Your Thoughts on I'm a Cyborg But It's OK

Blogging this week is optional, and if you do post, you'll earn 2 points of Extra Credit!! However, since you have both a final essay and a final exam to do this weekend, I'd much rather you prioritize those tasks rather than blogging.

So, for those of you that are terribly behind in the points game and desperately need the 2 extra points, here are some questions to answer about I'm a Cyborg, But It's OK:

1. In class and in the WIRED article "Seoul Machine," you heard/read about South Korea's rapid rise to the forefront of global technological development. How do you think I'm a Cyborg relates to S. Korea having grown into a tech powerhouse so quickly and so recently?

2. One could say that both 2046 and I'm a Cyborg are romances/love stories first, and sci-fi stories second. Why do you think Wong Kar-Wai and Chan-Wook Park both decided that sci-fi would be a good complement to romantic fictions? How did technology and science work to illustrate or facilitate love in both films?

Good luck on your final projects for the class!!

Schedule for 1-on-1 Meetings re: Essay Proposals

Here is the schedule of meetings to discuss your Essay Proposals. Please show up on time. My office is in 624 S. Michigan, floor 13, office 13F. When you get out of the elevator on the 13th floor, look to the left. You will see Suite 1300. Go inside that suite of offices, mine is office "F."

Monday, 3 December 07

11:45: Josh

12 noon: Gunnar

1:00 pm: Nikko

1:15 pm: Tom

1:30 pm: Shane

2:00 pm: Tim

2:15 pm: McCurry

2:30 pm: Nila

3:00 pm: Claire


Tuesday, 4 December 07

12 noon: Steve Madonna...Yeah!

2:15 pm: Elliot

2:30 pm: Rachel

2:45 pm: Lindsey

3:00 pm: Briana

If you haven't set a time with me yet, then email me at abigail.derecho@gmail.com or aderecho@colum.edu to do so.

Your Thoughts on 2046

Remember, THERE IS NO ASIA/SCI-FI CLASS THIS TUESDAY, 27 NOVEMBER. The next time that our class will meet is TUESDAY, 4 DECEMBER. Therefore, you can have until 5 pm on Monday, 3 December to post your responses to the questions below.

I passed out photocopies of all of the readings related to 2046 in class last week, but in case you lost them or missed class, here is where you can find them on the Web (i.e., they are not on OASIS):

1. "Sci-Fi Ascendant" by Mara Hvistendahl, from Seed Magazine. 2006. At:
http://seedmagazine.com/news/2006/09/scifi_ascendant_1.php

2. "U.S. needs lesson from China on technology" by Steven Schwankert, from InfoWorld. 2006. At:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/05/12/78257_HNchineselessons_1.html

3. "Science Fiction, Globalization, and the People's Republic of China" by Lavie Tidhar, from The Science Fact and Science Fiction Concatenation. 2007. At:
http://www.concatenation.org/articles/sf~china.html

4. "Desire and Loss in the Curve of a Back" (review of 2046) by Manohla Dargis, from The New York Times. 5 August 2005. At:
http://movies.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/movies/05wong.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Questions on 2046:

1a. What were your reactions to 2046? What thoughts, feelings, and/or questions did you have about it? What did you think it was about? (You might read Manohla Dargis' review from the NYT and consider whether you agree or disagree with her opinion about the film).

1b. What did you make of the film's science fiction aspects? How do you read 2046 as a sci-fi film?

2. In class, we talked about the lack of a Chinese tradition of sci-fi. Two of the assigned articles discuss how science fiction has been alternately condemned and favored by the Chinese government throughout the 20th century, and how the current state now encourages artists to create sci-fi fantasies. 2046 is a part of this fresh wave of Chinese science fiction. How is this example of millennial Chinese sci-fi different than, or similar to, Western and Japanese science fiction? What do you think accounts for these differences or similarities?

3. The Chinese government is obviously hoping that Chinese sci-fi written today will help guide future technology development in the country. At the same time, both Hvistendahl and Tidhar point out that science fiction is often used to criticize contemporary social norms. Where does 2046 fall on this spectrum: does it provide an interesting imagined future for China, or is it a critique of the nation? Can you interpret 2046 as a political film in any way, and if so, how?

Once again, our next class will be on TUESDAY, 4 DECEMBER.

Your Thoughts on Wave Twisters/Robot Stories

Make sure you download the readings for this week!!! And answer these questions by Monday, 19 Nov 07 at 5 pm:

1. Lisa Lowe's chapter discusses the myriad ways that Asian Americans have always been figured as "immigrants" and "aliens" in contradistinction to American "citizens," even when Asian Americans *are* citizens. She talks about the uses of cheap Asian labor, the national origins quotas, the repeals of those quotas, the model minority myth. How can you use Lowe's theories and the history she describes to "read" (i.e., make meaning from) Wave Twisters?

2. How can you use Lowe to read the episode of Robot Stories that we saw?

3. What did you find interesting, intriguing, puzzling, or surprising in either the Greg Pak interviews or the DJ Qbert interviews (or the Wave Twisters reviews) or both?

Note: You won't get any points if your answers are along the lines of, "I don't see any way that the Lowe chapter relates to those movies, and I didn't find anything interesting in the interviews." Not. Acceptable. Answers.

Your Thoughts on Gankutsuou (Count of Monte Cristo) and Casshern

Next week, we're seeing two pretty short films, so we'll have plenty of time to discuss the anime we saw on Tuesday, Gankutsuou (The Count of Monte Cristo) and Casshern. Just as last week, at least 20 of you have to download the 3 articles from OASIS ("Cyberpunk Anime", "Frankenstein and the Cyborg Metropolis," and "The First Time as Farce: Digital Animation and the Repetition of Cinema") for anyone to get points for blogging. But since that was no problem last week, it definitely won't be a problem this week!

Here are your questions for this week, and be sure to post by Monday, 12 November by 5 pm:

1. In the article "Stylistic Crossings: Cyberpunk Impulses in Anime," Jane Chi Hyun Park points out how Western cyberpunk novels and films often depict the future as Asian, but Asian cyberpunk films are often set in an Occidentalist rather than an Orientalist future. We saw this trend in Memorizu: Canon Fodder a few weeks ago, and more recently we saw in Gankutsuou and Casshern Japanese visions of the future that are saturated with European iconography. Where did you notice Techno-Europeanism in Gankutsuou and Casshern, and why do you think Japanese anime (and anime-style) sci-fi filmmakers have chosen late-19th/early-2oth century Europe as their visual template for the future?

2. In the article "Frankenstein and the Cyborg Metropolis," Sharalyn Orbaugh traces a shift in sci-fi: from the beginning of film through the 1980s, sci-fi novels and films were modernist and highlighted a strict division between "life" (humans) and "non-life" (machines, robots), whereas beginning in the 1980s and continuing today, sci-fi films (especially anime) are postmodern and depict a future in which there is a range of "life forms," posthuman cyborgs (part-human part-machine). Orbaugh uses Blade Runner as an example of a modernist "life vs. non-life" sci fi film. How might we regard Casshern as an example of a postmodern "range of life forms" sci-fi film? Are there other ways you can compare or contrast Blade Runner and Casshern?

3. This is a question about formalism in film. In the article "The First Time as Farce: Digital Animation and the Repetition of Cinema," Thomas Lamarre relates that digital cinema (including recent and contemporary anime) attempts to make cinema "from scratch," or "cinema without cinema"; in other words, the goal of these films is "replicating or simulating cinema within digital animation." Do you think Gankatsuou or Casshern are aiming for this goal - "cinema without cinema"? If so, do you think they succeed? Or, if you think they are aiming at something else - some form of filmmaking that is not trying to replicate or simulate cinema, what do you think they are trying to accomplish with digital animation?

Your Thoughts on Firefly

So, in keeping with my Third-Grade Teacher speech on Tuesday about how many of you need to UP YOUR GAME in this class, I am going to insist that ALL of you download the readings this week. Of course, it would be great if you read the essays, too, since they are interesting and provocative (there is even one with the word "whore" in it this week), but all I'm asking right now is that you download them. Last week, 8 people downloaded one article and 6 people downloaded the other. There are 27 people registered for this class. If at least 20 people don't download the articles this week, I am NOT GOING TO GIVE ANYONE POINTS FOR THIS WEEK'S BLOG. And then you'll all be down 2 points. Who wants that? So go on, go to OASIS and download those articles!!

Okay, now that you've downloaded and read the articles, here are the questions:

1) How does the idea of the "China Threat" relate to Firefly?

2) Do you agree with Wright's claims about the visibility of Asianness, and invisibility of Asians, in Firefly? Why or why not?

3) What did you think of Chinn's argument about Inara as an attempt at depicting a "postfeminist prostitute"?

Your Thoughts on The Matrix/The Animatrix (The Second Renaissance)

Remember, for those of you who haven't yet handed in your midterms, next Tuesday is the last day I'll be accepting them.

Here are this week's questions; as usual, post your answers by 5 pm on Monday, 29 October:

1) The Wachowski brothers (writers/directors of The Matrix films) have discussed in a number of interviews the tremendous influence that Japanese anime (Ghost in the Shell, Akira) had on their conception of The Matrix, both in story and style.

a) What evidence do you see of Japanese (or other Asian) aesthetics and storytelling techniques becoming prominent in U.S. entertainment? You can describe examples from TV, video games, music, and visual arts, not just from film.

b) Director Shekhar Kapur has predicted that in 10 years, the world will be dominated by Asian media. How likely do you think it is that this forecast will come true? If this does occur, how do you think Hollywood and the West will react?

2) Why do you think that, in the Matrix universe, most of the residents of Zion (the last remaining humans) are not white? Offer your theory about this, and explain how your theory relates to contemporary race issues in the U.S.

3) Nakamura says that "The Matrix constructs a new discourse of race in the Digital Age, one that plugs us in to our own dreamworlds about cyberutopias and cyberfutures. And like any dream, it is conflicted; it opens a window into our cultural anxieties, fears, fantasies, and desires about the Internet and the roles of blacks, whites, machines, and all combinations thereof." (By the way, I think it's very odd that Nakamura, a Japanese-American scholar writing about techno-orientalism, leaves out Asians from her list of races that are interacting in The Matrix.) What do you think The Matrix or The Animatrix - Second Renaissance says about "our cultural anxieties, fears, fantasies, and desires about the Internet," and about race in cyberspace?