aimless meandering nonsensical tripe
It's weeks like this that make me realise how much I suck.
I mean, how bad is it that I have resolved to study/work/exercise/clean every single day this week, and have managed to achieve, oh, say, a grand total of absolutely nothing.
Bah.
Although... exciting news... I'm almost definitely doing honours, and they're letting me do it in Comparative Lit rather than English, even though my major is (technically, by, like 2 subjects) in English. w00t.
So yeah. Help me with subject choice? Pweeeeze?
So I have to do one subject per semester, and a thesis.
1st semester choices are:
Popular Culture and Ethics:
On successful completion of the course students should be familiar with a model of ethics deived from M M Bahktin's Philosophy of the Act, in conjunction with Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals, E Levinas' concept of alterity, J-L Nancy's teaching on community and A Badiou's "objectless subject". With this model of ethics as a theoretical tool, students will be able to analyse a variety of popular and mass culture texts from the perspective of their ethical orientation.
The course will model ethics through an investigation of M Bakhtin's version of structuralism, in particular his work on the philosophy of hte act, in relation to Nietzsche's critique of morality and in the context of poststructuralist critical theory. Armed with this model, texts and works of popular and mass culture will be analysed from the point of view of their ethical orientation.
So I was thinking that this one was probably the one I'd pick for first semester (although I had been hoping to avoid the seminar paper aspect altogether...), because the readings sound interesting - Aristotle to Kant to pop culture and band gigs and detective novels.
OR... I could do:
Deleuze and Foucault
This course is designed to introduce students to some of the central ideas and themes in the work of two recent French philosophers: Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze. The course will focus on the themes of power and desire and will examine the intersections between these themes and issues in political philosophy. Following a brief survey on the cultural and theoretical background of French philosophy in the twentieth century the course falls into two parts. In the first, Foucault's genealogical writings on prisons, modern disciplinary power and the history of sexuality will be critically explored. The second part of the course will examine a selection from Deleuze's writing on philosophy and literature with particular attention to pieces on Nietzsche, Sacher von Masoch and Deleuze's collaborative writing with Felix Guattari.
Which also sounds good. Bah. And I rather think I'd enjoy studying Masoch (Venus in Furs)...
Second semester is pretty easy to pick... Gender, Body and Performance (ugh, feminist-gender-studies-annoying-nonsense), or Hermeneutics, which is appealing simply because it is one of those over intellectual pretentious words that amuse me.
Hmph.
And the thesis will be either (I hope) a comparison between the 18th-19th century gothic, and the symbolisms (in a cultural and literary context) of the monsters and ghosts (the "other", if you will), and those that occur in modern gothic literature.
Although the downside would probably be that I'd have to read wade through Anne Rice's books for that one. And there may be nobody in the school to supervise it for me... *pout*
The other choice, which seems more likely (although also more prone to irritating postmodernist nonsense, unfortunately) is a similar comparison between representations of posthumanism in science fiction literature from the 18th-19th century (ie, Frankenstein, etc.) to more modern ideas of posthumanism (ie, genetic engineering, cyborgs, semi-posthumanism in cyberpunk, etc.), and how the changes in this symbolism reflect a changing societal view on posthumanism. Or something. I don't even know yet. Blaaah.
And there was another possibility lurking around the place about something to do with derivative literature, like the professional version of fanfic (or even fanfic itself), and narrative as a form of literary criticism. It'd be kind of interesting to look at this in fandom terms, with the whole accepted fanon views on the canon, but then again I think I'm probably too close to it all, and I'd like to try something a bit different.
So yeah. What do you think?
...*echo*
Of course I'm sure I would do well by reminding myself that I actually have to pass my maths exam in, oh, a week and a half before I can actually go ahead and do honours... *panics*
But instead I have managed to waste truly obscene amounts of time trying to figure out how to make my (unfortunately free) LJ layout look slightly better. And it still sucks, although I think I've fixed most of it... although if you, perchance, happened to click here and saw that it looked shithouse on your computer, I would love you if you told me... [ETA: No need to bother. It appears to be stuffed on every computer but mine. Bah. I'll fix it later. :)]
Finally, because I've promised a couple of people, here are some links that have appeared from various places on my flist in the last couple of months, and which I have enjoyed and told people about.
Yeah.
The Postmodernism Generator. I think I may just need this next year... meaningless intellectual drivel, here I come.
The Best. Children's. Show. Evar.. Oh. My. God. Just read/watch it. Heheheh.
Oh, and post-Finally, everybody must see Shaun of the Dead. It is SO the best movie ever. *giggles*
And now it's 10pm and I have managed to achieve absolutely nothing all day except for this post. Go me! Woo!
I mean, how bad is it that I have resolved to study/work/exercise/clean every single day this week, and have managed to achieve, oh, say, a grand total of absolutely nothing.
Bah.
Although... exciting news... I'm almost definitely doing honours, and they're letting me do it in Comparative Lit rather than English, even though my major is (technically, by, like 2 subjects) in English. w00t.
So yeah. Help me with subject choice? Pweeeeze?
So I have to do one subject per semester, and a thesis.
1st semester choices are:
Popular Culture and Ethics:
On successful completion of the course students should be familiar with a model of ethics deived from M M Bahktin's Philosophy of the Act, in conjunction with Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals, E Levinas' concept of alterity, J-L Nancy's teaching on community and A Badiou's "objectless subject". With this model of ethics as a theoretical tool, students will be able to analyse a variety of popular and mass culture texts from the perspective of their ethical orientation.
The course will model ethics through an investigation of M Bakhtin's version of structuralism, in particular his work on the philosophy of hte act, in relation to Nietzsche's critique of morality and in the context of poststructuralist critical theory. Armed with this model, texts and works of popular and mass culture will be analysed from the point of view of their ethical orientation.
So I was thinking that this one was probably the one I'd pick for first semester (although I had been hoping to avoid the seminar paper aspect altogether...), because the readings sound interesting - Aristotle to Kant to pop culture and band gigs and detective novels.
OR... I could do:
Deleuze and Foucault
This course is designed to introduce students to some of the central ideas and themes in the work of two recent French philosophers: Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze. The course will focus on the themes of power and desire and will examine the intersections between these themes and issues in political philosophy. Following a brief survey on the cultural and theoretical background of French philosophy in the twentieth century the course falls into two parts. In the first, Foucault's genealogical writings on prisons, modern disciplinary power and the history of sexuality will be critically explored. The second part of the course will examine a selection from Deleuze's writing on philosophy and literature with particular attention to pieces on Nietzsche, Sacher von Masoch and Deleuze's collaborative writing with Felix Guattari.
Which also sounds good. Bah. And I rather think I'd enjoy studying Masoch (Venus in Furs)...
Second semester is pretty easy to pick... Gender, Body and Performance (ugh, feminist-gender-studies-annoying-nonsense), or Hermeneutics, which is appealing simply because it is one of those over intellectual pretentious words that amuse me.
Hmph.
And the thesis will be either (I hope) a comparison between the 18th-19th century gothic, and the symbolisms (in a cultural and literary context) of the monsters and ghosts (the "other", if you will), and those that occur in modern gothic literature.
Although the downside would probably be that I'd have to read wade through Anne Rice's books for that one. And there may be nobody in the school to supervise it for me... *pout*
The other choice, which seems more likely (although also more prone to irritating postmodernist nonsense, unfortunately) is a similar comparison between representations of posthumanism in science fiction literature from the 18th-19th century (ie, Frankenstein, etc.) to more modern ideas of posthumanism (ie, genetic engineering, cyborgs, semi-posthumanism in cyberpunk, etc.), and how the changes in this symbolism reflect a changing societal view on posthumanism. Or something. I don't even know yet. Blaaah.
And there was another possibility lurking around the place about something to do with derivative literature, like the professional version of fanfic (or even fanfic itself), and narrative as a form of literary criticism. It'd be kind of interesting to look at this in fandom terms, with the whole accepted fanon views on the canon, but then again I think I'm probably too close to it all, and I'd like to try something a bit different.
So yeah. What do you think?
...*echo*
Of course I'm sure I would do well by reminding myself that I actually have to pass my maths exam in, oh, a week and a half before I can actually go ahead and do honours... *panics*
But instead I have managed to waste truly obscene amounts of time trying to figure out how to make my (unfortunately free) LJ layout look slightly better. And it still sucks, although I think I've fixed most of it... although if you, perchance, happened to click here and saw that it looked shithouse on your computer, I would love you if you told me... [ETA: No need to bother. It appears to be stuffed on every computer but mine. Bah. I'll fix it later. :)]
Finally, because I've promised a couple of people, here are some links that have appeared from various places on my flist in the last couple of months, and which I have enjoyed and told people about.
Yeah.
The Postmodernism Generator. I think I may just need this next year... meaningless intellectual drivel, here I come.
The Best. Children's. Show. Evar.. Oh. My. God. Just read/watch it. Heheheh.
Oh, and post-Finally, everybody must see Shaun of the Dead. It is SO the best movie ever. *giggles*
And now it's 10pm and I have managed to achieve absolutely nothing all day except for this post. Go me! Woo!