I’m not sure how to proceed with my video essay. My audio essay was wholly grounded in my personal experience. Thus far, my video essay is on the opposite end of the spectrum: it is distantly universal. The video essay … Continue reading →

  The essays that I’ve composed so far are concerned with the meaning, importance, and act of speech. As I prepare to compose a video essay, I’ve stumbled on an interesting question: is it possible to create a visual essay … Continue reading →

Narration, in a traditional documentary or non-fiction film, is straightforward: the words spoken are illustrated by images on the screen and the narrative itself progresses seamlessly; a story is told. In the video essay, however, narration can take advantage of … Continue reading →

We’ve talked in class about the difficulty of depicting abstract ideas in audio. The story told in “The Theory and Practice of Postmodernism: A Manifesto” by David Antin is definitely not abstract. It’s a mundane story about the search for … Continue reading →

My immediate concern when thinking about the audio essay is the use of voice…my voice. The physical voice is not usually a concern in writing classes. Jeff Porter sums this up nicely, writing that “we do not usually think of … Continue reading →

Inspired by Sara Levine’s “The Self on a Shelf”, I thought I’d take a closer look at John McPhee’s persona in “The Search for Marvin Gardens”. Upon closer inspection, McPhee’s persona does not “create the illusion of an intelligent, complex, … Continue reading →

We’ve seen this phenomenon already in Didion’s piece, this resistance of definition where the essay zooms in on its subject/question/object (the topic of the essay, let’s say), but pulls back before declaring anything. This week, we see the phenomenon again … Continue reading →