Alright. I'm no Persephone, and Spring will not arrive now -- although I have spent most of the last couple of weeks underground, and it is unseasonably warm today. Just sayin' -- but I really like the melodrama of Victorian art. And I wanted to look at something pretty.Things I have learned this semester:
- I have NO Business in a theory-based class. This is the third time I've done this to myself, and the third time my thesis completely unravelled before my very eyes less than a week before the paper was due. The scrambling and editing and huddling on the couch clutching a pillow that then occur all conspire to make me believe I'm just an idiot w/r/t theory. Which is weird, because I really like philosophy, and I really like literature, but when you mix the two...blargh.
- If I never read the phrases "Throughout History," or "Since the beginning of time" again, that'd be swell.
- While I am sympathetic to writers who explore the ways in which their own masculinities were constructed by the societies in which they live, and use their art to 'consider alternative ways of being and knowing,' I'm unwilling to accept that blatant misogyny is an acceptable means of working those isssues out. So, I really don't want to hear about all the 'radical' things X author said in Y work, when his big, 'radical' contribution can be summed up thusly; "See? I can put my boot on a bitch's neck just like you! Let me in the Man Club already! C'mon!" Seriously, dude, misogyny is not an alternative way of either 'being' or 'knowing,' so knock it the hell off.
- The more education I get, the more likely I am to say very bad words in regular conversation. Counter-intuitive, no?
Now, what's been going on in the world since I tuned out for navel-contemplation?
5 comments:
I feel exactly that way about theory too. Welcome back! Missed your posts.
I laughed about the "since the beginning of time" thing. Every semester, I try to tell students that there's nothing in a statement like "In the history of mankind" that's both useful and not demonstrably false.
Since the beginning of time, atomic forces have probably had an effect. Maybe true, but not really useful.
Since the beginning of time, mankind: demonstrably false, since mankind wasn't around at the beginning of time.
Still, it doesn't help.
Because since the beginning of time, students have been told that they should start essays with a huge, broad statement and then narrow to focus on the one thing they want to talk about. And throughout history, teachers have needed medicinal alcohol to deal with the resulting headaches.
ps. Welcome back. Theory rocks, but I'm sorry you're not getting good things from your classes.
Thanks for the welcomes, guys. And Bardiac, thanks for the summons.
Re: Theory
Having just finished cataloguing all the secondary readings for this last theory-based class(I gave up keeping the articles well-organized mid-semester), I think the problem might be that I'm being given too many good things all at once. I managed to fill 2 1/2 3-inch binders with the required secondary reading, and the rest of binder three holds the recommended secondary reading. All three of these things are filled to the brim, and actually starting to break. Perhaps if I had a broader base in theory I could absorb all of that stuff in the time allotted, but as it stands I'm just confuzzled.
I intend to work on the theoretical ignorance during winter break.
"The more education I get, the more likely I am to say very bad words in regular conversation. Counter-intuitive, no?"
Yes - and yet weirdly true.
Thanks ffor this
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