LeilaniCSUP

 For this weeks research and zoom discussion we read MARGARET KOVACH “Indigenous Methodologies Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts” she explains the importance of understanding epistemology and how the world around us relates to it. Specifically, Kovach dives into indigenous knowledge, research, and methodologies as well as Nehiyaw epistemology. She compares these approaches to western methods of learning and research and gives examples of the different ways of learning around the world for people that come from different backgrounds and live different ways of life. She offers guidance to people conducting research in indigenous ways. She also expresses the importance of accepting different methods of research into the western educational system.  Indigenous epistemologies are different from Western epistemologies in many ways. For example, typically western epistemologies include reading from a book, writing, memorizing, learning from your teacher inside of a classr...

   For this weeks lesson and zoom discussions we read Amelia Jones “Meaning Identity, Embodiment: the uses of Merleau Pontys phenomenology in art history” In Art and Thought 2003.   Amelia Jones talks about how we interact with art work and how it in turn reacts with us. Art work provokes feelings, and emotions. Perhaps it makes you feel happy or sad or uneasy. It will effect everyone a little bit differently. It can trigger a memory. When a person looks at art, it unlocks a sensation that is mental and physical, creating an overall experience. Light and color can condition a feeling. This reading reminded me of many of the other readings throughout this semester but especially Robert Barthes “Death of the Author”. This is because Barthes expresses his theory that reading is only experienced by the reader, and that every person can take something different away from it. This theory relates to this weeks topic because when an artist creates their work, the artist is usual...

  For this weeks reading and zoom discussions we analyzed “Difference: A Third World Women Issue” by Trinh T. Minh-ha. Trinh expresses the importance of recognizing how stereotypes are used to define people. She touches on sexism, racism, and faults in equality throughout society. One important point that she made, is that company’s need a specific dynamic environment. They need some percentage of the company to be women, some percentage to be colored, of different backgrounds, ect. And that raises the question of did I get this job because I am qualified and deserved it or was I hired to meet a percentage? I found this interesting because on one hand it is a good thing that it is frowned upon for a company to hire only white middle aged men, however at the same time it does beg the question was I hired/ promoted for the right reasons? I have a family member who works for a large company and a part of his job is to monitor who works for the company in each branch and maintain diver...

For this weeks readings we studied Ronald Barthes “Death Of The Author” and Sherri Levine’s “Statement”. Barthes expresses his belief that the way that a reader might interpret a text is often different than the writer intended while writing it. Perhaps every reader creates a different understanding of the text, and therefor the intentions of the writer are removed once the text is published. It is his understanding that the reader creates the meaning of the text. Rather than the reader trying to understand and evaluate the writers initial intentions creating the text, he believes that we should exercise out own beliefs and understanding that comes unique during the process of reading it rather than the meaning being pre determined. He believes that the authors prospective alone limits the text, because it is language that speaks to us, not the author. Writing should be interpreted in the moment that it is being read, here and now, because it is only meaningful as you read it. I think ...

 For this weeks zoom discussion we studied “The Oppositional Gaze” by bell hooks. This is another reading about flaws in cinema, feminist film theory, the power of viewing and “the gaze”. hooks begins by explaining how children are punished for staring when they aren’t supposed to and also punished when looking away when they are supposed to be looking. The human gaze is powerful and can be seen as a sign of respect or disrespect. Slave owners would punish their slaves for looking at them. Slaves were denied the right to gaze. She believes that this repression triggered an overwhelming desire to gaze rebelliously. This is known as the oppositional gaze.  Media maintains white supremacy by creating cinema that targets a white audience. Even films with black actors are historically white representations of blackness. It is no secret that in movies, and tv shows, cinema portrays a system of inequality. Black neighborhoods aren’t as nice as white neighborhoods, the actors overcome...

For this weeks zoom discussion we read “Visual pleasure and narrative cinema” by Laura Mulvey. Mulvey writes about psychoanalytic theory, specifically from a political standpoint to explain how society has structured film form. Other film theorists have written about psychoanalysis in film but didn’t express the importance of the representation of the female form in narrative cinema. To explore how this representation provides “visual pleasure” while also fortifying male dominance, Mulvey enlists the theories of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. Psychoanalysis is defined as a set of psychological theories and therapeutic methods which have their origin in the work and theories of Sigmund Freud. His theory suggests that psychoanalysis is a belief in which every person has unconscious thoughts, feelings, desires, and memories. Mulvey believes that psychoanalysis is used to “advance our understanding of the status quo”. She understands that there are alternative forms of cinema, but she be...