Brainstorms from the SHU Scribe

My Media Aesthetic Trek Thus Far

First and foremost, it must be said that this is a very unique class. I was into the third week and still wondering if I was in Advanced Study of Literature or Media Aesthetics. Dr. Jerz’s sight clears this up. This class is both. As a seminar, EL 309 is taught mainly by the students to the students, with Dr. Jerz there to clarify and fill in information.

So far, we’ve read about Pygmalion, Aristotle, and Plato, a story called “Cathedral," parts of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Pope’s incredible “Essays on Criticism,” and my favorite; Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. In addition, we’ve read several essays edited by Thorburn and Jenkins in Rethinking Media Change: the Aesthetics of Translation. As a former political science student who is now entering into English literature in his junior year, most class information is new, and I have had to play a lot of catch up, feeling like a newbie most of the time.

Our class started out right with Julie Young’s excellent presentation on “Getting the Most out of Your Academic Weblog.” This presentation got the class ready to blog their thoughts on class assignments, as well as keep in touch with each other. On the third week of class, I presented on “Medieval Punctuation and Spelling,” and the “Medieval Reader”. Rachel Crump also presented on “Medieval Illumination and Design, Binding and Archiving,” and “Reproduction and Economics.” I later filled in the gaps in my presentation with an additional blog which explained and showed examples of Medieval punctuation. The following week, I taught on “Art for Teaching the Medieval Christian” and Brendan explained such complicated theories as “Aesthetic Distance” and “Intentional Fallacy.” Rachel explained the structure of The Canterbury Tales as well. Week five, Jamee Rice put on a great presentation called "The Book as an Experimental Medium" in which she showed how Bibles and children’s books evolved. I commented meaningfully on her presentation, as I could really relate.

One thing that sticks out in my mind, other than the lesson that no one is here to hold my hand in college, (this class is the only class that I’m falling way behind on and greatly appreciative of the break for) is Thorburn’s point that people relate to technology in the limited way that they understood a former technology. For example, the word “car” is really an abbreviation of the word carriage. Dr. Jerz explained that people take the easiest way of saying something and in the time of the early automobile, people could relate to horse-driven carriages. Eventually, the automobile got stuck with the label, “car.”

Perhaps the most profound lesson that this class has taught me is to view “art” as more than a mere picture. Brendan’s presentation really challenged my concept of art. Is Hitler’s Mein Kampf art? What about japanimation; that is surely not oil based. Art, as Rachel Crump said, is powerful, it moves people. It can be literature, drama, a picture, a sculpture, etc. This point really stuck.

Lastly, I am challenged by this class, which revolves around online and peer discussion so much. Even transferring from Westmoreland County Community College where I took many online courses, discussed on message boards, and chatted with schoolmates and teachers alike, this class is unique in its own structural rite. Up to this point, I have blogged fairly conservative, only when prompted. To get the most out of this class in the future, however, it will be necessary to begin actively engaging my classmates, conversing about their blogs and presentations, as well as investigating media aesthetics for myself. A neat thing about the terms taught in this class, such as intentional fallacy, is that they are also covered in Dr. Arnzen’s Literary Criticism class. So, between the two, I am learning much and shedding my English newbie clothes.