Welcome welcome to the new online students
This is my second appearance in the RCID research forum
But I want to actually introduce my co-presenter Jessica Manuel who is here today
She is the first year our RCID student. She lives currently in
Manassas, Virginia, but not for long is going to the Best Coast
soon
And she has been working
Unbeknownst to me working with these questions for quite some time, coming to us
vis one on Victor's former students, Jo Suzuki
And that's not the first one that Jo has sent  our way. So we're very happy that he keeps producing great students
Jessica and I are going to do this presentation
Today, I'm gonna start by setting a stage for what we have been doing and where we're going forward
What I've been doing and what I'm planning on continuing to do and then Jessica's gonna come in
and echo that with the kind of research that she's doing. She's also running a business. She's an online educator
She's running her own school
So she's got a lot to contribute an add to this conversation. So I'm happy that
all of you are here and
Let's go
It's really good to be here in person usually I'm on the treadmill just
Watching this from my computer from my laptop and it's just good to meet you guys and see you guys.
I called it super creatives and I started basically thinking through what we did last semester by making these
videos, by reading these books, by watching these ideas intersect. I started thinking through those things
It was powerful the whole time but something had changed - So Jacob was in that class, Kailann, Cody and
That was it for our cohort, right? Anyone else in their last semester? And Sarah!
Okay, so something really, sorry
Something really neat happened when we read Jan's book, so he wrote his book Inter/vention
And it was an answer to Greg Ulmer's electracy
with his ideas on hacking and everything else
Most of you have read it as well,
you've been through the class as well
So when we made our videos for that course,
I don't know if any of you guys noticed
But we all started talking about feeling empowered
and there was some thing that changed in our ethos
when we made those videos and so
Whether it came out in the video or it was in our description of the video,
and we introduced it
Each of us said something about being empowered
and there's something really radical about that
And so when Jan's talking about agency and how that
changes our
our student and the way they think
and the way they're willing to invent
I see that as the kind of superhero ethos and that comes with
Creativity that comes with this notion that we are willing to be ourselves and whatever spell that is
However, many you have it doesn't matter as long as you're going to bring it to the table. And so that's what I felt
just so empowered by and so I go back to the matrix a lot because
When Morpheus offers Neo a choice between the red pill or the blue pill
He does choose the red pill he chooses to take the rabbit hole all the way down to see how deep it goes
but what is really interesting is the way that movie is supposed to embody Jean Baudrillard work it with hyperreality and
specifically
um
okay, so
Basically
Jean Baudrillard was asked to work on the sequel the Wachowski brothers [sisters] had cast and crew Simulation and Simulacra
on the set of The Matrix about original
1999 movie if you watch this, you will laugh the entire time because back then
20 years ago the graphics and everything that we're used in this movie was really
Just really impressive now. It's hilarious, right?
So the red pill and the blue pill are presented as a choice
Jean Baudrillard was asked to work on sequel. I don't know if you guys remember but Neo in the very beginning he
Opens up the book and there's a hollowed out copy of Simulation and Simulacra with pirated material
That he's supposed to give to somebody who knocks on the door
So the Wachowski brothers [sisters] are trying so hard to sort of echo what Baudrillard is talking about in The Matrix
What they fail to do is understand Baudrillard
and so when they ask Baudrillard to work on the sequel
He says no that movie has nothing to do with my theories. And the reason I think and the reason I
Come back to this again
and again is because for Baudrillard's hyperreality and this idea that the
Representation is more real than the real and that we are saturated with images that it's part of who we are
It's a consequence of existence. And so it's not a choice. You can't just choose to
Basically understand the matrix or not. It's part of who we are. It's part of this contemporary cultural moment
so with that I I
Think about sort of the ethos and just what we do with that. So it's part of who we are
David Foster Wallace has this where he says the truth will set you free, but it's not until it's finished with you
And
Really? I think that's what it comes back to because what we've learned through Heidegger and his lectures on Parmenides in the way of
Truth has transitioned over time from Alafaya to Veritas to certitude. Oh and these ideas that we
Basically have to now negotiate the way truth actually does change
basically
when you choose to be empowered and you choose to accept truth as change and as
sort of the flowing river and that you never step into twice when you choose that there is a sense of control or agency or
Superheat those that you can body and so with that
You can make choices that are different from the cynical way that we've taught our students
Victor matanza has addressed this a number of times but basically
The way we were teaching our so long in talking about deconstruction through post-structuralism
Basically, it would destroy destroy destroy destroy and we weren't rebuilding and so of course it's going to create cynics
Of course
If you think that there is no truth rather than two changes you're going to create
Cynics, and so that's part of what I'm interested in
I'm interested in the way you can create and the way we can sort of fuse these things together in a way that it brings
Ourselves to the table as well. There are a number of people here interested in the way whether it's the rhetorics of religion
I know several of you spoke at that conference last year or whether that informs whatever it is that you're doing
That's rare in academia
I think so
basically the fact that you can bring that to the table without being afraid that someone's going to say that it's
Not okay to talk about that in class or that you can sort of bring
Several strands of thoughts whatever it is that you're thinking through. That's the philosophy of imagination that
William Covino talks about that's sort of the association electric
Electricity allows for and the association of ideas this images of thought that we can all bring together
And so that's what I'm so fascinated by it's sort of this ethos
that means that we get to be who we are when we come to the table as we're teaching as
We're reading because that's sort of what I come back to quite a bit is just way we ought to read differently
the way we ought to read with fewer boundaries and with
being able to bring these things together, so
that's sort of
what I have done Murray really is someone who
Talks about how this notion of the signifier
Basically bukhan and she talks about this notion of the signifier and how being able to have that agency in that sense of self
You can answer it in different ways. You can come to it in different ways
For her having that sense of self or that agency
You can accomplish
Sort of this scream from all of the neuroses the neurotic tendencies the madness the hysteria you can free yourself
From those things from those strands by just that signifier by being able to have that kind of narrative
It's kind of narrative closure, but it doesn't mean that it has to close forever. It's just a sense of
We call it sort of marking or maybe building a monument. Maybe it's electronic. Maybe it's not but that's the idea
Is that this sense of narrative closure?
It frees you. So that's in that sense
That's the truth that will set you free
Because it frees you to then be who you are and at that sense of agency whether it comes out in creation
Because ultimately it will come out in something
When we read Yuans book once again
So but that notion I think we talked about hacking quite a bit and our creative heuristic was fashion
so I want to emphasize that because when we're all talking about
superhero superhero ethos
You would think that it would have something to do with fashion
Right when that's a creative heuristic in his class in case does anyone take it they were not taking it?
There's a few of you but I've talked to you part of it about what it entails
Basically, he gives you this unknown
The unknown is a single word that you can interpret however you want our creative heuristic was fashion
It wasn't anything like superhero. It wasn't anything that would relate to
Necessarily being empowered and so when we're all reading his book and answering it with that kind of ethos
What I found so striking was that
The way of so many people answered to the instability that we have with truth with this notion that truth changes
Basically, what makes you do is I'm saying truths or illusions about what we about which we've forgotten about us. What there our
He's inheriting Matt Heidegger tells us he's inheriting that notion of truth from the Romans and it's that idea of certitude
Oh, so he says truths or illusions, but it doesn't exist. But and then
basically
you know that spawns so much other thoughts and
What Heidegger does and what the existentialists do is they answer that truth and that idea that it's not certain
They answer that with this notion of despair. And so they're all sort of confronting that and
I think
We're still there to some extent
until you realize that it's okay that truth changes and basically that's
where I think John's work was so empowering is because
Heidegger says anxiety makes manifest than nothing. And then with John's work, I was convinced that we all sort of left with
Anxiety ops manifest in something this idea that if that's what we're feeling then we need to create because that's the better answer
so there's nothing to
Being and Nothingness this existence and nothingness
Maybe that start talks about what Heidegger okay me back check
So it's moon de Beauvoir does for Heidegger there hurts heart and being a nothingness is right to the ethics of ambiguity
So okay things are ambiguous. We're not really sure what's going on. So what do we do? She that's her answer
and so what I see I'm doing
Is saying that's our answer and so
He's trying to show us is that this ethos of the hacker this ethos of the
Superhero this ethos of the creative super creative. That is our answer and that's our answer that's going to allow us to
Destroy the Foundation's destroy the binaries destroy destroy destroy and then rebuild
But if we don't rebuild then truth will remain dead - like that
That new book that just came out last year
She blames post structuralist theory at the post structuralism for destroying truth for killing truth
And we I mean, okay, so that good
What surprised when he got there? Forget the name right now?
Okay, so they came out in August and
Basically, she says that post-structuralist was destroyed destroyed truth and she blames
The kind of work we're doing so they when I say that I say us and that's at with me
I was so uncomfortable about that first Philemon. Why would she blame us?
We didn't destroy truth truth wasn't she just has a misunderstanding of it?
But we did destroy it and we're still destroying it in our composition
classrooms when we only focus on that and I think this is why
Victors work years ago was seeing this in terms of saying we're creating cynics
And so if we can then show them that truth changes rather than doesn't exist
I think that will allow us to
embody the kind of
Creativity and the hacker or ethos and the superhero ethos that we need. So that is
It's not the truth is dead. It's just that we have a really fundamental misunderstanding of it. All right, so I
Come back to this idea a lot and I even heard
So when we're creating it's basically bringing in our entire being and not leaving anything
Sort of just destroying the boundaries. So we've got we've just seen this happen over and over. It's the kind of
It's just it's so beautiful about what we're doing with rhetoric, right? So I'm gonna
Give you an example of what I'm doing. And I think this is what Greg Palmer is talking about and his work Halle Berry
So I do this just professionally
It's a
So I started this company it's called book oblivion
I
Started it a couple years after I started
teaching and when I started teaching my freshman composition students like many of you I did this activism project and
part of my
wanting to sort of manifest my own
Instruction was to then do an activism project that
That was like what they were doing about something I was passionate about so they were allowed to do anything
They wanted that they're passionate about that's their activism projects VOC oblivion was my activism project for my freshman composition students that I started
I think it's four or five years ago now so
What ended up happening?
is it turned into a lot more than that and now it's a business and I have these online courses and reading groups and
Many courses that I offer to people all over the world
And so I've got people in that have enrolled to have conversations like the ones that we're having right now
but they all get online and
basically, I
We read one text together for this class specifically and philosophy
Many courses reading group whatever you want to call it. So it's critical theory and philosophy. We read one thing here each month
We focus on one book that everybody reads as much as they can
Buy or about that author and I create a mini course that sort of summarizes that thinkers
sort of argument for them and then I have now created creative analyses that sort of
Will inform their thinking on that
thinker plus and bringing in other things that we've done together so that they can see that it's sort of embodying the philosophy of
imagination that could be in a talks about and
Basically this this in particular is going to give you an example of what we do
But I guess what I want to emphasize is that when I was creating this and what I did my my story when I read
Internet invention by Omer and when I was thinking through some of those concepts what came
Came to me again. And again, is this notion of authenticity?
So if you recalled the entertainment discourse that he has you think through and with what seemed sort of stuck out in your mind
from your
childhood
basically, one of the steam scenes that stuck out in my mind was Family Matters and Steve Urkel and how there was how many of
You clean it
So steve urkel and stephan and this notion of he wasn't able to be himself
Dreams, right. So Steve Urkel had to change into somebody else and this notion of authenticity
Sort of came at me again and again and so I think this is what we do in
academia, because we're not willing to bring our
Religious beliefs we're not going to bring our personal lives
We're not willing to bring so much of who we are to the table and that and we end up being
just
I mean shells of people right? We're not
In touch
detached right and so
it could lead us to our existential angst it could lead us to
badness
with the cycloid
psychoanalytic conversation or we could just start creating and kind of not worrying about those boundaries that have been erected and
That's what I'm doing here. And it's in it. I'm doing it in a way. That's far more freer than I ever was before
In part because I've created something that's outside of academia and it's not necessarily in the industry and I'm working for myself
So I still want checks and balances to know that I'm doing the right thing in terms of the research
I'm putting out there which is why I'm pursuing a PhD
But I also I don't have as much of the baggage that I need to worry about
I mean, I still teach at the Community College. So there are elements of that then I'm still thinking through some of these same discussions
But there's something radical about the way you can just that sense of agency about control in terms of the eye
The creation the Creator the signifier the sense of agency that you have when you're able to do
Whatever it is that you want to create whatever it is that you want to research and bring that to the table
There's something really empowering about that. And that's what makes you super creative. So I'm going to share this. This is the last thing and
It's seven minutes
I'm sure those guys are interested
You don't know it may at times come speeding the potential tide her baby behind for the triple-t
Distortion
It may pass over into a more step and lasting attitude of the soul
Continuing as it worked brilliantly vibrant and resonant
Until at last it dies away
Not
Every experience
one of the most profound
observations the German theologian who taught makes about our experience about the holy
Is the deep sadness that I was over us in response to the sacred?
there's this odd tension because silence is not only a response with sacred it anticipates the
newness
In other words, it makes us into an experience of the fearful and fascinating mystery
The health breath and hush sound of the passage if your case is
seeking away in lesson two thirds
its posits
Your patience and his grandfather astonishing sentence
Which members so well as a lost job wonder all this serves to express in studio
by way of intonation rather
great heights
Walter J. On a priest and professor
Teresa's the way consciousness changes and transition from morality to literacy
English he acknowledges the participatory nature of each utterance
from his perspective
When we interrupt the seconds, we are living
Or Lazarus thus encourages a sense of continuity with life a sense of participation
Itself
participatory
For response decoration here is the question of whether segments is inherent acid
Or whether it is a kind of action in stuff
So that's an example and I'm able to bring in a lot of different Baker's
And that's sort of what I'm trying to do by embodying some of what we learned last
semester of some of what Elmer's teaching me some of what I'm doing in this course series and ultimately
It's informing in a way that allows me to not only teach but also create and I think that's pretty cool
You
