Blog appeal?

I am currently writing my Advanced Project on singer/songwriter Tori Amos.  I’m trying to put her lyrics in conversation with feminist scholars who are writing primarily about women’s positions in organized religion, specifically Christianity, and the implications of the religion on female sexuality.  When I began doing research, I found that there was hardly any academic work done on Amos.  Two of the three articles that I did find analyzed Amos’s music videos and her live performances.  Both authors had lengthy paragraphs describing a specific video or a performance.  I started thinking about how much easier it would be if these articles were online and they could simply insert the video clip.  I’ve had similar feelings while writing my Advanced Project.  There were times where I felt it would have been useful to have the opportunity to show a video alongside my analysis of her lyrics.  This inspired me to want to write a sort of condensed version of my Advanced Project in an online form that could include youtube videos.

Writing academic papers online is becoming more popular.  The mission statement of the Computers and Composition Digital Press: Peer Reviewed ebooks and multimedia scholarly projects states: “The mission of Computers and Composition Digital Press (CCDP) is to ensure open access to information for scholars worldwide and to provide a venue for the publication of texts in a wide-variety of modes (ranging from primarily verbal ebooks to integrated multimedia projects incorporating video, audio, animation, etc.) by publishing peer-reviewed ebooks and book-equivalent scholarly projects on the Internet…The goal of the Press is to honor the traditional academic values on rigorous peer review and intellectual excellence, but also to combine such work with a commitment to innovative digital scholarship and expression.  For us, the Press represents a kind of scholarly activism- an effort to take back the book from commercial publishers, to circulate the best work of digital media scholars in a timely fashion and on the global scale made possible by digital distribution.” 

This mission statement illustrates two important issues.  First, it acknowledges multimedia projects as valuable scholarly works.  Its goal is to encourage people to create such projects and it treats them just as seriously as traditional works.  Second, by creating this site it highlights the demand for such a space.  It is not just geared toward peer reviewing, but also at “tak[ing] back the book from commericial publishers, to circulate the best work of digital distribution.”  The tone is somewhat defensive and demonstrates how important they feel this type of work is.  In a way, they are challenging the canon, which is something we have been discussing all semester.  Not only does the canon need to include more than just the “dead white guys,” but it is also exclusive in terms of form.  There are no real experimental texts included in the canon.  Who, then, decides what types of works are valuable?

For my final project, I’m going to write a series of blog posts about Tori Amos’s work and each will include at least one video.  I will illustrate how videos can be beneficial for several different reasons.  One post will be an analysis of a song’s lyrics as well as the video, one post will discuss the importance of using videos when exploring the performance aspect of Amos’s work, and the last one will be a section of my Advanced Project fully equipped with videos. 

In her song “Crucify,” Amos declares that she is “Never going back again/ To crucify myself” (Little Earthquakes).  This is immediately recognized as a religious reference.  It can be interpreted as Amos rejecting the male dominated religion (Christianity) that forces her, and all women, to “crucify” herself.  She is not using the term crucify in the traditional sense; instead, she is using it to illustrate how women have figuratively been crucified, or punished, simply for being women, within Christianity.  Just as Jesus was crucified for claiming his identity, women are often “crucified” (meaning punished) for being too individualistic and not acting within the female constraints which Christianity places on them.  In the book Disruptive Divas: Feminism, Identity & Popular Music by Melisse Lafrance and Lori Burns, Lafrance explains: “In my view, ‘Crucify’ is not only an articulation of one woman’s personal traumas, but it is rather an assertive and public interrogation of dominant religious and gender discourses” (64).  Lafrance notes that this is not an issue unique to Amos, but rather a societal one.  The ways in which women are viewed within Christianity has framed how they are viewed in American society, which is predominantly Christian.  By “gender discourses” she is referring to the ways in which women are expected to act verses how men are expected to act.  By claiming she is “Never going back gain,” Amos is claiming her freedom from societal expectations of her because she is a woman. 

In the video we saw Amos, dressed as a Victorian prostitute, submerge herself in the bathtub water, symbolizing a baptism.  Lori Burns explains: “This image of the prostitute after the bathing ritual raises the question of what is accomplished by the bathing.  I would like to suggest that there is an inversion of the expected meaning.  The bathing ritual implies that the prostitute is being spiritually cleansed; however, Amos does not emerge with the attitude of a chastened woman.  In addition, the water is used as a vehicle for drowning the symbols of constraint…the chorus is concerned with the drowning or rejection of such symbols of constraint” (78).  Clearly this video enhanced the meaning of the song for Burns.  In the song there is no mention of a prostitute or of a cleansing ritual.  The entire video, though, leads up to the cleansing.  Throughout the video we see glimpses of Amos getting dressed up and then walking toward the bathtub.  When she gets out of the bathtub, the images show that the chains remain drowned in the water while Amos is free to dance, showing her lack of restraints.  Rather than cleansing herself of her sins, Amos cleanses herself of the societal constraints placed upon her because she is a woman.   

In her song “Me and a Gun” (Little Earthquakes) Amos sings about being raped.  This horrible experience inspired her to cofound the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN); a twenty-four hour toll-free hotline for survivors of sexual assault.  This is arguably her most powerful and emotionally moving song.  I think part of its effect is contributed to, not just the gripping lyrics, but also how Amos sings/performs the song.  She sings it acapella and her voice alone is heart-breaking.  With this song especially, it is crucial for the reader to hear Amos sing it, and even better if she can be seen performing it. 

As mentioned in the introductory blog, there were two articles that tried to describe an Amos performance.  Bonnie Gordon describes Amos singing “Me and a Gun” in her article, “Tori Amos’s Inner Voices.”  Although she does a fine job describing it, it is impossible to truly get the effect or impact of the performance without seeing it.  Gordon states: “In her 1992 video album Little Earthquakes, Tori Amos performs ‘Me and a Gun’ on an empty stage.  She sits on a barstool wearing an orange sweater that clashes with her red hair.  Since a dark background engulfs the performance space, viewers see only her face until a backdrop of an eye comes into focus- sometimes closing and sometimes disappearing.  Meanwhile her solo voice fills the soundscape, assaulting and mesmerizing the silent audience with blunt gripping words and haunting music.  She sings about her experience as a rape survivor, self-consciously turning a potentially victimizing experience into a powerful performance.  The text is graphic and to the point…This performance context renders her naked voice disturbing- its timbre and texture defy expectations of popular music and force its audience to confront the grotesqueness of a voilent rape” (187).  Although this is an accurate description of the performance, its effect does not even compare to the effect of actually seeing the performance.  Some things need to be experienced through the medium which they were designed for.  This is one of those examples where part of the effect is lost if it is experienced another way.  Also, we are only able to picture what Gordon describes.  Maybe she omits an aspect of the performance that someone else may think is a crucial part.  To illustrate the different effect, we will now watch the performance.

An important aspect that Gordon points out in her description is that she describes Amos as “a rape survivor, self-consciously turning a potentially victimizing experience into a powerful performance” (187).  On many occassions, Amos has called herself a “rape survivor” rather than a “rape victim.”  This distinction alone is powerful; it shows how she has taken back the power that has been robbed from her- the power over herself.  As a sruvivor, she was able to overcome the experience and reclaim herself.  If she were to remain a victim, she would continue to give the power to the rapist, giving him continued control over her. 

In Amos’s latest album, American Doll Posse, Amos created four ficitional female characters which were supposed to represent different parts of herself, and of every woman.  During the tour promoting this album, she dressed up as one of the “dolls” each night.  At one concert, when Amos was performing as the character Pip, she did an unconventional performance of “Me and a Gun.” 

This performance is extremely differnent from the first one, which was filmed in 1992.  They are, though, both quite powerful, just in different ways.  I’m not going to argue which one is more effective, I think it can be argued either way.  What I will argue is that both performances have to be experiened.  In other words, you need to see both performance to get their full impact.  It does not do either one justice to just read a desription of it.  Therefore, it is necessary to write about them in a form, such as this, rather than a traditional paper that does not allow for media. 

Even though this was my first time experimenting with an academic work online and including media, I enjoyed it and think it has proved to be beneficial.  As I said in the introduction, writing papers online using other media is becoming more popular; so much so that websites such as “Computer and Composition Digital Press” are being created.  However, experimenting with videos in different contexts has proved that they can indeed be useful, but not always necessary, depending on the argument.

In the blog about “Crucify,” the video offered further understanding of the song by showing things that the lyrics did not necessarily say.  Because of this, it is important to see the video as well as interpret the lyrics.  A very interesting paper could be written about Tori Amos videos; interpreting them, comparing them to the meaning relayed just by the lyrics, how they change the meaning of the song, etc.  For such a paper, if would be extremely useful to write it in this form so the readers to could see the videos for themselves.

In the blog about “Me and a Gun,” the videos were useful because it is so important to hear that song, rather than just read the lyrics.  Actually seeing Amos sing the song offers the complete effect.  It was also interesting to see how she performed the songs so differently in the two different videos.  It would be worthwhile to write a paper just on the performance aspect of Tori Amos; how she performs her songs, how she performs the same song differently, body language, etc.  For that type of paper, videos would be crucial and would fully engage the reader. 

The blog about my Advanced Project, however, proved that videos are not always necessary.  Although they were a nice touch to my paper, they did not really add anything or help my argument.  They may actually have been a distraction and taken the reader away from the argument.  This is because my paper is solely focused on Amos’s lyrics.  It is not even necessary for the reader to hear the song, reading the lyrics is all that is necessary. 

It is clear that in some cases it will be very beneficial to write papers online and have the ability to incorporate different forms of media.  These works should be treated with the same respect and be given the same value as academic and/or scholarly print papers.  When writing about a movie, videos, ect., a paper online that could show videos/clips would most likely be better than a “traditional” paper about these topics.  However, I do not want to imply that it is impossible to write a “good” paper on something such as a music video, in print form.  Up until recently, that has been the only option for writing a paper and there have been great papers about different forms of media.  But, since we do have the option to include media into papers now, why not use it?  Especially since it makes the work even better and more effective.  As we saw in the last blog post, however, it is not always necessary to include the video if the paper is not specifically about it.  Since that blog post was just discussing Amos’s lyrics, the videos did not further the argument.  Hopefully, writing scholarly papers online will become more common and will be given the attention they deserve.

Amos, Tori. Boys for Pele. Atlantic Records, 1996.

Amos, Tori. Little Earthquakes. Atlantic Records, 1991.

Amos, Tori. Under the Pink. Atlantic Records, 1994.

Burns, Lori and Melisse Lafrance.  Disruptive Divas: Feminism, Identity & Popular Music. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Christ, Carol.  “Why Women Need the Goddess.”  Women’s Studies in Religion: A Multicultural Reader. Ed. Kate Bagley and Kathleen McIntosh.  New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., 2007.

Gordon, Bonnie. “Tori Amos’s Inner Voices.”  Women’s Voices Across Musical World’s. Ed. Jane A. Bernstein.  Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004.

 https://ccdigitalpress.org/flash/cfp.swf

As we already discussed in class, I think the blog was pretty successful in prompting class discussion outside of the classroom.  I think it was also really useful because it forced us (those of us who hadn’t previously had a blog) to actually experience what it is like to write online and keep a blog.  That seems like an important aspect of this course.  I think I may have enjoyed some more ”experimental” forms of reading/writing.  Even though “Patchwork Girl” and Mark Amerika’s sites were not the easiest works to read/navigate, they were helpful in making me better understand how literature/writing is changing and what books are going up against.  In the beginning of the semester, I did not really understand Sven’s fear of the book becoming extinct.  That idea seemed completely absurd.  I think I had such a hard time understanding that fear because I didn’t really know what else was out there.  Since I haven’t done much writing or reading online, I didn’t realize the extent of its popularity.  As I suggested in class, I think it may have been useful if we had each chosen what we wanted to present on.  That way, we could each have introduced the class to something new which literature may be competing with (fan fiction, online journals, flash poetry, etc.)  This might have been a good way of making us more aware of some things we did not even know exist. 

Although it seems uncharacteristic of me, I really enjoyed writing my final paper online.  It made me feel like I truly had made some real progress this semester.  I felt comfortable doing my paper online and I’m happy with how it turned out.  I feel like parts of it could be expanded into a longer more in-depth paper, but it was a good start.  I also feel as though I found a great balance between academic work, my favorite interest, and new ways of writing.  I know that sometimes at the end of the semester it is easy to write a paper you know the teacher will like and you’ll get a decent grade on.  But I really felt like I believed in this one hundred percent and was not just doing it to please the professor.  I’m not saying that I’m completely in love with online writing now, but my idea of it has definitely changed.  I’ve become more open to it and have actually discovered many benefits, which I mentioned in my final paper.  It might be interesting to offer this as an option/alternative to the whole class next time.  This would give the students the opportunity to, in a sense, “practice what we’re preaching.”  It doesn’t necessarily have to be a blog project, but something other than a “traditional” paper.

As for texts we read, definitely keep The Keep!  I think most of the theory pieces were important as well (even though I don’t like to admit that!).  I didn’t love reading The Diamond Age but I think the concept of the primer was important to this course.  Too bad there isn’t a “condensed” version of that text.  If you’re going to ditch one, I would vote for Special Topics in Calamity Physics.  I kind of felt like that was a lot of reading that didn’t offer too much to work with. 

1. Gordon, Bonnie.  “Tori Amos’s Inner Voices.” Women’s Voices Across Musical Worlds. Ed. Jane A. Bernstein. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004.

This article discusses how important the performance aspect of Tori Amos’s music is.  As I said in my paper proposal, I felt that it was unfortunate that videos and song clips could not be a part of this paper.  Gordon goes into great detail trying to describe the experience of watching Tori Amos perform.  This article could be used as an example of how beneficial it could be to combine an academic paper with new media. 

2. Jenkins, Henry.  Convergence Culture. New York: New York University Press, 2006.

In the chapter “Transmedia Storytelling,” he discusses how different mediums can be used to tell one story. He believes that each medium will do what it does best and the outcome will be better because of the different forms used.  This will support the argument that some papers, such as ones about movies or performers, would be more effective if they could include video clips, etc. 

3.  http://undented.com/

Almost anything you need to know about Tori Amos can be found here.  This is one of the most popular fan sites on the web.  If I end up focusing on writing that fans do, how the internet brought fans together, how being a Tori Amos fan has become more interactive and “hobby-like” because of the internet, I will primarily use this site.

4.   http://www.myspace.com/iampossesanta

http://pipolitics.livejournal.com/

http://clydespeaks.blogspot.com/

http://www.myspace.com/toriamos

All of these sites are blogs for the different characters Tori Amos created for her last album.  They are not real people, but she has made them very realistic by creating these blogs for them.  This also allows fans to interact with them and become more absorbed in the concept of the album.  (But it’s also very weird)  I will use these sites too if I focus on online writing regarding Tori Amos.  Like undented.com, it allows fans to be more interactive.

5. http://www.rhul.ac.uk/Music/golden-pages/Archive/Women/1999/brandeis.html

This link is an online syllabus for a class that is going to include Tori Amos’s music and videos as part of the curriculum.  After looking around online, I found that there were several college (and even some high school) courses which included listening to Amos’s music and watching her videos.  Discussing how both listening to Amos’s music and seeing the videos is important to the study of her work, will support the argument that they should be combined with writing about her, too.

6. Burns, Lori, and Melisse Lafrance.  Disruptive Divas: Feminism, Identity, & Popular Music.

New York: Routledge, 2002.

Similar to Gordon’s article, Burns and Lafrance discuss one of Tori Amos’s songs in depth and then spend an entire chapter on discussing how the video is just as important as the song.  To argue this point, it would be useful to show the video alongside the argument.   

more to come…

For my final paper I would like to discuss (big surprise!) Tori Amos.  Although I am not one hundred percent sure what I want to argue, I know it will be something about the Amos and the internet.  I’m writing about Tori Amos for my advanced project so I’ve been doing lots of research.  What I have discovered, though, is that there isn’t much scholarly work on Ms. Amos.  But there are tons of fansites and youtube videos of her on line! 

My favorite thing about the internet and Tori Amos is all of the youtube videos.  Even though I’m still new to blogging, I appreciate when you guys have included a youtube video in your blog to either help your argument or for pure entertainment.  As I’ve been writing my advanced project, I often find myself wishing I could include a video or song clip into the paper, rather than just writing about it.  It can be difficult to write about a movie scene or a song because those mediums rely on much more than just words.  Movies are visual and songs are meant to be heard.  I recently read an article by Bonnie Gordon entitled “Tori Amos’s Inner Voices.”  In this article, she discusses two songs and focuses heavily on how Amos performs them.  Gordon begins the article by describing: Tori Amos performs ‘Me and a Gun’ on an empty stage.  She sits on a barstool wearing an orange sweater that clashes with her read hear.  Since a dark background engulfs the performance space, viewers see only her face until a backdrop of an eye comes almost into focus- sometimes closing and sometimes disappearing.  Meanwhile her solo voice fills the soundscape, assaulting and mesmerizing the silent audience with blunt gripping words and haunting music.  She sings about her own experience as a rape survivor, self-consciously turning a potentially victimizing experience into a powerful performance. (187) 

I think what was most beneficial for me from tonight’s class was our discussion about how things other than books/traditional literature have to be judged differently.  For example, Mark Amerika’s Filmtext.  I think it is difficult for us to “read” something and not treat it as literature, or as an attempt to be literary.  We have to be willing to experience new media and judge it by different standards than we judge works of literature.  Many of us are were uncomfortable with Flimtext but I think that is mostly due to the fact that we were experiencing it for the first time and it is very different from what we are used to.  I think we are sometimes too quick to judge something because we are not willing to try something new.  Things need to evolve and expand.  If they didn’t, we would all still be playing Mario Bros. on the orginal Nintendo of the 80’s.  I don’t think any of us are turning our noses up at Guitar Hero because it’s not as good as the original. 

We do not all need to be in love with Mark Amerika, but the point is that we need to give Filmtext, and other experimental works, a chance.  If not, we may miss out on some beneficial works.  Many of us criticize the canon and its exclusivity but sometimes it seems like we have made traditional books a canon in themselves.  If we do not accept other forms of new media, we are excluding them and implying that they are not good enough to fit into the “canon” of traditional books. 

I think if I had somehow stumbled upon Filmtext and did not know what it was (and had not been forced to check it out for class), I maybe would have explored it a little and I think I would have felt differently about it.  I might have liked it more and not been so critical of it because I would not have tried to read it as some sort of literature, like I did.  This is why it’s important not to impose our expectations of what we are used to onto something completely different.  If we try to read Filmtext as imitating literature, then we think it fails.  If we read it as something in itself, then perhaps we think it is successful. 

It seems like we are so ready and willing to accept other changes regarding technology, but not when it comes to books/literature.  I don’t think any of us were terribly upset when we had to ditch our cassette tapes and VHS tapes for CD’s and DVD’s.  Some changes are for the better.  If we give new media a fair chance, then hopefully we’ll be able to see the benefits of that, too.