Academic Plan

Through the work done this semester, I have gotten a better idea of what I want to do. My literature review about the dialogue between post-modernism and Zen Buddhism helped me to think about the issue of language and its limits. My interest seems to be in understanding what is on the outside (or inside) of language. What cannot be expressed in language. And the kind of faith we need to be effective thinkers and speakers. Not faith in a traditional religious sense, but in an everyday sense. My feeling is that we all use this kind of faith to live our lives everyday. It takes faith to communicate something successfully, to make that leap in thinking that allows one to believe one human being could truly understand another.

I think this applies to the current situation in our culture, where people often have a hard time communicating. In the mainstream media, dialogue can often be stifling, as it sometimes works not to open new possibilities but to polarize the disparate camps of thought. To a lesser degree, Academia seems caught up in this too. I have found Derrida and post-modernism to be an interesting way to clarify our understanding of this problem. To work towards strengthening our perception and asking better questions, to open up new ways of understanding problems, whether they be intellectual or otherwise, seems to me to be very important work right now.

I think this work applies to all languages and media. The difficulty people have in adapting to new media seems to me to be a metaphor for the difficulty found in understanding and opening to the Other. My interest in this is not, I hope, abstract, but rather continues my interest in the language of symbols and in cultural metaphors as a whole. Where this will lead me is still somewhat uncertain.

Certainly, there is a lot going on in even the most unsophisticated of movies and video games that is worth looking at closely. A look at the ontology of video games would be an interesting project, given the medium’s use of first and third person perspectives and its use of non-linear and player-directed narratives.

But what about money? I have a job right now, but it is not very satisfying. I get to use a limited set of skills in print and Web editing, but it certainly is not enough to satisfy my creative side. Will I work in production someday? Quite possibly. Perhaps on some PBS show, a non-fiction show with a small budget. And then we’ll lose funding and I will attempt to sell my skills wherever I can. Ah well…

Plans for the Immediate Future

I plan to broaden my skills. I want to learn to design things, whether on the Web or elsewhere. I would like to continue my writing and perhaps work on a screenplay. Will I be able to synthesize my interest in semiotics, movies, and video games? It will be a challenge, but I look forward to it.

I enjoy writing and telling stories (mainly to my kids) and I will take a course in screenwriting at some point in this program. My plan is to write a thesis exploring some of the themes I have written about this semester. I will continue to take six credits per semester, as I will still be working full time and busy as a father of two children. I plan on taking “Media Practices: Design,” “Cinematography: Art and Technique,” and a video editing course. Next semester, I will be taking “Cinema Theory and Analysis,” along with “Media Practices: Concepts.”

As I think my visual abilities have gone somewhat untapped in my life; it will be exciting to see if I can tap those now, whether in screenwriting or some other visually rich field. I am most excited to get a chance to do my own design and video work in the “Concepts” class. I would like to make some short video pieces dealing with some of the themes I mentioned earlier. I enjoy some of the more experimental videos on YouTube, especially those that mix the spoken word with interesting visuals:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xmqz38QtSU

I also find short animations very inspiring, like this one from two of the animators from “South Park.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERbvKrH-GC4&feature=related


I will take design and short film and video classes to augment my understanding of this type of work.

Right now, for my “Ideas” class, I am working on a paper concerning Heidegger and McLuhan’s views on technology. I find this topic to be extremely interesting. Heidegger has this concept of technology as “revealing.” But what is being revealed? This type of question seems to be worth asking, as we are in a bind with technology in western society. To think about media in its social, political, and spiritual implications makes a lot of sense to me. How can we improve our use of it in this culture? Why is McLuhan’s “global village” the site of so much intolerance and bloodshed?


I have a sense that my emphasis on signs and language could be an attempt to understand why it is that members of the same species are so intent upon destroying each other. Why it is we cannot understand each other, the Other, on so many levels. Despite our technological and scientific “progress,” we as a culture are far more violent, cruel, and perverse than any primitive culture could imagine. An inner journey is needed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SnfxItXe7s


While at times it seems as if combining the theoretical and the practical in my work will be difficult, the challenge is worthwhile. And I think I am in the right place – as combining theory and practice is the aim of this program.