a learning essay: What I gained from this class
Looking back on my time in this class I forgot how eager I was to be a part of “Readings in Pop Literature/Culture” to begin with. I even emailed the professor, Dr. Marc Bousquet “I would really like to become a part of your class and become a more well-read student,” when requesting to get into his class on the last day of add/drop/swap after Dr. Trapp encouraged me with a sweet “Just between you and me, you might want to tell Dr. Bousquet why you are interested and what you hope to get out of the course. You never know—might make a difference!” last November. When the opportunity to join presented itself I noted that “there [was] a lot in [the] curriculum for me to learn beyond the literature itself.” It turns out, that is what I found most beneficial from our deep studies into melodrama.
While my recent experience with classics such as The Jungle and Rise of a Nation will definitely, and already has, serve me well in conversation and future writing, what I drew most from this class was how to regard new and old materials through the lens that recognized melodramatic techniques. The two assignments where I really felt like I crossed the threshold from reading about melodrama to understanding and being able to read into melodrama were the Storify project about Birth of a Nation as well as the individual project where we had to pull 6 examples of melodrama in the media from historic and modern media accounts.
The Birth of a Nation assignment was not only when I realized the effort required for this course, but also the first time I had to pull of qualities of melodrama on my own. This free reign scared me, but also forced me to decide what I thought was right and defend it. It was intimidating that I may be pulling the wrong ideas from the film, but that pushed me to create stronger rationale and defenses for my ideas. That movie was horrid, but the assignment helped me find meaning and motivation behind the filmmaker’s decisions. I enjoyed critiquing the film.
Similarly, my PowerPoint on “Melodrama in Media” let me use these new skills to investigate similar roles, but in topics that were more interesting to me. I was so fascinated to learn about things that were going on the world that I had been completely obtuse to in the Emory bubble. Ultimately this assignment helped me understand Elisabeth Anker’s and Linda Brown’s perspectives on melodrama more intimately. In this assignment I was critiqued on not going in depth enough with integrating the literature. While this was a flaw in my presentation, it helped me better understand what it means to connect established research with my own opinions or research. In my final project, one of the weakness I am still working to address on my website is weaving my own research more consistently through my site. While writing about and tying literature and research together has been a weakness throughout the course, I truly feel that I have a better understanding, and not only in this class, but in future classes, will be able to more eloquently produce sound arguments entering established academic conversations.
While my recent experience with classics such as The Jungle and Rise of a Nation will definitely, and already has, serve me well in conversation and future writing, what I drew most from this class was how to regard new and old materials through the lens that recognized melodramatic techniques. The two assignments where I really felt like I crossed the threshold from reading about melodrama to understanding and being able to read into melodrama were the Storify project about Birth of a Nation as well as the individual project where we had to pull 6 examples of melodrama in the media from historic and modern media accounts.
The Birth of a Nation assignment was not only when I realized the effort required for this course, but also the first time I had to pull of qualities of melodrama on my own. This free reign scared me, but also forced me to decide what I thought was right and defend it. It was intimidating that I may be pulling the wrong ideas from the film, but that pushed me to create stronger rationale and defenses for my ideas. That movie was horrid, but the assignment helped me find meaning and motivation behind the filmmaker’s decisions. I enjoyed critiquing the film.
Similarly, my PowerPoint on “Melodrama in Media” let me use these new skills to investigate similar roles, but in topics that were more interesting to me. I was so fascinated to learn about things that were going on the world that I had been completely obtuse to in the Emory bubble. Ultimately this assignment helped me understand Elisabeth Anker’s and Linda Brown’s perspectives on melodrama more intimately. In this assignment I was critiqued on not going in depth enough with integrating the literature. While this was a flaw in my presentation, it helped me better understand what it means to connect established research with my own opinions or research. In my final project, one of the weakness I am still working to address on my website is weaving my own research more consistently through my site. While writing about and tying literature and research together has been a weakness throughout the course, I truly feel that I have a better understanding, and not only in this class, but in future classes, will be able to more eloquently produce sound arguments entering established academic conversations.