Resolution: The World Makes Sense Again

This semester has been a really interesting one in terms of the progression of my research topic and my feelings toward it. I can honestly say that I've never had a semester that was so frustrating , but I've been able to push through and have come to a synthesis moment, to borrow the term from Hegel.

CC 2.0 Generic, Wikimedia Commons

I think one of my problems going into the paper for this class was that I came with so many topics that I wanted to address. Awe was and still is, in my mind, an interdisciplinary notion, and I think that biology, literary criticism, philosophy, psychology, and critical art theory all have important things to say about it. As I studied it more, though, I began to realize that I wasn't the only one having problems figuring out awe. The texts contradicted themselves, everyone used different words for the same things, and the works that seemed to be the most accurate in trying to define awe seemed to be the most abstract and vague and well. You might say that for about three months, I was pretty frustrated and had no idea what I was doing.

Final Draft: Awe Evolving

Well, after a long journey involving changing my entire premise no fewer than three times, my final paper is at last done. I'm not entirely sure that I understand awe a whole lot better than I did when I began, but I feel a lot more a peace with the place of awe in the digital world, and that's really valuable to me. I'll be posting the story of my paper tomorrow, so stay tuned, but until then, here's the final draft.

Awe Evolving: Transforming Notions of Awe in the Digital Age

Modern Modes of Expression and Conveyance

I've been thinking a little bit about accessible ways of conveying meaningful ideas, and I've come up with a few different techniques focused on digital media.

On the more technical side of things, we have things like MOOCs, or Massive Online Open Courses, and instructional sites like Codecademy. Admittedly, the “ideas” are meaningful in a more practical sense, but MOOCs and other similar resources nonetheless represent an important mode of digital conveyance.

The Codecademy Interface. Codecademy and other
educational sites allow users

MOOCs provide a way for educators and innovators to share information with broad audiences. They are pretty much like a regular course: there are schedules and assignments and a teacher or small group of instructors, but it's completely free, lower-stress, and catered to your interests. There are MOOCs for just about any topic you could think of. This list, for example, shows various MOOCs on fiction writing.

Instructional/educational sites like Codecademy and Khan Academy are similar to MOOCs, but rather than working on a set schedule, the student sets his own pace and works toward completing objectives based on specific micro-tasks (i.e. learn “if” statements in Javascript).

If Awe Makes Art, then Shut Up Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was pretty adamant that videogames can never be art

What makes great art? Often, the only answer is some form of "It inspires awe."

Well, can videogames inspire awe? Yes! In 5 ways at least.

The Awe of the Blank Canvas

+Juliet's  post on attending the Sacred Gifts exhibit got me thinking about a moment of awe from my past that I will probably always remember. (as I guess happens with most moments of awe)

I have been a lover of Van Gogh for a long time
My mom says since 4th grade
but i suppose that is debatable because that seems rather young

The point is:
I have had a love for Van Gogh for ages.
and always admired his famous Starry Night