A few more definitions...

See my tweet for a helpful glossary I found, but here are some more additions.

transcendental ego (plural transcendental egos)

1. (philosophy, phenomenology) The conscious self which is the unifying subject of a person's experiences and which cannot itself be experienced as an object, understood by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) as knowable only by inference, and understood by Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) as pure consciousness.

(complements of Wiktionary)

Pheno-text:
From the Greek phainesthai, « pheno » means "to appear". The term "pheno-text" refers to the text as a "fact" or an "appearing" in its concrete manifestation or material form (communicative function). It is the site where a space for the process of engendering meaning is embodied in a concrete medium. It acts as the focalizing point of the signifying process. The printed text is where the production of meaning is momentarily suspended.

Geno-text:
From the Greek genêtikos, "geno" represents that which is "specific to generation", in the sense of "genesis" and "production". The geno-text corresponds to the process of generating the signifying system (the production of signification). It is the locus of all possible signifiers in which the formulated signifier of the pheno-text (the formula) can be situated, and thus, overdetermined. All of the possibilities of language (the symbolic process, the ideological corpus, the language categories) are arrayed there before precipitating out in some formula in the pheno-text. The geno-text is not a structure; it represents signifying infiniteness. The geno-text does not reveal a signifying process; it offers all possible signifying processes [signifiances].

(complements of this awesome site)

Hegel on the Negative:
". . . reason is negative and dialectical, because it resolves the determinations of the understanding into nothing . . . ." Preface to the First Edition, Science of Logic 28. See "Dialectic".

"All that is necessary to achieve scientific progress . . . is the recognition of the logical principle that the negative is just as much positive, or that what is self-contradictory does not resolve itself into a nullity, into abstract nothingness, but essentially only into the negation of its particular content . . . . Because the result, the negation, is a specific negation it has a content." Introduction, Science of Logic 54.

"That which enables the Notion to advance itself is the already mentioned negative which it possesses within itself; it is this which constitutes the genuine dialectical moment." Introduction, Science of Logic 55.

"Difference implicit is essential difference, the Positive and the Negative . . . . That the Negative in its own nature is quite as much Positive (see next §), is implied in saying that what is opposite to another is its other." Logic § 119.

"Hegel repeats over and over that dialectics has this 'negative' character. . . . In all these uses 'negative' has a twofold reference: it indicates, first, the negation of the fixed and static categories of common sense and, second, the negative and therefore untrue character of the world designated by these categories. As we have already seen, negativity is manifest in the very process of reality, so that nothing that exists is true in its given form. Every single thing has to evolve new conditions and forms if it is to fulfill its potentialities." Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Revolution 123.

Complements of this awesome page.

Understanding Kristiva 1.0 (Beta)

Something seems anachronistic about Kristiva’s parlor game of applying the Freudian structure to semiotic analysis. I’m having a really hard time getting this down. She seems to convolute meaning by attempting to coin new terms for already-established terms (semanalysis=semiology (28)). And she seems really intent on literally redefining the study of semiotics. I think the concept of homogeneity of praxis and analysis makes sense but isn't especially useful in the language-structured analysis of the social codes of play, pleasure, or desire; the heterogeneity of post-modernism has subsequently taken care of that. Foucault and Barthes are again brought to mind: The Use of Pleasure and The Pleasure of the Text respectively, both of which I have recently skimmed yet can’t recap for relevance. I need about another week (which I should have in about six months) to nail Kristiva down. If that sounds dirty it’s because neither of us is fully delineating the negative distinctions necessitated by the signified and the signifier (the truth of language and the transcended ego). A psycho-analytical appropriation of semiotic theory might be more appropriately suited to Jung.

The IT Crowd 2.1

This is my favorite episode of all the television shows I’ve seen [if you haven’t seen it, STOP! SPOILER ALERT!!] and I need to examine why I feel uncomfortable about it. It’s not psychoanalysis, it’s a cultural discourse analysis. The main subject I see addressed is “faking the other”: passing as straight, passing as handicapped, and passing as staff. What I find intriguing is how the show portrays resistance and how the degrees of resistance are used for comedic effect. The woman seems outside all of the rolls. Is it just for the sake of a consistent straight-man? Comedy comes in threes (I’ve heard) and she is the antithesis of each. So is this a technically comedically harmonious piece? I don’t mean to initiate a discussion of comedy (please don’t discuss what makes something funny) but I’d like to contextualize and correlate some signifieds to some signifiers and identify the codes of propriety. Please help. Go: Gay, Cripple, Staff.

And what’s the subtext of fame/connectedness/knowingness?

I will have this episode for viewing tomorrow in the office, perhaps otherwise; the 'nets permitting.

I think Alan Alda expresses what I was trying to say yesterday about shows like 30 Rock and Community. The appeal to these shows is the sense of meta-awareness by both the characters and the audience that these people could not be real. Most shows are concerned with the illusion of reality and real life, but Community and 30 Rock are not. Each character represents the extreme version of the person they are trying to portray. For example, to some degree Jack Donaghy represents what an Irish-Catholic businessman is like. The scenes with him and his mother where they both love and hate each other reminds me of my grandfather and his mother, but an extreme version of them. Basically, each show removes the need for illusion that Manovich talked about in Chapter 4 in Language of New Media. We don't have to think of these characters in the real world because they could not exist in the real world. That allows the constant genre manipulation and cultural references.

So, how does this work for semiotics? These shows are completely up for interpretation. The author is essentially irrelevant to the show structure. The jokes are written in a way where you have to get what the references to pop culture and culture in general and if you don't too bad. This means that the shows can be analyzed in any style the audience chooses because they are an active part of what makes the show work. So, the meaning extracted can be unique to the viewer, which as Mr. Alda suggests is a new style of comedy. That is why I reference these shows all the time in class. Still, I see the whole world as open to interpretation. If you would prefer I can bring up other topics. I just choose TV most of the time because as Joshua pointed out "It's easy". That and I've noticed that since I moved here people don't get a lot of the references I make to people and places in New England, but TV is universal.

After Class Today...

I just came across this...

that's Saussure in the center...

Also this:

I swear I'm not just shamelessly advertising for one of my favorite TV programs...

While reading "Straight Shooters, Stainless-Steel Stories, and Cowboy Codes," one of my favorite action heros of all time kept coming to mind - Torchwood's (and Dr. Who's) immortal, time-traveling, classically masculine with a twist (think WWII, as you'll see below), bisexual Captain Jack Harkness. Count on Great Britain to give me an American hero I can actually root for without grumbling...

Here's one of my favorite re-writes of history (Warning: melodrama ahead. But strangely touching, at moments weirdly genuine melodrama that always makes me tear up...):



Instead of only taking on the West, Jack takes on... the known universe? In addition, James Bond, eat your heart out:



While perusing YouTube clips, I've been trying to figure out what, exactly, makes this character so much fun for me. Besides the pretty face, I really think it comes down to his constant irreverence for the semiotic systems of the universe - the knowing twinkle in his eye every time he catches someone off guard. It really is appropriation at it's best.

Another tidbit - the actor who plays Jack, John Barrowman, was passed over for the role of Will in Will and Grace because he wasn't "gay enough". Interesting, while John IS gay, the actor playing Will isn't. Social codes are so much fun...

Survey results coming soon!

I have sent out packets containing some print ads and a questionnaire to a few various folks in my world who represent different demographic groups. I realize this is an extremely incomplete method of research, but for the informal purpose it serves, I thought it would be interesting to see how people react differently (or if they do) based on their age, financial status, gender, etc. Hopefully I will have the results posted within the next week.

Glasses

So, in my searches for ads to send out for my survey, I came across these. I found them really interesting because they bring up how subtle changes can completely alter our view on something or someone. I found the tag-line especially interesting. It reads, "Get the respect you deserve." It implies that people who wear glasses come across as more respectable. As I write this, I am sitting in a coffee shop looking around at all the people in glasses and thinking of what they would look like without them. In this context, it is a little different because most people here are working on various things, so I would probably assume they were intelligent with or without glasses, but in a different setting, maybe not so much.

An American Tail

And here's the original...

Community

I finally found this on Youtube. This is the example of ironic humor I was talking about in class. The rat is named after the character Fievel from An American Tail and the song is from the movie. Enjoy.

Random Thoughts

Joshua and I have been thinking about the making of meaning within the discussion of semiotics....

If we have a signifier and signified that's just a simple (or not) sign, even if we don't see the sign, we can still comprehend the meaning of the sign (if we just imagine the sign, for instance).

And there are various levels of signification based on just how significant the signified is.

For instance, a timetable for a train station in Germany when you know very limited German is difficult to parse useful information from:

A different level of signification is from something you know and understand the significance of, but in a context that doesn't align itself within the code we share. Such as:

Which I think is interesting both because he is naked in a place we don't expect to see it and also because he is not an attractive naked person, which further disrupts the coding we associate with nakedness.

An Idea...

I was looking at the CTL workshop classes and came across this:

Introduction to 3D Visualization

---

Come see the capabilities of Boise State University’s 3D visualization lab. During this workshop, we will demonstrate 3D visualization, show examples of how 3D visualization is already being used at Boise State University, discuss possible uses of 3D visualization in teaching, and provide resources for learning more about 3D visualization. We will also present opportunities to get involved in using the 3D visualization lab for teaching and learning.

Date:	Thursday, March 03, 2011	Capacity:	35
Time:	1:30 PM (Duration: 1.5 Hours)	Seats Left:	34
Location:	ILC 213 - 3D Visualization Studio
Facilitator:	Eric Orton
Contact:	Eric Orton
Email:	ericorton@boisestate.edu
Phone:	426-1844

Pre-requisite Workshop(s): none
Required Materials: none

Wanted to throw it out there....

"Library"

Here's something interesting - Cardus - Library

(This artist happens to be my wife's sister, the talented Abby Christensen). I think the concept of "Library" addresses some of what we talked about yesterday. The artist unsettles the meaning of the sign 'book' (or maybe 'library books on a shelf') by removing the expectation that the reader/viewer will read the book, and by placing the piece in a gallery - a physical space that encourages or demands that signs be read a certain way (I think of Joshua's museum fire extinguisher). The meaning is also confused by the fact that the books aren't actually books; they resemble real books, but it's clear that they are sculpted.

It's interesting how the gallery setting impacts modality. When something is termed "art," and displayed as such, how does meaning change? A Campbell's soup can in the grocery store vs. a Campbell's soup can in gallery...

Thoughts?

Our discussion of location impacting meaning was interesting. I kept thinking of Banksy...

An attempt to capture some of what we discussed on Monday, January 31st

This is very much a general overview – if the rest of you would like any clarifications or more detail in a certain area, I'm more than happy to add on. Comment away!

After general small talk, Jeremy mentioned the interesting connections he saw between this section of the text, and Kenneth Burke's concept of terministic screens - as a refresher, here's what Wikipedia has to say about those:

Another key concept for Burke is the terministic screen -- a set of symbols that becomes a kind of screen or grid of intelligibility through which the world makes sense to us. Here Burke offers rhetorical theorists and critics a way of understanding the relationship between language and ideology. Language, Burke thought, doesn't simply "reflect" reality; it also helps select reality as well as deflect reality.

Conversation then moved on to Sarah venting a bit about the general uncomfortableness she felt with the way other “primitive” culture's views of the relationship between the signified and signifier were handled (around pg. 74), as well as the evolutionary trajectory of history presented on the next few pages. Although she also pointed out that she knew this was an overview, and probably not the most important aspect of the text, she felt it was worth at least bringing up (and may have needed to vent...).

In the end, it may have been good that Chandler did write this section in this manner. It really brought some important issues to the forefront that Sarah (and I think others there) might not have thought about as much, or at all, otherwise. The main takeaway – we were reminded that the distinction between signified and signifier really is a tool for analysis and not so much an actual reality. In other words, given the fact that we only perceive of the chairness of a chair in terms of the signifiers we have at our disposal, this IS our reality. In practical terms, there is no other than what we've created. Jeremy related this back to Heidiger's writings on the false subject/object split, and his statement that “The world is an end onto our needs,” and Sarah related this to the theory of relativity, or the fact that we are the makers of reality. Given this fact, it could be said that the only element missing from “primitive” culture's understanding was a semiotics department...

At this point, my notes say “The examples of Barthes go round and round...” I have no idea why any more, but am adding this, because my brain connected this fragment with “The wheels on the bus go round and round,” which brightened my day!

Another insight gained through discussion: We also need to remember that, although the two are closely intertwined, Semiotics is more a mode of analysis, and Linguistics is more of a science. Things get sticky if you start thinking of the former in terms of the latter.

At this point, conversation moved on to how helpful it was to have Barthes' concrete examples of Semiotics in practice, and the fact that it would probably be a good idea to continue to include examples like this throughout the course. A good way to keep us from floating away into infinite significations...

Speaking of infinite significations, we also discussed the fascinating connections between various interrelated groupings of signs. Sam felt that this went a long way to explaining the dissonance in various disciplines, i.e. different views on feminism, etc. All of our lives are made up of various myths, and the areas where they meet, sometimes jarringly, often lead to this conflict.

Sam also tied this to an activity that she recently did in English 102, in which she had students sit in a circle and toss a ball of yarn around the room to connect word associations. So, for example, a student would start out with the ball and say "pens", and then toss the yarn to someone else who associated this term with "paper," and onwards to create a giant web.

Illustrating "The Basics"

As I moved through the middle part of Chandler I found it necessary to build upon the visual structures we used for understanding Saussure and Peirce in chapter one. To avoid hostility the hostility of my classmates I will abandon the example of the banana for one of Barthes that Chandler picks up: an image of a child.

The image of a child denotes a literal meaning of 'child' (the ":" is intended to represent "the meaning of" but I forgot to include it in the later signs of the example) as understood by an existing knowledge of what 'childness' is.

Chapter four, "Challenging the Literal,"examines the rhetorical tropes of the deeper and different figurative meanings of metaphor, metonym, synecdoche and irony. I hope to get to irony next, but this is a beginning with Chandler's use of Barthes' cultural myth. The figurative figure is in red and represents a second level of the signification model. The signifier doesn't change but the connotative lens does and so thus does the signified. The sign is simultaneously the same and different: the sign is still the meaning of child and the image is the same signifier, but the cultural lens shifts the signified from literal to figurative and "functions ideologically to justify dominant assumptions about the status of children in society" (144).

This is an example of a signifier of multiple signs with multiple literal signifieds. The signified can be understood simultaneously as 'child' and 'boy' with separate signifieds. In the representation the signified 'boyness' is not on the plane with 'childness' and 'innocence' because 'boyness' can be more distinctly contrary to innocence than childness can (see "The Semiotic Square" (106-7)).

In trying to figure out what else about the signifier points to 'child' and 'boy' I identified the disproportionately large head and then the propeller hat. The hat is a single sign with multiple signified because it represents both 'childness' and 'boyness.'

Something else was helping me identify the image as a boy but it took some time to figure it out. Chandler points to Saussure and quotes William James as observing that "the absence of an item is a determinant of our representations quite as positive as its presence can ever be" (quoted 88). The fact that the figure is not wearing a dress (or skirt) is significant. This also fits into Greimas' semiotic square as a not S2, if boy=S1 and girl=S2.

This exercise can be performed again and again replacing Barthes' cultural ideology. The literal sign might remain the same, but the figurative signified will change. Through a 19th-century Industrialist lens it might be 'cheap labor' and through a 21st-century Technologist lens it could be 'simplicity of interface.' I don't mean to imply that there are limited figurative signifieds for any given signifier; in fact, Eco warns against the possibility of unlimited semiosis that can occur in over-interpretation.

Grammar of Signs?

Sample VOST Remix

Visions of Students Today from Michael Wesch

This looks like a cool project -- you or your students might be interested in participating. He's asking students to film scenes from their lives, upload them, and then participate in remixing the raw data.

Details on how to post: mediatedcultures.net.

The Rhetorical Turn, the Construction of Reality, and FY Writing

I especially like Chapter 4: Challenging the Literal. What runs through Chandler runs through professional talk in rhetoric and composition. There is no innate link between the signifier and the signified, and meaning is determined by interpretive communities. All of this is reflected in basic rhetorical theory -- meaning is the product of the interplay between author, audience, and medium. While we do discuss rhetorical theory in fy writing, at least to some extent, we never make the leap to the linguistic construction of reality and identity. This leap seems too difficult to make. FY students are under so much pressure, and so many new things are happening at once. I wonder, though, if there's a way to make these connections more explicit not only because it's interesting and useful to writers but also because it's a way to publicize our field. Every first year student knows about literature and creative writing, but none of them knows about rhetoric.

Upcoming Readings, etc.

To make sure we're all on the same page...

For Thursday, February 10th at Thomas Hammer from 2-5: Chapters 3, 4, and 5 in Chandler. .pdfs to arrive in your inbox shortly...

For Thursday, February 17th, same time and place: The rest of Chandler, and some sort of more practice oriented essay to ground all this fun theory in... More on this at some point soon.