If I had not existed, someone else would have written me, Hemingway, Dostoyevsky, all of us. Proof of that is that there are about three candidates for the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays. But what is important is Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, not who wrote them, but that somebody did. The artist is of no importance. Only what he creates is important, since there is nothing new to be said. Shakespeare, Balzac, Homer have all written about the same things, and if they had lived one thousand or two thousand years longer, the publishers wouldn’t have needed anyone since.
Wow. Summer courses end this week and all I can think about are the unreal courses I have lined up for the fall. Look at these reading lists….just look at ‘em
SEN HNR SEM 492 (RS)
U.S. Postmodernism
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow (1973)
Don DeLillo, White Noise (1985)
David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (1996)
Giorgio Agamben, from Homo Sacer: Sovereignty and Bare Life Elaine Scarry, from The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World Jean Baudrillard, from Simulations Jacques Derrida, from Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money
SEN HNR SEM 491 (Theory)
Satire: The History of a Genre
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock
Voltaire, Candide
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
G.B. Shaw, Major Barbara
Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One
Berthold Brecht, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
My favorite song from the new Camera Obscura album, Desire Lines, called “I Missed Your Party.”
Wine Music Snob says: Mmmm yes, I detect a hint of “Harvest Moon” and a gentle smattering of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” Goes well with a robust horn section and the finish is pure Memphis by way of Glasgow. 90 points.
Let us look for a moment at certain aspects of content and method common to all the humanities. They are concerned with the creative powers of the individual human mind; their method is the subjective evaluation of a [a person’s] own experience or the recorded experience of others; their goal is [humankind’s] understanding of [themselves] and their place in the physical and social world in which they live. In a word, they are called the humanities because they deal with the human spirit.
Hayward Keniston. “The Humanities in a Scientific World.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 249 (Jan. 1947).
This is an enjoyable article that highlights the seemingly never-ending (note the year) and pointless debate that I have heard way too much about during my time at University - hard science vs. the humanities.
The [Harry Potter] novels create a pattern for young people’s consciously subversive behavior through their recognition and response to the notion that “society,” as imagined by adults, contains hegemonic structures that may not benefit those living within it. Rowling’s postmodern construction of the heroic child suggests that adults cannot address certain issues because they have been subsumed by the ideologies and institutions that are the source of danger and injustice.
“Sneaking Out After Dark: Resistance, Agency, and the Postmodern Child in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter Series” Drew Chappell Children’s Literature in Education (2008) 39:281–293.
![Let us look for a moment at certain aspects of content and method common to all the humanities. They are concerned with the creative powers of the individual human mind; their method is the subjective evaluation of a [a person’s] own experience or the recorded experience of others; their goal is [humankind’s] understanding of [themselves] and their place in the physical and social world in which they live. In a word, they are called the humanities because they deal with the human spirit.
Hayward Keniston. “The Humanities in a Scientific World.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 249 (Jan. 1947).
This is an enjoyable article that highlights the seemingly never-ending (note the year) and pointless debate that I have heard way too much about during my time at University - hard science vs. the humanities.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/6765e6fe7759fc1cbe5e15efd76f7bf0/tumblr_moggttzuGX1rv6nceo1_500.jpg)
![The [Harry Potter] novels create a pattern for young people’s consciously subversive behavior through their recognition and response to the notion that “society,” as imagined by adults, contains hegemonic structures that may not benefit those living within it. Rowling’s postmodern construction of the heroic child suggests that adults cannot address certain issues because they have been subsumed by the ideologies and institutions that are the source of danger and injustice.
“Sneaking Out After Dark: Resistance, Agency, and the Postmodern Child in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter Series”Drew ChappellChildren’s Literature in Education (2008) 39:281–293.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/ea2740b1b94086aa83175fae46694f0f/tumblr_mofbvcE1Zx1rv6nceo1_500.jpg)
