The Alphabet Versus the Goddess Book Report (Communications & Media Book Report)
Each book
report should cover the book assigned, and perform the following tasks of intellectual
engagement:
Placement of the author in his/her historical/cultural context
Identifying and articulating the major terms used by the author, with
highlighting of these terms in bold font.
Engagement with the major Idea(s) and claims made by the author
Argument for updating the author’s argument with new data or debate
with the author on how new data makes the old argument newly
questionable
Interdisciplinary and/or intertextual engagement. The author is dead in
many cases and cannot be contacted. What would/did contemporaneous
authors say for/against this author and his arguments? How would other
voices that we’ve read (or that you’ve read in other classes) engage this
same material? If the author is alive, what have his interlocutors (critics,
colleagues, reviewers, etc.) said about the author's idea(s). How do your
comments reflect or incorporate those works?
Incorporation of at least ten outside pieces of Evidence to support your
main Idea. Only three of these ten may be Internet sources.
Clear evidence of careful preparation, research, writing, revision, and
proofreading of all submitted work. This means that your paper should
demonstrate evidence that it was not written the night before or the day it
was due.
Minimum 5 pages per book report, Maximum 12 pages.
Outside evidence for book reports may use current class handouts or
material from other books, classes, or texts you are informed by.
Each paper should also seek to address the specific question asked of that
book (see below and cross-reference with class discussion notes)
In other words, and at a minimum, each book report you submit should be
both a document that illustrates your mastery of the reading, as well as
gives your best effort to answer a challenging question (or series of
questions) related to the reading. You may wish to separate these into Part
1 and Part 2 of your paper, but you are not required to. Sooner ignore any
of these rules than say something barbaric.
All written work should conform to the following formal guidelines:
Original Title to essay centered above first paragraph
Student Name, Class, Date, and Professor’s Name in upper left hand corner
Stapled in upper left hand corner (folded-over papers that are unstapled will NOT
be accepted)
Double-spaced throughout (except pull-quotes)
Pull-quotes (long quotes, i.e., any quote longer than two lines of text) are to be 1.)
indented and 2.) single-spaced.
12-point font maximum (no minimum)
Margins not more than 1 inch on both sides
Works cited page in APA style (the style used by the Media Ecology Association).
Wikipedia may not appear on your citation page, but it may be used for footnotes
(per class discussion)
The Alphabet Versus the Goddess Book Report
Name:Institution:
The Alphabet Versus the Goddess Book Report
About the Author
Dr Leonard Shlain was one of the renowned surgeons in America. After studying and practising medicine in the United States Shlain ventured into different things like becoming an author and an inventor. Beside The Alphabet versus The Goddess book, Shlain’s other books that were received well included, Art & Physics, Sex, Time, and Power and Leonardo’s Brain that he finished writing shortly before passing on in 2009. Being a critical thinker and through his works, Shlain was loved by people from different backgrounds, including scientists, philosophers, anthropologists and even academicians. From his writings, it is evident that he viewed things from different viewpoints informed by his critical thinking in the contemporary world. As a result, Shlain established other notions that could question and contradict the conventional concepts people subscribe to in the modern world.
Central Ideas Made by the Author in the Book
Alphabet led to the rise of patriarchy and killed feminism
A significant argument by Shlain in the book is that the widely embraced patriarchy system is common in the world due to alphabetic culture. In his view, Shlain insinuates unlike the common belief that patriarchy system is a result of mere myth, the truth is that through the inception of alphabetic writing the design changed from feminine which was embraced by many before the invention of alphabets (Shlain, 1999). To ascertain his arguments, the author uses historical events of the goddess, which were worshipped during the early days claiming that the goddess images represented feminine implying that the female gender was regarded as superior to the other gender. The author also claims that the introduction of an imageless father figure in the sky led to the inscription of the early laws, which he claims were harsh towards the female gender (Shlain, 1999). For instance, he argues that the early scribed rules subjected women to the cruel treatment, thereby entrusting men with the power of passing inheritance to their sons.
Alphabet also killed the art especially in religious beliefs
The other notion Shlain presents in his book is that besides just killing feminism and promoting patriarchy, alphabetic culture presented a threat to art. For instance, the introduction of an imageless deity prevented people from curating images of the goddess they believed in as Christianity encouraged the representation of a deity who could only be written or imagined (Askarpour, 2017) Furthermore, the book's arguments allude to the fact that the written laws of the imageless deity in the form of the ten commandments vilified any image of god to the extent that art is seen as the worst sin compared to murder if the order of the ten commandments is anything. From the bible, for instance, it is evident that the first four commandments communicate one central message that the imageless deity is the only god while the law to vindicate murder lies in the fifth place (Botha, 2012). Therefore, proponents of Shlain’s arguments can claim that Christianity perceives art as a worst creation compared to murder.
Differentiatio...
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