(no subject)
I just met with my Existentialism professor regarding the 15 page paper of death that I've been dreading all semester. I came in with the very amorphous thesis of "Well, I kind of want to write about something relating to Buber, but I don't really know what...sort of contrasting the different ideas of the I-You relationship in terms of hatred and love, maybe?" and left with a much better idea of what to write. Or if not what to write, what I want to write, and even in a weird fucking way what I am.
After trying to no avail to convert the mess of words I'd given him into something resembling a thesis, he started asking me what other religion classes I've taken, what thinkers I've read that I like, what I've written papers on before,and so on, and I started in on all the religion classes I've been in (which at this point is nearing all of them), and then that went into, "I wrote my final paper on Chardin and Plaskow last year, Tillich is pretty awesome, I only got to skim Soloveitchik last week but I really liked him..." and after that mixed with a little discussion of where I'm coming from religiously, my professor exclaimed, "You're a theist!"
This is the first time in three years anyone has quite gotten me like that, and it was after a laundry list of symptoms in the form of theologians I enjoy that I get the right diagnosis (as it were) from a professor who, at the beginning of our meeting, thought I was a senior English major.
Quite loosely, my paper topic will be, "I am a theist because..." and involve Buber and possibly Camus and a lot of thought and fun for me. I suppose it isn't any more concise a thesis, but I'm a lot more excited about it, and that, in itself, is a very good thing.
After trying to no avail to convert the mess of words I'd given him into something resembling a thesis, he started asking me what other religion classes I've taken, what thinkers I've read that I like, what I've written papers on before,and so on, and I started in on all the religion classes I've been in (which at this point is nearing all of them), and then that went into, "I wrote my final paper on Chardin and Plaskow last year, Tillich is pretty awesome, I only got to skim Soloveitchik last week but I really liked him..." and after that mixed with a little discussion of where I'm coming from religiously, my professor exclaimed, "You're a theist!"
This is the first time in three years anyone has quite gotten me like that, and it was after a laundry list of symptoms in the form of theologians I enjoy that I get the right diagnosis (as it were) from a professor who, at the beginning of our meeting, thought I was a senior English major.
Quite loosely, my paper topic will be, "I am a theist because..." and involve Buber and possibly Camus and a lot of thought and fun for me. I suppose it isn't any more concise a thesis, but I'm a lot more excited about it, and that, in itself, is a very good thing.