The IT Crowd is a British sitcom by Channel 4, written by Graham Linehan, produced by Ash Atalla and starring Chris O'Dowd, Richard Ayoade, Katherine Parkinson, and Matt Berry. The 'IT' in the show's title can be pronounced as either the word it, as in the 'it' crowd, or as the letters I-tee, as in the abbreviation for information technology (IT).
Set in the London offices of the fictional corporation Reynholm Industries, the show revolves around the three staff members of its IT department, compromising two geeky technicians, a genius named Maurice Moss (Ayoade) and the workshy Roy Trenneman (O'Dowd), headed by Jen Barber (Parkinson), the department's 'Relationship Manager' who knows nothing about IT. The show also focuses on the boss of Reynholm Industries, Douglas (Berry).
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Monday, 7 April 2014
Is Postmodernism Useful?
Debates about postmodernism and whether it is really a useful theory or not.
• Lyotard and Baudrillard share a belief that the idea of truth needs to be ‘deconstructed’ so that we can challenge dominant ideas that people claim as truth.
• There are always competing versions of the truth. A postmodernist cannot wish to remove one version of the truth and replace it with the ‘correct’ one. All notions of truth must be viewed with suspicion.
• Postmodernism challenges the very notion of truth….and certainly disputes the idea that we should live our lives by adhering to widely perceived ideas of the truth (through religion etc)
• Many critics see this position as offensive. They believe that it is a luxury of people who live in advanced, rich nations and democratic states to take this ‘playful’ stance on matters of truth… (JM, 138) For example, many people in sub-Saharan have to face very fundamental truths every day…truths about the need to eat to survive etc
• The denial of ‘grand narratives’ and moral principles in postmodernism is also objected to by people who have religious convictions and attach importance to moral principles.
• If truth is absent, many would argue that we sink into a moral relativism where ‘anything goes’.
• Even if you accept the idea that there is such a thing as postmodernism, many would suggest that its time has now passed. It has been argued that the events and aftermath of 9/11 have undermined postmodernism’s belief that we have reached the end of ‘grand narratives’. Religious fundamentalism is perhaps the ultimate grand narrative. Did postmodernism get it wrong? Possibly, but there is an argument put forward by some that 9/11 reminds us of why we need postmodernism to try to challenge the authority of ‘grand narratives’.
• Postmodernism has emerged from so many different disciplines that it is notoriously difficult to define. How much value can we ascribe to theory which remains so elusive? If it is difficult to define what postmodernism is all about, might we conclude that there is nothing really there: there is nothing at its heart.
• Postmodern challenges the ideas of core truths/principles. By disputing the very notion of core truths, it would be contradictory for postmodernism to establish a coherent and clear set of central ‘postmodern ideas’. It has therefore become impossible for postmodernism to coalesce around a shared ideology (it challenges the idea that you should/could have one) and as a result has postmodernism denied the possibility that it can make a difference.
• Some would argue that postmodernism is really a descriptive rather than prescriptive movement. It tries to describe current phenomena but does not really move towards any idea of how we should progress from this point. In many ways, it even disputes the idea that we can make progress.
• Can you really separate postmodernism from modernism? One criticism of postmodernism is that it is not as new as many would claim it to be. In particular, intertextuality/pastiche/parody are often seen as key characteristics of postmodernism but, it is argued, they can also be seen as characteristics of many modernist texts: ‘Joe Dante’s films may be marked by a plundering of all kinds of popular cultural sources, but then so is James Joyce’s Ulysees, a high modernist novel’.
It is important to remember that not everyone agrees with the ideas of postmodernism….Many would dispute the ideas commonly associated with postmodernism.
‘Although the omnipresence of the postmodern and its advocates would seem to suggest otherwise, not everybody subscribes to the view that language constitutes rather than represents, reality; that the autonomous and stable subject of modernity has been replaced by a postmodern agent whose identity is largely over-determined and always in process; that meaning has become social and provisional; or that knowledge only counts as such within a given discursive formation, that is a given power structure.’ Hans Bertens (1994)
• Lyotard and Baudrillard share a belief that the idea of truth needs to be ‘deconstructed’ so that we can challenge dominant ideas that people claim as truth.
• There are always competing versions of the truth. A postmodernist cannot wish to remove one version of the truth and replace it with the ‘correct’ one. All notions of truth must be viewed with suspicion.
• Postmodernism challenges the very notion of truth….and certainly disputes the idea that we should live our lives by adhering to widely perceived ideas of the truth (through religion etc)
• Many critics see this position as offensive. They believe that it is a luxury of people who live in advanced, rich nations and democratic states to take this ‘playful’ stance on matters of truth… (JM, 138) For example, many people in sub-Saharan have to face very fundamental truths every day…truths about the need to eat to survive etc
• The denial of ‘grand narratives’ and moral principles in postmodernism is also objected to by people who have religious convictions and attach importance to moral principles.
• If truth is absent, many would argue that we sink into a moral relativism where ‘anything goes’.
• Even if you accept the idea that there is such a thing as postmodernism, many would suggest that its time has now passed. It has been argued that the events and aftermath of 9/11 have undermined postmodernism’s belief that we have reached the end of ‘grand narratives’. Religious fundamentalism is perhaps the ultimate grand narrative. Did postmodernism get it wrong? Possibly, but there is an argument put forward by some that 9/11 reminds us of why we need postmodernism to try to challenge the authority of ‘grand narratives’.
• Postmodernism has emerged from so many different disciplines that it is notoriously difficult to define. How much value can we ascribe to theory which remains so elusive? If it is difficult to define what postmodernism is all about, might we conclude that there is nothing really there: there is nothing at its heart.
• Postmodern challenges the ideas of core truths/principles. By disputing the very notion of core truths, it would be contradictory for postmodernism to establish a coherent and clear set of central ‘postmodern ideas’. It has therefore become impossible for postmodernism to coalesce around a shared ideology (it challenges the idea that you should/could have one) and as a result has postmodernism denied the possibility that it can make a difference.
• Some would argue that postmodernism is really a descriptive rather than prescriptive movement. It tries to describe current phenomena but does not really move towards any idea of how we should progress from this point. In many ways, it even disputes the idea that we can make progress.
• Can you really separate postmodernism from modernism? One criticism of postmodernism is that it is not as new as many would claim it to be. In particular, intertextuality/pastiche/parody are often seen as key characteristics of postmodernism but, it is argued, they can also be seen as characteristics of many modernist texts: ‘Joe Dante’s films may be marked by a plundering of all kinds of popular cultural sources, but then so is James Joyce’s Ulysees, a high modernist novel’.
It is important to remember that not everyone agrees with the ideas of postmodernism….Many would dispute the ideas commonly associated with postmodernism.
‘Although the omnipresence of the postmodern and its advocates would seem to suggest otherwise, not everybody subscribes to the view that language constitutes rather than represents, reality; that the autonomous and stable subject of modernity has been replaced by a postmodern agent whose identity is largely over-determined and always in process; that meaning has become social and provisional; or that knowledge only counts as such within a given discursive formation, that is a given power structure.’ Hans Bertens (1994)
Monday, 31 March 2014
Friday, 21 March 2014
Genre Analysis
Note that an analysis of a text which is framed exclusively in terms of genre may be of limited usefulness.
Generic analysis can also, of course, involve studying the genre more broadly.
This is something we simply don't have time to do in class so you will need to spend time outside of class doing this (although you will hopefully have done lots of this when planning your production).
General
- In what context did you encounter it? (web, film, TV etc)
- What influence do you think this context might have had on your interpretation of the text?
- To what genre did you initially assign the text?
- What is your experience of this genre?
- What subject matter and basic themes is the text concerned with?
- How typical of the genre is this text in terms of content?
- What expectations do you have about texts in this genre?
- Have you found any formal generic labels for this particular text (where)?
- What generic labels have others given the same text?
- Which conventions of the genre do you recognize in the text?
- To what extent does this text stretch the conventions of its genre?
- Where and why does the text depart from the conventions of the genre?
- Which conventions seem more like those of a different genre (and which genre(s))?
- What familiar motifs or images are used?
- Which of the formal/stylistic techniques employed are typical/untypical of the genre?
- What institutional constraints are reflected in the form of the text?
- What relationship to 'reality' does the text lay claim to?
- Whose realities does it reflect?
- What purposes does the genre serve?
- In what ways are these purposes embodied in the text?
- To what extent did your purposes match these when you engaged with the text?
- What ideological assumptions and values seem to be embedded in the text?
- What pleasures does this genre offer to you personally?
- What pleasures does the text appeal to (and how typical of the genre is this)?
- Did you feel 'critical or accepting, resisting or validating, casual or concentrated, apathetic or motivated' (and why)?
- Which elements of the text seemed salient because of your knowledge of the genre?
- What predictions about events did your generic identification of the text lead to (and to what extent did these prove accurate)?
- What inferences about people and their motivations did your genre identification give rise to (and how far were these confirmed)?
- How and why did your interpretation of the text differ from the interpretation of the same text by other people?
Mode of address
- What sort of audience was your text aimed at (and how typical was this of the genre)?
- How does the text address your classmates?
- What sort of person does it assume they are?
- What assumptions have you made about their class, age, gender and ethnicity?
- What interests does it assume they have?
- What relevance does the text actually have for you?
- What knowledge does it take for granted?
- To what extent do you resemble the 'ideal reader' that the text seeks to position you as?
- Are there any notable shifts in the text's mode of address (and if so, what do they involve)?
- What responses does the text seem to expect from your audience?
- How open to negotiation is their response (are they invited, instructed or coerced to respond in particular ways)?
- Is there any penalty for not responding in the expected ways (think in terms of enjoyment for the audience or consequences for the institution)?
- To what extent did people find themselves 'reading against the grain' of the text and the genre?
- Which attempts to position your audience in this text do they accept, reject or seek to negotiate (and why)?
- How closely aligned is the way in which the text addresses you with the way in which the genre positions you (Kress 1988, 107)?
Relationship to other texts
- What intertextual references are there in the text you have created (and to what other texts)?
- Generically, which other texts does the text you created resemble most closely?
- What key features are shared by these texts?
- What major differences do you notice between them?
Wednesday, 19 March 2014
Her: The Digital Muse & Postmodern Culture (Amy Edelstein)
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