e-term papers--curiouser and curiouser

[A.M. Nornes]

This has everything to do with the idea of citing authority, whether it's
because found what someone else thought inspiring...or because you don't
have the gumption to come up with an opinion of your own. I've come across
too many fake papers, and they all have the same feel. It's as if the
extended quotes morph slowly into body paragraphs. They grow and grow,
expunging the citations and footnotes, and overrun the paper itself. It's
just shifted from paper pages with printed text to the internet. I'm not
sure it's changed that much in the end.

As Joe and Anne are suggesting, it's interesting to speculate about what
this tells us about the academy right now. I just spent some time skimming
some of these sites (some results below). Very little on Japanese film,
which says a lot about our field I suppose. Tons of papers on women's
studies, ethnic studies, etc. This may say something about the sheer number
of courses being taught, papers being assigned. However, it might also
indicate a certain nervousness about the knowledge itself. There must be a
density of the material that matches the density in the skulls and all that
good knowledge goes _thunk_ without leaving a dent.

But Joe writes,

> Agreed about that.  In the context of an internet discussion list trading
> ideas about Japanese film, the point is precisely about the hegemony of
> knowledge, about a resourceful new player in the production of meaning, a
> set of "pre-conceived" opinions available at competitive prices, easily
> digestible and indistinguishable once set into circulation from the real
> thing.  And there may be a sentimental, moral or ethical reason for
> preferring the latter in terms of originality or genuineness, but I can't
> think of a theoretical one,

Why not? This is a serious question.

Markus

____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
>From 12,000 Papers.com

Just 8.95 per page and free bibliography!

http://www.12000papers.com

The Makioka Sisters: A Review of the Film Based on the Novel by Junichiro
Tanizaki
A 5 page review of the film $B%a(BThe Makioka Sisters$B%b(B. Discusses the success of
the film in presenting the contrasts of a changing Japanese culture in the
years preceding World War II. Emphasizes the effects of Westernization of
the characters. No additional sources are listed.
Filename: PPmakiok.wps

A Comparison & Contrast of Akira Kurosawa$B%f(Bs $B%a(BRan$B%b(B With William Shakespeare$B%f(Bs
$B%a(BThe Tragedy of King Lear$B%b(B
A 5 page paper which compares and contrasts Akira Kurosawa$B%f(Bs 1985 film, $B%a(BRan
$B%b(B with William Shakespeare$B%f(Bs play, $B%a(BThe Tragedy of King Lear$B%b(B to determine
whether or not the film is a successful adaptation, remaining true to the
theme of the play, but occasionally deviating to reflect a Japanese
historical perspective. Bibliography lists 3 sources.
Filename: TGranlea.wps

__________________

The Paper Experts at http://www.superior-termpapers.com/

At this place you have to search by section list, Asian Studies or Film
Studies. It reads like the program for AAS or SCS! But nothing on Japanese
film, so you'd have to special order it. Yes, it's possible to send in your
assignment and have it delivered for 18.95 a page.

___________________

Mad Papers at http://www.madpapers.com/

This is a membership service, where you have to sign up with a yearly fee of
$7.95. Nothing on Japanese film, but I got a kick out of their terms:

Mad Papers Terms and Conditions

Mad Papers designed this site for reference purposes only. This means you
can view other people's information and use its ideas in writing your own
information.

Mad Papers is not responsible for what its members do with the information
or materials found on their site. Plagerism is a serious crime and anyone
found doing it can be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

______________________________________

The Papers Inn (http://www.papersinn.com) has no search engine, but if you
place one of their banners on your home page and it gets more than 250 hits
in a week they'll give you a free paper. Are you students out there
listening?

______________________________________
>From Coshe.com, which actually is free thanks to the mind-numbing barrage of
ads. Nothing on Japanese film, as far as I could see. But one on Manga that
is priceless, and worth quoting in entirety as it seems to hedge on some of
the issues floating around. I haven't changed a word, I swear! (One of the
best things about it was the banner ad that came with it: my alma mater's
football team site, uscfootball.com)


Condensation and Displacement in Manga
In the Comics Underground Japan novel that we read for class, the metaphors
and symbols are so rich, it's easy to loose the superficial meaning of the
comic. On just the manga cover alone, Satirical pictures depict one thing
but explain a viewpoint of another. These rich texts mixed with hand drawn
imaging prove to be a very potent tool in relaying Satire in comic form. At
first glance, the cover of the book shows a boy who's wiping his rectum with
some money, while he's reading a book to take up the bathroom time. But if
you look closely and analyze the situation, you find that the book cover of
the novel is a picture of a boy masturbating to a comic book. The funny
thing is that he's masturbating himself anally with Japanese money, by
flushing it down the toilet. The question is: is he getting off because he's
making a mockery out of the value of the Japanese money, or is he just
wiping his rectum while talking to the dog/shampoo. Face value, or deeper
image? In every comic in this book, images present one situation but
condense many different controversial and broad topics into a single image.
Also, the comics in this book displace many ideologized views on supreme
power figures with animals and machinery. This displacement and condensation
of images create a very rich text that is hard to decipher upon first
glance. On the cover-page of the first comic, "Hell's Angel" a man is
walking on his hands in a graveyard. He's wearing no pants and a woman with
a skeleton face is smiling at his genitalia. Tattooed on the man's buttocks
is an upside down picture of a city at night. Dripping with some kind of
fluid. Maybe it's snow, or maybe it's water. The point is that the only way
that people can make out the image is if the man is flipped upside down.
This could have several meanings or translations as to what this symbol
could mean. Either that a city or working civilization only operates on a
very upside down system, where the rich get lazier and lazier. Where workers
die at an exponential rate, putting the distribution of wealth and health
pyramid upside down where the top of the pyramid is thicker than the bottom.
This is one interpretation. The other could be that the city is like a
castle in a cloud, that instead of floating right side up, In real life
situation (where the man would be wearing pants and standing right side up)
the castle in the sky would actually be sinking, in a dysfunctional array.
Its amazing how rich this one picture is. So much is said about city life
and principal. The whole "show" that government and corporations try to
charade on the disillusioned people of modern day society. Now as for the
rest of the comic, the kind woman offers help to the tired man and piggy
backs him forever. She dies and turns into a dinosaur, still carrying him on
her shoulders. The photo angle of the scene opens to the chunk of land
that's floating in outer space. As if we've lost contact with the real
world, and that corporations have defined what is reality and what is
possibility- having us run a gerbil wheel of confused corporate jargon. In
the next comic, "It's All Right If You Don't Understand", the cover page the
man holds a beautiful iris in his hand but is obviously distracted by the
airplane crash off in the distance. He's probably wondering if someone died.
That shows that we, as a human race, crave excitement and drama, and that no
matter how easy life may be presented to us, we still crave the complicated
and masochistic disturbance that trauma brings us. As far as the rest of the
comic is concerned, the surface picture backs up my hypothesis as to the
meaning of the comic. A man who, in order to be with better terms of a new
boss, subjects himself to bondage and spanking in order to rise as a
corporate leader. Steel Pipe Melancholia is about a man who feels that duty
is more important than personal gratification, In saving the city from
noxious fumes, He is cheated from his wife, and loses in life. The cover
page of this story suggests that in a desperate rage of freedom, he cuts off
his hand to do both duty and free will. Too bad that he only has one hand
left to do anything with. In the last story that I'll use as an example, the
"Future Sperm Brazil", this story has nothing to do with Brazil. Even though
it's only a part of a whole story, this is rather confusing. So this guy
responds to a dream that he has of saving Japan in its time of crisis. Some
interesting things about this story are. Sadakichi Suzuki gets a hard on
every time he mentions awards or honor. This happens when the Japanese
people of Brazil are praising him, and when he mentions medals of honor
after fighting for Japan. Another interesting thing about this comic is it's
displacement of pride and patriotism to sperm lost in a sea (of struggle)
"With our spirit, the Pacific Ocean is a mere pool!!" "Fool! This isn't just
a swim; it's a battle! We can't let our casualties hold us back!" While all
of his colleagues die of "withered spirits", Suzuki still persists in his
vision of a great comeback for his motherland Japan, in hopes of becoming a
revered soldier in Brazil. His obsession with this vision that he had during
sleep haunts him to the point where he begins to justify his natural urges
with the blinding disillusion of the Great Emperor feeding him the delicious
tuna that he'd been carnally dreaming of. When in reality, he is eating his
comrade. On the last page of this comic, I notice that the red sun of the
Japanese flag is setting behind the sleeping cannibal. Hmm, I wonder if he
will ever get his precious medals. Overall, these stories are rich with
thought and pregnant with symbols of society and situations that are buried
underneath common knowledge and ideologized repetition. It is only when seen
through a Satirical medium that we are aware of the corruption of our state
of disillusion
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