myth

This is an area for my notes on Mythology, or focussing Reality through its Myths. Some of this work I wrote for uni - I study film and French, and a lot of my theory is in Cultural Studies. Where the work has been particularly interesting, or got me thinking about a particular area, I've included it here. Other work is just things I've come across myself - whether it's music, film, philosophy or (*gasp*) politics or religion.

• The Author and The Logos (Jun2006)

  Written for 'Genre Study', a class on reading-for-writers. In this piece I've explored themes of authorship and of fiction, which were common throughout the course. I've also experimented with the writing: it's very broken, divided into sections with very different styles. The first section of the piece explains what I'm doing a little better, but a big caveat: this piece was written for Print, in an 'Online' style. Now I've actually put it online, I've done so retaining its Print style... (eg, footnotes rather than hyperlinks).

• First Impressions Redux: Foreign- and Local-ness in French film and culture (Nov2005)

  Wrote this for In-Country Studies, we had an option to revisit our [First Impressions](/myth/firstimpressions/ "First Impressions - France and Foreign vs Local Film") project, which I wrote on foreign and local film in France. In this piece I revisit some aspects of foreign and local film, and tie it in to my own experiences as a foreigner over the year.

• Visual Analysis :: 7Mai Capitulation Mural (Jul2005)

  Originally written for In-Country Studies at UTS, exploring the use of Visual Analysis in sociological research; talks about the method and the idea of a visual text, then some observations of the mural itself: created for the 60th anniversary of the Nazi Capitulation in Reims, I observed pointers to French and European identity, and interpreted the mural as a propaganda piece, on display just before the European Constitutional Referendum.

• Media Analysis :: France, Europe, and the Constitutional Referendum (May2005)

  Originally written for my In-Country Studies subject at UTS - had to write it as an exploration of how one would go about doing a Media Analysis as a method of sociological research; first part critiques the method, explores its limits; the second part is some observations I made about the representation of Europe and the constitutional treaty referendum, going from a handful of French magazines

• First Impressions :: France and Local vs Foreign Film (Apr2005)

  Originally written for my In-Country Studies subject at UTS - we were supposed to select a subject about the culture and yeah, give our first impressions of it... As a film student I wanted to keep up with the film scene in France, so that's what I wrote it on...

• Undoing Introversion
  or "Hi! I'm an introvert" (Nov2004)

  Put this together for a uni class, 'Culture, Writing & Textuality'. We were tasked to tell of a cultural encounter where one point-of-view was silenced. Although mine isn't about any specific event, it talks of the encounter between an introvert and the extrovert-dominant discourse in society. I put it together in a blog-like form, so there's a couple different writing-styles in there (although still clearly one voice). It's therefore part-diary, part-reflection...

• La Matrice (Oct2004)

  This is a big one, probably destined to be ever-changing as my mind mulls over the contents of the movies (and more: there's The Animatrix, the comics, the video game, lots to digest really). But still, it's a study of Mythology. Not only is the Matrix (ie, the whole franchise) full of references to mythology (Gnosticism in particular), but it's also a mythology unto itself, refracting the myths of the (post)modern world.

• Artorius Rex (Jul2004)

  Anyone who wants to see the movie and know _Nothing_ beforehand stop reading... Not that I'm going to give a lot away, but I do want to talk about Arthur's 'journey' and I will mention some things that happen at the end. In a way they're not critical to the movie, but then again, not a lot happens so maybe the character's journey is the only real plot...

• The Sound of Philadelphia
  or The Myth of Locality in US Hip Hop (Nov2003)

  This was originally written as a Music and Popular Culture major assessment. Basically just a run-down of the artists involved, but based on my realisation that there's something very different about the hip hop coming out of Philly. Still not quite sure what it is though; this essay will have to be revisited at some stage...

• John Mayer (Oct2003)

  This was originally written as a Music and Popular Culture assessment piece. I wrote it after Mayer's 2003 Australian tour, although it's not really a review of the show, it's more about placing John Mayer performatively, generically and historically. (Hence ?myth)