beginning of 2nd semester of grad school
Before this short spell of procrasination runs its course, I feel inclined to keep writing. So, a little about my year so far.
After much wavering, I finally decided to take 3 courses instead of dropping down to 2. Though I think that 3 will probably be overwhelming, I ultimately couldn't bear to miss out on any of these courses and so decided to commit myself to the possibility of taking an incomplete this term. My hope is that I can soon resolve my outstanding incomplete from last semester and then resolve the incomplete for this semester over the summer, starting with a fresh slate in the fall. And I believe I've developed a means of making this outcome possible.
My first course of the week is Radical Political Theory with Jimmy Klausen. It's a course composed of about 6 graduate students from various departments, and 20 or so undergraduates, mostly advanced poli sci majors. We're reading a lot of Marx and Lenin and other radical scholars from those traditions. The only Marx I'd read before this class was the Communist Manifesto, in high school, so I'm glad to be reading some more. It's been interesting reading Marx after having read Theodor Adorno (sociologist, wrote a lot about how capitalism has alienated man from authentic music) last semester for my African politics research paper. As I do the readings, I'm thus always consumed by this question of art's relationship to politics. I'm wondering now how I might think about this in relation to Marx's statements about how the act of creation alienates man from nature and how the act of production alienates man from himself, society, and humanity. What about the manipulation of sound? When I build furniture, I must destroy nature by chopping down trees, but when I create a song have I stolen anything from nature? When I can use instruments to mimic the sound of rain, do I negate the distinctive sound properties pertaining to rain and nothing else in nature? And what does this mean that man can produce a multitude of sounds that are otherwise only emitted by particular objects?
My second course of the week is Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict with Nadav Shelef. I'm interested in taking this course because I can't fail to be intrigued by the nature of human relationships, so exploring how different groups form a collective identity in the context of modern divisions into nations is of particular interest to me. At the heart of it, the course is about how the "us vs. them" mentality develops and shifts over time, a topic of particular interest to a person like me who's studying colonialism and post-colonialism. I've thus really enjoyed the readings in this class so far for giving me more of a basis for understanding this phenomenon. I've also enjoyed the class discussions, though I find it difficult to express myself in them. I don't know why, but I'm much more comfortable trying to understand something in a political theory class than trying to understand it in a comparative politics class. I guess maybe it's that I feel in my comparative classes like everyone else is so much more adept at it than me that I'd prefer to just listen to them and try to understand their struggles with the text rather than pose my own, comparatively more foolish, struggles. Often if I just shut up in those classes I realize my own foolishness by trying to understand how other people came to their questions and interpretations. But, when I voice my confusion, I usually just end out feeling totally downtrodden and subsequently want to curl up in a ball and pity myself instead of trying to understand something. It's different with political theory though, where even if I'm shown to be wrong I usually can at least find some satisfaction in the knowledge that I was grappling with a truly difficult question.
My third course of the week is Philosophy of Law with Howard Schweber. When I first heard about this course, I was not interested at all because I remembered that back at W&L, I took a philosophy of law course offered by the philosophy department and could barely stay awake despite the fact that the professor was vibrant, passionate, challenging, and not bad to look at either. However, after seeing the syllabus and realizing that this course would explore law from the perspective of political philosophy rather than philosophy (there is a difference), I found myself signing up for it. So far it has definitely not bored me to sleep. We're reading a lot of stuff I haven't read before, by Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Montesquieu, John Locke, etc., which excites me. And it's fun to be in a class with some of the law students and get their perspective. As much as I ultimately ended up hating Mock Trial, there's still a lot that intrigues me about the law. And of course, through all this I can't help but think of my last class at W&L on Shakespeare!
Other than these 3 courses, I am also a TA again, this time for Intro. to Political Theory with Jimmy Klausen. So far I'm really enjoying it. We're reading a lot of stuff that's familiar to me, but also a few essentials that I hadn't read yet (like Cicero and Arendt). Jimmy's lectures have been insightful and got me drawing new connections between ancient and modern political theory. The class has also got me thinking about a class I would love to teach someday, if ever I am able to create my own course: Utopias and Dystopias. I'd love to explore through political philosophy and literature the implications of mankind's project to dream up and create a perfect world through politics. I could see me and my students reading things like Thomas More's Utopia, Plato's Republic, Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Machiavelli's Prince, Orwell's 1984, Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Huxley's Brave New World, Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and Ayn Rand's Anthem. I could play clips of Lost and Fringe and John Lennon and we could all sing kumbayah pshaw. Oh, it'll be wonderful someday if they let me teach that.
Well, the time has come. I must at long last get back to my work and stop procrasinating!
After much wavering, I finally decided to take 3 courses instead of dropping down to 2. Though I think that 3 will probably be overwhelming, I ultimately couldn't bear to miss out on any of these courses and so decided to commit myself to the possibility of taking an incomplete this term. My hope is that I can soon resolve my outstanding incomplete from last semester and then resolve the incomplete for this semester over the summer, starting with a fresh slate in the fall. And I believe I've developed a means of making this outcome possible.
My first course of the week is Radical Political Theory with Jimmy Klausen. It's a course composed of about 6 graduate students from various departments, and 20 or so undergraduates, mostly advanced poli sci majors. We're reading a lot of Marx and Lenin and other radical scholars from those traditions. The only Marx I'd read before this class was the Communist Manifesto, in high school, so I'm glad to be reading some more. It's been interesting reading Marx after having read Theodor Adorno (sociologist, wrote a lot about how capitalism has alienated man from authentic music) last semester for my African politics research paper. As I do the readings, I'm thus always consumed by this question of art's relationship to politics. I'm wondering now how I might think about this in relation to Marx's statements about how the act of creation alienates man from nature and how the act of production alienates man from himself, society, and humanity. What about the manipulation of sound? When I build furniture, I must destroy nature by chopping down trees, but when I create a song have I stolen anything from nature? When I can use instruments to mimic the sound of rain, do I negate the distinctive sound properties pertaining to rain and nothing else in nature? And what does this mean that man can produce a multitude of sounds that are otherwise only emitted by particular objects?
My second course of the week is Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict with Nadav Shelef. I'm interested in taking this course because I can't fail to be intrigued by the nature of human relationships, so exploring how different groups form a collective identity in the context of modern divisions into nations is of particular interest to me. At the heart of it, the course is about how the "us vs. them" mentality develops and shifts over time, a topic of particular interest to a person like me who's studying colonialism and post-colonialism. I've thus really enjoyed the readings in this class so far for giving me more of a basis for understanding this phenomenon. I've also enjoyed the class discussions, though I find it difficult to express myself in them. I don't know why, but I'm much more comfortable trying to understand something in a political theory class than trying to understand it in a comparative politics class. I guess maybe it's that I feel in my comparative classes like everyone else is so much more adept at it than me that I'd prefer to just listen to them and try to understand their struggles with the text rather than pose my own, comparatively more foolish, struggles. Often if I just shut up in those classes I realize my own foolishness by trying to understand how other people came to their questions and interpretations. But, when I voice my confusion, I usually just end out feeling totally downtrodden and subsequently want to curl up in a ball and pity myself instead of trying to understand something. It's different with political theory though, where even if I'm shown to be wrong I usually can at least find some satisfaction in the knowledge that I was grappling with a truly difficult question.
My third course of the week is Philosophy of Law with Howard Schweber. When I first heard about this course, I was not interested at all because I remembered that back at W&L, I took a philosophy of law course offered by the philosophy department and could barely stay awake despite the fact that the professor was vibrant, passionate, challenging, and not bad to look at either. However, after seeing the syllabus and realizing that this course would explore law from the perspective of political philosophy rather than philosophy (there is a difference), I found myself signing up for it. So far it has definitely not bored me to sleep. We're reading a lot of stuff I haven't read before, by Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Montesquieu, John Locke, etc., which excites me. And it's fun to be in a class with some of the law students and get their perspective. As much as I ultimately ended up hating Mock Trial, there's still a lot that intrigues me about the law. And of course, through all this I can't help but think of my last class at W&L on Shakespeare!
Other than these 3 courses, I am also a TA again, this time for Intro. to Political Theory with Jimmy Klausen. So far I'm really enjoying it. We're reading a lot of stuff that's familiar to me, but also a few essentials that I hadn't read yet (like Cicero and Arendt). Jimmy's lectures have been insightful and got me drawing new connections between ancient and modern political theory. The class has also got me thinking about a class I would love to teach someday, if ever I am able to create my own course: Utopias and Dystopias. I'd love to explore through political philosophy and literature the implications of mankind's project to dream up and create a perfect world through politics. I could see me and my students reading things like Thomas More's Utopia, Plato's Republic, Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Machiavelli's Prince, Orwell's 1984, Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Huxley's Brave New World, Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and Ayn Rand's Anthem. I could play clips of Lost and Fringe and John Lennon and we could all sing kumbayah pshaw. Oh, it'll be wonderful someday if they let me teach that.
Well, the time has come. I must at long last get back to my work and stop procrasinating!