A weblog for Pete Ellertsen's mass communications students at Benedictine University Springfield.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

COMM 317: A couple of blogposts on truth, "PoMo."

Why reinvent the wheel? Back in the fall, we got into this issue of the truth in one of my classes. A couple of them, in fact, since I find it impossible to make the real world conform to the neat little categories of 50-minute lectures. And here we are again, reading about truth. How do we really and truly know what's true? How do we find out? And what do we do for truth in the meantime, just in case we never do find out.

(By the way, if you find out what the truth really and truly is (or even what that phrase "really and truly" really means, uff, there I'm doing it again!), please let me know. We can co-write a book and make a lot of money.)

A couple of blog posts from November may be helpful. Let's read them. The first is about "Journalism and capital-T truth posted Nov. 13 ... and the second is "Postmodernism and media posted Oct. 27. The second one is heavy reading. It's about a couple of French philosophers and media theorists named Jean Baudrillard (pronounced jahn Bo-dri-AR) and Jean-François Lyotard (pron. Lee-o-TAR). It brings out a couple of things that are discussed in today's reading. Besides, if you remember to use the French pronunciation you can drop their names over a pitcher of beer and wildly impress your friends. And "PoMo" is, of course, a trendy buzzword for postmodernism. Flourishing academic careers are begun with less than this.

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About Me

Springfield (Ill.), United States
I'm a retired English, journalism and cultural studies teacher at Springfield College in Illinois (acquired by Benedictine University and subsequently closed). I coordinate jam sessions for the "Clayville Pioneer Academy of Music" at Clayville Historic Site and the Prairieland Strings dulcimer club, and I sing in the choir and the contemporary praise team at Peace Lutheran Church in Springfield. On Hogfiddle I post links and video clips for our sessions and workshops on the mountain dulcimer (a.k.a. "hog fiddle"), as well as research notes on folklore and cultural studies, hymnody and traditional Anglo-Celtic and Scandinavian music. I also posted assignments and readings in my interdisciplinary humanities classes. The Mackerel Wrapper (now on hiatus), carried assignments and readings for my mass comm. students. I started teaching b/log when I chaired SCI-Benedictine's assessment committee, and reopened it as the privatization of public schools grew increasingly troubling and closer to home.