Beitelman's 21.C Portfolio

For you to understand my approach to this class you must first understand my approach to myself. I think of myself primarily as a writer. Writers write and so will you this semester. But what do I mean by "write"? Here are the four basic (if not exactly self-evident) truths I hold about writing:

Writing is not a subject matter. This is pertinent to this class because you need to know that I do not come to it with a body of knowledge to impart to you. My goal is to model how I engage ideas. Putting words on a blank page/screen is one important way I do it. Reading -- slowly, closely, actively, widely -- is another. We'll do a lot of both in this class.

Writing is an act of connection. Connection to a reader, of course, but also connection to a particular subject and even connection to yourself. Flannery O'Connor said she wrote to find out what she knew. Connectivity is, therefore, interesting to me in general because it's an important way I connect to the world around me. I'm particularly interested in the ways the 21C. makes it easier and more difficult for real human beings to connect to one another. I also have a hunch that connection -- and the empathy it produces -- will be critical to finding solutions to the issues we'll talk about in this class.

Good writing is good thinking. Most of the writing process happens before and after the words go on the page. That makes it maddeningly difficult to know when you're actually done. Getting right with that requires a certain mindset. Writing is simply a mode of thinking that values deliberation and the need to probe assumptions -- even dearly held ones -- from various angles. Good writers are curious people who don't just ask how but why. They not only are comfortable with open-ended questions, they seek them out. I realize that's just one way to define "good" thinking, but that's how I define it. And it seems to me the 21st C. is all about some open-ended questions.

Make it interesting. As a writer, if you're not interested in what you're writing about, nobody else is gonna be either. I offer you the following three pods of my own peculiar interests, as they relate to the 21C. I'm going to be inviting you to live with me in each pod for a while, carving out your own personal space as you do it. I don't have answers; I just have questions. Lots of questions.


The Perpetual Marketplace
Central Questions and Concerns:
--Bottom Up vs. Top Down Movements.
--Mass Media, Branding and the 24/7 Rhetoric of Marketing.
--Credit, Consumerism, and the Global Economic Meltdown.
Source Material:
--Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software by Steven Johnson.
--The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman.

* The "Source Material" will inform our discussion but you won't be asked to read these texts in their entirety. I'll likely present a "book report" on them and the concepts they discuss, and you can borrow them from me if you're interested in reading further.


The Culture of Fear
Central Questions and Concerns:
--What are we afraid of and why?
--Fear as a Brand: Terrorism to Talk Radio.
Course Text:
--White Noise by Don DeLillo.
Source Material:
--The Culture of Fear by Barry Glassner.
--The Science of Fear by Daniel Gardner.


The Role of the State
Central Questions and Concerns:
--What is a ("our") government supposed to do about all this stuff?
--How do deficits and entitlements work and what role do they play in a government’s ability to fulfill its responsibilities?
--How do individuals fill in the gaps?
Course Texts:
--Declaration of Independence/Constitution.
--The Fog of War (documentary) by Errol Morris.
--On-line dailies and periodicals tracking geopolitical trends, with emphasis on the performance of the Obama administration.
Source Material:
--The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria.
--Millenials Rising: The Next Generation by Neil Howe, William Strauss, and R.J. Matson.