More on Crabs

Sadly… Alisha and I have yet to partake of Maryland’s famous crabs here. However we attended some cool things today and I shall recount them in chronological order.

We attended the panel: Top Competitive Papers in Voices of Diversity

An Advanced Intercultural Communication Project exploring the Relationship among DNA Ancestry Profiles, Narrative, and the Social Construction of Race (top paper) – Anita Foeman, West Chester University

This was such an interesting paper! Unfortunately we walked in too late to hear the whole part of it but it was about testing persons’ DNA and tracing the ancestry then recording some of the reactions to the information that the test revealed. Like… how does a “white” person react when she finds out she’s got african blood? How does an African American react when they discover asian and european blood? How are these reactions different? What does that tell us? It changes how we see ourselves and how we define others around us. Like, all of a sudden the idea of “foreigner” is quite different. Her research including people of all sorts of different backgrounds and her stories were so great. Fascinating research! And she really knew her stuff.At first I was a bit leery about DNA definitions of race but I think Dr. Hostetler explained it well enough to my irrational mind that I don’t have a problem with it.  It isn’t really a DNA definition of race but a mere… look we have the DNA from this area of the world oh so long ago and you look like you have some of that so… Yeah, awesome!

Domesticating the Muslim Other: A Critical Investigation of Aliens in America (top student paper) – Joseph Saei, College of Charleston

I have never seen the TV show Aliens but now I sort of want to. Joseph explored the different myths that he thought were being played upon in the show. His presentation focused on the myth of the model minority working withing the US society’s perspective to earn tolerance. He was of the slave type as a Pakistani exchange student in a midwest white family who are clearly not as hardworking. So it’s a domestication of Raja (the protagonist) but not as an individual phenomenon but in making the Muslim body more reachable. What is clear from his presentation is that there was a lot more going on in his paper than he disclosed in his short ~ 15 minutes. It was refreshing that his criticism was balanced. He was like… look the show makes a good multi culturalism argument and is trying to do something for the placement of Muslims in the american mindset but it falls prey to some pretty big issues. For example, he touched on how raja’s character development takes a backseat to the family’s angsty teenager. really interesting paper and I felt like I could have some fascinating talks with him over coffee or whatever by the way he made such poetic correlations to what he was doing. I can’t remember what they were now. I think one was a harlem ren poet. I was feelin’ it at the time. Those kinds of people have magical minds and I wanna be in company with ’em.

True Blood: The Narrative of the Living Dead – Meredith Hitchins, College of Charleston

I smiled all the way through this presentation. The presenter was SO dynamic. Great flow and very funny. She performed a narrative structure. Her initial question was about the captivation that True Blood is capable of. What is the appeal to vampires anyway? Her argument was that the show reflects cultural discourses on: (1) sexuality (2) discrimination and (3) gender and power structures. I had no idea that the show updated our idea of TV sexuality with a vampire form of AIDS (Hep D, apparently?). Also the taboo coupling updates and normalizes the issue of inter-racial and homosexual dating. That this is placed in the South is clearly a heavy factor in the power of these examples. Lastly she discussed the relationship between Bill and Sookie and how it is much more complicated than a traditional female submission. Really cool pop culture rhetoric stuff and considering how put together the presentation was I can only imagine the paper was that kind of impressiveness.

What are They Like? Non-Expert Definitions of Stereotypes and their Implications for Stereotype Maintenance – Anastacia Kurylo, Marymount Manhattan College (she used to be an adjunt at St. Johns and this is part of her dissertation)

Parts of this presentation I missed because I was sitting on the floor and all sorts of me was getting numb. Then in the back of the room I discovered that hot air is supremely uncomfortable while wearing a cashmere sweater so I stepped out for like two minutes.

Her presentation was huge. She discussed in detail the inaccuracy and the many (4) inconsistencies in expert discourse on Stereotypes – what they are, what they mean, judgments about them. So her question was if experts can’t get it a good grasp on it, can non-experts? What do they have to say.

She had participants write out their definition of a stereotype and then she did all sorts of complicated analysis on the answers to come up with 20 themes then collapsed to 5 or 6 (I couldn’t write fast enough). So the answers were fairly across the board and still suffered problems of accuracy and consistent judgment (I think). As may be guessed, she seemed to be saying that people admitted that stereotypes serve a function. Now that I am writing about it I realize how simplistic my understanding is of what her research revealed. Ug, I’ve failed my blog followers.

MMK, well it’s late and Alisha and I are gonna work on our poster presentations for tomorrow morning. It’s gonna be cool, I think. I hope. Also, tomorrow I will be attending some panels that are about teaching. So cool.

Baltimore Aquarium At Night - The National Aquarium

In the evening Alisha and I thoroughly enjoyed the Baltimore Aquarium. We ran around trying to see all that we could before meeting up with Dr. Hostetler for dinner at an Irish Pub on the Bay. We bought matching Aquarium t-shirts (cute, right?). We also fell in love with Baltimore’s jellyfish! And I made a fool of myself in expressing a completely underdeveloped but sounded-so-cool-and-profound-in-my-head comment to some ECA professor I didn’t even know. He wasn’t impressed – no duh.

but they are still super cool:

The Object of Alisha and My Fascination

Dinner was beautiful. There were performers on the water’s edge doing 40s-60s a capella and then some guitarists. The music coupled with a gorgeous summer view and two people I really enjoy… (also salmon dinner with beer) I had a very nice evening. So much more to tell about.

The Complexities of a Childhood Hero

The Courthouse Ring: Atticus Finch and the limits of Southern liberalism.

by Malcolm Gladwell: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/10/090810fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all

My Reaction to the above article:

Who read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and did not fall in love with the strong, brilliant and moral character of Atticus Finch? This article is heart breaking. I had a strange reaction to it when I read it and I’d like to try and break it down:

–         I felt and still feel eternally grateful to my very good friend and fellow debater, Sam, for sending it my way. He prefaced that it had me all over it and that is somewhat calming. I like to know that there is a visible trend in my questions and explorations. Some solid ground remembered. However…

–         I felt that I lost a childhood hero. I mean, I argued with my parents and brothers for days that our new kitten should not be named Max (after some violent general in ancient history) but instead Atticus because who doesn’t want a cat who’s name bears with it so much social justice? (I lost that battle, if you’re interested. His name is Max.) While reading, my brain overloaded trying to justify Finch’s choices. But these were excuses. Respect for law can only go so far. It is valuable but should probably be re-examined when innocent individuals are sentenced so unjustly (from Finch’s perspective this sentence was unjust). Another excuse I mentally made was that he had to rebuke hatred for individuals like Hitler because he should not have wanted to raise his child to foster this kind of emotion in anyway. Yet, Hitler orchestrated millions of brutal deaths and I agree with the author: probably a good thing for a child to grow up hating. If you want social change then you should call things what they are. There is so much untapped potential in his character as an agent of change.

–         The heart wrenching part of the article is about Mayella. The swap of prejudices is in no way progress. I agree. And the construction of Mayella in the courtroom seems like a dastardly low move for Finch and thus for Lee. (Is it more dastardly, though, for the me to not have empathized/recognized her plight – in society and in that courtroom?) It is a difficult choice then to trust the apparently honest words of Tom Robinson and the narrator in unfolding the story as such. And what happens in real life when we pick a side? I’ve no desire to further entrench racial hatred but I am also far from desirous of a society that doubts the words of the raped and dehumanizes members of lower classes.

Atticus, you might not be the man I thought you were.

The complexities keep coming.