(no subject)

[jawnbc]

Uriel. You’re most like the ArchAngel of
Transformation. You like teaching, and
bringing the joy of learning new stuff to
others. You have limited patience for stupid
people despite having an amazing amount of
patience otherwise.


Which ArchAngel are you most like?
brought to you by Quizilla

Comments

surveys

[art-thirst.livejournal.com]

Since I've seen a few of you LJ users with these surveys I have been tempted to take them myself. They can be interesting but they also seem so culturally limiting. I took the one you did, "Where does your soul come from," and it offered colors that I would never choose, hair types that exculded mine, and said my soul was from the Middle Ages? If a more culturally aware person was making up a survey I wonder if it could give the option of being a Mayan royal, or Rootworker for instance. I know you know what a rootworker is. :-)

Additionally, my weakest area in art history is the Middle ages. I find the aggressiveness of the early Christians an affront. By the time of the Baroque African slavery was in full tilt and the so-called heathens were being lead to a new and better life (obviously not for those enslaved). Anyway, the assumed cultural superiority of northern Europe at that time is an interesting choice but, I wouldn't want to be part of the Middle ages. Goth... gawd! :-)

Re: surveys

[jawnbc]

yeah I don't disagree at all. There is a mechanism on quizzila.com to create your own (dunno how it works). But I do it as a form of whimsy more than anything substantive.

Of course, when I did the "what nationality are you?" quiz and it said I was English, I was right pissed off!

Re: surveys

[art-thirst.livejournal.com]

Yeah... whimsy is a good word for it. However, it can be insulting at times. You don't dislike like me because I have some English blood a few generations back do ya? In this case I think it was consensual. *wink*

BTW, I noticed a reference to Foucault in one of your recent postings. Gawd, I find him difficult to read. I prefer Deleuze & Guattari, although they are difficult to read in a different way. I used "Thousand Plateaus" for one of my essays in my 3rd grad semester's paper. I got the book via interlibrary loan and arrived at the beginning of Dec. and the semester ended in Jan. How's that for causing a heart attack when I opened it to read? Obviously, I got thru grad school but that baptism was a shock.

[jawnbc]

Yeah a pal from grad skool and I were talking about that a few months ago--remember when Foucault used to make us cry?

Gore Vidal (who I loathe) once had a young pup complain at one of his lectures that reading his (non-fiction) required keeping a thesaurus and dictionary close at hand--and challenged whether Vidal's work was of any relevance,if such minstrations were required.

"That," ole Gore replied, "is called reading."

Then again, it's all about audience isn't it? I often feel I speak numerous languages, particularly dialects of English.

"That," ole Gore replied, "is called reading."

[art-thirst.livejournal.com]

When I started grad school, we were asked about our first papers and which theorist would form the primary readings. My reply was I didn't want to read anymore theory. I had read most of their reading list by that point. I had stopped reading Roland Barthes, "Mythologies," just before I started grad school because I just couldn't take it anymore. I told my academic advisor I was going to read fiction for a change. I read Zora Neale Hurston, Franz Fanon, and Wole Soyinka, but I was told I needed to frame my readings within a critical context, which I did. Every paper I wrote in grad school came back saying I had exceeded the expectations. That made me feel very good and confidence to embark upon more writing since finishing school. Every paper I wrote was twice the length of what was required (although length doesn't make it better in and of itself) and, I did my best to make sense of the complex subjects of my papers.

Two of those papers are on my art website. They are titled: "Transcendence and Transformation," and "Outside the Institutional Frame." Writings.

I think one of the main reasons students in general write so poorly is because they don't read. I've had students turn in papers with "instant msg/IRC" shorthand more than a couple times, even though I've warned them a college paper is not the appropriate place for it. And dictionaries? Puhleeeeze....