Category: McCoy 337 Spring 2019

“We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”— Toni Morrison, 1993 Nobel Lecture

One thing we are sure of in this life, if nothing else, is that our life, at some point, will come to an end. Toni Morrison describes death as the meaning of life and language as the measure of our lives in the quote above. Upon first reading this course epigraph, I struggled with how I would tackle this quote. This could be for various reasons such as not feeling like I had the tools to respond to this quote at that certain point in time, or not wanting to search/reach out to find the tools. As the semester comes to the end and I reread the course epigraphs, I am able to recognize the beauty in Toni Morrison’s words. The various readings, discussions, and crafting of several blog posts is part of the reason I am able to finally tackle this quote, but first I am going to define language and meaning to help explain my interpretation of this quote.  Continue reading “The Impact of Language”

“Word-work is sublime, she thinks, because it is generative; it makes meaning that secures our difference, our human difference–the way in which we are like not other life. We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.” -Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison’s epigraph led me to think about this experience of writing and reading blog posts when she says, “Word-work is sublime, she thinks, because it is generative; it makes meaning that secures our difference, our human difference–the way in which we are like not other life. We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.” Much like how each member of our class came up with different ideas for blog posts while completing the same task, this quote means to me that humans as a whole share connections and together make up a unique species. Although each individual person is different with a unique path, we all have similarities that make us human. As humans, we have a voice, and the way we use our voice can determine the importance of our lives. The literature we have read in this class comes back to the theme that having a voice is important and that things or people can be diverse while sharing connections, which makes them human. Continue reading “Final Reflection”

“My job is to notice…and to notice that you can notice.” 

–Dionne Brand

When looking back over the last few months, I am noticing a positive shift in how I read, write, and observe. In my very first blog post, I wrote that I wanted to become more attentive to the details found in the texts that we read over the semester, as opposed to the more obvious narratives that stretched through them. To put it metaphorically, I wanted–and continue to want–to look beyond the color of the house and more into the structure of the building. This is not to discount the narratives, of course. In poetry, I don’t find this as difficult; unless you are dealing with an epic poem, there is usually less text to work with. I can read a line in a poem and stop, figure it out, and move to the next line. That method works with poems, but not as well with novels, especially one as meticulously crafted as Big Machine. Because we read the novel in sections, I had to read very carefully, knowing that I couldn’t use the dump truck method with this text: reading as fast as I can and then dumping what little I retained into the discussion portion of the next class, and moving on to the next text. The chapters that we read had to be read slowly and thoughtfully because I had to REMEMBER the material for later class discussions and or blog posts. Not only remembered, but the material had to be retained. By looking at the syllabus, I could see that the material in this class was going to recur and recur again and again, just like the fractals in Ron Eglash’s book.

Continue reading “Final Reflection”

While reviewing my notes I revisited the introduction of Fredrick Douglass’ text and found the statement that black literary art is a reminder of “imaginative freedom that we can claim within a painful history.” Looking back at the course texts and attempting to unify them in my mind, perhaps I can consider them each an act of imaginative freedom. Certainly authors like Paul Laurence Dunbar, Ralph Ellison, and Octavia Butler use their imagination freely to express any number of ideas. The statement is more complicated on the back end though, with the reminder of “painful history.” If we read all black literary art within the context of “painful history,” we are limiting African American authors. Continue reading “Imaginative Freedom in Literature”

As I was scrolling through the syllabus, seeing what assignments we have left for the semester, I came across the section where Professor McCoy included the “often-invisible responsibilities” that make up the job of a professor. These responsibilities include 50 percent teaching, 35 percent research and creative activity, and 15 percent service. I think a lot of the time we do not acknowledge the work that professors put in because a lot of it is done behind the scenes. Reading this part of the syllabus, reminded me of when we visited the heating plant. I was clueless about how much work goes into distributing heat around campus and making sure that the places on campus, remain at a certain temperature at all times. The visit was very informative and I learned a lot. I had no idea that they use two turbines to deliver the heat and there are workers there 24 hours a day to keep everything in check. When I went back to my suite, I told my roommates about our visit and similar to me, they had no idea that the heating plant even existed. The workers hard work is often overlooked and I am glad I got this opportunity to give a token of my appreciation. Continue reading “Bear a Responsibility”

Fly on a Wall film making refers to a style of shooting in which the camera crew is as unobtrusive as possible. The people who are filmed are real people, not actors, and the situations they are put in are also real. As a huge fan of the reality show Survivor, I immediately associated this technique with the show, and as we researched this in class I found I was not alone. Among Survivor were other reality shows like Big Brother, Deadliest Catch, etc. All of these were referred to as using the fly on the wall technique.

Continue reading “Fly on a Wall”

It was nice to see after reading Ian’s post, that I am not the only one struggling with the battle of procrastination. I laughed as I looked back at the schedule I made in the beginning of the semester for blog posts. I planned to write one blog post each week, but life got in the way. Continue reading “Growth is Gradual”