Category Archives: Narrative

Awakenings

  By admin | June 1, 2011 - 9:16 pm | , , , ,
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Sleep and time and conversation… Those are my healers, the restorative balms for my battle-weary soul, the shapers of my amorphous muddle. I’m awake again. After an insomniac week, a coupla night–>noon sleep binges, several rich talks with beloved buddies*, I’m awake. I’m awake.

I’ve been staying in my old apartment, in my old room, for the past four days (who says you can’t go home again?) and just realized that the internet network password, which I had staunchly insisted was invalid!, had, indeed, been valid, quite valid, valid the whole time, just case-sensitive. Can you believe I never tried it with an uppercase initial letter? That’s a no-brainer. But never did. Never tried. Assumed my intel was faulty or my computer impaired. (To be technical, the intel was a smidgen faulty since it hadn’t been texted to me in its case-sensitive glory, nor scrawled on the refrigerator whiteboard as such, but still… And my computer sometimes does hate a local network, but still… Still.) Aren’t you just boonswoggled by the metaphorical weight of this? Assumed the worst. Ignored innovation. Smugly suffered. Doesn’t that sound like most Greek tragedies, and everybody’s foreign policy?

Now, “the glass is half-full” rejoinder would be: But I’ve woken up! I’m out-of-the-box-thinking, humility-remembering, lesson-learning-for-next-timing! And I’ve got another day and a half to enjoy super smooth Internet stylings!

True. Good. Excessively beating your breast is just as self-absorbed as assuming everyone else is wrong but you. (Not that self-indulgence is so alien around these parts. I offer the name of my domain as Exhibit A, the fact of this blog’s existence as Exhibit B…) Hopefully, in my re-engagement with the world around me, I operate a bit wiser, negotiate a trifle better, enriched for having gone on this journey. I think such a thing possible. I might sense a little more perspective… We’re all just people trying our best. Just people. Love us before it’s too late. (That’s the truth Mom and I independently discovered and exchanged two days ago. “Make sure to enjoy your life” is the nugget my dad shared tonight.)

I recently welcomed a friend to the prologue of the next chapter. But it wasn’t just his** and mine — it’s mine and mine. Mine and all of ours. This is a post-quals world, right? Post-May. Pre-summer. Pleine d’opportunite, as they’d say in French. Six em!, as we’d cry to the Pop-o-Matic bubble…

Onward.

*from a distance: Mom, Jim, Rebecca, and Mark; in the flesh: Geetha, Jinah, Jenn
**he, who is just a person, a person trying his best, like the rest of us

Realization

  By admin | May 26, 2011 - 3:48 pm | , , , , , , ,
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I am now four days post-quals and the whole experience seems like a dream, a Dali-esque portrait of vibrant images stitched together crazily… The scene it describes is of a Western/technologized rite of passage whose equivalent is stripping you naked, feeding you peyote, and sending you out in the desert to channel strange visions and, hopefully, survive.

I’m still sleep-deprived but for different reasons: play, travel, and circadian rhythm compromise. I’m energized, though, to be among smart and friendly scholars in familiar Boston. Maybe this PhD is a bit like my 2003-2006 Boston experience — exciting in anticipation, surprisingly challenging in acclimation, depressing and identity-rocking at times, and ultimately, home.

Below, you’ll find what I wrote yesterday and perhaps appreciate, as I do now, how feelings can be ephemeral and how meaning-making is a continuous process…
__________________

I did it.

The thing is, I’m not sure what “it” is. Just what did I do? Here is an itemized list:

-worked from the moment I woke up until the time I went to sleep;
(-except for when I watched Top Chef: Season 4 – Chicago during my breakfast, lunch, and dinner + dishwashing breaks;)
-wrote a paper for two solid days*, then moved on to the next, despite the fact that the last section of the previous paper was unfinished and I hate leaving things unfinished, because I couldn’t risk getting bogged down and figured a slapdash last section to one (or several) papers was better than a non-existent or mostly inadequate paper in its entirety;
-went for a daily, two block walk for a cup of coffee to go;
-experienced two of the 10 days feeling cloudy-brained due to sleep deprivation, sympathizing with the concussed, strategizing work-arounds – making detailed notes since my silly cerebrum couldn’t hold a thought, going for a walk to the mailbox (can’t trust my postal carrier and your lack of Valentines is the reason – I mailed em, people), catching quick semi-naps, re-jiggering my 10-day plan;
-communicated with my beloved mother, my champion, daily;
-compromised my body’s structural integrity, perhaps (by the end of the experience, got the distinct impression that my posture kept tilting to the right – that ain’t ergonomic, and neither is my Ikea couch);
-rubbed the ends of my hair to frayed, eroded stumps;
-opted for loose dresses and my most generous jeans;
-managed to make it to yoga on both Sundays;
-got bites across my infernally expanding belly from some critter (a flea?) that I hope doesn’t live in my furniture;
-surprised myself by some of the routes that the papers took – hadn’t anticipated needing to get into X or Y topic, but realized I couldn’t speak about Z without foregrounding X and Y;
-cursed myself for these deviations from the plan because they necessitated searching for literature and adding the new citations to my stupid reference section;
-marveled at the sheer length of these documents, born of my ignorance that it would take so many pages to explain some fundamentals before I could even get into more of the “meat”;
-wondered…………..

Here’s the philosophical part and I’m warning you now, it’s not pretty. I wondered:

-if the fundamentals are the meat, if the point is to prove one’s mastery of theory and research methods;
-if the fundamentals aren’t the meat, if the point is to explore something novel, synthesize, make more of a contribution;
-who decides the point anyway – who is this for? While my professors may read these papers (I say “may” intentionally – I take nothing for granted, especially since I forked over behemoths), I’m not driven to please them necessarily, or other people in general, and doubt that honoring my own agenda will dissatisfy them, or anyone (and if it does cause dissatisfaction, tend to think that the refuseniks are in the wrong);
-then, if this is for me, how am I benefiting again? Where is the value in writing a paper in two days, on the back of another two day paper, another two day paper, another two day paper? Does that generate products of value? Are my papers any good?
-if it’s not about the product, it’s about the process, then is this nose-to-the-grindstone process one that confers any take-aways? Do I want to practice this, get better at this, this process of masochism and social disconnect? That doesn’t sound sustainable or qualify-of-life-y…
-if there’s something to be said about learning how to write on demand? Maaaaaaaybe, because procrastination and overcommitment can and has and will inspire two-day paper writing (I have a book chapter due next week, for example, and a conference and another deadline in the interim). But. Ugh. And that’s still just one or maybe two two-day papers, not four. And one or maybe two two-day papers, that I’ve done. I like to call that “finals.” So does doing four build up a muscle that makes two seem like cake? Like after a marathon, a 15-mile run is a breeze? If so, how long does that muscle last? It can’t be permanent – nothing is permanent. What will I have to do to maintain it? Is whatever that is worth it?
-if this is less of a body and muscle game, more of a brain and story game – maybe this builds up confidence or stokes a sense of self-image, as in “I can, I am — I can put something scholarly together, I am a scholar.” But can I, am I? What does middling performance prove? Whose standard are we using? Do I compare myself to professionals or am I still just a student? At the age of 31, when is my work legitimate? What is my work? Who defines legitimacy?
-Will any of these papers make a difference for me or anyone?
-Will any of my work make a difference for me or anyone? Does anyone know anything, or are we all just feeling around in the dark? If it’s the latter, then that would make my darkness-groping okay, or normative at least… But then how can we ever get anywhere? Stroke of luck? This isn’t about luck, this is about science. To what extent is it naïve to impose science’s order on the complexity of real life — dynamic systems, flesh-and-blood-and-mind-and-spirit people?
HOW DO I HELP PEOPLE?
How do I help myself? What am I doing?

To be honest, most of this emerged amorphously, intuitively, as it dawned on me that I couldn’t muster the energy to proof my papers and wondered what was the point of having worked so hard to perfect the reference sections (which no one will read) if the content is grammatically-challenged and flabby? This led me down the recrimination highway (Why hadn’t I uploaded everything to Zotero way back when and anytime since? (I know why. Time. (Why don’t I have any time? What am I doing wrong?))) and, sending the papers anyway, smashed headfirst into an existential crisis.

I cried.

Sobbing, I called my parents (as they kept running into neighbors at the Jewel, bless em), who sagely determined that I was overtired and would benefit from a good night’s sleep. True. Good point. But it was 7 pm. And I had grown accustomed to staying up until 2.

I took a walk down to the mailbox, downing seltzer from a travel mug because I thought maybe the sharp pain in my stomach that had been troubling me for hours was due to the fact that all I’d drank all day was that single cup of coffee to go… I continued on to Bricks & Scones, where there were no sesame chewy rolls, and maybe it was just as well. I trudged back home, wishing I felt better in every way, brainstorming…

The story ends well. Basically. I ended up dashing to an 8:10 pm show of Bridesmaids, where I ate an embezzled rice cake and granola bar in the dark and drank in the (synthesized?) Midwest, laughing at the broad comedy and recognizing another seasoned woman’s search for it all.

But we weren’t exactly the same, this character and me. I wear longer dresses, for starters, and I hadn’t hit rock bottom… right? I had finished my exams. I’m sure I’ll pass the defense. I wrote scads more than was expected (to our collective detriment?). I have read more than I cited (a mistake?) and still cited up a storm (the less interesting things?). I rediscovered pdf’s and hard copies of articles and books with my underlining + margin scribbling + Post It flagging, like gifts from a fairy godmother who was me, me, me leaving myself presents, Past Me to Future Me, taking care of me, three years in the making…

I don’t know. I don’t know what it was for. At least I can keep going on in this program. That’s good, to not be stranded along the PhD highway, surviving humiliation and a six-month waiting period before being permitted to sit for quals again. It’s good not to fail (although we’re supposed to celebrate mistakes, right, “teachable moments,” risk failure, seek failure, isn’t that part of the value-added in learning through gaming? – but failure feels different outside of games, it just does, and I know people who regret losing games anyway. This was a good bullet-dodge for my ego, not failing. (Am I being presumptuous? I haven’t passed the defense yet!)). I know, at least, that when it comes time to hunker down and focus and do, I can. I did. (What did I do again?)

My friends made me laugh. ☺ Via IM, email, telephone, text, postcard, face-to-face… Old friends, dear friends, good friends who I’ve been through the war with, even who I’ve warred with, busy but still finding the time to care, not just to show up in whichever mode availed but to bring their hearts with them and connect…

My family. My family is so generous, and I am so privileged, in every way.

The hell in my head, I created. I create. I know. It consists of phantasms and tricks of light. It can be blown away, like spun sugar, with a single burst of optimism, or humor, or gratitude. It can be transformed by looking at it from a different angle, a perspective shift. I know. I know.

You believe in me. I should believe in your good judgment. I deserve some slack, I guess. And a little more faith…

My intentions are pure. I just want it to matter. I don’t know about all of this work business. But I do know about all of you. You matter. I love you.

*note, I qualified the days as solid, not the papers… but if anyone would like to read one or any of the papers, here are the links:

Participation and play: Modes of learning for today and tomorrow
“Almost as necessary as bread”: Why we need narrative and what makes it work
The origin of everything?: Empathy in theory and practice
Present promise, future potential: Positive Deviance and complementary theory

Vision

  By admin | May 11, 2011 - 3:26 pm | , , , , ,
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On Friday the 13th (no joke), I will begin to write my qualifying exams. This process, a 10-day rite of passage, separates the first part of PhD work (classes) from the second (independent research and writing). Then my five-person committee that consists of at least three members of my department and at least one member from an outside department will gather at my oral defense which is to be held at least two weeks after delivery of the written exam (in my case, scheduled for much later — Thursday, August 25) to determine whether I am qualified to begin dissertation research. If so, I will be awarded a Master of Arts in Communication, entitled to a title change (from doctoral student to doctoral candidate (also known as ABD, or “all but dissertation”)), allowed to teach stand-alone courses, required to submit a dissertation prospectus within 30 days of the oral defense, and expected to get quite drunk (with joy!).

The exams have students choose four or five areas to bracket, investigate, and write about. This work is intended to create/demonstrate the student’s mastery of each area, clearly delineating discrete areas of expertise. The first step is selecting a professor to supervise an area. The second step is drawing up a reading list, or a bibliography of journal articles and books that a person must read in order to become an expert in this area. The third step is reading, note-taking, thinking, etc. The fourth step is writing the exams (which consist of one essay per area, each answering a question written by that area’s supervising professor, delivered via email to the student on the first day of the 10-day writing period). The fifth step is defending these exam essays.

Theoretically, at the end of this process, the student should be able to teach a course about each area, with each reading list inspiring a syllabus. Some students select well-trod areas (such as “framing and agenda-setting” or “quantitative research methods”) while some students create their own unique groupings of scholarship (that’s me). Some students choose areas that will directly inform their dissertation projects and, in the most efficient case scenario,turn each area’s essay into a chapter in their dissertation’s literature review.

Such was my attempt in identifying my four qualifying exam areas. I would love to “work smart” and make my essays count for more than bureaucratic exercise. Moreover, my overarching goal is to make a difference. That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out how to do through my coursework, and that’s what my dissertation is going to try to figure out how to do too. I read a bunch of stuff, put together some ideas, try em out, see what happened, report back. (The “see what happened” and “report back” parts are lacking for me — I’ve got reams of unanalyzed data and an anorexic publication record, but everybody’s gotta start somewhere.) So, my exams reflect this mission, my attempt to figure out how to make a difference. What makes people tick? How do we support people’s healthy development? How do we optimize our learning potential? How do we make the world a better place? These are my deep-seated questions, my North Star. Should be simple to take em on, no?

Here is my vision:

These qualifying exam essays will examine how people learn, arguing that this process occurs in community, via participation, guided by emotion, and organized as stories. As such, change-making endeavors (e.g., curriculum launches, campaigns and interventions, reform policies) must leverage community context, work-related skills, individuals’ character and feelings, and storytelling/meaning-making. Each essay will: explore several interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks; synthesize these academically separate yet philosophically complementary theories by constructing tables or models identifying consistent categories/patterns; review relevant case studies; and offer a set of recommendations for enriching theory and praxis. Case studies will range from formal and informal educational initiatives in classroom and after-school contexts, to community development and community-based youth development projects, to entertainment-education programs. Separately, each essay will provide a deep dive into a specific (albeit interdisciplinary) area – respectively, community and youth development, participatory learning, empathy, and narrative. Holistically, these essays will chart a course for future research and practice aimed at making – in whichever way possible, however large or small – the world a better place.

Here is the supervisor and working title of each (as yet unwritten) essay:

Michael Cody & Doe Mayer: Participatory community development and development in participatory communities

Henry Jenkins (Chair): Participatory learning: Philosophies and models of education for today and tomorrow

Stacy Smith: The origin of everything?: Empathy in theory and practice

Sheila Murphy: “Almost as necessary as bread”: Why we need narrative and what makes it work


Sincere: Sunukaddu

  By admin | December 9, 2010 - 7:51 am | , , , , , ,
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These articles, presentations, and videos attempt to introduce the world to Sunukaddu‘s people and practices. As I state in my bio:

“This past summer, I had the thrilling opportunity to work in Dakar, Senegal, with innovative non-governmental organization le Reseau Africain d’Education pour la Sante (RAES) program, Sunukaddu. To this teen workshop in multimedia health communication I brought a pedagogical model and method that positioned new media literacies (NMLs) and SEL skills as fundamental to meaningful learning, and asset appreciation as key to sustainability. Collaboratively as a Sunukaddu team, local staff and I generated: a daily schedule that reflected a scaffolded methodology for optimizing participatory learning; a programmatic schedule that introduced key communication characteristics, strategies, and platforms, as well as useful theory; full lesson plans that respected our theoretical, temporal, and curricular goals; and a sense of togetherness.”

I wrote about my experiences with Sunukaddu for eLearn Magazine (“Making Education (Double) Count: Boosting Student Learning via Social and Emotional Learning and New Media Literacy Skills“), Henry Jenkins’s heavily trafficked blog (“High Tech? Low Tech? No Tech?“), and the blog for Global Kids Online Leadership Program (“Sunukaddu, A Voice for Youth in Senegal“). I also presented my work at the National Communication Association’s 2010 convention in San Francisco (“Leveraging New Media Literacies & Social-Emotional Learning to enrich teen education in Senegal“) and at the Global Education Conference (“New Media Literacies: The core challenges of implementation and assessment in international contexts“), a free, online event that took place in multiple time zones and languages over five days, hosting 15,028 unique logins and presentations from 62 countries.

An presentation on Sunukaddu and bridge-building with Los Angeles-area high schools was videotaped and posted to the web (I speak, Pecha Kucha-style, from 1:04:30-1:08:30). Nonetheless, when it came to presenting Sunukaddu via video alone, despite the fact that Sunukaddu taught participants how to shoot and edit video!, my translation was less articulate.

My learning process with FinalCut Pro, Compressor, and Snapz proved challenging and riddled with potholes. What began as a single remix that used footage sampled liberally from students’ documentation of the program, students’ final projects, and colleagues’ own remixes became three, relatively straight-forward videos. These three were intended to function as an introduction to NMLs, a preview of Sunukaddu’s integration of NMLs with SEL, and a final synthesis.

Sunukaddu: Our Voice, version 1 (originally posted to class wiki October 21, 2010)

Sunukaddu: Our Voice, version 2 (originally posted to class wiki November 11, 2010)
PART 1: New Media Literacies

This is a short film produced by Vanessa Vartabedian of Project New Media Literacies. I have left it in its original form except for excising two interviews — one with Henry Jenkins, one with Lana Swartz — which I inserted into PART 3.


PART 2: Sunukaddu
I took Vee’s advice and utilized the girls’ singing as a soundtrack to introduce Sunukaddu concepts and stills. I hope that it makes sense, how one NML and one SEL skill are at play in each still I flash. At any rate, it’s a work in progress…


PART 3: New Media Literacies + Sunukaddu

This is the end of the first version of my remix. I think that this part is the strongest component of the original and can stand on its own. I also think it’s an uplifting way to end, with Shakira’s “Waka waka” song and the explanation of NML’s specific utility for all people. The fact that the map focuses on Africa while Henry is talking is simply a very happy coincidence, but one which I exploit.

Designing like Barbara Kruger

  By admin | December 9, 2010 - 7:42 am | ,
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Freedom, regardless of gender and sexual orientation, is currently under review. Justices, lawmakers, and advocates are examining the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as well as weighing the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8. While less of a “headline-grabber,” sexual oppression in contexts of both war (e.g., prisoner-directed sexual violence, such as humiliation, rape, and forced marriage, in Iraq and the Congo, to name a few) and “peace” (e.g., civilian-directed sexual violence, such as harassment and rape, in every country on the planet) commands the attention of millions.

This piece attempts to initiate a dialogue on these subjects, using art as a lens to examine power.

Posturing (originally submitted to class wiki on September 16, 2010)

I chose this iconic image because, the more I looked at it, the more suspicious of it I became. While I’d formerly been swept away on a tide of joy and romance — Hooray! The war is over! — I began noticing signs of possible domination and artificiality. First, I looked at the couple’s hands. Check out the nurse’s left, clutching her leg/buttock. What is that about? While her right foot pop seems carefree, her squeeze suggests something else, something other than a passionate desire to hold her smooching sailor. The sailor’s left hand is bizarre also. He isn’t cradling her skull tenderly, he’s got her neck slung over his upper arm and his fist is aloft. Just as she avoided the opportunity to reach out and touch him, so too does he avoid a meaningful embrace. When we add this to the firm grip he’s got on her waist, the kiss seems more and more like a man-handle. He seized an object and had his way with it. But good.

In this sense, it evokes another famous image of a kiss — that of Gustav Klimt. The full portrait shows the woman’s feet dangling over the edge of a cliff.

However, the feet detail is usually cropped out.

Devoid of this context, the image is sweet and sensual, the stuff of postcard purveyors’ and corporate postermakers’ commercial dreams. But the original indicates that our lady is actually in peril, and so the power relationship is called into question. Is she a supplicant to an abusive sexual harasser? Is she a damsel in distress saved by a loving white knight? Then we could start to interrogate her neck position and facial expression. Is she demurely enjoying the kiss or merely tolerating this physical incursion?

With this informing my perspective, I began to question why the sailor would so insistently impose his kiss — and it’s a whopper, check out his mouth, he could swallow that nurse whole! We can see the smiling approval of the dark-suited sailor on the left. And the photographer’s camera could not have been subtle — this is 1945, afterall. The equipment did not blend.

Robert Doisneau’s famous image of a kiss has caught some flak for being posed.

I do not believe that the WWII photographer arranged his subjects as Doisneau had. However, I do wonder if there is an artificiality to the image all the same; I wonder if the sailor posed himself, specifically for a performance of gender. “See how manly I am! Yeah!!!” The buddy sees, and laughs, and approves. The camera sees, and by extension, the nation. Cries America: Hooray for heterosexuality! (We will ignore the sexual assault!)

So again, why so insistent, this machismo? The culture of the military is good enough an answer. But with the possibility of repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” it makes me think about all of the homosexuals who, for years, have served in silence. What if this were a display of pre-emptive or reactive hetero-normative masculinity? That might explain the sailor’s urgency and pandering to voyeurs’ gaze. I purposely made this text ambiguous so that the owner of this interior monologue is unclear: Who has the boyfriend, the man or the woman? The X out of “boyfriend jealous” and line “nation relieved” can be read as a comment on Americans’ unease with homosexuality or our appreciation of this image because it seemed to signify that things were back to normal, that we were happy and released from the yoke of war, and could joyously celebrate with a swak to the kisser.