After you read Alcoff, take a deep breath, exhale, and put your feet up.
Compose, categorize and publish your own blog entry in response to this prompt. Then, fini!
If you have questions about Alcoff or the blog prompt, then let me know!  Otherwise, I’ve posted two blog entries about today’s class. Here are those entries:
For Thursday’s reading of Alcoff’s “The Problem of Speaking for Others”, please compose your own blog entry (categorized under “Alcoff”) that engages these three bullets:
What questions do you have about Alcoff’s text and her argument? What wasn’t clear? What doesn’t add up?
How does Alcoff’s article intertextualize with our work on “service” in the class thus far? How does it map onto the word, “service”? What issues does it raise about conducting service-learning at Boys and Girls Clubs?
Finally, how is Alcoff’s article useful for YOU (as a student, as a service-learner, as a writer, as sound-script composer)?
Also, feel free to include your annotations of the article in your post or anything else you want to note, for that matter.
And remember: You are not expected to read this article and “totally get it.” It’s dense and complex. It references a long history of theory, as well as critical stress points in feminist and post-structuralist thought. Don’t get caught up in those references. Read through them and connect the article with our work in 121 — our work on voice-overs, our service-learning work, and our keyword collaboratory work. Cool?
Let me know what questions you have! (Reminder: I have virtual office hours on Wednesday from 5-7 p.m.)
One thing that particularly marks American culture is the notion of “adversarial jurisprudence” — the notion that law and justice ultimately emerge from the battle between two warring parties.
Consider these two, for instance:
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In the first corner is Girl Talk (a/k/a Greg Gillis), who has become nearly famous for his intense mash-ups of other people’s music, for which he does not give credit or royalties. (What’s more, his record label is dubbed “Illegal Art.”)
In the second corner is Lady Sovereign, who is — as you’ll notice — sampled in one of Girl Talk’s songs, “Friday Night.”
Now, we COULD pit these two in a tete-a-tete boxing match for their lives. Sovereign’s music is stolen, and Girl Talk does nothing more than give a casual, cultural nod. (After all, as Doug Kahn notes, there is no citation in music.) But let us refrain from confining ourselves solely to adversarial jurisprudence, shall we? Let’s also “teach the debate.”
What does “teach the debate” imply? It implies looking at how a debate emerges in the first place. What are its modes of production? How did it come to be and where is it going? Another word here might be “problematics” — how we make problems matter, or how we make scenes of them in court rooms across the country.
Teaching the debate is a matter of asking the right questions — questions which do not end with pitting one issue (or person) against another. For the case of Girl Talk and Lady Sovereign, let’s try these steps:
Listen to Girl Talk’s “Friday Night” and Lady Sov’s “Random” and take notes. You might focus, in particular, on how Sov is sampled in Girl Talk’s song. What was ripped and to what effects?
Notes taken? Ok, now let’s chat as a class. We’ll need one facilitator, two equalizers, one recorder, one time keeper, and two devil’s advocates. In approximately fifteen minutes, you should generate three debates that might emerge from these two songs, between these two parties. For each debate, state what the debate is about and categorize it (e.g., economic, artistic, or political).
When we are finished, we’ll decide upon which debate would be most interesting to pursue, keeping in mind HOW the debate emerges in the first place. How does the debate raise questions? How complex is it?
Next, we’ll replicate the debate, splitting the class into fourths. Using the same roles (i.e., facilitator, equalizer, recorder, time keeper, and devil’s advocate) as before, you’ll be responsible for generating one complex claim, stating what evidence and what type of experts you would need to support that claim, and, finally, what you are assuming to make your claim happen (that is, what are your warrants).
We’ll then reconvene and share your claims, evidence, experts, and warrants.
When all’s done, we’ll teach each other the debate. We’ll look at how these claims emerged, how experts were called, and what — after all — appears to be the motor for Girl Talk vs. Lady Sov.
Let me know what questions you have before or after the workshop!
