HYPOTHESIS AND HOW IT IS CHANGING HOW WE READ ONLINE

Hi everybody! Today I just wanted to quickly review an awesome tool called Hypothesis that I've been using all semester for two of my English classes (Currents in American Lit and Critical Theory).

As an extension of your web browser (I use Chrome...does anyone not use Chrome?), Hypothesis lets individuals highlight and annotate any online text of their choosing. By allowing (encouraging it, I daresay) people to comment on texts, a sort of community is born and it's truly neat to be involved in.

The two classes I am in this semester are among the first classes to use Hypothesis in the classroom, and it has been exciting to test this tool, find bugs or problems, and watch the tool itself grow and improve. Though, that is to say that for the most part Hypothesis has proved to be quite user friendly and well programmed.

Personally, I struggle with reading online. I'm a "hold the book in my hand" kind of gal. When I say "reading online", I mean reading a text and actually comprehending it. Anyone can read online, but to get something out of a text that is not physically in front of you can be a challenge. However, I think Hypothesis has helped me to improve my competency and critical thinking skills. 

I like to think of Hypothesis as a literary Facebook, if you will, as my classmates and I not only comment our own thoughts but also reply to each others. Far too often when I am reading a challenging text for class I can't stop dwelling on these questions: "Does anyone actually understand this? Am I crazy for thinking this means ___?" This brilliant tool lets me know that I'm not alone in feeling this way when I can see my classmates commenting in a similar fashion. It's quite comforting. Being able to reply to classmate's comments (with a range of media, no less...gifs anybody?) makes for some pretty entertaining online banter as well. I've laughed hysterically too many times to count whilst reading my classmate's comments (especially when we read Freud...man, that was a comedic goldmine) and I must say it increases the enjoyment I get out of doing my homework. And that's saying something.

At this point in the game, it is safe to say that technology has gradually wiggled its way into the sphere of education and changed it for the better. People were skeptical at first to shy away from traditional modes of teaching and learning, but technology in the classroom has not taken away from the process of teaching, rather enriched it profusely. Tools like Hypothesis contribute positively to the experience of learning, as they promote discussion and help build a community that functions as a collective pool of knowledge and possibility. I like to think I'm apart of that pool now!

Tools like Hypothesis are the future of education.

And I can't wait to see what else the future holds for students and teachers alike.

until next time,

WALT WHITMAN'S QUEERNESS AND WHY IT DOES(N'T) MATTER

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I'LL PUT A SPELL ON YOU: PORTRAYING THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS IN MODERN CULTURE

Hi everyone! It's fall now (in New England, anyways) and that means colder weather, chunky sweaters, and watching the 1993 Disney film Hocus Pocus on repeat. Shoutout to Halloweentown, also a fantastic movie, but for the purpose of this blog post we're sticking to the former. I've loved Hocus Pocus since I was a wee child along with all of my peers. Even more so, I've been a little bit obsessed with the Salem Witch Trials for years now as it is of significant interest to me. Perhaps my interest in this subject was solidified by it's unusual and macabre nature, however I'm inclined to believe that the media's portrayal of this event is too what peaked my fascination. 

Why is the media so fixated on this particular historical event, even in today's popular culture? Are we fictionalizing it to the point where it becomes an unauthentic representation of "history", where real people are mere characters and their trials and tribulations become the plot of a dramatized soap opera of sorts?

Going back to Hocus Pocus for a brief moment...oh, quick little tid bit. My professor Robin shared with all of us today during her lecture on the trials that the Salem "witches" were not officially pardoned until 1992. Hocus Pocus came out the following year...coincidence? Although this is not quite relevant to my ultimate point, I think it is interesting to highlight the fact that this movie is still very much relevant, namely at this year's Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party at Disney World's Magic Kingdom.

Can we just take a moment to appreciate the awesomeness? I want to high five whoever did the casting for this show, especially for Winifred, because they were all SPOT ON. Sadly, I highly doubt any of the young kids that were watching the show even know who the Sanderson sisters are, let alone have any idea about what the movie is meant to represent historically. Seeing as it is a children's movie, elements like death, evil, and witchcraft have a comedic spin put on them. However, applying comedic tropes to a serious and grotesque historical event, in this case, seems to mock instead of providing relief.

While Hocus Pocus is a funny anecdote about three fictitious witches, WGN's scripted drama Salem takes a more serious approach to the subject of the witch trials. First of all, check out the kick ass intro:

  

Wicked creepy and bonus points for using a Marilyn Manson song. Props! Anyways, in my opinion, Salem is a hybrid of sorts. Yes, it most definitely has some historical truth in it and visually it provides a sense of what living in 1690's Salem would have been like. But, considering the fact that there is still so much uncertainty and mystery surrounding the Salem Witch Trials, the show is able to take creative license regarding the extent to which they dramatize the stories and how far they delve into the realm of the supernatural. Some of the characters, like Cotton Mather and his father Increase, are based on real figures during the trials but most are not.

In saying that Salem is a hybrid, I am saying that it is part historical drama and part cheesy soap opera. As Salem was a wholly religious community with an emphasis on purity in all aspects of life, it is difficult to swallow the highly sexualized nature of the society (and its relationship to witchcraft) as it is portrayed in the show. The sex seems out of place in a show of this nature and it is all too obvious that the inclusion of the sex is only an attempt to keep Salem on the same plane as other popular sexualized TV shows like Game of Thrones and The Tudors. With all that being said, I wholeheartedly enjoy Salem. In my opinion, it is perfectly acceptable to like watching this show despite all of problems that encapsulate it, because in this case the outcome of consuming the media's representation of an event such as this is pure entertainment rather than edification.

People still flock to Salem, hundreds of years after hysteria engulfed the Puritan community that resided there. The tourists flood the city especially during the month of October, Halloween dredging up the screams of the afflicted and the accused alike. Modern culture, most notably literature and film/TV, too continues to dredge up this story, or parable if you will, but for what reason? To prevent the masses from forgetting the atrocities that occurred? To preserve a classic example of the battle between good and evil? To act as a drama in which we insert fictitious individuals into history to warp and distort the truth?

Regardless, the Salem Witch Trials serves as a moral paradigm and grotesque defining event in American history that will forever live on in Salem proper and in modern culture.

And that makes me very, very happy.

until next time,

ANNE BRADSTREET: PURITAN POET AND BADASS FEMINIST

Hi everyone! This is the first post I am doing for my Currents in American Lit class, and today I wanted to quickly introduce you to the gloriousness that is Anne Bradstreet.

Now, here's the deal: Anne Bradstreet is considered to be the first female author published in the New World, and that feat in itself is impressive. Which is kind of sad, because the fact that it is impressive speaks to the position of women during this time period and even more specifically (and especially) in the Puritan society that Bradstreet resided in. The surprise that follows the publication of Anne's work The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up In America is best summarized by her brother in law, John Woodbridge, as he writes in his prologue:

"The worst effect of his [the reader’s] reading will be unbelief, which will make him question whether it be a woman’s work, and ask, is it possible?"

This is exactly the point where Bradstreet's subtle feminism comes into play. Forget bra burning in the 60's, because this wonderful woman dethroned the patriarchy with her understated poetry and I'm not even quite sure she knew the power in her own words.

In her poem "Prologue", Anne addresses those who question her abilities as a writer, and in turn her womanliness:

"I am obnoxious to each carping tongue

Who says my hand a needle better fits.

A poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong;

For such despite they cast on female wits,

If what I do prove well, it wont advance-

They'll say it was stolen, or else it was by chance."

To me this verse screams, "Hey men, I know you don't like me and you think I should stick to my womanly duties but screw you because I'm just as capable as you!" Her mocking tone and sarcastic rhetoric is somewhat hidden underneath her coy jabs at male views on women. 

Personally, I believe that Bradstreet's  In Honour Of The High And Mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth is the most overtly feminist poem in the collection. In a world where men are consistently and simultaneously the author and the reader, Bradstreet turned this notion on its head by dedicating a poem to Queen Elizabeth who, "was so good, so just, so learn'd, so wise, from all the kings on earth she won the prize". To praise a queen rather than a king could be considered treason in the eyes of men, so in doing so Bradstreet may be considered the first American feminist. The most intriguing part of Bradstreet's ode to Elizabeth can be found in the second epitaph at the conclusion of the poem. Here, Elizabeth is referred to as an "unparallel'd prince", which leads to the question: Why use a highly gender specific (ie male) term to refer to a powerful woman? Is it because she is trying to appeal to her male readers, perhaps making Elizabeth more manly and therefore more fit to rule in the eyes of men? Or is it because Anne Bradstreet is attempting to shake society to its core by stating that a woman can do just as good of a job, maybe even a superior job, when it comes to ruling than a man? Gasp!

With all things considered, Ms. Bradstreet was surely onto something with these poems of hers. Whether she was aware or not of the effects her work would have on society and how women were viewed within it, who knows. But regardless, Anne Bradstreet's radical poetry paved the way for female voices in the New World and that in itself is a contribution to be proud of.

until next time,