Tuesday, November 23, 2010

A Nuance

Questions:
1. What inspired Thoreau to write "Civil Disobedience"?
2. What was he reading at the time? Who did he enjoy studying?
3. What was his intention of writing "Civil Disobedience"? Who was his audience? Did he write for the intention to express his rhetorical thoughts or was he writing for the hope that many would read it and thus begin a revolution?
4. What did other people at the time think of Thoreau's defiance against the poll tax? Did others agree and support him? Were there other forms of defiance against President Polk's poll tax law?

Just starting from the beginning, new ideas and more research to do!

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Thanks and Reminders

It's been quite some time since I've updated my blog. Summer playtime, working as a Research Assistant for a Political Science Professor, and traveling have all clouded my mind a bit.

This blog, "Sitting In Her English Garden", was created as a project in my English 295 course: Writing Literary Inquiry at Brigham Young University under the direction of a phenomenal professor, Dr. Gideon Burton. The purpose of the blogs for my classmates and I was to take a modern topic within the media and write about it using a literary basis. I chose Electronic Civil Disobedience and Henry David Thoreau's essay "Civil Disobedience" as my main proponents. These blogs allowed us to research using tools such as diigo, network with other scholars, and even provide great opportunities for future internships and work as it has for my fellow classmate Ben, who will now be blogging for the Smithsonian museum in D.C.! Great work Ben!

I guess what I'm meaning to say is I have not forgotten the blog and it will be great to jumpstart the brainstorming and get back to writing on the blog!

Thanks for reading and I'll keep you updated!

Thursday, June 17, 2010

The Blogger and The Scholar

BYU's Institutional Objectives are listed to help students establish identity and purpose through their classes offered at the University. The objectives include:
  • Educating the minds and spirits of students
  • Advance truth and knowledge
  • Extend the blessings of learning
  • Develop friends for the University and for the Church
As I, both a blogger and a scholar in the making, I feel that my English 295 class: Writing Literary Criticism under the teaching of Dr. Gideon Burton fulfilled BYU's overall objectives for me as a student.

This course differs from others in the sense that we did our expository writings through a blog. Regular posting allowed the class to peer review each others work and provide useful feedback. As an author, I used my peer's feedback to channel new thoughts and ideas that allowed me to further my thought process and expand upon my research and knowledge.

Educating the Minds and Spirits of Students

Educate the minds and spirits of students within a learning environment that

  • increases faith in God and the Restored Gospel,
  • is intellectually enlarging,
  • is character building, and
  • leads to a life of learning and service.
Not only have I been able to learn immense new information, as I have mentioned in my posting, I had no clue what Electronic Civil Disobedience (ECD) was before I started learning about it. It is an incredible field with so much studying and analyzing in the future. Through writing on a blog post, having social media discussion, and in-class discussion, I feel my character has been strengthened. I have so much more confidence in my writing and where I stand as a major. I see so much personal potential in the future ahead. I plan on dedicating my blogging to a place of learning where I in turn become the student learning from my research and findings.

Advance Truth and Knowledge
Advance truth and knowledge to enhance the education of students, enrich the quality of life and contribute to a resolution of world problems
Have I been advancing personal knowledge in my blog? Yes. Have I enriched the quality of my life by learning and developing new ways to analyze and expound upon my ideas? Yes. Have I contributed to a resolution of world problems? Civil Disobedience can speak for itself. The purpose of Civil disobedience and ECD is to non-violently send messages and actions of reform. Speaking up for change, standing up for what activists believe to be true, just, and fair. Securing the liberties of humanity and calling out the evils of government. Politicized action through knowledge and communicating that knowledge is assisting in attempting to resolve the world problems.

Extend the Blessings of Learning
Extend the blessings of learning to members of the Church in all parts of the world.
President Gordon B. Hinckley, former President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, asked the members of the Church to "Be Smart".
The Lord wants you to educate your minds and hands, whatever your chose field. Whether it be repairing refrigerators, or the work of a skilled surgeon, you must train yourselves. Seek for the best schooling available. Become a workman of integrity in the world that lies ahead of you. I repeat, you will bring honor to the Church and you will be generously blessed because of that training.
As a member of the Church, I know that by attending a prestigious University, having the blessing of attending stimulating classes, and having the opportunities to "Become Smarter" in my field of study has allowed me to extend the knowledge and blessings of my learning. Knowledge as we know is power in that it allows change in thinking and action. By posting my knowledge on my blog posts, I feel I am sharing the extent of my learning with others both members of the Church and not.

Develop Friends for the University and for the Church
By extending my learning on the internet, I am forming connections and networking with other scholars. They see that I am a student at BYU and through forming these connections, I am forming friends for both the University and the Church.

Conventional Writing versus Research Blogging
Detracting from the BYU Institution Outcomes, there are two writing forms that were presented in this class, that of conventional writing and research blog writing.
What are the advantages and limits of each type?
The main advantage to Research Blogging is the social networking that goes on. Everything I post is commented on (peer reviewed) by my classmates. I am capable of writing about my process and brainstorm the many thoughts going on in my head. I can upload images and video to support my writing and I can communicate with others all over the World Wide Web. The limit to research blogging is that it isn't as formal and I had a difficult time with keeping my work focused. Between postings I would list my thinking, my processing. I don't know if this got confusing for my readers.

In conventional writing, advantages include being able to solidify research into a format that clearly rotates around the thesis and has complete structure. Limits to this form of writing include isolation. The only thing seen and read by a professor is the final copy (unless of course they have read other rough drafts). Where is the overall knowledge gained by the author? Where is the process? Where is the brainstorming of ideas? Where is the peer review within the craftsmanship of the work?

Goals for Learning
As a class, some of our goals for learning by using our blogs was to expand our network and connect with others. I know my classmates Ben, Heather, and Neal, among others, all had success in doing this. E-mails, blog post comments, and direction were received between student and scholar or blogger. We processed our learning and produced expository writing that allowed for further insight and then the whole process over again. In my blog postings I often recorded my process and progress to let my readers see what was going on in my brain and allow them to view my process.

Looking at Literature within the Forms of Writing
My main literary source is Henry David Thoreau's essay "Civil Disobedience". Writing about literature on a blog post is very similar to performing the analysis in conventional writing. The main difference is that I can link a full text of "Civil Disobedience" to my post so that my readers can read it for themselves or view the connection. I can also link other scholarly work that has analyzed the essay too that may be useful for my readers in their own research. In conventional writing, I am capable of fully analyzing a text without linking. I think that analysis of text can be effective in both forms of writing.

Personal Reflection
I have grown more as a student and as a writer through this class. My confidence has strengthened and my love for seeking knowledge and learning has deepened. I am grateful to attend an institution that places value on the individual's identity and success as a student. I hope that as I continue to write and add on to this blog that I will deepen my understanding of the essence of knowledge and education.

Neal's New Media Blog

My classmate and colleague Neal has offered me great feedback on many of my posts and in return I will be analyzing his blog from the criteria laid out by our professor, Dr. Gideon Burton.

Discussion
From the beginning of Neal's blog posts to the concluding post on landscape functions in film, his thought process as a writer has flourished. He has done extensive research and has had come across difficulties, not being able to get certain scenes from his Sjostrom DVD and others but he has been able to communicate with people outside of our classroom including Tom Gunning,
the Chair for the Department of Cinema and Media Studies at The University of Chicago. His blog postings are frequent and not only does Neal responds well to peers blogs and his peers respond on his blog postings too which I think have helped him in his writing craftsmanship. Neal even dedicates a post where he includes comments from fellow classmates, Allison, Chris, and Heather and responds to their feedback. He is in touch with his readers.

Focus
The overall research of Neal's blog clearly focuses on landscape in film. He offers several different videos to show readers/viewers the impact that landscape has on film. Each blog post has sub headings that are easy for the reader to understand what he is about to discuss. One thing I have noticed from reading Neal's blog is that there is a clear thought pattern. He asks himself questions and then will answer them in future blog postings. He, in a way, posts his brainstorming which allows him to progress in his writing.

Cohesion
The posts relate well with each other and there is an overall flow of posting.

Post Variety
Neal narrates his writing process well in his postings as I have mentioned before. His main source of literature
Victor Sjostrom's Terje Vigen is linked well with his writing process and he refers back to it throughout his postings. He profiles Tom Gunning in a post where he displays their e-mail conversations and how Gunning has helped shaped his project. Neal frequently in each post refers his readers back to his hub post and reformulated hub post which lead to the overall creation of his concluding post. He includes current event posts and even examined copyright laws on uploading film found in this post.

Personality
Neal does not separate himself from his writing. His thought processes are laid out well within his posts and he even in one post expresses his personal love for landscape and the outdoors. As a reader, he comes off as a person that I could have both scholarly and informal conversations with which gives the author more appeal.

Currency and History
Neal had the challenge of being the only one in our class to look at landscape and film and literature. Other classmates focused on civil disobedience, the sublime, and online identity, or a mixture of the three. I think that Neal accomplished this task of grounding his writings in historical film.

Sources
The main literary source is well analyzed throughout Neal's blog postings and he makes connections to it and his personal research. He takes his sources from all different areas: scholars, literature, and youtube to display a variety of context.

Interactivity
Neal engages scholars who are familiar with his topic and classmates are interested in his research and provide useful feedback for him to continue in his studies. I have linked Neal in some of my previous blog posts for the useful feedback he has given me and as mentioned previously, Neal responds well with his classmates. He has a very high level of interactivity.

Community
A link to Diigo and other bookmark tabs are listed on Neal's sidebars. He also has avoided isolated work by demonstrating connectivity with readers.

Analysis
Throughout Neal's posts he provides firm analysis on film and literature. In his post on "The landscape of landscape and film", Neal analyzes a text entitled Cinema by Tom Gunning. He provides quotes from the literature, provides his own feedback and then links his findings in Cinema to other research he has accumulated.

Length
I think that some of Neal's blog posts seem long but only because of the font size. I think that they will draw readers in because of the media content, the way he forms his quotes and analysis. The format of his blog postings allows readers to easily read through his thoughts and writings.

Links
There are links everywhere in the post! This can be a bad thing and a good thing. In ways I see so many links that I don't know which ones I should click on and then I end up overlooking many of them. It is important to link previous posts and research but I do think that Neal links extensively throughout his postings.

Media
Media? Oh no media on this blog post! Absolute sarcasm right there. Neal uses media as his main source for each post. Media, film, drives his research and he frequently embeds videos for his viewers to watch in order to let them visualize and understand what he is aiming at in his writing. His blog posting on June 1 links four videos for viewers to watch linking the landscape to the narrative using Victor Sjostrom's early films as his case study.

Design
I would have liked to see Neal's blog with more of a landscape and new media feel. Maybe have a piece of landscape as his background. I also think his pictures illustrated his topics of discussion.

Quantity
Neal definitely has enough blog posts that have allowed the reader to regularly follow the blog.

Overall I think Neal did a wonderful job at fulfilling our assignment to take a topic and discuss it in a new media aspect. I have enjoyed reading his thoughts and as a reader of his work, I have been offered new insight into the importance of landscape in film.

A Thoreauvian Vision Coming to Pass

As my fifth and final post to follow my four formal posts (link to those four provided here), I would like to expose the literature, Henry David Thoreau's essay "Civil Disobedience" in a comparison with Electronic Civil Disobedience (ECD) as we know it.

In my research and readings, I haven't found much on the topic other than ECD articles and websites simply saying that Thoureau's essay was the primary text or that it pioneered ECD. Something I believe but I could never find evidence or support for this philosophy. In a close reading of the literary, I have found many comparisons that can be applied to ECD and establish the text as a true primary source for the virtual method of protest.

The Analysis
"I heartily accept the motto, 'That government is best which governs least'...and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have." Thoreau begins the text by arguing that government is subject to the people. This sets a foundation which allows the people the right to stand up to their government, protest, and standing for what they believe is to be true. "Government" he says has "lost some of its integrity...it [imposes upon man]...it does not keep the country free, it does not educate." Thoreau mentions the Mexican War, something he was greatly opposed to. The Mexican people would not have "consented to this measure" to which the Mexican government imposes upon them.

"Civil Disobedience" and the Zapatistas
The Zapaitsta Army of National Liberation have been fighting a battle against the Mexican Government for its implentation of NAFTA, which they believe increases neo-liberalism and capitalism which oppress the indigenous people and Working class in the state of Chiapas. The Zapatista Army is not demanding a government to cease governing the people at all but "at once a better government." This battle began in 1994 and is still continuing 16 years later. Thoreau admonishes "every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it." A battle that has prolonged 16 years and is not over yet has definitely posed as a threat to the Mexican government. A battle for the equal rights and liberation of the indigenous people in Chiapas.

Thoreau was not only an abolitionist but also went to jail for refusing to pay his poll tax under President James K. Polk's term in office in protest that it would support the Mexican War. He says:
I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave's government also. All men recognize the right of revolution...the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government when its tyranny or its inefficient are great and unendurable.
The Zapatistas recognize the right and freedom of all mankind. They believe that Everything is for Everyone and Everyone has the right to Freedom. This video clip below shows two travelers visit to Chiapas and their interview with Zapatista leaders. In Zapatista territory, the Zapatistas rule the government and the government is subject to the people. This illuminates a society in which Thoreau imagined.



Thoreau wrote this text for all people in all places. The Zapatista battle has also been a battle of peaceful protest. A "peaceable revolution," Thoreau states, is "if a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood." The Zapatistas have partaken in Thoreau's ideology of peaceful revolution. Since 1994, the Zapatista army has abstained from using their weapons for violence. Instead, they have been determined to fight their war through words. Words relaying their actions and messages. The Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) has greatly assisted in spreading the Zapatista message through using FloodNet software and other forms of ECD like Virtual Sit-Ins and Hacktivism.

"Civil Disobedience" and Professor Ricardo Dominguez
Ricardo Dominguez, co-founder of EDT and professor on ECD at University of California-San Diego, recently led a protest along with his students against the UCOP (University of California Office of the President) in the increased college fees. The protests took place on the internet through Virtual Sit-Ins. "The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right." Dominguez and his students thought this to be right and a cause for a Virtual Sit-In, "[letting] every [student and professor] make known what kind of [UCOP] would command [their] respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it." As the UCOP websites were hacktivated and the reload button was clicked by over 400 students every 1 to 6 seconds, creating a feel for thousands of computers trying to access, messages were sent out and students felt their academic freedom was being violated.

Shortly after the attacks, Dominguez was brought into questioning, UCSD placing him under surveillance to see if any criminal charges could be placed for a professor that had just recently given tenure. Placed under scrutiny by his own "government", Dominguez "educated" his students and others by "serving the state with [his] conscience, and so necessarily [resisting] it for the most part" to be "commonly treated as [an enemy]." Through their protest, they "[refused] allegiance to, and [resisted], the government [UCOP]." Letters were written all over the globe in support for Dominguez's actions. Students and faculty performed a silent protest on campus in support of Dominguez and protesting the right to academic freedom, declaring their virtual protest as a new media form of art.

"A wise man will not leave the right to ther mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority." What if Dominguez didn't protest the increased college fee? The vote would go to the California people and the majority vote might be a "yes". Through protesting and standing for justice, Dominguez raised awareness, sparked thought, and possibly created change through sending artistic messages across the Internet medium. As Thoreau ceased to pay his poll tax, he said "it costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey." Pay the highway tax yes he would but "as for supporting schools," Thoreau is "doing [his] part to educate [his] fellow countrymen now." Would Dominguez pay the increased college fee if he were subject to? I do not believe he would. As the "Government" fails "to educate," Dominguez succeeds through his actions.

Thoreauvian Vision
"I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor...A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which I have also imagined, but not yet anywhere seen."


The Zapatistas in Chiapas, Ricardo Dominguez's protests in San Diego, and Virtual Sit-Ins and other forms of protest provided by the Internet allow for this State to be visualized. Activists exposing the truth, defending causes for truth, justice, and equality, and standing up against the "evils" and "machines" of government, have pushed Thoreau's philosophy further. Thoreau applauds a Chinese philosophers wisdom "to regard the individual as the basis of the empire"

The Internet provides a means of freedom. As Thoreau sat in his jail cell, he recognized the freedom he had and in no sense a feeling of confinement. The World Wide Web provides a means of open access, communication over the globe, and endless opportunities to spread messages of activism and protest. There are no "walls of stone...to climb or break through" to become free. A vision and a means becoming fulfilled one activist at a time.

Reflecting & Moving Forward

A reflection of the beautiful Fall trees at Walden Pond.

As I continue my focus on writing about Electronic Civil Disobedience (ECD) and tying it into Henry David Thoreau’s essay on “Civil Disobedience”, it has somewhat come to my attention that my more formal blog postings that I have somewhat failed at completely linking my primary text with my primary focus.

The beginning of my blog postings centered around Thoreau and his relation to social networking like Twitter and what his views would be today as technology has progressed. I then ventured on to discuss more about how civil disobedience has been seen throughout American history since the writing of “Civil Disobedience” and since then my main focus has been discussing the formation, background, and ins and outs of ECD and the Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT). Mentioning Thoreau here and there to try to maintain somewhat of a connection, my literary focus has not been as demonstrated through my postings. I have been faced with the challenge of introducing my readers to an unpopular subject matter, electronic civil disobedience, and defining the terms and background. In doing so that my readers are capable of learning and understanding all that I have come to learn and understand through my research. Action is absolutely apparent in all context of writing. Activists are modernizing the traditional.

Whether action is taken in the traditional civilly disobedient way or by a virtual aspect, the point is that action IS being taken. Stefan Wray said in his essay that “The Internet infrastructure [now] is not only a means toward or a site for communication, but the Internet infrastructure itself becomes an object or site for action.” A site for action, an opportunity to display protest and voice. Taking advantage of this action provides activists with the literal feel that ONE person certainly can make a difference and can have their views heard and seen within a new medium.

The information I have given you will act as a source of reference as in my next post I solely analyze and compare Henry David Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience” with the EDT and ECD. Below I have included my more formalized blog postings that ought to act as a guide:

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

The Rise of the Digital Zapatista


CD & ECD
Electronic Civil Disobedience (ECD) involves powerful “symbolic gestures” that enhance protest and relay messages for equality, rights of the people, and other liberties. ECD was first proposed in 1994 by the Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), which some reformers used to transition to the Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT). The CAE gave the proposed practice of ECD its name aligning the concept of electronic civil disobedience with that of civil disobedience, in an effort to draw legitimacy from the legendary leaders such as Henry David Thoreau, author of “Civil Disobedience”. Civil disobedience involves trespassing and blockading as tactics for protest. ECD involves itself in these tactics by conforming them in a new setting and in a slightly different aspect. Hacktivism, virtual sit-ins, and the use of the software FloodNet are tactics used by the EDT in sending messages of ECD protest. I have spoken about these forms in my previous blog posts: The Zapatistas and Electronic Disturbance Theater and An Info-War, a Virtual Sit-In, and Hacktivists...United for a Cause.

ECD in Recent Times
As I have mentioned before, ECD first arose in assisting in the battle in Chiapas, Mexico and the Zapatistas fighting for equality and the sanctification for human rights. In recent news, there have been recent publicized forms of ECD within the school systems in California. Dr. Ricardo Dominguez, a professor of electronic civil disobedience at University of California-San Diego, as mentioned in earlier posts as a co-founder of EDT and assisting the battle in Chiapas, Mexico, posed a virtual sit-in with his students towards the president of the university. Dominguez and students on March 4 utilized both traditional forms of civil disobedience and ECD to demonstrate protest towards the increased college tuition fee at UCSD. Students, interviewed by the school’s newspaper, The Guardian, examined the relationship between physical and virtual protest. Holly Eskew, a student of Dominguez said, “On March 4, when about 400 of us and then some did the virtual sit-in, at the same time we had our real bodies protesting. We are reaching the time when we can compare our real bodies to our digital bodies and online environment.” The term "digital bodies" suggests different digital identities, evolving our physical bodies to the cyber world, something my colleagues Becca and Heather are interested in writing about. The body in relation to technology like bodies to machines, EDT has placed a notion of "embodiment" under question. They have sought to understand specific possibilities for establishing presence in the cyber world that is both politicized and collective.

The goal of EDT is to take known forms and then subvert their message in order provoke thought, discussion, and emotion. The utilizing of new media and art allows EDT to take on a more modern form of Thoreau’s more traditional “Civil Disobedience”. Dominguez and other EDT members contributed to the EZLN’s fight for the indigenous people of Mexico. Crafting themselves as Digital Zapatistas, they “attacked” websites of the Mexican government and US governments. These “attacks” were never effective…only affective—something Dominguez stresses in interviews. By digitalizing the message of the EZLN, harm was never physically seen even though the government posed threats against them. FloodNet and Virtual Sit-Ins such as the one executed against the UC system for which Dominguez is under investigation for are ways of protest that send forth messages. The key difference between a virtual sit-in and a sit-in is that a virtual sit-in must be open and transparent. My previous post has discussed this in relation to “Distrubed Denial of Service Attack” (DDoS) that Dominguez has been accused of launching.

UCSD hired Dominguez on the basis of his work in ECD in 2005. He teaches his students about ECD, having them regulate and utilize an online lab called b.a.n.g. lab, a place for numerous art projects and discussion among the UC system. He was granted tenure in 2009. Those threatening to take away his job are the same who granted him tenure. He was granted tenure for his usage of FloodNet and the usage of Virtual Sit-Ins. They hired Dr. Dominguez because of his familiarity with ECD and EDT and clearly found so much interest in his research and studies to have a class dedicated solely to ECD and a speacilist to teach it. They clearly knew what he was capable of--launching virtual "attacks", hacktivism, utilizing the internet for protest. So when these virtual sit-ins and software like FloodNet are being utilized by Dominguez and his students to send across an important message, the UCOP decides to shut down Dominguez's computer and internet connection, accuse him of a DDoS attack, and see if they can press criminal charges against him. These previous sit-ins were praised and yet what makes this one so different? This is a question that I asked The Guardian newspaper and have yet to receive a response from the author. A professor and students protesting an increase in college fees. When stated like that, it seems commendable, understandable. So why is it that protesting against the fee increase lands a professor under criminal watch? Dominguez asks the same question, “[It would be] an unwise choice for them to attempt to stop academic research and artistic research that I was awarded for in past years,” he said. “Why now? What is different and what does the administration want?” UCSD administrators say they honor academic freedom, but need to look into any potential criminal activity.


Questioning and Support
As Dominguez was attended a meeting on campus to be questioned, students and several other supporters gathered by the Silent Tree on library walk at the unviersity. Dominguez, void of legal representation, fielded questions and chose to postpone the meeting. Students and supporters wore white masks with X's on them to represent the university's attempt to silence academic freedom. Something UCSD administrators said they honored... Dominguez rejoined the supporters, giving them thanks and listened as they read letters that spanned the globe, which voiced solidarity, alliance, and outrage at the administration’s criminalization of his work.

The digital Zapatista rose again and along the way educated this generation's youth of the importance of ECD, letting voices be heard and teaching students artistic ways to politicize using new media. As Thoreau once said:
The law will never make men free. It is men who have got to make the law free.

...and that is exactly what Dominguez, the Zapatistas, EDT, students, and virtual sit-in activists are trying to do.