In order to further explore our discussion on Banks' chapter, "Mix," we decided to create a Pinterest board (a site of spatial organization that can host ideas, associated images, and appropriate links simultaneously) focused around certain core ideas (pertaining to the chapter) that we expressed and discussed in reading group on Feb. 17th:
"Students intentionally write how they wouldn’t talk and then you have them read it out loud and say, “Would you ever talk like that?”
"Writing is scary. Once you put it on paper, you have to take a look at it."
"Many students perceive writing as very academic. Just that can be intimidating. So it can be hard to ask students to write, particularly at the beginning of the course."
"Many people probably don’t have positive experiences with writing."
"The role of the griot is to encourage the community to create texts together."
"The griot is a member of the community, but are there times when the griot is not a full participant or when he/she is overlooked?"
Here is the URL to our pinterest board: http://www.pinterest.com/fgriots/adam-banks-mix/
For starters, I was thoroughly fascinated by this Pinterest site. It was intriguing trying to decipher the connection between the visuals and the text in each example. In some instances, it was immediately apparent; in others, though, I had to dig a little deeper to determine what I felt the digital griots were saying.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I thought I would look back and ahead for this comment, as I feel that the statement "The role of the griot is to encourage the community to create texts together" was rather applicable to the "Remix" chapter. This, by far, was my favorite chapter in Digital Griots. I especially enjoyed Banks's discussion of generational gaps, in particular his assertion that "...namely that our nostalgia is often a rewriting of history--a remix that often judges the contemporary moment and young people in particular as having fallen short of some imagined golden age" (101).
This quote struck me as, in my early 30s, I'm starting to catch myself falling victim to this type of thinking. I look at popular culture today and view it as wanting in comparison to some magical period of music, television, comedy, movies, etc. that occurred during the 90s and early 2000s. When I do this, I constantly have to remind myself of how agitating it was when my elders denigrated the same culture that I look upon nostalgically. Everyone's "worst" nightmare--becoming their parents!
I thought "Remix" was so intriguing because it sought a dialogue between these generations, one that could be quite productive in my estimation. Whenever I find myself being critical of this generation's popular culture and values, I always wind up reflecting on how not all of the texts created during my generation were excellent. Am I judging this generation based off of a limited basis of exposure? This is why "Remix" was so unique to me--it sought a dialogue between the generations, one that would not favor or privilege either, but--instead--focus on discussing the pertinent issues at hand and how they are represented, dealt with, and symbolized. Such a dialogue seems like a rather healthy way to "bridge the gap," so to speak, and the idea of the griot encouraging communities to create texts together seems like an excellent start.
In their post, Kendall, Megan, and Jason carried out some of the complex roles of the DJ such as selection, arrangement, and beat mixing (in this case visual mixing) . I thought the selection job they did was particularly interesting since choosing to include some ideas and excludes others really shapes the narrative of the meeting. It makes me realize that there's a lot at stake for the DJ or digital griot since they are responsible for deciding what gets passed on and what gets left behind. Thinking about the griots' responsibility, it seems to me that there should be a recycling bin for the ideas that get left behind in case someone down the line says hey, we left something important out.
ReplyDeleteI really thought the group's use of the Pinterest board was a smart way to digitally represent the meeting, and it also reminds me of Banks's program for bridging the academic institution to the community. Banks guided scholars and people involved in community work to discover the relationships they had even though the perception was that two groups seemingly had nothing in common. By selecting ideas from class and blending, mixing, and representing them in pretty, amusing, uplifting, or encouraging visuals, the Pinterest board invites members of other communities outside of academia to take part in our discussion of writing and storytelling. Of course, the Pinterest board was intended to fulfill the needs of our class. However, since Pinterest is a public site (for anyone with an account) for people who like to share and collect ideas for anything from craft projects to wedding planning, different communities of interest may find the pins important for reasons other than ours.
I also liked how the group used a great variety of pins on the board to visually represent a few ideas. I think the pins speak to people in different ways and also reflect the interests and personas of the group members that posted them. At times, I was trying to guess who posted what or if they were all picked together. I'm guessing by the variety included and knowing some of your interests that they were picked individually? I particularly like the "Don't Write Like You Talk: A Smart Girl's Guide to Practical Writing and Editing" pin. urgh.
Like Bruce and Aimee, I saw connections between the work of this week's digital griots and the upcoming chapter. I particularly thought that their contribution fit in well with Eduardo Navas' definition of remix as "a reinterpretation of a pre-existing song, meaning that the 'aura' of the original will be dominant in the remixed version" (Banks 90), if I am allowed to apply "song" loosely and extend it to include the reading group's conversation.
ReplyDeleteWhere I am struggling, however, is determining how their post fits within Navas' three specific types of remix. On the one hand, I think that it is a "selective version, which might choose to delete some elements of the original and add new sounds or elements while 'keeping the essence of the song intact'" (Banks 90). Kendall, Megan and Jason obviously chose to omit some aspects of our group's conversation, and decided to add many new elements, from comics to gifs to memes to youtube clips.
What I'm not sure about is whether they kept "the essence of the song intact," or if instead they performed more of a "reflexive remix, one that 'allegorizes and extends the aesthetic of sampling, where the remixed version challenges the aura of the original, and claims autonomy, even when it carries the name of the original; material is added or deleted, but the original tracks are largely left intact to be recognizable'" (90). In many ways, their pinterest board is autonomous from our last meeting - to an outsider, it could be viewed as a collection of texts that are grounded in several themes: identity, literacy, community, anxiety, inclusion/exclusion, etc. However, for those of us who are familiar with their source material, we can see that aspects of the "original tracks are largely left intact to be recognizable" (90).
Thus, in a sense their post serves as “future text” in miniature - it produces the “paradox of independent yet dependent texts,” it links our “old school” oral conversation with “new school” ways of composing, and it innovates while remaining connected to our reading group’s (brief) history (90). But, like Aimee, when I see Megan, Kendall and Jason’s work as representative of remix, as an example of what a digital griot might do, it reminds me to pause and consider the ethical dilemma of determining what gets left out, the problem of “gaps within the gaps” as some of us have been discussing in our Composition Theory course. I think Aimee’s idea of a recycling bin for “the ideas that get left behind” is an excellent one, which makes me wonder what that might look like in practice.
The group’s Pinterest board aligns nicely with Navas’ definition of remix as “a reinterpretation of a pre-existing song, meaning that the ‘aura’ of the original will be dominant in the remixed version” (90). This definition invites us to see remix as reinterpretation and re-presentation of the original, and Banks understands remix as a bridge between “old school” and “new school” by creating a new text while preserving the original. Bruce comments that he appreciates the way in which “remix” seems to offer “a dialogue between the generations, one that would not favor or privilege either.”
ReplyDeleteWhile I, too, think this sounds good in writing, I wonder how it actually plays out in practice. Is it truly possible for a digital griot to present a remix that doesn’t show favoritism in some way? That doesn’t privilege certain perspective(s)? As we’ve pointed out in several of our earlier discussions, the griot chooses what to include/exclude in the remix. As Jason, Megan, and Kendall created this Pinterest board, they had to decide what aspects of our reading group discussion to include, what quotes to highlight, etc. They then had to select which pins to include on the board.
While I’m not sure about the claim that a remix can present a dialogue that does not favor or privilege, I do think that Banks’ description of the “back in the day narrative” provides insight into this old school/new school dichotomy. Banks describes this narrative as a collection of “reflections and stories that refer to an important time in the past that lies within living memory” (93). What does he mean “living memory?” Perhaps, a living memory is a memory that is itself alive, changing and transforming each time the memory is shared and passed on. This suggests that we form our memories in the very act of sharing them – something that, I think, echoes Trinh’s discussion of storytelling. Aimee asked about a “recycling bin for the ideas that get left behind” when the DG creates a text. I wonder if digital technologies increase the presence of “living memories” in our lives by providing a space where “old school” ideas never actually disappear; rather, it’s as if the Internet provides a digital recycling bin where “old school” ideas, once put into the digital, circulate in cyberspace, waiting to be picked (back) up and (re)discovered via someone’s search in Google or another engine, waiting to be put into dialogue with a “new school” perspective.
Of the quotes that Kendall, Megan, and Jason used as the focus for their Pintrest board, I am particularly interested in the following: “The griot is a member of the community, but are there times when the griot is not a full participant or when he/she is overlooked?" I would posit that the griot inhabits a space that is both inside and outside the community. On the one hand, the goal of the griot is to preserve culture, which requires participation and a position inside the community. On the other hand, the griot also serves to critique and build community, roles that seem to necessitate the ability to step back and view the community from at least some measure of distance.
ReplyDeleteThe week before last Christine – who I believe asked the question about the griot’s participation in the community – was one of our digital griots, capturing our discussion on film. As a griot, Christine was participated in the reading group community; she needed to be in order to correctly capture our discussion. This insider status allowed her to identify elements of our discussion that would be considered important by the community. At the same time, though, she was slightly outside the community in the sense that, because she was the one doing the recording – or the community building– she was not visibly present in what she filmed. And yet, as the author, she was also extremely visible. Because she made the decisions in the composition – which shots to use, how to arrangement them, what music to include – she remained visible in the final product. And since that composition inspired further conversation, it can be considered participation. Constructing a composition is, of course, not entirely the same thing as building a community. And yet, something similar can be seen in the way that Banks constructs a community through his community courses.
Banks writes that his role was simultaneously on the inside and on the outside: “my role in the classroom was more facilitator…my only goals were to get people involved in the text and with conversations with each other, whether this meant pitting ideas against each other, mocking disagreement with someone in order to provoke a response, or joking from time to time to lighten the mood” (68-69). In this description, Banks characterizes himself as an inside participant in the sense that he is part of the conversation, making contributions and attending class sessions. But he is also on the outside, as he shapes the conversation towards a larger goal. This shaping requires that Banks reflect on the community, as well as its needs and the actions of its members. The process of reflection may require stepping back, removing himself from the community for a moment in deciding the next best step in building the community. Thus, while Banks may not have been entirely part of the community, his presence can be felt in its construction.
The griot then, may occupy space both within the community and without. Being within the community provides the opportunity and the ability to learn and experience the community’s history. Being within the community also allows the griot’s history and attempts at community building to be accepted. At the same time, being outside of the community allows for a reflective stance, one that allows the griot to see what the community needs and to interrogate community actions. Even this outside status, though, is related to his inside status as the steps that the griot takes in constructing the community can be seen as forms of participation.
I, too, dig the Pinterest idea, though like Bruce and others, I sometimes experience some cognitive dissonance with the way some quotes are juxtaposed with some memes, gifs, or videos. Maybe that’s the point. There seems to be the least dissonance when a quote is juxtaposed with an image containing no text, like the “writing is scary” quote and the heart image, or the “writing is scary” quote with the obviously nervous woman. Others, such as the “Batman” meme juxtaposed with the “students intentionally write…” quote were more challenging, and the connection did not immediately announce itself.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite, probably, was the zebra image: “something doesn’t seem quite right here” juxtaposed with the “griot is a member of the community” quote. Though I was not present for this class discussion because of illness, I was interested, especially, in Banks’ discussion of Moss, since we recently read that book in our African-American Literacies class. One of the rhetorical moves that a preacher (a griot) has to make is to position herself as a member of the community, and yet removed enough from the community to be able to teach. My training in theology encourages me to think of this as the tension between transcendence and immanence—a preacher/griot must be both transcendent (removed from/above the congregation) and immanent (close/present with the congregation). Most major religions contend with this question of whether a deity is immanent or transcendent, or both—in the case of Christianity, both God as creator and God-with-us.
In rhetorical terms, though, a griot has a tightrope to walk: she must be, in some sense, unique. She must have an unusual amount of education, or talent, or personality, or ability in order to be seen as worthy of notice. But not too much, or she risks being seen as uppity, as out for herself, as not for her community. So it is true that “The griot is a member of the community, but are there times when the griot is not a full participant or when he/she is overlooked.” When the griot is acting in her role, she emerges from the community and is a full participant in the active co-creation of a text. But when not acting in her role, I take it, she must submerge herself again into the community in order to reinforce her position.
The griot, then, runs the risk of enacting an elitist rhetoric, except for one thing: her talents must be recognized, authorized, and enabled by the community. This functions as a failsafe: if a rhetor, if a griot becomes uppity, disconnects herself from the community and its best interests, she may find herself suddenly without an audience.
I really like the Pinterest idea here. There is a cool juxtaposition of words and visuals here and lots of different ways to make meaning with the discussion. Because of the Pinterest interface, this griot account is probably our most visual yet – I liked being able to navigate through and invent the conversation in my mind. I, like David, missed this class due to illness and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to situate myself in the week’s notes as a result. However, the quotes the group chose to represent from discussion are really striking to me. What I like best, I think, is the quote “the role of the griot is to encourage the community to make texts together.” In this griot account, I think the medium is the message in some ways. Pinterest is such a highly interactive platform, and in some ways facilitates many different griot traditions, especially ones that could be associated with feminine cultures or classes. Including the discussion on Pinterest enabled and encouraged me, as an avid Pinterest user and as a member of this academic community, to create a community text. I couldn’t stop myself from repining some of the content on this board, and I am sure, at some point, someone from my pinning circles will repin the same pin themselves and it will reach and even wider audience. I think this digital griot story, more so than the others, exemplifies the sharing of values and beliefs through enabling each of us to actually create or add to the text ourselves, circulate it and pass it along. Maybe I’m just excited, but it feels like these notes have more life in this online space than I’ve felt the other notes have had (not that everyone hasn’t been awesome). I can interact. I can share. I can participate as griot and as reader. I think that’s really cool.
ReplyDeleteI find this Griot post to be particularly interesting in terms of community, which is the focus of two of the quotes Kendall, Megan, and Jason chose to highlight from our last discuss on "Mix." I have always been intrigued by Pinterest, and even have an account; however, I do not and have not used my account (I always feel bad when I get notifications of being followed... )
ReplyDeleteSo for me the use of pinterest, interrogates some of the questions we have explored regarding community: What community? Who are its members? Where does this community exist? A griot within in the space of pinterest functions very differently that a griot in a different space. But the notions of mix and remix that we have been discussing are very clear in this post. At times, I was confused by image selection with its paired quote...but I know that is most likely a function of Pinterest itself, and the community therein. I also think that the selection of meme/gif/image for each quote works toward layering the mix AND interpreting the conversations we had in class--similarly to the Tumblr that Logan did when he was a griot with Heather and Christine. The space of pinterest is a for sharing, but it also works to position commentary and interpretation.
Another thing I I want to do is push the following quote: "Writing is scary. Once you put it on paper, you have to take a look at it"
Okay. So first I want to interrogate what we mean with writing. Obviously writing n the traditional sense comes to mind, but I'm not sure that is the kind of writing that terrifies many of our students. I know it is not what scares mine current WEPO students and many FYC students I have encountered. They BEG to write "Traditional" essays... with the format requirements they have learned over and over. True, they don't always know the correct citation methods or have the best wording in what it is they write... but they are after all students. It is writing with technology (and no, I do not mean using a word processor).
Second I want to explore where are we writing. Putting their digital pens to keyboard and screen in spaces that do not follow the traditional sense of writing is the newest version of "scary writing." I'm wondering in what ways Adam Banks' text can help us think and find approaches to this constantly changing and ever-growing form of writing that we are now asking our students to "write". Students are often composing (we all know I prefer this term because I can make it explode more easily that 'writing') hypertexts, or websites, or blogs, or tweets etc.... We are often writing within digital spaces and even more specifically on the internet. For me it connects to some notions of everyday writing and blurs the lines of academic and everyday. Often.. our students don't see writing in this space as WRITING. But why not? Does that speak to the academic-ness we attribute to writing?
Third I want to think about audience here. Yeah... we have to look at our own writing. (you know you are your first audience and such) BUT when we ask our students to compose outside of these traditional spaces... there's the publicness of writing to think about. Who is reading it? Why are they reading it? What are they expecting? How could students encounter repercussions in these spaces (yep, think copyright here)?
What kinds of literacies does this involve? How could his descriptions of mix and remix work toward this "new" writing? How could the digital griot be positioned in this particular conversation?
I want to pick up on the idea of the griot straddling the line between inside and outside of the community. I also want to incorporate the ideas that Christine mentioned about Banks’ use of the words “living memory.” I think that these ideas are connected. The inside/outside dichotomy does create tension, but there is a third space where the griot functions, too, I think. While it is true that “The griot is a member of the community, but are there times when the griot is not a full participant or when he/she is overlooked,” she is also responsible for the continuation of the community. She sustains it. Rather than positioning her as either within or without, what if we consider that her function AS griot shifts, but not her position in the community. Take for example Christine’s observation that “living memory,” for her, “echoes Trinh’s discussion of storytelling.” I am struck that not only does Trinh teach that women are storytellers, but that “every woman partakes in the chain of guardianship and of transmission.” She continues, “ In Africa it is said that every griotte who dies is a whole library that burns down” (Woman, Native, Other 121). The griot/griotte is not then someone outside. Rather, it her function from *within* the community (like David’s pastor’s function), is to carry the community’s history, passing it from generation to generation, with each of these both keeping tradition alive, and making those traditions function for their generation. Similarly, in Trinh’s film, Reassemblage, 1983 the narrator speaks, “woman is depicted as the one who possessed the fire. Only she knew how to make fire.” Fire, like stories, give life to the community. The traditions of passing these important functions on to the young generations ensure that the community thrives. I think that the griot is like that “something is not quite right here” image of the zebras and zebra-thing, but it is also true that “The role of the griot is to encourage the community to create texts together.” Maybe she is overlooked because she is busy sustaining the community that counts on her for its very existence. Without her, there is no living memory, no community.
ReplyDeleteLike the rest of the folks that have commented so far, I was also pleased with the choice of Pinterest as the platform for this week's text. Not only is it a visual-spatial medium that comes with its own affordances, but it also functions as a remix across generations that Banks is calling for in the chapter for tomorrow. Thanks, Heather, for getting me started on this line of thinking. The pinterest “board” itself is a remediation of the “old-school” corkboards some of us still use around the office, and given the verbal motif built into pinterest's system (e.g. “pinning” something, as in putting a pin through my laptop screen), it is evoking these good ol' days of putting together a bulletin board. But it also combines elements of the web as well; it brings together image-based blog feeds (tumblr), there are mechanisms for rapid-fire circulation (re-pinning), and a social media aspect to it with pinning circles—you don't just make boards for yourself, you make them for other people to see. So, pinterest itself is a fitting platform for our griots to use as it blends the old with the new. The spatial nature of Pinterest adds another dimension of new-school composition to it, as when you make a board you are concerned more with the arrangement of your pins, which draws on Banks' evocation of Selber and Johnson-Eilola's increasing emphasis on arrangement. Furthermore, when we make a board of images we have to make sure the accompanying text logically follows; too jarring of a juxtaposition can lose your viewer/reader, as Bruce and David noted. And to add one more dimension of old school to Pinterest, Jennifer notes that our griots had to select and highlight particular aspects of our conversation, creating our class' history. This kind of curation influences all aspects of our lives, whether it be community storytelling or our terministic screens that determines which aspects of the world we select, reflect, and deflect.
ReplyDeleteSorry, late to the part on this, but wow, I really enjoyed looking through this griot, especially with the multiplicities of interpretation that it offers. The others before me have commented at length about the unique way in which Pinterest offers both a spatial and visual arrangement of texts, but the multiple ways in which the digital griots of this week managed to piece together selected quotes was quite rich.
ReplyDeleteMolly, your comments on the concept of what is scary about writing also opened up a few other avenues of thought. I've been in the same situation countless times where there is resistance to the idea of writing as anything other than alphabetic "traditional" essay-writing, and the pinterest does a fantastic job of showcasing what writing can look like when it isn't tethered to those notions. While students work with images routinely, most frequently I've witnessed the use of templates when it comes to design. While Pinterest has some different limitations in terms of organization, the notion of drawing connections between disparate points is one that I think warrants attention, especially as spatially-focused texts such as pinterest boards (and to a similar extent, some tumblr layouts) emphasizes the wealth of combinations that can be forged, both expected and unexpected.
Heather (and a few other people) have touched on the relationship between Pinterest and Banks' idea of community. Heather said this: "What I like best, I think, is the quote 'the role of the griot is to encourage the community to make texts together.' In this griot account, I think the medium is the message in some ways." Like so many others, I think that the Pinterest app is an interesting case study of vernacular and community-making composing. And I think that Heather emphasizes that idea best when she discusses repinning some of this group's work to her own board. Pinterest's particular kind of interactivity - pinning, repinning, and boardmaking - is similar to a host of other platforms. A repin isn't that different from a retweet (Twitter), a share (FB), or a reblog (Tumblr). And a pin isn't that different from the different breeds of a *post.* Granted, Pinterest's board -- a collection -- is a little different than other platforms, but that's not to say that Pinterest's parts add up to the whole, because what is really interesting about the platform are the composing practices from which Pinterest successes: patching, patchwriting, scrapbooking, and quilting. As many of the people here have mentioned, Pinterest's texts are visual as much as they are verbal, and in Pinterest, arrangement of the texts is key for inviting particular kinds of interpretation.
ReplyDeleteI say all that, because for me, Pinterest is an interesting case study for thinking about what Banks means when he talks about the griot as keeping and sharing the values of a comunity, because although the literacies involved in composing with Pinterest are interesting, what people do with them are more interesting. Through reappropriating patches, composing new patches, and curating those patches on various boards, Pinterest users express an ethos, a value. And that ethos is typically (as far as I can tell) something along the lines of confidence and strength under adversity (by way of irony and inspiration) and DIY idealism. So in this case, because this week's griots situated themselves and their texts among other collections on Pinterest, they aligned themselves with the ethos of the Pinterest collective and inscribed last week's conversation with a particular ethos. And for me, that intersection is most readily observed in the pins associated with these quotes: [1] "Many students perceive writing as very academic. Just that can be intimidating. So it can be hard to ask students to write, particularly at the beginning of the course." [2] "Many people probably don’t have positive experiences with writing." [3] "The role of the griot is to encourage the community to create texts together."
ReplyDeleteI’m sorry, too, for late posting (read: prelims is taking over my life and identity right now). Much good work has already been done here: Bruce’s points about remix as the integration of the old and the new helped me see remix as chronotopic: I’ve always thought of it as spatial – splicing materials from different locations. However, Bruce (and the Pinterest board provided by the group) helps me see that remix occurs at the axis of time and space: it is both kairotic and chronotopic. This, ironically, will actually be pretty helpful as I study.
I do, however, want to bring up something that I think is absent from this blog and from Banks’s text: specifically, the difference between assemblage and remix. We all know that this distinction is one of Dr. Yancey’s favorites, and I think it might be productive here, especially because Banks cites her article about remixing curricula. Remix-qua-Banks is a new version of a song or text, a remake undertaken to fit a different context, purpose, or audience (89). To nuance this, like others have mentioned, he provides Navas’s definition of remix as “global activity of the creative and efficient exchange of information made possible by digital technologies that is supported by the practice of cut/copy and paste” (90). There are two problems with this: 1) remix happened before the digital; 2) it makes the act of remix seem more like assemblage. Let me explain: remix, as Dr. Yancey, Lawrence Lessig, and others suggest, is the creation of a new text from a collection of other, preexisting texts. However, the idea here is that the remix will exist as one seamless whole. Assemblage, on the other hand, is the mixing of materials where the lines of cutting and pasting are very clear (think: scrapbook). A song remix does not make itself as apparently assembled as the scrapbook. The distinction, here, might be important. The seamless nature of remixes suggests a full integration of the old into the new (and the possibility of using that integration to look to the future). If we look to the Pinterest account, we see a lot of seams. The board is cobbled together from other boards: that’s what the social medium of Pinterest invites and allows for. I think that the digital griot does both remix and assemble, but that the two practices are altogether different.