This blog contains weekly journal entries for glover's film history class at Champlain College in Burlington VT. The plain template is in effect because it does not crop the youtube imbeds. Students are expected to post a minimum of 1 response a week, plus 1 comment on a peer post. Feel free to add relevant imbeds or links, or to use the blog for related off-topic threads, or to post your presentations for use in class, or viewing after.
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- SAVE THE DATE
- Week 15 Contemporary Issues (who has seen?....)
- Week 14 Subverting the Dominant Paridigm
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- Week 13 Geoff Klane's Presentation
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- Tournees Festival Nov. 7,8,9.
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November
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Monday, November 10, 2008
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8 comments:
Will. you could write a book. Your presentation was wide ranging, and spun off many many issues. You and I have discussed this and jotted back and forth on your presentation. I think you got a little lost in the hugeness of it all, and wish you could have narrowed focus on a more distinct comparison. The Campbell stuff you chose to illustrate your talk with, was right on. I feel like you lost your thesis and were kind of looking around for it. I think the wandering and exploration was good research, but could have used a tie in back to your main idea. (thesis). Provocative. well done. g.
I really liked your presentation, even though it did seem possibly a little large. It wasn't long per se but I also feel like you might have had more information than you could handle. However, tying memes back to ancient civilizations is something I doubt anyone else would have thought to explore. Good job, Will.
I agree with Reid on that you're presentation wasn't maybe long, but I feel you have a big group of knowledge and facts and ideas that I felt kind of lost after a while when you were presenting it and maybe that you were a little lost too. You took an interesting view on how Memes can differ from myths and I think it led to a good class discussion. I always like to hear about current ideas such as memes relation to far off past civilizations such as the Egyptians. That kind of stuff really captures my interest and I think you did a good job with that.
It's apparent you really spent a lot of time on this project and although it did take a while you still made some interesting points. You did a great job giving some historical relevance to ideas we've discussed in class. Insightful and practical. I wish we could have discussed this more.
Yeah I felt like it was really long and kind of getting off topic. I started off and then realized that I hadn't begun to talk about movies! Then I kind of overlooked a slide that really hinged my presentation. In a nutshell, I wanted to use the Egyptians as a control to show how powerful myths are and myths are similar to memes as they are passed. The Egyptians were able to base their whole means of survival on these basic myths and memes. I wanted to connect that with movies and how movies clearly lay out a message usually and how they have sort of became new myths. Movies clearly outlay an underlying meaning behind them and I was thinking along the lines that movies can become the new way to tell myths. But I wanted it to incorporate how these myths or memes if you will are not always what should be taught! I found Campbell's thought of the myths being formed at the vestige of the heart as opposed to the mind very compelling in figuring out how bad memes or myths or passed. I was trying to link the feeling that in order to pass on good memes they should be revealed through the heart. To correspond this to movies, they should be made with the heart not with the intentions to make money. Movies are very influential and that is the point I wanted to get across and tie those thoughts into.I hope this clarified my presentation because it was scattered.
It was a very interesting approach to a presentation and some very interesting points were made. If it was a more concise and a little bit shorter it would have been more powerful. Nonetheless, good job.
Will, I really did enjoy your presentation. I can't blame you for the length of your presentation, cause as Gordon said, you had an overwhelming amount of information to give to us, and a limited time to do it in. I really enjoyed the Campbell stuff and how you tied all the information back to older memes and societies. Will, I gotta say, what you managed to do with the vast amount of information that you were given was remarkable to say the least, however, it did kinda drag a little, but that's not really a major thing. What you were able to share and accomplish by sharing with us, is truly immeasurable.
So I just wrote a disgustingly long time line/paper about the spread of memes throughout the history of civilized man. During the process I discovered a lot of new information thats relevant to what you were saying in your presentation. I wrote mostly about how memes of 'morality' (originally created by ancient cultures like the Egyptians and those of Mesopotamia), have propagated, been manipulated, and in some cases degenerated into the way modern cultures perceive them.
Egyptians, through the myths and memes they created about morality, influenced the structure of religions and cultures in the modern world. Just look at Christianity and how it relies on similar memes to prevent chaos among cultures--the creation of 'gods' and 'the afterlife' gives people fear or hope, which in turn gave them reason to abide by a set of morals.Movies today often tell stories promoting similar memes, therefore helping to continue the propagation of Egyptian ideals.
I know this doesn't abide to exactly to what you were saying in your presentation but I still feel like it's relevant. I agree with what you say about the importance of spreading 'good' memes in films ... film making is perhaps the most powerful form of story-telling to ever exist and its power should not be misused to make money or promote 'bad' memes.
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