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Names, Sapir-Whorf

A seminal article on the "contact zone" (Pratt, 1991/1998--webpage). (Word doc)

Ever wonder about the cost of the war? Check out the rapidly-spinning counter to the right... seems to me that's a huge amount of money that could have been spent on education, medicine, housing, the environment, ...  

Tigers

From Disney, we have our bouncy Tigger...

One of the stories that I grew up with (and quite remember eating, too) was the tale of Little Black Sambo. Courtesy of the Gutenberg Project, here is the original story as a PDF file (1.7MB).

My memory of 'eating' refers to the Sambo's restaurants in the US, which served mainly pancakes (quite good as I recall). Here is a glimpse of some postcards (as a PDF 0.3MB) that the restaurant produced. 

Class on May 14, 2008...symbols

Here is an interesting reading by D-L Nelson (2006) on symbols.

In addition, the question I posed at the end of class: Where or what are the following contexts? 

Imagine yourself walking through the front door of a large building in a big city. As you enter, you see many people carrying leather briefcases full of papers; all the men are wearing Armani suits and Ferragamo shoes. In front of you is a large, open lobby with a polished marble floor in which is the company logo. Above on the wall is a series of clocks showing the times in such places as London, New York, Tokyo, and Cairo. The woman at the reception desk is in a suit, too, and she greets you in most polished, polite way and then speaks into the wireless headset she is wearing. A uniformed security agent comes to guide you and ushers you into a brass-trimmed elevator. When the elevator doors open, you find yourself in a luxurious conference room with a long table and a panoramic view of the city 30 floors below.

Let us take another voyage. It's been a long day at work, and when you return home you realize there is absolutely nothing in the refrigerator. Undaunted, you walk a couple blocks to a nearby restaurant for some quick food. After walking across a large parking lot, you enter through an automatic door that opens into a waiting area where many people are lined up to order food. On the wall is a menu with pictures of the restaurant's various menu items. Looking around, you see cheap plastic chairs and a dirty floor, but no one seems to mind. When you finally get to the front of the line, the young person at the cash register makes a couple mistakes and finally has to call the manager for help.

These are slightly modified passages from Rafaeli & Worline (1999). Please download and read a copy for class on May 28.   

On the 21st we'll be watching part of The Jungle Book (not sure about popcorn!).

Class on June 11, 2008--we'll be discussing Heart of Darkness in this final look at symbols. 

Plot summary of Heart of Darkness

'A Racist Novella?'

Heart of Darkness discussion questions

Suspension of Disbelief 

From Coleridge in 1817, we encounter the idea of 'willing suspension of disbelief,' which refers to the willingness of a person to accept as true the premises of a work of fiction, even if they are fantastic or impossible. It also refers to the willingness of the audience to overlook the limitations of a medium, so that these do not interfere with the acceptance of those premises. According to the theory, suspension of disbelief is a quid pro quo: the audience tacitly agrees to provisionally suspend their judgment in exchange for the promise of entertainment.

Jacobson (2002) On theorizing presence. 

A beloved longtime favorite of mine, click here to view Doonesbury. 

That beloved penguin extraordinaire, Opus (from Berkeley Breathed's Bloom County)...with some sadness, I note the passing of Opus into cartoon character lore (2008.11.12). He may have become a memory, but that memory is and will always be a fond one. 

One of my favorites, David Horsey of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Home to thousands of cartoons, many cartoonists, take a walk through Daryl Cagle's Political Cartoonists Index

More coming soon

Last updated: 2009/10/22
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Copyright 2011 by Cyrus, Midas, Roosevelt and all the other lunatics.