Photo Essay Proposal

…I am not entirely sure what I will do here. Image and text are two very complex and meaning-rich discourses, each with an attitude of its own, and sometimes it seems, a will of their own too. Combining the two in a manner cohesive enough to create fluidity and enriched meaning, but notso cohesive so the text/image act as redundant counterparts seems a bit like asking two intelligent, strong-willed, creative, and somewhat-mischievous children to play together. Let’s just say supervision will be required.

I am not entirely sure what will happen, not because I lack vision for what I want to do, but because it seems anytime we bring two modes together, something happens in the collision of modalities—meaning unexpectedly creates itself. So, I have a plan, but I am also quite prepared for the essay to create rhetorical forces of its own, as it presents different modes in conversation with each other. Who knows what they might have to say?

Research Question:
Wysocki demonstrated how our world, and thus our writing and media, have traded particularities for abstracts, and learned to devalue the “particular and the messy.” Yet, anyone who switches on daytime television will find a jackpot of soap operas revealing the messiness of personal life, for everyone to see. So, we do not live in a culture devoid of recognizing particularities and “imperfections,” but we limit them to specific times and places. In light of this, I aim to investigate what qualifiers are currently used to determine something is “too” personal or particular, and what do these “TMI-indicators” reveal about values and epistemologies? You could categorize my research question as epistemologically-based, but I believe the end result will also merge into discourses of feminist theory.

What I don’t know, that I would like to, is how can we integrate the “particular and the messy” without becoming overly explicit, or unnecessarily self-focused? How can academics begin to integrate themselves into their pieces as more than abstract authors? Since language at its core is abstraction, is it capable of portraying the non-abstract, and if so, how? If we all held different ideas of concepts in our heads, we would certainly find difficulty in communicating, so how can we balance accepting/recognizing specificities while also maintaining general understandings needed for human communication that will always be mediated?

I feel a question that the epistemological/teaching field has yet to answer, lies in regard to measuring the “Quality” (and if you know Pirsig, you know what I mean) associated with exposing these particulars. How can we get students talking and writing about their non-abstract selves, without getting long strings of gushing self-referential prose that does not successfully inspect or shed light on greater issues?

Methods:
I intend to include, throughout my essay, pictures of bodily aspects usually photo-shopped out—from moles to stretch marks to scars to wrinkles. I hope to utilize the strength of up-close images as a metaphor for examining subverted aspects of our thought processes and evaluation processes, just as these elements of bodies are often subjugated or sidestepped. I intend to spend a good amount of time looking at similar photo essays approaching this topic. Mining the comments on online articles is an excellent way to understand the different perspectives people take, especially when you encounter fiery objection. I am sure Wysocki and I will become close friends throughout this process, and New Media also offers a nice bibliography of related texts that will be mined. Also, besides the usual Academic Search Complete/Artemis/CompPile searches, I would love to take pictures of these “flaws” and talk to people about their own views of the particulars of their bodies. There are also some good pieces critically analyzing the “nude” as an art form, and whether that is a positive step towards non-objectification or not, a discussion I find fascinating and helpful. I also would like to find instances where writers shared particulars of their lives and it worked well rhetorically, verses when it went south, and why.

Speculations on Resulting Text:
Going back to the beginning, I am not entirely sure what this finished project will look like. It will probably be on pages, with writing and photos. That’s two things for sure. I am toying with the idea of creating two versions—a nice digital copy to submit online, and a “raw” copy that is hand-written, with the pictures taped onto the pages, representing more of a body with character than an abstract document with letters. But we will see. I think, I hope, it will cover a wide variety of topics, but unite them back around the struggle of “what gets priority in visual texts” and finding balance between unhelpful self-exposing and beneficial revealing of our particulars. I think it will look like a conversation of, in making meaning and communicating, where should the personal arise in a manner that furthers knowledge for all?