Revolutions and change--this one is for Tiff.
Even with junior standing, I still wasn't able to get into the classes I wanted for next quarter: Intro to Hinduism and Urban Architecture. So I settled on Revolutions and Change, a sociology course that fufills an Area III distro. I'm still slightly worried because of the large amount of required reading and a few comments in the [mostly positive] student evaluations (CTECs) of last year's course, like this one:
The prof has lived what he lectures, and it's humbling and jarring in just the right way to make one just paranoid enough that civilization will end tomorrow. He was punished for expressing individual thought, and you will be, too...
But then there are the mental images of Marie Antoinette throwing cake at angry bourgeois Frenchmen and translucent I-Robot robots rising from Lake Michigan to put a chokehold on futuristic downtown Chicagoans that make me want to take the course anyway. Equally tantalizing was the bulk email Prof. Derluguian sent to the enrolled. Go ahead and read it:
Citizens, patriots, and comrades!
If this message reaches you, then your e-mail address is on the list of those who had courageously volunteered for the class SOC 203 Revolutions and Social Change. I am your Supreme Leader Prof. Georgi Derluguian.
First of all, like all revolutionaries we shall start by abolishing the most oppressive institutions of the accursed Old Regime - down with the mid-terms and final exams!
And, as did many revolutions in real life, instead of the old oppressive institutions we shall subject ourselves to still more oppresive new ones. This means you will have to read A LOT and then incorporate the readings explicitly in your class discussions and the 10-pages short (a firm limit) essays.
The list of readings follows below so that you could find at least some of the books and start reading now, ruining your spring break.
Seriously speaking, we shall begin with Eric Hobsbawm's masterpiece. The Age of Revolution has been around for forty years in various editions and you could surely find in a good used bookshop or online a cheaper copy. This is a beautifully written book and it should not spoil your break too much.
Albert Hirschman's Rhetoric of Reaction is also a classic. Hirschman never ever wrote an average mediocre book. This one is among the best. It is fairly short, too.
You might also read Koestler's short novel first published back in 1940 (and for a long time it rivaled George Orwell's 1984). This novel should take no more than one evening. You might also jump ahead and get Immanuel Wallerstein's Utopistics (go on the website of the New Press). It is cheap, it is just 85 pages short, and it is powerful.
As to the rest of the books, I shall also try to teach you later how to cheat on reading scholarly monographs.
It would be very useful to watch a few movies before coming to class. The Motorocycle Diaries should be a familiar title to those who had watched on the recent Oscars ceremony Antonio Banderas sing the lead song from this film to Santana's guitar.
Also try such classics as Ghandi, the Last Emperor, and the foremost silent film Battleship Potemkin. They can be found in your nearest video rental and watched with your families and friends.
Now the really IMPORTANT announcement!
There will be NO CLASS on Thursday April 3 and Tuesday April 8. This is because the Spring quarter calendar was reconfigured in such a revolutionary way so that the first Tuesday has become Monday - and then I must travel far away to West Africa which is a long-planned research trip. I thought it would be dishonest to use a substitute teacher in launching the class. If I am not eaten by lions, we shall meet for the first time only on Thursday, April 10. Please, do come and do not get discouraged. Better, start reading. You must read Eric Hobsbawm's short tight volume before coming to the first section which, I repeat, is now scheduled for April 10. We shall then proceed energetically and catch up, in the time-honored revolutionary fashion of compressing time.
Yours,
Georgi Derluguian
Here is your READING LIST
- Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution, 1789-1848. Any edition.
- Charles Tilly, European Revolutions, 1492-1992, Oxford: Blackwell, 1993
- Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon, any edition.
- Albert Hirschman, The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy. Belknap (Harvard University Press), 1991
- James Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. Yale University Press, 1998.
- Robert Daniels, Year of the Heroic Guerrilla. Harvard University Press, 1989.
- Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
- Immanuel Wallerstein, Utopistics, NY: The New Press, 1998.
Derluguian actually sent two emails. The second one marked Errata. " P.S. And of course, like all Great Leaders, I started by committing a HUGE mistake. For this, I am not going to purge all witnesses into the reeducation camps but rather recant myself and correct the mistake immediately. I simply gave you the wrong dates for classes." Bad professor humor aside, this is the kind of writing I admire; it shows wit and intelligence, without being overly verbose or formalistic. To me, great writers are the ones who force the reader to think in new ways. This follows from the fact that great writers are by default great manipulators of thought as well. One thing I want my future romantic life partner to have is an appreciation for this kind of writing, that is, good writing, so that when the situation demands it he will know how to select each word with care, and not use them frivolously.
.
The prof has lived what he lectures, and it's humbling and jarring in just the right way to make one just paranoid enough that civilization will end tomorrow. He was punished for expressing individual thought, and you will be, too...
But then there are the mental images of Marie Antoinette throwing cake at angry bourgeois Frenchmen and translucent I-Robot robots rising from Lake Michigan to put a chokehold on futuristic downtown Chicagoans that make me want to take the course anyway. Equally tantalizing was the bulk email Prof. Derluguian sent to the enrolled. Go ahead and read it:
Citizens, patriots, and comrades!
If this message reaches you, then your e-mail address is on the list of those who had courageously volunteered for the class SOC 203 Revolutions and Social Change. I am your Supreme Leader Prof. Georgi Derluguian.
First of all, like all revolutionaries we shall start by abolishing the most oppressive institutions of the accursed Old Regime - down with the mid-terms and final exams!
And, as did many revolutions in real life, instead of the old oppressive institutions we shall subject ourselves to still more oppresive new ones. This means you will have to read A LOT and then incorporate the readings explicitly in your class discussions and the 10-pages short (a firm limit) essays.
The list of readings follows below so that you could find at least some of the books and start reading now, ruining your spring break.
Seriously speaking, we shall begin with Eric Hobsbawm's masterpiece. The Age of Revolution has been around for forty years in various editions and you could surely find in a good used bookshop or online a cheaper copy. This is a beautifully written book and it should not spoil your break too much.
Albert Hirschman's Rhetoric of Reaction is also a classic. Hirschman never ever wrote an average mediocre book. This one is among the best. It is fairly short, too.
You might also read Koestler's short novel first published back in 1940 (and for a long time it rivaled George Orwell's 1984). This novel should take no more than one evening. You might also jump ahead and get Immanuel Wallerstein's Utopistics (go on the website of the New Press). It is cheap, it is just 85 pages short, and it is powerful.
As to the rest of the books, I shall also try to teach you later how to cheat on reading scholarly monographs.
It would be very useful to watch a few movies before coming to class. The Motorocycle Diaries should be a familiar title to those who had watched on the recent Oscars ceremony Antonio Banderas sing the lead song from this film to Santana's guitar.
Also try such classics as Ghandi, the Last Emperor, and the foremost silent film Battleship Potemkin. They can be found in your nearest video rental and watched with your families and friends.
Now the really IMPORTANT announcement!
There will be NO CLASS on Thursday April 3 and Tuesday April 8. This is because the Spring quarter calendar was reconfigured in such a revolutionary way so that the first Tuesday has become Monday - and then I must travel far away to West Africa which is a long-planned research trip. I thought it would be dishonest to use a substitute teacher in launching the class. If I am not eaten by lions, we shall meet for the first time only on Thursday, April 10. Please, do come and do not get discouraged. Better, start reading. You must read Eric Hobsbawm's short tight volume before coming to the first section which, I repeat, is now scheduled for April 10. We shall then proceed energetically and catch up, in the time-honored revolutionary fashion of compressing time.
Yours,
Georgi Derluguian
Here is your READING LIST
- Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution, 1789-1848. Any edition.
- Charles Tilly, European Revolutions, 1492-1992, Oxford: Blackwell, 1993
- Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon, any edition.
- Albert Hirschman, The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy. Belknap (Harvard University Press), 1991
- James Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. Yale University Press, 1998.
- Robert Daniels, Year of the Heroic Guerrilla. Harvard University Press, 1989.
- Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
- Immanuel Wallerstein, Utopistics, NY: The New Press, 1998.
Derluguian actually sent two emails. The second one marked Errata. " P.S. And of course, like all Great Leaders, I started by committing a HUGE mistake. For this, I am not going to purge all witnesses into the reeducation camps but rather recant myself and correct the mistake immediately. I simply gave you the wrong dates for classes." Bad professor humor aside, this is the kind of writing I admire; it shows wit and intelligence, without being overly verbose or formalistic. To me, great writers are the ones who force the reader to think in new ways. This follows from the fact that great writers are by default great manipulators of thought as well. One thing I want my future romantic life partner to have is an appreciation for this kind of writing, that is, good writing, so that when the situation demands it he will know how to select each word with care, and not use them frivolously.
.