LIL420

For this journal entry, I was asked to find a news article that assesses the current public opinion of the communications major. The article that I will be using for this disucssion is called “What You Need to Know About Becoming a Communication and Media Studies Major.” This article gives a summary of what the communications major entails in most universities in the United States. The author says that if you have a multitude of interests and if you like working with people, then the major might be for you. The studies within this major teach you how to communicate interpersonally, but also how to examine the many different ways that can occur in today’s world. Nowadays, compared to say, fifteen years ago, the major has evolved to include media arts in the same track, or a complimentary minor track.

So, that was the short summary of what the major is itself. The rest of the article is more or less a questionnaire to see if communications is right for you. However, the bottom of the article asks the question, “What Can I Do With a Communication and Media Studies Major?” This is a common question posed to aspiring communications majors, and students already involved in this area of study. The article gives responses like: lawyer, marketing manager, human resources specialist, producer and director, etcetera.

This article, unlike other mainstream pieces about majors in the arts and humanities, sells this field of study pretty well and does not refer to the common stigma that other articles and the mainstream opinion might. At the end of the article, there is a section of testimonies from communications and media studies majors that provide great information.

I have to say that I am confused about what this journal is asking me to do exactly. My feeling is that this journal will be the same as the most previous revision projecct post that I made because I have not made much progress since then. With that being said, let’s see what we can do with this journal.

My relationship with peer-review with regard to college work has not been great. The feedback and commentary always seem to fall on either side of the spectrum of positivity and negativity. Either my work is “so good” or it is “not the way I would have done it.” Obviously, there have been a couple of moments in the midst of all of this where great feedback has been given to me, but that is, again, seldom the case. Hopefully I can receive some peer review feedback that allows me to further this revision project in ways that make sense, not to just reword things, or just simply subtract or add information.

The only commentary work that I have completed for my revision project has been done in my head and out loud with Dr. Smith, but I have a couple of ideas on how to drastically improve on the project, even with the limited commentary I have available. So, the original paper that I wrote in my junior year was about The Interface Problem that is presented by Bermudez in the book The Philosophy of Psychology, but only one common response out of the four to the problem itself. The response that I focused on was the autonomous conception of mind, but there is also the functional conception of mind, the neurocomputational conception of mind, and the representational mind. All of these theories/responses to this question posed by Bermudez react to the issue at question in different ways. So, the first big change I would make in my project would be to include this additional information. The example proposal from the bottom of the PDF that was shared with us will be great once I get to that part of my project, simply because it is written about the same professor that I am using for this project.

2QCQ

“I am Effie, visible and invisible, 
remembering and remembered.”

– Adrienne Rich, “Mourning Picture”

This quotation comes from the ending of the poem, “Mourning Picture” by Adrienne Rich. Before reading Moramarco’s analysis of this poem’s interpretation of the original painting, I did not feel these last two lines as intensely as I did after reading it. It was hard for me to see the idea that this girl had passed on and was visible to herself and the two animals (mabye not the lamb), but not to her parents, being remembered by her parents, and remembering her own life as well. At first, I saw this as her being ignored by her parents, clinging on to a lamb, looking out at something in the distance. Of course, I realized that interpretation was surface level at best after reading Moramarco’s understanding of the last two lines of this poem in relation to the painting.

“The paradoxes expressed in the last two lines extend the one conveyed by the
painting—where Effie is visible to the viewer but invisible to her mother and
father, remembering her past and remembered by her grieving parents.”

– Fred Moramarco, “Speculations: Contemporary Poetry and Painting”

What might we have missed if Adrienne Rich never offered us this poetic interpretation of this painting from the 19th century? Why did the poet give the subject in the foreground a voice? Why not the mother or father in the background?

Personally, I think we would have missed the entire understanding that we have now. Without this poem there would only have been contextual understanding of the time and place that this painting was completed in. That level of interpretation provides some understanding of the work, but it fails to capture all of the elements of the artwork. Obviously, poems fail to capture some aspects of the story, but more importantly they serve as the next step on the way to greater connection and understanding with the piece of artwork. As mentioned in Moramarco’s piece, this painting lacked a solid interpretation/understanding for almost a century.

Providing the girl in the front with a voice was the right move, no doubt, but I wonder what would have been different about the poem if it had been written from the father’s perspective. I also assume that the father in the painting is more or less a representation of the painter himself, but I could be wrong.

Some of the lines from the poem by Adrienne Rich, especially those emphasizing how vividly the little girl remembers her life, cut deep into my mind. Thinking about those lines while looking at the parents in the background creates the division that the painter must have intended, between life and death that is.

There are three projects that I keep coming back to as I review my past work. The philosophy papers that were written for Philosophy of Psychology are, for the moment, being considered as one project. The second project was from Plagues and Populations. It was the final assignment for the class and it may have been the most fun I have had working on an assignment of that caliber in my schooling career. It is notable to say the least. The final project was the stop-motion animation project that I completed in Digital Media and Software Tools, if I am remembering that correctly.

I know that I could improve all of these, obviously. There are some questions I came to ask myself as I was looking throught these projects and papers. What if I chose to pursue a different response to the interface problem essay? How come I did not add a case study of the parasite that my group was presenting about? Wouldn’t that have added substance to the presentation? The issue that I am facing is that a lot of the projects that I am proud of can not be used because they are, for the most part, complete in and of themselves. However, this issue can be avoided if I choose to think creatively about how to alter, improve, restructure, and reimagine the “complete” work. So, even though I am only considering the three projects mentioned in this post, there is a strong possibility that other works that are not included here will be added to the list.

For now, my main focus is on the philosophy essay that I wrote covering one out of the four responses to the interface problem, a well-known, ongoing conversation in the study of the philosophy of psychology. Looking back on this project right now is pretty funny, mainly because I used a type of imitation method to write the paper. Of course, we just read a chapter called “Of Imitation” which talks about this way of learning to write in different ways. I wonder if I can add my own spin on this paper, in addition to including the other three common arguments responding to the interface problem.

The type of work that I enjoy doing, and the type of work that I believe I am above average at luckily are very similar. My ideal work environment, (not field or industry specific), is some place that I can work with my hands and see something physical or digital come to life both as I am working on it and as it is completed. I tend to perform better under pressure, so having an established list of my responsibilities, whether that be from myself or a boss, would motivate me to produce great work and would help keep my focus on the task at hand. I have been working for myself as a business owner for the last few years and I have found it to be the most fulfilling type of work that I have encountered. It also requires more discipline than a job where the company’s fate isn’t riding completely on your effort, dedication, transparency, and honesty.

To make this next section a little more smooth, I have chosen to talk about being a business owner. The kind of job that this is really depends on what type of business you run, but there are elements across all small businesses that are similar. This job is whatever you make it. Do you want to sell products? Offer services? Do you want to be the bridge between companies or the bridge between companies and the government. Those were just a couple of examples, but no matter what you do you are working with other people. No business can survive without a connection to a person or people. The purpose of being a business owner is to find a solution to a need that exists in the world, and offering that solution to your desired audience for a cost. If you are running your business by yourself, you will perform almost all of the tasks. For the purposes of this journal entry and thinking about the context of our class I will discuss the communication side. In today’s world, small businesses depend on their community connections and brand awareness within one or more communities. A great way to foster, maintain, and grow that connection is through social media communication, which is one of the areas that I have studied while here at the University of New England. To understand this mode of communication, it is important to understand the surrounding modes of communication as well. This boils down to any internet communication service like email, online messengers, advertising, and more. In my opinion, these skills are vital for small business owners today. These tools are mostly low cost, but they provide so many benefits to one’s business.

In studying communications and writing at college, I have learned a number of valuable lessons, but I will name only a couple that apply here. First, I have gained a better understanding of how to talk to people, how to interpret what they say, what might be important to them, and I have learned to watch where people’s attention goes. In other words, I have evolved in my people reading abilities. This is a tool that I use to run a large part of my business, if not the largest part, which is making sure my customers feel welcome and satisfied with my products and services. The writing minor I added a couple of years ago has allowed me to take courses to enhance my writing abilities, specficially in the advertisements that I create to promote my business. I feel that I have gained stronger skills for running a business than I would have if I were a business major.

What are the humanities? The immediate answer most would provide is something along the lines of “english, history, art, and other areas of studies,” and this might be somewhat true, but it by no means encapsulates what the humanities are. There is in fact “no adequate ‘idea of the humanities.” One could draw distinctions between the humanities and other areas of intellectual thought like the sciences and religion, even though they possess many similarities. During made me stop and think when he discussed the overlap between religion and some aspects of the humanities. The first being that the humanities, or liberal arts, as they were, emerged in support of religion, rather than against it. I would say this is because of the timing of these particular parts of history and how prevalent religion was at the time. Second, During says that the humanities can appeal to faith, which does not necessarily have to involve anything divine. Faith can be just that.

The distinctions, like the instrumental value that each of these different disciplines have ultimately make up the entirety of the difference between religion, science, and the humanities. Understanding the humanities and their history is really the only available method out there. In addition, it seems to be the concrete that is keeping the humanities alive, even though lots of humanities programs in institutions in the United States are underfunded and not treated with nearly as much respect as they had been in the past. We have seen an emergence of people taking part in the intellectual world of the humanities outside of institutions as well, which is promising considering the current conversational climate of our country. All in all, there is hope, but there is also a massive amount of pressure from all sides fighting the now fragile status of the humanities.