Author: Sue

An education in literary/artistic criticism and theory — being constantly asked to evaluate and re-evaluate what is considered literary art, art in general and what does it really matter in the end – has its effects on you, despite initial impressions. Curled in an abundantly cushioned chair, I read the wits of Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater, and Matthew Arnold — all calculatingly organized into theories on art’s intersection with literature. At times, such as when I am untangling a particularly unwieldy sentence, I think about how these abstractions matter outside of this page, out of this very moment of comprehension. Class becomes suddenly bordering on an existential debate, but the hand of the clock ticks its way to the end of the allotted time, and we shuffle our papers back together, push open the door and step outside to the reality as we know it, seemingly quite disjoint from the experience that had just occurred. What is this that we do on a daily basis? Is there no functional overlap at all? What do you mean you don’t live your life as if it were a silent impressionistic painting?

Over spring break, the regal affair of pinning awards to critically acclaimed movie titles happened for the 80th or so time, and it was declared that The King’s Speech would take home the top prize. Barring some moments of cinematography, choice of wallpaper, and my appreciation for Helena Bonham Carter, I declared to a friend of mine that the movie was overall as fickle as the pedestal it was placed on. Linear, completely easily predictable plots from the onset are prone to become cognitively numbing, and instead of taking the opportunity to turn expectations on its head, it followed its foreseen course like most history channel specials.  If there was a gem, it would have been the mildly endearing relationship developed between Bertie and Lionel, and the confidence and solidarity it has inspired for those with speech impediments. It was cute, and yes, maybe good for us. Yet, if the Oscars wanted to be truly, artistically reflective of our generation — the passion of the decade (which, I admit, may not be their priority) — instead of feeling nostalgic for Britain’s monarch in such a simplistic way, I think it should have turned to the chaotic, messy, psychological and humbly unanswerable turn inward that is depicted in a film like Inception or Black Swan. There are some theorists who argue that a work of art should be emotionally detached, that emotions riddle away any artistic value in a work, that it is base in some way, but I argue the opposite. I think the overwhelming nature of a piece speaks of its quality and that comes from evoking the most complex, irrational emotions that many of us cannot put to words or cause us to realize the insufficiencies of language. It’s this chaotic state of affairs that could never be moralized or logically assembled by a set of if-thens into a neat output.

And while I thought on this during my free, relatively unscheduled time off during the past week, it was then that occurred to me how a class on “Is Literature Art” had weaved its way into my evaluations on how the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had decided on excellence for 2011. It reminded me to ask myself what are my criteria for what counts as good art and then further asked where such notions came from. The bottom line is that perhaps, criticism, while being incorrigibly convoluted, has its “perks” when you least expect it.

A constant point of contention in the artistic and literary theory realm is the idea of subjectivity versus objectivity. “Who decides whether art is good?” is one of the most basic intellectual queries, yet it is an immortal unknown that staunchly refuses to be resolved. The most remarkable logicians and creative minds can’t agree, and their ancient debates stretch forth to our present and predictably to any time in the future, granted that humans are around to deliberate on it.

It would seem that in our post-modern age, subjectivity looms large, and perhaps, is the only way to describe reality. That is, there is no objective truth, only impressions from our unique interactions with the cold marble, with the spread of colors, emotionless in it of themselves and only forming into coherence when we are places in position to view it. Something occurs as the, we assume, objective piece interacts with our subjective consciousnesses. We dab memories on to the work, our individual life histories, philosophies, viewpoints – all are nearly indiscriminately are thrown forth on to this material object in order for sense to assemble. What is tasteful to my senses may be vulgar to yours may be commonplace and mundane to theirs. The thread of the apparent story surrounding the piece is woven perhaps, slightly differently by every viewer that stands before it. Emotions elicited are as deliberate as reflexes, and the ways in which we choose to methodically reason the aesthetic quality out are influenced by our education in artistic form and theory or our lackthereof. Our reactions to a work of art is the art itself, a Rorschach piece, that we can only be aware of occurring.

Yet, this is not to say that there are no agreements. Hence, the objectivism seems to gain some ground in that there can be standards established. What is good art? Is what defines art as good precisely the fact that it is not subjective? Lessing’s qualifications for visual art is that it ought to be at “a pregnant moment,” — that suspension and enlargement of a moment preceding that of the most extreme of human feelings. But maybe Lessing is wrong. Perhaps good art ought to be propagating maxims about morality, maybe it should be purely aesthetic, striking us visually through our senses, bypassing any reasoning apparatuses. Perhaps the only qualification should be that it is innovative and bold in the sense that we have never seen anything quite like it before. By setting some standard, some theory encompassing our more or less collective agreements, we have turned more to an objective viewpoint. The canons of art and of literature are established because we (or the critics sipping tea in their ivory towers) agree on their relatively grand worthiness.

So what’s your definition of “good” art? Do you agree with the established canon or is it simply hogswash?

“The charming landscape which I saw this morning, is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet. This is the best part of these men’s farms, yet to this their warranty-deeds give no title… The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood.” — Emerson

The dichotomy between the arts and sciences has always been one that has baffled me. What has been portrayed as antagonistic forces in our society, I’ve always pictured in my mind’s eye as something of the same fabric, living tranquilly side-by-side as byproducts of human behavior, as manifestations of our own experiential limitations. They are both a testament to ignorance and the collective effort to push against that human stigma; we hold within us an equilibrium between humility and belief in human volition. (Richard Feynman has said, “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”) Perhaps I am just asserting this to retain my own sanity, to justify the polarities in my own life and for those who have also chosen, some may say, juvenilely, two rather disparate majors. “Like oil and water!” they splutter. And I respond, in a sagely tone of course, “Ah… but they have much more in common than differences. For example, they are jointly considered under the category of ‘liquid’ at room temperature…”

My intent is not so much to provide justification for all those who have chosen both a pursuit in the humanities as well as the sciences. It’s not for convincing ourselves that switching gears from writing a paper arguing the social construction of (insert almost anything here) to applying probability theorems in genetic pedigrees is not difficult. (It depends on how much sleep you’ve had the previous night.) It’s not meant to be a practical explanation, but more compelling and important than that – a brief commentary on our collective acquisition of knowledge throughout the millennia. Essentially, we have ameliorated this unsettling feeling of not knowing by differing means. Feynman, would add, succinctly, at this point, the thesis of my life:

“Although we humans cut nature up in different ways, and we have different courses in different departments, such compartmentalization is really artificial…”

In inspecting the veins on a leaf, an inspired individual could attempt to reach beyond the surface and contribute to a fruitful discussion by, determining an elegant equation that describes the fractal pattern, or by composing a lyrical poem lamenting transience. The end result in both is that a conversation has occurred and that, more than anything else, is it. When Emerson speaks of no individual owning the landscape, no “discipline” owns nature. A common ancestor joins the two, three, hundreds of disciplines, each of which have split off from the main line at different points in human history because each manner of thinking was enormous and could not contain itself. None of this, my field is worthier than yours, left-brain, right-brain hogwash. It’s these complications, the paradoxes, coupled with the constant desire to know and debate and deliberate — those are what matter.

The more splendid and satisfying a brief stint from academia is, the more jarring it is to be return to collegiate reality and all its invigorating tensions. With the crunch of salt under heels, and a mere 19 days past the winter solstice, it’s no surprise that there is hardly a cheer or levity in our gaits as we make the spitefully cold walk to our classroom doors. The novelty of the newly marked year will soon be spent, and what left but this expanse of dry air and the bite of the steely nights? For some like myself, January has become the designated month to celebrate the all too well-known cultural sentiment entitled “postmodern ennui”, fed by what the DSM-IV calls seasonal affective disorder. While some turn to light-therapy, and others to feel-good, witty and inspirational films and others yet to the veritable bacchanal of Friday evenings, I have, of late, found myself craving for BBC documentaries presented by British particle physicist, Brian Cox (of course). As the lengthy adage goes: a dose of physics mends a day in which nothing seems to have come to adequate fruition.

In Professor Cox’s show, The Wonders of the Solar System, the unfamiliarities of the physical world are rendered majestic and absurdly grand in its explicability. In fact, I would argue it is done so well that suddenly the evening air regains some of its color again:

In the gusto after viewing the five available episodes of WotSS, I swiftly made my way to the nearest bookstore and purchased Brian Cox’s book, Why does e=mc2?, and on a spread of summer lawn refreshed and extended what I had known on general relativity. Although six months have passed, the one passage that I can think of, most appropriate in the season at hand, describes the staggering beauty of science. If nothing else, Cox makes the most passionate and most accessible arguments for his field.

The scientist’s job is to strip away the complexity we see around us and to uncover this underlying simplicity. When the process works out, and the simplicity and unity of the world are revealed, we experience the Ionian Enchantment. Imagine for a moment cradling a snowflake in the palm of your hand. It is an elegant and beautiful structure, possessed of a jagged crystalline symmetry. No two snowflakes are alike, and at first sight this chaotic state of affairs seems to defy a simple explanation. Science has taught us that the apparent complexity of snowflakes hides an exquisite underlying simplicity; each is a configuration of billions of molecules of water, H2O. There is nothing more to a snowflake than that, and yet an overwhelming complex structure and form emerges when those H2O molecules get together in the atmosphere of our planet on a cold winter’s night.

And with that, and then so suddenly, some things have been turned aright in the world. Professor Brian Cox, may just be my very own light-therapy lamp.

Sue majors in Neuroscience & English and tends to lurk in bookstores.

We’re on a strict diet of finals and caffeine from here on out, and what better tribute to Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge, Pierre Jean Robiquet, Pierre Joseph Pelletier, and Joseph Bienaimé Caventou, the chemists hailing from Germany, France, France, and France, respectively – a group of fellows who had each independently isolated the popular stimulant – than to raise a mug of steaming of joe in the name of academia. As we flood to the libraries, coffee shops, or any spread of table contained within the negligible hum of white noise, we do it with dour expressions etched on our faces. It’s common knowledge that we hold that dichotomous sensations of devotion and weariness; the eternal student condition. So we choose Starbucks, Espresso Royale, Café Ambrosia, Sweetwaters to get that kick of alertness from the warm roast of the coffee bean or from aromatic tea leaves, all the while we say our hurried hellos and goodbyes.

Soy chai lattes have always been my personal weakness, although brewed from these cafes they quickly burn a hole through the wallet. In lieu of handing half my paychecks to often, many of these larger corporations, I’ve tried my hand of constructing this drink from my own kitchen. All of the ingredients can be purchased at the People’s Food Co-op for under fifteen dollars, and of course, this method often pays for itself. At the risk of adding to the mass addiction, I have provided the recipe that I use here. Here’s to a week of productivity! Or rather, let’s just try and minimize the collateral damage.

You will need:
2 cups water
2 tea bags (I use earl grey, but you can experiment with different sorts)
¼ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp ground cardamom
a couple whole cloves
1 cinnamon stick
2 tbsp sugar (or to your liking)
1½-2 cups milk of choice (or to your liking)

Pour water in a reasonably sized pot or saucepan and place in tea bags and combination of ginger, cardamom, cloves, and cinnamon stick and let boil. Once the water boils, allow tea bags to steep for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes have passed, add in sugar, stir, then add in milk or milk substitute. Boiling will cease after this step, but keep the heat on so the tea can reach a boiling state again. However, it is important to keep a diligent eye on the concoction at this point as milk is keen on boiling over and creating a volcanic mess. Once boiling begins once more, turn off and remove from heat. Using a spoon, carefully take out the tea bags, cinnamon stick and cloves. Often, the cinnamon stick can be dried and reused later. If you take a whiff of it and if it is still perceptibly cinnamon-y, it’d be good for another round.

Sue majors in Neuroscience & English and tends to lurk in bookstores.

Not that December isn’t quite cold, forlorn, or capable enough of procuring a sea of dour expressions by its own wintry devices, but Fortnight Literary Press would like to further evoke your blasé mood by publishing an Emo Edition of the monthly journal.

Some might call it a literary misstep, a stylistic faux pas, to resurrect that blackened, overwrought contrivances of our darker years – the fantastic desolation accompanying the suburban adolescent life, the lamentations of unrequited first loves, the woe of middle-class. Not many pulled it off with Hamlet’s eloquence or had channeled deep-seated insecurities — the utter incapacity to be understood – through the flourish of iambic pentameter. Instead, Chuck Taylors and black lacquer sales soared while spirits plummeted by their own overemphasis, and suddenly boys and snugly-fit jeans were not mutually exclusive categories.

While the fashion industry capitalized on selling the look of the misunderstood, millions of pages of melancholic poetry sprung into being, which later with the onset of adulthood, was to be burned for fear of inadvertent discovery and immediate, uncontrollable judgment, or worse, sympathy on the part of the discoverer (who may or may not be a loved-one, an archenemy, or a posthumous biographer). The superb bonfire, the mass eradication of the evidence that might bring about shame, is while on one hand, somewhat impressive due to the scope of this phenomenon, is also rather depressing, ironically.

Melancholy has brought about quite a number of dazzling good poetry through the ages. Just take one Middle Ages or Renaissance literature class and that point is proven more than a dozen times by men with big names like Donne, Wyatt, Shakespeare, Spenser. Some of it can be overencumbered with extravagantly elaborate metaphors for that simple emotion of sadness, but some of it crystallizes the most potent and intricate depths of sorrow with such arresting lucidity, with such grace, that one can’t help but wish to have the means to articulate it so well.

For the month of December, we are imploring you to dig deep into your soul and your archives for material that may resemble an item belonging in that reductive category, Emo poetry. We ask you to submit to our humble, collegiate literary journal, funded by both the Undergraduate English Department and arts.umich.edu, at the risk of coming to terms with a self that you might not be proud of but whom was necessary.

And a note from the mouth of one of our editors:
If you’d like, take advantage of the rare opportunity to talk about your work by writing a 100-word commentary on the events leading up to your submission’s creation. Let readers begin to comprehend the incomprehensible despair that led to your triumph!

Deadline: December 1st.
Email your submissions to fortnight-sub@umich.edu and visit us online at fortnightlitpress.wordpress.com

Sue majors in Neuroscience & English and tends to lurk in bookstores.