Response email to Mackenzie Wark's chart

After class last week when we tried to figure out how to read the chart, (chart before paragraph 53) I thought I might shoot Mr. Wark an email asking him how to read the shot just for the heck of it. I just explained that we were reading "Gamer Theory" in class and I just asked him if he could givie us some direction or explanation of how to read the chart. Here was his reponse:

The time axis runs left to right; the vertical axis has things that are more like forms or processes at the bottom and more subjective or cultural things at the top. The left hand column gives the case, and -- reading left to right -- three instances of that case which come one after the other. The topical becomes the topographic becomes the topological. That's the essential thesis of the chapter. To each stage corresponds an ethos. Myth is the ethos of the topical (think ancient greeks). Storyline is the ethos of the topographic (the example is Cooper's Last of the Mohicans). Each topos as a line of increasing complexity, from the trails of Cooper's novel to the telegraph to the internet. Which makes action of increasing scale possible. Then the top half is more about a succession of aesthetic forms, subjective experiences, etc. The time frames are actually quite different for each series so they don't necessarily coincide. Lukacs and Cooper are not contemporaries, for example. Almost everything on Fig. C gets a mention in the chapter. Its really just a diagram what's going on in the writing. You could read it as a parody of the charts in textbooks, and as such a provocation to thought.

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Gamer Theory

When I first started reading Gamer Theory last week I think the main reason why I didn't like its style was because I was not expecting it and because I didn't know how to get the information out of it. The more I read the more I like the book because it is different and because I haven't read a book in this format before. I also like the book because it leaves a lot of room for discussion and other interpretations of the text. There was a great deal of this last class, and I think these discussions will continue tomorrow but I think everyone will have a better understanding of how to deal with the style this book is written in.

Just a quick side note, I know we had labeled Merel's crazy flying images presentation on the second teaching day as "useless," but I couldn't help but notice how many times her "useless" topic has been brought up in class discussions. There have been at least three or four times when I have heard someone use her example and I think it is great I would not be suprised to hear it used again tomorrow.

Ups and downs of a digital-age campaign - The Boston Globe

Ups and downs of a digital-age campaign - The Boston Globe

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Now I do understand that the majority of the examples in this article are about Mitt Romney, but the main ideas do relate to class and some discussions we have had. Also this article relates to class because of its terms like "gatekeeping" as we have read about in Boler.

10/30 class reaction

I thought last Thursday's teaching day was really great however I think that is the last one we should do. It was fun while it lasted but I think that has been enough. I do think the topics this time were much more exciting than the topics from the first teaching day. I thought there were some really great topics and I am especially glad the groups were bigger and that each group sent two people up to teach their topic because it let us hear more topics. I like how we had discussions about the topics without ever saying that we should have discussions, I like how they just emerged. I am looking forward to hearing the last couple presentations and then hopefully we can talk a little bit more about the election since it will be election day.