Discussions of sex, sexuality, and gender have always frustrated me because they are such meaningless, fluid concepts. When I try to define sexuality, I get frustrated because I think people, as animals, do not need or follow categories and definitions for sexuality. However, I feel that it’s important to note society’s need to define sexuality, as Moran reminds us that, “from the late nineteenth century onward, the homosexual became a named category or species, whereas previously same-sex love had just been an activity undertaken by a wide variety of people” (97).
Common Knowledge v Common information (Connotation v Denotation?)
I feared that attending another plagiarism talk would prove to be a fruitless endeavor, being that I’ve heard the content more or less a dozen times before. I’m sure the people delivering the talks have heard criticisms from people like me before (people who think they’ve heard it all) and still continue to witness events of plagiarism, thereby solidifying the importance of the talks. What I find to be interesting at these talks (and necessary to address) is one’s inability to hand in the same work for more than one class. In high school, though I never attempted to do this for fear of all my teachers having some mass anti-Sarah congregation, I did not fully realize the importance of avoiding this. If a certain assignment fits the requirements for more than one class, and you yourself have produced that assignment, why not hand it in? I suppose the answer is simple: you’re getting nothing out of handing in that same paper more than once, you’re not encouraging yourself to think differently, to produce more work from a different perspective, etc.
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Delayed Response to English and Pretension
While I can understand the logic behind the “English majors are pretentious because they are” theory, I think it is difficult to refute because it seems incriminating. Out rush the “Hey, I’m not pretentious!” responses, which are easily ignored as they seem to adhere to the whiny nature of the supposed pretentious English major. Simply, it is impossible to claim one is not pretentious without looking dramatic and self-pitying, and therefore, pretentious. But I think saying “English majors are pretentious because they are” can be a bit dangerous.
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Problems with Meridian Part 2
I am torn on my ideas on the portrayal of white women in Meridian, mainly because I feel that many of the accusations are earned. Obviously, my interactions with white women have occurred on strictly a 21st century basis, so I am biased.
Meridian’s grandmother “held strong opinions which she expressed in this way: 1. She had never known a white woman she liked after the age of twelve. 2. White women were useless except as baby machines which would continue to produce little white people who would grow up to oppress her. 3. Without servants all of them would live in pigsties” (110). Upon reading this section I had agreed with this depiction of white women, remembering a similar sentiment in Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave.
Problems with Meridian Part 1
Throughout the majority of Meridian I had silently but distantly disliked Truman, appreciated Meridian, and couldn’t fully understand Lynne’s character.
My distaste for Truman swelled after Lynne’s rape, when he confronts Tommy Odds and asks why Odds raped his wife.
This conversation, about Odds raping Lynne, should not have been about race, and was certainly not about atoning for sins. The next couple pages make me sputter with anger, so much so that I find it difficult to develop a coherent argument without snapping the book closed and throwing it somewhere.
Perception of Female and Male Bodies
Reading about the way Lynne copes with (or attempts to cope with) her rape reminded me directly of the story I am reading for my creative writing class, and Moran’s meditations on feminism. The men in Lynne’s life challenge her experiences and promptly dismiss them (“[Altuna Jones] looked at Lynne with pity, for she had obviously not been—in his opinion—raped”) and following the assault Lynne has sex out of obligation, grief (175). She is degraded by both the men and women in town, as the men ignore her and the women “began to curse her and to threaten her” (180).
In Cheryl Strayed’s autobiographical work, “The Love of My Life,” she documents the defeating loss and grief she felt upon the early death of her mother. Though married, she copes (or attempts to cope with) the loss by having sex with men and women she does not know and will not remember. In these encounters she experiences a separation from her body: “With them, I was not in mourning; I wasn’t even me. I was happy and sexy and impetuous and fun.” While emotionally she feels no connection to these encounters or the people she has them with, her friends and family cut her off, and in her grieving she develops an addiction to heroin.
Fascinated by Queer Theory
Moran’s investigations into feminist theory offer an interesting probe into queer theory. He notes society’s need to categorize and diagnose sexuality: “from the late nineteenth century onward, the homosexual became a named category or species, whereas previously same-sex love had just been an activity undertaken by a wide variety of people” (97). Sexuality not only needs to be defined and categorized, but also it becomes tied to personality, becomes “entangled in much wider issues… of masculinity, capitalism, and national identity” (99).
At the Trans? Fine By Me talk I went to recently, one of the speakers mentioned a man who was gay who was assaulted. However, she noted, this man was not assaulted for his sexuality. He was not with his partner, and therefore the assailant would have no way of knowing his sexuality. Rather, he was assaulted because the assailant believed he failed at his gender. He was believed to not be actively expressing his masculinity enough, and because of this, the assailant believed he was homosexual. Thus, his masculinity tied directly to his sexuality, as Moran suggests is a common fault.
Cultural Cultivation of Space
My oldest sister is a landscape architect. When this is brought up at family gatherings, a wayward (and often intoxicated) aunt or uncle will laugh, “You spent all that money on school to plant grass?” or “I’ll give you a dollar to mow my lawn.”
Contrary to the ideas of drunken relatives, landscape architects deal with space. Specifically, they work to actively shape and develop spaces to work and function in certain ways. They directly remind us of what Moran affirms, that space is “culturally produced,” and is “produced by a whole range of different agents and practices,” “specifically by forging links between geography and other links” such as sociology (Moran 150).
Interdisciplinarity of Everyday Life
Stressing the importance and the interdisciplinary nature of everyday life, Moran explains that daily “cultural practices” often slip through the “surveillance networks” of society (59). He contends the myth of the “modern triumph of the ‘expert’ over the ‘philosopher,’” dismisses the importance of “compartmentalizing” academics, and speaks to the importance and depth of everyday events (60). Everyday events are inherently interdisciplinary, shaping us, our perceptions, and the way we see and view other disciplines.
In a high school philosophy class, my teacher has asked us, “If we know we’re going to die, why follow the rules? Why be moral?” Which, of course, spawns more questions and frustration than answers. Inevitably, the class devolves into an even more confounding and frustrating cesspool of questions, “What’s the point of being alive? Do we have any impact in the grand scheme of things? Does life have importance?”
On Being a Creative Writing Major
A line from Moran’s Interdisciplinarity that my mind keeps circling around like water around a drain is, ““unlike many other disciplines, English does not make a strong connection between education and training for future careers” (18). I sort of view the Creative Writing major as the pot-smoking younger brother of the literature major, which is the ugly stepchild of the science majors.
I had gone to an English Professor and confessed my fears about being a creative writing major, “I know it’s what I want to do, but I don’t know if it’s the smartest thing to do. Like, what if I graduate and the only place that hires me for the rest of my life is Starbucks?”