Gordon Gano On CWR

About a month ago I got the opportunity to interview Gordon Gan, formerly of the Violent Femmes, on Cold War Radio. I think it turned out to be a great interview once it got going. I particularly like the stuff at the end about 'Country Death Song' as a kind of comfort music.

A transcript is also available on radio.utdallas.edu, where the interview was originally broadcast.

Enjoy, I had a lot of fun doing it.

Click here to download the interview.

The Golden Age

Interesting YouTube Invention sent to me by a friend. The Freaks reference is particularly unnerving. Enjoy.

Interesting Lecture Oppertunity

This turned up in my mailbox today and I wanted to pass it along. Very relevant to class (especially our current section). If you get a chance, I recommend attending. See you there.

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The Gender Studies Program and the Women’s Center at the University of Texas at Dallas

will be co-sponsoring a lecture by

Judy Norsigian

Executive Director and co-founder of the Boston Women's Health Book Collective

Co-author of Our Bodies, Ourselves

“The Impact of the Media on Women’s Health: Sorting Fact from Fiction”

This presentation explores how the media report on selected women’s health concerns. Topics include: body image and cosmetic surgery, pregnancy and childbirth, menopause, tobacco use in women, advertising of prescription and over-the-counter drugs, environmental exposures, and the risks of egg extraction procedures used in infertility clinics and for embryonic stem cell research egg donations. The talk also offers tips for finding reliable women’s health information on the internet.

Judy Norsigian, executive director and a founder of the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, is a co-author of Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Bodies, Ourselves: Menopause and Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth. Judy speaks and writes frequently on a wide range of women's health concerns. She has appeared on numerous national television and radio programs, including OPRAH, the TODAY show, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, THE EARLY SHOW and NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. She served on the board of the National Women's Health Network for 14 years and currently serves as a board member for Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research.

The presentation will take place on Thursday 23 October from 6 – 7:15 p.m. in the McDermott Suite (MC4.4, fourth floor of McDermott Library, near the top of the stairs). It is free and open to the public.

Information on parking and driving directions can be found at:

http://www.utdallas.edu/visitors-index.html

Gender & Videos

Here are the videos we used in class. Our goal was to examine the narrative of these videos, specifically looking for how ideas like masculinity and femininity are depicted in these stories. How do the narratives of these stories jive with the list we brainstormed in class (the tragic frame of gender). How could the comic corrective be applied to disrupt the tragic reading?

• Cassie
• New Music

• Lil Wayne
• New Music

• Danity Kane
• New Music

Fantastic Article About Perspective By Incongruity.

I stumbled across this article just tonight. If you are having trouble understanding perspective by incongruity (or even if you aren't) this article does a pretty good job of applying Burke's method in a very personal and concrete way. The article is by Dustin Bradley Goltz from the journal Genders, published in June 2007. Click here to read it.

McCain Ad Narrative Assignment

I decided to make a little change to our class assignments. I was a little disappointed with myself for class on Thursday and so I wanted to give the basics of narrative criticism another go around in class, this time with a better set of examples.

Below I have selected 6 ads from the McCain 2008 election campaign. For this assignment please watch the videos below (we'll do this in class on Tuesday 9-30) with an eye towards the construction of the narrative elements. Think in terms of the procedures we walked through last week. Who are the characters, what is the setting, plot and conflict? Who constructs the message and who is it meant to influence?

Once you have a thumbnail's sketch of the narrative characteristics begin by constructing a possible research questions. What are your impressions of the videos? As a critic, what strikes you about the stories? What parts of the story stand out and why? When you have developed a research question, the next strep is to propose a possible thesis, or main argument. In a sentence or two describe how you will approach the research question and the specific direction that your criticism will take. Keep in mind that the method (in this case narrative criticism) should be a part of your thesis and connected to your overall argument.

Once you have completed the first two steps, I want you to write a short essay 1-2 pages that proposes a paper using the videos as an artifact. No, I don't expect you to really write a longer paper about the ads. This assignment is to help you through a process of analyzing a mediated narrative and practice asking critical questions and constructing a thesis.

Your essay should be posted to your blog no later than Tuesday, October 7. This will count as your third in-class writing.

Artifacts from the Future

Hooray! I have long been one of those readers that skipped to the back of WIRED to peruse the Artifacts from the Future section first. The artists rendering of our possible futures was always entertaining and provocative. Now, WIRED is opening the section to readers and offering us a chance to put our Photo Shop skills to the test and predict our not too distant future.

I'm still thinking about how I'll use this in class. Some suggested extra credit for working on this side project...so perhaps there are a few extra points in it for the hearty and inspired student.

At any rate, click here to read more about the contest. This month is the McDonalds of the Future!