The Modest Witness

End-of-semester happenings

2009-12-06T16:20:00.000-08:00

We'll have optional review sessions 1-2 pm on M 12/07 and W 12/09 in our usual room, 222 Wheeler. I highly recommend that you attend at least one of them. Bring the review sheet (available on bspace under "Resources") and the texts from class.

Your papers are due on Wednesday 12/09. You may hand them in at the review session or put them in my mailbox in 322 Wheeler. Papers that aren't in either my hands or my mailbox by 2pm (or, more technically, by the time I get there after the review session) are late.

The final exam is on Friday 12/11, 1-3 pm in 222 Wheeler. Bring a large bluebook and pen. I'll be performing the standard bluebook shuffle at the beginning of the exam.

Impressions of I Capture the Castle

2009-12-05T17:39:00.001-08:00

After reading I Capture the Castle, I thought I would share what I thought about it. As we all agreed, the book was a much easier read than other things we read this semester like Turn of the Screw, Imaginations, and Marianne Moore’s poems. It was easier to read because Cassandra, the narrator, was very straightforward about the events that went down. The writing was in no way ambiguous like Turn of the Screw.
Since the writing was clear and straightforward, the plot was very easy to follow. I thought that the plot was somewhat interesting. I found it funny that the father, who is usually portrayed as the provider of the household, did not make any money or help around the house at all. The plot seemed like a realistic story. It was so realistic that I sometimes found myself feeling bad for Stephen or being annoyed by Rose.
Also, I think that reading A Room of One’s Own before reading I Capture the Castle gave it a different experience. I would notice parallels between the two books. An example, would be that when Cassandra had the castle to herself she felt more free to write, like Woolf’s ideal setting for a woman to write fiction. I noticed that women had a lot more power in I capture the Castle. Women could be intellectual and taken seriously like Mrs. Cotton or make money with their artistic ability like Leda Fox-Cotton.
Another thing I thought about while reading I Capture the Castle was the hot topic in class on how some books appeal more to a different gender. I feel that I Capture the Castle seems like it would be more appealing to females because it is about a young girl who thinks she is in love. Did any of the guys find this book appealing?
Let me know what you guys thought about the book!

What exactly is a Modest Witness?

2009-12-03T16:53:00.000-08:00

According to Simon and Schaffer, Boyle's experiments have to be first, disseminable, second, repeatable and third, ... something...

As for the requirements of the modest witness, he/she has to be, most importantly, unbiased... but what else makes a person a modest witness?

Sympathy for Rose

2009-12-03T16:48:00.000-08:00

I will agree with most that Rose did not love Simon and that she was a gold digger (it's hard to argue against that). I will go as far as saying that she did it thinking more about herself than about her family. But I still believe she's not as bad as some may have made her out to be. For starters she leaves under extreme poverty so much so that Ms. Marcy can't believe how little they have when they go over their finances. Few (if any) of us will know what that's like. Next she has no opportunities ready for her. As comical as her comment about walking the streets of London was it showed us a powerful truth: there were very few (if any) opportunities for women. Yes, this were times after Jane Austen which means women could write and make a living from it, but think about it even women with talent met with many obstacles in order to become a successful writer, and Rose did not have that kind of talent. Also she wasn't the only one that wanted the marriage with Simon. Her whole family put their hopes on Rose successfully snaring him. Topaz goes out of her way to get fine dresses for Rose whether she alters old ones or makes her a new one. Cassandra herself jumps in the icy water which she hates, and even says feels like cold knives digging into her skin, just to buy Rose some time alone with Simon.

I'm not saying Rose is completely innocent, we all know that's not the case, but I will say she was pushed to this by her circumstances. But that's my opinion. What's yours?

Rose vs. Rachel

2009-11-30T19:37:00.000-08:00

If any of you have read Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (written much later) you may agree that Rose is quite similar to Rachel Price. Rachel is a pretty and materialistic teenager who is attracted to men based on their wealth. She ends up marrying a rich white explorer who takes advantage of the natives in the African Congo. (I don't yet know the end of I Capture the Castle so I'm not comparing their outcomes) Leah Price, Rachel's sister, doesn't pay nearly as much attention to wealth as her sister and ends up marrying a poor native for love. From what I remember Rachel encounters heavy turbulence in her marriage while Leah's marriage goes smoothly. It is evident that Kingsolver's message here is that marriage for love is much better than for money. I believe this same message is conveyed (or at least will be) in Smith's book. People in class also mentioned that Stephen is reminiscent of characters in other books. Are there any other comparisons? Do you think the characters in I Capture the Castle are pretty stereotypical nowadays?

SA #16: I Capture the Castle

2009-11-30T13:30:00.000-08:00

1. Cassandra's father is the author of a book called Jacob Wrestling, "a mixture of fiction, philosophy, and poetry" that sounds like it could have been written by one of the modernist authors that we've read in this class. In fact, when Simon compares Mortmain's second book to God's act of creation (336), he uses the same metaphor that Williams uses in Spring and All. Describe Cassandra's relationship to her father's writing.

2. Is Cassandra a modest witness? Why or why not?

I Capture the Castle

2009-11-30T01:42:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a safe and fun Thanksgiving - good food, family, and friends - doesn't get any better. Anyways on the train ride back to Berkeley I had a good six hours of I Capture the Castle. For my first impressions, I would have to say that I enjoy reading Dodie Smith. Her style of writing is very appealing to me. I think it's because she makes the narrator a very realistic character. I like the way Smith reveals the narrator's thoughts as if we could glimpse into her mind. But not only are the narrator's thoughts plentiful, they expose Cassandra's personality. Being a guy, I cannot tell you that I relate to her experiences, but I can understand why she would think a certain way or act a certain way. Like J.K. Rowling said on the front cover, the narrator is one of the most lively ones I have ever read in a book. Smith allows the readers to mentally interact with the narrator and see how the story plays out and why the characters behave the way they do. This is the most fiction I've read at one time since Angels and Demons...which was three years ago.

i capture the castle reflection

2009-11-29T20:27:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone!
I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving break! Now...we get back to work :)
I wanted to point out a similarity I saw between I Capture the Castle and A Room of One's Own. The section in I Capture the Castle that I'm referring to is actually the very first sentence on the very first page of the book. She says, "I write this sitting in the kitchen sink" (3). this particular sentence immediately made me think of the importance of having a room of one's own as described in the book, A Room of One's Own. i was pretty happy to find that particualr theme in another book even if it wasn't necessarily a major part in the book. the fact that she used the sink in order to start writing her book, even though she did choose it because of the availability of sunlight, made me realize fully how having a place of your own to let your thoughts flow doesn't have to be a room, it can be a small as the space inside of the sink. As long as is a space you can call your own, a space where you can sit down concentrate and relax, it works. I mean take us as students for example, sharing a dorm room hardly gives us a room of our own, but we still manage to concentrate by creating or moving to a space we can call our own even for that moment.

SA #15: I Capture the Castle

2009-11-29T19:24:00.000-08:00

1. "I am writing this journal partly to practise my newly acquired speed-writing and partly to teach myself how to write a novel," Cassandra explains (4). What kind of a writer is Cassandra? Describe her style, giving a few examples.

2. Cassandra writes that she "[is] seventeen, look[s] younger, feel[s] older." Later on, when she first meets Simon and Neil (50), Simon "take[s her] for a child" (52). How does Cassandra's age affect the way she understands the world around her? Choose one example to discuss briefly (just a few sentences).

2009-11-25T10:38:00.001-08:00

Apropos of recent discussions, check out UC Hastings College of Law's web site on gender bias in the workplace: Gender Bias Learning Project.

Comparison between Women/Fiction and Minorities/Fiction

2009-11-24T23:10:00.000-08:00

Hurston makes an interesting (although perhaps obvious) point: "minorities do think...about something other than the race problem," implying that there are stories to be had that are simultaneously uniquely minority-oriented while not about this "race problem". I found this to be quite similar to how Natalia's friend viewed women in movies or other works: they had to be in there for a reason other than as the love interest of a male character.

Did anyone else see this similarity? Does anyone else agree with these thoughts?

Questions about your drafts

2009-11-23T14:34:00.000-08:00

Today's questions were:

1. What's the problematic [the question that the paper answers]?

2. What is the hypothesis (i.e. the claim, the point)?

3. If someone were to tell you the hypothesis, how much demonstration would you need in order to believe it? (None, one example, 6-8 pages?)

4. Describe the structure of the argument (list, ordered list, logical sequence...).

5. How can the author make the argument more complex?

6. Other suggestions?

An exam review sheet will be on bspace sometime today.

I Capture the Castle vs. A Room of One's Own

2009-11-22T15:58:00.000-08:00

As reading I Capture the Castle I have noticed that Dodie Smith does not fall under the stereotype of women writers that Virginia Woolf has explained. In A Room of One's Own Woolf describes Mary Carmichael's book, Life's Adventure, as lacking care and not being herself in her writing. Smith is far from this because her novel includes a lot of emotion and feeling from the narrator Cassandra. This novel is all of her journals entries so there is obviously a great amount of her true feelings in this novel. This is not an autobiography, but I feel that Smith is being quite true to herself and not trying to be someone else to please the male writers of the time.

This novel was written in 1948, so women writers had made some strides by then, since Woolf's book was published in 1929. This just comes to show the inprovment made for women writers that that in just a short 20 years women were able to write more of what interested them rather than what they thought society would accept. Smith was able to push through the male dominated writing world and compose a piece of writing to be proud of.

Women in I Capture the Castle

2009-11-21T20:48:00.001-08:00

While reading I Capture the Castle, I noticed that there was still a sense of women being degraded in that period of time, which I think is a couple years after Virginia Woolfe wrote A Room of One’s Own. (Hopefully you guys all read, so I’m not being a spoiler =]) One example I found was that Topaz’s only source of possible income was to model and get her picture taken. The only way she could get a decent income was to entertain men with the pictures that were taken of her. Another example of women not being able to achieve as much as men is Rose’s inability to even get a job. Rose’s only hope is to marry a well-off man. When she does meet a nice man, she ruins it by being too forward. I think that the way Rose acts feeds to the stereotype that women are just searching for a rich husband so that they do not have to work. The narrator, who is a female, even says that Rose “has no real talents at all” and Rose even seems to believe this herself. When the family figures out the possible income for the whole family, everyone is counted as nil except for Stephen. Stephen is the ex-maid’s son, who is not even part of the family. I thought that this really showed how helpless and useless the women in the family were.
Even though there is a sense of women being degraded, there is also a sense of change too. Cassandra, the narrator, said that she could potentially sell her writing for profit in the future. In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf seems to say that it is very hard for women to gain income from their writing. Topaz also says that she needs “time for [her] own painting” that she might sell (18). This shows that a woman’s art can be taken seriously if she thinks that she can sell her own painting.

SA #14: "What White Publishers Won't Print"

2009-11-21T16:24:00.000-08:00

Due W 11/25

1. In what ways is Hurston's style similar to that of Virginia Woolf?

2. Hurston begins her essay by arguing that white publishers don't publish stories about black people unless the black people are servants or menial laborers. Yet there is, she acknowledges "fiction built around upper-class Negroes" that "exploit[s] the race problem" (169). Why doesn't this fiction count as fiction about black people, according to Hurston?

Race or Gender Equality - Which is more important?

2009-11-21T02:39:00.000-08:00

I remember that while Hurston's "What White Publishers Won't Print" was published in 1950, Woolf's A Room of One's Own was published in the 1920s (pardon my laziness, but I don't want to dig out the book.) It also seems to me that the general public were more accepting of books written by women earlier than they started to accept those written by racial minorities. I guess an example is with a book that has survived with great fame that was written in the 30s: Gone With the Wind. Yet, I can't recall a book from that time written by a minority author. Could this show that in the literary world, the public equalized women writers quicker than they did minority writers.

But... in the constitution, race was equalized ~70 years before women...

a woman in fiction...literally

2009-11-15T14:39:00.001-08:00

Hi everyone :)

I'd like to discuss something we talked about in class this past week about characters in fiction. In class we were talking about female characters in fiction. Something that really stuck me as interesting was when we were trying to figure out female characters whose role didn't revolve around a man and when we came up with Dorothy from the The Wizard of Oz, an idea was presented that her character was one that it wouldn't have mattered what gender she was. i thought it was really interesting how we were trying to find a woman that didn't fit that typical female role and when we finally found one, i felt that we found a way to discredit the fact that it was a female character. it seemed as though the fact that she was an independent character and didn't necessarily follow the female stereotype made her character less of a female character and more of a, i guess "unisex" character or gender neutral character. Personally, i thought that Dorothy was a pretty good example of a woman in fiction who is a main character and who's character does not revolve around a male character.

that discussion made me realize that even we, in the the 21st century, have not completely moved away from classifying woman in terms of specific gender characteristics.

Writers Anonymous

2009-11-10T00:49:00.000-08:00

The discussion we had today about gender and writing and whether the author's sex makes a difference on the impact of the writing got me thinking. Whenever I choose a book to read the first thing I look at is the title of the book to get a sense of what the book might be about. Then I read the back cover or the inside covers of the book to get a brief summary. Unless the author is one that I obviously know well, I do not give a thought about the author's name. Likewise I don't go searching on Wikipedia for a biography of the author either. The point is it does not matter what kind of person the author is. It does not affect what I choose to read. I read for content, so when someone mentioned that if a male wrote Twilight it would be a different experience, I was surprised. But that's just me; I'm sure there are different opinions. I just do not believe in putting limits on what people can accomplish just because they are not expected to know certain things.

Women in Writing

2009-11-09T23:26:00.000-08:00

In this blog, I'd like to compare the women of the 18th century to the women of the 19th century. Back then, we understand that women were silenced in the realm of writing and literature. To write as a women was the deviate from societal norms. Woolf points out that the women who did come out with writing back then did so in bravery. She gave proper acknowledgment to both Jane Austen and Emily Bronte in their bravery despite the struggles and criticism they had to endure. Women today do not have to go through this fear of criticism when publishing their books, more or less. We study women authors in school alongside men authors now. In my opinion, there is still a little ways to go in fully accepting women authors, though. As in our discussion today we were questioning Stephanie Meyer. We somewhat said that she fulfilled her gender role and wrote as a women, to women, in a womanly manner. We then questioned if it were to be a man writing the book that it would be preposterous. Why is that so? Is it because we split the two into categories only suitable for one and the other to then compare them in their gender roles? I don't think it's fair that it was said that she wrote well insider her gender role, but as in comparison to men was it comparable? If we even have to bring up these questions, I think it's fair to say that the equality of women and men in writing is not yet existent.

Twilight - author insane if he was male?

2009-11-09T14:34:00.000-08:00

I'd like to continue our discussion about our favoritestest book, Twilight. During discussion today, we I said that if the book was to be written word-for-word the same way, except if the author was male, we would think that the author would be -- like women writers of the 17th+18th centuries -- crazy. This is very interesting because Twilight is undoubtedly a gender biased book, as in it is written for women, by a woman, on a topic that women would enjoy more than men. Well, why would we think a male author would be insane? I think it's because he is not conforming to the "social-gender standards," or the set of rules we expect a gender to behave accordingly to in a society.

Interestingly enough, that is the exact reason why women writers back then were characterized as crazy: they didn't conform to what was expected of them. It seems that even though our fiction has evolved so far on the basis of tolerance, we actually haven't gotten very far at all.

A Room of One's Own

2009-11-09T10:36:00.000-08:00

I believe that what Virginia Woolf has to say about women in fiction is quite accurate for her time period. They did need some kind of financial support and some space in order to be a success or even be recognized in the writing community. It was very difficult for women to get their thoughts out into the public because men felt so superior towards them. Luckily this has changed and now women write just as much as men and have even written some of the more popular novels of today.
In Woolf's time period men felt that since they were the "better" sex they could make women feel inferior. Ina disccussion we had we talked about what made men think they had this ability in the first place. My thoughts on this is that it was how their father's and grandfathers acted, therefore it was the norm and they should act like that as well. Once they had women feeling of lesser value they had the ability to not allow them to be educated so that they could not get ahead of them in life.
Virginia Woolf talks about the women colleges that we being built and how they did not have enough funding, therefore they were once again inferior to those schools for only the men. This is just another example of why in that time period omen really did need a lot of money in order to start writing and be acknowledged as a writer as well. Women were not banded from writing, it was just that they would not be able to make an sufficient amount of money to live off of because no one would even think of buying a book written by a women. This is why many women would write their book using men's names so that people would actually consider buying the book.

Ten best books?

2009-11-09T10:13:00.000-08:00

Apropos of A Room of One's Own, you all might be interested in recent controversy over a list of best books of 2009 put out by Publisher's Weekly -- an all-male-authored list. Why?

Lizzie Skurnik writes:

I got a glimmer of an answer last year as I sat in a board room hashing out the winners for one of the awards for which I am a judge. Our short list was pretty much split evenly along gender lines. But as we went through each category, a pattern emerged. Some books, it seemed, were "ambitious." Others were well-wrought, but somehow . . . "small." "Domestic." "Unam --" what's the word? "-- bititous."

I don't know about you, but when I hear the word "ambitious," what I think is "Nice try. Better luck next time. Keep shooting for the stars!" I think many things, but never among them is the word Congratulations.

But, incredulous, again and again, I watched as we pushed aside works that everyone acknowledged were more finely wrought, were, in fact, competently wrought, for books that had shot high but fallen short. And every time the book that won was a man's.

"I just want to say," I said as the meeting closed, "that we have sat here and consistently called books by women small and books by men large, by no quantifiable metric, and we are giving awards to books I think are actually kind of amateur and sloppy compared to others, and I think it's disgusting." (I wasn't built for the board room.) "But we can't be doing it because we're sexist," an estimable colleague replied huffily. "After all, we're both men and women here."

But that's the problem with sexism. It doesn't happen because people -- male or female -- think women suck. It happens for the same reason a sommelier always pours a little more in a man's wine glass (check it!), or that that big, hearty man in the suit seems like he'd be a better manager. It's not that women shouldn't be up for the big awards. It's just that when it comes down to the wire, we just kinda feel like men . . . I don't know . . . deserve them.

A few more responses:

-Matthew Cheney

-Aaron Bady (of UC Berkeley)

You'll notice that both Cheney and Bady bring up the problem of objectivity. What, if any, degree of objectivity is possible in the act of evaluation? Can objectivity exist when there is social inequality?

Mangos to Mangos

2009-11-09T08:01:00.001-08:00

Hi Everyone

I just wanted to comment on Arcy's game that we played on friday and how I found it to be interesting and fun. At first i thought there was no way she can turn apples to apples into something educational but she did and it gave me insight into how other people thought of some of Woolf's ideas. For example when group one was playing the adjective card was "influential" and Jimmy put down a quote about the women of previous generations not being into the business of making money. At first I was really confused as to why he thought it was influential but once he began to explain it I totally understood what he was trying to get at.

The game required you to go back into the text and defend your card even if it wasn't the best one there. I thought this was cool because you were forced to think outside of just your interpretation of the book and look for evidence and different connections. I had a lot of fun but also got to hear about other peoples ideas about important quotes, people, and things in the book. Another reason i found the game so interesting is the two piles of cards split the novel into concrete details and the words that sum up the important ideas in the novel.

Lady Winchilsea

2009-11-08T17:23:00.000-08:00

In class we briefly discussed Lady Winchilsea’s writing about her feelings towards the position of women. We talked about how women are “fallen by mistaken rules”. It was mentioned that she calls these rules “mistaken” because the men are not purposely suppressing women but it just happened to be that way. I think another way to look at the “mistaken rules” is that she thinks the men are mistaken in thinking that they are more intelligent than women. So instead, women being suppressed did not just happen naturally, but man’s beliefs about women are mistaken. I also wanted to mention some other things that Lady Winchilsea writes that I thought were interesting.
She says that “the hopes to thrive can ne’er outweigh the fears” (58). She pretty much says that the fear of being rejected by society and/or criticized always prevents a woman from even trying to succeed. It is so weird to hear things like that now because a lot of women now are very successful and society now accepts, acknowledges, and sometimes praises women who are powerful. When she says this it also can seem like the women are too hard on themselves. It could be interpreted that the women are so fearful that they are too scared to risk anything.
She later says that “good breeding, fashion, dancing, dressing, play are the accomplishments [women] should desire; to write, or read, or think or to enquire, would cloud our beauty, and exhaust our time” (58). Do you guys think that these stereotypes still exist today? I surely feel that some of them still do. For example, many movies and shows still portray men as the sole provider of the family while the wives/mothers just take care of the kids and let the men boss them around.
Let me know your thoughts on what Lady Winchilsea wrote!

Equality for women?

2009-11-08T16:00:00.000-08:00

One prediction of the narrator in A Room of One's Own is that "in a hundred years... women would cease to be the protected sex" (40). Is this really the case? Do women now have the same opportunity as men? I think not. Sure, in the workplace, there is an attempt to at least try to promote gender equality, but that is only one facet of it. Even in the workplace, there is evidence of gender inequality, such as lower pay for women. Broadening the scope to life in its entirety, I wonder, what would be necessary to create equal opportunities for men and women? I think that to do that, a complete overhaul of society would be necessary. But after that overhaul, if we did establish a society where men and women were equal, would it last? I don't think that it could.

People want safety. Self-preservation is one of the basic traits of animal nature. Having power means that one is safer, whether that safety manifests physically, or is just an illusion that calms the mind. Therefore, the grasp for power is part of nature. Unfortunately, it is impossible for one to be powerful without others being weak in relation. True, in the beginning of a hypothetically equal society, men and women would have the same opportunities, but as people claw for power, others will need to be pushed down. Gender and race lines are just make it easy to categorize people as they are being oppressed. Eventually, it becomes easier to oppress people by categories, and then one group must be left weak.

Letters today

2009-11-07T16:21:00.000-08:00

Dorothy Osborne wrote in her letters that writing is not for women, ironically enough. However, she obviously didn't include her letter writing as regular writing, possibly because of the intended or the work she put into it.

Today, people write letters or emails all the time, but the line between talking and writing is rapidly becoming blurred especially with the advent of IM and Google Wave.

I wonder why there was such a distinction between men writing and women writing. Could it be that there are other activities chiefly done by men now that are "inappropriate" for women to do professionally, even though they do it in an amateur fashion all the time?

Virginia Woolf a Modest Witness?

2009-11-05T22:01:00.000-08:00

While I read A Room of One's Own, I could not help but see connections between certain ideas the narration described to that of T.S. Eliot's Tradition and the Individual Talent.

T.S. Eliot writes, "It is not in his personal emotions, the emotions provoked by particular events in his life, that the poet is in any way remarkable or interesting...[t]he business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to... use the ordinary ones express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all."

It is the characteristic described by Eliot that I think Woolf's narrator admires in Shakespeare when she says he has an "incandescent, unimpeded" mind. The same can be said of the narrator's admiration for Jane Austen's ability to overcome the emotions of gender inequality when the narrator says, "I read a page or two to see; but I could not find any signs that her circumstances had harmed her work in the slightest... without bitterness, without fear, without protest, without preaching." I think she is spelling out exactly what T.S. Eliot saw as "an escape from personality".

My question to you is do you think Virginia Woolf violates these terms in producing A Room of One's Own or is she maintaing the integrity of a novelist because her "conviction... gives one that this is the truth"?

2009-11-04T22:06:00.001-08:00

Why would oppressing women allow men to succeed? The psychological effect of putting someone down could help the men feel better about themselves and give them the confidence to achieve. As likely that might have been, I don’t believe that’s the whole story. I believe the reason the oppression of women really allowed men to achieve is because resources were taken away from women.

Since men were successful in oppressing women, they were able to keep resources for themselves. By excluding women, men had more resources to go around for themselves. Also this oppression kept women from wanting to achieve. This was evident in Dorothy Osborne’s letter. She says that writing that book was ridiculous. That shows that most women had given up the fight. This was the biggest and most devastating consequence of this oppression. Now my question is: have women shaken this off? Do women feel that they are equal (if not superior) to men? Have women regained the confidence necessary to achieve?

Social guidelines what they could have restricted

2009-11-03T16:59:00.000-08:00

In the times of Shakespeare, women were not allowed education and opportunities to create. Instead, the prevaling social role for women was for them to stay at home and take care of the family. This, of course, ruined the chances for many women who had the talent of writing great works but were not allowed to write them. I was quite interested by Woolf's example of Shakespeare's sister, who had the same level of writing of her brother, but did not receive as much recognition as her brother. For this example to work, there needs to be a woman who did in fact write like Shakespeare, but unfortunately there isn't, because either there was just not this fact, or that society has just unfortunately forgotten about her.

My question is that if there actually was a woman (an actual Judith Shakespeare, although she does not need the pedigree)who wrote at par with or beyond the levels of the best literary authors of that time (I know this is subjective, but just think that if the best author got 99 points, she would get 100) would society during that time still accept her works and give her the same amount of respect that they would to the 99-point male author. What do you think?

Women and Fiction

2009-11-03T13:16:00.000-08:00

It seems that there were a lot of questions from yesterday's lecture about the inferiority of women and the superiority of men. I was thinking about where it all began and I think that from the beginning of time, men were physically stronger and their job required them to go out and hunt food or work the earth. The women bore the children and nurtured them and kept the home in its place. Humans weren't thinking about getting an education or furthering their knowledge. They were trying to survive and relied on their physical strength. Men were physically stronger and dominated women. I guess from there, men just thought they were better the whole time and socialization eventually led the whole world to think that men were better than women. Geoff had said that it was as if men and women were in a race where the women were only allowed to stay behind the half line mark. Men are letting the women run the race, but they are still controlling the outcomes. They did this in the past and it is still happening in the present.

When we talked about the mirror, we wondered why men needed the women to support them and make his reflection look twice as big. A man is the "king of his castle", as the saying goes. He goes out and makes a living. Whether or not he's successful, (because not all men are CEOs or VPs of a company) he is competing with other men who are equal to him. When he comes home, he expects that his wife and his children will respect him. If he cannot maintain a reflection twice as big at home, how can he expect to be seen any bigger than he really is outside among other men. The home is where the men fall back on and rely on to boost his ego and make him feel better.

And with Judith, I believe that from the beginning she was restricted from getting an education and from reading books. Sure, we can blame her parents for that. But I think even if her parents allowed her an education and let her read those books, when she went out into the world and tried to get on stage as an actress, she would still be rejected. The equality of men and women is still a work in progress and I think that it will be a long time before women are truly equal to men.

2009-11-02T16:32:00.000-08:00

I'll be delivering a guest lecture on Marianne Moore this Wednesday, Nov. 4, 3-4 pm in 160 Kroeber Hall for an English 45C class (twentieth century survey). You're all welcome to sit in if you have the time and inclination.

SA #13: A Room of One's Own, continued

2009-10-31T21:56:00.000-07:00

1. At the opening of Chapter 2, Woolf describes the neighborhood outside the British Museum:

The usual hoarse-voiced men paraded the streets with plants on barrows. Some shouted; others sang. London was like a workshop. London was like a machine. We were all being shot backwards and forwards on this plain foundation to make some pattern. The British Museum was another department of the factory. (26)

This brief description, like many other moments in A Room of One's Own, doesn't seem to be specifically about women and fiction. So what, in your opinion, is its function in the text?

2. When the narrator goes to the British Museum, she starts drawing a Professor von X:

Drawing pictures was an idle way of finishing an unprofitable morning's work. Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top. A very elementary exercise in psychology, not to be dignified by the name of psycho-analysis, showed me, on looking at my notebook, that the sketch of the angry professor had been made in anger. Anger had snatched my pencil while I dreamt. But what was anger doing there?" (31)

(a) Describe the tone of this passage.

(b) In light of this passage and the pages that follow it, what does Woolf think of anger? How does anger affect one's ability to produce knowledge or to write fiction? Why?

3. In Chapter 3, Woolf offers her famous thought-experiment, the "Shakespeare's sister" scenario. In a previous class that I taught, many students thought that the scenario need not have concluded in the way that Woolf concludes it, because Judith could have simply dressed up as a man. Do you agree? In general, does cross-dressing strike you as a viable way to escape restrictive gender roles?

Reflection on A Room of One's Own

2009-10-31T18:38:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone! =]

Alright, so I’d like to start by saying that the more I read A Room of One’s Own, the more I like it! I enjoy how Virginia Wolf portrays the gender differences. She notes these differences in referencing how they have changed throughout history and by referencing historical figures like Shakespeare and Pericles. I thought it was interesting how she notes that the female position has not increased greatly throughout the centuries. Pericles had said in his funeral oration that “self respecting women should be neither seen nor heard,” and to find that several centuries later in the time of Shakespeare men were still thinking along those same lines, made me realize that there was very little social advancement at all throughout the centuries. It even frustrated me to think that, in a sense, thousands of years had been dedicated to solely male social advancement and barely any to female social advancement. Personally, the more I read A Room of One’s Own, the more I come to realize how much greater it is to be a woman in the 21^st century. I can’t imagine living in a time when I wouldn’t be allowed to express myself in any way, where my only purpose would to bare children and then take up space, and where I would be expected to repress every ounce of talent that I may possess. i suppose that being a woman even in today’s world is still subject to some gender inequalities, I mean we still struggle with getting the same pay as men for the same work after all, but I feel that in just the past 100 years there has been so much more being made available to women. It makes me wonder what it would be like if back in the time of Pericles or Shakespeare they would have started to pay a bit more attention to the gender inequality.

I hope you all have a fun and safe Halloween! =]

2009-10-29T19:53:00.000-07:00

For any of you who are interested in film, the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival is running a student delegate program. Applications are due Dec. 31, 2009.

Results of the midterm evaluations

2009-10-26T15:38:00.000-07:00

Eleven evaluations were returned to me. Here are some of the comments and suggestions I received on the midterm evaluations:

1. Overall impressions were warm, some to the point that I wondered whether some students misguidedly thought that anonymous sucking up would be worthwhile (not true, folks!). Some typical comments: "I feel the class is challenging, but fun at the same time"; "interesting and explores reading and writing well."

2. Thoughts about the classroom dynamic were more varied. Of the eleven evaluations returned, six gave discussion a thumbs up, while five expressed some reservation about the balance in discussion. "Every day in the class there's always an awkward silence," one person wrote. Another wrote that "half the class enjoys voicing their opinions on a regular basis while the other half voices their opinions sporadically." Silences are often necessary for thinking, so I think it's healthy to have them in class sometimes, but I'll work on getting different voices heard in class. Interestingly, although a significant number of students speculated that some people were not comfortable in class, no one admitted to being uncomfortable themselves.

3. More or less everyone said that class discussions helped them understand the readings, and that they put a good amount of effort into discussion.

4. The general consensus was that the main use of the blog was for students to "bounce ideas off each other" in an informal way. As one person remarked, however, "[o]nce in a while there will be a good blog, but overall it seems almost like an afterthought. I don't feel that people take it seriously." I must concur with that student, in that I've definitely noticed some infinitesimal posts in recent weeks (a clever tag only very rarely makes up for lack of substance in a post). Nobody said that they found the blog useless, but there seems to be a discrepancy between those responses and the overall quality of the posts in recent weeks.

5. The most frequent request, in regards to writing instruction, was for a workshop in developing analytical arguments. To that end I'm going to move the workshop on global structure to this Friday (10/30). The Lanham will be due on F 11/13 instead.

One student asked for more examples. There is one sample analytical essay on bspace already (it's been there for several weeks, in fact), written by a former student of mine and posted anonymously with her-or-his permission. The essay received an A. I'll try to integrate more examples into the writing workshops as well.

6. Written feedback on the essays was universally deemed helpful; hurray!

7. Of the few students who had attended office hours, everyone said that office hours were in some degree helpful. A few respondents mentioned that they would be more likely to come to online office hours, and a few who had come to online office hours said that they found it helpful, which leads me to think that I should establish some regular online office hours. I'll ask about this in class. (Remind me if I forget!)

8. Not many students have led their own discussions so far. Those who had done so said that they found leading the discussion challenging but interesting. In general the responses to the student-led discussions tended to be unenthusiastic but intrigued. One student liked that the class had to think independently; several thought that the person leading the discussion probably got the most out of the exercise. A few people wanted to know more about how to get people talking. I don't expect us to have time to talk about teaching techniques during class in the next few weeks, but perhaps if I establish online office hours interested students can ask about it at that time.

SA #12: A Room of One's Own

2009-10-26T15:17:00.001-07:00

The Radcliffe Camera, Oxford. Don't walk on the turf.

1. Woolf is the first prose writer we'll have studied at length since Henry James. Briefly describe how Woolf's style differs from that of James.

2. We've been discussing restraint in literature on and off all semester. Would you describe Woolf's style as restrained? If so, in what ways? If not, why not? Give at least one example.

William Carlos Williams

2009-10-25T23:09:00.000-07:00

In the bignning of Spring and All, by William Carlos Williams, he states that he wrote this book in a disturbed mind. When I read this introduction it made me excited te see what he was going to be writing about and when I got to the first chapter I was not let down by his amount of craziness. I find that when reading a piece of literature when the writer is in a critical part of their life is always more unique to read about. They throw out so many new perspectives on life that you have never seen or thought of because you have not been in that state of mind before. Williams writes of very violent events at times but does so in such a passionate manner that I find myself not becoming angry with him as a writer.

In class we briefly discussed the fact that Williams was depressed at one point in his life and this was when he wrote the book. This really connects to the fact that his writing was so angry because he himself was not a happy person at the time. I enjoyed readng this book of poetry and prose because of the fact that it was somewhat autobiographical. Throughout the book Williams incorporates little details about his life and his observations that make it much more personal and therefore "good" poetry in my opinion.

By stating in the beginning that he was not in his right mind while writing this book , I feel as though it kind of sets the stage for an interesting book and this was not a dissapointment. Throughout the book he states his opinion on many things such as war, art, poetry versus prose and much more. This helped to see him as an intelligent writer even though he states in the beginning that the critics are going to not like his piece of writing because of it unconventional nature. I feel by stating this it has a ay of tricking the reader by tempting them to read it even more rather than simply agreeing with the fact that no one will like it and it will not be successful.

Williams vs. Moore

2009-10-25T21:15:00.000-07:00

Williams's poetry/prose made me have second thoughts about Marianne Moore's poems. As far as stanza and line structure go the two are basically identical, but content-wise they couldn't be more different. The poetry within "Spring and All" has a distinct style: short, disconnected lines, the phrases went in bursts, and the individual stanzas are unstructured. The lack of punctuation, erratic capitalization, and lack of organization have a different sensation than Moore's poetry. Her poems are much more structured and have a recognizable theme, to me at least. Moore tells you what she thinks about the topic being discussed in a more direct way. That doesn't necessarily mean that her poems are better than Williams's. I thought his poems are more mentally engaging since they force you to determine the matter being discussed.

Which author did you guys prefer to read more? Which one did you find more interesting? Which one did you find more enlightening?

Prose vs. Poetry

2009-10-25T17:47:00.001-07:00

In class the other day we discussed what Williams Carlos Williams thinks the difference between poetry and prose is. It was mentioned that Williams thinks that “poetry feeds the imagination and prose [feeds] the emotions”. I thought it was weird that Williams said this because I think that both poetry and prose can feed both the imagination and emotions. Williams’ parts of prose in Spring and All definitely fed to the imagination. Williams also said that poetry is a pure art, like music. I agree that poetry is like art, but I think that prose can be very artistic also. Just because prose does not have any meter or structure to it, does not make it any less artistic than poetry. Prose can be even more thought-provoking and full of imagery than poetry. I’m kind of confused about Williams view on prose. I feel like he does not give it enough credit, but on the other hand he uses a lot of prose in Spring and All.
He does say that both prose and poetry” move centrifugally and centripetally toward the intelligence”. I agree with this, but I found it strange because earlier in the book he said “only through the imagination is the advance of intelligence possible”. However, later he says that poetry is the “crystallization of the imagination” rather than prose. So how can both poetry and prose move toward the intelligence, when only poetry feeds the imagination, which makes the advancement of intelligence possible? (Maybe I’m just looking into it too much) I feel as though both poetry and prose are equally important in feeding the imagination and in the advancement of intelligence.
I also wonder what everyone thinks about Williams’s prose and poetry. Do you guys like his prose better or his poetry? Does his definition of poetry and prose fit with what he is writing?

Poems we weren't assigned

2009-10-24T23:37:00.000-07:00

There were two poems that I happened to like of Marianne Moore which weren't assigned to us.

First, there's "Logic and 'The Magic Flute'." "Die Zauberflöte", as "The Magic Flute" is known in German, is one of my favorite operas, and it features such things as "bird-notes" ("Der Hölle Rache" features extremely high notes from the Queen of the Night). Both the poem and the opera feature questions about true love ("The Magic Flute" features a forbidden love between the Queen's daughter and Sarastro, while the poem asks "What is love and / shall I ever have it?").

"Four Quartz Crystal Clocks" features some of the latest scientific thinking at the time of publishing. There's a great deal of word play and alliteration in the poem, making it very fun to read. I actually like this poem the best out of all of Moore's poems that I've read.

Did you read any of Moore's other poems? What did you think of them (and how do they compare to the poems we did have to read)?

SA #11: Modest_Witness@Second_Millenium

2009-10-24T22:41:00.000-07:00

1. On p. 26, Haraway writes that "Shapin and Schaffer...were silent on the structuring and meaning of the specific civil engineering of the modest witness. They took his masculine gender for granted without much comment....the gap in their analysis seems to depend on the unexamined assumption that gender is a preformed, functionalist category, merely a question of preconstituted "generic" men and women, beings resulting from either biological or social sexual difference and playing out roles, but otherwise of no interest."

Briefly summarize what Haraway sees as the flaw in Shapin and Schaffer's account of the modest witness.

2. Haraway writes that "[g]ender is always a relationship, not a preformed category of beings or a possession that one can have" (28). As you understand it, what does Haraway mean by this?

Literary Innovation

2009-10-24T22:11:00.000-07:00

Reading modernist literature has made me curious to why they felt the need to break away from the literary norms of their day (i.e. broken stanzas, rhyme, etc). I do understand that every generation has the desire to contribute something new to history but who sets the standard? To my understanding, one generation's innovation becomes the next generation's history and so on. Williams spoke of using the imagination as the means of maintaining individuality. His writings made me think: where does our current generation stand in the literary world? Can we even take poetry any farther than what Williams did with his radical break from conventional structure before we cannot call it poetry anymore? What will it take for us to break the current mold and make our mark in the literary world? A thought I had, in light of Boyle, is to redefine the way we think of poetry.

Modernist Television?

2009-10-24T14:08:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about Williams' writing, and how the modernists were trying to break out from the literary mold, and I began to think about our society today. More specifically, I thought about our mainstream television. Most of our television falls into just a few genres. There's the criminology shows, the reality shows, the sitcoms, science fiction, documentaries, etc. (I suppose this reveals a bit about what I watch on television, or at least, what's not here reveals information about what I don't watch) I guess there are quite a few, but all of television programming that requires writers generally fall into one of the major categories. What I wonder is, is this the kind of rut that Williams wanted the modernist writers to escape from? Perhaps it is a product of me just watching too much television, but all the new shows I see on television seem like old news. Williams' book didn't really seem to fit into any literary genre I could think about. Hell, it walked the line between poetry and prose on purpose. (probably) Maybe television today is like the slightly spoiled milk left in your fridge that you drink anyway because you can't get new milk. Okay maybe that simile was a bit unrelated... But anyway, maybe we are just waiting for a completely new form of television to come around. Something that seems radical and new, but will eventually become the norm. (Or at least, something not surprising) Maybe we need modern modernist screenwriters.

English R1B

2009-10-23T21:09:00.000-07:00

In class today someone asked about the 1B I'll be teaching next semester. The description for it and all of the sections of English R1B that will be offered next semester are available here. Keep in mind that a number of other departments, including but not limited to Rhetoric and Comp Lit, also offer 1B or 1B-equivalents.

Poetry

2009-10-22T15:09:00.000-07:00

Poetry was never really my thing. And definitely Marianne Moore and William Carlos Williams are not the easiest poets to understand and break down. Marianne Moore is descriptive and vivid, but her structure is totally confusing. Williams is no better. He has grammatical errors and describes a red wheelbarrow in a few lines, and that's his poem. He is also not as vivid, so that doesn't make it any better. I was writing my analytical essay on Marianne Moore's "He 'Digesteth Harde Yron"' and I think this is the closest I've been to understanding Moore's poems. Her description of the respect the ostrich once had and her criticism on the change of that view conveyed one thing to me. Human beings are excessive and greedy. It's a social commentary on how society has taken what was precious and natural and transformed it into society's own entertainment and exotic food. Humans have taken nature's symbol of justice and transformed it into symbols of human decadence and greed. Not only is Moore saying how greedy we humans are, she also comments on the practice of observation. Despite the great visual impact of the ostriches at the Roman banquet, people still do not see the evident slaughter of these animals. If you're not really looking for the right thing or the meaning of an object or environment, it will be completely invisible to you. That's what is happening to the Romans here in this poem. There are ostriches everywhere and yet they still cease to see the abuse and maltreatment the ostriches are receiving. Humans have destroyed justice without even realizing it. Basically that's what I got out of the poem and it's the closest I've come to understanding a poem by Moore. Williams is another story and ultimately unraveling the poems of Moore and Williams is by far, no easy task.

Some relevant wildflowers

2009-10-19T21:54:00.000-07:00

wild carrot

goldenrod

A Characteristic of Williams's Poems

2009-10-19T00:25:00.000-07:00

Perhaps it uses too much imagination? Perhaps the overflow of imagination causes the poem to be unsound?

It has been said that a lot can be told about the way a person writes, and that is no different than Williams's writing. If a close look is taken, especially with the poems, it can be seen that they are written in very short, almost violent bursts with little appreciation for grammar.

For reference of this post, please look at poem XVII on p. 130.

To me, the reading seems jerky, short of breath and noncontinuous. For example, the last few (or last) stanza: "Nobody/ Nobody Else/ but me--/ They can't copy it" seems like they would not flow together as well as what a poem would seem to be. In the view of the whole poem, this jerkiness is magnified as the topics move from music to something slightly unrelated to his own opinions. I think this huge rush of ideas can only be blamed on Williams's overactive imagination, which unfortunately to me causes the poem to falter and be structurally insecure.

For Further Discussion: Modernism in Williams's work

2009-10-18T16:29:00.000-07:00

In case any of you wanted to further discuss the connection between Modernist literature and Williams's Spring and All, I have included the definition of Modernism I shared in class:

a. "The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life.[1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernist_literature

Once again, this definition comes from sociologist Georg Simmel and the Modernist period lasted approximately from 1900s-1920s.

use your imagination

2009-10-17T22:09:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone =]

I was thinking about something that we had discussed earlier in class this week about paintings and imagination and if Williams would regard a child's piece of art as imagination or an attempt to replicate. I personally think that if a child is just left to draw whatever he or she wants, a lot of the time, they will draw something that they imagined or perhaps something they may have seen before but altered in such a way that it no longer looks like the original object; something that Williams states is also a use of the imagination. I can recall quite vividly a time when my 4 year old niece drew what looked like distorted balloons with tails, arms, legs, and pointed ears. She had drawn something that I had never seen before and when i asked her what they were, she gave me a made up name and told me that they were originally supposed to be balloons, but she changed their appearance; she changed their appearance and made them her own. They were a product of her own imagination. in this sense I think that Williams would have approved of her art. had i told her specifically what to draw however, let's say i told her to draw a house and she did, that type of art, art that one must tell another to draw, I doubt he would have considered a viable candidate for the use of the imagination because it has been done before. What gets me is the distinction between a portrayal of one's own imagination and a slight distortion of an object already in existence. For example, if one were told to draw a house and instead of drawing what one would think of as "normal" windows, they drew what looked like eyes. Would that still be considered a replication of something already there or a use of the imagination? Where is the line drawn to distinguish mere finger painting from imaginative artwork? Is there a line?

SA #10

2009-10-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

Write a short poem -- about ten lines -- in the style of William Carlos Williams.

SA #10 postponed

2009-10-13T11:03:00.000-07:00

Poetry? Not As Bad As I Thought

2009-10-11T19:38:00.001-07:00

I used to dislike reading poetry in high school. I think it was because we rarely spent any time discussing them; all we did was read and answer a few questions about them. Consequently, I never understood the meanings of the poems that I was reading. Reading, discussing, and writing about Marianne Moore definitely renewed my taste in poetry and shed new light on it. I agree with Eric's post. I thought Moore's poems were difficult to understand at first, but eventually they grew on me. Now I enjoy reading her poems.

I especially enjoyed the way she states some things explicitly and leaves the rest for implication. She challenges her readers to develop their own ideas instead of telling them everything. Her poems are mentally engaging, and I always end up learning something from each of them. I also liked her unique style: lines that seem to end right in the middle of a sentence, similarly shaped stanzas, and what not.

After reading Moore, have your thoughts changed about the way you view poetry? Did it make you like poetry more or less?

"What Are Years?"

2009-10-11T18:30:00.000-07:00

I guess since we didn't really talk about Marianne Moore's "What Are Years?" I thought I would give it a try. I thought this poem was somewhat confusing, and not much like her other poems. She usually compares stuff as we have seen through many of our discussions in class on her other poems. I didn't really think she had much of a comparison here. The first stanza was kind of hard to understand. She talks about courage. I think what she's saying about it is that when people find courage within themselves, others will see it, and they will try to find their own courage. This is around line 8 of the poem. The second stanza is a big question mark to me. So if anyone wants to give a shot at that it would be great. If I had to guess I'd say that it's talking about being optimistic about life ("accededs to mortality") and even though it could fall into pessimism (the "surrendering" of optimism) sometimes, life still goes on or its "continuing". I think I'm stretching this part. haha. I think the third stanza continues to talk about life as it mentions "mortality" again in the second to last line. The idea of the last stanza is that there should be continued optimism even though things may hold one back. Even though the bird is "captive" he is still singing.

Here's my attempt to explain the poem. Anyone want to try?

Marianne Moore and titling

2009-10-11T00:26:00.000-07:00

Moore seems to waver between using very direct titles ("Poetry", "When I Buy Pictures") and very indirect titles ("He 'Digesteth Harde Yron'", "An Octopus"). It seems to me that in addition to having indirect titles, the latter two works also seem to have very indirect messages, whereas the former seem to be more straightforward.

Is there a reason for this difference? I figured it could be that the kind of messages she wanted to send were different and influenced not only the words of her poems but their titles as well.

To Marianne Moore

2009-10-10T18:46:00.000-07:00

Marianne Moore's poems have begun to grow on me and after reading them several times, I am even finding them enjoyable. Wishing not to repeat my whole paper on my belief of good poetry, I will try to isolate my reasons to just her poems.

Given that her poems are hard to understand at first, I do not really mind but rather look at it more as a challenge. There is a lot that one can pull from her poetry and it really hit me after reading "He 'Digesteth Harde Yron.'" I learned about the "camel-sparrow" and its differing extinct links, roman banquets, greek mythology, etc. All this additional knowledge came out of the poem and even though it took me a while to understand how it all fit together, in the end I thought it was worth it.

I would have to encourage anyone who feels like Marianne Moore's poetry is to complicated to not give up and really try to understand the value that it has for educational purpose.

What could you say that you learned from Moore's poetry that you never knew before?

To A Snail

2009-10-10T15:19:00.000-07:00

As we discussed “To A Snail” in class yesterday, I really wanted to know what Moore is trying to say in it. I just cannot seem to put my finger on the meaning behind the poem. She says that “compression is the first grace of style” and that “contractility is a virtue as modesty is a virtue”. What does she mean by that? When I think of “compression” and “contractility”, I think of the ability to be short and concise while still getting the point across. Is this what she is referring to? When she says contractility, she could also be referring to something that can both expand and shrink because a snail expands and contracts to move.
Next, Moore says that “it is not the acquisition of any one thing that is able to adorn, or the incidental quality that occurs as a concomitant of something well said, that we value in style, but the principle that is hid.” What is so important about the principle that is hid? Is she referring to reading between the lines and finding the meaning behind the words? I thought it was weird that she says “the acquisition of any one thing” is not what we value in style.
I really do not understand that last part of the poem. She says “in the absence of feet, “a method of conclusions”; “a knowledge of principles,” in the curious phenomenon of your occipital horn.” What “method of conclusions” and “knowledge of principles” is she talking about? In our groups in class, my group also discussed what she meant by occipital horn. I think we came to an agreement that it was the snail’s shell, but it didn’t really make sense that a snail would contain “a method of conclusions” in its shell.
Let me know what you think the poem means! =]

2009-10-09T17:50:00.000-07:00

At this link you can see a truly funny image of a guy pretending to be an ostrich (Daryl Vocat's screenprint Practicing Strategic Invisibility is an Excellent Way to Mislead Enemies).

SA #9: Spring and All

2009-10-09T11:22:00.000-07:00

1. Consider Williams's style. How does it differ from Moore's style?

2. Williams begins Spring and All by anticipating the objections of his critics and responding to them. What are these potential objections? What is the effect of beginning Spring and All in this way?

Public Service Announcement

2009-10-08T15:26:00.000-07:00

From the UC Press blog:

University of California Press will sell hundreds of new and slightly scuffed books from the warehouse at a significant discount on Thursday, October 15, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Prices are $5 for paperbacks and $10 for hardbacks, with a few exceptions for art books and oversized editions. The sale will be held in front of the UC Press offices at 2120 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, one block north of University between Shattuck and Oxford.

SA #8: "What Are Years?" and "He 'Digesteth Harde Yron'"

2009-10-05T13:00:00.000-07:00

1. In what ways would you say that "What Are Years?" is stylistically different from the other Moore poems that we have read?

2. In "He 'Digesteth Harde Yron,'" Moore writes,

   Six hundred ostrich-brains served
   at one banquet, the ostrich-plume-tipped tent
and desert spear, jewel-
gorgeous ugly egg-shell
   goblets, eight pairs of ostriches
in harness, dramatize a meaning
always missed by the externalist.

(a) What is meant by the term "externalist"?

(b) What meaning do you think the externalist misses?

(c) What do these lines suggest about the practice of observation?

Discussions

2009-10-04T23:14:00.001-07:00

Here's the discussion-leading schedule, once again, for everyone's convenience:

Week 7	M 10/05	Marianne Moore, "The Pangolin"	Geoff
Week 8	W 10/14	Spring and All, pp. 102-18	Matan
Week 9	W 10/21	Spring and All, pp. 135-51	Nhan
Week 10	W 10/28	Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, Chapter 1	Grace
Week 11	M 11/02	A Room of One's Own, Chapters 2 and 3	Keefe
Week 11	W 11/04	A Room of One's Own, Chapter 4	Arcelia
Week 12	M 11/09	A Room of One's Own continued	Chris
Week 13	M 11/16	A Room of One's Own, Chapters 5 and 6	Jefry
Week 13	W 11/18	Zora Neale Hurston, "What White Publishers Won't Publish"	Eric
Week 14	M 11/23	Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle, Part I	David
Week 14	W 11/25	I Capture the Castle, Part II	Lexy
Week 15	M 11/30	I Capture the Castle, Chapters XI-XIII	Hanh
Week 15	W 12/02	I Capture the Castle, Chapter XIV-end	Olyvia

Thanks.

Another look at the Wave

2009-10-04T22:24:00.001-07:00

I was thinking today about Google's new Wave product and came to the conclusion that it may be right for only a certain target market. Google markets it as a medium of collaboration, with which I agree. Natalia pitched the idea to us as Google does, by proposing that it will be the next-level social networking service. I do not quite agree with Google's prediction and think that the Wave will not replace Facebook and/or other similar networking sites. I find it hard to believe that the new generation Facebook will involve people editing each other's posts and show, in real-time, what others are typing. The product seems to be more geared toward businesses that rely heavily on collaboration and discussion for innovation and product development. Google has integrated up-to-date business world necessities like a functional and effective translator as well as spell checking and word suggestion features, to me signaling that it is after businesses that operate and communicate nationally and internationally. It could be used to negotiate contracts and other important agreements or edit a presentation or speech. I simply cannot see myself using it to communicate with college peers and family members. What is your take on this product's future?

SA #8 will be due on Wednesday

2009-10-04T20:57:00.000-07:00

I am deferring SA #8 until Wednesday, but here are a few questions to help you with "The Pangolin." These questions are not to turn in.

1. Moore compares the pangolin to a number of other objects. What are they, and in what ways are they like the pangolin?

2. What are some of the meanings of "grace" in this poem?

Self-plagiarism

2009-10-04T17:45:00.000-07:00

I'm very surprised that self-plagiarism can also be counted as a form of plagarism. The concept is that if a writer reuses parts of his writing from a work he has produced before, that can also be counted as a form of plagarism because the ideas are not original anymore. But, I think the concept of self-plagiarism (if it can be even call that) as a crime is incorrect and should be reformed. As the writer, he is free to use any information or ideas he has used previously (given those were original) because those ideas are original and his. Therfore, being those are original ideas, although from another time, using one's own ideas again in another work should not be considered a violation of intellectual property rights and rules. It could be possible to argue that the author can simply have more ideas, but what if there are no better ideas than one that he has already written? What if he is asked to write on the same topic as he did before? I think in all respects the writer can use his ideas he has written about before without having to cite them.

Google Wave

2009-10-04T13:49:00.000-07:00

Last week Natalia mentioned the new Google Wave. It combines different modes of communication (chat, email, phone, blogs, etc) into one. It seemed like an interesting innovative idea, but what scared me was when Natalia told us that the other people would be able to see what you're typing AS you're typing. The other people will see your entire writing process unveil in front of them. They will see your backspacing and revision as you are doing it. I believe that writing is a private self reflective activity. When you write something, you are doing it privately. This new Google Wave takes that away. The privacy is gone and your thought process becomes public. It is almost as if the other person is reading your mind. A lot of people become uncomfortable having another person reading what they're writing over their shoulder. The privacy is gone and the idea of having something you keep private, made public or taken away, scares me. Google Wave may become the "new" thing, but it is frighteningly disturbing how technology is affecting our lives and the process of writing itself.

objectivity

2009-10-02T17:38:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone =]

So, I wanted to go over the whole objective and subjective discussion we had in class earlier in the week, but with a focus mainly on objective. I will start off by asking the question, how far is too far in terms of being objective? I know that in the reading Nagel stated that too much objectivity leads to skepticism, which then leads to, “a radical doubt about the possibilities of reaching and kind of knowledge, freedom, or ethical truth…[1],” which I found tied back to subjectivity because I would think that the point in which one feels skeptic about something is relative to each person. This actually reminded me of an instance when one of my friends came up to me and poked me in the arm and I said to him, “you poked my arm,” a statement that I thought to be factual. He then replied to me with, “no, actually I didn’t. I poked your skin which is comprised of molecules, which cannot be owned so you really can’t say I poked your arm.” After quite some time of going back and forth debating on the issue of if he had really poked me or not, we came to the agreement that because it was once he started refusing the idea that he poked me, that skepticism began to settle in, at least for me, that it would be that point that would mark the boundary of objectivity. As I reflect on that incident having read the Nagel’s piece I see how something that would normally thought to be the truth, can be changed into something subjective. However, I still can’t help but wonder how far we could have taken that discussion. I think there was a possibility that by the end of the day, we could have lost our own sense of reality.

My question to you is one of mere self-reflection. How far is too far in regards to objectivity? Is there and indicator for you besides skepticism that lets you know?

[1] Thomas Nagel, The View From Nowhere, (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 6-7

A Circle

2009-10-01T21:06:00.000-07:00

During the discussion for “An Octopus” I noticed one line that I hadn’t really paid attention to before. In the poem Moore writes: “Completing a circle, you have been deceived into thinking that you have progressed,” and to me that is very much like her poem.
In the wild, a good sign that your lost is that you have been walking in circles. And the way you come to find out this happened is that you are at the same place you started from. You can’t tell you’re walking in circles otherwise you wouldn’t be doing it. You think you’re going somewhere, unfortunately this is not the case. This is what happened to me while reading Moore’s “An Octopus.”

When I started reading it I was trying to figure out what was going on, but when the descriptions started I felt I knew where I was going. However somewhere between the ice octopus, the “edge like clipped cypress” and the “Goat’s mirror” I became confused again. Then to make matters worse Miss Moore decided to tell me about the distrust the Greeks had for things that are not simple and clear. And then, to makes matters worse, she decides to bring in Mr. Henry James into the equation. This just further confused me but there was a ray of light towards the end.

At the end of the poem Ms. Moore begins to talk about a “white volcano”, “snow falling of the peak” and a “glassy octopus symmetrically pointed.” And just like that I’m right back to where I started. Time to start reading again. Anybody feel the same?

I’ll step up and post one of my own poems. Let me know what you think.

Box of empty ideas
eyes of worthless sights
Mouth full of never’s
could’s, should’s, and might’s
Empty feelings lying
telling empty tales
of others like’em dying
and others giving birth

Nagal and the Air Pump

2009-09-30T00:19:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone,

I was just thinking about Nagal's essay on objectivity and it reminded me a lot of The Leviathan and the Air Pump. The whole idea that subjective is being replaced by objective is I think one of the major issues addressed in The Leviathan and the Air Pump because Boyle's objective experiments triumph over Hobbes's subjective logic (well subjective to the modern reader anyways).

I personally think that some things do need to progress towards a more objective view such as the physical sciences. Biology, physics, and chemistry wouldn't be very useful subjects to study if one could make a subjective theory and have it be assumed to be correct without any evidence. Other subjects such as the social sciences and the arts thrive off of subjective thought. These subjects use the ideas of individuals and new ideas are what renew it and keep it alive. If these subjects were to become objective they would die out because everything would be written to a certain guideline and form. These were some of the connections I made between those two different works.

I just wanted to add that Moore's poetry as a whole seems to not follow any set structure too me. There are similarities between each poem but as to how the poems are structures they all seem so different. "Poetry" is very very short, "The Octopus" is really long, "In Days of Prismatic Color" has set stanzas that strictly adhere to a structure but between all of the poems we read I'm having difficulty making connections. Could someone maybe help me out? Point me in the right direction?

SA #7: Moore and Nagel

2009-09-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

1. Write a poem in the style of Marianne Moore (about ten lines). It need not be a good poem, but it should do a good job of mimicking Moore's style.

2. Give an example of subjective and objective viewpoints on an issue, based on Thomas Nagel's description of objectivity. (Don't use one of Nagel's examples, of course!)

What Makes Good Poetry?

2009-09-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

After writing my evaluative essay, I am still a bit uncertain on what makes “good” poetry. Personally, I like poetry that I can relate to and that is easy to understand. However, just because I like it, does that make it “good” poetry? There are so many different aspects that can make poetry “good”. Could it be in the diction or syntax? Some like poetry that rhymes while others like prose. I think that “good” poetry should be thought-provoking, but others may think “good” poetry is something that is easy to understand. There are also so many different types of “good” poetry. It seems so difficult to pick out a couple of characteristics which would make a poem good. Also, who is to say what is good and what is not? Everyone has the ability to criticize, but is everyone a critic? Who has more say in what is good writing and what is not? What makes some poets better than other poets? Is it purely popularity, or is there some underlying professionalism or artistic ability in a good poet’s work? What has made poetry from the past “good”? I think it really depends on the definition of “good”. There is no set definition that defines what good poetry should be like, which makes it extremely difficult to determine what type of poem is good and what is not. It also depends on who the poetry is targeting. Poetry for children must have a different standard then poetry written for adults, but both can be considered “good”.

I have also always wondered how someone would become a professional writing critic. What training or experience would be needed for such a job? For example, the critics in newspapers, do they have a background that gives them a special edge that enables them to make proper criticisms? What gives them the right to criticize a piece of work or does everyone have that right?

"unconscious fastidiousnes"

2009-09-26T22:58:00.000-07:00

Natalia asked of us to define "unconscious fastidiousness" in short assignment #5. In class we briefly mentioned it, but we did not go into too much detail. I thought we could maybe discuss it now. My initial thought of "unconscious fastidiousness" was a human being's natural pickiness of anything, but after reading the rest of the poem, it extended to animals and insects as well. Is pickiness a word because there are red-dot underline thingys signifying that it isn't. :( Anyway, maybe this pickiness is just our natural instinct to constantly yearn for the better. Generally, people want the best of everything, right? We would not want a half eaten turkey sandwich opposed to one untouched, correct? A dog is not going to pick the broken toy over the one that squeaks fine, yeah? In trying to relate it to the title, critics and connoisseurs just have a higher sense of this unknowing difficulty to please.

The first sentence in the poem goes, "There is a great amount of poetry in unconscious fastidiousness." This was super confusing to me. Since my definition of "unconscious fastidiousness" is a natural pickiness of anything, how does poetry have anything to do with it! Is it saying that there is some kind of art in being picky? Any thoughts?

Self-Reference

2009-09-26T21:35:00.000-07:00

So while we were discussing our drafts in class on Friday, Natalia pointed out that writing essays without the use of first person was intended to keep people on topic about their essays, and that it probably wasn't necessary anymore. This wasn't really a big surprise to me at the time, but after spending a bit of time thinking about it, this is kind of a big deal, especially for me.

After spending my childhood with the strict impression that I could not reference myself in essays, I developed methods to cope, by inventing imaginary readers and superimposing my opinions onto them. In fact, that is one of the major things that I do in my writing. I create situations that I imagine other people in, and I report the result as if I had been in that situation.

With this "new" concept of self-reference being available, I can now circumvent large amount of confusing circumstances while writing. I can simply say what I think about things or how I reacted without needing to assume that any person would think that way, since my imaginary readers could be anyone. Of course, I that also probably means that I need to realize that I am not the only person in the world with a valid opinion, but I'd rather not.

In the Days of Good and Bad Writing

2009-09-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

After the virtual discussion about evaluation, I've decided to write about good and bad writing. What constitutes "good" writing, and likewise what constitutes "bad" writing? What is good to one person is not always good to another. So what are the criteria for rating a piece of literature? What about message? The message of the piece of writing certainly has different effects on different people, so this aspect can't be used to evaluate goodness or badness. The criteria used to judge has to be objective. In that case, we have to judge how the author delivers the message instead of the message itself. We can call this the author's style. Some elements of style to consider is diction, syntax, and use of figurative language. Suppose two poems talk about the same subject - lets say a walk in the park. Poem #1 gives a simple summary of the events that occur. Poem #2 uses various types of figurative language to explain the events in a more colorful way. We can argue that the second poem is more "good" than the first because the author's delivery of the message is more complex. There are much more criteria to consider, so what do you guys think?

Dinosaur Comics

2009-09-26T18:32:00.000-07:00

Over on the left, there's a feed of Natalia's latest tweets that are tagged with modestwitness. One of them has a link to the September 16th Dinosaur Comic. For those of you who don't follow T-Rex and Utahraptor, you may not know that every comic essentially has the same artwork; it's almost always only the text that is altered from strip to strip.

Dinosaur Comics is often considered by the web community to be a more intellectual webcomic than some others (for example, Cyanide and Happiness, which is probably the least intellectual webcomic around). Does the lack of changing artwork and plain, fixed-width text enhance the sense that this is a comic intended to be read, not looked at, or do those "features" actually make the comic boring to read that its content isn't enough to save it?

Moore's "Poetry" is sort of the same way, if you look at how it's evolved from its initial version. At first, it's quite structured and regular, but eventually, as lines and words are removed, they are not replaced by anything else. The words are left in place (or moved up as needed). In "Poetry," the important feature is not the shape of the words but the words themselves.

Try It

2009-09-26T17:43:00.000-07:00

I sometimes write poetry for fun but after writing my evaluation paper, it made me realize a lot of the "good" and "bad" in my own poetry. Comparing the evaluation helped me understand how much poetry is a part of literature and all of the little nuances that are involved in writing "good" poetry.

My challenge to you all is to try to write your own poem while keeping in mind what you find to be "good" in poetry and comment on your experience please! I hope it will be a rewarding experience. (If you like, you can post your poem for all of us to read.)

Some thoughts to think about after: Was it hard to keep to your evaluations? Did the experience change any of your evaluations?

SA #6: "An Octopus"

2009-09-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

Source: U.S. Geological Survey

1. Briefly describe your first impressions of "An Octopus."

2. At the top of p. 76, Moore writes that Henry James is "'damned by the public for decorum';/not decorum but restraint." Think back to The Turn of the Screw.

(a) Does this description make sense to you? In what way(s) would you say that Henry James is decorous or restrained?

(b) Ostensibly, this poem is about a mountain glacier, an "Octopus/of ice." Why is it useful to bring up Henry James in this poem?

Evaluation

2009-09-21T15:19:00.000-07:00

As you're thinking about how to evaluate poetry, consider the poet Gary Sullivan's top five poetry pet peeves. There are also a few examples of evaluation posted on bspace under "Resources." The examples given are largely negative, because it's easy to understand negative formulations, but keep in mind that we really want to know what makes good literature. Williams's essay on Marianne Moore is mostly focused on what's good about her poetry, for example.

SA #5: More Moore

2009-09-21T10:10:00.000-07:00

This assignment is due W 09/23.

1. In "Critics and Connoisseurs," what is "unconscious fastidiousness"?

2. At the beginning and end of "When I Buy Pictures," Moore describes the process of evaluating art in fairly theoretical terms. But the entire middle of the poem is taken up with a list of descriptions of pictures that the speaker might like. Briefly explain what you think that list is doing there, i.e. what role it's playing in the poem. [Notice that I've just given you an observation and asked you to analyze it.]

The rhetoric of neutrality

2009-09-21T09:58:00.000-07:00

The UC budget cuts have sparked a number of contentious arguments. Like Robert Boyle with his air-pump, people in official university positions have made an effort to reduce controversy and produce consensus.

I invite you to read the letter by the (ironically-named) Professor Kutz, chair of the Berkeley division of the UC Academic Senate, regarding Wednesday's faculty walkout. What rhetorical gestures does he use to signal neutrality? In what ways are they similar to or different from Boyle's rhetorical gestures?

(This is not an assignment -- just a practical application of our discussion of Leviathan and the Air-Pump.)

Dear colleagues:

As you may know, a group originating at UC Davis has called for a systemwide walkout from classes on Thursday, September 24th (the first day of the term for the eight quarter-system campuses). The organizers mean the walkout to express disapproval of UCOP policies regarding furloughs, tuition increases, layoffs, and compromises to instructional programs. A website describing the walkout is at http://ucfacultywalkout.com/.

This action will coincide with a strike by UPTE, the union representing UC's research support professional employees and technical employees. It appears that other groups, including staff and students, may walk out and/or picket on that day. There will also be a range of communications and educational activities about the budget crisis and public education on campus. Some faculty may prefer to teach their classes off-campus, so as not to cross a picket line.

The Berkeley Senate Divisional Council shares the deep concern of all faculty, students, and staff about the terrible effects of the budget cuts imposed on the public teaching and research mission of the University. However, after discussion, the Divisional Council also recognizes the diversity of faculty opinion on the merits of a walkout. We therefore neither endorse nor oppose a walkout, regarding participation in it as a matter of individual faculty conscience, and knowing that faculty will meet their obligations to their students. We know that the campus administration sees matters in the same light.

Relatedly, you have probably received a direct email from the AAUP characterizing UCOP's rejection of the systemwide Senate's unanimous position in favor of teaching-day furlough days as an unacceptable deterioration of a "strong faculty voice in governance." Systemwide Senate Chair Harry Powell and Vice Chair Dan Simmons have issued a rebuttal letter, making the case that while the Senate regards UCOP's decision as profoundly mistaken, the faculty voice in governance remains strong. They have asked that their letter also be distributed to the faculty. It may be accessed here: http://academic-senate.berkeley.edu/budget/Powell_Simmons_AAUP_response.pdf. (I note that I agree with Chair Powell and Vice Chair Simmons.) The AAUP letter may be accessed at: http://academic-senate.berkeley.edu/budget/Open_Letter_to_UC_Faculty_From_AAUP.pdf.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and comments, either via email, at aschair@berkeley.edu, or on my Senate blog, at: http://ucbbudgetcuts.typepad.com/.

Yours in shared governance,

Christopher Kutz
Chair, Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate
Professor of Law

SA #5 is postponed

2009-09-20T20:57:00.000-07:00

It will be on "Critics and Connoisseurs" and "When I Buy Pictures" and due on Wednesday. Sorry for any confusion!

The Purpose of Writing

2009-09-20T15:44:00.001-07:00

Many high school students come into college fearing that their writing style will not meet the university's standards. I think that most students either start of trying to sound professional or they begin with their high school style. From then, they build on and go from "novice" to "expert".

Before in the chat room, we discussed the purpose of writing and criticized the grading of essays. The purpose of writing is a way of self reflecting and getting a better understanding of the topic and yourself. It is a way to put your thoughts on paper instead of letting them float around in your head. It also helps you study and prove your knowledge of the topic. Once our essays have been written, it is left in the hands of our teachers and professors. Someone in the chat room had said that teachers shouldn't downgrade if the student has a different opinion than that of the teacher. This is true. But we shouldn't mistake the teachers downgrade for "revenge" or "disagreement". A good teacher will only downgrade if the opinion brought up is not defended with evidence or an argument. If you simply say "The Turn of the Screw is a romance novel, not a ghost story" and leave it as that, or back it up with an unorganized, vague argument, the teacher should lower the grade. The student is supposed to, in writing, show their knowledge and perspective on the topic being written and the teacher is to read and learn from it and grade it based on its content, clarity, and organization, not if it agrees or disagrees with the teacher's opinion.

Building Writing Skills

2009-09-19T19:14:00.000-07:00

I wanted to further discuss an argument that came up during our online chatroom session on Friday. The argument is as follows: Is it better for students to write within or outside of their comfort zones? My initial reaction to this was that students would of course write better if they were comfortable with the assignment presented to them. However, under further consideration, I realized that when students are not completely comfortable with a writing assignment they are pushed to contemplate the prompt more and delve deeper into its meaning and purpose.

If someone were asked to write in a brand new style of writing, he would probably not master it immediately. With that said, he would most likely research the style, study examples, and try to fit the information generated from the prompt and the literature to the style. Of course it would not necessarily be comfortable to begin working on such an assignment, but such an effort would expand the student's repertoire of writing styles, encourage deep thorough thought, and promote creativity.

An assignment with which a student is more comfortable with may have a better end result, but, in regard to skills learned, thought invested, and emergence into the subject matter, not being comfortable seems to be more important for a "novice" writer. Maybe this helps to explain why college writing is so different and often uncomfortable to learn. We should consider that professors want us to reach beyond our comfort zones to explore new areas of thought. After all, if an assignment is not challenging, what is it worth?

How much guidance should be given to students who are presented with a writing style that they do not have experience with? Would giving students more autonomy promote creativity? Let me know what you guys think.

Why I'm not that favorable towards writing.

2009-09-19T12:33:00.000-07:00

Even though writing can be a way for students express and develop their own opinions and a method to show how far a student has progressed in English, I am still not warm to the idea of writing essays that asks me to take a point and explain my own ideas. The rational dislike of writing essays is due mostly to my conditioning during my high school years (to get good grades) and the variety of teachers I have studied under. I've always felt that the purpose of my essays, at least, is the get me the highest possible grade, and because of this objective and not subjective goal, I write essays that are not coherent with my own opinion, but with the opinion (or at least matching) of the person reading or grading the paper.

This creates two divisions in the road: one good and one bad. The good route is that the reader and the grader finds the essay to meet his or her expectations and thoughts, and thus gives the essay high marks. The bad route is that in process of trying to meet the reader's fancy, I write with a thesis that I do not have that much support to back it up (but I still write it because it becomes a bet of either writing an essay that reaches the same intellectual support as the reader - and hopefully receives a good grade on the basis of favoritism - or an essay that matches my liking and is well-supported but then is marked negatively because of possible reader's bias) and thus receives a bad grade due to lack of support.

I support writing as a way to express the writer's ideas, but not if it is graded. I feel that essays without grades, but with feedback, would be the best way to develop a student's writing dexterity.

More on the faculty walkout

2009-09-17T13:30:00.000-07:00

A large number of UC Berkeley faculty have endorsed the September 24 walkout. There will be a teach-in on September 23:

SAVE the University: Berkeley Faculty Teach-in Against the Cuts

Wednesday, September 23, 7-9 PM
Wheeler Auditorium

Speakers:

Robert Reich, Professor, School of Public Policy

Wendy Brown, Professor, Political Science

Catherine Cole, Professor, Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies

Ananya Roy, Professor, City and Regional Planning

Kevin Padian Professor, Integrative Biology

Margaret Conkey, Professor, Anthropology

I encourage you all to stay informed on university issues.

UPDATE: Two Daily Cal op-eds: 1, 2

2009-09-16T18:04:00.001-07:00

Hello every one. I was just thinking about the reason for the revised version of “Poetry” and this is what I came up with.
Some may argue that the shorter, three-line, version of Moore’s poem “Poetry” is not as powerful as the original, and therefor not necessary . However I feel that the shorter version was not meant to stand alone. It is meant to be a companion to the longer version. It is meant to complement it, making it better.
In the original version Moore explains how poetry can be this wonderful medium by which one can bring to life the beauty of the world. She explains how true creativity can arise from it (“one discovers in it after all, a place for the genuine”) . And then she tells us that all of this can be undermined by becoming so convoluted as to become “unintelligible.” In her own words “we do not admire what we cannot understand.” This is when the shorter version comes into play.
In the shorter version Moore just tells us the bare basics: poetry can be tedious but is also a sublime way to view the world in a different light. And by doing it I such a concise way she brings back the beauty of poetry and makes it available for everyone to understand. That’s why the shorter version is so powerful, and that’s why it was needed. To add beauty to an already beautiful poem. But that’s just my point of view. I’m sure there are others.

SA #4: Marianne Moore

2009-09-14T19:10:00.000-07:00

1. Briefly describe Moore's style.

2. In a strictly literal sense, what are "the days of prismatic color"? How do you know?

3. "Omissions are not accidents," Moore writes on the page after the dedication. Comparing the version of "Poetry" in your book with the versions from 1924 and 1925 (on bspace) reveals that Moore revised the poem heavily, eventually cutting it from twenty-nine lines to just three. Briefly but thoughtfully describe what it's like to read the three-line poem when you know that the longer versions exist.

Physical Science

2009-09-14T17:26:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

So I was thinking about what we were discussing in class about the Leviathan and the Air Pump and how people believe in science even though a lot of it is based off of interpretation. While my idea doesn't apply to more theoretical and abstract scientific theories it does apply to a good number of accepted scientific theories. So I was thinking that perhaps the reason people will follow scientific ideas is that a vast majority of those ideas develop into tangible objects that work using those ideas.

Lots of scientific discoveries are simply experiments that work and then are turned into products that work. Once something that works is in your hands and you are using it, it is hard to say that the principles behind it are wrong. This was one of the ideas that I had for people so readily accepting scientific discoveries and advances. As for theoretical physics and chemistry usually it is "proven" by conducting not just one experiment many times but producing multiple experiments with similar results that leads to a theory being widely accepted. The theories about things that cannot be seen are much more difficult to accept but perhaps someday people will figure out why the world works as it does.

Also when we were writing questions in class today one of the ones I was curious about was "Why are two of the main characters in The Turn of the Screw, the governess and the person listening to the story, unnamed throughout the whole novel. I can't actually think of any good reasons for James to have left his characters seemingly underdeveloped. To me leaving the characters without names made the story seem unrealistic because when someone tells a story they rarely leave out a persons name, especially when the story is as long as the one that Douglas tells. If anyone has theories as to why they both are unnamed I would love to hear them.

Another twist and turn in The Turn of the Screw?

2009-09-14T14:38:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone =]
As I was walking back to my dorm, I kept thinking about what we were discussing in class today regarding The Turn of the Screw and the death of Miles. Personally, I think that it is reasonable to come to the conclusion that the governess had indeed smothered Miles to death. I think that Miles said “Peter Quint-you devil” (236; ch.24) not because he had actually seen him, but to please the governess with the idea that Miles could actually see Peter Quint; the governess may have gotten so excited to hear Miles acknowledge Peter Quint, that she held Miles close enough and tight enough that she ultimately smothered him to death (but I want to make it clear that if this be the case, that she did smother him to death, I don’t think it was intentional). The jerks he gave could have been an attempt to release himself from her grasp and his final cry could have been his final attempt to get her attention.
As I was trying to come up with more explanations for his death, I began to question the story itself. What if the story that Douglas recounts was really just a made up story by the governess or by Douglas himself? What if when the governess went to Bly to look after the children, she found it quite boring and in her free time wrote this story? How do we know that any part of the story Douglas recounts actually happened and why do we give him so much credibility? Judging by the fact that Douglass had said that the governess wrote the story, I find it just as likely to believe that the governess could have fabricated the entire story to escape boredom as I am likely to believe that that the events she describes actually happened. I find it equally likely that Douglas himself may have written an elaborate ghost story about children and placed a woman from his past as the main character because, after all, it is Douglas who begins telling the ghost story. Douglas could have thought up this intricate scheme to get people to believe the story he was about to tell was real in hopes of creating a greater impact on his audience. How do we know that Douglas isn’t just some actor and storyteller who likes making up ghost stories for the sheer enjoyment of scaring other people?

Just a thought
Comment please! I’m interested in knowing what the rest of you think. “Good point” or a good effort. =]

2009-09-12T21:21:00.001-07:00

Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of the people during Boyle and Hobbes’s time. So we as society today would pretty much go along with Boyle’s definition of what “matters of fact” are, right? Boyle believes in experimentally developed matters of fact, and these matters of fact become the foundation for other developments. Hobbes leans another way and believes that matters of fact are results of logical reasoning--that there is an answer through thought. Yeah, I think I can safely say that the majority of reasonable people today would choose Boyle’s reasoning over Hobbes‘s. People find more confidence in hardcore evidence. The saying goes, “seeing is believing,” right? We say this artifact is older than this one because it was buried deeper down in the earth, and we even attach a fancy carbon date on it. We don’t really say this artifact is older because it looks it. I think society has really depended on concrete evidence to study and find reason.

So if people were so confused back then and had a legitimate battle between these two ideas, maybe we should take some time to really dissect it. We may find it hard to believe but back then Hobbes’s way of thinking was the norm, right? Religion was incorporated into government and Hobbes’s philosophies supported it. He was the one to agree with back then. What has really changed that society gravitates toward Boyle’s methods now? Maybe what constitutes "matters of fact" is too hard to define. Referring to g.e. tang's post, maybe there should be a categorization for tangible and intangible matters of fact; thus, confusing Boyle's and Hobbe's argument again. I feel like I'm going in circles. Sorry guys! Comment away!

In the Days of Prismatic Color

2009-09-12T19:39:00.000-07:00

So back at home in Fairfield this weekend for a dental appointment, and I brought back my copy of Marianne Moore's Complete Poems. After reading In the Days of Prismatic Color, I have a few things to say. I found two specific passages from the poem particularly interesting.

The first of the passages isn't so much as a direct quote, but something that I thought of while reading the poem. Moore says in the poem that "Complexity is not a crime, but carry it to the point of murkiness and nothing is plain."Relating it back to the beginning of the poem, when she says that "obliqueness was a variation of the perpendicular," I thought that she was hinting a the fact that life has become more complex, more structured and labeled, more organized than the past. I can completely relate to that. Many times, I have thought that life would be much simpler if we didn't have all of the distractions that we do today. I mean, in the past, a person's life might just have been to farm for someone else, but today, each person, or at least each city person, must juggle a whole basketful of tasks to go about their daily life. I don't mean to say that life in the past was easier or better, just that there wasn't as many categorizations thrown about.

The other passage that I found interesting was when Moore referred to sophistication as being "at the antipodes from the initial great truths." After milling about confused at to what "antipodes" meant for a good 5 minutes, then looking it up, I still wonder, what are these "initial great truths" that Moore talks about? And how is sophistication directly opposite to that? I would like to think that "great truths" refer to the basic human instinct, and that sophistication is bringing society away from that. But I guess that's just me.

Are You a Witness?

2009-09-12T18:43:00.000-07:00

"In Boyle's view the capacity of experiments to yield matters of fact depended not only upon their actual performance but essentially upon the assurance of the relevant community that they had been so performed" (55). In other words the establishment of matters of fact depends on both experimental success and relevant witnesses. Boyle believes that the more people who witness the experiment the more reliable the testimony. The book gives three ways to multiply witnesses: (1) perform experiments in a social space; (2) allow witnesses to perform experiments themselves; and (3) virtual witnessing - invoking desire in the witness to either witness or replicate the experiment. So the more witnesses, the better right? What do you guys think about the idea of multiplying witnesses? Is gathering witnesses just for the sake of gathering witnesses justifiable?

In the same train of thought, why is it that the majority of us would believe someone widely known/regarded over someone of lesser significance? For example, would you rather trust a university professor or a high school student? Most people would take the professor without question and completely disregard the student, but shouldn't both sides be subjected to the same scrutiny? Professors can be wrong sometimes. I am not proposing that choosing one over the other is right or wrong, but it seems like our society is predisposed to to give in to the bigger guns. So my question to you fellow classmates is, "Why do most people in our society seem to comply with the people of higher status/wealth/fame?"

Matters of Fact - Who's to say?

2009-09-12T17:10:00.000-07:00

I thought it interesting that matters of fact are understood to be indisputable truths yet interpretations of those truths may be different and if so, then therefore shouldn't there only be one true way to interpret truth? I apologize for the circular thinking, but what I am trying to get at is it takes truth to interpret truth and yet we find limitations in every science. In turn, what does Boyle do to alleviate this perplexity? - he changes the name of the game and in fact does not necessary produce matters of fact but interprets them through many experimental trials. In modern day scientific understanding, it is thought that one can never absolutely prove his or her theory correct, rather only test to make sure there are no known counter examples. Thus returning to the idea that if there is to be matters of fact there also must be an absolute interpreter but that would illicit the question: who or what?

Notes for my seminar paper up

2009-09-10T23:29:00.000-07:00

You'll find a pdf of my working notes/pre-writing for the MSA seminar on science studies and modernism on the bspace site. Comments and scrutiny are welcome.

Matters of Fact

2009-09-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

In the Leviathan and the Air-Pump, we learned that matters of fact are solid items of knowledge that are undeniable and permanent. That got me thinking about what can be called a fact and what cannot. Where would religion fall? For example, Christians would think that God existing is indeed a matter of fact. However, aetheists would disagree, of course. Does that mean God existing is not a matter of fact because some people reject it? Some may say that there is no way to prove that God exists, therefore it is not a fact that God exists. However, others could argue that the world existing or the Bible is a clear sign that God does exist. In the Leviathan and the Air-Pump it says that when a matter of fact is rejected, it shows that it was never a matter of fact, but who’s to say that the people who reject a fact are right?

Do you have to see something for it to be a matter of fact? If yes, does that mean emotions and feelings are not fact? I guess that you could say that it can be shown through that person’s feelings and emotions can be shown through their actions, making their emotions/feelings a fact. What if someone says that they love someone but are too shy to act upon their love? Is that person’s love no longer a fact then because you cannot see it?

Where is the line for a matter of fact drawn?

On a different note, as I’m revising my essay, I find it really hard to just write about facts and not include any interpretation, especially with The Turn of the Screw when a lot of the plot is left for interpretation. Are themes of a story considered interpretation? Because the story is told in the governess’ voice it makes it even harder to interpret what is fact and what is not.

Objectivity in The Turn of the Screw

2009-09-10T15:21:00.000-07:00

This was actually something I noticed a while back, but I neglected to mention and couldn't include in my paper (as you'll see below).

The Turn of the Screw has a narrative frame that is easy to be objective about: the reader feels confident that the events of the narrative frame really did occur as the narrator says they did. It's easy to write about the events in the narrative frame without straying to far into the realm of subjectivity and interpretation.

However, it is considerably more difficult to be purely objective about the rest of the story (the governess's tale). The governess's tale is full of holes that are never filled (what kind of relations, specifically, did Peter Quint and Miss Jessel have with Miles and Flora, respectively? why, exactly, was Miles expelled?) and concern events that we know not to have been possible if the governess is to be believed. We are unable to write about the tale from our (the readers') perspective because we would implicitly be assuming something about its veracity and/or what the governess was truly experiencing. We are also unable to write about the tale from the perspective of the characters in the narrative frame because James never returns to them at the end of the novel. As the governess' tale is written in first person, we also can't discuss what the other characters are thinking either. Even this blog post itself is rife with interpretation about the work.

What does everyone else think? Is it possible to make interesting observations about the governess's tale without resorting to plot summary?

Faculty Walkout 9/24

2009-09-09T15:29:00.000-07:00

Information about the UC Faculty Walkout on September 24 is available here. Here's an excerpt:

We call for a systemwide walkout of all UC faculty on September 24, 2009.

We call for the suspension of faculty teaching on this date pending three demands, which we understand as absolutely minimal:

1. No furloughs or paycuts on salaries below $40,000.
2. The immediate institution of the Academic Senate Council’s July 29 recommendation
regarding the implementation of furloughs.
3. Full disclosure of the budget.

These demands are addressed immediately to the Regents’ furlough plan and the Office of the President’s edict concerning its implementation. However, despite their local character, these demands are made in solidarity with those of all UC workers and students. They cannot be used as a pretext for further layoffs or fee increases.

I highly recommend reading the letter and educating yourselves generally about the UC budget situation. This is your university! (By the way, one of the original signatories is Professor Donna Haraway of UC Santa Cruz, whom we'll be reading later this semester.)

Other relevant links:

L.A. Times: UC Students Face Increased Fees

Orange County Register: UCI Students Might Face Another Fee Hike [In fact the article makes it clear that the potential fee hikes would apply "at Irvine and the system’s nine other campuses," i.e. to all UC students.]

UCB Anthropology Department Symposium on the Budget Crisis

Open letter from UCB Professor Catherine Cole

Statement from the American Association of University Professors

Berkeley Alliance Against the Cuts

University of California Student Association statement [pdf]

Fiction Reading

2009-09-09T12:03:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Daniel Handler

Morrison Library, 5 – 6 pm

Daniel Handler is the author of the literary novels The Basic Eight, Watch Your Mouth, and, most recently, Adverbs. Under the name Lemony Snicket he has also written a sequence of books for children, known collectively as A Series of Unfortunate Events, which have sold more than 53 million copies and were the basis of a film starring Jim Carrey. His intricate and witty writing style has won him numerous fans for his critically acclaimed literary work and his wildly successful children's books.

SA #3: Leviathan and the Air-Pump

2009-09-08T10:52:00.000-07:00

(For real this time!)

Explain briefly what Shapin and Schaffer mean by a "matter of fact," and why we should not take matters of fact for granted.

Could a small boy be evil?

2009-09-05T12:08:00.001-07:00

The offender in the Cool Whip incident.*

Thanks for all your excellent posts and comments so far, everyone. I'd like to draw attention to one of Geoff's comments:

[...] I do think that part of the reason the kids seem so evil is that they initially seem innocent, but I what I found disturbing was not that the children were talking to ghosts (I shall assume that the ghosts are, in fact, real here, and that the children had contact with them), but the manner in which they handled theselves.

They act much more composed than I think that 10 and 8 year olds that can converse with ghosts should. A normal 10 year old, in my opinion, would either be scared out of their wits to have seen a ghost, or would be really proud about it and boast about it. The fact that they quietly hide their encounters away seems to me to imply that they know what they are doing is wrong, and they like doing it.

Why this is different than a kid hiding the fact that they did something like break a lamp, or steal some cool whip, I'm not quite sure. Maybe it's just the magnitude of the action they are hiding. But I think it also has a lot to do with the motive. A normal kid hides the fact that they did something wrong to avoid punishment. Miles and Flora hide the fact that they can see ghosts either to drive the governess mad, or so that they can continue to consort with the ghosts. [emphasis added]

Geoff is asking whether Miles and Flora's creepiness is different from ordinary childhood misbehavior in degree (magnitude) or in kind. Is it the same kind of misbehavior, amped up -- another "turn of the screw"? Or does Miles and Flora's behavior belong to another category altogether? In one comment, a.magana suggests that they belong to different categories. Mere badness is a matter of perspective, she argues, but real evil violates some fundamental standard that admits of no doubts. Hanh agrees, writing, "I think that evil already has a somewhat set standard whereas bad takes on many interpretations."

Geoff also points out that what's disturbing about Miles and Flora is not so much what they do but how they do it. Getting up and looking out the window, or wandering outside at night, aren't exactly the epitome of evil. Rather, "the manner in which they handl[e] themselves"--their style--is what makes it so odd. Jimmy made a similar point in class when he argued that there was something particularly creepy about Miles calling the governess "my dear" (204). The only actual thing he does in that scene is blow out a candle -- peculiar, perhaps, but again, hardly the work of a junior Voldemort.

I like the word that Geoff uses, "manner," because it suggests not just behavior, but behavior within the context of certain social codes. As you read the selection from Leviathan and the Air-Pump this weekend (warning: it's long!), think about how manners figure in Shapin and Schaffer's account of scientific knowledge.

*I asked his permission before posting these photos.

The governess - driving herself crazy or being helped along by the children?

2009-09-04T22:31:00.000-07:00

It is agreeable that the governess was driven mad by the sight of the ghosts, Ms. Jessel and Peter Quint, but to what extent are the children also responsible in her eventual mental breakdown? When the governess first works at Bly, she is troubled by Mrs. Grose's silence to why the former governess quit and is also uneasy about why Miles was expelled from school. From that point, the ghosts add on to her own madness, but it is also true that the children participated in playing with the governess's psyche.

Through her conversations with Mrs. Grose, the governess finds out that the ghosts are seeking antagonism towards the children, and becomes attentive to protecting the children to whatever harm the ghosts want to cause them. The first interaction between the children, the governess and the ghost is the scene near the lake. The governess sees Ms. Jessel across the lake, and is certain that Flora saw her too. But, Mrs. Grose sees nothing and Flor does not say anything, but gives the governess a devious glare. This is the first example of the children contributing to the governess's madness, with the governess seeing the ghost but the child saying otherwise, making the governess think she is indeed going mad.

There are indeed other numerous example of the children plotting together (and although unknown, probably also with the ghosts) to drive the governess mad. Although the true reason is never uncovered, it is simple to say that the children did have a part in the governess's madness.