Insignificant Wranglings

Today’s Plan:

• Project Two: The Tragedy Paper Expectations
• Tragedy Project Resources

Project Two: The Tragedy Paper Expectations

When we started this project back on February 1st, I promised you 4-5 weeks to complete your game and develop your papers. Today marks the end of week four. The time of writing is upon us. Many of you have done some work already both in your journals and in your presentations. My hope is that ideas are fomenting. It is time to calcify them.

Final papers will be due March 10th. I will respond to papers over the break.

Vitals:

• The paper should be 7 to 10 pages (say 1700 to 3000 words)
• The paper should be written in MLA or APA format with a corresponding Works Cited / Reference List. You should use the OWL MLA or OWL APA websites for formatting.
• The paper needs to develop a definition of catharsis. This should include citing and explaining (the ambiguities) in Aristotle’s definition and explaining at least two of the competing definitions Curran presents. It will likely take you 2 pages (double-spaced) to do this.
• The paper needs to work with one additional term we’ve discussed this project (see resources below). You might have to look up other sources to help develop your understanding of the term (Wikipedia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, etc). Be sure to include these in your Works Cited / Reference List (check formatting in OWL). It is your job to talk about how/why this term relates to catharsis and then, in the paper, to talk about why that term is specifically important to understanding your experience of that game.

The paper should then close read 2-4 scenes from the game that help me understand the answer to one (or more) of the following questions:

• Is this game a tragedy (by Aristotelian standards)?
• Did you have a cathartic experience?
• How/does the interactive nature of the game augment/diminish its potential as a tragedy capable of producing catharsis?
• Explore the complex relationship to the game’s protagonist / argue for the agent of the tragic action etc (think of the range of work we saw in the project presentations!)

Your answer(s) to that/those question(s) is your thesis. It is the point that your paper is attempting to prove. Make sure your introduction lays the argument out and “road maps” the route the paper will take to get there. The paragraphs examining scenes are your evidence in support.

Finally–remember that this last part is mostly advisory. Meaning–you have to show me you can read several academic sources and define catharsis–the stuff in the first bulleted list is non-negotiable. The stuff in the second bulleted list is offered as potential avenues for analysis. However, what you do in the paper is up to you. I want to read a paper that uses the concept of catharsis and another Greek aesthetic term to say something smart. Point to specific elements, scenes, choices, dialogue in the game. But the exact argument of the paper is up to you: I cannot predict or assure that the questions I lay out above will work for every person’s experience with any given game. They are starting points. If you analyze specific scenes of the game using the theoretical readings we’ve read and discussed in order to reflect on your play and the designer’s intentions, you are ensured at least a B on the paper (see the rubric in Canvas).

Catharsis Resources

Note that there should be .pdfs of all readings in Canvas.

• 2023 Tragedy Workspace Document. This document has a few things of value:
  • If you are still unsure of what to write about, then you can look at the heuristic in the document for an expanded list of questions.
  • Some initial research material for the other terms with which we worked this semester: Hamarita (the flaw), Aporia (problem, see Meakin–though their definition is a bit reductive), Epiphany (A ha! moment), Peripeteia (the reversal of fortune or the turn).
• My selections from Aristotle’s Poetics (from the Butcher edition, you can find publication info on Amazon)
• Link to free/complete Aristotle’s Poetics
• Curran, 2016, (PDF in Canvas)
• Bate (PDF in Canvas)
• Link to Meakin

Aristotle’s Definition of Tragedy:

VI.2-3
Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of emotions.

One more resource. Here is a blog post I wrote on Catharsis last year. You are free to cite this. You are also encouraged to argue against it (should you decide to do so).

Title: “What if Catharsis Wasn’t Merely Fear and Pity?” May 2022.

First, let’s clear up what catharsis might mean, especially the idea that catharsis is a kind of pleasure. We all get that catharsis for Aristotle means that we watch something painful and then (sort of) feel good about it. But why do we feel good about it? How do we flush out the particulars? This is where things get tricky. Let me introduce two/ interpretations–I roll with the second more than the first.

Okay, the first is that we recognize in the protagonist something that plagues ourselves, one of our foibles, weaknesses, flaws. Hence we pity them. Or we see that they are the victims of the bad circumstances and we pity them. And, at the same time, because we identify with them, we fear that we could make the same bad decisions or find ourselves a pawn of a similarly unjust fate.

Perhaps the play resolves itself, and through the play we learn to overcome those bad things, to fix our flaw, to be better. Thus, we are purged, cleansed, of our pity and fear. The pleasure here is tied to the pleasure of learning, of becoming better.

I don’t really buy that model. Rather, I think we reconcile, accept, those flaws. Perhaps we learn the importance of overcoming our flaws, perhaps we are better at avoiding them. But I think catharsis more as a coming to terms with our frailties, learning to live with them, coming to recognize humanity as something over than divine, ideal, or perfect. The rhetorician Kenneth Burke once said that humans are “rotten with perfection,” with the idea of perfection, with creating ideals and then comparing ourselves to them. Judging ourselves lacking for our inability to meet the impossible ideal. I think the cathartic “pleasure” of coming to terms with our frailty is timid, subdued. It is a kind of peace that eschews from a contentment with our/selves.

I’ll also say that I don’t think the purpose of tragedy is to release just fear or pity. That’s feels too narrow to me. Both in the sense that I don’t think tragic exploration limits itself to what we fear and who we pity (for suffering what seems injust or caprice whims of fate).

Catharsis reaches out to us and reminds us, rekindles, relights, what is already there. Our fear of death. Our fear of loss. So, yes, fear is certainly part of us. But what about our struggle to find meaning in our lives? Our desire for a soulmate. Is there a fear that we won’t find meaning or love (we could spin it that way). But rather than fear, what about the frustration love (or its absence, or its betrayal) causes us? The pain of rejection or betrayal. Catharsis is a term for the resonance between what we see on the stage, the screen, the page, and our own troubles, thoughts, feelings. And we can have powerful relationships to characters that do not necessarily amount to only pity.

This isn’t to say we can’t have a powerful sympathetic response to a narrative to which we have no lived correlate– I find Eli Weisel’s Night to be incredibly powerful despite the fact that I have not experienced genocide. Night is doing powerful work; I would simply insist that it is not cathartic work, because there is no personal resonance for me. It operates in the realm of sympathy (feeling for) rather than empathy (feeling with). This does not mean it is not “pedagogic,” i.e., instructive– it certainly aims to teach us how (not) to live. But there is no connection to my life (and, without falling into the “universal” rabbit hole, etc. etc), no identification. I experience it from a distance.

So, if I had to lay down a fundamental first principle for catharsis, it would be that there must be a fundamental identification between the action of the tragedy and the audience/reader/player.

Today’s Plan:

• Looking for a Note Taker
• Circle Back to “Sudafed”
• Presentation Sign Ups
• Presentation Materials

Looking for a Note Taker

“This class requires a student to take notes each class period. The notetaker selected will receive either UNC Apparel or a certificate for 45 service hours. The note-taker must have a GPA of a 3.0 or higher. Notetakers can sign up online through the DRC Online Platform by going to the Notetaking Information of our website. Please see me if you are interested in volunteering as the peer notetaker.”

Link to sign up.

Circle Back to “Sudafed”

After last class, I realized that I didn’t exactly do what I wanted–yes, we analyzed our poems, but we didn’t necessarily do the work on turning our analytical work into words that we can share with other people. To recap last class, here’s what I remember we identified.

I spent some time turning that into words.

Presentation Sign Ups

Here is a link to presentation sign ups.

Presentation Expectations and Materials

First let me say that these are not supposed to be formal or stressful. I’m looking to force you to sit down for a bit and reflect on both the theoretical materials/terms we’ve been exploring and the game you have been playing/writing about. This is an opportunity to reflect and share.

Here is a link to our Handbook of Tragic Terms in case you need it.

I also know that public speaking really frightens some folks. If you would prefer, you can write a paper and I can read it for you, or you can record yourself in an automated PowerPoint or Youtube video. You have 800 words to deliver to the class–but multiple ways to think about how you want to do that.

As I’ve said, the paper should spend about 150 words summarizing the plot of the game for us. THAT IS NOT A LOT OF WORDS–but you should give everyone a big picture view of the topic/action/main character in a very tight paragraph. You can also indicate how much of the game you have played so far (e.g., I’m 6 hours in and through about 40% of the story or I’ve completed 4 out of 7 chapters).

After that, I would like you to engage in some close reading of a particular scene or scenes. You’ll have about 600-650 words left to do that. Tell us the purpose of the scene–does it connect us to a character? Does it amplify an emotional mood? Does it reveal the characters flaw? Does it exemplify the theme of the game?

[Time permitting, Last of Us opening scene, 15 minutes long]

What does the beginning of the game do?

• Details: clock ticking and the watch / calling daughter baby girl (foreshadowing)
• Depth of love for daughter, sarcastic humor between them, poor, they are all they have
• Dad is protective. Absurdly so–telling her not to look, not letting Tommy talk about what is clearly happening
• Joel is also aggressively protective.
• Loses daughter to a soldier

How to make the tragedy frustrating and not just sad? Joel as jerk vs. Joel as tragic figure.

Your presentation should be accompanied with a slide show. Unless you are recording your presentation, I strongly prefer you use Google Slides for this–you can submit a link to the presentation to Canvas and it will make transitioning between speakers much faster as everyone presents. These do not need to be fancy–just share materials relevant to your presentation. Or maybe like this.

Today’s Plan:

• For Next Sessions: Week 7 Article Sign Ups
• Your Passages
• Break
• Using the Pentad
• My Burke Notes

Week 7 Article Sign Ups

As I mentioned last class, for next week everyone will be required to read 3 articles and lead the class in a brief discussion of those articles. Since we have 7 people, including myself, and 165 minutes (leaving 15 minutes for break), we have 9 minutes to discuss each article (more time if folks team-up).

So, to prepare for your nine minutes, write a 3 minute summation, then a question that we have 6 minutes to think about and discuss. This might be tied to a particularly important passage of the text.

To the syllabus.

Your Passages

Using the Pentad

I approach rhetoric more as how we think about thinking, communication, knowledge, identity, relation, etc. But tonight I want to try an activity–let’s try putting Burke’s Pentad (or Hextad) to work.

I have some news stories.

My Burke Notes

I do not have time tonight to walk through all of my notes, but I wanted to tease together some passages and themes.

Point #1
In Elements of Dramatism, Blakesley explicates how language works through an inherent ambiguity, that words can mean something precisely because they do not certainly mean something, that meaning is a messy process often open to misunderstanding and misinterpretation (see EoD 2, 9, 22-22, and especially 26-27). Let’s take a quick look at page 26.

Burke stresses, however, in many places that this “ambiguity,” this lack of certainty, tends to trouble us. We want solid ground, not turtles all the way down. We are scared of the abyss (DoM, 58).

Point #2
In proposing rhetoric as identification (rather than persuasion), Blakesley suggests that Burke opens rhetoric up to more and deeper understandings of the unconscious ways we play with language and it plays with us (see EoD 9, 15, 18). Burke notes that our human desire for identification is quite strong (RoHB 217), intensified by the looming abyss of relativism (DoM 58). According to Burke, Hitler was skilled at weaponizing this desire for unity, and understood that there was much to gain by defeating critical questioning (“objectivity” as Burke calls it, perhaps better understood as seeing things from multiple perspectives) and demonizing the “babel” of democracy in favor of the One Voice (of which, Davis was quite critical last week) (see RHB 205, 217, 218).

We desire the beautiful, not the sublime. The simple and the clear. One voice. We also, Burke notes, desire perfection, perfect opposites and enemies, purified of contingency. Hence the danger Hitler identifies in the kind of messy democracy Lanham (very much channeling Burke) describes (see Mein Kamph passage, qtd in Burke 193). And Hitler’s Aryan community, as Burke describes it, is very much a perversion and twisting betrayal of Lingis’ Rational Community–it is an irrational community made rational through force, repetition, and tradition. As Burke notes, uncertainty can be trumped by rage (see RNB 197).

Point #3
Burke offers us something akin to the “saying,” then, in its relentless pursuit to remind us of the humanity, frailty, presence of others by alerting us to the possibilities that their discourses, their terminologies, might offers something different than our own. Perhaps Davis would accuse me of offering Burke too much charity on this front, given her critique that he takes as divided, fundamentally and originally divided, that which is (according to neuroscience) whole. I would argue that, at the very least, Burke recognizes the danger of homes with walls too strong, homes with fires too warm, homes in which we sit comfortably shielded by the other(‘s) elements.

A bit more safer, perhaps then, to say that Burke’s Dramatism is a methodology for producing dissensus? For, in the words of Readings, holding open questions rather than letting them close? Yeah, I feel more comfortable with that comparison. Let’s look at Blakesley’s “ethical” justification of dramatism on pg. 23 of EoD. Let’s also look at the closing of Terministic Screens.

Today’s Plan:

• Mini-Project #4, Menus
• For Wednesday’s Class: Find a Menu
• Upcoming Schedule

Menus

For the next two weeks we will be designing a restaurant menu. This is a multiple-birds-with-one-project project, since we’ll be:

• Learning InDesign
• Learning Design Process and Grid Layout (developing a mock-up/sketch)
• Practicing Typography

Pre-Writing a Design

Most of you are writers. As writers, you all probably have a different approach to pre-writing. Me? I read and write comments in the margins of a book. Then I type out quotes into a Google Doc with some transitions and some analysis. Pieces of stuff. I’m looking for terms I’ll need to explicate. Connectionss to other passages or writers. Places where I can offer a concrete example of an abstract concept. I try to identify what I have to write *first*, what idea or term I need to understand and pin down in order to explicate the other terms/materials/examples I plan on analyzing in the paper.

Eventually I start thinking of an outline (what, in my writing classes, I call a road map: first this paper explains X, then it uses X to examine A, B, and C. Or first it reviews how X and Y have defined Z. Then it compares X and Y’s treatment of Z to M, stressing A and B). Whatever. I do some math and start guessing how many pages I can dedicate to each element in the outline. As a profession academic, I often work backwards a bit on this part, since virtually anything I write will be 8-10 pages (for a conference) or 20-30 pages (for an article).

However we approach pre-writing, I think we can think of it as developing “a sketch” of what our work will look like. It is an exercise in planning organization, mapping ideas. It is also, at least for me, an exercise in space management, making sure I can fit what is needed in the area with which I have to work. I think you can see where this is going.

When I used to design websites, I would always begin with a mock-up: a hand-drawn sketch of site. That would become a mock-up, a Photoshop picture of what I wanted the site to look like. This would include some basic measurements and grid work. We’re going to use a similar, but more lo-fi, approach to developing a draft for the menu project: a hand-drawn map on a piece of paper. We’ll work on this Wednesday.

Working in InDesign

Things to cover:

• Layers
• Properties (and text styles)
• Image Placeholder

General Design Advice and Resources for Menu Design

• Here is a link to the restaurant menu mini-project folder. It contains the .indd template file from class and the copy for the restaurant menu.
• The top Google hit for Menu Design tips.
• A better article on menu design tips.
• Let’s look at some examples.
• If you are feeling adventurous, then you can design a typical three-fold menu for the project. I found a good tutorial for this.

Schedule / Homework

For Wednesday, I would like you to bring a copy of a printed menu to class. We’re going to look at menus for a bit and discuss layout for the upcoming project. Note: I have transformed Chapter 6 into an extra-credit assignment.

• 4.Friday: Typography, HW: Read WSINYE Chapter on Type (you do not have to read the section on logo design). HW: Adobe InDesign Classroom in a Book, start chapter 4 “Working with Objects” (90 minutes).
• 5.Monday: Intro IFS Assignment. Discuss Typography. Quick InDesign Assignment.
• 5.Wednesday: Work Day. Work on IFS Draft, InDesign Classroom in a Book 5 “Flowing Text”(45 minutes).
• 5.Friday: IFS Crit.
• 6.Monday: [Today] IFS Final. In Class: Introduce Menu Assignment. Homework: Complete IDCiaB 5. Grab a print menu to bring to Wednesday’s class.
• 6.Wednesday: In class: Looking at Menus; Sketching out Designs. HW: WSINYE Color. InDesign Classroom in a Book 7 “Typography” (60 minutes). By Friday’s class, finish The Adobe Classroom in a Book chapters on Working with Objects, Flowing Text, and Working with Typography.
• 6.Friday: Work Day. HW: WSINYE Mini-Art School
• 7.Monday: Work Day.
• 7.Wednesday: Menu draft crit. Menu reflection assignment.
• 7.Friday: Menu Final. Reward: a glorious weekend without homework. Unless you didn’t complete the reflection assignment or failed to complete the Classroom in a Book assignments.

Today’s Plan:

• Ross 1240 Computer Lab Wednesday and Friday
• Game Sign Ups
• Curran on Catharsis

Ross 1240 Computer Lab Wednesday and Friday

My goal is for us to work out a heuristic on tragedy in class. As with our first project, we will be working collaboratively in a Google Doc.

Game Sign Ups

Let’s make it official.

Curran on Catharsis

Once again we read. Note that in your paper I will ask you to cite this Anglea Curran chapter and argue for which senses of catharsis she explicates help you make sense of your gaming experience.

Homework

Keep on playing and writing in your gaming journal.

Today’s Plan:

• Meakin Reading
• Tragedy Introductory Lecture
• Homework

Meakin Reading

I asked you to respond to 3 of the following 5 questions:
What do Meakin et al see as the purpose and/or value of tragedy?
How do Meakin et al define catharsis?
How do Meakin et al define aporia? How does it relate to catharsis?
How do Meakin et al define epiphany? How does it relate to catharsis?
How do Meakin et al describe our relationship to a tragic character (hint: they describe it as movement)?

Tragedy

Introductory lecture.

Homework

For homework I would like you to read the Mateas article in the files section of Canvas. The article draws on Janet Murray’s 1998 book Hamlet on the Holodeck, which is a classic in video game studies. As Mateas notes, Murray provides us with three key terms for thinking about “interactive narrative” (or video games, there was this debate in the 1990’s about whether we need to call serious-artsy-games something other than video games, in the same way that we call serious books novels). Those three terms:

• Immersion
• Transformation
• Agency

Read sections 3, 4, and 5 and come up with descriptive and useful definitions for those terms. What is agency? How do we know when we have it? Etc.

Then, watch this play-through video of Mateas’ conceptual interactive narrative “Facade” (he describes it in the remainder of the article). If you have a PC, you can still download and play the game. Use the terms you have just defined, Immersion, Transformation, and Agency to reflect on your own experience of playing (or watching a playthrough video) of that game.

I’m thinking about two things here: first, are those terms useful? On Friday we are going to start building a Handbook for Digital Tragedy. Should we include them? Second, Facade is a 20 year old game. At the time it was launched, it was heralded as the future of video games. That hasn’t happened. Why not?

Here is another playthrough video I want to talk about a bit in Friday’s class.

Today’s Plan:

• Responding to the Reading Responses
• Levinas: Major Themes
• Break
• Let’s Actually Pick Those End of Year Readings
• Paper Day #1
• Jim Corder

Levinas: Major Themes

I have a handout.

Let’s Actually Pick Those End of Year Readings

Let’s revisit the syllabus.

Paper Day #1

Let’s go look in Canvas.
I also have a second handout.

Jim Corder

Standard Battery of Questions:

• What does Corder mean by the idea that we make narratives? Why do said narratives complicate traditional notions of argument and rhetoric? What challenge does Corder issue that problematizes all rhetoric, but especially positivistic [rational] rhetoric?
• Why is Corder opposed to framing Rogers as a model for *all* argument? (His critique of Maxine Hairston, which involves one of the greatest “shade” sentences in the history of academia)(my favorite question)
• What dimensions does Corder add to argument that are often ignored?
• What is the meaning(s) of the anecdote Corder uses later in the essay? Why include it? What claim/idea does it support?
• Why does Corder use the word “love”? In what way is Corder’s approach to rhetoric like “love”? [That’s a really interesting terministic choice. I have a few ideas that I’ll share with you in class, but I am interested in how you interpret his decision. Note that I think this is *by far* the hardest question]

I have my stock lecture.