so long, cMore...
Today I registered for my last quarter of classes ever. This isn't to say that ten or fifteen years from now, I might decide to go back for a Ph.D, but at this point, I honestly don't see that happening. The job that I've had since October has made me realize more than ever that I want to spend the next few years of my life in a museum and not a classroom. And let's not even get started on what the process of writing my thesis has revealed to me about future graduate school plans...
Anyway, having said that, here's what I'm taking during spring quarter:
Readings in Modern Arabic Literature
It's the exact same Arabic class I've been taking all year, so nothing's going to change here.
Anthropology of Museums: Part 2
This quarter, we've been focusing on museum theory, but we'll spend next quarter doing ethnographic fieldwork in some of the museums here in Chicago. Fun!
As for my third class, here are my two options:
Aspects of Indian Painting
This meets at the Art Institute each week, which is the first thing that drew me to it. I emailed one of the Art History department coordinators about obtaining consent to register. She wrote back to me and said that there's been a lot of demand for the class, but she's fairly certain that I should be able to get in. In any case, I'll know by Thursday. Until then, though, I had to put down an alternate class just to have a full course load on my registration card, and so I settled on....
Modern Readings in Anthropology: Explorations in Oral Narrative (The Folktale)
Here's how it's described in the course catalog:
"This course studies the role of storytelling and narrativity in society and culture. Among these are a comparison of folktale traditions, the shift from oral to literate traditions and the impact of writing, the principal schools of analysis of narrative structure and function, and the place of narrative in the disciplines (i.e., law, psychoanalysis, politics, history, philosophy, anthropology)."
This class might actually be somewhat helpful for writing my thesis, at least for gaining more exposure to narrative theory, even though I'm focusing on a story that was written ten centuries ago! I'd love to take this one just as much as the painting class, but if I can register for it on Thursday, then that'll almost certainly be the one that I'll stick with.
So there it is, the plan for my final quarter of academic life. It's time to go out with a bang.
Anyway, having said that, here's what I'm taking during spring quarter:
Readings in Modern Arabic Literature
It's the exact same Arabic class I've been taking all year, so nothing's going to change here.
Anthropology of Museums: Part 2
This quarter, we've been focusing on museum theory, but we'll spend next quarter doing ethnographic fieldwork in some of the museums here in Chicago. Fun!
As for my third class, here are my two options:
Aspects of Indian Painting
This meets at the Art Institute each week, which is the first thing that drew me to it. I emailed one of the Art History department coordinators about obtaining consent to register. She wrote back to me and said that there's been a lot of demand for the class, but she's fairly certain that I should be able to get in. In any case, I'll know by Thursday. Until then, though, I had to put down an alternate class just to have a full course load on my registration card, and so I settled on....
Modern Readings in Anthropology: Explorations in Oral Narrative (The Folktale)
Here's how it's described in the course catalog:
"This course studies the role of storytelling and narrativity in society and culture. Among these are a comparison of folktale traditions, the shift from oral to literate traditions and the impact of writing, the principal schools of analysis of narrative structure and function, and the place of narrative in the disciplines (i.e., law, psychoanalysis, politics, history, philosophy, anthropology)."
This class might actually be somewhat helpful for writing my thesis, at least for gaining more exposure to narrative theory, even though I'm focusing on a story that was written ten centuries ago! I'd love to take this one just as much as the painting class, but if I can register for it on Thursday, then that'll almost certainly be the one that I'll stick with.
So there it is, the plan for my final quarter of academic life. It's time to go out with a bang.