Here it goes.

The readings by Faucault and Barthes really helped me do this post because what I took away as the main point of both was the discussion of the absence of the author and the author as a means of "discourse" for the text. Faucault discussed the author being the "handler" of the text and the psychological process of interpreting the text is the "handling" of the text. He also discusses "author functions" of texts, which refers to the author being more than just a narrator, but a facilitator of the process of interpretation for the reader. (If that makes any sense at all).
Barthes' Death of an Author also argues that the author is more than just a creater of the text, and there is an extremely complex way to interpret the text that we cannot understand. From reading this and discussing in class, I figured out that it is not the way we interpret a text, but how we take the cultural influences that influence the text and turned it into what it is to be interpreted. Basically, this class is so over my head it hurts but I think I might be getting the hang of it. I just wish someone would put it into lamens terms for me. :)
Anyhoo, I clicked on Professor Zero's blog and I was absolutely intregued by the idea of anonymity on the web. It relates to what we are discussing in class, because it is much harder to interpret someone over the web when they are anonymous and we know nothing about them. Furthermore, ideas of "false identity" are brought up. It's hard to relate to someone and know exactly where they are coming from if they falsely identify themselves or even lie. People's writing styles vary, as do their ideas and where these ideas come from, and they all relate to eachother. The subject of anonymity made me think a lot because how can Faucault and Barthes' pieces make any sense if they were written by anonymous bloggers. Hmm.