Friday, June 13, 2014
Barthes on Sport
I've been writing on sports lately, mainly basketball and some baseball--though you can probably bet on some World Cup writing as well to come, too! I've also been reading a lot. Expect some comments on Barthes' writings on sports here and at my other (sports) site, Rip City Reviews.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Rip City Reviews
I've been trying to move into sports writing lately (guess I'm pulling a reverse Graham Harman), so I just wanted to share here a new site where I'll post my pieces: http://ripcityreviews.blogspot.com. I'll mostly be covering the NBA and the Portland Trailblazers, but I'll also be writing on baseball and some other things. I'm starting with recaps of each of the playoff games from the Semifinals on. Come check out what I've posted!
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Some words on poetry analysis
Like I said in the last post, I had to explain recently the purpose of citations, reading response papers, things like that. Here is my explanation of the basic reasons for analyzing poetry:
The analysis of poetry isn't something you learn in order to replace reading, or even to become a better reader. You don't need analysis to read a poem and enjoy it. But analysis is a tool that opens up a shortcut to the insights you typically get after you've read a poem a trillion times. When you know it by heart. When you've memorized it. And in that sense, it's extremely useful to know, and is almost required as a skill if you want to make any truly scholarly remarks about a piece of writing like a poem, because it is only based on that intimate knowledge that anything of that critical complexity can be genuinely thought valid. But it also heightens your appreciation of a poem in general, just like reading something over and over and knowing it inside and out does. So it provides the foundation for everything involved in talking in a sophisticated manner about poems, at the same time as it capitalizes on the strengths you already have as someone who is literate and knows how to read. It is a device that can turn literacy into critical thinking.
The analysis of poetry isn't something you learn in order to replace reading, or even to become a better reader. You don't need analysis to read a poem and enjoy it. But analysis is a tool that opens up a shortcut to the insights you typically get after you've read a poem a trillion times. When you know it by heart. When you've memorized it. And in that sense, it's extremely useful to know, and is almost required as a skill if you want to make any truly scholarly remarks about a piece of writing like a poem, because it is only based on that intimate knowledge that anything of that critical complexity can be genuinely thought valid. But it also heightens your appreciation of a poem in general, just like reading something over and over and knowing it inside and out does. So it provides the foundation for everything involved in talking in a sophisticated manner about poems, at the same time as it capitalizes on the strengths you already have as someone who is literate and knows how to read. It is a device that can turn literacy into critical thinking.
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