1) Having read Wysocki's "The Sticky Embrace of Beauty," I'm even more disappointed Anne Wysocki didn't take a job at Mizzou. I would like to take a class from her. She talks about using "other principles for understanding visual composition" in her classes and I think I'd benefit tremendously from a class on visual rhetoric. I think that I would need this class in order to be able to fully synthesize Wysocki's arguments in this chapter. On page 169 she says,
If we want to change how we see women, then, or if we want to change how we see any group of people who are treated unfairly by our visual practices...We...have to criticize and rethink the formal categories we have inherited for making the visual arrangements that we do; we need to try new and different formal relations in our layouts and we need to learn to appreciate formal arrangements and practices that do not abstract and universalize (Wysocki 169).
I entirely agree, I think. Unfortunately I don't know enough about the categories we have inherited. I don't know enough about formal layouts. I'm starting to wonder what our options (as graduate students) are, as far as classes in visual rhetoric goes. I learn this type of material better in class than in independent reading and I'm feeling at a disadvantage. I didn't know until this year that I needed to know this stuff; I'm willing to learn but I don't think I can do it without a class.
2) I'm having a dillemma about the assignment to bring in syllabi for next class. The only syllabi I have in my posession right now are syllabi from the classes I took last semester and the classes I am taking this semester. I feel uncomfortable about publicly critizing my professors' syllabi--anybody else having this discomfort? I definitely need to work on the layout of my own class materials but I'm not sure how to do this assignment in a diplomatic way.
3) My visual argument will follow this post. Am wrestling with various programs.
3 comments:
I am experiencing the same sort of moral quandary! The only syllabi I have are examples from previous classes. Also, I don't absolutely love or hate any of them, but I don't want to just pluck better/worse examples from the WL either.
To remedy the problem (to some extent, anyway) I took copies of the syllabi with my professors' names/personal info blotted out, so at least it's somewhat anonymous. Plus, if your syllabi are examples from last semester, chances are many of us have already seen them.
I like Liz's idea of blotting out names and any identifiable information (like title of class, etc.). The text doesn't matter, after all, for this assignment.
Yes, I also think a class on how visual rhetoric works in different contexts would help me a great deal.
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