For me, the biggest theme or idea in the readings we’ve done has been how to write about the intimate sufferings of other people while combating the drive of readers to consume the work for a sort of pleasure that leaves them complacent and plays into already existing power dynamics between those suffering and those reading about suffering. There are many ways in which consuming work about injustices and suffering can provide perversely pleasurable feelings for writers. Boyer discusses the pleasure of voyeurism and of accessing the intimate sufferings of another person. Drnaso’s work also presents people’s feeling of entitlement to see gruesome acts or intense pain felt by others. Boyer also talks about our desire to read a coherent narrative, treating a human being’s suffering as a sort of story that ought to contain the traditional, emotionally satisfying aspects of a narrative. Agee brings these types of voyeuristic pleasures to light and also mentions how reading about the suffering of others often gives us the satisfaction of feeling like informed, sympathetic, thoughtful citizens. But it does this without driving us to necessarily “do” anything about the power structures making it so that we read about the intense suffering of others in the comfort of our own homes or on our commute to work. 

The pieces we read all seemed to deal with this truth (and attempting to push back against it) in some artful way. Boyer refused to provide a traditional narrative structure for her personal account of her “cancer journey.” Drnaso refused to show us the most intensely gruesome part of his story, despite the story revolving around images (and despite the fact that the characters in the story saw and reacted to the video of Sabrina’s murder). Agee made his own biases as a conscious writer presenting the life of others apparent through inserting his own self into the narration to remind us that he was not presenting some “ground truth,” and to force us to think about why we, as readers, consume this type of material. Keenes opened up room for readers to see the interiority of a historically unrepresented character, Carmel, but refused to present us with her complete thoughts because it would be false to suggest another person from a different historical time could access them completely. 

Question:
My question is sort of related to the things I discussed above. In Boyer’s The Undying, she claims that “visibility doesn’t reliably change the relations of power to who or what is visible except insofar as the prey are easier to hunt” (159). How can we make injustice visible (through writing) in a way that incites action, or at least fails to submit to the traditional power structures implicit between those who suffer and those who read about it?

Defense Preface (I’m doing a rather long “prelude” of sorts, one that answers some very pressing questions that come up with this topic, so this will be a part of it, surely, but it won’t necessarily be the whole thing.):

The “Southern Belle” trope is, for some, their only understanding of Southern women. It is so often an untried perception, one that fully excludes those who fall outside of set standards of race, sexuality, and socioeconomic status. The South, or rather the cultural South, is an incredibly diverse place, but the homogenization of society put forth by the current understanding of what (not who, what) a Southern woman is simply irresponsible. It is a complete disservice to all women, no matter their situation. This project seeks not to edit the current bounds of what makes Southern womanhood what it is, but to burn them and build from their remains something that is not a label, but a way of life. It seeks not to prescribe womanhood or to lay out a distinct definition of what Southern women must be, but to create a collective understanding based upon lived experience. It seeks not to say what Southern women must be, but who they are. “What is that definition?” one may ask. Well…I implore you read and find out.

What Did I Learn?:

Looking back onto this course, I find that my perception of writing that creates, or seeks to create, social change has broadened. I remember being a sophomore in high school, looking through spoken work pieces on the Button Poetry YouTube channel and thinking “this is how we change the world.” However, after reading works like “38” or “This Land” by Layli Long Soldier and Boyer’s The Undying, I see that there is great diversity in the ways in which these goals can be a. presented, and b. carried out. It doesn’t have to be loud or aggressive, nor does it have to be elegant and subdued; in fact, it can be both! There’s no right way to tell a story. Language and formatting and imagery all have such important impacts on writing that influences social change and, after finishing this class, I know that.

Question:

Are there any limits to writing’s ability to create social change? Are there limits to its presentation? Are there limits at all?

-Write 1 paragraph on something you learned about writing’s relationship to social change—perhaps using a favorite text as a guide, with the wisdom of hindsight.

A couple texts that especially inspired my understanding of writing and social change were: Anne Boyer’s “The Undying,” Nick Drnaso’s “Sabrina,” and finally Layli Long Soldier’s poem “38” in her collection “Whereas.” Every single one of these works reshaped how I perceived an aspect of society — or more actually, had failed to perceive, previously. In doing so, these works alerted me to the way I understand happenings in society, and how I am often apathetic without realizing it. For example, in “The Undying,” for the first time in my life I realized how the cancer survivor is always the Other — the mother, sister, lover, etc. Never is the person affected the center of the story, and in that, an inherent injustice is committed against the pain and suffering of the affected individual. Especially being someone who wants to pursue a career in health, I was both astonished and disappointed in myself for my failure to realize this earlier. “Sabrina” juxtaposed the banality of everyday life with the horror of senseless violence, presenting society’s reconciliation of these cosmically different entities through their exposition in media. When horrible things happen, rarely is my first thought the aspect of temporality in the lives of the side characters (Sabrina’s boyfriend, her sister, etc.). How they digest what has happened over time, and how that changes them gradually, is never emphasized. Rather, the projected immediate pain of what has transpired is all the mind paid to these side characters. “Sabrina” not only drew my attention to this temporal aspect, but also highlighted the devastating effect of social media and online anonymity on the grief processes of horrible occurrences in the modern day. Again, Drnaso made me rethink what I had originally not even thought to think about. Finally, the poem “38” touched me in a way that stimulated feelings of both shame and determination. On one hand, I grew up learning about the crimes committed against the Native Americans for the entirety of my education — however, indigenous people were always portrayed as victims, those reeling from the blow of ignorant white men. Never were they depicted as layered individuals whose actions could serve as deliberate poetry, whose experiences not only created great pain but also engendered profundity. Again, the poem exposed a layer of my ignorance to things so obvious they should have been ringing in my mind at the slightest prompting — but somehow escaped even the slightest notice. My experiences with these three outstanding pieces have led me to the understanding that writing allows the author to draw attention to aspects of social change that may seem obviously necessary, but nonetheless are met with apathy or unknowing. 

-Write 1 question you have about writing and social change that emerges from your work in the course.

What is the most common form of writing that authors discussing social change have used? Why? Is that form actually the most effective, or the most easy, or the most palatable?

A Defense of My Final Project:

The queer voice today is louder than it ever has been. Pride flags proudly hang outside establishments and billow strongly in the forceful wind, influential institutions like our very own university encourage the use of introducing oneself with their preferred pronouns, and legislation passed in the past few years has allowed queer people to share the same rights as their heterosexual peers than ever before. However, transgender women are still being murdered at an alarming rate, the current adminisitration has created laws that actively discriminate against LGBTQ+ citizens, and schools are firmly silencing its queer students. Because of these reasons, and many more, my final project is an absolutely necessary testament of the queer voice that many have attempted to squash under the boot of institutional protection. This project proves that though many have tried to silence us, we still scream for justice, for representation, and for equality. 

Over the course of this class, I have realized that there are plenty of different ways to write about social change. From manifestos, to letters, to memoirs, and even memes, these different mediums allow for different perspectives and experiences to shine through. Through this course, I have seen how meaning can be expressed in more ways than just language. Layli Long Soldier’s WHEREAS and Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina made this quite clear to me, as they both relied on formatting and the purposeful lack of language to express their respective points. A question that still lurks in my head is how exactly I can incorporate this lack of language and formatting into my own work in order to express my point. Can I make a point about social change that does not inherently rely on language? 

Process Notes: I know these two paragraphs don’t really go together, but I wanted to write the first one as a possible introduction to my project, and the second paragraph responds to the prompt for this week’s assignment. I wanted to include some poetic elements and imagery in my first paragraph as poetry is a form of literary expression that I love. I would be open to feedback if this doesn’t particularly work here, or ways in which I can connect these two paragraphs. Also, I plan to title my final project, I’m just not sure what it is yet.

Week 9 Writing Assignment

When watching the Bread and Puppet theatre, I find myself initially engaged. But as the performance jump from one issue to another, albeit related thematically and in the root of their problems, I found it slightly difficult to stay focused. I also grew slightly skeptical of the point of compiling all of these issues into one performance. Even though all theatre and all art, one might say, touches on a multivarious host of questions, there’s usually a focal point.

In the Brecht essay, he situated the lack of total, “self-surrendering” empathy in Chinese theatre. I think perhaps another angle to look at this from is a redefining of empathy, instead of “identifying” but allowing oneself to be moved. As he said, the degree of removal makes the audience retain their sense of self, and even the artist is well-aware he is performing something else. No one is imagining oneself as the hero or heroine. Rather, they allow themselves to be moved by the story of another. It is a “feeling with” that doesn’t venture into filling the interior of the other with an self-sentimentalizing imagination. I think this outline of empathy is better temporary, merely mental imagination of being another person because that can easily be translated into self-pity. If empathy is going to mobilize people, people need to allow themselves to be moved by others.

Process notes: I decided to put these slogans in a circle because they are sayings with circular meaning. They are moving counterclockwise to symbolize they are moving back in time. I was inspired by Layli Long Soldier’s “choose your own adventure” poem; there are several ways you could read this.

While reading Bertolt Brecht’s On Chinese Acting, similarly to Ketaki, I was confronted with an entirely new and fairly opposite conception of effective theater production to my own. Brecht expresses admiration of the alienation effect that he finds present in Chinese theater in which a Chinese actor is said to be “merely quoting the character,” not attempting to bring spectators to feel that they have become the character through empathetic intimacy as in Western theater, but instead creating a distance between the character and the audience that prevents a “self-surrender” and “any empathy on the spectator’s part” (132). As I mentioned Lynn Hunt’s work in a prior reading response, I have tended to believe in the power of empathy and fully “surrendering” by putting yourself in the mind of a presented character. I believe that this empathy allows an individual who may not be able to conceptualize the pain or gain of character to do so with an understanding of their shared internal emotional worlds to make sense of foreign occurrence’s in another’s life. I worried that although Brecht notes that this alienation effect in Chinese theater allows for “criticism” and “protest” on the part of the audience, which seems beneficial to discussing issues of social change, the inability to empathize may lead to ignorant, unnecessarily harmful critiques. However, in reading Brecht’s point that a Chinese actor “makes it clear that he knows he is being looked at,” I see a potential benefit for this type of acting in the realm of social change (130). In the conclusion of Brecht’s piece, he notes that a new theater must see everything from “the social standpoint” in order to rebuild society in such a way that allows for criticism of society and historical reporting. In considering that both the actors and spectators must recognize that they are being seen, everyone must recognize that they are a part of the conversation and are forced to consider their own position in such. The actor must recognize that what they say will be heard and the spectator cannot feel as though their comments are hidden behind a curtain, or computer screen analogously. By recognizing that everyone is seen as their true selves in this dynamic it becomes necessary to enter the mindset of considering the potential societal impact of one’s own statements, responses, and behaviors, which I find to be highly beneficial and vital to discussions of social change.

One thing I took away from both the Brecht and the Schumann reading was the importance of staying objective in performances in order to provoke audiences to have a critical reaction to the work demonstrated. The alienation effect, by refusing to let audience members sympathize with the characters on stage, forces those members to grapple with whether or not the action or not exists as is in the real world, and if they are okay with that. In the same vein, puppetry is extremely alien from audience members, and is already seen as distant from other forms of theater, so it should use that advantage to attack issues in the New World Order. “Objectivity” can be dangerous however, and I think being able to incorporate the experiences of people actually affected should be considered just as important. I feel as if there are significant groups of people who are not aware of how their privilege allows them to avoid thinking about these problems in the first place, and this lack of awareness could lead them to believe that depictions are not as important as the actors would like them to believe, which prevents meaningful discourse and change from occurring. When I was watching the Bread and Puppet Theater, I also had doubts that this would be able to reach out to people who already had right wing views. I feel like a call for empathy might be a more effective way to reach out to enact change, but I am not completely sure if that is due to my western bias.

Puppetry, as Schumann describes it, is the purest embodiment of “show, don’t tell” of the art forms we’ve studied this quarter, by quite a wide margin. As he writes, “the puppets themselves are mutes,” which means that their appearances and actions convey information while they themselves do not. The differential between, as he describes it, “legitimate theater” and “puppet theater,” however, means that puppetry is not taken seriously as an art form, but it allows puppetry to embrace a rule as a more activist form of expression, the role that it takes in Schumann’s writing. Similarly to the Verfremdungseffekt mentioned by Brecht, the distance from more commonly viewed art forms provided by poetry allows us to ingest its message more effectively.

The relative lack of spoken language in puppetry mentioned by Brecht and practiced by Bread and Puppet Theater allows for a much more form of communication than other theater: through motion and image more than through dialogue. For instance, in Bread and Puppet, around the 40 minute mark, although both characters (I forget their names, but they represent capitalism and communal living) are speaking, far more information is conveyed through their appearances and the non-speaking characters’ movements than through their dialogue, which is mostly throwaway jokes.