comprehend and Rodriguez's was a lengthy scholarly essay.

In your syntheses, it will be really important to not merely erase the several differences among these 3 articles. Indeed, I would recommend that you discuss the three articles in a particular order, showing their relations through making your own argument. Many of you seem to be partial to DFW's point, which is fine. One of the best ways to actually write something meaningful is looking at each piece as a "challenge" to the other. I would argue that much of Freire's piece challenges DFW's piece in ways that we have not explicitly discussed.

The best way to do this is to pay close attention to each of the texts. It will be imperative that you move past summary into more close reading. You will most likely  have to re-read Freire (and Rodriguez) since they have probably faded a bit from your mind.

David Foster Wallace

"I just think that fiction that doesn't explore what it means to be human today isn't art"

short and sweet today. Can't concentrate. Looking forward to seeing what you all wrote about the speech!

"Applying" Knowledge

A lot of you have talked about how we need to learn how to "apply" knowledge rather than just merely learn facts. But is the issue merely one of "application?" Application seems to imply knowledge as something we "use." Indeed, I tend to use the phrase "tool for thinking" when I discuss the ways your book frames the writing process.

However, is there a kind of knowledge that resists use? In a world where everything is in an instrumental relationship with everything else, in a world where our lives operate smoothly and without a hitch, is there room for disruption? Is there room for knowledge, attitudes, or skills that resist this dominant way of engaging with the world?

Is this not what Freire seeks? Knowledge that resists those that oppress others? "The problem-posing method presents this very situation ["the situation within which [we] are submerged"] to them as a problem." Indeed, it is our very situation, our very condition, our very "natural" attitudes and practices that become problematic--that become an invitation to change and resistance.


Food for thought.

Synthesis of Green Day and Toby Keith

In class today, we discussed both these videos, addressing themes such as the enemy (from within or externally), the American Flag, colors of the video, and mediation.

I'd like to "synthesis" Keith's video with another analysis I may have mentioned in class: nocaptionneeded's discussion of the amount of flags shown in a particular photo.

http://www.nocaptionneeded.com/2011/09/inflating-the-na

 

In this post, titled "Inflating the National Value," the author argues that "What the photograph reminds us is that as with the effects of inflation on the dollar, the flag simply doesn’t buy as much as it used to.  And more, that at some deep level we know that but don’t want to admit it."

We may be able to understand these two videos in terms of this claim. Green Day acknowledges the kind of "artificiality" of the flag--the flag is just paint as it is in Jasper Johns' famous work. Keith's video only tacitly acknowledges the "inflation" of the flag because in order to get its point across, the video feels the need to barrage us with various images of the flag: the flag on his guitar, the flag on his head, the flag in the photos, the insane amount of flags in the background on the screen, and, finally, the sort of "subliminal message" flashing of the flag toward the end of the video (between other images).

This is precisely the kind of "propaganda" and control by the media that Green Day is attempting to point out. Green Day acknowledges the artificiality of even the music video, as we see a moment where we can see a video camera filming the band (through yet another video camera). Ironically, the flag in this video comes to stand for "more" (as a painted, and ultimately, erasable flag) than the barrage of patriotism in the Toby Keith video, where the flag has become something we can possess and control (in the form of a guitar, in the form of mini-flag int he audience, etc.

By becoming a ubiquitous commodity, the flag is de-valued such that it needs to be repeated and flown in our face over and over again to get the same effect. And yet, the effect the flag has on this viewer is that the overkill of the flag reveals the video's artificiality. In the same way, we see that the photographs that supposedly show some sort of authentic past or the "live concert" atmosphere that shows a connection between audience and performer are all mediated and artificial. The photographs are presented as a computer-generated slideshow and the "live" concert is not "live" at all because there are several concerts spliced together under a unified (recorded) song.

There's more that can be thought here and I welcome comments, questions, and further interpretations/connections.

Synthesis Prezi

Synthesizing Ideas on Prezi

Philosophical Background to "Banking Concept"

Throughout this post I have provided several links to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entries on these major philosophers. I strongly encourage you to explore these pages and prepare to be perplexed at some of the most original thinkers in human history.


Rene Descartes

 

"Cogito Ergo Sum"

I refer you to the the Standford encyclopedia of Philosophy for a more thorough overview of Descarte's philosophy.

Descartes is famous for his "cogito, ergo sum," meaning "I think, therefore I am." This identified the "real" part of the self as the mind and not the body. The body, for Descartes, is a mechanism controlled by the mind. Descartes had a strange idea that the mind was connected to the body by the "pineal" gland in our body. The "mind" for Descartes is also related to what we might call "soul" to use more theological term (its important to note that Descartes is not an atheist and has involved "proofs" for the existence of God based on his philosophy).

For our purposes, we need to realize that for a strict Cartesian the body is part of the world which are "objects" and we, as thinkers, are "subjects." I mentioned the correspondence theory of truth, which means that we need to attach ideas that we have "in our minds" to objective reality "out there." Descartes was a rationalist which means that we did not get our "ideas" from the external world. Rather, our ideas come from our reason.

Edmund Husserl and Phenomenology

Edmund Husserl was a German philosopher responsible for the philosophical movement phenomenology. The Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy defines phenomenology as

"the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view. The central structure of an experience is its intentionality, its being directed toward something, as it is an experience of or about some object. An experience is directed toward an object by virtue of its content or meaning (which represents the object) together with appropriate enabling conditions." (see above link)

For our purposes, we need to note that phenomenology tries to understand the mind and the body (and the world) for that matter as inextricably intertwined with one another. We are embodied beings and what we called the "world" is not some objective reality "out there" but is created through our experience of the "phenomenon of the world." In contrast, Descartes believed that the mind could be "disembodied" and it would still constitute a subject. Phenomenology led to Sartrean Existential Phenomenology, a major influence on Paulo Freire.


"Intentionality":  "The central structure of an experience is its intentionality, the way it is directed through its content or meaning toward a certain object in the world."

Heidegger

 

We "intend" toward objects because they have meaning for us in the world.


Heidegger, Sartre, and Existentialism'

Jean-Paul Sartre

Existentialism is a difficult term to define. As I said in class, we could define it along with Sartre as "Existence Precedes Essence." Or, we could, along with the Stanford Encyclopedia designate it as "“Existentialism”, therefore, may be defined as the philosophical theory which holds that a further set of categories, governed by the norm of authenticity, is necessary to grasp human existence."

However, I would prefer to look at some of the basic ideas/revolutions in thinking of two major thinkers: Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger

Heidegger

If we remember from above, Husserl claimed that we "intend toward objects" in the world based on the meaning they have for us. Existentialism is a philosophy that speaks about the meaning of human existence and not merely the "fact" of it. As Freire writes, the "Banking concept" does not take into account the meaning of information:

"The outstanding characteristic of this narrative education, then, is the sonority of words, not their transforming power [. . .] the student records, memorizes, and repeats these phrases without perceiving what four times four really means or realizing the true significance of 'capital' in the affirmation 'the capital of Para is Belem" (Freire 318).

A very basic way to understand Heidegger's revolution in thinking is that he thinks about objects as intended objects and affirms that this is the more "essential" way we relate to the world. In other words, we relate to the world not in terms of objects "facts" but what we do with the objects and others that surround us.

The famous example is a hammer. We orient ourselves toward the hammer in order to, for instance, hammer in a nail. We do not see the hammer as an indifferent object, we see it as a tool for use. Heidegger calls this "ready-to-hand" rather than "present-at-hand." Heidegger argues that this is the first way we are in the world. The world is meaningful for us we do not "add" meaning onto an object (as if it were a "quality" added to a "substance").

The "world" is not an objective existence "out there" but rather something formed out of language and meaning. Without man (what Heidegger calls Dasein) there is not world (see Freire pg 325).

Sartre

Sartre's mantra is about human action tranforming the world. We are both "free possibility" and what he calls "facticity." Drawing on Heidegger, we are both "free" and situated. We have many possibilities but we are located in a history (individual and collective). Thus, the situation calls for action from the human subject. For Sartre, the world challenges us to respond and it is only by this response that we in turn act on the world and become.

The relevant idea in Sartre is that if we think that we are "completely free" or "completely determined" we are in what he calls "bad faith." Sartre offers some very concrete examples of what it means to be in "bad faith"


"Sartre cites a café waiter, whose movements and conversation are a little too "waiter-esque". His voice oozes with an eagerness to please; he carries food rigidly and ostentatiously. His exaggerated behaviour illustrates that he is play acting as a waiter, as an object in the world: an automaton whose essence is to be a waiter. But that he is obviously acting belies that he is aware that he is not (merely) a waiter, but is rather consciously deceiving himself.^[1]

Another of Sartre’s examples involves a young woman on a first date. She ignores the obvious sexual implications of her date's compliments to her physical appearance, but accepts them instead as words directed at her as a human consciousness. As he takes her hand, she lets it rest indifferently in his, refusing either to return the gesture or to rebuke it. Thus she delays the moment when she must choose either to acknowledge and reject his advances, or submit to them. She conveniently considers her hand only a thing in the world, and his compliments as unrelated to her body, playing on her dual human reality as a physical being, and as a consciousness separate and free from this physicality.^[2]

Sartre tells us that by acting in bad faith, the waiter and the woman are denying their own freedom, but actively using this freedom itself. They manifestly know they are free but do not acknowledge it. Bad faith is paradoxical in this regard: when acting in bad faith, a person is both aware and, in a sense, unaware that they are free." (from wikipedia)


Applied to Freire and education, if we believe that our students are "passive" we deny their ability to act freely and transform the world. However, at the same time we have to be aware that each student is coming from their own history and facticity. To quote from Freire:

Accordingly, the point of departure must always be with men and women in the 'here and now', which constitutes the situation within which they are submerged, from which they emerge, and in which they intervene. Only by starting from this situation--which determines their perception of it--can they begin to move. To do this authentically they must perceive their state not as fated and unalterable, but merely as limiting--and therefore challenging (Freire 327)

It is here where Freire begins to define "problem poses education as the "problem of situation." By becoming aware of their situation (coming to consciousness as a class or even as an individual) students are able to realize that the very (historical) situation they find themselves within is a "problem" to be questioned and one to be acted upon.


Hegel and Marx: Transforming History

Karl Marx

G.W.F. Hegel

 Hegel

Marx worked out of the tradition of Hegel, a prolific philosopher who basically thought he had accounted for all of history and human thought. Anyone working in the tradition of "continental philosophy" nowadays is working both with and against Hegel (he is a figure to be reckoned with).

In "The Banking Concept," Freire refers to not Hegel's theory of history (which I very very quickly explained in class today), but Hegel's "master-slave dialectic":  "The students, alienated like the slave in the Hegelian dialectic accept their ignorance as justifying the teacher's existence--but, unlike the slave, they never discover that they educate the teacher" (319). The master-slave dialectic recognizes that the relationship between master and slave is complicated because the master, in order to be a master "needs" the slave (or else, he would not be a master). This example is much more complicated than this, so I refer the interested reader to the wikipedia page for more elaboration.

Marx

 Marx wrote in his Theses on Feuerbach, "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it."

Indeed, the whole text of the "Theses" is about moving from description of the world to transforming the world as Freire writes in his text:

The world--no longer something to be described with deceptive words--becomes the object of that transforming action by men and women which results in their humanization. (328)

 This is basically what Marx/Freire means by praxis--human action and theory are inevitably intertwined. Theorizing about the world is also acting in the world.

We act in the world and try and transform the world in order to overcome alienation. While "alienation" has some everyday language connotations, Marx is talking about a specific form of alienation--alienation of labor:

It is important to understand that for Marx alienation is not merely a matter of subjective feeling, or confusion. The bridge between Marx's early analysis of alienation and his later social theory is the idea that the alienated individual is ‘a plaything of alien forces’, albeit alien forces which are themselves a product of human action. In our daily lives we take decisions that have unintended consequences, which then combine to create large-scale social forces which may have an utterly unpredicted effect. In Marx's view the institutions of capitalism — themselves the consequences of human behaviour — come back to structure our future behaviour, determining the possibilities of our action. (from Stanford Enyclopedia entry on Marx)

Thus, just as we are alienated from our labor in Marx, so Freire argues that we are alienated from our own education. What is the consequence of this? The Banking Concept of Education.

 Conclusion

I hope I have shown both in and out of class the complex history and background of Freire's thought. It is not merely an exploration of the classroom situation, but the very idea of education and its relation to authority, power, subjectivity, freedom, possibility, and revolution. It is philosophically grounded in Marxist, Existentialist, and Phenomenological thinking.


Despite having spent about an hour on this post, I have only scratched the tip of the iceberg of these thinkers. Without the texts of these philosophers before me, I feel like I have done them a disservice in my explanations, but we have to start somewhere.

"The Banking Concept of Education"

Banking-Concept

Deposit
passive
Teacher as Subject Student as objects
memorization
Student as container
mangageable beings
Being-for-others
Dichotomy between human beings and world
adapting
necrophily
dead knowledge
oppression'
dehumanizing
mythologizing
Authority
Profit (economy)
Alienation

Problem Posing

Creation
Life/biophily
Student-teacher, teacher-student
consciousness
Revolution
transforming
Subject
intentionality
humanizing
critical
Historicality
Situated
Change
De-mythologizing
emancipation
liberation
Being-for-Self
Action
Authenticity
Inquiry