Tag: Thesis or theme

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Nathan Ryan Reeves

America the Marvelous-Thesis/Theme & or Proverb (America is good or bad? which one is it?)

The article “America the Marvelous” is very reminiscent of the perspective that Barry Blitt writes. What it reminds me of is a conversation I had with my friend where we agreed that “America wasn’t the greatest country in the world”, which proceeded with a list of reasons why we hate America. But after some time, there was this childlike positivity spark, the kind of spark that makes you think that you can do anything, and we then thought about the sparkly image of America and what really it has done over the years (while still retaining the dull character that comes along with the negatives).

The way that I would describe the beginning of the article is that America is the worst place in the world. This comes down to the naïve nature that Americans pose, and the bias that Americans are all selfish monsters that create what they want and destroy what they do not want. Not that America plays God, but at some points, the attitude feels godlike with the power of a child throwing a tantrum. The childish image of America is really carrying its already tattered image to a whole new level, while the rest of the world is laughing in our faces. The only thing I can laugh about is the fact that Brexit happened, so that is something that I have on Europe as a whole, but I digress.

However, to contrast in the later paragraphs, Blitt attacks the rest of the world for the fact that the old world patronizes the younger nation of America. For instance, in the quote below, there is a great example of America setting the tone for many of the things that the world can take for granted.

“These same people will use every comforting, clever, and ingenious American invention, will demand America’s medicine, wear its clothes, eat its food, drink its drink, go to its cinema, love its music, thank God for its expertise in a hundred disciplines, and will all adore New York. More than that, more shaming and hypocritical than that, these are people who collectively owe their nations’ and their personal freedom to American intervention and protection in wars”

While it never stood out to me, it did kind of shock me when I finally realized that the rest of the world hates America, yet the US stands out as one of the most important countries culturally and economically. The cultural part of this example can be mixed since yes we make and consume products that the rest of the world adores, but that doesn’t counteract the fact that America can be very unsympathetic of other cultures and of other peoples from other cultures. I guess the underlying racism covered up by the positives can be added to the reasons that America sucks so much. Chocolates and flowers can’t cover up the fact that America has a shiny yet stinky culture.

The rest of the articles builds this theme of accomplishments, and what that means in the long run of the image of America and Americans as a whole. While not all people are naïve and selfish, just as not all Americans are lazy and unhealthy, the fact of the matter is that a country like the US is not the most perfect in the world and that when it is all said and done, while hated, America has its influence all over the globe, even if the rest of the world hates it.

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Ehren Joseph Layne

Response to A.A. Gill’s “America the Marvelous”

It’s always disappointing to read pieces of literature by great authors who – disappointingly – are unforgivingly white. I have no problem with white authors (except for J.D. Salinger – you know why) and often praise them for their whit, eloquent speech, and disorienting allusions: authors like Thomas Moore, Marie de France, and Homer. As much as I appreciate white literature (white American and white European I use interchangeably)  and understand it to be the norm (albeit forcefully) for intellectual discourse, I can’t forgive white authors for being the very thing they are: white. 

A.A. Gill in his piece “America the Marvelous” argues that Europeans are hypocritical normies who purposefully refute the greatness of America to make themselves feel more superior. He strings together various reasons for why America is so great: the US has some of the best universities in the world, the most Nobel prize winners, and New York City. For all of these reasons, Gill confirms that Europeans only ridicule Americans out of their own self-pity and need for a farce to indulge themselves in the benefits of insults. A.A. Gill paints this marvelous image of America, one of an idealistic, diverse, complicated, cosmopolitan country; in Gill’s eyes, once you’ve stepped foot in America, you’ll never want to leave. You’ll be pulled in by America’s greatness and would dread the idea of returning to Europe, Africa – wherever you may be from. This is Gill’s argument, for his animosity towards our European counterparts has grown so great that he believes throwing insults back at them is the best way to find common ground; and although Gill never says it openly, I –  as I imagine most black, Asian, Hispanic people would – understood exactly what Gill really wants to say. Behind all this misplaced anger, Gill was just bragging about being white. All he did was talk about white people: who they are and what they’ve done, although he did gloss over a few things:  slavery, redlining, COINTELPRO, Jim Crow, Vietnam war, war on drugs, Cuban Missle Crisis, segregation, Japanese internment camps, the KKK, the Proud Boys, mass shootings, Native American genocide, Richard Nixon, the South, Chinese Exclusion Act, Guantanamo Bay, the My Lai Massacre, Emmett Till’s murder, the Wilmington coup (seriously, look this up), the Sand Creek Massacre, Santa Barbara Oil Spill, smallpox, neo-nazis, police brutality, Executive order 10450 (look this up too), Operation Wetback, Dredd Scott decision, McCarthyism, and the death of Treyvon Martin. But I guess none of this matters to A.A. Gill because he got to sing Be Bop a Lula (a song I have never heard as an American) in front of and with other white people. It’s almost sickening once you’ve realized what A.A. Gill has done: he’s made America into an oasis by distinguishing it from Europe, but still using Europe as the starting point of American culture, and by accentuating a few good outcomes over years and years of negative ones. I should mention again, Gill can only write in such a way because he is white; his argument and reasons for arguing are white noise to any person who isn’t white. He’s just another patriotic American white guy who has no shame, urges others to only look at the good, and abuses his whiteness so take bring himself above not only Europeans (who are also white), but anybody who isn’t also white (I use white a lot in this piece and I hope you understand why by now). Gill is just shouting into a white void – he’s furiously screaming at our European counterparts to understand how their history and ours are linked, and that we came out the better nation in the end. He condemns their snobbery, hypocrisy, and self-indulgence, all of which – I can logically assume – makes him feel like the bigger, better white guy. I don’t know A.A. Gill personally, so what I’m saying might come off as defacement; most readers would assume I’m any angry black guy lashing out on “white oppressors.” To an extent, that is true, but I assure you I am doing more than that.

 

I am trying to paint a picture of America as a whole,  not the bits and pieces Gill uses to develop his argument. America needs to be seen, in any light, by the good and the bad, they cannot exist without one another. Too often white authors only paint the picture of white America (even though Gill mentions Jazz which set me off), completely omitting the history of non-white Americans. If Gill and any other white American wishes to uplift America as this utopian-esque society with still more room to grow, they must also mention what is weighing America down: all the bigotry, hate, narcissism, and history that comes with being an American. Say what you will about Europeans: their accents suck (this is a joke for I am quite fond of British, French, and Spanish accents), most of them never reach 5’10, and they’re all stuck in the past. As bad as all this may seem, America is no better, and rather than pointing fingers, we should focus our energies on doing and being better; the first step, admitting to yourself Mr. Gill that you are white, and you have privilege.

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Lucas Enrique Fernandez

America With Love

Thesis or Theme:

Interestingly, the “land of the free” where people are supposed to flock if they want to live the American Dream…does not have the best reputation. People abroad can insult the United States out loud and the people in the surrounding area would just mumble in agreement. In A.A. Gill’s America With Love he challenges this natural instinct to bandwagon the stigma the US has built. Gill pushes back on his fellow Europeans snarky, sometimes incorrect comments with factual accomplishments from the nation.

Well, how stupid can America actually be? On the international list of the world’s best universities, 14 of the top 20 are American. Four are British. Of the top 100, only 4 are French, and Heidelberg is one of 4 that creeps in for the Germans. America has won 338 Nobel Prizes. The U.K., 119. France, 59. America has more Nobel Prizes than Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and Russia combined.

Not only does he do this but he also throws the hypocrisy of Europeans back at them. The people complaining about America will do so leaving the movie theater where they watched an Avengers movie while listening to Travis Scott. In short, if you are enjoying American culture, inventions, and practices then you should not act like they are lesser than you.

In the second half of his article, Gill asserts that the main reason people hate the United States is because of how similar they are but how successful the US has become. The United States came from Europe, its culture is etched across many places and disciplines in the US. However, while Britain had declined during the 20th century, for example, the US became stronger than ever, using the World Wars to drag itself out of the Great Depression. In the short lifespan the country has had, it has become a global superpower and a resounding success story. In the end, Gill praises the United States for doing this and even berates himself for formerly agreeing with the notion of these other Europeans.

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Nathan Ryan Reeves

The Selfie as Travel Writing-Thesis/Theme

The selfie is an unconventional way to travel writing, and I’d say that compared to traditional writing they develop the same feeling to the viewer, but with different avenues. Travel writing displays the destination through words and descriptive phrases. With selfies in travel writing, the main focal point is not the person but rather the vacation or destination around them. Selfies have their pros and cons to traditional writing, but both aim to accomplish the same thing, displaying travel through a medium that can invoke inspiration.

For instance, in the reading “Visualizing lives: “the selfie” as travel writing, Kylie Cardell and Kate Douglas discuss the differences between travel writing and selfies as travel writing. There are some problems with the use of this form of travel expression, but overall, the paper revolves around the context of travel posts on Instagram.

One important point that I think could be at the forefront of their arguments was the context of taking selfies, and whether travel writing in the form of selfies is appropriate. There is this famous case of a girl named Breanna Mitchell, who took a selfie when she was at Auschwitz and posted it on Twitter and other social media. The internet exploded since this kind of selfie was disrespectful, and self-centered. Using this example, there seem to be unspoken rules around the form of travel selfies in accordance to not disrespect where you are. The centralism involved with selfies makes the person seem self-centered in a place that is not meant for that. In that, the authors imply that there is an appropriate way to post about these sensitive topics. In my opinion, I feel that the selfie has been around for so long that it should be expected that people would know the appropriate times and not at a place where there were human atrocities, but rather taking selfies at a place where you can appropriately express the place you are visiting. If the place is touchy and means something to you directly, the authors have stated that there are other ways to document it, that are not selfies.

All in all, the selfie is a good tool at the appropriate time to display appreciation for the location you are visiting, however, there are these unspoken rules that people should be aware of for the sake of respect. The form of memorialization is a clear-cut thing to sway from when possible. However, this contemporary documentation can create interesting travel narratives, when done correctly.

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Samuel James Conroy

Selfie Thesis

Thesis Progymmasmata

            Kylie Cardell & Kate Douglas dive into the world of the selfie in their article, “Visualising lives: “the selfie” as travel writing.” They discuss the rise of the selfie in recent times as phones have evolved to a point where we can take a picture of ourselves and upload it to the internet for anybody to see. The selfie is now used as a way for people to brag about their travel adventures for the world to see. In my opinion, this is not a beneficial trend. Personally, I am not a fan of the selfie as I think it is unhealthy for someone to look at themselves in a camera for that much time. In the travel world as well, selfies have become an unneeded source of competition among tourists around the planet.

Travel writing, as we previously read, has been diluted with the rise of the internet as more and more people are able to write about the places they have been, even if they are not educated well on the culture they just wrote about. The selfie only exemplifies this dilution. As mentioned, the selfie has created a competition amongst people on the internet to have this coolest picture and to show off where they have been. There are now “selfie-designated” spots in popular tourist areas due to the astronomical rise in taking a picture of yourself. This has become such an issue that certain places have banned the selfie due to people clogging up the areas too much. Also, the crave to have the best selfie has led to numerous deaths where (for example) someone will try to climb something that clearly should not be climbed, then they fall to their deaths. This is truly tragic as no one should feel so pressured by the internet to take a selfie that they put themselves in harm’s way. No longer is travel about seeing cool places that can only be experienced in person, now, all that matters are that you took a picture of yourself in front of these amazing places. People have become too focused on themselves rather than the places they are traveling to, leading to travel now becoming a bragging match. People simply travel to snap pictures of themselves, upload it to Instagram, and then brag about how many likes random people on the internet have gave them.

 

 

 

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Ehren Joseph Layne

On Selfies – Opinion/Thesis

There is nothing anybody can say to convince me that selfies are about anything other than the selfier (the person taking the selfie – yes we are creating words). To take a selfie is to prioritize yourself over your surroundings, your vanity over your sanity, your perception over your reception; selfies are not tools of self-expression, but rather instruments of self-obsession. As selfies continue to grow in popularity amongst the young and the old, there have been cultural shifts in how people relate themselves to the world and the world to them. Whether a selfie is taken at a memorial site or a famous restaurant, the goal of the selfie is the same: to place oneself in the world and reflect their image upon it. Some might consider this a form of self-expression: for someone to reflect themselves upon the world is for them to take notice of the world and place themselves in a position of reflection, admiration, consideration, appreciation, and expression. This ignores the fact that selfies themselves are, by definition, separate from the world; rather, they exist to make the selfier the world(hence the strained importance on the word “self”). People have injured themselves trying to take selfies – died even – all for the sake of making the world revolve around them. Rather than the appreciation and admiration some would say encapsulate the true nature of the selfie, the injury caused by the selfie provides an alternative narrative: one of self-obsession. People who take selfies are self-obsessed, they care more about outward appearance and recognition for said appearance over inward qualities and the world around them. Tourists who take selfies at various locations are not doing so because they believe said location is of great importance; it’s quite the opposite – they believe that they can take importance away from the location and place themselves in the space created. They are what is most important, they are what matters. Selfies taken at weddings and other forms of public or private celebration are done so to make certain that the selfier is seen; seen by others and, most importantly, seen by themselves. The celebration only matters so much that it allows the selfier to say, “I was here” or “They are with me” or “I did that”. Never is the other recognized in the selfie; however, when the other is emphasized more than the selfier, the other acts to make the selfier seem righteous for giving the other more space to be important. No matter how you spin the selfie and its implications, the selfie always falls back on the self: I matter, I am important – look at me for this is my world, and in my world, nobody else matters besides me.

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Ehren Joseph Layne

Black people are wild savages, yet we can’t venture into the wilderness? – Thesis/Argument

I am Black and have no idea how to start a fire. I don’t know how to hunt, have very little knowledge on how to traverse large landscapes, and I can’t, for the life of me, pitch a tent.  If you were to place me in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains, I’d survive for 2 to 3 days max; 4 days if I don’t eat the blueberries that were obviously not blueberries. Even with all my non-knowledge of the great outdoors, I am – as Black people are commonly referred to as – a wild savage. To some, or many, white people, I am the epitome of savagery and should forever exist in the wild or as a slave; they believe that I should have no rights, that I have a brain the size of a pigeons’(pigeons are considered a delicacy in some regions of the world so thank you for the back-handed compliment white man) and that I am, above all other flaws, a good-for-nothing…, well, you know the rest of the phrase. As a black man with no survival skills, it is difficult for me to understand (the outdoors, obviously) why there continues to be this link between my blackness and the wilderness. I am very much aware of the history between black people and nature. Rahawa Haile in her personal essay “Going it Alone”(a powerful piece that I very much enjoyed) gives the example of Harriet Tubman who, among many things, was an expert hiker who understood how to traverse the hundreds of miles of woods and mountains that lay between the North and Southeast regions of the US. She is an example of a black person who was – even if not by nature – very knowledgeable of the outdoors, and with that knowledge, she was able to save hundreds of other enslaved black people. I must mention, however, that Harriet Tubman is no longer alive(may she rest in peace) and that black people(thank god) are no longer enslaved. In the US, the majority of black citizenry live in or near metropolitan cities. Many of us, myself included, rarely venture into the wilderness, and those of us who do(like Rahawa) have a mixed experience with it. Rahawa is a black woman who adores the outdoors and understands it extremely well. As she attempts to embrace the wilderness to which she feels extrinsically linked, she cannot avoid the racism that exists as a byproduct of her ancestor’s enslavement. In her essay, Rahawa recounts, time and time again, the racist interactions she’s had with hikers not like herself(meaning white), and those who live in towns parallel to common hiking trails. She talks about a time where another hiker didn’t believe she was “black” because real “black” people don’t hike. I can’t wrap my head around how black people can be savages when many of us know nothing of the wilderness, and even if we do, we aren’t “black” because knowledge of the outdoors is reserved for white people. I direct this question to any white man who may be reading this: are Black people savages for your convention, or because hip-hop is the closest thing to monkey culture that you know?

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Samuel James Conroy

Kincaid Thesis Progymnasmata

Kincaid Thesis Progymnasmata

            Jamaica Kincaid’s book “A Small Place” quite accurately describes the current issues surrounding the travel industry. While certain countries have no issues with tourism, a lot of smaller, less wealthy countries do. Kincaid comes from Antigua and Barbuda, a small Caribbean island country formerly ruled over by the British empire. This is where the issues arise. As is common with many former colonial countries, the colonists still have lingering effects all over the place, and this can be heavily reinforced through tourism. The tourist population in Antigua largely consists of white, wealthy westerners who have no real care for the history of the country or the people inhabiting it, instead, they just wish to get away from their current way of life.

The tourists only see the good things, such as the beautiful water, the beautiful landscape, and of course the beautiful weather. What is not seen, the mass corruption, the hospital with fake doctors that the Antiguan people do not trust, and rising poverty levels. This is why Kincaid states, “The thing you have always suspected about yourself the minute you become a tourist is true: a tourist is an ugly human being” (Kincaid). Kincaid does not mean that these people are bad people, just that when they become a tourist, then they become an ugly human being.

I disagree in that I do not believe these people automatically become bad human beings due to tourism. I would instead argue that they are oblivious and do not really understand the impact they have as a tourist.

Overall, tourism has a negative effect on these once colonial countries as the money made is not helping the common person, but rather supporting corrupt politicians. Kincaid does a great job in explaining this to the world through her writing and hopefully there will be a change soon.

 

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Aongus Mui

A Small Place – Jamaica Kincaid

A Small Place – Jamaica Kincaid
Progym: Thesis/Theme

Although the meaning of the book applies to tourists and vacation spots all over the world, the setting of this book revolves around the islands of Antigua and Barbuda. More importantly the people and culture that reside on the island. Jamaica Kincaid begins her book seemingly attacking tourists. She speaks a lot about the tourist’s naivety and how they look at travel destinations in a very narrow way. Kincaid talks about how tourists are inconsiderate to locals, she speaks out on the lack of awareness from visitors. They only see the nice places but they do not see or understand issues like poverty and corruption. The tourists are blinded by the beauty promised to them, to the point where the issues seem to go right over their head. Kincaid talks about the unfairness brought upon Antiguans by their government, how they can make loans for cars but not for houses, how the ministers in government can escape to New York for quality health care. “The hospital is staffed with doctors that no actual Antiguans trust,” there is no quality health care for the people that fall ill. This is the type of corruption that the locals of the island have to deal with, but tourists will never realize this because they fail to see the serious issues of their ideal vacation spot. Kincaid argues that islanders see all perspectives of the life they live while tourists only see the sunshine. Although Kincaid started off the book by pointing out the flaws of the tourists, her book was very eye opening. The way that she perceives tourists is very justified, given their misconceptions about vacation destinations all over the world.

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Nathan Ryan Reeves

Creative and Co-Creative Labor in Travel Writing

Ana Alacovska writes about a very specific topic and theme relating to tourists and their relationship with travel book guides. In accordance with her theme, the abstract gives a brief summary on our current society and its connection with travel writers, and how that is changing moving into the digital era, and how that can help understand the relationship between audiences and other relationships.

Alacovska in the introduction of the article makes the claim that companies moving into travel information or travel guides online are an information business. This means that writers for these kinds of outlets can be professional writers with great enthusiasm or can be non-professional amateur writers creating a niche digitized industry. She also compares this situation to a “canary in a coal mine” when it comes to the rapid digitization of media industries and travel books, saying that the amateur writing differs from the professional writing due to the “amateur productivities” that professional writing can surpass, for instance, systematic dialogue and cultural or locational research.

Alacovska also connects this to the difference between creative and co-creative labor and how digital technologies can expand the travel information market.

 

“—the proliferation of inexpensive and user-friendly media production tools. In this view, digitization democratizes, decentralizes, and liberates cultural production. It empowers amateur users to become media producers who participate in ‘‘produsage’’ (Bruns, 2008) or ‘‘commons-based peer production’’ (Benkler, 2006) and dismantle the professional paradigms of creative industries”

 

This advancement gives the opportunity for amateur writers to have a stage to show off any writing whether it had scholarly research behind it or not, and regardless of scholarly research, has the productive force of conversation to expand on information from a guide book, or any similar type of writing. The inclusiveness of online writing can expand upon its niche segmentation, and expand into something more, while at the same time providing a different contextual style for the reader.