Final Performance--The Genre Monkey

Below is the script for our (teal, rmeyers and sgb90) final performance entitled "The Genre Monkey." Again, this was only possible because of all of you and all your wonderful posts! If we can create a dialogue out of a collage of posts from this class, imagine what we can do with the dialogue taking place across the globe. It's been great having class with all of you! Best of luck and have a wonderful summer.

The Genre Monkey: A Collective Dialogue in 3 Acts

ACT I

Rachelr- I don't think that genres limit literature; they are merely a system for organizing the countless stories, histories, and accounts that have become a collective global library. 

Nk0825- Sometimes a definition is more helpful when it detaches itself from the object at hand and lets the object speak for itself.  

Mkarol- Can you organize the world without a center?

Sgb90- Rather, I think our tendency to divide the objects around us into contained categories should be paralleled with a deeper awareness of how permeable and overlapping all categories ultimately are.

rmeyers- So as human beings we organize the world into a 'false' genre, with solid walls, and marked boundaries, even as we realize that everything goes much deeper, and is much more connected.

Teal-In fact, the only constant observed in the world of genre is its ever-changing structure--"fluidity,"

Teal-Databases and blogs are unifiers in the sense that they open new doors to those who had limited access to their information before, but is this necessarily a good thing?

Spleenfiend- A blog or online diary does have a certain careless honesty about it.

Molly- Anonymity eliminates the need for self-editing on the Internet.  While that may not always be a good thing, it does allow the anonymous persons to say what they feel without worrying what anyone will think of them.

Shayna S- Yet, I would continue this train of thought by stating that an online diary such as a blog also has the characteristics of a piece of literature.

TPB1988- Blogs have their own unique style which differs greatly from that of a book and trying to coerce the two concepts together would not result smoothly.

Mkarol- This blends the distinction between the worlds of public and private, making blogs a paradox that combines both "anonymity and intimacy".

ACT II

Ruby and Sarah pull up chairs, sits down and raise their hands.

Anne Dalke- I was chafing from the formality of hand-raising

Rmeyers- Did you feel this was a duty?

Rmeyers- Was this conscious?

TPB1988- To this day I don’t know how this irrational train of thought continues. The only conclusion I can come up with is that after a lifetime of genres, opening up my mind is more difficult than I had hoped.

Shayna S- Who owns the internet?

Xhan- why is plagiarism such an issue now and what do people care?

ShaynaS- Companies are afraid of loss of control.

Jrf- surely a refusal to admit other points of view is exactly the failing of print media that the Internet is most prepared to rectify?

TPB1988- Questioning how things work and will work in the future is what we have been doing in this class all along

ACT III

Jessica turns around. There’s a monkey on her back.

TPB1988- I still feel the genre monkey on my back; Aybala50- Can someone be on my side?

Aseidman- The fact that we seem to be able to define an entire genre based on its length, and nothing else, is a bit bothersome to me.

Sweetp- I love this journey!  

Pause.

Skindeep- who do you create an identity for?

Rachelr- The Internet and blogs can both over display identity or keep one completely hidden; some people use it as a way to find themselves.

Herbie- we as people behave better when we know we're being judged. 

Skindeep-what we do need to change however is the stereotypes each label/category carries with it. frames, according to me, do just that -- they dont come attached with any stereotype or implication.

Jrlewis- We can be taken in by someone who offers truth with a wink and says ‘I’m telling you stories. Trust me.” 

Teal- "My God. Everything really does come back to everything else."