Orality and Literacy – OLCT Fall 2018

October 2, 2018

Jessica Colasacco (Week 5)

This week, I decided to focus on “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin. As someone who appreciates art, this article really caused me to think about authenticity of art. One of my favorite things is going to the Brooklyn Museum or MOMA and looking at a real Moet painting. But I also am a huge Andy Warhol fan, which made me question if I could truly appreciate the authenticity of art if I supported an artist who replicated art for a living. In this article, Benjamin states, “Replicas were made by pupils in practice of their craft, by masters for diffusing their works, and, finally, by third parties in the pursuit of gain”. If this was applied to Warhol, would that mean he was just using his art work in pursuit of gain instead of as a mean of expressing himself? Personally, I believe that his artwork was a way of expressing himself in a specific culture that allowed his work to be successful, but that is my own opinion and other people can think differently than I.

Sources:

Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” 1936.

September 24, 2018November 21, 2018

Brieya Walker 9/24/2018 WEEK 5 Elizabeth Einstein, Defining the Initial Shift

For this blog post I decided to reflect on Elizabeth Einstein’s Defining the Initial Shift. In this reading she discusses the shift from scribal culture to printing culture. She also explained how the printing press gave access to more books, created an easier spread of information, and how learning was assisted with reading. I learned about the birth of printing in previous history classes and remembered that the birth of printing sparked revolutions as well. This reading made me think of the connection it has to our class which has to do with how the world went from orality to literacy. In addition, it just made me think of how far we’ve come with technology. We can print out any paper as many times as we want by only pressing a button, we can make as many copies as we want, and even have the option to print out our papers in black and white or color. It’s honestly even shocking to read how hard it was for some people to make a profit off of printing when now there are companies who make profit off of just ink alone, printers, and paper. For example, there are places like Staples who sell the necessary supplies to make it all happen.

Eisenstein, E. (2005). Defining the Initial Shift. In The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (pp. 13-45). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511819230.005

September 19, 2018September 19, 2018

Week 3 Response

The Roser article describes the different effects, impact, and causes of a global shift towards each country becoming more literate. Max Roser describes that in the last 120 years the world has seen it’s literacy rate change from 12% to 83%. However, he does describe many impoverished countries that are well below the 83% mark of literacy. Niger, for example, is boasting a 36% rate. The most interesting point that Roser discusses is about the difference in gender literacy rates. He uses the continents of Africa and Asia as examples of how gender literacy is becoming more even. It is clear by 2015 that India, China, and South Africa have nearly the same rate of literacy among their 15-24 year olds, despite gender. However gender is but one of the many factors that a country has to consider when dealing with literacy rates. Some others are, race, socioeconomic status, and age.

An interesting piece of information that Roser indulges on is how many experts collect and interpret data on literacy. He describes the use of a census in the 1940’s as being able to accurately compare the number of years of schooling to literacy rates in the U.S. The census concluded that there was nearly a 70% difference between 4 years of schooling and no years of schooling, relating to literacy rates.

Another important fact that Roser describes is the generational difference in literacy rates. He uses the Middle East and Northern Africa as examples of this. Stating that, “only less than a third of the older generation is literate – while in contrast, more than 90% of the younger generation is literate” (Roser, ourworldindata.org). The reasoning behind this is simple, most countries don’t want to stress literacy for their citizens over middle age, whereas the younger generation has been socialized with a new appreciation for literacy.

Now the most important aspect of the article is how Roser analyzes the methods of collecting literacy data. The most interesting aspect of this is that in 2010 less then 30 countries in the world took an actual test for literacy. Most of the other countries in the world used a ‘self-reported’ model, where either heads of households or individuals described if they, or their household, were literate or not. Not to say that they aren’t accurate, but it seems a literacy test, directed by the government, would be the ideal way to understanding a countries literacy rate.

Finally, although seemingly obvious, Roser concludes that individuals, despite race, gender, or economic status, who have more years of schooling are boasting higher rates of literacy.

Works Cited:

Max Roser and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina (2018) – “Literacy”. Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: ‘https://ourworldindata.org/literacy’ [Online Resource]

September 10, 2018

Carolyn Pena Blog Post Week 2

On page 143 in “Orality and Literacy,” Walter J. Ong writes “The reader must also fictionalize the writer. When my friend reads my letter, I may be in an entirely different frame of mind from when I wrote it. Indeed, I may very well be dead. For a text to convey its message, it does not matter whether the author is dead or alive”. The reason this part stood out to me is that I never realized how many times I actually did this while reading. When I look back at myself reading I would always have to try to fictionalize the writer so it could help me get a better idea of what I am reading. Another thing that Ong wrote was how “the writer may be dead or alive but that still does not matter for the text to convey a message to the readers”. Writers try to convey their message as direct as they can get so they can get their points across to the reader. Writers have to think ahead about any questions that a reader might have and therefore tries to cover all the questions that can possibly come up. Another thing is about the “different frame of mind” and how quickly the mind of a writer can change. I say this because I have met writers that published their books and said that they wish they could’ve changed this or that about this book but could no longer because it’s published. At the end of the day, we still fictionalize what we want about the writer although he might be dead or alive, it does not matter because it does not change the message they wrote.

Ong, Walter J. “Orality and Literacy” in The Book History Reader. eds. David Finkelstein, Alistair McCleery. Routledge, 2006

September 10, 2018September 10, 2018

Milagros’ Reflection for 9/10

While reading Ong’s Orality, Literacy.. this statement really stuck out to me and I connected it to a class discussion we had on Thursday. “First of all, names do give human beings power over what they name, without learning a vast store of names, one is simply powerless to understand.” (Ong,65) This quote resonates with me because as were were talking in class, Professor Karlin discussed how humans make things real and when we put ourselves in these technologies, this is when we make them ours and not artificial. This relates to the quote from Ong and made me think about our discussion because when humans do name something, we have power over the objects that we do name such as a pen, pencil, computer, and even humans at times. Using a pen or pencil and naming it we have power because we power these things to do what we want them to do even if they are inanimate objects. I thought it was interesting when Ong mentioned Adam in the bible and said “Explanations of Adam’s naming of the animal in Genesis 2:20 usually call condescending attention… “(Ong 65) because this is the perfect example to me when a human had power and named the animals from the beginning. As humans, we could have named things differently because we have the power to do so but its interesting to see how and why names came to be.

Works Cited

-Ong, Walter. ·Orality, Literacy, and Modern Media….. In David Crowley and Paul Heyer, Communication in History: Technology Culture, Society. Third Edition. New York: Longman, 1999, pp.60-67.

September 4, 2018

Jojo Karlin 9/6 Ong

“Those who use writing will become forgetful” (Ong 135). I can’t remember what I had for breakfast unless I write it down. I don’t remember my coffee order.

References: