Hi all:
Welcome to the blog for Writing 50 spring quarter, 2011.
I will be asking you to post to this blog
frequently. The posts will be used for class discussion and as
a collection point for ideas and quotations for your papers.
PLEASE
NOTE: This blog is in public space. Anyone can look at it. If you
are
concerned for your privacy, please do not use your real name here.
Create something else and let me know what it is.
Your post will
not necessarily appear right after you write it. I look through them to
make sure the posts are appropriate for our purposes.
Again:
Welcome.
Nick
Hi all:
For this entry, read "The True Cost of Gadgets."
Find a quotation from the article that interests you, or seems most
important, or you have a question about.
Type it into the comment box and then add a few lines saying why you
picked this quotation.
For me the Suzuki article is important because it helps me remember how
much things have changed in the last two decade and also points to the
broader ecological and environmental consequences of consumerism.
It's pretty easy to read.
Hi all:
This is a pretty easy and straight forward read on the early stages of consumer society.
Sort of interesting to realize how long the basic elements of it have been around, since probably the 18th century.
But, as we will see, it wasn't until the 20th Century that it came to full flower.
Pick a quotation from the reading, type it into comment box, and write about why you picked it.
Thanks.
Nick
Hi all:
Please read "Setting the Course."
This is an historical piece taken from the best history of the
development of consumer society that I have yet to find.
You will find a lot of historical facts. Don't worry about that. You
don't have to memorize them. Instead let your imagination work on the
examples. See if you can begin to feel what it was like to shop, say,
in the 19th century, and how that differs from shopping today. And pay
attention to the ideas or assertions Cross throws out about the nature
of the consumer society, how for example it functioned in a democracy of
goods against class conflict.
When you are finished reading, pick a quotation you think important and
write a few lines about why you picked it. Or paraphrase one of Cross's
ideas or examples and write about that and why you find it important.
Thank you.
Hi all:
"Why the Self is Empty" is an academic article. It's
too long, the print is too small, it's full of citations and names you
won't (and don't have to) know.
Forget that stuff and read for
the main idea. Cushman is trying to talk about how consumerism shaped
identity as older and more traditional forms of identity formation
slipped away.
Do as you did with the last blog comment. Either
pick a quotation, type it in, and then write a few lines saying why you
think it important or, more generally, try to paraphrase the main point
of the article in a paragraph or so.
Thank
you.
Nick
Hi all:
This article is by Zygmunt Bauman. I have never had any
heroes (except maybe for Micky Mantle and Bob Dylan). But now Bauman is
my hero, not so much for what he has to say about consumer society, but
because he is still saying lively, interesting stuff at 85 years of
age. I can only hope my brain works as well as his at 85.
He is a
pretty astute observer of consumer society. Formerly an academic
sociologist, he is widely read in sociology and other stuff. In this
article he brings up Nietzsche. Not the usual sociological stuff.
You
have to take time with his writing. It's not fast food; you can't just
swallow it down on the go. You have to sit down and chew a little.
Again,
as with previous posts to the blog, pick an interesting quotation, type
it in, and write a few lines about why you picked it. Or try to
paraphrase his line of thinking. You can of course include a quotation
in this too.
Hi all:
By this point, we have done a good deal of reading about
and discussing of the consumer society.
In order to get you to
"brainstorm" a bit and to get an idea of what you might like to say
about what we have read and discussed, I would like you to write the
first two paragraphs of your paper 1. Of course, these may not be your
first two paragraphs when you get around to writing the real rough
draft.
Also don't try to write a two paragraph paper. Try to
write an actual start, leaving where the thing might from there rather
open ended.
Nick
Hi all:
For this comment entry, please post two or three URLs
relative to what might be your possible research topic.
Before
pasting in the URLs write a couple of lines about what we will find in
the URLs.
Also, for in-class, run off hard copy of two or three
pages of material relative to your possible research topic and bring
that to class.
See you soon.
Nick
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