Chapter 11
Chapter 11 gives us an overview about a new literary movement after WWII. The Beats, as they called themselves, were a group of disenfranchised writers that weren’t happy being apart of American Literature in the 1960’s. They created a new form of expression out of rebellion. Television and radio were new technological advances that provided people with new views and communication. It bought new ideas to the living rooms of many Americans. This created new perceptions and the Beats were concerned with alienation, marginality, and dissatisfaction with the staus quo.
Kerouac, the founder of the Beats, wrote many novels that inspired a new way of expression. He wrote about drug usage, interracial relationships, and inner city tribulations which were thought of as taboo. He wrote in a style that he calls spontaneous writing, which translates into run on sentences, non sequential formats, underdeveloped characters, and mental rambling. However, his style did communicate lots of analytical thinking with rich images, that creating a new style for the times. In Kerouac’s narrative The Subterraneans,his character Leo provides racist remarks for women which are non-anglo.This provides an upfront stereotype for his readers. This rhetoric of race expresses a certain attitude and cultural fear about non-anglo women that creates an attitude.
Kerouac uses a rhetoric strategy using nostalgia by bringing a reconstruction from the past and creating an interest for his readers, that long to be apart of the books present experience. In Kerouac’s novel Visions of Gerard, the narrator organizes memories in a way that makes the reader wants to engage.He also uses a commercial to make a connection for consumer’s that wish to buy Nike’s and be apart of the 70’s NBA team. The Nike commerical provides a connection to the product and an eventful time.
Burroughs, another Beat writer was concerned with the influence that the media, and government had on the American culture. He was concerned that the language and imagery that the general public was subjected to was more powerful than they were aware of. So he decided to turn writing back on the media. He used a style called the cut up, which rearranged sections and planned the usage of text to produce new meanings. He felt the media was desensitizing and impacting our behavior and decisions. The main point of Burroughs’ work was to encourage people to take notice that technology was being taken for granted. He encouraged people to look for the subliminal messages, and to think critically about what we see and hear.
Rice gives many examples of the cut up, with contemporary persuasive images of SUV car ads, and how we connect status and prestige with associations. This leads to juxtaposition, cutting up text and unrelated images with don’t really belong together but provide new ways of thinking about a product. The novel,The Subliminal Kid used juxtaposition with sounds that were collected and remixed to produce new ideas. Changing the arrangements of text and images is called juxtaposition. Rice challenges his readers to conduct a tape recording experiment, that captures sounds and those sounds get rearranged to create new sounds. This is a form of juxtaposition using sounds.
Chapter 12
In chapter 12 Rice emphasizes the role of technology in writing. He refers to basic writing tools such as the pen and pencils have changed how we receive information. Rice gives us a background to how hypertext has evolved and changed the way we communicate. He goes on to say that as writers we need to learn how to use electronic technology to enhance our writing. He provides examples of technological innovations and how symbols in software have become so familiar in the work place. Many software products are compatable with other the writing software and can be intergrating easily.
Hip-Hop culture uses a version of electronic writing with its style of scratching. With technology DJ’s have been innovative with mixers and turntables making old sounds into new music. Creating new sounds and labeling it a new language, have brought Hip-Hop to the top of charts and created a new literacy. Hip-Hop evolved from an oppressive culture, which is Black America. Through this oppression Hip-Hop has reinvented a way to express a new popular culture. Scratching provides a way of expression, scratching a new cool, and cutting our perceptions and creates new literate practices. It engages in critique, produces alternative views, and reproduces ideas. Rice ends this chapter by indicating that scratching can be found in the way students write today.
