ENG 231 3.M: Procedural Analysis Paper

Posted on January 23, 2023 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com
  • Some Quick Journal Feedback
  • Procedural Analysis Paper
  • Academic Paper Crash Course

Some Quick Journal Feedback

Working through the rubric question on theme, one student wrote:

The theme of the game is about choice. The narrator sets up a story in which Stanley learns that he is being mind controlled by his boss and “frees” Stanley from a life that is controlled by other people. Interestingly enough, as much as the narrator paints the idea of being controlled in a bad light, when Stanley does not make the decisions that the narrator wants him to make, the narrator gets irritated and even angry.

To which I responded:

I’m not sure what you mean by “choice” in that first sentence. I think you are working through this, but also that you need to chisel away at what choice means here, in what ways the problem of choice operates in our society. Or in what way people struggle with or against choice? Is the target of the designer’s critique the capitalist expectation that we sit at our desks and obey/produce, or a more Socratic critique that people choose obedience because they are too frail, to cowardly, to make important choices in their own life?

Similarly a reflection on Doki Doki:

I believe that this game’s depiction of mental illness is important to discover. I think the authors used mental health as an added factor in the horror relam because of the realness that depression shows in the physical world.

Cool–this writer has identified the game’s topic, but I don’t think we have enough specific focus to identify the argument or theme. What are the developers saying about mental health, the way it is commonly (mis?)portrayed, how we might approach it, etc. How do they want me to perceive mental health differently? What do they want to change?

Some initial reflection on A Blind Legend:

The clear mechanics to be found interesting is the lack of visuals – although it is not entirely barren. As the player slashes with a sword or gets attacked, there are occasionally flashes of white or red to indicate contact or being harmed, respectively. Similarly, the “health system” is based on heartbeats, entirely audible as well; the more the player gets injured, the faster the heart will beat. Timing is also important, as to hear when to attack; important cues given like growls to tell you when and where to slash. A disembodied voice also narrates you through learning the keys and mechanics, and I am surprised it is not a better done voice, or one given through a character for example. I am curious if this has a point, and will have to consider that while playing, if the voice remains relevant.

So far I feel lost, although I am sure this is intentional. As there are no visual clues as to what is going on in the story, it is developing slowly through dialogue. So far we have run from the kingdom, hacked through woods, and are taking shelter in a cave from the rain, where we had to fight off some animal (a bear, I assume, although perhaps something more fantastical, it was not explicitly stated).

An initial reflection to Journey:

Summary of session: This was a fantastic intro to the game. This is unlike anything I have played before. I felt totally serene, but curious the whole time. I wanted to know how to play and what to do, but I let that subside and just played around, figuring it out along the way. It was gratifying to figure out a mechanic or goal without being told. The movement was satisfying and I loved how it felt as I got better and it became more fluid. As I moved to the next level, the camera was focused on a huge looming mountain/volcano in the distance. I am guessing that it is my goal to get there by the end of the game. I like the idea of having a general direction, but no idea of what is in between.
I love how the game keeps you aware of your own body, when you shift around your physical position, the camera angle reflects it. It reminds you of your interactivity with the character and the game itself. I am super excited to play more, but I will probably reserve it for calm, late nights like this.

Reading this, I want to the writer to put their experience (and Bogost’s language) in conversation with previous discussions of what makes Journey great. Let’s take this one.

Procedural Analysis Paper

Vitals:

  • The paper is due Monday, January 30th at noon.
  • Papers should generally be between 1000 and 2000 words, so 4 to 8 pages double-spaced (note that I check word count and not page length)
  • Use either MLA, APA, or Chicago Style to format the paper and citations
  • If papers meet base expectations (see below), then they will receive a “B.” I will provide every writer with 3-4 things they must revise to earn an A

Base expectations:

  • The paper must provide an explication of Bogost’s concept of procedural rhetoric, citing Bogost, Custer, and this essay by Mark Love (also in the files section of Canvas)
  • The paper must identify what it thinks the theme/argument/purpose of the game is (speculating on the designer’s intentions)
  • The paper must identify at least two ways the mechanics work with or against that theme/argument/purpose. Remember that “mechanics” refers to rules, procedures, abilities, scoring systems, etc. Anything related to how we play the game. [Note: multiple path narratives are tricky here]
  • The paper must supply and describe examples from the game that support those identifications
  • The paper must, at some point, reflect upon how this game made them feel, whether that feeling matches up with the designers intentions, and speculate as to why/why not this game foster procedural persuasion
  • The paper must have a title that does not suck
  • Optional: the paper can suggest how the designers might tweak a mechanic, scoring system, etc to increase procedurality

A note: the hardest element of writing for developing writers concerns “audience.” To whom are you writing this paper? I would like you to write this paper for someone who:

  1. Has never read Bogost or heard of procedural rhetoric
  2. Has never played the video game you are analyzing
  3. Has some sense of typical video game genres (i.e., you do not have to tell them what an action platformer is, but you probably do need to identify and describe specific genre conventions of those genres). So, like, if you showed them a picture of Super Mario Brothers they would say “hey, that’s Super Mario Brothers!” but they wouldn’t necessarily know what a “meta loadout” is. In other words, maybe, your parents. Or a favorite high school teacher. Or a non-gamer friend/partner who has watched you play some games. Base familiarity without deep knowledge.

Academic Writing Crash Course

This is not a writing class as much as it is a thinking class–but, like many humanities classes, I will interface with your thinking through writing. Like video games and music and movies, writing has genres. The genre for this paper is probably the academic essay, which is boring. I encourage you to channel your own voice here, to play around, to have fun, to write as if this would be published on a website or whatever. And so the struggle for me here is to identify how much I should “discipline” these papers, temper your creative range with boring rules and expectations for academic prose.

I’m going to make a few suggestions for the paper because some folks like clear rules. Rules make them happy, or at least more comfortable. I should say that I don’t think thinking and writing are activities conducive to comfort. But, alas.

Academic Paper Crash Course (Hermeneutic Edition)

Okay, a few of my stock speeches.

  • Writing cannot be taught, only learned
  • “Teaching” Writing is not like “teaching” Math (student edition)
  • “Teaching” Writing is not like “teaching” Math (teacher edition)
  • New Procedurality Paper Choice. I wrote a thing once.

Now, despite all that, I am going to try and teach you how to write a paper (fully aware that this won’t “work” and that we’re all a bit annoyed).

Invention/Content: What Should This Paper Do?
Your task is to use theories of procedural rhetoric to analyze a game. This analysis should attempt to identify:

  • what the designers are attempting to communicate
  • what clear mechanical (procedural) choices they have made to amplify that message
  • whether those choices worked on you
  • additionally, it should be able to recommend how they might have better achieved their goals

Organization / Arrangement

Generally, this kind of analysis paper looks something like this:

  • Introduction: with a concrete detailed “thesis statement” that condenses and summarizes all the fucking shit you will say in the paper. DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT WRITING THIS UNTIL YOU HAVE WRITTEN THE PAPER. Don’t do it. Ever. I’ll know. (See argument below)
  • Theoretical Lens: Describe the ideas you are using to analyze the textual object. In this case, we are talking “procedural rhetoric,” so you need a section of the paper that cites Bogost and Custer (files section of Canvas) and focuses on what ideas you use in your paper. I call this building the meat grinder.
  • Body sections with interesting subheadings: Then there’s any number of sections that put a particular part/scene/chapter/system of the textual object through the meat grinder
  • Conclusion: These are tricky

This first assignment checks your handle on the fundamentals of academic writing. These include:

  • Argument. Does the paper’s introduction lay out a CLAIM rather than ask a QUESTION? Does the introduction lay out what the paper will conclude? Does it include specifics? LIKE REAL CONCRETE DETAILS. I cannot stress the importance of crafting a sophisticated thesis paragraph (not necessarily a statement, do I have time to rant about the 5 paragraph essay?)
  • Paragraph StructureDoes each paragraph open with a topic sentence that lays out the claim of that paragraph? Does it transition into and contextualize evidence? Does it supply evidence (quote, reason, anecdote, etc). Does it summarize and then analyze evidence? [Note summarize and analyze are two different things!] Does the closing sentence of the paragraph “end” the thought by referring the specific claim of the paragraph back to the overall argument of the paper?
  • Handling of Evidence I’ll be paying closer attention to two of the elements above–how well do you transition into a quote? Do you know how to contextualize a quote [that is, briefly tell the reader where the quote falls in view of the original author’s argument]. What do you do after the quote? How deftly can you summarize the quote–putting it into your own words in a way that “opens” it up for the reader without sounding too repetitive. This is a skill, a real hard one. AND then, how well do you add something to that quote/evidence that does something with it? For instance, if you are talking about player complicity, what can you add to the quote(s) from Sicart to help me understand it more. Do you recognize what keywords in the quote require more explication? Do you have personal experience that can help illuminate the concept? Do you have something to add to the quote to amplify its argument? Extend? Examples?
  • Note–writing about procedurality means you might be analyzing elements of a game, so can you describe that element concisely and meaningfully to someone who hasn’t played the game? If you use a screenshot, can your provide enough context for me to understand your argument/analysis?

Crafting a Thesis Paragraph

Below I articulate three important elements of writing that I will use to evaluate your first paper: developing a specific thesis, properly contextualizing and analyzing evidence, and maintaining logical development.

That said, every piece of academic writing should offer a “thesis” in the introduction. I tend to hate this word, because it comes with so much baggage. For me, a strong thesis lays out AS SPECIFICALLY AS POSSIBLE what information a paper will present. It is a kind of idea map. Let me show you a few potential thesis statements:

  • I/this paper explain(s) Inoue’s theory of anti-racist writing assessment
  • I/this paper explain(s) Inoue’s theory of anti-racist writing assessment, noting his key terms and summarizing his suggestions for new teachers
  • I/this paper explain(s) how Inoue’s theory of anti-racist writing assessment might create problems for teachers who prioritize grammar as the central concern of writing. instruction

All those examples are bad. Though not equally bad. The first one is an F. The second one is also an F. They are equally devoid of specific thought. They are a placeholder for a thought that, at the time of writing, the writer did not yet have.

The third one is better. It is in the high C, low B range. It could potentially be higher based on what comes before or after it. If the next sentence detailed a list of problems, then it would be an “A.”

Okay, so what does an “A” look like? Examples:

  • I explain how Inoue’s theory of anti-racist writing assessment emphasizes the importance of familiarizing students with assessment rubrics, often through practice norming sessions
  • I explain how Inoue’s theory of anti-racist writing assessment calls for teachers to separate grading and assessment from the act of providing feedback. When students encounter feedback alongside grades, they often receive that feedback as a justification for a (bad) grade rather than as an attempt to guide and develop their abilities. Inoue makes clear that providing distance between grades and feedback increases the likelihood that students engage and implement feedback
  • I explain how Inoue’s theory of anti-racist writing assessment challenges traditional enforcement of “standard” English on the grounds that it severely and unjustly punishes students from multilingual backgrounds. The evidence Inoue presents creates problems for teachers who prioritize “proper” grammar as the central concern of writing.

Here’s the deal y’all: WRITE YOUR THESIS LAST. Trust me, I’ll know if you write the introduction before you write the paper. I’m a fucking Jedi when it comes to this. And I will die on this hill (those of you who have taken 301 should know why). Pro-tip: when you are done with your rough draft compare the thesis in your intro to the conclusion. You won’t know what a paper is actually going to say until you write it!

Pro-tip #2: academic and professional writing are not mysteries. This isn’t Scooby-Doo. Don’t keep me in suspense. Make sure all the important things you find in the course of a paper appear in the first few sentences, paragraphs, or pages (depending on the length of the paper). Front load, front load, front load.

Remember that an actual, breathing human is grading your papers. Sometimes they are grading as many as 80 papers a week. I’m not supposed to say this, but very often they are formulating an attitude toward your paper from the first paragraph. If it is some lazy first-draft-think-aloud-stream-of-consciousness-bullshit, then it is highly unlikely that anything you do later in the paper is going to reverse that first impression.

Working With Sources

Crafting a Thesis Paragraph

Below I articulate three important elements of writing that I will use to evaluate your first paper: developing a specific thesis, properly contextualizing and analyzing evidence, and maintaining logical development.

That said, every piece of academic writing should offer a “thesis” in the introduction. I tend to hate this word, because it comes with so much baggage. For me, a strong thesis lays out AS SPECIFICALLY AS POSSIBLE what information a paper will present. It is a kind of idea map. Let me show you a few potential thesis statements:

  • I/this paper explain(s) Inoue’s theory of anti-racist writing assessment
  • I/this paper explain(s) Inoue’s theory of anti-racist writing assessment, noting his key terms and summarizing his suggestions for new teachers
  • I/this paper explain(s) how Inoue’s theory of anti-racist writing assessment might create problems for teachers who prioritize grammar as the central concern of writing. instruction

All those examples are bad. Though not equally bad. The first one is an F. The second one is also an F. They are equally devoid of specific thought. They are a placeholder for a thought that, at the time of writing, the writer did not yet have.

The third one is better. It is in the high C, low B range. It could potentially be higher based on what comes before or after it. If the next sentence detailed a list of problems, then it would be an “A.”

Okay, so what does an “A” look like? Examples:

  • I explain how Inoue’s theory of anti-racist writing assessment emphasizes the importance of familiarizing students with assessment rubrics, often through practice norming sessions
  • I explain how Inoue’s theory of anti-racist writing assessment calls for teachers to separate grading and assessment from the act of providing feedback. When students encounter feedback alongside grades, they often receive that feedback as a justification for a (bad) grade rather than as an attempt to guide and develop their abilities. Inoue makes clear that providing distance between grades and feedback increases the likelihood that students engage and implement feedback
  • I explain how Inoue’s theory of anti-racist writing assessment challenges traditional enforcement of “standard” English on the grounds that it severely and unjustly punishes students from multilingual backgrounds. The evidence Inoue presents creates problems for teachers who prioritize “proper” grammar as the central concern of writing.

Here’s the deal y’all: WRITE YOUR THESIS LAST. Trust me, I’ll know if you write the introduction before you write the paper. I’m a fucking Jedi when it comes to this. And I will die on this hill (those of you who have taken 301 should know why). Pro-tip: when you are done with your rough draft compare the thesis in your intro to the conclusion. You won’t know what a paper is actually going to say until you write it!

Pro-tip #2: academic and professional writing are not mysteries. This isn’t Scooby-Doo. Don’t keep me in suspense. Make sure all the important things you find in the course of a paper appear in the first few sentences, paragraphs, or pages (depending on the length of the paper). Front load, front load, front load.

Remember that an actual, breathing human is grading your papers. Sometimes they are grading as many as 80 papers a week. I’m not supposed to say this, but very often they are formulating an attitude toward your paper from the first paragraph. If it is some lazy first-draft-think-aloud-stream-of-consciousness-bullshit, then it is highly unlikely that anything you do later in the paper is going to reverse that first impression.

Homework

What you have to complete this week depends on how diligently you have kept up with the journal work.
I asked you to complete 3 different journal entries. I will be grading the journal entries Friday morning (and, hopefully, I have scored the first gaming journal entries via the Gaming Journal Link today).

The whole purpose of the gaming journal entries assignment is to help you generate ideas for the paper. So the only other homework you have this week is to finish writing the paper before next week’s class.

To make my life easier, I ask that you use the heading feature to identify the three different entries in your journal. Let me demonstrate.

Final Note: I have submitted a request to reserve the Ross Computer lab for our classes on Wednesday and Friday this week. I will let you know once I have confirmation.

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ENG 231 2.F: Catching Up, Moving On

Posted on January 20, 2023 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Google Doc Contribution Issues / Make-Up Assignment
  • Homework
  • From A Rhetorical Triangle to a Ludic One
  • Revised Procedural Rhetoric Heuristic

Google Doc Contribution Issues / Make-Up Assignment

I’ve scored the first assignment–I had a bit of an issue using the “find” feature in Firefox, so I had to double-check with the Google Docs find. If you completed this and I missed it, just let me know and/or copy and paste some of your contributions into Canvas.

If you haven’t completed the assignment yet, then I will give you a 4/5 if you spend some time reflecting on the game you are currently playing and using the rubric I’ve laid out below.

Homework

Keep on playing your game for the first paper and include another entry in your gaming journal Google Doc. I will cover the first paper in Monday’s class–it will be due January 30th. I will do my best to review progress in the gaming journals before next Wednesday’s class. In Wednesday’s class, we will work on summarizing procedural rhetoric.

From A Rhetorical Triangle Square to a Ludic One

I will spend 30 minutes thinking about our current project. I want to revise and adapt the heuristic we’ve been using. I mentioned last Friday that I wanted to incorporate “phenomenology” into our heuristic a bit. Here goes.

In rhetorical studies there’s the concept of the rhetorical triangle, offered by Lloyd Bitzer in his canonical essay “The Rhetorical Situation.” The essay is the foundation of many first-year writing courses, as it teaches us to analyze any “text” (which means message) in terms of its writer (who they are, what they want, why they write), its audience (where are they? what do they already think and feel, etc), and the subject matter and purpose of the text. Over the last half of the 20th century, scholars have turned this triangle into a square, adding context (the social, political, cultural, economic, networks/rules etc. in which the writer, audience, and purpose are enmeshed).

In essence, we’ve been asking similar questions about video games, treating them as a “text” in Bitzer’s sense. We think about the developer and her aims–whether those aims are clear (a serious game) or more ambiguous (which I think would characterize most of the games y’all are analyzing). We are certainly attending to the message/purpose of a game, attempting to identify what kind of changes that game wants to engender in us or our world. And–I hope–you recognize that often a procedural analysis will compare a game to others in its genre, isolating unique mechanics and then speculating as to whether those mechanics work with the game’s thematic and/or rhetorical ambitions or against them.

I want to spend some time today thinking about the fourth corner of the square, then: audience. In our case, I am thinking about us as players. I want to offer “phenomenology” as a philosophical methodology that can help us more thoroughly analyze our own experiences. What makes this tricky is that some of the most famous phenomenological philosophers resist the idea that it can be reduced to a method–that it is more a mindset. Either way, I think it can be helpful. Let’s see where this takes me.

The preeminent phenomenologist is Martin Heidegger. Required acknowledgement: Heidegger is a Nazi, both in politics and in spirit; he is also, unfortunately, the most important Western philosopher of the 20th century and probably the third most important philosopher in Western history. Whether you know it or not, his philosophy has influenced the entire world in which we live and learn.

Okay, back to phenomenology. Heidegger’s approach to phenomenology, influenced by pscyhoanalysis, pushed against previous notions developed by modern, Enlightenment philosophy. Those approaches asked the question: how does the world come into our consciousness? What is, how does the real, external world, appear to my subjective mind? And how can I “cleanse” my perception of the world of subjective noise and bothersome emotions? How do I translate the external real world into the real world (yes, I know, that sounds repetitive).

So, to summarize a bit too quickly here, Heidegger’s answer was both radical and transformative: you can’t. First, subjectivity isn’t something that can be wiped away. There is no way to see the world other than how we see and experience it. Our perspective is always limited by who we are, where we stand, when we look, and how we feel when we look (I’ll come back to this last one). I don’t just mean this physically, either. If I hold up an object, obviously you can’t see behind it. But I also mean this ideologically, where we “sit” in a cultural field of values etc. [Running out of time]. Heidegger then develops a “method” of deep reflection on human experience, one that identifies the primacy of our emotional states and the way that often unconscious emotional states transform/influence the way we perceive and navigate the world.

The philosopher Miguel Sicart applies Heidegger’s method to playing video games. He’s a “post-phenomenologist,” the “post” there resonates with postmodern theorists, such as Jacques Derrida, who would argue that Heidegger’s phenomenology was guilty of assuming that a kind of ubiquity to human feeling–that how I feel playing Walking Dead or reading Jacques Derrida or watching Battlestar Galactica ’04 would be the same as how any of you would feel in that situation–that there was one objective language of feeling that every human (or every “normal” human, but I don’t have time to critique the terror inherent in modern notions of “normal” today)–that every human would feel. So Sicart argues that it is important that we all learn how to analyze the contours of our own feeling and how that might be shaping our experience.

I will pick this up on Monday–two ways that Sicart’s post-phenomenology helps us analyze our experiences:

  • Player Complicity (Suspension of Disbelief)
  • How do I feel playing this game?

Revised Procedural Rhetoric Heuristic

Developer:

  • What do you know about the writer/developer? Have you found interviews in which they talk about the game?
  • How do you “feel” playing this game? What emotions do you believe the developers want the game to evoke?

Player:

  • How does this game make you feel. Describe your emotions as you play, and what you think is causing them. For instance, are you frustrated by mechanics, or are your emotions more rooted in the game’s story and themes?
  • What emotions might you feel while playing? (see Bringula et al)
  • Do you feel complicit, or is that complicty diminished?
  • Do you find yourself playing instrumentally or ethically?

Purpose / Message:

  • What is the plot / summary / topic of this game?
  • What it the theme of this game?
  • Theme is what a game is saying about how we do, should, or could live our lives. It addresses problems that we often face, emotions that we might not know how to handle, and/or seeks to “unfamiliarize” us with the way our wold has been structured (unsettles us, asks questions, provokes critical or creative thinking).

Mechanics:

  • Is there any interesting about the scoring system for this game? Is it clear (or possible) to “win” the game?
  • Is there anything interesting about the mechanics or play of this game? Does it mess with a traditional genre convention?
  • What are some potential “arguments” made by the mechanics or scoring systems?
  • In what ways do the mechanics match the argument or “mood” of the game?
  • In what ways do the mechanics clash with/ignore the argument or “mood” of the game?
  • How might we modify the mechanics to create more procedural harmony/aesthetic impact?

If we have time, I’d like to watch some of this and then use the heuristic.

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ENG 640 2: From the Modern to the Postmodern; Lyotard, Bill Readings, and Richard Lanham

Posted on January 18, 2023 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan

  • Review Week One
  • Discuss the Readings (Questions, Ideas, Passages)
  • Break
  • Vote / Discussion on Week 15 and 16 books
  • On the Dangers of kNOwing / Becoming Brave Enough to Be Strong
  • Prepping Heidegger

Reviewing Last Week

We began exploring the foundations of the Modern Enlightenment, which, for convenience, we’ll say starts in 1689 with Locke’s “Essay Concerning Human Understanding” and runs through the end of World War II. I chose Kant’s essay as the centerpiece of the week’s reading, since, while short, it lays out a few of the fundamental assumptions of the Enlightenment. I buttressed that with Bill Readings’ descriptions of the two major German university approaches–one built on Reason, critique, and the search for Truth, the other built on the pursuit of Culture and cultivation of the Citizen Subject of the State. In these two universities lies the foundational metanarratives that Lyotard wants to critique.

Santos’ Reading Notes on Kant:

  • Radical individuality
    • Freedom / autonomy at the core of Kant’s ethics and his politics
    • In America, via Emerson, the notion of “self-reliance”
      • Kant is skeptical of immaturity, places immaturity in distinction to progress (below)
      • Emerson, to an extent, praises immaturity (the young boy who offers opinions free of social restrictions). Civil disobedience. Working out of a Petrarchian/humanistic tradition that distrusts the human animal (Hobbes, Machiavelli, etc). 
    • Kant’s primary obligation is to Reason/Truth (secular, yet transcendental–a Platonic affair). Hence, deontological ethics. Using Reason to identify the right way to live. Working out of the optimism of Locke’s tabula rasa (all wo/men created equal). Hence, “think, but obey”
  • University at the Intersection of Public and Private
    • “Think, but Obey”
    • Private Obligation: as a citizen/subject of the state, the subject is compelled to obey. 
      • Frederick’s place in late 18th century politics; Frederick’s desire for cosmopolitanism, his cultural rivalry with conservative and orthodox France. Hence, the livestock metaphors have significance for a ruler looking to modernize beyond an agrarian image
      • Interest in Scottish Enlightenment
      • Revolution in America; growing tensions in France
    • Public Freedom: as a scholar/participant in the great conversation of mankind, as a resident of Burke’s parlor. 
      • In front of the literate “public” sphere, Burke’s Parlor, the subject is called to “think,” to critique.
      • Think of Readings’s depiction of Humboldt; inspiration to Jefferson. 
      • Insists upon “public” freedom because of the belief in progress; our advancement toward the right way to live
  • A Subtle Critique of Plato
    • Kant is not looking to create philosopher kings, but rather aims to make each (wo)men a philosopher. He knows full well that many do not have the inclination, determination, or aptitude to earn the title. However, he believes that knowledge can promote emancipation from our cave of ignorance
    • Cue Nietzsche: you see a will to knowledge? I see a will to power:
      • Those philosophical laborers after the noble model of Kant and Hegel have to determine and press into formulas, whether in the realm of logic or political (moral) thought or art, some great data of valuations—that is, former positings of values, creations of value which have become dominant and are for a time called ‘truths.’ It is for these investigators to make everything that has happened and has been esteemed so far easy to look over, easy to think over, intelligible and manageable, to abbreviate everything long, even ‘time,’ and to overcome the entire past—an enormous and wonderful task in whose service every subtle pride, every tough will can certainly find satisfaction. Genuine philosophers, however, are commanders and legislators: they say, ‘thus it shall be!’ They first determine the Whither andFor What of man, and in so doing have at their disposal the preliminary labor of all philosophical laborers, all who have overcome the past. With a creative hand they reach for the future, and all that is and has been becomes a means for them, an instrument, a hammer. Their ‘knowing’ is creating, their creating is a legislation, their will to truth is—will to power. (“We Scholars” Beyond Good and Evil) 
      • Cue Foucault
  • Progress Narratives
    • Hence the “slow” maturity
    • Hegel’s sense of history as a dynamic unfolding of Geist through the triadic process of thesis, antithesis, synthesis. From slavery, to rational, self-realization. Or, taken up by Marx, the gradual advancement of the proletariat’s unveiling of bourgeoisie control over the means of production. Etc. 
    • Cue the Lyotard. 

So, let’s boil the Enlightenment down to a three principles:

  1. Autonomy
  2. Universality
  3. Progress

One reason I assigned the Ong last week was to suggest that the desire for abstraction, universality, individuality, and even [linear, narrative] progress are at least in part engendered by the development of writing as a technology. Writing leads to particular kinds of thinking, to particular kinds of values, to particular ideas about how humans gather, communicate, relate, and desire.

Discuss the Readings (Questions) /

The first question I want to discuss tonight is:

  • Disregard the first few pages of Lanham and then explicate for me the difference between the strong and weak defenses of rhetoric.

After that, let’s move to Lyotard and paralogy:

  • What does Lyotard mean when he writes that “to speak is to fight” (p. 10)? What doesn’t this phrase mean? [hint: how does Lyotard think through the term agonistic?] [Also, I’ve not been able to locate a copy of that page/phrase in the original French–I’m particularly curious about whether the term in the original french is combattre or disputer]
  • How does Lyotard’s notion of paralogy complicate traditional notions of invention (creativity, the development of ideas, etc), especially from a modern / neoliberal perspective/desire? What is paralogy?
  • In what ways does the strong defense of rhetoric resonate with Lyotard’s paralogic practice?

Okay, with that done, let’s discuss Lyotard’s ontology and epistemology (what is real? and what is knowledge):

  • How and why does Lyotard reject the idea that the goal of scientific research is consensus (see 65-66)?
  • How does Lyotard frame postmodern knowledge? What is/n’t it? What are the implications for the relationship between Reason, society, and the state?

Okay, I have saved my favorite for last:

  • Take a swing at explicating what Readings does and doesn’t mean by “thought.” How does he take steps to ensure that thought doesn’t become another metanarrative–that it isn’t Reason?
  • How does Readings’ concept of dissensus relate to Lyotard? What is the connection there? BONUS: Why, if dissensus cannot be institutionalized (p. 167) does Readings think it can operate as a new metanarrative for the University? Or, um, why is it important to Readings that disenssus cannot be institutionalized?

And, the final question that I never went back and rewrote: imagine a conversation between Lanham and Readings. On what would they agree? Where are the fault lines between them? [i.e., how do the concepts of thought and dissensus compare to the strong defense and an architectonic rhetoric?]

A quote from Quintilian, responding to the argument that the study of rhetoric should be avoided since it can be used for manipulation and deception:

Under such a mode of reasoning, neither will generals, nor magistrates, nor medicine, nor even wisdom itself, be of any utility; […] in the hands of physicians poisons have been found; and among those who abuse the name of philosophy have been occasionally detected of the most horrible crimes. We must reject food, for it has often given rise to ill health; we must never go under roofs, for they sometimes fall upon those who dwell beneath them; a sword must not be forged for a soldier, for a rubber may use the same weapon. Who does not know that fire and water, without which life cannot exist, and (that I may not confine myself to things of earth,) that the sun and moon, the chief of the celestial luminaries, sometimes produce hurtful effects? […] And so, although the weapons of eloquence are powerful for good or ill, it is unfair to count as evil something which it is possible to use for good. (Institutes of Oratory II.xvi.9- 10)

Readings’ Thought and the Dangers of kNOwing

Lyotard argues that Modernism referred to a particular progress narrative, and to Western Civilization’s investment in narratives. We always live in a (progressive/Idealist) story, one that looks to the future. This is called a reliance on meta-narrative. According to Lyotard, the (Left) investment in meta-narratives is irrevocably shaken. Marxism once worked toward a utopian future, after the holocaust and the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, utopian narratives seem impossible. Hegel’s idea that history is a rational progression seems naive and/or duplicitous. The universal desire and drive of modernity is particularly problematic. =

Let me take a swing at summarizing Lyotard on language games. His theory of language games and paralogy is indebted to analytic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who critiqued philosophy’s misappreciation for the complexities of language. For Wittgenstein, meaning isn’t tied to ontology or a dictionary–words don’t mean things abstractly. Rather, the meaning of words is regulated by their use in specific contexts and conversations. This is often referred to as a kind of semiotic pragmatism–that the meaning of words is caught up in everyday life and social situations. We can’t ever articulate THE rules for language because it is always a bit random and–this is Lyotard’s stress–evolving as players make new plays. At some point something was bad which meant bad but then for a while things were bad which meant they might have been edgy and cool but then that stopped. Furthermore, language doesn’t provide a concrete or direct relation with thought or reality as much as it offers a medium through which we can encounter and negotiate with language itself (language as a messy thing that tries to provide access to thought and reality but certainly doesn’t do so without friction and noise–what Derrida will come to term “play”; Lyotard’s “games” are running with the idea of Derridean play which we will talk about later in the course).

Lyotard thinks “big picture” when it comes to language games and offers us 2 modern approaches, two ways about conceptualizing and practicing language:

  • The Denotative language game. Denotative language is the language of science; its aim is to determine truth and falsity. It forefronts rules such as reliability and validity (which aim at universality–if I can repeat an experiment, that means it is more true). Although things like validity and reliability might be social constructions (that is, human), the status of Truth in a denotative game is more “transcendental,” beyond human, in that it transcends subjective declaration. The rose is red whether or not a human says it is red. The subjective elements of a statement are its “connotative”; and Lyotard reads the mission of science, and its denotative game, as the elimination of connotations, of human judgment. Hence why high school students cannot use “I” in their papers. One way to better understand the denotative/connotative divide is via Aristotle’s ontological approach to metaphysics (his categorical way of trying to define and understand reality/being and its relation to the beyond being). Aristotle’s ontological method tries to define something by identifying its essence and distinguishing it from its “accidental” elements. Denotative language can be understood as a commitment to identifying essence and skepticism toward accident. Lyotard stresses in several places that the denotative game is skeptical of anything mythic, mystical, or mysterious. It is this disdain toward myth that Lyotard posits leads to its own unraveling, since Science remains incapable of positing a denotative ground for its own existence.
  • The prescriptive language game, rather than seek true/false, concerns justice in terms of “good/bad.” Here is the rift that leads to the collapse of the denotative universal University project: no amount of denotative fact can “prove” an absolute prescriptive value. In terms of last weeks readings, the denotative game belongs to the University of Reason and the prescriptive to the University of Culture. Both, however, see the grund of their projects as transcendent and universal (as metanarratives as well–aims that justify the operation of the whole system).
  • Deep into The Postmodern Condition, Lyotard posits a third, emerging language game, one that rises out of the ashes of the scientific and emancipatory metanarratives: the technological game. This game operates around a buried prescriptive value–one that emerges from deep within the other games: not true/false, not good/bad, but efficient or inefficient. I am sure we will talk more about this with Heidegger next week.

Lyotard offers us paralogy as a potential countermove, counterattack, to efficiency. Paralogy in service of “justice.” I will wait a few weeks to address what I think justice means here–until we discuss Levinas.

I want to think a bit about the last question I presented to you: to compare Lanham and Readings. Both, I’d argue, create binaries about how we see and think about the world (ontology and epistemology). Lanham divides thought into two camps–a “weak” camp that discovers Truth and then uses language to communicate it, and a “strong” camp that believes truth to be the product of human encounter. The better we structure our encounters, the better truth(s) might emerge. One treats Truth as universal and certain. The other, as contingent, fragile, and always already in need of correction. What makes rhetoric “good” in the strong defense is that it is an engagement with a public and its problems–it is an attempt to productively purpose human energy and attention on our world.

I think it is harder to pin down the binary/binaries working in Readings. Certainly, there is the difference between the University of Excellence and the University of Thought / Dissensus. I am imagining that we will have already talked about that a bit before I read this. “Thought is an addiction from which we can’t break free.” I think this is true for those of us who have experienced the euphoria of a brush with Thought, the trace of an idea that couldn’t possibly come from “me” because “I” am not smart enough to think it. But I also think–like Kant–that not everyone has the courage to confront Thought, to dance with it, to loosen themselves from their foundations, to invite the other and the questions they carry.

My gut take is that Readings is a bit more weary of pragmatic action than Lanham. Lanham sees it as a way of purposing our intellectual activity, so that scholarship doesn’t become mere abstract play. A former colleague of mine, with whom I was quite close, used to refer to theory as “self-indulgent navel gazing.” So, Lanham wants to ensure that we don’t slip into that.

But Readings would argue that the critique of theory as self-indulgent, or impractical, grows out of the demand for profit and efficiency that Lyotard describes. Where, he wonders, is a place for thinking–and specifically, a kind of thinking that cannot know what it might think, or where it might arrive? A kind of thinking open to the possibility that it cannot occur. A thinking that cannot be mastered or assured. How/can we construct a syllabus about the possibility of (a) Thought? How/can we sell an idea of education as experiencing the frustration that Thought’s capriciousness and unpredictability engenders? One cannot make art happen. Art arrives on its own schedule. Teaching is an art.

[Lack of transition because I have 10 minutes]

I’d like to think a bit about one of the quotes in Readings that has always shook me:

To believe that we can know in advance what it means to be human, that humanity can be an object of cognition, is the first step to terror, since it renders possible to know what is non-human, to know what it is to which we have no responsibility, what we can freely exploit. (p. 189)

Knowledge, Readings writes, is an “alibi” from responsibility. To know a fact is to ignore a person–how that fact might speak them, command them, own them, negate them.

On our first night, I read the syllabus. It included a quick summary of Vitanza’s investment in W-R-I-T-I-N-G, which is somewhat akin to Readings’ Thought. I want to point to another Vitanza line tonight, from his book Negation, Subjectivity, and the History of Rhetoric. Here, Vitanza is arguing the the dialectical way in which philosophy tends to define a thing by identifying what it isn’t:

The negative—or negative dialectic—is a kind of pharmakon, and in overdoses, it is extremely dangerous. (E.g., a little girl is a little man without a penis! Or an Aryan is not a Jew! And hence, they do not or should not—because in error—exist) The warning on the label—beware of overdoses—is not enough; for we, as KB says, are rotten with perfection. We would No. That is, say No to females, Jews, gypsies, queers, hermaphrodites, all others. By saying No, we would purchase our identity. Know ourselves. By purifying the world, we would exclude that which, in our different opinions threatens our identity. (12-13)

To claim to kNOw something is also to say “no” to its autonomy, to its ability to speak its own existence, to have dimensions that eclipse our knowledge. It is to assert mastery over something, to speak for it. Like Plato’s Socrates in The Phaedrus, it is to claim to know the other/thing better than it can know itself. And that is dangerous terrain. Think of Lyotard’s resistance to consensus and Readings’ critique of community–the potential tyranny of the “we” (185, 188).

I think a powerful link between Lanham’s strong defense and Readings’ Diversity is a willingness to invite and let others speak. One might make sure an offer as part of a public negotiation. The other as a radical act of listening to invite the experience of the aporia of Thought (yes–to invite an experience that makes us uneasy about what we thought we knew). Either way, such speaking isn’t just setting up a refutation, part of a debate, or even a move toward synthesis (where each of us gives up something to arrive at a new whole). It is an invitation to work and be together, to work together and still be different. (In)essential values so needed in divided times. We have to learn to listen otherwise. To repress the urge to find the comfort of certain knowledge. To relinquish a claim to mastery, and to interrogate our desire for it. To be responsible for creating the space in which the other may speak.

Reading Homework

Three things:

  • Heidegger, “The Questions Concerning Technology” (30 pages)
  • Worsham, “The Question Concerning Invention” (46 pages)
  • Levinas, “On Heidegger” (5 pages)

Prepping Heidegger

For next class we will be reading Heidegger’s 1953 essay “The Question Concerning Technology.” As I have indicated, this is an extremely challenging essay in part due to the painstaking care Heidegger invests in moving slowly through his topic (repetition is a key stylistic choice here), in part due to the obscurity and difficulty of his vocabulary, and in part due to the complexity of the idea he is attempting to express.

It might help here to understand Heidegger’s phenomenological method, developed in his early masterwork Being and Time. This itself is a momentous task, so I will try and condense Horrigan-Kelly et al.’s article down to a few paragraphs: To understand Heidegger’s method, and why it was so radical and transformative, one has to understand the fundamental dualism that underwrites Western philosophy: that is, that I am a subject that perceives objects. There is a strict division, distance, separation, between the subject who sees (and is) and the object that exists. Rather, for Heidegger, the subject exists in and among the world, its existence and awareness of its existence is always enmeshed in the world. The subject cannot be separated entirely, extracted from the world nor can the world be defined or rendered independent of the subject. This messy sense of non-dualistic subjectivity, of being-in-the-world, Heidegger labels Dasein.

Rather than anaylze the world and Dasein‘s relation to it abstractly, Heidegger sought to analyze how we navigate the world, how we encounter and interact with the others in it, how we often unconsciously enact cultural values, how we feel our way through it, how we can operate in the world without necessarily be thinking about it. In our everydayness, we simply “are with” others and the world. We act, and often that acting is something that “they” (the others, the world) have “given” us, what Heidegger would call a passive or inauthentic existence. Philosophy, phenomenology, for Heidegger is an active attempt to interpret how the world comes to us, how it “feels” us, how it directs us, it attends to the world and brings what is normally “at hand” (what we can use without thinking about it) to mind, laid before us to contemplate and question. Phenomenology is a critical analysis of our existence in the world (Levinas, for instance, conducts a phenomenological analysis of insomnia to ask “who isn’t sleeping, who doesn’t desire sleep, in order to interrupt our belief that we are ultimately masters of our body”).

Given its complexity, let me direct quote their explication of Heideggerian “care”:

Heidegger thus presented the structure of care as the “existential totality of Dasein’s ontological structural whole” (Heidegger, 1927/2011, p. 237). In its most simplest form, Heidegger’s care structure exposes what is of most consequence or importance to the human being. It exposes what the human being is concerned with or cares about. In Heideggerian terminology, it exposes the human being’s circumspective concern and angst. In particular, this is exposed through the human being’s future directionality or indeed their future aims, goals, desires, or ambitions.

Okay, so with that as a basis, we will be reading Heidegger’s critique of “technology.” This critique will focus on how technology reshapes human experience of the world, how it changes the way we see ourselves, others, and the world itself. Moreover: Heidegger will argue that technology reshapes what it is we care about and value.

Some tricky terms from the essay. Without giving away too much, I’ll say that Heidegger is interested in two different ways that “making” stuff orients us toward the world. We might call this the “handmade” and the “industrial.” Heidegger doesn’t use those terms, I offer them as a scaffold. For Heidegger, both are technological (in the sense of the Greek “techne,” which means “art, craft, culture, skill, making”). In the Gorgias dialogue, Plato argues that philosophy is a techne for making aletheia (Truth), while rhetoric is a knack for manipulating fools.

  • Revealing: bringing-forth into the world.
  • Revealing as poesis (p.317) vs. revealing as enframing (p.325). Poesis keeps us more in touch with Aristotle’s “fourfold” causality. Enframing tends to amplify one of the causes, but it also misrepresents it, transforms it: causa efficiens
  • Enframing (p. 325): “Enframing mean the gathering together of the setting-upon that sets upon man, i.e., challenges him forth, to reveal the actual, in the mode of ordering, as standing-reserve.” Pay attention to the feel and thrust of words like challenges and ordering.
  • Enframing can lead to destining, which in turn amplifies the will, desire, demand, to enframe.

Worhsam–Worhsam is writing in the mid-1980’s. At this point, invention in R/C is largely driven by heuristics, guides to thought and creation. Aristotle’s topoi. Pike’s tagmemics. Young’s topology. Invention is taught in terms of these systems to create thought. Worsham, invoking Heidegger, wants to challenge the idea that invention, creativity, thought, can be systematized and taught.

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ENG 328 1.F: The Lay Out Sins Project

Posted on January 13, 2023 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Mini-Project 1: The Remake
  • Homework

Mini-Project 1: Re-Make It Work

For homework I want you to read chapter 3 of the WSINYE, in which Hagen and Golombisky share their “works every time layout.” They outline 7 parts of the layout:

  • margins (no bleed)
  • columns (two)
  • visual (graphic image)
  • cutline (alt text for image, not common)
  • headline
  • copy (body text)
  • tags (logos, etc)

[Marc–share some grid ideas from chapter 6]

You can choose one of the flyers from your layout sins presentation for this mini-project. You can choose a flyer currently hanging on the bulletin board right around the corner, or something you saw hanging anywhere else around campus. Whatever you redesign, it should be something that is physically hanging on a wall around campus. You may not redesign something you find online, no matter how atrocious it might be.

What is a bleed?. I am going to ask you to print your design, so no bleeds on this one.

I’ve debated what technology to use for this first project. I’ve decided against Canvas–what I really want you to practice/internalize here is Golumbiski and Hagen’s formula, the “works every time” layout. I want you to practice selecting and sizing text, blocking out a page (working with space, proximity). I want you to select colors that work together and develop contrast. So, rather than work with a template, I’d like you to design your 8 1/2 by 11 flyer from the ground up.

If you have previous InDesign experience and want to use that, fine. You are also welcome to use Photoshop. Those who feel a bit of anxiety can design this thing in Microsoft Word. However–Word doesn’t allow you to design a document that uses a bleed (color/image/content all the way to the edge of the page). Word also can be incredibly annoying when it comes to placing blocks of text, aligning items, etc. I recommend using Photoshop for this one if you can. Just be sure to set your Canvas size to 8.5″ by 11″. If you have advanced skills, the resolution of this image (for printing) should be set to 300 px per inch. If that sentence frightens you, then you can ignore it (for now).

  • If you design this in InDesign, then I will require you to turn in a .pdf. Do not turn in the .indd file.
  • If you design this in Photoshop, then I will require you to turn in a .jpg or a .tiff. Do not turn in the .psd file.

One other thing: Golumbiski and Hagen’s “works every time” layout is designed around a strong, graphic image (“graphic” is a tricky word to define here–but it generally means something like stunning, engaging, vibrant, etc). I encourage you to take a photograph that you can use in your design. This could be a picture of a building, of students studying, of a book or pile of books, a tree–whatever fits your subject matter. If you can’t think of how to take a picture to fit your subject matter, talk to me! If you really, really don’t want to do this, then you can use an existing image for your design–but you might struggle to find a high-resolution image large enough that it doesn’t pixelate when inserted in a 8.5 x 11 inch document with a resolution of 300px.

If you take a photograph, think about adjusting the size, lighting, contrast, color, etc in Photoshop.

A few tips for taking a good photograph:

  • Lighting: if you are outside, make sure the sun is behind you casting natural light on your subject. If you are inside, you want indirect light behind you–if you have a lamp directly lighting your subject, then you are going to get glare. Throw a tee-shirt over a lamp (make sure the tee-shirt is not touching the bulb or you might start a fire). Do not use a flash.
  • Rule of thirds; this is a rule that you must follow until you have permission to break it
  • Zoom in with your feet. Don’t use the zoom on your camera. If you want to be close to your subject, then get close.

Homework

The Layout Sins Google Slide assignment is due before Wednesday’s class. A rough draft / sketch of your remake is due before next Friday’s class. My hope is that you can have a draft or a sketch of your redesign, using the Golumbiski and Hagen, ready for Friday’s class. Friday’s class would then be a “crit”: I’ll share all of the drafts with the class–we will discuss them, highlight their strengths and make suggestions for revision. The final versions of these remakes will be due before Monday’s class. In Monday’s class we will review them and then start the second mini-project, which focuses on Resumes.

I did have time to throw together a quick .psd template of the works every time layout in the Draft assignment in Canvas. Here’s a link to it.

Idea for a remake project. Here is the sad sign posted on the hallway door to the faculty offices in Ross.

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ENG 231 1.F: Defining Procedural Rhetoric (Con’t), Project 1 Preview, List of Games

Posted on January 13, 2023 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan

  • Project 1 Preview & List of Games for Project 1 (and maybe 2)
  • Defining Procedural Rhetoric
  • Homework

Project 1 Preview

The homework that I laid out on Wednesday–due next Monday–is to do a few practice runs with the procedural heuristic I modified from Custer. You play two games for about 15 minutes and contribute to the Google Doc I shared last class. Here is the list of procedural games that Custer included in his article.

Next Wednesday, we will formally begin Project 1, an extended analysis of the procedural dimensions of a game. You will play games for about 6-8 hours–you might play more than one game in order to compare them, or you might play a short game 4-5 times to compare experiences / decision trees. Or you might play the first 6-8 hours of a longer game. I’ve created a table of the most interesting games folks played last spring in the Custer document (above). What should be clear is that I am looking for games that do *something* interesting mechanically. “Interesting” is often a terrible word to use, since it is essentially meaningless. It is one of those words that, if you use it in a draft, you should circle back to and eliminate–replace it with something concrete, something that tells me what, specifically, is interesting. I use it here because I cannot anticipate what might be “interesting” about the game you play and write about. I’ve also included one game on the list–Cards Against Calamity–that is so spectacularly bad in its implementation that it deserves to be here. Finally, this list is not meant to be exhaustive. While I play video games a lot, I do not play a lot of video games. If you have a game that you think should be included here–a game that has a unique scoring system or encourages “different” kind of play, then please suggest it! The document is set to “anyone with the link can edit,” so you can go ahead and make a new row and put it in the table. [I did not have time to complete the table this morning–will try and work on that by next class].

In next Wednesday’s class we will create gaming journals in Google Docs. As you play your game, you will write 3-4 entries that use the heuristic I shared to analyze game mechanics, rules, scoring systems, “play.” I want to stress that while you will have to summarize and analyze the plot and theme of a game, those are not the central concern of the paper. I am concerned with how the mechanics work with or against that plot. I am also concerned with how the developers are attempting to shape your feelings towards the game, its characters, and especially its theme,

Defining Procedural Rhetoric

Let’s review where we were last class.

We defined procedural rhetoric as how a game’s systems, rules, and scoring reflect or make an argument (implicitly or explicitly) about how our world does or should work. Developers may or may not intend for a game to communicate a political message. Games with a very explicit, unquestionable political message are “serious games.” Games that leave its message more ambiguous are not a “serious” game. A procedural analysis of a game also might examine what a game *does* and *does not* allow us or require us to do. The focus of a procedural analysis is always on 1) what we do, 2) how that makes us feel (this is related to phenomenology, and I will talk more about it on Wednesday), and what 1 & 2 say about the world in which we live and the way we choose to live in it.

On that last point–last class we differentiated “plot” and “theme.” Plot is the series of events in a game–what happens, and in what order. Theme is what a game is saying about how we do, should, or could live our lives. It addresses problems that we often face, emotions that we might not know how to handle, and/or seeks to “unfamiliarize” us with the way our wold has been structured (unsettles us, asks questions, provokes critical or creative thinking).

I provided a heuristic that I modified from Custer. For the upcoming paper, I want to refine it a bit.

  • What is the plot / summary / topic of this game?
  • What it the theme of this game?
    • Theme is what a game is saying about how we do, should, or could live our lives. It addresses problems that we often face, emotions that we might not know how to handle, and/or seeks to “unfamiliarize” us with the way our wold has been structured (unsettles us, asks questions, provokes critical or creative thinking).
  • Is there any interesting about the scoring system for this game? Is it clear (or possible) to “win” the game?
  • Is there anything interesting about the mechanics or play of this game? Does it mess with a traditional genre convention?
  • What are some potential “arguments” made by the mechanics or scoring systems?
    • In what ways do the mechanics match the argument or “mood” of the game?
    • In what ways do the mechanics clash with/ignore the argument or “mood” of the game?
  • How might we modify the mechanics to create more procedural harmony/aesthetic impact?
  • How do you “feel” playing this game? What emotions do you believe the developers want the game to evoke?

At some point today, I would like to spend some time playing Every Day the Same Dream, a game from Italian indie developer Molleindustria Games.

Homework for Wednesday

A reminder that your homework for Wednesday is to read the Custer article and then play 2 games from his list for 15 minutes or so each (you may play one of the better games, like Depression Quest for longer instead). Then contribute to the workspace. There’s more details regarding this assignment in Canvas.

For those that want to get ahead. I will ask that you have played your Project 1 game for 6 hours and written at least 3 responses in a Google Doc gaming journal by Monday, January 23rd. I am expecting the Project 1 papers to be due on Sunday, January 29th.

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ENG 231 1.W: Bogost, Custer, and Procedural Rhetorical Analysis

Posted on January 11, 2023 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Defining Rhetoric
  • Bogost Discussion
  • Playing Some Games
  • Homework

Reviewing Last Class / Defining Rhetoric

Last class I opened arguing by trying to confuse you a bit–the strategy here was to get you thinking in ways to which you might not be used. I hope you took away that I don’t like to think about rhetoric as “persuasion,” as an attempt by a self to manipulate another person. I want to think about human communication as more “dialogic” than that, as interaction, movement and response. So, instead of thinking about rhetoric as “persuasion” or even “influence,” I propose the following definition:

I consider rhetoric as the study and practice of how we can develop experiences, spaces, collaborations, encounters, through which we help ourselves and others negotiate the disequilibrium produced by difference in order to potentially foster more productive collaboration, negotiation, and change.

I’m surprisingly happy with that.

Bogost Discussion

A pre-discussion exercise. Go through your answers to the four questions and decide which one you would like to revise and present to the class.

At some point I want to talk about Collin’s question and visual enthymeme.

You can put that material (question, any quotes, etc) in this document.

Thinking About Procedurality

It might be useful to define “serious games,” which can have two definitions. First and second.

Okay, let’s watch something.

Okay, let’s play something.

Our first project this semester is based on Jason Custer’s article on teaching procedurality. In the article, Jason distills the Bogost article you read (and a few other materials) into a “heuristic,” a set of generative questions we can apply to any game. I’ve modified those a bit, so here’s our collective heuristic:

  • What does this game represent? [What is the theme? Rhetorical Purpose? Argument? Message?]
  • Mechanically, what stands out to you?
  • What mechanics does the game use to support that representation?
  • What are some potential arguments made by the mechanics?
  • In what ways do the mechanics match the argument?
  • In what ways do the mechanics clash with/ignore the argument?
  • How might we modify the mechanics to create more procedural harmony/aesthetic impact?

What happens when we apply these questions to Cooking Mama?

Homework

First, read the Custer article in the files section of Canvas–it should help you better understand how to do a procedural analysis. We will discuss this article in class on Friday.

After you have read the Custer, visit this Google Doc. Everyone should play at least 2 of the games on Jason’s list for 15 minutes. Complete as many of the heuristic questions for that entry as possible.

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ENG 328 1.W: Syllabus, Sharing Designs, Layout Sins

Posted on January 11, 2023 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Syllabus Review
  • Quick Reading Review
  • Sharing Designs
  • Friday’s Class: Photoshop Fundamentals
  • Homework

Syllabus Review

Hopefully this won’t take too long.

Quick Reading Review

A few points that stood out to me:

  • The idea that, unlike the fine arts, graphic design has to be practical. It always has a purpose, that purpose should be evident, and design decisions should be focused on maximizing that purpose. Form should be dictated, or at least checked, by function.
  • Readability, usability, and visual appeal are 3 critical components of design
  • G&H’s three primary building blocks of any design? Visuals, Typography, White Space (which sort of map onto Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity?)
  • From their assignment:
    • What first captures your attention? [Focal Point]
    • How does your eye travel? [Visual Flow]
    • What kind of information does the design convey?
    • What, if any, emotion(s) does the design evoke?

Sharing Designs

To Canvas! Let’s look at what y’all submitted.

Homework

Our next assignment is due Sunday at midnight (so I can review them Monday morning before class)–the “Layout Sins” assignment (check Canvas). We’re going to mess around a bit with Photoshop in class on Friday.

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ENG 640 Week 1: Modern Foundations / Postmodern Anticipations

Posted on January 10, 2023 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

AKA: What is Rhetoric and Why does Modern Philosophy Hate it So Much?
Today’s Plan:

  • Intro Activity
  • Discuss Kant, Readings, Herrick, and Ong (6:00-7:15)
  • Break (7:30-7:45)
  • Syllabus (7:45-8:20) and readings discussion
  • For Next Session: Lyotard (8:20 – fin)

Intro Activity

I have a question.

Review Readings

Sections of the Herrick Article:
Rhetoric and Persuasion (pg. 3-5). How does Herrick attempt to nudge our understanding of persuasion?
Rhetoric is Adapted to an Audience (pg. 8-10)
Rhetoric Reveals Human Motives and Rhetoric is Responsive (pg. 10-12)
Rhetoric Addresses Contingent Issues (pg. 15-16)
Rhetoric Tests Ideas (pg. 16-17)
Rhetoric Assists Advocacy (pg. 17-19)
Rhetoric Distributes Power (pg. 19-21)
Rhetoric Discovers Facts and Rhetoric Shapes Knowledge (pg. 21-22)
Rhetoric Builds Community (pg. 22-23)

I have a packet of supplemental materials to discuss the Readings chapters and the Kant.

I just published a thing about Ong.

Syllabus / Discuss Week 15 and Week 16 Readings

I have a link for this.

For Next Session:

There are three readings for next session:

  • Read Lyotard, PoMo Condition, pp. 37-67 (from section 10 Legitimation to Conclusion).
  • Read Bill Readings, University in Ruins, chapters 10, 11, and 12 (pp. 150-193).
  • Read Richard Lanham, “The Q Question.” (pp. 155-194).

There is a discussion forum post that focuses on the Lyotard and Readings in Canvas.

Let’s prep some Lyotard.

  • Jameson’s forward–the crisis of modern epistemology (based on objectivity of observation, sense of the senses), viii.
  • An institutional switch: from epistemology to performativity (drenched in capitalism & efficiency)
  • Lyotard’s opposition to consensus (echoes of Nietzsche), xviii-xix.
  • Cool line rejecting modern autonomy and individuality, p. 15. Language as the medium of our social bond.
  • Legitimation of Scientific Knowledge (is on shaky grounds), p. 25, 29
  • What I haven’t copied is that the Legitimation of Culture is on equally shaky grounds (e.g., Hegel’s spirit/progress as a historical certainty). In both systems some entity, agent, idea, exists transcendental to the system that ensures its certainty, legitimates the system, but that entity, agent, idea–by being transcendent–is beyond legitimation itself.

Lanham:
One of my favorite essays, but the first few pages are kind of a mess. Lanham’s distinction between weak and strong notions of rhetoric doesn’t really emerge until later in the essay. Pre-work:

  • Plato’s ontology and epistemology is very similar to Kant’s in that it projects a realm of though/truth that exists prior to human language and communication. Philosophers do not invent ideas, they discover them–gain access to them. Language, then, should ideally just be a neutral conveyor of information (which it never can be for reasons but it is too early to mess with Derrida and Kenneth Burke). At worst, Plato acknowledges that certified philosophers (certified only by Plato) might use rhetoric in order to convince the ignorant masses to not feed them hemlock. I hate Plato. He is a fascist. I do not mean this metaphorically. We do not have time to read his Republic.

I don’t think you need any more pre-work on the Bill Readings–by now it should be obvious that his book attempts to translate Lyotard into his experiences working in an English department in the late 1990s, after the “canon” wars and the rise of (pomo) theory and cultural studies. He’s also working in quite a bit of Levinas–and I will return back to him and highlight that when we read Levinas in week 4.

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ENG 231 1.M: Welcome, WTF is (Procedural) Rhetoric?

Posted on January 9, 2023 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Syllabus
  • WTF is Rhetoric?
  • Ian Bogost and Procedurality
  • Homework

WTF is(n’t) Rhetoric?

Very soon I will ask you to conduct a rhetorical analysis of a video game. Which means you need some sense of what it means to be rhetorical. Over the next 5 minutes I will do my best to complicate that word, stretching rhetoric from what you might think it means to what I have convinced myself it should mean. Here we go.

First, let me get this out of the way. If you are familiar with the term rhetoric, then you probably think it means “persuasion.” That’s its most common academic definition. We have Aristotle to thank for that. But Aristotle is a philosopher. He wants rhetoric to mean persuasion so that rhetoric is reduced to communicating truth. Philosophy find truth, rhetoric figures out how to communicate to people. I do not think that rhetoric is merely about how to communicate things. I reject the definition of rhetoric as “persuasion.”

If you heard the word “rhetoric” in most contexts, then you would think someone is being manipulative. They are being evil. Or they are spouting bullshit. This is in part a legacy of Aristotle and–more importantly–his teacher Plato. Obviously I have not dedicated my academic career to learning bullshit.

Okay, so that basically covers what I don’t think rhetoric is. I am not going to directly tell you (yet) what I think rhetoric is. Moving on.

I would argue that rhetoric is the foundation of what we call the humanities (classically, the humanities emerge from two rhetorical scholars in Rome–Cicero and Quintillian; they are radically transformed by Petrarch, moving from a civic education to a personal/aesthetic one).

ENG 231 counts as your LAC 1 Arts and Humanities credit. While I have bunch of titles and credentials: professional writer, UX specialist, curriculum expert, I tend to self-identify as a rhetorical theorist and a post-humanist. My areas of expertise include asymmetrical ethics (ethics of hospitality) and digital technology. In fact, as I just wrote about, the former help us recognize the importance of the latter.

Rather than attempt to define rhetoric or humanities or asymmetrical ethics I will just read a bunch of quotes I like:

Emmanuel Levinas:
“Ontology [philosophy’s investment in truth, definition, categorization], which reduces the other to the same, promotes freedom–the freedom that is the identification of the same, not allowing itself to be alienated by the other.”

“We name this calling into question of my spontaneity [freedom] by the presence of the Other ethics. The strangeness of the Other, his irreducibility to the I, to my thoughts and possessions, is precisely accomplished as a calling into question of my spontaneity, as ethics.”
(Totality and Infinity 42-43; “freedom” in direct conflict with “responsibility/obligation”)

Diane Davis:
“An ethics of decision in a world that has lost its criteria for responsible action begins with straining to hear the excess that gets drowned out, sacrificied for the clarity of One voice, One call, One legitimate position.”
(Breaking Up at Totality 19)

Michael J. Hyde:
“Rhetoric facilitates acknowledgement by transforming space and time into dwelling places where people can feel at home with each other, engage in collaborative deliberation, and know together ways of resolving disputed concerns. […] The rhetor is an architect, a builder of dwelling places, homes, habitats, where the caress of others is a welcoming occurrence.”

Adriana Cavarero:
Thinking and speaking are different activities. Thinking wants to be timeless […] furthermore, it is always solitary, even when it takes place between several people […] As Maria Zambrano notes, too, “logos proceeds without any other opposition than what it, in order to better show itself, poses to itself.”

Speaking, on the contrary […] does not know in advance where it is going, and it entrusts itself to the unpredictable nature of what the interlocutors say. In short, thought is as solitary as speech is relational.

Victor Vitanza:
My position is, especially in the next chapter, that we are not at home in our world/whirl of language. Any and every attempt to assume that we are has or will have created for human beings dangerous situations. (Negation, Subjectivity, and the History of Rhetoric, 157

Now it is crucial to understand that, for Heidegger, all that “we speak” by way of logos/language, or “speaking/saying” is perpetually an act of concealing/unconcealing. For Heidegger, this Being/essence cannot be realized, completely revealed or unconcealed. Any and every attempt to unconceal or answer definitively is to perpetrate an act of violence on Being and on human being. (NSHoR, 177)

Thomas Rickert:
Dwelling places us in the insight that rhetoric, being worldly, cannot be understood solely as human doing and that persuasion gains its bearings from an affectability that emerges with our material environments both prior to and alongside the human…

Julia Kristeva:
To worry or to smile, such is the choice when we are assailed by the strange; our decision depends on how familiar we are with our own ghosts. (Strangers to Ourselves)

Taken collectively, these quotes express why I value a particular kind of (postmodern) rhetoric and what I see as the mission, the importance, of the humanities. Both teach us how to productively orient ourselves towards others. How to be in a world without certainty. How to temper our desire to force others to match up with our categories, ideas, desires, and comforts. How to handle the disorienting feelings that another person can engender within us. Levinas wrote that, by our nature, we are allergic to difference. The humanities offer medication that can help remedy the symptoms. I believe some video games are learning how to maximize their potential for teaching us how to better experience alterity, deal with ambiguity, and reflect upon the “selfishness” of our own commitments, ideas, and values. This is a class about those games.

Okay, there’s your “out there” theoretical foundations of the course. How about something more grounded. Let’s swing back to the idea of a rhetorical analysis. Maybe you have had to write a rhetorical analysis before, in high school or in ENG 122 here at UNC. Let me riff a bit on how one might typically approach the rhetorical analysis of a video game.

  • Text: What is the *purpose* of this text? What statement does it *intend* to make about our world, society, human condition, struggles? [Logos, meaning, argument]
  • Player: How do you relate to the game’s intended purpose? Does it resonate with you? [questions of pathos and feeling]
  • Writer/Designer/Programmer: Who are they trying to be? What voice/style do they assume? How do they position themselves in relation to genre/audience? Are they shouting or intending to be invisible? [Questions of Ethos]

So, the standard stuff–logos, ethos, and pathos. When we analyze a narrative, whether it is a book, a television show, a movie, a podcast, we ask ourselves variations of these questions.

Video games, however, are interactive in a way these other mediums are not. They at least afford us an image of agency, as if what we do matters to the world we traverse and the story we experience (this is a vibrant field of video game scholarship–determining to what extent our choices in games actually matter, and veterans of 225 will hear some Sicart stuff circulating here).

The interactive nature of video games, that fact that we “act” instead of merely “witness,” means we need to add a new, more complicated dimension to our rhetorical analysis: one that analyzes the actions a game forces us to take, and the rules that compute, score, or resolve that action. Philosopher Ian Bogost has termed the such action and computation as the game’s “procedurality.”

Ian Bogost and Procedurality

The first way we will analyze games this semester stems from Ian Bogost’s theory of procedural rhetoric. Bogost seeks to add procedural rhetoric to its other dominant traditions–oral/written rhetoric and visual rhetoric (which has gained increasing importance in the late 20th and early 21st centuries). Given the messy diatribe that preceded this paragraph, let’s just say that Bogost tends to define rhetoric as “influence,” close to persuasion, but recognizing non-rational and non-conscious dimensions to rhetoric. That is, we are being “persuaded” at almost every point in our lives by forces explicit and implicit (for instance, the ways that desks are arranged in rows are “persuading” you to accept my authority etc etc). Bogost believes video games are extraordinary good at this kind of passive, non-conscious persuasion. Let’s read some of his work.

Okay, let’s play something.

.

Okay, one more game.

Homework

Your first assignment is due before Thursday’s class. Read Bogost’s 2017 article “The Rhetoric of Video Games” (.pdf in the files section of Canvas).

I’m curious to learn you perception of this article–do you understand what Bogost is talking about? Do you find this article difficult to follow?–and so I’m going to ask you to reflect on a few questions. You can write your answers directly in Canvas or submit them as a Google Doc / Word docx.

These responses are meant to prime you for Wednesday’s discussion. I’m hoping everyone comes to class Wednesday with something to contribute (so you don’t have to be super happy with every response below, but you should be ready to share two of them).

  • Question #1: Find me the line where Bogost defines procedural rhetoric. Try putting it in your own words.
  • Question #2: Is there a term/part of this article you don’t understand or want me to address in detail? And/or is there a part of this article with which you disagree?
  • Question #3: What do you make of Bogost’s analysis of Take Back Illinois and Bully?
  • Question #4: Can you think of a time when a game did something interesting procedurally? What game? What did it do? Or can you think of a game in which the procedures and mechanics lack any kind of meaningful relationship to the argument/purpose/theme?

Syllabus

We will look at this.

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ENG 328 1.M: The Basic C.R.A.P.

Posted on January 9, 2023 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Welcome
  • Visual Rhetoric and Design
  • The Basic C.R.A.P.
  • Homework

Welcome

I’ve got a quick Google Form for you to complete.

A Quick Intro: Why Learn Design?

First, a little bit about me. My undergraduate degree is in British Literature, and my MA focused on 18th Century British Literature. I wasn’t a big fan of computers until I got into PhD program, way back in 2003. I had to mess around with Photoshop a bit teaching a first-year writing course (IIRC, the project required students to write liner notes and design a cover for a favorite CD). I got hooked on technology, and learned HTML, CSS, and some Java back when English majors could get jobs designing websites. I taught web design and writing at my first job. But by around 2012, I noticed things had changed. Web design and coding jobs required more sophisticated, back-end skills those jobs weren’t going to English majors anymore. And front-end CMS sites, like Squarespace and WordPress, were taking over the web writing world.

But, because learning to develop web sites had taught me the fundamentals of visual rhetoric and design, I was able to transition my skills into other media–particularly videography (I teach ENG 229) and print design and production. That’s what this course is about.

As I indicate in the syllabus, I see this course as serving a multitude of different purposes; I hope the course is flexible enough that the exact learning outcomes conform to your trajectory. All student should benefit from learning how to design more coherent and striking presentations–from something as seemingly simple as selecting a template, to pairing image and text, to maximizing contrast, and improving readability. I’m going to get this out of the way right now: don’t ever fucking center-align text. A title? Maybe if you are lazy and uninspired. Text that you actually want me to read? Nope.

Those skills should translate into developing flyers and handouts (both for academic contexts and professional ones). Those looking to pursue a career in publishing benefit not only from knowing how to use InDesign as a technical tool, but also from understanding how the “flow” process influences textual formatting and use of styles (in, say, Microsoft Word–how do you prep a Word document for publication?). And, as I emphasize in 229, knowing how to take and edit a photograph always has value–both professionally and personally.

The first 8 weeks of this course will emphasize the professional and technical elements of the course, as we learn key design concepts and softwares (primarily Canva and InDesign). The second half of the course is constructed around 3 community engagement projects. Let’s take a look at the syllabus.

The Basic C.R.A.P.

The first design book I ever read was Robin Williams’ The Non-Designer’s Design Book. I assign Golumbiski and Hagen’s White Space book because I believe they are more comprehensive, and because I appreciate their work on color. But William’s opening lessons on the basic CRAP of design are immediately accessible and actionable. And so, I begin with them today. I’ve emailed out a .pdf.

If we have time, then I’d like to try something.

Homework

There is an assignment in Canvas called “Reading and Effective Design” due before Wednesday’s class. It requires you do some reading and then analyze a cool design of your choice.

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