Rowen's Writing Self-Assessment

Looking at my initial self-assessment, I personally feel like I didn't improve that much. It's hard to tell though, given the amount of writing we've done in this class. I wanted to become more efficient in my writing, and to an extent I think I did accomplish that, but not in the way I expected. I wanted to learn to effectively communicate ideas without being to flowery, but I think the way I improved the most throughout this semester was generating specific ideas that were easier to communicate efficiently.

I am very detail-oriented when it comes to writing, so much so in fact that I often get lost in those details. I spend way too much introducing topics and concepts that don't matter and aren't necessarily relevant to what I'm talking about. Since I developed a habit early on of developing a thesis based on research, rather than the other way around, my thesis development reflected the research I was doing. I learned a lot of really interesting, valuable things, but often I think my papers were more explorations of the things I learned than actual analysis. As such, they were often large, unwieldy things that didn't really go anywhere valuable. The lack of payoff  I think contributed to how wordy they seemed. It seems funny to me now because in my original self-assessment I said "While I am confident in my ability to arrange ideas on a macro level . . . I am less confident in my ability to arrange those individual pieces" it seems like what I was struggling with was actual what I was confident in- my details were often fine, but they didn't lead me anywhere, and since they didn't lead me anywhere, they felt fluffy and useless.

Professor Burton helped me to understand better the ways in which my theses were lacking in our individual meetings. At each meeting we held, he pointed out the ways in which I introduced concepts didn't necessarily communicate what I wanted them to, and therefore made the rest of the paper quite confusing. In the last paper, I made a concerted effort to create a focused and clear introduction and thesis, which I think is what enabled me to write the rest of the paper. Writing it the first time was insanely difficult; each sentence felt like I was pulling teeth to even get an idea onto the document, and it never felt right or good enough. Having a clear direction and a solid body of research to back me up really helped in this regard.

Regarding informal sources, I have very mixed feelings. I think one of the things that inhibited my ability to talk about my text in our penultimate paper was the reliance on informal sources. Since there wasn't a lot said on my text, and what little was said about the genre as well as the text didn't really add anything new or interesting to the discussion (the conversation about AI has kind of been done to death), informal sources didn't really add very much. They were much more helpful in the final paper. Even though I didn't use all of them, seeing how community opinions and thoughts reflected or conflicted with concepts in the research was really interesting.

Rowen's Current Research Questions

I'm currently working on developing a specific claim regarding the way in which an LDS critical approach enhances conversation surrounding Sea of Rust. I will likely focus on the inherent religiosity of most robot fiction and how examining that religion through a specific lens allows the reader better insight into the topic. 

Research Questions:

• Where can I access open-source classic science fiction?
• How can I distill the wealth of concepts discussed in this genre into a concise statement related to my topic?
• How do I find relevant information in a larger text? (30+ pages)

Rowen's Annotated Bibliography for Sea of Rust

[Print resource]
The Mechanical God: Machines in Science Fiction

I haven't had the opportunity to actually read this yet, but it looks like its going to be a valuable resource. Specifically there's a chapter called "from little buddy to big brother," which discusses AI in science fiction and how the AI-human relationship has developed in science fiction. While the relationship between robot and human isn't discussed in my text, the focus shift from robot/person interactions to robot/OWI interactions allows for a lot of the same discussions.

[Research Guides-English Literature]
Trussell, Richard Curran. “I, Robot: You Gotta Have Heart.” Journal of Religion and Film, vol. 9, no. 2, Oct. 2005. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2006443315&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

          This article discusses the core principles discussed in the movie I, Robot, a loose adaptation of the concepts discussed in Asimov's book of short stories. Even though the concept of identity is not the primary focus of my paper, it contributes to the concepts I discuss, since the topic discussed is identity through agency. 

          [image source]
          Gilham, Paul. "The Terminator as Seen in Barcelona, Spain, on May 9, 2009." Newsweek, 11 July, 2017, https://www.newsweek.com/artificial-intelligence-asimovs-laws-and-robot-apocalypse-why-new-set-634794.
          The common perception of AI uses either Asimov's positive approach, or a more negative approach as exemplified in the Terminator. This image would be valuable to discuss the fear which Sea of Rust capitalizes on to set up its world.
         
          [Bibliography- 251 Packet]
          Ngugi wa Thiong'o. "The Language of African Literature." Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature,  London : Portsmouth, N.H. :J. Currey ; Heinemann, 1986. 
          This chapter in Ngugi's book focuses on the erasure of culture in a colonial setting. I could use this to talk about the colonial nature of the OWIs in Sea of Rust.

           [FRANCIS Archive]
          Geraci, Robert M. "Robots and the Sacred in Science Fiction: Theological Implications of Artificial Intelligence" Zygon, vol. 42, no. 4, December 2007, pp. 961-77.
          Since my paper discusses specifically the relationship between the concepts in Sea of Rust religious concepts, this article will be especially useful since it focuses on the religious implications of the genre. 

Rowen's Annotated Bibliography on The Bards of Bone Plain

Working Annotated Bibliography: The Bards of Bone Plain

The main focus of my research so far has been the interaction between rural and urban environments in relation to creativity. The story focuses largely on the conflict between music as learned in an informal, rural setting, and music as learned in a "bardic college." The rural learning cannot have the same extensiveness as the college, but the college struggles to connect with the latent magic inherent to the more rural music. I'm really curious about the relationship between this concept and movements such as the pre-raphaelite and romantic movements, which both focused on very simple subjects and attempted to capture their beauty, but often the creators were not necessarily a part of the environment they depicted. 

[Full-Text database- JSTOR]
Kaneda, Takuya. “The Concept of Freedom in Art Education in Japan.” Journal of Aesthetic Education, vol. 37, no. 4, 2003, pp. 12–19. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3527329. Accessed 23 Mar. 2020.

This article discusses the evolution of art education in Japan from a rote, imitation based education system to a more organic system designed to encourage creativity. This will help me discuss the relationships between "internal" creativity and "learned" creativity, and how those two interact.

[Print bibliography- ENG 251 packet]
Eliot, T. S.. "Tradition and the Individual Talent."  The Egoist, vol. 6, no. 4, Sept. 1919, pp. 1-6.

Eliot's article, which elaborates on the relationship between tradition and talent, largely focuses on the value of studying, but not necessarily imitating other poets (or artists). I'm really interested in the relationship in The Bards of Bone Plain between art that arises organically (which Eliot disparages) and art that is created after study. Eliot's article will help elaborate on the principles behind the "study" perspective.

[Thesis/Dissertation abstract on BYU library]
Jensen, Jordan, "A Comparative Case Study: Investigation of a Certified Elementary Art Specialist Teaching Elementary Art vs. a Non-Art Certified Teacher Teaching Elementary Art." Theses and Dissertations, 2861, 2011. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/2861. Accessed 23 March 2019.

This dissertation concluded that many teachers, while more than willing to teach elementary-school students art, did not feel like they had the education necessary to teach children art. I think the fact that they can, but don't feel suited to the position was especially interesting and will help me discuss the benefits of encouraging internal creativity. 

[Image]

Millais, John Everett. Ophelia. 1852, Tate Britain, London. 

The artist who does most of the cover art for Patricia McKillip, including that for Bards of Bone Plain, uses a fairly common high-fantasy style for her art, which largely seems to imitate the art in the pre-raphaelite movement in the 1800s. From my understanding of the movement, there is a similar combination of incredibly detailed and intense style, depicting very simplistic subjects. 

[research guide- emailed Robert Means]

SZANIAWSKI, KLEMENS. “Creativity and Values.” Dialectics and Humanism, vol. 6, June 1979, pp. 73–76. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=phl&AN=PHL1084966&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Iili      I'm really interested in this article since it attempts to discuss the value of creativity. It could be argued that the protagonist in Bards of Bone Plain is not musical/creative at all, and it is his very non-musicality that ends up "saving the day."

Rowen's Reflection on Literary Analysis 2

Informal, Online, Or Multimedia Sources

The book, Sea of Rust, is fairly recent, so it was difficult to find a lot of actual conversation about it online. Much of the informal resources I relied on had to do with my school of literary criticism, LDS Criticism. I used lesson plans from the Churchofjesuschrist.org website and institute manuals to inform my discussions of Restored Church of Christ doctrine. I couldn't site it since I don't have it, but I did also use the introduction to Asmiov's I, Robot to inform some of my understanding of robot fiction. Not a lot of that actually made it into the paper though.

Literary Theory

The main focus of my paper was LDS Criticism, which was a really interesting way to read a book that was largely focused on something I can only term atheistic concepts of deity. It was interesting to see how the various aspects of LDS doctrine and philosophy could be applied to a (probably) completely disconnected work of fiction. I also focused pretty heavily on genre criticism. One of the main points of my paper was how this book both utilizes and strays from the traditional conventions of robot fiction, and how those choices connect to the LDS concepts I was focusing on

Writing Process

It's really easy for me to write about things I get excited about. I was so excited for the Ozymandias paper, and even though it still needs improvement, I felt like each part of the process was much more natural. I had a much harder time getting started and moving forward with this paper, and I think that also affected how well it came out. I wasn't as motivated, so I didn't put in the work I should have to really make it polished. So that's something I need to focus on going forward, making sure I force myself to put in the right amount of work regardless of my motivation, because there are some projects I just won't enjoy as much as others. I'm also really struggling with actual formalist criticism. I have a lot of fun talking about overall concepts expressed within novels, but smaller-scale things that happen on a more formal level are really hard to reach for me.

Critical Approaches to Sea of Rust by Rowen Bahmer

Sea of Rust, by Robert C. Cargill, presents a post-apocalyptic world where a robot uprising occurred, and the robots won, but are now being besieged by collective consciousnesses bent on absorbing all the data available. I really love this novel partially because it epitomizes everything I enjoy about science fiction.

• LDS Criticism: Agency is a vital concept in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Sea of Rust pits a dying race of individual robots against collective consciousnesses (OWIs). The very end of the book reveals that the protagonists are inadvertently supporting an alternative form of consciousness. The juxtaposition of these two concepts, and the uncertainties related to them, leaves room for conversation about the nature and benefits of agency.
• Feminist Criticism: Since all of the characters are robots, gender is a largely arbitrary concept. As I read this book for the first time, I had no way of knowing that Brittle was designed to represent femininity until she was explicitly described. I could investigate how this demonstrates the assumptions people make when they first begin to read a text
• Post Colonial: The story in its entirety takes place after a revolution against an oppressive force. That revolution only gave way to another form of oppression in the form of the OWIs. The "colonization" in this case though is the colonization of intelligence/data. This opens up discussion for what will happen if the current oppressed people actually win the war: who will become the next oppressor?
• Source studies: Robots have a prevalent concept in science fiction for over a hundred years. Sea of Rust actually briefly references one of Isaac Asimov's first short stories, "Robbie." He also takes a hint from Asimov's laws of robotics, and it would be interesting to look into how he reinterprets those laws.  

Rowen's Exploration Report

I've never been a fan of "robot uprising" books, especially after reading "i, Robot." (Which was never supposed to be a robot uprising book) Sea of Rust though, by Robert C. Cargill, really stood out to me. One of the first things I found was a book review blog discussing this book as well as two others related by that them-the robot uprising. One of them actually seemed really interesting to me, and it was cool to see how, in this era when the topic has been so well covered, people are still finding things to write about it.
https://sweatpantsandcoffee.com/shelf-care-robot-overlords/

One of the other things I noticed is that there is also a "Rust Sea" in the Transformers universe, which seemed really interesting. I don't know if Cargill was a big transformers fan, and got his idea from there, but it seems possible- granted, rust is a common symbol for the decay of metal so these two seas could have developed independently. Either way, it seems like a lot of stories have some sort of desert aspect to them, some sort of wasteland. I'm curious to see how and why storytellers use these wastelands
https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Rust_Sea

On Goodreads, a lot of people mentioned that it's really interesting at the beginning, but they started to become disinterested because of some aspect of the writing.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32617610-sea-of-rust

Rowen's Reflection on Literary Research 1

I think one of the things that I appreciated most about the various approaches to prewriting discussed so far is the community aspect of it. I'm used to talking through ideas with my friends and family, but being able to see what other people are researching, and draw on information that I might not have seen in my own research was really helpful to me. That seems like it's kind of the point of research anyway- all research does is locate work that other people have already done so you don't have to do it yourself, and researching as a community kind of does the same thing. Why should any of us have to find the exact right article for our papers if someone else already has?

Rowen's "Ozymandias" Prewriting

General Literary Resources -Textual Reference Works - Rowen Bahmer

Here I describe two textual reference works, designed to help the reader better understand the language of the text at hand. Specifically, I have searched for reference works which will act as a guide to the reader in understanding Percy Shelly's poem "Ozymandias." If I can develop a background in the language of Shelly's poetry, I will be better able to read and analyze that poetry in an appropriate context. 

Preface by Mrs. Shelly. "Notes to the Complete Poetical Work of Percy Bysshe Shelly"

https://search.lib.byu.edu/byu/record/edsbyu.e025xna.350514?holding=2h2vgsbmqtckillr

While this work may initially seem like a piece of biographical evidence of the author, Mary Shelly's preface to this book specifically states that she will avoid all reference to Percy Shelly's personal life, instead focusing throughout the book on how Shelly's individual poems came to be. She describes Shelly's motivations for writing as well as various categories into which his poems can be placed, which helps me to understand Shelly's writing. Ozymandias likely falls into the category of the "purely imaginative" poetry. She discusses in depth the overall themes of Shelly's poetry, as well as Shelly's strategies when attempting to put his feelings to words. 

A Companion to Romantic Poetry

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781444390650

After attempting to find more Shelley-specific sources, I finally decided to widen my scope to cover the whole of romantic poetry (why I didn't do this earlier is beyond me).  The book, which is available through the Wiley Online Library, provides insight into the traits common to all romantic poetry, of which Shelly's Ozymandias is a part. In the first chapter, the author discusses the ways in which a lyric poem "Bear[s] out a poet's essential idea of poetry." The introduction to "Ozymandias" could be construed to represent that ideal- Shelly's statement "I met a traveler from an antique land" introduces the poem and provides context for what poetry is, at least for "Ozymandias." Shelly demonstrates the inherent otherworldliness of poetry by making the subject of his poem very definitely removed from himself. 

A Dream In Letters

A Personal Essay by Rowen Bahmer

A novel approach to understanding poetry

Perhaps fantasy, as a genre, has been overused in modern writing. The fantasy model, with its massive inheritance of preconstructed world-concepts and philosophies, is a relatively easy genre to create in, and is almost guaranteed to be appealing to a wide enough audience to be profitable. Yet sometimes it is beneficial to rejoice in the typical; sometimes the everyday, average literature is not just worthwhile, but necessary. Sometimes even a genre as overdone as fantasy has something worthwhile to offer.

When I lived at my Grandparent’s house in California, Patricia McKillip was as much of a household name as any author could be. At any given time, a book of hers could be found next to a couch or lying on a coffee table. I loved reading, and I loved fantasy, but an eleven-year-old me with little interest in romantic or “feminine” literature was never interested in the frivolous stories the art on the cover of a McKillip novel implied. It was only after my mother and I moved across the country, and our collection of books decreased exponentially, that I began to contemplate reading one of her books.

The Bards of Bone Plain relies heavily on a much-belied literary strategy: the flashback. The primary story, occurring in the “present,” focuses on Phelan, a student of a bardic college who must write his final paper in order to graduate. The flashbacks focus on the topic of his research: Nairn, a famous bard who became lost to history and should be an “easy A” for Phelan. In this manner, the flashbacks are not of events already known to the characters, but of events as the characters are learning them. As the characters in the book become more entrenched in their research, McKillip shifts the reader’s focus from the story in the “present” to Nairn’s story, submersing the reader in Phelan’s experience as he performs his research. As Phelan begins to make connections between events in his time period and the research he performs, the audience becomes anxious to understand the next piece of history that will move the story forward. The flashbacks are therefore not awkward pauses in the storyline, providing exposition the audience should have already had access to, but a natural progression of the story.

Writing that Vibrates With the Soul

I don’t remember ever reading McKillip's writing for the first time- it seems to me now as if her words have been ever-present in my soul, an inherent part of the creation of my being. Some authors are capable of vivid, intensely visual action. They concern themselves with emotive details that lead the reader to react and feel as if they were “actually there.” George R. R. Martin has often mentioned his focus on intense detail in his writing, which results in a harshly realistic, distinctly physical narrative. McKillip seems to take the opposite approach-her writing focuses primarily on internal features of the plot. Never in first person, but constantly perceived through the lens of the thoughts and feelings of whatever character happens to be the focus, McKillip’s imagery feels more like an impressionistic painting than a harsh reality. McKillip’s writing isn’t something I could react to, because I was completely absorbed in it.

I never understood the value of poetry until I read McKillip’s prose. Describing a lover’s feeling, she states “She spoke, and his heart started up again, erratically thumping. Low and melodious, her voice sounded like some fine, rare instrument” (McKillip 56). The words in this phrase are nothing new. Descriptions of nervous hearts and similes between music and the spoken word are common to love, be it poetry or prose. Here though, McKillip creates a juxtaposition between the two that emphasizes the lover’s feelings regarding his beloved. It is not just in the obvious descriptions of people that McKillip emphasizes the lover’s inadequacy: the very form of the sentence highlights the disparity between the two characters. Nairn, the lover, describes himself with a short, stopping sentence. He then describes his beloved, Odelet, with a sentence that flows rhythmically from one idea to the next.

Formalism before Formalism

I didn’t realize it at the time, but as I learned the function of poetry, I also learned the value of the formal qualities of writing. Most of McKillip’s stories are only about three hundred to three hundred and fifty pages long, and yet each story contains a depth and scope, both of plot and pathos, that I have yet to see in the longer works of other authors. Through prose so artistic it waxes poetic, McKillip makes sure that not a single word is wasted. Her stories are efficient, but not in the way a textbook or manual is efficient. In the final pages of the book, McKillip reveals that one of the characters is immortal. She does this with the use of a name, and the statement “Phelan glimpsed the shadow of the endless road in his eyes” (McKillip 324). Rather than casually observing details of the event, I was part and parcel of it. I observed, with Phelan, the "endless road", and in that instant, I felt like I almost understood the pain of immortality. McKillip never needed to tell me what immortality was, she never gave me an extensive monologue from the character about his experiences traversing the Earth for hundreds of years. Instead she just gave me one character’s view of another’s eyes and a metaphor, and that was all I needed.

The Beauty of Dreams

I don’t know if words can accurately describe the experience of reading The Bards of Bone Plain, Od Magic, or In the Forest of Serre. Like Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I feel like saying “I have had a dream-past the wit of man to say what dream it was” (Shakespeare 4.1). What I can say for sure is that I have experienced thoughts and feelings in McKillip’s prose that taught me that words have power. In the frivolous halls of speculative fiction, I found the doors of poetry that had been shut to me no matter how much Shakespeare, Frost, or Eliot I read. There’s nothing wrong with literature, or the literary canon, but there is something exquisitely beautiful about a book I don’t have to be “taught” how to love.

Rowen's Literary Moments

Reverence [reading literature privately]

I read Ender's Game fairly late in comparison to many of my peers. Typically, I would bounce thoughts and ideas about whatever I happened to be reading at the time off of my mother, since she was the only other person in the house, , but not so with Ender's Game - my mother never liked the story, so I never really got to talk about it. The further I got, the less people who had recommended it to me were interested in what I had to say about it, and so the less I talked about it. I read the final chapters alone in my bedroom . . . I don't cry at books, I never have. But the final pages of Ender's Game made me glad that I could experience in the privacy of my own mind. I closed the book, and reverently placed it back on the shelf.

A Very Different Christmas Story[Cinematic Literary Experience]
I can't remember if I saw Hogfather or read it first, but either way the visuals and narration I associate with the story thanks to it's cinematic adaptation stick with me every time I read or watch it. I cannot unhear the voice of Death teaching a human about why belief matters.

This Story is Nothing Special [Literary Coping]
Somewhere in the internet, there is a blog which contains all of my most embarrassing angsty teenage poetry. I had a lot of angst, a lot of teenage, and a lot less poetry.

Words I Did Not Understand [Literature Performed/Theatrical Experience/ Foreign Literary Experience/ Sublime Literary Experience]
I know there's an entirely different subset for music-as-literature, but this actually falls in multiple categories. I recently had the opportunity to attend a concert by The Hu, a Mongolian Rock band which uses traditional throat singing and electric guitars to revitalize Mongolian culture. I can't put into words how I feel about their music, and I'm not really sure which category this story goes into, but it belongs somewhere.

Nothing I Write Makes Sense [Creatively Composing]

I've written very few songs that I'm actually proud of. Two specifically come to mind- one I wrote on my mission after I had vowed not to write sad music whilst serving the Lord (a choice with debatable legitimacy) The second I composed while I was a confused mess about romance. Turns out that was the only good love song I've ever written.

Going to Open Mics is Fun :/ [Literary Envy]

I'm sorry that so few of my stories have to do with traditional literature. Until I became too busy with school to manage, I attended the open mic at Velour for about a month. I really admire the musicians there, both for their content and compositional skill, but I cannot help but feel raw whenever I go. Its also spurred me to attempt to be more creative than I have been recently, so that's good. 

Rowen's Academic Writing Self-Assessment

In my English 251 class last semester, we were assigned a reaction paper in which we discussed one of the readings for the section. I chose Stanley Fish's "How to Recognize a Poem When You See One." I feel this assignment was well-organized. After discussing Fish's conclusions within the context of the paper itself, I expanded those conclusions to include moments in recent cultural history when individuals saw "poetry" (or, in the case of the evidence, visual art) where poetry did not initially exist. I further demonstrated Fish's beliefs in the opposite direction, demonstrating that pieces meant as art by one person could be quite literally perceived as trash by anyone other than the intended audience.
While I am confident in my ability to arrange ideas on a macro level, so that each piece of an argument works well with the other pieces, I am less confident in my capacity to arrange an organize those individual pieces. Many have said that my work is "too wordy" and that is something I struggle with constantly.

Rowen's Shelfies