Obama's visit, RE:presented through Email

As we all are probably sick of hearing, President Barrack Obama gave a speech at the University of Minnesota on Saturday October 23, 2010. This historic moment was represented through a rainbow of mediums of communication. The most interesting communication that hit me was the wave of "Oba-mails" that I received throughout last week through my U of M account. For those of you who do not check your Gophermail regularly (Shame on you!), the president of the University, Robert H. Bruininks, sent out mass emails describing the events, why they're important, and the effect they'll have on the community. The poetics of Bruininks words glorified the visit almost to a point of Hegelian point of view. "It is a rare privilege to welcome President Obama to our campus--in fact, only three sitting presidents and one former president have visited the University in more than 150 years--and we are honored that the White House has chosen..." These words were chosen just as carefully as those in the President's speech, selected specially to create a mood and make an argument. Bruininks' words are creating a subject position, representing how "honored we should be for this rare privilege that only three presidents in the past have bestowed upon us", reporting from his views. It is only after the glory of the Obama Visit has been enforced that the "minor inconveniences" are explained. Each email always follows with an explanations of buildings and roads that will be closed in order to accommodate for el presidente. This representation also argues that we should be more than willing to sacrifice convenience in order to host this honorably rare event which again supports the Hegelian ideal of "History remembers Great men, who do great things.", As the American Pageant stated how the South Americans sacrificed convenience (along with freedom and lives) in order to have the "honor" to "host" the visit from the Conquistadors. It is represented by us, the students of the U, as it was emailed to all of us. We are given a special insight to this event. We can see it as more than just "Obama speaks at University" on a headline, but as an honor, an inconvenience, or even both (inconvenient honor or honorable inconvenience). These matter because this is a great event in our lifetime and it's our history we are writing. History affects us, and we affect history. We are the agents of history.