Okay, so, I know I just wrote an entry earlier today already, but after talking with Amanda I feel much better about how to begin my proposal and over-all project.
Okay, that last part was a bit of a lie. I’m still fuzzy on the project as a whole, but I’m better on my proposal.
So, essential, my proposal has three main parts.
- Magical Creatures
- Jouissance; Convergence Culture
- Book as Object
And I have to have #1 and #3 lead back to #2.
So, in other words, I start off talking about magical creatures–specifically the ones that I’m going to be working on for my creative part. Amanda said to try and narrow it down to about 3, so I’m going to work on it.
(p.s. the only reason it’s not Fairytales, Myth, and Lore is because–like with everything–I needed to narrow it down. So I did, to Fairytales. Then I explained it’s more like the creatures from the fairytales–like Unicorns, Fairies, etc.–that I’m focusing on, so we changed it over to magical creatures in general.)
I have no idea (okay, somewhat) of what 3 I want to do, but my top 10 include:
- Little people (Lutins)
- Fairies
- The Boogeyman
- Mermaids
- Windegos
- Aliens
- Dragons
- Ghosts
SO, yeah.
Anyway, I have to find these three and talk about how they fit in with Jouissance and Convergence Culture–to be specific, about their different forms, world-building, and fan created centers.
I also have to narrow down which definition of Jouissance that I’m using, since there are a couple of them, and work with that (I didn’t know there was more than one meaning of Jouissance, but hey. That’s what college is for, I guess). After that, I can start to relate the Magical Creatures (MC) into Jouissance and then how that works into Convergence Culture (which luckily I have a book for).
Also, as a side-note for Jouissance: since it’s basic definition means “pleasure of the unknown”, I’m still creating that by my project. ‘Cept mine is more:
Unknown–> Known–> Known Unknown
AKA
Not real–> Actually real–> Slice of Life
OR
MC’s are not real–> but they actually are real–> And they do regular slice-of-life things
So, it’s the Jouissance (pleasure) of finding out that MC’s live regular lives too, they’re not all powerful and magical. I guess the best way to describe it is like in Percy Jackson when you find out what modern things the Greek Gods do. Like how Hermes owns and runs UPS.
So, that’s how that works in my head, I just have to find what definition of Jouissance fits that idea. Which includes (from Wikipedia, which I know is not the best, but it works for now):
- Lacan: “there is a jouissance beyond the pleasure principle”[5] linked to the partial drive; a jouissance which compels the subject to constantly attempt to transgress the prohibitions imposed on his enjoyment, to go beyond the pleasure principle. Yet the result of transgressing the pleasure principle is not more pleasure but pain, since there is only a certain amount of pleasure that the subject can bear. Beyond this limit, pleasure becomes pain, and this “painful principle” is what Lacan calls jouissance.[6] Thus jouissance is suffering (ethics). Lacan also linked jouissance to the castration complex,[8] and to the aggression of the death drive.”
AKA: Like the Milner Pleasure Center experiment, where the rat pressed the button to deliver pleasure into his brain so much that he killed himself. - Barthes: “literary theory book The Pleasure of the Text, Barthes divides the effects of texts into two: plaisir (translated as “pleasure”) and jouissance. The distinction corresponds to a further distinction Barthes makes between “readerly” and “writerly” texts. The pleasure of the text corresponds to the readerly text, which does not challenge the reader’s position as a subject. The writerly text provides bliss, which explodes literary codes and allows the reader to break out of his or her subject position. For Barthes plaisir is, “a pleasure… linked to cultural enjoyment and identity, to the cultural enjoyment of identity, to a homogenising movement of the ego.” “Plaisir results, then, from the operation of the structures of signification through which the subject knows himself or herself; jouissance fractures these structures.”
AKA: What I learned about from Annette (and what I was trying to explain to Amanda. (I might have to email her about this one and see if I can use this one in particular, as this is what I was referring to). - Cixous: “describe a form of women’s pleasure or sexual rapture that combines mental, physical and spiritual aspects of female experience, bordering on mystical communion: “explosion, diffusion, effervescence, abundance…takes pleasure (jouit) in being limitless”. Cixous maintains that jouissance is the source of a woman’s creative power and that the suppression of jouissance prevents women from finding their own fully empowered voice. Other feminists have argued that Freudian “hysteria” is jouissance distorted by patriarchal culture and say that jouissance is a transcendent state that represents freedom from oppressive linearities.”to escape hierarchical bonds and thereby come closer to what Cixous calls jouissance, which can be defined as a virtually metaphysical fulfillment of desire that goes far beyond [mere] satisfaction… [It is a] fusion of the erotic, the mystical, and the political.”
And those are my choices. #2 looks the best in the terms of what I know, but #3 can also work… sort of. Maybe. I think I will email Amanda about #2 and get her opinion on the matter.
NOTE TO SELF: Email Amanda about theory #2. Also, while you’re at it, email Carol from class about her proposal to get a visual on what to do.
Moving on…
So, after I find my definition, I have to work it around Convergence Culture, which is (if I’m remembering correctly), how something has transcended originality and created this world with fans and things. Multiple meanings and such. Essentially:
- A new era of transition where ‘new and old media collide’. Jenkins’ understanding of convergence is primarily a cultural process, where convergent cultural practices include both the consumption and creation of media. Jenkins specifically focuses on the effects of “media convergence” and the combination of various media that offer new forms of communication and understanding between different media sources. It especially refers to how media consumers understand and make use of the new forms of media and it’s content. This convergence has created such things as Web 2.0, transmedia phenomena, and subsequently a new definition of American popular culture.
I do this by talking about how Convergence culture and Jouissance go hand in hand, and in return, take magical creatures along for the ride.
For example,
How fairies are found in different mediums for different purposes.
- Harry Potter
- Once Upon a Time
- Tinkerbell
- Supernatural
- Fairy Godmother
- Fairly Oddparents
- Spyro the Dragon
- Renaissance Festival
And how they’re good or bad and how people enjoy them.
The best example would be how the Fairly Oddparents work. Where lonely children get their own Fairy Godparents. And how there are rules, and how they can fall in love, and how they live in their own separate houses, etc. And that show brought MANY A KID Jouissance.
And that’s why I’m doing this project. Is to show how Jouissance and Convergence culture go hand-in-hand and why it will continue to march forward.*
And then finally, after I’ve tied #1 & #2 together, I bring in #3, Book as Object.
Which my argument is essentially how the physical book brings pleasure and how my formatting will help enhance and create more Jouissance for the magical things I’m talking about. So, basically, I’m talking up how great physical books are and how interactivity through books highlights pleasure even more in the reader.
So, cool, right?
Amanda’s awesome, I’m glad she helped me think through this process. It’s a tough one.
She went off of my thought of “to create something like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson without a main protagonist; so that everyone can be their own main protagonist (a “choose your own adventure”)” and helped me narrow it down to academic things in three parts that I have to put together.
Ahhhhh, it’s so much easier to handle!
I also got a deadline too, to have a rough draft to her by, as well as my personal deadline (which she’s endorsing) to have it completed by:
Rough Draft: Wednesday, April 6th @4:15 p.m.
Final Draft, Pt. 1: Friday, April 15th (emailed)
Final Draft, Pt. 2: Monday, April 18th (hard-copy)
COMPLETED DRAFT: Wednesday, April 20th (just in case I need to tweak it at all)
So, here’s hoping!
I know I also have Annette’s paper and project due around that time, so hopefully I can get this all done! Luckily for me, I’m also working on convergence culture for fairytales for that class, so I’ll already have some information squared away that I can copy & paste from. Yay for killing 2 birds with 1 stone!
And double yay for keeping this blog, which will no doubt
A) help keep my sanity
B) help keep me [somewhat] organized
and
C) Allow me wiggle room to write down and work through my thought process as I write. Which is always a plus since I can’t always talk to people about it. 🙂
Okay. Now that I’ve managed to write all this information down, I think it’s a good time to publish the post, take a shower, tumblr it up, and hit the hay. It’s been a long day and it’s going to be a long tomorrow (and weekend, since I’ve got my 9-10 page paper “rough draft” to work on for Annette’s class. That I need to really get on, as I have barely anything for. Thank god it’s just a rough draft, because I’ve discovered I need to re-write a paper at least 3 times to get it to sound good. With this, I’m going to do at most 2 re-writes. Maybe 3 if I can squeeze it in, but I won’t sweat too much over it, since she’s giving us feedback herself and considers it a “rough draft… that’s like the finished paper”. Which is really nice. It’s also part of the reason why I love Annette). OH! I’ll also email those people too, as I’ve also discovered that if I don’t do something now; in the moment I think of it, it probably won’t get done. I’m weird like that. But hey! At least I’m getting to know myself better!
Until next time,
Sami
P.s. I also got a rough page estimate for how long the rational part of my project will be!
Amanda said it would be up to me how long it was. She’s thinking, like, 40 pages (“but that may be a bit much…” probably because I made a face).
I said I was thinking like, 25-30 pages.
She said that was a happy medium.
I said “oh, no big deal, 40 pages.” With a face that was a big deal.
She puzzled.
I said, “I’ve never wrote a paper that long. The longest was 15 pages.”
She was like, “Oh thank God I’m not the worst, cause I thought I gave out long papers!”
Her paper was like, 12-14 pages. Not bad. Pretty flexible.
She suggested that I could think of it as writing 3 small papers. 10 pages each.
I said that was better. Still scary though.
She laughed and was like, “but you’ll probably write over”
I laughed. “Probably? I know I will, I’m known for biggering things. (I felt like the Once-let). I’m always told to make it smaller; narrow it down! ALWAYS! Come on Amanda! It’s my thing! Everybody tells me that–I don’t wanna sometimes!”
We both laughed.
And then I was almost last for my class with Annette at Toys-R-Us (which was epically fun).
The End.
*This is why I think I’m doing. I think this is my thesis statement for my proposal. Again, I’ll have to include it in with my email to Amanda
A Plethora of Demiurgic Imagination 