Kappa Kappa Gamma Theta Gamma Gamma Theta Theta

"Less than one percent of all college-aged women in the United States were enrolled in colleges and universities in 1870. These pioneers challenged the commonly held notion that women had inferior minds. Yet they sought a delicate balance as they still ascribed to the era's belief in the values of "true womanhood."

"In explaining Kappa Alpha Theta's origins, Bettie Locke once said, "the Fraternity was always second in my mind to coeducation. It was organized to help the girls win out in their fight to stay in college on a man's campus. We had to make a place for women in a man's world, and the Fraternity was one means to that bigger end."


Both of these quotes come from Texas Christian University's Kappa Alpha Theta sorority About page. I have so, so many friends from high school in various sorority chapters now, and it's always so interesting talking to them about their experiences. It's a strange mixture of de Beauvoir and Rich. While the cultivation of female friendships, female community, and female experience is an aspect of sorority life that Rich would approve of, the pursuit of "true womanhood" stands in direct conflict with de Beauvoir's myth of Womanhood. 

The challenge to the common belief that woman had "inferior minds" is obviously a worthwhile pursuit, but at what cost? The sorority culture is ultimately homogenizing (see the top bar of their Officers page) and limits the concept of woman, I think, to an even narrower definition. TCU sorority girls define themselves as intelligent, responsible, charitable, and...cute. This is problematic, in that "true Womanhood" is wrapped up in cultural constructions of beauty. It also relates to our class discussion on critical race theory. Notice the complete lack of ethnic and racial diversity within this chapter (and it's not exclusive to the TCU Thetas.) The social constructions of the sorority result in a strange phenomenon. It is not good, even if they do a ton of community service.

Questions:

Can a group like a sorority circumvent the trap of "true Womanhood," practically speaking?

Coachella: A Festival of Bullshit

Coachella is a famous (or infamous) festival that takes place annually in California. It has become a fascinating cultural icon, where multiple subcultures congregate and intertwine for a three-day celebration of music, art, and fashion. This year’s lineup included an incredible range of genres— classic rock, contemporary rock, rap, R&B, EDM— with artists AC/DC, Hoizer, Jack White, Drake, Ratatat, and Ghostface Killah.

What originated as a celebration of complex, intersecting cultures has become a heap of capitalistic bullshit reminiscent of what Dick Hebdige critiques in “Subculture: The Meaning of Style.” Hebdige states, “the conversion of subcultural signs (dress, music, etc.) into mass-produced objects” (Hebdige 2484). Urban Outfitters, Elle Magazine, Seventeen Magazine, and just about every other women’s fashion retailer / magazine now mass-produces / mass-endorses “Coachella fashion.” This is problematized further when this so-called Coachella fashion often appropriates cultural clothing: bindis, Native American headdresses, and saris abound.

This is not to say that all of Coachella is bullshit. But what was once good has been tainted by the recuperation of the Coachella subculture. It is probably inappropriate now to refer to Coachella as a collection of subcultures because it has been popularized to the point of mainstream commodity and mockery.

Matter of taste? "Fargo" is less fun in real life.

I'm not sure what I should do with this, but there's a lot going on here so I apologize for the scattered thought process, and I'd love to hear feedback. This is a really interesting image of a "subculture" that we don't think about very often.

Homelessness has it's own set of cultural indicators that I don't think we think about very often. However, we do seem to have a lot of assumptions about homeless people, i.e. they're dangerous, alcoholic, crazy people...hmmm.

This, to me, is a case of the subculture appropriating the mainstream perspectives and mocking it. Sound like Heirs of Columbus to anyone else?

The Issue With Children's Books

As many of you know, I work at a childcare center. As the morning lead teacher, I have breakfast every morning with a little group of ten toddlers, and then we hang out and play/read/dance, and I go to class. It's great. One of my favorite activities is story time. Children's books are full of cute illustrations, tiny animals, and stories of triumph. However, the dark underbelly of children's books does exist. I found this book on bookshelf recently (the head of the center switches them out periodically), and I felt very, very uncomfortable. Here's why:

1. Africa is a very big continent. This "snapshot" of Africa is incredibly generalizing, and ignores literally all cultural and ethnic nuance. Huts, tribal print, undeveloped roads....not good.

2. This book basically sums up Allen's argument against the imposing of Westernized narratives upon tribal cultures. "Mary Had a Little Lamb" originated in the nineteenth century as an English nursery tale. Though the first two stanzas of the rhyme are the most popular in contemporary culture, the end goes:

And so the teacher turned it out,

But still it lingered near,
And waited patiently about,
Till Mary did appear.

"Why does the lamb love Mary so?"
The eager children cry.
"Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know."
The teacher did reply.

The rhyme follows a traditional narrative structure. Mary loves her lamb, it follows her everywhere, it goes to school, conflict ensues with the lamb's expulsion, and is quickly resolved through the lamb's loyalty (a result of Mary's unfailing love.) Mary is the hero, the teacher is the villain (though she redeems herself through acknowledging Mary's good qualities at the end.) While this structure is not bad in of itself, it completely eclipses the tribal stories that go untold, and is culturally pretentious in it's unapologetic transference of narrative to a more "diverse" context, without considering the implications.

3. Part of my discomfort also stems from the reality that this book's audience is children. The specific genre seems to exist almost purely in generalization, in cultural assumption, and it makes me question whether that is developmentally appropriate (toddlers can't understand complicated narrative theory and cultural sensitivity) or way out of line.

Is this generalization and imposing of narrativity acceptable in the context of a children's book? Is there even a way to approach this issue at the level of a beginning reader? Is there a creative and intentional way to write a nuanced children's book?

You MUST Read This Article…

I am being completely serious. You must read this fantastic article. It tells the story of Jon Rosenblatt, a 27-year-old English graduate student who “deconstructed the take-out menu of a local Mexican restaurant ‘out of sheer force of habit.’” Here are some of the best bits where theorists we’ve studied are used:

• “I told him he was worrying me and recommended a good psychiatrist. Bad move, because that prompted him to launch into a whole discussion of Foucault's 'Male Gaze' as it applies to mother/child pair-bonding in Lacanian psychoanalysis.”
• "I just wanted to order some food from Burrito Bandito. Next thing I know, I'm analyzing the menu's content as a text, or 'text,' subjecting it to a rigorous critical reevaluation informed by Derrida, De Man, etc., as a construct, or 'construct,' made up of multi-varied and, in fact, often self-contradictory messages, or 'meanings,' derived from the cultural signifiers evoked by the menu, or 'menu,' and the resultant assumptions within not only the mind of the menu's 'authors' and 'readers,' but also within the larger context of our current postmodern media environment." 

The article is (obviously) a satirical look at the employment of postmodern theory. It seems to critique the over-usage of theory in public texts; can we use critical lenses to critique something as commonplace as a take-out menu?

The analysis he conducts is good. In fact, it is quite compelling. But I feel like upon looking at public texts, we have to assess the appropriateness of our analysis. What does this sort of assessment look like? Is there a limitation to what can and can’t be analyzed? Or, is the better question what should and shouldn’t be analyzed?

Untitled Haiku

A sweater’s loose thread,

Snipped to stop an unspooling.

In heaps after wash.

A sweater is like a Deleuzean/Guttarian rhizomic structure. Its numerous threads (roots) are woven tightly, yet the intricacy is often unseen (underground). I found the image of a sweater’s loose thread a logical correlative to the “offshoots” (D/G 1458) of a rhizome because it gives external evidence to the unseen intricacy of the system. Plucking a weed from a rhizomic structure will not destroy the roots below the surface. Snipping a loose thread from a sweater will not destroy its threads.

The image of course is imperfect. Unlike the rhizome, a sweater has “localizable linkages between points and positions” (D/G 1458). Because the sweater's threads are so interconnected, snipping the loose thread therefore reduces the sweater to heaps after it is washed. Because the rhizome is a living, organic thing, it could actively respond to alterations in its intricate structure. A sweater, of course, could not do this.

But despite the interruption of the sweater's structural integrity, the threads themselves still remain in tact after being washed. The threads can therefore serve as materials for postmodern “rebuilding” (Lyotard 1466). A new sweater can be created from the heaps of unravelled thread (a postmodern sweater I'm sure Lyotard would love to wear).

I chose the image of the sweater, despite its imperfections, because I believe it addresses both a Deleuzean/Guttarian and Lyotardian understanding of postmodernism in a single image. If the explanation I've given has not done enough to address the discrepancy of the organic rhizome vs. inorganic sweater, I put the haiku in green font. You can't get much more organic than that.

A haiku for you

Not subject-object Not hero not narrative A forest not trees

My haiku exists on a rhizome, because I found the traditional hierarchal structure of the haiku to be oppressive. I wanted the form to actively work with the content of the poem, to not be inert. Deleuze and Guattari's rhizomatic hierarchy positions power on a plateau, an orientation to relationships that interrelates to the Allen and Anzaldua essays. 

I utilized Allen's criticism of the Westernized narrativity imposed on tribal stories (literary conventions, archetypes, chronology) as a driving force for the poem. Anzaldua's breaking down of the subject-object relates to the problematic reality of traditional narratives of culture, particularly as they relate to women. The repetitious negation works within my own Westernized language to acknowledge my participation within a culture as an Anglo-American, while at the same time recognizing its limitations (both in limited scope and in its imposing of limitations on my own ability to wholly think outside of culture.) The poem is an attempt to simulate synchronicity by disrupting narrative. The beatific revelation at the end of the poem "A forest not trees" works off of Anzaldua and Allen's ideas, reimagining multiplicity and unification without traditional structures that limit and isolate.