Announcement: Class will meet in our regular location on Monday (President's Day is not a day off at GMU) and on Wednesday. I may have confused people by referring to next week's classes as "workshops." We will be back in the lab for most of April.
Proposition: Does anyone want a brand new HP printer for $40? (Note: not stolen from a storage container at Patapsco)
Proposition: Does anyone want an old 12-inch television with built-in VCR for free? (Note: VCR meaning tapes. You also get a vintage Pearl Jam sticker if that gives some indication of how old it is. So no DVD but you can hook it to a cable antenna and I believe it has RCA inputs.)
Reminder: Watch episodes 3.1-3.4. Heads up to SAW 25-28.
Reminder: Read They Say I Say chapters 4-5. This will be super relevant to the upcoming essays and indeed to Monday's class exercises.
-If you are having trouble accessing the live prompt on Google Docs, here is the latest version in PDF of the Scene Analysis part and the Article Analysis part.
-If anyone else needs a re-up for package 3, I will be in my office tomorrow (Thursday) from about 1:30-6:30.
Opportunity: One thing we won't have very much time for in class this semester is sentence-level grammar and syntax skills. So I want to draw your attention to a workshop the Writing Center is offering if this is something you'd like to practice more. The location will be Johnson Center, third floor, meeting room B. It starts with a presentation and then you get one-on-one tutoring. The date is Monday the 21st (this coming Monday) and the time is 12:00-2:00. So you may want to bring in an essay from a previous class for instructional purposes since we won't have too many sentences written on our essays at that point.
Opportunity: A former student of mine has organized a cause called "No Fear in Love" to promote healthy relationships free of domestic violence for 16-24 year olds. On Saturday (the 26th), there will be a fundraising event at sunrise on the Prince William campus of GMU... it's a 6-mile race. More information here.
Random: I mentioned Zillow in the 9:00 class last week as a Lester-style surveillance device to understand how real estate valuations relate to distributions of power. This just occurred to me, but Google any address in downtown Baltimore, for instance the intersections named by characters in the show. Click on the streetview feature and you can actually "walk" the street. Now that's tourism.
Random: Try some of these online tests that are part of a major psychological research project at Harvard. The test attempts to quantify the gap between our stated and consciously held beliefs (for instance about race, gender, etc.) and our unstated and unconsciously held beliefs. This relates strongly to The Wire because we are given so many instances of the way that implicit stereotypes and misrecognitions can create a self-fulfilling cycle.
Ryan Brooks asserts that “knowledge equates power” and that knowledge is achieved through surveillance, the act of close observation without being seen. We agree that surveillance is important in attaining power in a law enforcement environment, however, we also note that the chain of command limits that power. The success of surveillance and the limitation of power by chain of command is seen in The Wire.
ReplyDeleteRachel Klein, Olivia Stockmann and Emily Brown
Many argue that in a criminal organization the motivation and drive for success, which may be the attainment of money, property, and power is based solely on these aspects. However, I say that these aspects are to preserve and protect the families and groups who are involved in these organizations. The Wire exemplifies the element of family and its ties to running and operation of criminal organizations.
ReplyDeleteThat TV. Is that a real proposition?? Because I have honestly been looking for that exact kind of TV for a year now........
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