Week+4+Discussion+Questions

Christina McKee Ashley Mondale Glenn Ritchey Lisa Weddell

1. The authors of our text use statements such as “we tend to think” or “we tend to understand” as a way of “hinting” towards our misunderstanding of subjectivity. For example, the text states, “We tend to think of the 'self' as that which is primary, untouched by cultural influences” (36). What tendency or tendencies can be held accountable for the way “we” misunderstand subjectivity in these instances?
 * Subjectivity**

2. If we are constantly subjected to culture, advertisements, institutions, and authorities then does the self have any ability to redefine its identity? If the issue of race is a social construct, then does race exist because the self chooses to identity with a social category or is it because one is subjected to a cultural category? Does one have any authority to define their own identity, or are we subjected to our identity as it is defined by others?

3.What role does formal education serve in subjectivity? Does continued education (like grad school)give us agency to recognize our subjectivity? Could this recognition ever lead to resistance?

4. Are we ever able to interact with something (text, media, people, etc.) without some type of subjectivity? If not, are these relationships we form copies of previous ones or do we indeed continuously form new relationships?

5. If the self/subject exists within a specific context then we constantly identity ourselves through how we are defined by others. Can W.E.B. DuBois's coined phrase double-counsiousness (the idea that African Americans view themselves in two ways: how they see themselves and how they are viewed through the eyes of others) help us to understand the complicated principle of subject and identity?

1. False consciousness is defined as “an inability to see real conditions because they are masked by false ideas” (93). If a fact is tentative, meaning it is not definite, does this suggest that a fact still contains false ideas and is subject to being false consciousness?
 * Ideology**

2. If all meaning is contextual, all contexts are social, and all societies have recognition of common sense, then are ideologies just differing versions of common sense? For example, let's look at language. If language is arbitrary and signifiers and the signified have no direct relationship, then is language ideological or is it more complicated then simply saying language is just differing versions of common sense?

3. If “the task of literary and cultural theory, then, is not to escape ideology but to account for its workings in the seemingly disinterested and neutral presentations of culture, as well as in our interpretations of those cultural artifacts” (101), how do we reconcile those who believe we must discount the author when examining a text?

4. Consider this Discovery News article <[|http://news.discoveryhttp://news.discovery.com/history/zombie-skeletons-ireland-grave-110916.htmlcom/history/zombie-skeletons-ireland-grave-110916.html]>. Corpses have been found in Ireland dating back to the 700s with large stones shoved in their mouths. The article describes the corpses as being "outsiders," those who were thought to be the most dangerous. What ideologies are at work in this example? How are these ideologies working on us? Consider those from the 8th century and also those of contemporary readers. This article was rewritten and quoted on several news sources, each emphasizing zombies and the undead, including on HuffPo. [].