Media and the Body

Art show poster from the Savannah College of Art and Design

This week we are discussing issues around the interaction between media and the body. The reading for this week is Oryx and Crake,  a novel by Margaret Atwood.  In this novel a post-human future is considered and described as well as the transition to that future.  In the 21st century a post-human future seems not only inevitable but even imaginable as a near term reality. Perhaps a post-human evolution is the only way we can adapt to the large changes humans are making in the environment. Please bring your notebook computers to this week's class as we attempt a few in-class research and response projects to look at current aspects of the body and its relation to media. We will look at some of the ways the body has become a medium.

The writing assignment for this week will be to post an image that you think summarizes some aspect of the relationship between media and the body. Write a post of approx. 350 words describing and/or commenting on the relationship you have observed.

Media History, Media Production, Media Culture

To alter Wittgenstein, we 21st century humans live in media like a fish lives in water.  Media is environment, and like all environment it is dynamic, changing and evolving. The study of the history of media generally and the history of invidual media suggests certain patterns to the evolution of media. Today we will consider the circumstance of the American Cinema, its history, technology, production, fan culture, auteurs, social history, etc. In short, the complex intersections on which indivdual works are situated. We will talk about how to describe works in terms of this situation. We will consider the idea that the study of media is the study of a series of cultural events and how media itself frames our perception of those events. We will be led to describe the optic of media and examine the terms and frameworks of our description.

This week's reading was Nathanael West's Day of the Locusts. We will take some time in this week's class to discuss the novel and the myths and realities of Hollywood, the film industry and the medium of the movies with an eye to considering what the study of movies and of individual films can tell us about the study of media in general.

For additional reading one can read an early example of American cultural criticism, Gilbert Seldes Seven Lively Arts.

The Hunger Games

Jennifer Lawrence and Liam Hemsworth star in the Hunger Games Movie

Reading Assignment: For this week read the novel, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Required Movie: Metropolis dir. Fritz Lang

Service Learning Project at the Broach School

I will see you Tuesday morning at the Broach School, 3005 26th St. W. in Bradenton. From the School you go North on U.S. 41 until you get to Cortez Road in Bradenton. At Cortez Rd. take a left and go West. Get in the right lane and go until you get to 26th St. which is beyone the Home Depot which will be on your right. At 26th Street turn right and go North until you come to 31 st. Ave. the Broach School is between 31st Ave and 30th Ave. on the right. You can park in the parking lot of the catholic church across the street. Their are very few parking spaces at the school.

You should get there by 9:00 a.m.. You will be able to leave by 11:00 a.m. to get back for your next class.

You will be working with small groups of kids from the school with whom you will collaborate in the context of your media project. Please post your project idea on your blog before you come to the school. Afterwards, please relate on your blog how it went and post some documentation of the project you did with the student.

The school number is 751-2525 if you get lost.