Carr's "Is Google Making Us Stupider?" was read while attempting to hold a conversation on the phone, but that was abandoned after I realized that I didn't really care what my friend was talking about and that I had better focus on what I was reading if I was going to make any sense of it. And lo and behold, it was about losing the ability to pay attention! I'm not sure how much surfing the web or doing research through a computer has affected my concentration - I would blame that more on the years spent on the sofa watching TV. But even though I may not personally be able to relate, I do think that something is changing in the way our minds make connections. Ever see those commercials about "information overload"? People do seem to know some stuff about a lot of things, but not really a whole lot about a few things, but I'm not sure if that has anything to do with Google, the Internet, or surfing - just an observation, and kind of a confession (do I fit into this category?). It seems to me that we're connecting information in a more web-like structure, but then again maybe the terminology is what is affecting us. Before the "web" would I ever have just made the statement I just did. Maybe our minds are working much in the same way they always have but the way that we describe it is different.
Next Article - Anderson's "In Defense of Distraction" - somewhat linked to the previous article, this dealt with how people are more distracted, their methods of focusing, multitasking, etc. I liked his example of trying to focus on a dot, and see how long you can focus on a single thing. Even though he spent a half an hour staring at it, it's not like he was focusing on it the whole time. A mind begins to wande;, noticing aspects of the dot you may have never realized before. Also, the realization that meditation is a "state of focused distraction" was a somewhat new concept to me. So that's how they do it! No need to focus on just one thing, a myriad will do, as long as you're focusing.
The first article, by Clay Shirky, was a bit hard for me to grasp. I'm not all that web-literate, and all the talk about tagging, especially towards the end, felt a little above my head. Although I did enjoy being enlightened as to the differences between the way Yahoo and Google make connections and establish hierarchies between categories. I guess the graphs helped with that part... Overall, the website showed that categorization is meaningless, that various things fall into many categories, and an attempt to label one thing as belonging to a particular category negates it's participation within other categories.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Research Paper Update
My trip to the DPL last Tuesday was awesome! I got to hold a bible that was printed in 1533. They actually let me touch it (with gloves on while they held on to my ID)! It was written in Latin, and I couldn't read it, but I did recognize some words. Nevertheless, it was pretty neat. It smelled like a campfire. So, what next? Well, I'm thinking that my paper is going to focus primarily on the function of Bibles within English society during the 16th century. The first Bible I looked at was in Latin, and I think I would prefer to view ones written in English, just so I can be more familiar with them. I decided to search the library's catalog for Bibles in the rare books collection, limiting it to ones printed in English. Going through the library's catalog, the titles of the bibles may give some hints as to changing cultural views:
Biblia Polyglotta
Publisher: Arnaldi Guillelmi de Brocario
Pub date: 1514-17.
This sounds pretty unassuming, right? Not much informationto be found just in the title, but let's look ahead in time to 1609:
The Holie Bible faithfvlly translated into English, ovt of the avthentical Latin. Diligently conferred with the Hebrew, Greeke, and other editions in diuers languages. With Argvments of the bookes, and chapters: annotations: tables: and other helpes, for better vnderstanding of the text: for discourerie of corrvptions in some late translations: and for clearing controversies in religion
Publisher: Printed ... by Lavrence Kellam
Pub date: 1609 - 10
Sooo.... all of that is the title?
But maybe there's something to be said about that huge title, especially because of the claims towards better understanding of the text, and clearing controversies in religion. Maybe something about how people's attitudes towards religion were changing/changed over the last century - in a particular place, in a particular time.
Here's the frustrating thing - the whole time I've been writing now, I've been attempting to find out more about these two books. AND ALL THE INFO IS WRONG! Published in France? Can't be. It's printed in English. Well, maybe that's possible but further detective work must be done... Also my next step is to search for any related articles about the subject of religion and bibles during the 16th C.
Readings
I enjoyed reading Monaghan's Literacy Instruction and Gender in Colonial New England. I already understood that women were not encouraged to write, and always just assumed a connection between selling one's work as equal to selling one's body. But the reading also brought up the fact that although women were not encouraged to write by hand, sewing was a core part of their instruction. Yes, sewing was important in order to repair clothing, which was more expensive then than now. But then I thought about thoses samplers that girls would have to sew to show off their skills. And they had words sewn on them. So then I thought of samplers as a way of writing. Most samplers I've seen always begin with the alphabet at the top, and usually the main area is filled by a scripture. In a way, it's like the girls' version of writing. They probably had specific instructors to teach them sewing skills, kind of like the boys had specific instructors to teach them how to write. Although trying to make some sort of equivocation between being taught how to write and being taught how to sew may not really have any merit, (because from our standpoint we believe that acquiring the skill of writing is better than, or more worthwhile) for the time, they may have thought the two skills were equally valuable, albeit the different skills were gendered.
My trip to the DPL last Tuesday was awesome! I got to hold a bible that was printed in 1533. They actually let me touch it (with gloves on while they held on to my ID)! It was written in Latin, and I couldn't read it, but I did recognize some words. Nevertheless, it was pretty neat. It smelled like a campfire. So, what next? Well, I'm thinking that my paper is going to focus primarily on the function of Bibles within English society during the 16th century. The first Bible I looked at was in Latin, and I think I would prefer to view ones written in English, just so I can be more familiar with them. I decided to search the library's catalog for Bibles in the rare books collection, limiting it to ones printed in English. Going through the library's catalog, the titles of the bibles may give some hints as to changing cultural views:
Biblia Polyglotta
Publisher: Arnaldi Guillelmi de Brocario
Pub date: 1514-17.
This sounds pretty unassuming, right? Not much informationto be found just in the title, but let's look ahead in time to 1609:
The Holie Bible faithfvlly translated into English, ovt of the avthentical Latin. Diligently conferred with the Hebrew, Greeke, and other editions in diuers languages. With Argvments of the bookes, and chapters: annotations: tables: and other helpes, for better vnderstanding of the text: for discourerie of corrvptions in some late translations: and for clearing controversies in religion
Publisher: Printed ... by Lavrence Kellam
Pub date: 1609 - 10
Sooo.... all of that is the title?
But maybe there's something to be said about that huge title, especially because of the claims towards better understanding of the text, and clearing controversies in religion. Maybe something about how people's attitudes towards religion were changing/changed over the last century - in a particular place, in a particular time.
Here's the frustrating thing - the whole time I've been writing now, I've been attempting to find out more about these two books. AND ALL THE INFO IS WRONG! Published in France? Can't be. It's printed in English. Well, maybe that's possible but further detective work must be done... Also my next step is to search for any related articles about the subject of religion and bibles during the 16th C.
Readings
I enjoyed reading Monaghan's Literacy Instruction and Gender in Colonial New England. I already understood that women were not encouraged to write, and always just assumed a connection between selling one's work as equal to selling one's body. But the reading also brought up the fact that although women were not encouraged to write by hand, sewing was a core part of their instruction. Yes, sewing was important in order to repair clothing, which was more expensive then than now. But then I thought about thoses samplers that girls would have to sew to show off their skills. And they had words sewn on them. So then I thought of samplers as a way of writing. Most samplers I've seen always begin with the alphabet at the top, and usually the main area is filled by a scripture. In a way, it's like the girls' version of writing. They probably had specific instructors to teach them sewing skills, kind of like the boys had specific instructors to teach them how to write. Although trying to make some sort of equivocation between being taught how to write and being taught how to sew may not really have any merit, (because from our standpoint we believe that acquiring the skill of writing is better than, or more worthwhile) for the time, they may have thought the two skills were equally valuable, albeit the different skills were gendered.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Research Paper
I guess it must be getting close to the end of the semester... I actually have to start thinking about my paper? Already? Well, that makes sense...there will probably be a lot of research involved, countless hours of reading, etc.
Going over the list of topics that Dr. Maruca gave us in class last week, one in particular stood out for me, most likely because it contained a strange word, one that Dr. Maruca had a hard time pronouncing, one which I had never heard before, and which caught my eye: incunabula.
The topic sounds a bit like a treasure hunt; first I must find a book. Then I must locate the book's history (where it came from, who wrote it, the author's significance), analyze it's cultural significance, and put it all together to form a paper that may not end up being about what is between the front and back covers of the book! I've never written a paper about what a book is, usually I spend a lot of time examining the text; specific word usage, metaphors, authorial intent. And some of these things may affect my paper, but I think the most important part of this particular paper will be learning about a type of book and about what that type of book did for the culture and time in which it was written. I think it may just be fun perusing the shelves of the Detroit Public Library (a place I haven't been to since I was a kid) and hunting down an old text with which I have no familiarity, but which in a few weeks I will know a lot about.
I will soon be embarking on what I expect to be a treasure hunt, and although I have just begun formulating the idea of how to go about this, I hope some of my blog readers will have some suggestions. For now, I don't have any idea where this hunt will take me and I really don't know what the end product will be, but I know I will learn a lot along the way!
Going over the list of topics that Dr. Maruca gave us in class last week, one in particular stood out for me, most likely because it contained a strange word, one that Dr. Maruca had a hard time pronouncing, one which I had never heard before, and which caught my eye: incunabula.
The topic sounds a bit like a treasure hunt; first I must find a book. Then I must locate the book's history (where it came from, who wrote it, the author's significance), analyze it's cultural significance, and put it all together to form a paper that may not end up being about what is between the front and back covers of the book! I've never written a paper about what a book is, usually I spend a lot of time examining the text; specific word usage, metaphors, authorial intent. And some of these things may affect my paper, but I think the most important part of this particular paper will be learning about a type of book and about what that type of book did for the culture and time in which it was written. I think it may just be fun perusing the shelves of the Detroit Public Library (a place I haven't been to since I was a kid) and hunting down an old text with which I have no familiarity, but which in a few weeks I will know a lot about.
I will soon be embarking on what I expect to be a treasure hunt, and although I have just begun formulating the idea of how to go about this, I hope some of my blog readers will have some suggestions. For now, I don't have any idea where this hunt will take me and I really don't know what the end product will be, but I know I will learn a lot along the way!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
