Anthony Rotella
10/20/2014 01:38:02 am
If there is one thing thinking about rhetorical bodies does, is that it challenges the Classical notion of intellectual value, where this value is placed, and forces Westerners to reconstruct a thought pattern that has been educationally instilled since youth. It is, undoubtedly, a challenging yet refreshing process.
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Jillian
10/21/2014 09:56:06 am
This week, we read a chapter from Page duBois’ Out of Athens called “The Tattoos of Epimenides”, Jay Dolmage’s article “Metis, Mêtis, Mestiza, Medusa: Rhetorical Bodies Across Rhetorical Traditions” and Phebe Shih Chao’s piece called “Tattoo and Piercing: Reflections on Mortification”.
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Braulio de Pina
10/21/2014 01:49:35 pm
Tattoo and Piercing, interesting matter as well as controversial ones according to different society and era as Chao tries to examine in the paper. Tattoo and piercing both aim to pierce the skin, and also decoration or transformation the body. Chao’s rhetorical analyzes show us that this decoration are symbolic acts of transformation through which individual try to achieve redemption. He sees mortification, victimage as two kinds of this redemptive identification Chao explores Burke thought in an attempt to explain why certain individuals wear tattoos and piercing. Chao gives the idea that tattoo symbolizes the individual identity; tattoo and piercing owner renounce or deny their society and culture norm in a way they have their self-control. It is important to point out that Chao argues that people wear tattoo or piercing for individual purpose. In the text, we can see that individual who wear tattoo may face ‘stereotypes that had already been established: rebel/outlaw/counterestablishmentarian’. The way tattoo as well as piercing are seeing in society depends on the impact it has on the viewer. The tattoo on the body of Epimenides is rhetorical and the text tries to reveal us that the practice of tattoo has been with us for many centuries. As the author argues “this tattooing makes the free Epimenides abnormal in relation to other free men, since tattoos in antiquity were later usually associated with barbarians and slaves’. I was thinking that the prejudice and stereotype against tattoo it is something related to modern society, but I this passage I noticed that it is old and it was associated to slaves and barbarians. The fact of wear tattoo during Epimenides period makes the individual been seeing as someone from the lower class. I enjoyed the Rhetorical bodies across Rhetorical since it deals with Greek myths and I am fascinated with it. The author argues that extraordinary bodies should be the bodies of rhetoric. The text tell us the stories of of Goddes Metis, Medusa and Mestiza, and those symbolic extraordinary bodies are rhetorical.
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James Blandino
10/22/2014 08:45:16 am
James Blandino, Cultural Rhetoric- Week #7
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Mauro Reis
10/23/2014 08:38:57 am
The author of “Metis, Metis, Mestiza, Medusa: Rhetorical Bodies Across Rhetorical Traditions”, Jay Dolmage, starts explaining that throughout a great deal of time, as he says “Plato to Descartes” (1), rhetoric distanced from the body, seeing it as something not worthy or moreover harmful. The focus was always on “the mind and its powers” (2). Further, the body was ostracized, in particular the female body and the disabled body. They were seen as source of disease and decay. Dolmage argues that this attitude was the fear of disease and moral decay that our ancestors had towards the body. This idea reminds me of the Bible quote that applies to this idea, in Mathew 26:41:“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Nevertheless, Dolmage believes that while bodies have, in the past, been seen as bad and unpleasant, they can be seen as rhetorical sites of embodied multiplicity.
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Anthony Rotella
10/24/2014 04:32:34 am
Reading the article “Women’s Magazines in Ecuador: Re-reading ‘la Chica Cosmo’” seemed very appropriate after being introduced to rhetorical bodies and discussing what rhetorical purposes bodies may have. The way we dress, both men and women, for example, says a lot about who we are. It conveys messages about what we value, or whom we may support. What if popular culture was, in a way, dictating how we should dress? What if popular culture suggested that certain brands or styles of clothing were “norms,” influencing what we choose to wear? I think the answer to both of these questions are “yes, this not new information.” In fact, it is very typical of the consumerist culture we live in. What if Western culture directly influenced how women in other cultures dressed or thought of themselves? What if Western culture dictated the norms of other cultures? This is also true, and requires much more than a one-sentence answer.
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Ailton Dos Santos
10/24/2014 12:53:35 pm
Rethorics of Display, by Phebe S. Chao, analyses the significance and impact that tattoos and piercings had and the way this has changed over time. Chao presents Burke’s point of view on what the significance of the tattoos meant in certain contexts and locations, “For example, the prisoner…feel guilty for his crime…in prison…his act of crying out loud…a nonverbal gesture of defiance-a tattoo.” (330). Shaving and wearing makeup are examples of body decoration such as Tattoos and piercing are a type of body decoration, but most of the time tattoos or piercings may be seen as “uncivilized” and even degrading. Tattoos and piercings used to be something exclusively for “the convicts or drug addicts”, people somehow that did not obey the norms of a society, which made these art forms look “evil” and with negative connotations. As time went by, people from different social classes and age started using tattoos and piercings making it become more “mainstream”. The tattoos and piercing are ways of expressing something, they have a message, and their meaning will be conveyed through the “lenses” we use to see them.
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Jen Downing
10/26/2014 01:13:19 am
Jennifer Downing
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Sandra Couto
10/26/2014 05:31:51 am
Sandra Couto
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Sandra Couto
10/26/2014 05:34:57 am
Continued>>
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Jacey Peers
10/26/2014 10:43:33 am
I found the piece Metis, Metis (I don’t know how to add that accent), Medusa: Rhetorical Bodies across Rhetorical Traditions by Jay Dolmage to be pretty interesting. Initially, I power in the fact that the intelligence of women and their physical bodies are threatening, however, in attempts to preserve masculinity that power is immediately diminished. It pissed me off that a woman’s body is devalued and that the female offspring is seen as the first step to monstrosity. It’s upsetting to see that there is such negativity attached to a woman’s body. It’s strange to see that not much has changed, except the negativity is stemmed from cultural rhetoric of media and advertisements telling women what they should look like and how they can get there. Dolmage says, “Fear of the body and of bodily difference has limited our ability to recognize and communicate with and from our own real bodies”. It really is insane how the mindsets of those in the fast are so connected to our world today. As I said previously, our society has an ideal image that girls everywhere try to reach. Most of us know that it is stupid to want it and we should love ourselves as we are, yet, most of us still strive for it. We disconnect ourselves from appreciating the body that we live and if we can’t show self-love how can we show outwardly love? I also was unnerved that femininity and disability were pretty much seen as the same thing, and to make it worse “disability has been used to justify discrimination against” groups. How could human beings so idiotic and sick? I will never understand. While discussing rhetoric, I found it a little strange that it was depicted in such a dark and “evil” way. Rhetoric was seen as disabling, and where philosophy was seen as a connection to the soul, rhetoric was connected to the pleasures of the body. Which, I mean, in this day in age we are all for the pleasures of the body whether platonic or not. I’ll steer clear of anything inappropriate but if you think about food. We like to say that food feeds the soul but it also is pleasurable to your palate and your body. Although this isn’t an emotional and philosophical example, it does show, that despite these guys’ efforts to dichotomize the two, I think they are very much so related and one without the other is… what? One line that stood out to me was, “[Humans have always exercised the right to make choices about the anatomical features that they consider desirable or interesting” which is really a way of saying, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Thinking further on it, we all have personal preferences on what we deem beautiful which is disconnected to whether or not someone sees us as beautiful; but where does this come from? Unfortunately, it is our culture, society, media etc., unless you’re lucky enough to live in the woods your entire life and have been socialized far away from the “norm” and mainstream of our world. However, I’m choosing to read this line in a motivational way, where it’s telling me that I have the power to make a choice about what I consider beautiful… and although I have given that power to the culture and society that surrounds me I have the choice to take it back and decide for myself (easier said than done but it is nonetheless in my every right and power to do so). If we all exercised this, it would go against what is discussed later on in this reading, where all of the stories through history have themes of bodily oppression.
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Jillian
10/27/2014 09:04:00 am
This week, we read two articles that addressed concerns related to the subject of the representation of women in magazines. “’Be a feminist or just dress like one’: BUST, Fashion and Feminism as Lifestyle” by Elizabeth Groenveld focused on the implications of a single fashion spread in an issue of BUST magazine. “Women’s Magazines in Ecuador: Re-reading ‘la Chica Cosmo’” by Erynn Masi de Casanova was a critical analysis of thirteen issues of magazines sold in Ecuador around 2000. Both studies pointed out the ways in which the magazines visually and textually limited the visibility of some segments of their audiences by using a high ratio of White and light-skinned models with “delicate” features and oversimplifying the viewpoints expressed by the people of color they do feature. Both authors found elements of the magazines under study to be problematic but came to nuanced conclusions rather than dismissing their value altogether.
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Jay Balsavich
10/28/2014 01:15:18 am
The readings for the week of the 21st provided an excellent examination of issues relating to the body. The piece that resonated with me the most was Jay Dolmage piece “Metis, Metis, Mestiza, Medusa: Rhetorical Bodies across Rhetorical Traditions”, which challenged the traditional primacy of philosophy over rhetoric. As someone who has both an interest in philosophy as well as Greek myths, it was interesting to see how Dolmage used greek myths to subvert traditional ways of thought. I especially liked how he assigned to rhetoric the image of the body, and further explained how the body was seen as a site of disease and therefore, was inferior to the mind which was the house for philosophy. The mind body relationship therefore served as an allegory to the debate between philosophy and rhetoric, with the former being favored. In addition to this relationship, Dolmage points out how the body has often been feminized and therefore was seen as weaker.
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Jacey Peers
10/28/2014 03:00:02 am
Women’s Magaines in Ecuador: Re-reading “la Chica Cosmo” by Erynn Masi de Casanova. My interest was piqued at the very beginning while discussing a woman in an image on the cover of Cosmopolitan; de Casanova says, “The rose-petal print of the dress invokes the stereotype of nonwhite women as being close to nature.” When I see women wearing flower print dresses, I usually don’t think “ah, they are one with nature,” and after looking up the cover of the magazine, I didn’t think that it looked like she was close to nature at all. If anything, that dress would get extremely dirty in nature and the rose petals looked more like artsy paint brush strokes than rose petals. Certain claims just feel forced to me, especially when they are so dependent on a person’s opinion, whereas there is solid evidence to support claims. I do think that the objectification of the female body is discussed often but in that discussion, race, class, and colonialism is lost when it is encoded in the image as well. Unfortunately, I am embarrassed to admit that I had not thought about this until now, which shows that we have to bring this to the attention of our peers; sometimes we miss what are right in front of us/under our noses. I highlighted way too much in this article, so I’ll talk about a few main things that peaked my interest. On page 92, de Casanova discusses the way of life in Ecuador in terms of how they categorize and treat people, which is by how they dress. An individual’s clothing “acts as a visual gauge of his or her place on the modern-traditional continuum; in the words of the band, Bowling for Soup, “high school never ends.” Authenticity is communicated through dress and fashion, which is ironic because if you’re keeping up with the fashion trends of your culture, how can you be authentic? “The desire to be beautiful is universal” also stood out to me; this true, but of course, beauty is not only in the eyes of the beholder, it also changes throughout time periods, locations, cultures etc. Unfortunately, in Ecuador and other countries, the idea of what is beautiful is universalized and generic, almost always being the white ideal of beauty. I find this funny because most white women don’t even fit under this category, I know that I don’t. This desire to fit this description is impossible to obtain and sets women up for failure and disappointment, especially after the proscribed cosmetics and wardrobes come up short. Another part of this piece that stood out to me was the discussion on nonwhites in publications. While discussing how nonwhite women are portrayed in publications, de Casa explains that they are associated with barbarism and backwardness. Not only are these women portrayed as uncivilized through their dress and possibly positioning in the photograph, the women that are nonwhite are usually light skinned and have Caucasian-type features; they look soft and “delicate” in these pictures. Not only is this wrong, but I can see how the commercialization of this idea of what is beautiful is reflected into our society. What I mean is, I have had friends and have met people who say that they aren’t attracted to black guys or girls on a sexual level; that is, unless he or she is lighter skinned, “melato”, like Chris Brown, Will Smith, or Halle Berry. When people said this, I thought it was just personal preference, but now I’m thinking that this idea of beautiful or that this type of “black” is attractive does stem from the media.
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Mauro Reis
10/28/2014 03:40:04 am
On this week’s readings we read the articles “‘Be a feminist or just dress like one’: BUST, fashion and feminism as lifestyle” by Elizabeth Groeneveld and “Women’s Magazines in Ecuador: Re-reading la Chica Cosmo” by Erynn Masi de Casanova. In the first one, Groeneveld builds up her article by analyzing the BUST Magazine’s view on women’s way of dressing. This magazine was created to be an alternative to other feminine magazines that, according to its editors, were full of stereotypes towards women. However, Groeneveld states that the magazine segregates and creates a specific audience that she calls “hip”, modesty, religion or alternative dress choices, such as suits and Birkenstocks were not welcome. We are, then, presented with the relation between fashion and feminism in which these two ideas were in the opposite sides. They were seen as incompatible and that they had to reject one another. Nevertheless, over time, there were people that saw this relationship in a different perspective and believed that “through fashion, we fashion ourselves, and have the opportunity to create and explore alternatives” (4) and then pointed out the example of drag as an “example of the potential ways in which dress can play a role in broader projects of resistance and/or subversion” (4). The author criticizes the magazine’s one way vision on feminism by stating it as “limited” and claims that “fashion is ambivalent – for when we dress we wear inscribed upon our bodies the often obscure relationship of art, personal psychology, and the social order” (5) and so is the feminism perspective on fashion.
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Ailton Dos Santos
10/28/2014 06:18:06 am
The article BUST, fashion and feminism as lifestyle by Elizabeth Groeneveld is a critique to the BUST magazine. In 2006, the BUST magazine announced a fashion issue entitled Be a feminist or just dress like one, which, in the eyes of Elizabeth, was “…a rather simplistic view of that history.” (179). For Elisabeth, this issue by BUST magazine generates inside her a contradictory feeling, since the magazine both “honors and dishonors” the history of feminism. BUST portrays the feminists as superfluous…more “desirable” yet superfluous. Elizabeth argues that BUST presents a particular version about the meaning of feminist to the public and “…reduces it to a story that is only about gender differences.” (184) and ignores the “…contestations and dynamic exchanges that have made feminism movements exciting, mutable, and not always ‘safe’ for those in power.” (185). According to her, being a feminist should not be reduced to a simple piece of clothing since being a feminist also has political implications. It seems as if this magazine is only trying to make the women buy the outfits instead of make them become more active in order to fight for the ideals and values upon which the feminists stand.
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Braulio Pina
10/28/2014 06:24:53 am
The article “Be a feminist or just dress like one”, deals with the importance of the culture of clothing in women’s lives. Look at the title it brings up to mind that many women may dress like one but they may not behave list a feminist does. In Cape Verde, my mother, aunties… dress as any women does but they do not share the feminist ideology since they see man as the head of society and women as fragile race. Feminist issue it is something that I have never stop to think about. In fact, the mean of feminist it is something that I will take a close look. For many times I have heard the word ‘feminist’ and the first idea that usually comes up in my mind is that women who consider themselves as feminist have bad idea about man. The author refers to Miss America protest and cited Savage (1998) who argues that the perspectives on the relationship between feminism and fashion were ambivalent in this period. Gronebeld borrow from Wilson to identify two feminist approaches to fashion: one was a condemnation of fashion as an oppressive tool of the patriarchy; the other, a kind of populist liberalism, suggested that it would be elitist…The author shows us that people in the protest have different way of perceiving fashion. The feminist protest seems to be an attempt to call the society attention about gender matters.
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Jen Downing
11/12/2014 08:28:03 am
Women’s Magazines in Ecuador
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