In our reading for Monday we learned about counterpublics. On Wednesday we will cover that section of the text and discuss how counterpublics function as communities were ideas opposed to normal public conventions can be safely discussed. In various coutnerpublics, ideas that are not allowed in the regular public can be freely discussed--these may be identity issues, political ideologies, or moral discussions. Through their discussion, these counterpublics establish a way of viewing the world that is different from normal culture. This worldview is not only expressed in ideologies but also can be seen in the words participants use, their mannerisms, their style of dress, how they relate to one another, and the media they use. This creation of a worldview is the same thing that happens in the mass public and in subpublics. The basic idea is that the public conversation that a person is a part of helps to form how they participate in the world. What makes counterpublics unique is that they are opposed to a dominant belief. One way that we can see this is in the texts produce by the public or those who believe themselves to be in that public. In the following song we can see how counterpublics function:

lyrics 

The song openly argues against ideals of the dominant public such as peaceful governmental reform, patriotism, and elections. The song goes further and references dates and events that have specific meaning for the group, but may not have much importance for those in the mass public such as the Seattle riots  in 1999,  The Spanish Civil War in 1936, and the labor movements in America. The song also uses a specific vocabulary especially when the they say "They call it class war / I call it co-conspirators."  They are referencing one idea (rioting) but from two different perspectives. One seeing it as the lower classes attacking the upper classes and the second seeing it as the upper class coming together to purposefully keep down the lower classes. The medium of music likewise has important implications, since the anarchists at the Seattle riots had met at a music festival to discuss their tactics. Further, the read and black have special significance to the anarchist movement. Finally, there is the very distinct possibility that this is all nonsense and was written by people who do not believe in anarchism, but just think that its cool; however, for the sake of this blog post, let's take the lyrics seriously. 

Of course, one does not have to be a member of a counterpublic in order to critique the system. For example, Lily Allen is a pop singer in England, and she released a scathing critique of contemporary society in 2009 with a song called The Fear for which she won several major awards. 

lyrics 

What I am interested in with the discussion of counterpublics is not only how a person speaking in them creates a sense of community or a worldview, but how such a speaker uses the same methods of creation as the research essay writer does. Just as Bruce Ballenger says that by "firing on four cylinders of information" writers are able to make writing that is "'authoritative' and convincing," songwriters use these forms of information to make themselves convincing. What I would like you to do is explain what modes of research were used in the creation of either song and how you can tell. Then, I would like you to tell me which song you find more effective and why. 

Thanks, 

Mr. Harley

On Friday we will discuss how Michael Warner views the feminist movement. For Warner, the motto of the feminist movement was that "the personal is political." By this he means that feminists were showing that what happens in our personal lives is controlled by systems of domination, that by advocating political change people could create changes in their personal lives, and that everyone's personal situation informs their political ideals. The goal of the feminist movement was to show the unfair dichotomy between the (masculine) public and the (feminine) private. The following music video should illustrate this point rather clearly. I have linked the lyrics to this song below the video if you are interested in exactly what is being said.

lyrics

From the lyrics we see that the front woman, Karen O., characterizes her as a "poor little baby" which is important because it places her in a very private role. She is someone who does not have a role in the public or any sense of autonomy. We can assume that this loss of autonomy is caused by external male control over her life as expressed by the refrain "Y-control," which refers to the Y chromosome which only men have.

This song is in the genre of feminist postpunk, which owes part of its history to the 1990s Riot Grrl movement (if you want more information on that movement you can check out this wikipedia article or we can talk about it in class). Feminist postpunk is interesting here because it works as what Warner called "functional public[s] for women." This is to say that it is a private market that links women as readers and writers. Of course this assertion only half works because the music is available on stages that are not solely available to women--though so were the writings of Catherine Beecher.

The ultimate question regarding this song is if the private issues expressed by Karen O. have a public importance. Through creating this music, performing it in public, making a video it, and posting it on the internet she is making issues that seem private public. Further, she are not using a detached and rational based argument (which is the hallmark of the traditional public sphere), but instead shows herself as personally invested in the argument. My question to you is twofold: is it important for private issues to become public issues and would the argument be more or less effective if it were more objective and rational?

Thanks,
Mr. Harley

Hello and Welcome to the ENG 123-039 class blog,

We have been studying Bakhtin's conceptions of the utterance as a unit of language that takes part in a chain of communication, and, since we are going to be looking at music as a form of public utterance, it would be good to start with a discussion of whether or not a song can be seen as an utterance in Bakhtinian terms. Remember that for Bahktin an utterance stems from a preexisting conversation, uses the forms of a specific speech genre, expresses a non-neutral sentiment, exhausts a theme, follows a "speech will" and invokes a response from the listener.

I am posting a song below, and I would like you to give a brief argument for why this meets the qualifications of a speech utterance or not. You do not need to cover all of Bakhtin's criteria for the utterance, but your response should demonstrate an understanding of the concept of the utterance. I have chosen a song with a light topic for this first post so that you don't get too bogged down in the content. Focus of whether or not this counts as an utterance.

Mr. Harley