domingo, 11 de dezembro de 2016

Creative writing by Maria Kopke: Who Protects the Black Man?

Who protects the black man?
Where is this super-hero
With his shiny red cape and perfect hair
Carrying the American Dream on his back?

The black man’s super-hero
Is an invisible man.
He’s a drunken old invisible man
Who promised he’d be there
So the black man put his life on this super-hero’s hands.

Hands up Don’t Shoot I can’t breathe
The black man’s super-hero is out there, somewhere.
He comes late to the crime scene
Where the black man is lying dead.

Who protects the black man?
Where is that TV detective
With his eagle eyes and funny hat,
Bringing all injustice to an end?

The black man’s TV detective
Is a short-sighted man.
“He had a gun in his hand”, he says
Pointing to a skittles bag
And here lies another black man.

Hands up Don’t Shoot I can’t breathe
The black man’s superhero is out there, somewhere, he swears.
But the black man’s faith in men in capes and funny hats
Is wearing thin.

There’s no more time for having dreams
Of super-somethings and American Things.
So, who protects the black man?

Well, who else, if not the black man?

terça-feira, 6 de dezembro de 2016

Debate 7: For Generation Y (Ana Margarida, Carolina V Pinto, Fiona)


In this debate we will defend our generation, the generation Y. This generation is often seen as lazy, narcissistic and spoiled. We want to prove to the previous generations otherwise and by that we will use as arguments the fact that our generation was born surrounded by technology and therefore we can use it in ways that previous generations cannot.

            On the one hand, our generation has more capacity to participate more deeply with technology, using technology and more specifically social media to promote good things, such as voluntary work and “communicating health-related information”, (Ruth N.Bolton, page 253) and even to make a change in the world, especially when it comes to fighting for civil rights.
Arab Spring is an example of how internet usage can be beneficial. Social media played an important role here because it connected and organized groups of people that triggered massive street demonstrations. Arabian youth were the ones that shared the information among themselves, not the previous generations.

On the other hand, even though Generation Y has lived on a daily basis with technology, its presence has, definitely, good outcomes. As argued on the article “Generation Y vs Generation X on social media”, by Chelsea Rakonza, a studied showed that “Generation Yers are independent, entrepreneurial thinkers who relish responsibility, demand immediate feedback, and expect a sense of accomplishment hourly”. This means, that through the use of technology our generation was able to be more creatively active, not only on discussions on current situations, but also on the response to new forms, such as new ways of working like co-working spaces.
Nowadays the majority of businesses rely upon social networking to promote their products or activities and to strengthen their relationship with the customers. Also many companies suggest that their employers are active on their social media platforms.

When it comes to creative thinking, the Generation Y is the most creative generation that has ever existed. Being the most high-educated generation in America, they struggle to find a stable job. Young unemployment has reached levels that were never seen before and because of that Generation Y needs to figure out new ways of making a living. They use digital platforms as a way to promote their work and also to create work. Crowdsourcing, for exemple, is a model of sourcing to divide work between participants in order to get new ideas and solutions.

Generation Y is also changing their views regarding lifestyle behaviour. Today we much more likely to rent something rather than buying, whether it is a house, a car or a certain product. Owning something is not the most important thing any longer. Seeking experiences and living them is what our generation is looking forward now and that is what makes our generation really creative.

Debate 7: Against Generation Y (Miguel C, Sara, Simão, Giulia)


Although Generation Y is characterized by a boom of new independent business owners and entrepreneurs, these aren’t really looking for long-term success and commitment, thus ending up being cheap copies of corporations originally funded by elder generations, with the single goal of making a quick profit, whilst keeping an eye on new ways to create profit with different businesses. This pretty much sums up the fact that the Millennials never settle down and fight for what they want, they are very unstable when it comes to work. Company guidance was just one of the many examples we, the team against Y’ers, found to describe this generation, but the truth is, these younger folks don’t really settle down for anything at all. Bigger companies aren’t really keen on hiring them either because they tend to jump from job to job, always looking for another place to work. They’re never happy where they are and with what they’re doing.
Generation Y’s individuality is a paradox. They keep in touch all the time – without seeing each other – which means they remain isolated constantly, even though they might think otherwise. This generation can keep in touch with thousands of people daily, but in reality, human interaction is out of the equation, since most contact is done through modern technology and social media. In some aspects this could be a plus, if it wasn’t for the fact that now, more than ever, society has taken a whole new step towards helpless isolation and hopeless lack of companionship. This generation can’t rely on help on the most mundane tasks firstly because about 90% of interaction is currently taken online, and one cannot really tell friends and “friends” apart while being on social media. Social hype is many times mistaken for friendship.

Generation Y was raised to believe their parents are their friends. This would be absolutely fine if it wasn’t for the fact that the strict respect it took many generations to pass on is now gone, meaning that not only Y’ers trust their parents as If they were their friends, but also that they treat them like so. Even though they aren’t the ones to be blamed for this, but instead their parents, there is a massive flaw in this way of parenting. Millennials were raised to believe we should be equals independently of the age gap between two people. The big problem is, by seeing their parents as their buddies, they tend to forget not everyone takes that lightly. And whether it’s in the new office they just started working for, or the bus station they just arrived to, or even the classroom they’re in, if there is someone about the same age as their parents, their brain will automatically assume that person is to be treated as an equal, a person of the same age. There are no boundaries to the way they might behave, or the way they might speak. This, many times, can lead to (intentional or unintentional) disrespect. On the other hand, not everyone wants to be a confidant or behave like they’re in their 20’s-30’s, and can actually take that the wrong way.
Generation Y is in constant need of guidance and approval. Once again, the way they were raised is what caused this flaw in their behavior. Because of their parents, Y’ers seek the appraisal their elders gave them in order to preserve their self-esteem. These children got used to think whatever they strived for, even if not much at all, was good enough for them. That getting rewarded for just participating in some sort of competition was good enough. They were assured they had no weaknesses at all whatsoever, but instead, only weaker strengths. This might’ve been a good thing in their teen years, but when they grow up, they’ll still seek for that approval. The truth is, this generation cannot work by themselves, instead, they look for guidance within older generations — which wouldn’t be a bad thing, except for the fact that they always depend on it to advance with whatever they’re working on. Also, whenever these kids are working on something, either work or education related, if they get called on for doing something wrong, they get defensive or deflect the fault, and many times they simply quit. They can’t take criticism, whether constructive or not, simply because they’re not used to doing something somewhat wrong, but instead, always doing something somewhat right.

sábado, 3 de dezembro de 2016

Madonna, American Pie (2000) vs. Lana Del Ray, National Anthem (2012)



Other terms related to pastiche and parody - and likewise used sometimes interchangeably and sometimes variably by different critics - are satire and irony. A safe distinction between them is that whereas satire generally is a playful imitation with a moral purpose, irony is often used by agents who cannot decide on morals or on a metaphysic fundament of the world (as happened with romantic irony, where speakers both believed and disbelieved what they said). Postmodernist irony is arguably more extreme. According to Lisa Coletta (see article on "Political Satire and Postmodernist Irony" in your volume). Postmodernist irony, reflecting a pervasive awareness or unreality (or reality and history as construction) replaces meaning with the appearance of meaning - i. e., the world is incoherent, we are in with the joke, but we cannot break from it. This practice frequently entails anachronism, which, despite Linda Hutcheon's optimism, runs the risk of de-historicizing the past (or, on the contrary, does it show it as not such an idyllic / mythic place anyway?)

Debate #5: Bob Dylan does not deserve the Nobel (Débora, Carolina C., Jéssica, Youri)


Bob Dylan não merece o Nobel da literatura. Defendendo isto, gostaríamos de deixar claro que não nos interessa atacar a obra de Bob Dylan – um dos mais influentes músicos norte-americanos, que é ouvido (e não lido) por todo o mundo, que foi fortemente influenciado pela cultura popular americana – da música de Woody Guthrie à literatura de John Steinbeck. No entanto, ser um músico importante, ser conhecido no mundo inteiro e ter-se inspirado na música de Guthrie (que ele não reproduz) ou nos livros de Steinbeck (que, apesar das influências, terá uma prosa bastante diferente das letras das canções de Dylan), não são argumentos que façam dele sequer um candidato meritório de receber o prémio Nobel.

Primeiro, gostaríamos de fazer notar o óbvio: o Nobel da literatura destina-se à literatura e não à música. Bob Dylan é, acima de tudo, músico, podendo ser escritor – mas é um escritor de canções, um escritor para as suas canções. A simples separação das suas letras da sua música cria dois objectos amputados. Sobreviverá a sua escrita à falta de música, à falta das suas composições, da sua guitarra e harmónica, à falta da sua voz tão característica? E, sobrevivendo, será o suficiente para ser galardoado com um dos principais e o mais mediático prémio da literatura? E fará sentido premiar alguém que já é tão mediático e conhecido pelo mundo fora?

Existem, felizmente, muitos escritores no mundo absolutamente meritórios de receber o prémio Nobel. A dificuldade é escolher um a cada ano que passa. Entretanto, a Academia tem escolhido, muitas vezes, homens brancos ocidentais para serem galardoados com o Nobel. Se a ideia seria a atribuição a alguém diferente, que não encaixa neste padrão, muitos escritores e escritoras poderiam ter sido galardoados, como o escritor sírio Adonis ou o queniano Ngugi wa Thiong’o.

É verdade que, em 2015, o prémio foi atribuído a uma jornalista ucraniana, Svetlana Alexievich, que não escreve obras de ficção. Foi já uma mudança significativa que parece ter continuidade no prémio deste ano, onde, em ambos os casos, parece existir uma preferência pelo conteúdo e um desprezo pela forma, deixando o jornalismo e a música de lado, retalhando a obra de Alexievich e de Dylab. Por outro lado, ao escolher o jornalismo e a música, duas áreas que têm sucesso e que são facilmente acessíveis, a Academia parece estar a dizer – e a transformar – a literatura num produto de massas.

A verdade é que Bob Dylan também não parece particularmente interessado neste prémio. Apenas um mês após o anúncio da Academia Sueca é que Bob Dylan se pronunciou timidamente sobre o assunto. E só muito tempo depois informou que não iria participar na cerimónia de atribuição do prémio por ter «outros compromissos». Se ao próprio Dylan não parece interessar o prémio, não se dando sequer ao trabalho de justificar a sua falta de interesse – ao contrário do que fez, por exemplo, Jean-Paul Sartre ao recusar o prémio por motivos ideológicos –, fará sentido a sua atribuição? Nós julgamos que não.


Por fim, mesmo que seja justificada a mudança de ideia de literatura proposta pela Academia, não existirão outros músicos mais merecedores, por serem melhores escritores de letras, do que Bob Dylan? Exemplo disso teriam sido Leonard Cohen, entretanto falecido, ou Chico Buarque de Hollanda, ambos letristas, mas também escritores, com uma vasta obra literária publicada.

Debate #5: Dylan deserves the Nobel (Cátia, Marta N., António)

Após concluir o ensino secundário, Robert Zimmermann ruma a Mineápolis para estudar na universidade. Foi em Mineápolis que Zimmermann entrou pela primeira vez em contacto com a cena folk e literária da época, e também, quando se começou a apresentar como Bob Dylan. “Não tinha tempo para estudar” diz Dylan no seu documentário No Direction Home, decidindo rumar a Nova Iorque em janeiro de 1961, onde viria a absorver o máximo de coisas possíveis, misturá-las, e, no fim, criar a sua própria identidade e estilo musical e literário. Tudo isto vai contribuir para que Dylan crie obras musicais com uma escrita de incrível poder literário. Dylan chegou a Nova Iorque fortemente influenciado pelos livros On the Road de Jack Kerouac e Bound For Glory, escrito pelo seu ídolo Woody Guthrie. Dylan começou a ler poemas de Verlaine e Rimbaud, conheceu e tornou-se amigo pessoal do poeta Allen Ginsberg. Dylan aliou a sua capacidade criativa à poesia, o que resultou em lírica merecedora de objecto de estudo literário.
Talvez os tempos estejam mesmo a mudar, talvez possamos comparar as canções de Dylan às obras de Homero e Safo, que, tal como o músico, escreveram textos poéticos destinados a ser interpretados a maior parte das vezes com acompanhamento de instrumentos. Dylan moldou a poesia às letras de uma canção, sendo que estas podem também sobreviver desligadas do seu contexto musical. Com esta afirmação não queremos dizer que Bob Dylan não é um grande compositor, mas sim, que elevou o conceito de compositor musical a um novo nível de exigência. Para confirmar que os seus poemas sobrevivem sem notas musicais, olhemos para a letra da música “Masters of War”, “You that build the big guns/ You that build the death planes/ You that build all the bombs/ You that hide behind walls/ You that hide behind desks/ I just want you to know/ I can see through your masks. Neste poema encontramos raiva, angústia, ira. Tudo isto sentimentos que Bob Dylan transmite apenas através da sua leitura sem qualquer tipo de música a acompanhar. Além disto, podemos encontrar recursos estilísticos como a anáfora da expressão “You that”, próprios da literatura. Por outro lado, as canções, nas quais estão incluídos os poemas, são extremamente interventivas e convidam o leitor/ouvinte a pensar sobre os problemas que o mundo vive. Tentam transmitir algo, ajudam a uma consciencialização dos conflitos humanos, defendem os ideais humanitários e a liberdade de pensamento.
Apesar de não existirem princípios lógicos definidos para a atribuição do prémio, a Academia Sueca justifica a escolha dizendo que Bob Dylan ganhou ‘por ter criado novas expressões poéticas dentro da grande tradição musical americana.’

É impossível negar o impacto que artistas e escritores musicais como Dylan têm sobre o seu público, no âmbito da tradição musical americana. A verdade é que as músicas de Bob Dylan celebram outras formas de criação literária mais contemporânea, consumidas por uma fatia significativa da população dita Ocidental.No mundo das tecnologias de informação, as sociedades são muito mais permeáveis às criações musicais, fortemente difundidas pela rádio, televisão e internet. Apesar das obras de Saramago ou García Márquez se enquadrarem nos cânones literários convencionais, a verdade é que existe maior probabilidade de ouvir uma música de Bob Dylan na rádio ou em qualquer conteúdo online do que um excerto de O Memorial do Convento. No fundo, talvez a Academia Sueca se esteja a ajustar aos novos tempos, assim como aos novos produtos de massas, que, podendo ou não agradar a especialistas literários, são sem dúvida obras que moldam e caracterizam o mundo globalizado de hoje.


terça-feira, 29 de novembro de 2016

Postmodernism, Pastiche, parody, collage and other tags

Postmodernism, the designation of the cultural system resulting from late capitalism and globalization (see Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism of the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, 1991), implies related concepts of our time such as mobility, hybridization of the individual, and relativization ad decenterin fo the self. It is also associated with networking and its disturbance of traitional organizations, hierarchies, as well as with the ceaseless immediacy and reproduction of images, transgression of borders and confluence of shapes and spaces (giving way to collage), upsetting narratives in time, and hence history.

Pastiche, entailing the consatant imitation, through media, of what the very media propagandized as unique and singular (or exclusive), becomes a practice appropriated both by the arts and by popular culture (hence pop art)

About the uniqueness as a construction of certain industries, collective of communitary interests, Fredric Jameson coined the useful term culture of the simulacrum, insisting on imitation of things for which perhaps no real original existed. However, is definition of pastiche as "neutral practice of mimicry, without satirical impulse, without laughter" is perhaps not so useful as the term parody coined by another postmodernism theorist, Linda Hutcheon.

Linda Hutcheon's conception of parody conflates many other similar ones: "Parody—often called ironic quotation, pastiche, appropriation, or intertextuality—is usually considered central to postmodernism, both by its detractors and its defenders" (Politics of Postmodernism) . Unlike Jameson, who considers such postmodern parody as a symptom of the age, one way in which we have lost our connection to the past and to effective political critique, Hutcheon argues that "through a double process of installing and ironizing, parody signals how present representations come from past ones and what ideological consequences derive from both continuity and difference" (1989, p. 93). Hutcheon believes in parody as transformational repetition, or repetition with a difference.


(1984)


What temporal differences are signaled by Madonna's parody(ies)?

- blurring of fact and fiction ( the end of the great narratives) - see the French word "faction"
- empowerment of woman as individual (for better or for worse)... but the individual in general has hallowed, or decentered of self (perhaps)
- breaking down of tabus (sex)... but also religion, and race
- multilayered iconicity, or the overdetermined symbol


(1993)

Other traits:
- transnationality and hybrid ethnicity
- de-differentiation

Madonna - the lyrics and the nonverbal, "Like a Prayer" (1989)


Life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone
I hear you call my name
And it feels like home

Chorus:
When you call my name it's like a little prayer
I'm down on my knees, I wanna take you there
In the midnight hour I can feel your power
Just like a prayer you know I'll take you there

I hear your voice, it's like an angel singing
I have no choice, I hear your voice
Feels like flying
I close my eyes, Oh God I think I'm falling
Out of the sky, I close my eyes
Heaven help me

Chorus:
When you call my name it's like a little prayer
I'm down on my knees, I wanna take you there
In the midnight hour I can feel your power
Just like a prayer you know I'll take you there

Like a child you whisper softly to me
You're in control just like a child
Now I'm dancing
It's like a dream, no end and no beginning
You're here with me, it's like a dream
Let the choir sing

Chorus:
When you call my name it's like a little prayer
I'm down on my knees, I wanna take you there
In the midnight hour I can feel your power
Just like a prayer you know I'll take you there

Life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone
I hear you call my name
And it feels like home

Just like a prayer, your voice can take me there
Just like a muse to me, you are a mystery
Just like a dream, you are not what you seem
Just like a prayer, no choice
your voice can take me there

Just like a prayer, I'll take you there
It's like a dream to me

Madonna (b. Louise Ciccone in 1958)




1984, Like a Virgin

1984/5, Material Girl


 Madonna, "Happy Inauguration Mr. President" [for Bill Clinton in Saturday Night Live, 1993): http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x190d5j_madonna-singing-as-marilyn-monroe-1993_music