Watts' Lecture + Class Discussion

Last night, I attended Eric King Watts' lecture regarding Zombie Media and the Extreme Preparedness Culture.  Before I dive into my experience, I must state that I was deeply ashamed of some of the audience.  It all began with two interruptions within the first fifteen minutes of his talk.  The first interruption was to “dim the lights”, but rather than simply dim the lights a loud proclamation was made which stopped the entire presentation. The second interruption was to run the nightly computer tune up which thankfully was completed a little more quietly. However, Watts was still required to stop his presentation to allow for this interruption.  Following these interruptions, members of the audience proceeded to talk, roll their eyes, openly text on their cell phones, and leave in the middle of the talk.  Please note that it was not just a few students who left early.  Once the questions began LARGE amounts of individuals left.  When leaving the presentation ALL of the reception snacks were eaten (besides some fruit) before the reception even began.  I do not know if this was from audience members who left early or students within the atrium. Overall, I was embarrassed. Now that my rant is over, let’s focus on the talk itself.

Eric Watts’ talk was a refreshing and an intellectually stimulating conversation that correlated perfectly with our Comm 322.  There were two key aspects of his lecture that I noticed in regards to the content of our class.  First, his use of rhetorical analysis on a text was clear.  Watts’ was clear in providing the entirety of the rhetorical situation surrounding the Discovery Channel Docudrama.  He provided the historical backing of the text, a description of all key parts of the text including the rhetors, and the implications of the text’s message.  Second, he demonstrated an effective way to make an argument about a text and show the “so what”.  Watts would frequently use “I argue” signposts to signify his arguments and he would consistently use textual evidence to back those arguments.  He also provided textual evidence, as well as historical, to support his “so what” of his argument.  He explained that we are all in a process of “zombification” and that it is crucial that we do not allow Extreme Preparedness to remove the humanity from our lives.  He emphasized that we do not want our first response to “zombies” to be to shoot them in the head.

I do believe that Watts’ presentation given in our class was stronger than the lecture given last night.  I got the impression that he was much more comfortable with the material presented in class than the Extreme Preparedness focus.  I was given this impression because he was much more animated in our class, rarely used his notes, and moved around the room.  In Watts’ lecture last night, he frequently read from his notes and rarely moved from the podium.  However, my favorite part of his lecture last night was when he did move.  Watts’ became very animated when he discussed the relationship between the system of Affective Apparatus and The Symbolic.  I believe this was one of the strongest aspects of his lecture last night.  He used perfect hand gestures, spoke from memory, and came across confident.  Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Watts’ presentation last night and in class.