Subculture Unit

Transmissions from Camp Trans
The claim is that the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival is a place just for women to enjoy themselves.
Type of Argument= Classical

Dark Webs Goth Subcultures in Cyberspace
The claim is that through cyberspace goths are able to use the internet just like everybody else is to find information and communicate through the use of cyberspace.
Type of Argument= Toulmin

The Truck Stop as Community and Culture
The claim is that truckers can be viewed or compared to cowboys. In such ways that defend their community and and strong independent men.
Type of Argument= Classical

House for the Homeless
The claim is that homeless people are just like everyone else and should be treated as human beings.
Type of Argument= Rogerian

Right now I am at the process where I have information and I have went to my field site but I still feel like I need a little bit more information from each, my field site and research. When I first began my research I just looked up basic information about my subculture but when I need to research the information I found out about from the field site about my subculture. There also needs to be another visit to the field site before I begin writing my paper to gather a little more details. I plan on going back to my field site this weekend to get the last bits and pieces that I can get before the first draft is due. As for peer review the main thing I wanted people to look at is how well I introduce my field site and claim into the paper.

Inside The Jail

JAIL

My subculture is "Women Behind Bars. " The field site I choose to observe was Clayton County Jail located at 9157 Tara Blvd in Jonesboro, Georgia. This jail houses men and women. As you enter the front of the jail area there is a very nice court house and right behind the court house is the jail. It looks like your average jail, with grey cement walls and little windows. You could see from the outside where the inmates had wriitten saying on their windows. As we entered ther jail house we had to go through alot of security and had to show ID. Unfortunately, we got there around the time that visting hours are over. So the inmate, which is my cousin, we could not get to interview. But the plus side was that i was able to interview an officer that worked at the jail. I was extremely nervous because i already knew that i was just going to get basic answers that were not going to be that detailed. I was able to find out that there are a total of 768 inmate cells. There are also about 2000 beds. I plan on going back to the jail sometime within the next week to get the interview with my cousin so i can get more details about what actually goes on behind bars. The whole experience overall was a great one. I really enjoyed learning about what is involved in this subculture.

List of Terminology
Inmate
pods

Prison Performing Arts

What makes this a good field site?
This is a good feild site because the author actually went to the prison and could observe what goes on into putting a play together with prisoners. This is also a good site because the prisoners could relate the different characters of the play to other people who werr in prison. The prison also had a mixture of races so the listener can get different points of view.

What observations does the author make that gives us a better understanding?
Straight from the beginning the author starts by describing the prison from when he first walked in. He describes what the prisoners are doing and even what tattoos they have. Also by listening to the actual prisoners recite the play it informs the reader just how diffcult it is to put a play like this together because the prisoners can barely pronounce the words. He also decribes that every prisoner must be stripe searched before entering the room and he also describes how the room looked and felt like. He said that it was extremely hot.

What interview techniques work to help us understand the subculture?

Not only interviewing the prisoners but also interviewing director and the assistant director give you a better understanding of exactly what the subculture entitles. Each of the prisoners interviewed gave you their personal feelings about the play and it helped me to understand more about prisoners performing this play. Big Hutch described how he felt in a way which the listener could relate to. He made the whole interview worth wild. The author is constently referring to what the outside world views prison as. Like when he talks about gays and straight people in prison.

What are the norms and values of the subculture?
All the people that play the same person form together as a group and are often found hanging around each other. One of the norms that I also caught was that even though the prisoners are performing a play there are still levels of hiearchy as referred to by Derek "Big Hutch" Hutchinson. The prisoners value what they do because they are able to relate the play to real life situations. One prisoner describes how the director lady made them feel human even when they had to bend over butt naked and have someone look up their butt.

Women Behind Bars

Topic: Women Behind Bars

Sources:
Huneven, Michelle. "Susanna Moore: Women Behind Bars." Prison life in The Big Girls (2007):

Rathbone, Cristina. A world apart : women, prison, and life behind bars / Cristina Rathbone.. New York: Random House, 2005.

Rubio, Tena. "Lockdown on Life: Stories from Women Behind Bars ." National Radio Project (2007):

Talvi, Salja. Women Behind Bars: The Crisis of Women in the U.S. Prison System. California: Seal Press (CA), 2007.

Young, Vernetta. Women behind bars : gender and race in US prisons / Vernetta D. Young, Rebecca Reviere.. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006.

Reflection: I choose "Lockdown on Life: Stories from Women Behind Bars” by Tena Rubio because I felt like it was the most interesting source that I found. This source was actual audio and video of real life women behind bars discussing their lives. I felt like this source would be the most useful because I would be able to quote different things from the women’s stories. This source was one in which I could listen to the women and actually hear the pain in their voice. This source really kept me interested and I actually wanted to keep learning more about women behind bars.

Pirandello

The word I choose was Pirandello. At first I had no idea what the word was or could even mean. But after going to library and learning some different research skills I was able to figure out what the word Pirandello actually meant. From the first source I was able to figure out that my word Pirandello was a person. His name is Luigi Pirandello. Just by looking up the general information as in what books were actually about him I learned things before I even read or started looking up information. Also from the first source I learned that he was born I 1867 and died in 1936. I also learned that he wrote during the romantic period. (Baisin) From the second source, which I am not too sure how I found it, I was able to find different quotes from Luigi Pirandello. One quote was “"A man will die, a writer, the instrument of creation: but what he has created will never die! And to be able to to live for ever you don't need to have extraordinary gifts or be able to do miracles. Who was Sancho Panza? Who was Prospero?” (Six Characters) Another source I found was from a teacher I believe that wrote an analysis on one of Pirandello’s stories. He stated that, “Nevertheless, this epistemological-and by extension aesthetic-problem proved significant for writers such as Henry James, Wyndham Lewis, Luigi Pirandello, James Joyce, and Samuel Beckett.” (Lamb) The fourth source that I found I found it the most interesting because it actually interpreted the stories that Pirandello wrote about. From the story Right You Are (If You Think You Are) the source I found stated that the story has” No sex, no death, but there's plenty of passion in this play about identity and relative truths.” (Nichols)

I started my research on Ludacris the same way I start all of my research, by going to ask jeeves. I don’t know why but it seems like whenever I am looking for something I always start there. After typing his name in, of course a whole lot of wrong results came up so on the left side there was a tap that helped narrowed my search to find out just about Ludacris and not all the other random things it popped up. From here I clicked on the third topic and it gave me all the background information on him. I found out where he is originally from, his real name, and other basic background information. After I found this information out I started searching for different songs he wrote and the ones I found interesting I went to AZ lyrics to get the exact words and find out what the songs were really about. Just by finding out what his songs were really about and the environment that he grew up in the information help me out a little with writing my paper. Looking at the lyrics I felt that it was an advantage because I was able to see he his point was behind his music. This helped me to figure out what the argument could be for my paper. There was a disadvantage with me using Ask Jeeves as my starting point. By using it I had to do some extra researching to make sure that the information I found was true. Once I continued or at least seen that the information was in at least two other web sites I believed that it was true. I guess by doing this blog entry I did get some useful information for figuring out an argument for my paper.