Popular Culture

Far later than I should have, I finally got Outliers at the store and am in the process of reading it.

As I read it, I am joyful, scared, happy, afraid, satisfied, and amazed. But right now I am shocked. Shocked at what Gladwell says and how right I think he is.

I’m fifty pages on from the most important things I have read, yet I didn’t stop until I was shocked.

If you’ve read the book, you will know what I am talking about when I say that I am Southern. My family is from the Appalachians. And that is why I am shocked. The shock was enough to get me off the couch and up to the computer to type what I want to remember the most.

“autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward–are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying” (149)

Hmmm. Need to think about that for homework.

“Work that fulfills these three criteria is meaningful” (150).

“Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. Once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig” (150).
“if you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires” (151).

And, for another shock, I apparently was very much at risk of death on my plane trip in 1988 to Thailand, not just physically assaulted by an old Korean guy. … Thankfully my Korean Air flight did not crash.

Update: Have finished it. Going to use part of it in my linguistics class.

“Political Robin Hood: Robin Hood in the Presidential Campaign and Contemporary Protest Movements”
Leah J. Larson
Our Lady of the Lake University

sudden darling of both sides
RH embodiment of both Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street

both liberal and conservative strains
def part of 99%, connected to nature, possibly as a summer or forest diety
maintains connection with forest
Stephen Knight “R lives… a natural monarch… free man”

15th C ballads = religious man, but thief
did not steal from rich to give to poor
RH told Little John not to rob the everyday folks
matches up with Tea Party focus on small government
RH does tell his squire to invite him to dinner and make him pay for it.
So similar to Occupy Wall Street
Wall St mgrs. = church, power behind the throne

3rd crusade figures in post-medieval RH
partnership of church and corporations = church and X in stories

blasphemy to question free market system

1381 Peasant Revolt
–one main cause was taxation to fund an unpopular war
RH may have been created

1651 RH riots in Scotland
government wanted to suppress the RH folks
so they gentrified him, because then he wouldn’t be a folk hero any more

political campaign
Aug 6, 2012
Obama called Romney’s tax plan Romney Hood
takes $ from middle classes and gives to rich
Aug 7, 2012
commentator John ? said Obama was Sheriff of Nottingham
stealing from the poor to feed the government

RH is ultimate symbol of the disenfranchised
whether Tea Party threatened by government
or Wall St Occupy threatened by big corporations

“Literary/Cinematic Robin Hood: Knights in Tights—Where Robin Hood Meets King Arthur”
Elizabeth Bernhardt
Abilene Christian University

King Arthur

Arthurian legends as far back as 6th C
RH only in 14th

“Dialectical Heroes… RH and King Arthur”…

In modern literature these two have blurred until they can meet. Now we are experiencing the result of years of intermingling makes Camelot and Sherwood together.

The first mention of the two together was in the poem by Thomas Love Peacock “Robin at the Round Table” written in 1817.
King Arthur spends his 300 years of waiting for his return partying.
Invites King Richard.
King Richard tells about RH.
Arthur says to fetch RH and wants to make him a knight.
RH never arrives on scene.
Arthur stays too busy talking to others in the poem.

There are other places they have met since. One most of us are aware of is Once and Future King.
RH teaches a young Arthur.
Merlin orchestrates the meeting.
everything impressive and larger than life
gnarled, even though young
needs children to attack Morgan le Faye, because only innocent can enter fairy homes
teaches kingship:
dark side of magic
how to shoot
woodcraft (from Maid Marian)
leadership
respect
RH repeats his strategy 2x to his captains, then his captains repeats word for word to each other
RH ids himself as a Saxon

She went through two British cartoon series and a television series as well. Fascinating!

Session 3B

Multi-faceted Robin Hood: The Medieval Outlaw in Sacred, Sartorial, Cinematic, and Political Contexts
Session Organizer and Chair: Dr. Lorraine Kochanske Stock
University of Houston

This was a session I needed to go to, since I had a graduate student presenting. Okay, technically she’s not my student now and she’s not my grad student, in that I am not helping her with her research agenda or whatever. But she is one of the students I have and her main professor was not able to attend due to surgery.

This is not my area of interest, though it is more popular culture, which is an area of interest.

But I went into the session pretty unclear on what they would be talking about.

Based on the title, what would you expect from this session?

Even though I have a good colleague who does Robin Hood studies, I wasn’t sure what this would look like. I figured I would see movies or movie clips. Other than that, I had no expectations.

Just like at our university (at least until I learned I could request a tech installation myself), the USB was problematic and difficult to get to. At one point, the entire computer was disconnected when they tried to upload the final PowerPoint.

They had to connect the chair’s laptop to the computer in order to make it work. But she did have a dondle so it was fixable. Huzzah for laptop backup!

Someone asked for a copy of my syllabus, but I couldn’t figure out how to send the links in an email without breaking the app that we were working in. So I am republishing it here.

I was thinking about this class today and wishing I would have the opportunity to teach it again. I think it would benefit my SLAC students just as much as it did my urban CC students.

There was a bibliography with picture sources, which I have not found yet. I recommend using relevant pictures and photographs to make the syllabus (especially online) look good. At least one of these was purchased from iStockphoto.com.

 

The Course

Text: Adventures in the Human Spirit (AHS) by Philip E. Bishop

Course description: Humanities provides an introduction to the arts and humanities. The course investigates the relationship between individual human lives and works of imagination and thought.

Course prerequisites: Must be placed into college-level reading (or take GUST 0342 as a co-requisite) and be placed into college-level writing (or take ENGL 0310/0349 as a co-requisite).

Course goal: To expand the student’s knowledge and understanding of how human culture has expressed itself via mythology, drama, poetry, philosophy, visual art, music, film, and various related modes.

Student learning outcomes: The student will be able to (1) describe representative themes and developments in the humanities; (2) interpret representative terms, works, figures and artists in philosophy, literature, and the visual and performing arts; (3) compare and contrast representative terms, works, figures and artists in philosophy, literature, and the visual and performing arts; and (4) evaluate cultural creations in the humanities.

HUMA 1301 is a Core Curriculum course.

Even though it is an introductory course, this class is READING INTENSIVE.
It is a survey course.
We will be reading a lot.
We will do lots of fun things and reading will be a large part of that.

POLICIES:

Course Withdrawal

If you wish to drop a course, you must do so by the withdrawal date. After this date the course cannot be dropped, professors can no longer give a grade of “W” at the end of the semester. Instead, students must be given the grade earned, which is usually an “F” if the student stopped coming to class.

Attendance

Texas State law requires 87.5% minimum attendance for college courses. You will be dropped if you miss more than 12.5% of instruction (a total of six hours). This can be combined absences or tardies.

Students who are sleeping, talking, or texting during class will be marked absent. Students who leave class repeatedly, come in late and leave early, or are doing other work/reading during the class will be marked absent.

If a student is present every day for class, two points will be added to their final average. If they are absent once, one point will be added. If they are absent three times before the drop date, they will be dropped. Four absences total after the drop date will result in the state-mandated failure of the course.

Late Work
Late work will not be accepted in this class. The homework is primarily reading and note-taking. There will be daily quizzes.

Scholastic Dishonesty
According to the Student Handbook for the Houston Community College System (27-28), “scholastic dishonesty” includes, but is not limited to, cheating on a test, plagiarism, and collusion.

The consequences for scholastic dishonesty range from a minimum of a 0 on the work through a 0 in the course to expulsion from the college.

Grades
A = 90-100
B = 80-89
C = 70-79
D = 60-69
F = 0-59

30% = Instructor’s choice: attendance, participation, quizzes
20% = Experience papers (2)
10% = First exam
20% = Historical/cultural paper and presentation
10% = Second exam
10% = Creative presentation

This image is by Jason Hogan of HCC.

This syllabus may be revised as the term progresses at the professor’s discretion.

“Thanks to art, instead of seeing a single world, our own, we see it multiply until we have before us as many worlds as there are artists.” –Marcel Proust

February 15
Initial Music: 10 min. Music of the Ancient World
Introduction to DavisEnglish.com and syllabus.
Introduction to teacher, class, and students.
Email etiquette.
Sculpture introduction.
Diagnostic writing.
Hwk:
1. Read AHS chapter 1, pages 16-26.
2. Find one sculpture online that you like. Send the URL to XXX. (You will not be able to see the comment until it is approved, but I will approve it.) Please see the homework post for more details on this assignment.

February 17
Initial Music: 3 min. Lyre and Pipes, Mesopotamia
Bring the wood piece.
Quiz
Introduction to the Cultural Event experience paper.
Guennol Lioness, 5000 years old, most expensive sculpture ever
Art: Painting. ancient painting introduction (some sculpture)
Cave paintings Lascaux
Swoosh
Architecture
Pyramids: 4500 years ago.
True/False discussion
Sphinx.
Stonehenge: 2000+ years ago
Reconstructing Stonehenge
Photos at Wikipedia on Stonehenge
John Constable’s Stonehenge
Music.
Literature: Epic of Gilgamesh oldest. Oldest known love poem, 2030 BC. Iliad and Odyssey, written about 800 BC.
Art of the First Cities
Why Study Art?
Ancient Art Podcast 1, The Scarab in Ancient Egypt
A Dance Depicting Ancient Egyptian Art
Hwk:
1. Read AHS chapter 2, pages 27-41
2. Take photographs of three “cave painting” equivalents. If you do not have a cell phone with picture capability, you can find six online photographs and print them out. Please make sure the URL is included.

Note: These were AMAZING. In fact, I took some, too, and these were some of my favorite works the students shared during this class.

Students went to the zoo and took pictures of the painted primary color animals on the restrooms, trash cans, and signs.

Students went to their neighborhoods and took pictures of the beautiful graffiti.

I also did the assignment and took pictures of the local international airports terminal B, a place I have only been in once, right around the time I was teaching this class. I am adding some of the photographs I took there.

 

 

The above picture is on the wall of the terminal. It is amazingly beautiful. I am sure I would have missed much of its grandeur, if I had not been thinking of this class.

 

This was in the floor. Several randomly placed brass animals were cut into the floor or molded, or something. Absolutely amazing modern cave paintings.

There were assignments requiring the students to attend two cultural events they would not normally participate in. The idea was to get them out of their comfort zone and into a learning zone.

The overview of the two papers and detailed specifics for the second paper have been published here.

Because of the two papers (and presentations), I posted things that were going on in town that they might not have heard of. This made me look for them and I found several amazing opportunities.

Impressionists Opening:
Museum of Fine Arts Houston
Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art
February 20-May 23, 2011

The National Gallery´s Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection ranks among the finest of any museum in the world and features some of the most famous artists active in France between the 1860s and the early 20th century. The MFAH presentation showcases masterpieces by Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and others. An unrivaled loan in the National Gallery’s history, this exhibition offers a splendid overview of one of the greatest periods in European art and a survey of movements that changed the course of art history.

February 22
Quiz. You may use your notes.
Modern cave paintings.
Greek mythology. Greek Heroes, particularly Odysseus.
Aesop’s fables. “Tortoise and the Hair;” “The Ants and the Grasshopper;” others.
Why would these fables have been relevant to the people of that era and today?
Hwk:
Read another Aesop’s Fable that we did not read and find two pictures which illustrate it. Put the links in the comments of the  HUMA 1301 Homework blog post.

February 24
Initial Music: 4 min. Macedonian music
transliteration of names using Greek alphabet
Greek: not just monolithic cultures
Athens and Sparta: women
Alexander the Great, Part I
Alexander the Great, Part 2
Alexander the Great, Part 3
Oedipus Rex- riddle
Delphic Oracle
Archimedes
Hwk:
Read AHS chapter 3, pages 42-68.

Free concert:
Winter Concert
Friday, February 25, 8 pm
Free and open to the public
featuring full orchestra and chorus performing
Christ Evangelical Presbyterian Church
8300 Katy Freeway
713-526-1188

Second free concert:
NORTHWEST CHOIR: “LESSONS FROM HISTORY”
The Northwest Choir, under the direction of Dr. Allyson Applebaum Wells, will present its Black History Month concert this Sunday, February 27 at 4:30 p.m. in Theater Two of the Performing Arts Center on the Spring Branch Campus. Entitled “Lessons from History,” the concert will feature music sung and written during the Civil War. There will also be music of the Cherokee people and twentieth-century Argentina. The concert includes a setting of Lincoln’s “With Malice Toward None” and will conclude with the stirring “Sound Over All Waters” which was composed in honor of Coretta Scott King. The concert is free and open to the public.

March 1
ancient Roman music 1:56
Quiz
Introduction to the historical/cultural presentation due April 12 and 14. (Paper is due April 5.)
Paper includes:

• Two pages of discussion about your presentation.
• A Works Cited with four (4) sources following MLA (for electronic sources).
• A paragraph for each source arguing for it being a good source. You may use any of these criteria.

Roman introduction: Roman army, schools, games
Modern building of a Roman house, Roman style
satire (Roman) Weird Al Yankovich: Amish Paradise, White and Nerdy, Pokemon, Cereal Girl
Hwk:
Study for exam.

March 3
Exam over class to date, especially ancient and Greek humanities topics.
There will be essay and short answer questions.
Hwk:
1. Read chapter 4 in AHS, pages 69-99.
2. Work on your cultural experience paper.

Andy Warhol and TV + Menil by Moonlight

Friday, March 4, 2011, 7:00 p.m. at the Menil

In collaboration with the Aurora Picture Show and the Andy Warhol Museum, this curated screening includes excerpts of TV works created by or featuring artist Andy Warhol: episodes from Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes, a cable television series from the 1980s which featured celebrities interviewed by Warhol; clips from the Factory Diaries, home videos from the ’70s; and highlights from Warhol’s cameos on The Love Boat and Saturday Night Live.

The museum will be open till 9:00 p.m. in a special after-hours evening for new members, with all galleries open – and special incentives offered for joining the Menil (by moonlight!).

March 8
Quiz over chapter 4.
Roman history
Middle East Maps of War
Hwk:
Choose one of the introductions found here. You may not choose the introduction to your own religion. Read through the section, taking notes. The notes will be turned in before the documentary and will count as your quiz. Thoroughness counts. So does legibility. You may not just print the pages and turn them in.

March 10
We will be meeting in the theater for the documentary. Attendance will be taken.

Colores del Carnaval Dominicano
Thursday, March 10 at 7:30
Documentary film-makers Ruben Duran and Donna Pinnick premier their new work, Colores del Carnaval Domincano. For more than 500 years the Dominican Republic has reveled in the rambunctious traditions of carnaval: music, dancing, masks and mayhem – a party in the streets. Colores introduces us to the artists, dancers, musicians, the creative drive, behind this festival of the human spirit. Free, in the Heinen Theatre.

Hwk:
Finish up your cultural experience paper. It is due March 22, when we get back from spring break.

Free concert: March 11, at 7:o0 pm– “Music for Peace” at Rothko Chapel, which is at 3900 Yupon Street at the corner of Sul Ross Street.

March 15 and 17

NO CLASS. Enjoy your St. Patrick’s day safely.

First experience paper is due on Tuesday when you get back.

Remember for the cultural experience paper, you can also go tothe Menil or the Museum of Fine Arts or the Contemporary Arts Museum and write about that experience. Any museum will work. It does not have to be in Houston, either.

The Whole World Was Watching
at the Menil

The civil rights-era photographs in this exhibition – by Dan Budnik, Danny Lyon, Bruce Davidson, Leonard Freed, Bob Adelman, and Elliott Erwitt – were selected from the 230 images given to the museum by Edmund Carpenter and Adelaide de Menil, and document the profound changes that swept the United States in the 1960s. The exhibition’s title echoes a phrase chanted by protestors who used the presence of photographers and television cameras to remind perpetrators of racial or civil violence that their actions would not go unseen.

“Kara Walker Speaks About Her Art”
Kara Walker
Monday, March 14, 2011, 7:00 p.m.
Menil Foyer, 1515 Sul Ross

Born in 1969, Kara Walker received an MFA in painting and printmaking from Rhode Island School of Design. Winner of a MacArthur award, she represented the U.S. in the 2002 São Paulo Biennial. The Walker Art Center’s 2007 exhibition Kara Walker: My Complement, My Oppressor, My Enemy, My Love was her first full-scale U.S. museum survey. She is a professor of visual arts in the MFA program at Columbia University.

Image of the Black’s Fifty Years of Using Art to Counter Racism

Friday, March 18, 2011, 4:30 p.m. at the Menil

John Boles, moderator; speakers: Peter Wood; David Bindman, Professor Emeritus of Art History, and Editor, Image of the Black in Western Art, Harvard University; Rick Lowe; and Karen C. C. Dalton

In 1960 responding to the prevailing climate of racism, John and Dominique de Menil launched an ambitious project: a photo archive that sought to gather every depiction of people of African descent from ancient Egypt forward. Later a series of books called The Image of the Black in Western Art paired images from the archive with essays by eminent historians. In 1992 the project moved from Houston to Harvard’s W. E. B. Du Bois Institute; this fall Harvard University Press will republish the original volumes, plus five additional books.

Extra Credit: CENTRAL ART OPENS A NEW EXHIBIT
Central Art requests the pleasure of your company at the opening reception for a new exhibit, Scratch Off: A Collection of Work From the Itchy Acres Artist Community. Itchy Acres is a little artist’s enclave on the north side of Houston, where the only thing more abundant than poison ivy is creative energy. For 20 years, this wooded maze of studios, sculpture, houses and art cars has been home to some of Houston’s most extraordinary artists. This exhibit – their first as group – includes work by Carter Ernst, Tim Glover, Paul Kittelson, Lee Littlefield, Liza Littlefield, John Runnels, Charlie Sartwelle, Ed Wilson and Magda Wilson. The reception will be held Thursday, March 3, 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., in the Fine Arts Center Gallery, 3517 Austin at Holman and the show will be on display through April 2. Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., Friday through Saturday 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. For more information, call 713.718.6600.

You may visit this exhibit, taking a picture of yourself there, and write up a one page sheet about the experience or about some of the art you saw. This must be turned in by March 31. This could replace a quiz grade that you missed, or make up points for several. This exhibit can NOT take the place of the Experience Paper.

March 22
First experience paper due.
History of Major World Religions
Middle East Maps of War
Introduction to monotheism.
Go through the chapter carefully.
Famous stories from the Tanakh, the Torah, the New Testament, and the Koran.
Hwk:
Work on historical/cultural presentation and second paper.

March 24
Quiz.
What stories are present in more modern British and American literature?
Paradise Lost
Frankenstein
It’s Alive!
History of Major World Religions
Middle East Maps of War
Hwk:
Work on the historical/cultural paper. This is due April 5.

Work on the historical/cultural presentation which is due April 26. You may attend the Bayou City Art Festival this weekend for your cultural experience paper.

March 29

early medieval- England
Norse mythology.
Vikings video
Angles and the missionaries to England and King Aethelbert, who takes them to Bertha’s church
Beowulf performed as a scop would, in Old English, with caption translation
Beowulf read aloud, with bubble translations
Beowulf introduction
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2009/sep/24/heritage-archaeology?picture=353374324″>Guardian’s Anglo-Saxon Gold Hoard
Bayeux tapestry
If have time, cover Judith.
Hwk:
Work on historical/cultural paper and presentation. A possible topic would be a country in the Middle East and new news is being made there all the time. Look at the BBC coverage.

March 31
Quiz.
early medieval
drama- Second Shepherd’s Play, video, one of three
Everyman lecture
Everyman, five minute animation,
discussion of modern portrayal of Second Shepherd’s Play
another discussion
Coventry Carol
Hwk:
Read AHS chapter 6, pages 133-160
Finish your paper for your historical/cultural presentation.

FOR THE CULTURAL EXPERIENCE PAPER: The 2011 festival will be on Saturday, April 2, 2011 from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.. The event  is completely free and open to the public and remains the only one of its kind in the Houston and Austin areas, featuring a variety of nationally-distributed literary journals and small-press books alongside local booksellers, book and magazine publishers, small presses, literary organizations, and writers.
Here is the website with all the information: http://indiebookfest.org/

April 5
Quiz
1. Roland: French hero of the 700s, possibly nephew of Charlemagne
Song of Roland written in 1000s
2. El Cid video. YouTube. Is there any irony in the mix of pictures and music?
El Cid (Spanish early middle ages 1043-1099)
discuss the video in terms of the story, history, and military battles
Language Changes in Spain area, 1000-2000
3. pilgrims, pilgrimages
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer “Chaunticleer”
pilgrim badges (collector’s items of the 15th C) What do we collect? What is cool to collect? Why? How are they “badges”? What are sayings that include badges? (“badges of honor,” “badges of shame”)
music
Hwk:
Historical/cultural presentation paper due Thursday.

April 7
Historical/cultural presentation paper due today.
review badges (How are badges used in language?)–because I skipped last time
discussion of Romanesque v. Gothic architecture, see Prof. Hudelson’s online study guide
examples from Dr. Jeffrey Howe’s page
Words you should know apse, vault, clerestory, flying buttress, and rose windows BEFORE the quiz.
“The Quick Trick: If it has flying buttresses, pointed arches, and rose windows, it’s Gothic.” from mentalfloss
late medieval introduction
Hwk:
1. Prepare for historical/cultural presentations.
2. Go through the Art Institute of Chicago’s Arms, Armor, Medieval, and Renaissance gallery. Choose one work and find a modern corollary. Put the URLs in the comments of today’s homework post on DavisEnglish.com.

EXTRA CREDIT: Attend and write up: Kay Ryan, US poet laureate from 2008-2010, reads on Monday, April 11th, at 11.30 a.m. in LHSB 100 in Central campus.

Two plays for cultural experience paper:
Little Shop of Horrors will run Thursday through Saturday April 7 through 9, Wednesday through Saturday, April 13 through 16 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 10 at 2:30 p.m. in Theatre One, 3517 Austin. Tickets are $5 for students and seniors, $8 general admission. For reservations, call 713.718.6570.

God’s Trombones by James Weldon Johnson will be presented as a dramatization. This is a salute to the power of the black minister and his vision of Bible classics.
Encore Theatre located at 8616 Cullen Blvd. at Belfort
Adult tickets: $20
College student tickets (with ID): $15
Children under 14: $5
Performance dates and times:
Fridays: April 8, 22, 29 at 8 pm
Saturdays: April 9, 16, 23, 30 at 8 pm
Sundays: April 10, 17; May 1 at 5 pm
for tickets and group rates call: 832-578-1705
www.encoretheatrelive.com

April 12
Quiz
Historical/cultural Presentations

April 14
Historical/cultural Presentations
late medieval
Hwk:
Read AHS chapter 7, pages 162-190

Gallery opening:
Saturday April 16th at 5 pm attend the Poetry Pottery opening at Foelber Pottery Gallery.
This is poetry written by HCC students about pottery created at Foelber Pottery Gallery. You can get your work done and support your fellow students.

Trombone Choir Concert:
The Fine Arts Division of Houston Community College Northwest will present a special trombone choir concert Sunday, April 17 at 5:00 p.m. Low brass musicians from all over the Houston region will join in a tribute concert to the late David Waters, longtime bass trombonist with the Houston Symphony Orchestra and trombone instructor at the Rice University Shepherd School of Music. David was also a frequent soloist, conductor and supporter of Houston Community College. Featured performers at the concert will be the Houston Symphony Orchestra Low Brass Section and the Shepherd School of Music Trombone Quartet. The trombone choir will present a variety of popular and classical music, closing the concert with Aubrey Tucker’s special arrangement for 20 trombones and percussion of Simon and Garfunkle’s Bride Over Troubled Waters. The concert will be presented at the Spring Branch Campus Performing Arts Center, 1060 W. Sam Houston Parkway, N. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for students and seniors, free for HCC students, faculty and staff with ID. For more information, please email [email protected] or call 713.718.5620.

April 19
Quiz
Renaissance
Art History ppt:
Art in the Early Renaissance
High Renaissance Art
The Art of the Northern Renaissance
Northern and Late Renaissance
500 Years in 30 Minutes
Hwk:
Study for the exam, chapters 4-7.

April 21
Exam 2 will be a take-home exam.
Type your answers. Use spell check. Do not take other people’s words or ideas without the requisite citations. You do not need to create a works cited if you only use the book. Just give page numbers. I recommend simply using the book and your brain, together an incredible combination!

Grading will be on content—development, organization, clarity, and detail—and grammar and mechanics. The bulk of the grade will be content. Please use the MLA format: double spaced throughout, name/Dr. Davis/Huma 1301/due date on the top left of the first page, name/page number on pages 2ff.
Please do not repeat major aspects of information in more than one essay. Short mentions of previously discussed material is fine; complete re-use is not.
Each essay should be between one and three pages.
1. Discuss the use of art (music, architecture, drama, and art) to present a message. How has art been used throughout history to “say” something? Give specific examples from the Roman through late medieval (or Gothic) era. Discuss information from at least three chapters.
2. How has the approach to the human body in art changed through the ages? Give specific examples from the Roman through late medieval (or Gothic) era. Discuss information from at least three chapters.
3. Discuss the metamorphosis of architecture through history. How has architecture changed? How has it remained the same? Give specific examples from the Greek (chapter 3) through the late medieval era. Discuss information from at least three chapters.
The take-home exam will be in lieu of class.
It must be turned in to turnitin.com.
1. Go to turnitin.com
2. In the upper right hand corner there are boxes for email and password. Underneath the email, there is a blue link which says “Create Account.” Click that link.
3. Scroll the bottom of the page it takes you to. There is a list that says “Create a New Account.” Under that, click the blue “Student” link.
4. It will take you to a page that says “class ID information.”
5. for class id:
The class id is 3973402
The class password is davis7

1. Fill in the rest of that page. Then click “I agree- create profile.”
2. This should take you to the page to turn in your paper. It needs to be in a .doc file. Turn in the entire paper, except the Works Cited. You do not need a Works Cited if you just used our book.

Hwk:
Read AHS chapter 8, pages 191-226.

Cultural Experience possibilities:
Saturday, April 23 from 7:30pm until 11:30pm at El Rincon Social, 3210 Preston
Midtown Launch Party, Tuesday, April 26, at 4 pm, in the Rotunda of Theater One
any museum you haven’t already gone to (for the last paper), just write about something that is NOT available simply from the website
Final cultural experience paper will be due April 28.

April 26
Take home exam is due.
Teacher evaluation FIRST.
Quizzes: one on chapter 8, one on Romanesque v. Gothic, one on Early, High, and Northern Renaissance, esp. Breugel, Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Cranach, El Greco, Donatello, Boticelli, Raphael…
Renaissance
Hwk:
Final cultural experience paper is due April 28.

April 28
Final cultural experience paper is due.
Shakespeare play clips: Romeo and Juliet through the ages (?)
Hwk:
Prepare for your creative presentation. The creative presentation will act as the final exam.

May 3
Creative presentations

May 5
Creative presentations
Hwk:
Have a nice life!

These were the best finals ever.

Experience of cultural events paper
The first is due March 22.
The second is due April 26.

You must attend two designated or recommended cultural events outside of those which the whole class attends. You must submit a written critique–at least two typed, double-spaced pages in length–for each event.

The first page should have the MLA style heading on the left hand side of the page: Name / Dr. Davis / HUMA 1301 7-9 / due date

The second page should have your last name / 2 in the upper right hand
corner. This may be written in black ink if you do not know how to get the computer to do it.

This is an essay. Essays have three main sections: introduction, body, and conclusion.

• Introductions include when and where the cultural experience took place: museum, gallery, concert hall; titles and names of the event/activity/works of art; creator of that art; performers; historical significance; and points of interest.
• The main body discusses individual works, including: technical aspects; comparisons and contrasts, within the framework of the event; and observations. Relate the experience to what you have learned within the course.
• Conclusions bring all to a close with logical arguments and personal impressions; it is an excellent time to state likes and dislikes.

Criteria considered in evaluating papers includes:

• use of background material and course terminology,
• presentation,
• expression of opinion and personal involvement, and
• creativity.

It is traditional to validate the report by attaching programs, museum brochures and/or tickets or receipts.

How can you predict a match in dating? Pronouns, from NPR.

“When two people are paying close attention, they use language in the same way,” he says. “And it’s one of these things that humans do automatically.”

They aren’t aware of it, but if you look closely at their language, count up their use of “I,” and “the,” and “and”, you can see it. It’s right there.

Hmm. Interesting. And it gets even more interesting when they start talking about power dynamics.

“Listen to the relative use of the word “I.”

What you find is completely different from what most people would think. The person with the higher status uses the word “I” less.

Go to the article to read it all.

I’ve been crazy busy with school and I now have lots of other things I need to be doing in terms of scholarship.

However, I couldn’t resist looking online and seeing if there was anything interesting out there.

There is.

Here are some of the CFPs that I may try to make room in my life for:

Supernaturally Grimm, Fairy Tales on Television, essay collection. 500 word abstract due by January 15, 2012.

Wormwood Chapbooks, calling for chapbooks manuscripts from poets. They prefer previously unpublished poems. It looks interesting.

Mobile Learning for Tertiary Education

In live blogging this conference, I am following the conventions for conference blogging.

Chair: Bonnie Noonan at Xavier University
Secretary: Joe R. Christopher, professor emeritus, Tarleton State University

 

Joe R. Christopher (retired) from Tarleton State University
“JRR Tolkien’s Literary Influence on Narnia”

Michael Ward’s Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens of the Imagination of C.S. Lewis
casual dismissal of Christopher’s (speaker’s) Tolkien’s influence on Narnia

Lewis’ indebtedness

Tolkien told Lansling Green “Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe just won’t do”

parallel situation: When Lewis wrote his Ransom trilogy, Tolkien pointed out some borrowings in a series of letters. Suggests that several names are from his own unpublished works. Lewis’ references to Tolkien’s character in This Hideous Strength–Tolkien says it was plagiarism.

“Lewis was a very impressionable man…” Tolkien is regretting that Lewis was borrowing from Williams.

Critics:
Ward was discussing works that influenced the structure of Narnia.
Christopher said “internal chronology” was probably indebted to Tolkien.
Also influence of Nesbitt in plot patterns.
Tolkien influenced Narnian cosmos (is speaker’s point).
Hutter said Narnia is a biblical parallel.

Tolkien’s structure: (not reading proper reading order)
ch. 8 Narnian creation story The Magician’s Nephew
singing is creating the world
from book of Job “when the morning stars sang together”

The tuneful Voice was heard from high,
Arise ye more than dead.
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
In order to their stations leap,
And MUSICK’s pow’r obey.
From Harmony, from heav’nly Harmony
This universal Frame began;
From Harmony to Harmony
Through all the compass of the Notes it ran,
The Diapason closing full in Man. (“St. Cecilia’s Day” by John Dryden)

Ainur made first.

Spoke to them of themes of music.
…
It came to pass that he called together and unfolded a mighty theme. The ainur sing together. The creator brings them to see the model of their song, a flat-world universe.

In Tolkien ainur = middle earth cosmos.
In Narnia creation account is from singing.

Is there something unique matching Tolkien in Lewis?
In the creation, Uncle Andrew is “two half sovereigns, two half crowns, and a sixpence” fell from his pocket. The larger pieces created gold and silver tree. Similar to Tolkien’s angelic figures’ tree, caused to grow by her song in a limited recapitulation of her song.

Tolkien is creating a myth and Lewis is writing a children’s story. The trees are both destroyed. Lewis is punning on the names of the coins (sovereigns and crowns) since the trees are smithied into crowns.

Tolkien’s Silmarrillion becomes an adventure. Lewis’ works are a series of adventures.

Killing of Aslan and return to life is a retelling of Jesus. Why does he think he can get away with this retelling?

Could the story be both Jesus and Gandalf (death and resurrection)? Tolkien’s work was not yet published when Lewis’ Narnia story is published.

Gandalf the Great was sent back by a spiritual entity.

Geographic references are very similar.
African and places (such as those with elephants, Two Towers)
Lewis echoes something in Tolkien’s geography
Lewis sent the ship east in Prince Caspian, so he didn’t have to follow actual

Prince Caspian has trees coming to war. (Shakespeare uses it in Macbeth about a medieval poem that gives a discussion of the battle of the trees: Cad Goddeu or The Battle of the Trees.)
Tolkien uses the word for giants, applying them to trees.
Lewis calls the trees by the classical discussion: wood goddesses and wood gods. When they march they are birch girls, etc. accompanied by Bacchus.
In the Silmarillion, voyages go west (as in England), not east.
The end of the world and Aslan’s country are beyond the island of the star, just as Tolkien’s spiritual realm is beyond the western star.

Narnian part begins on top of tall mountain and ends there, the mountain of Aslan.
Tolkien’s cosmos, when it was flat, had the highest mountain west and the folks looked over the world there. Tolkien’s mountain has ice and snow.

Giants live in north in Lewis.
Tolkien mentions stone mountain giants in north.

1st group in Narnia throw rocks as a game.
In Hobbit throw rocks as a game.

Both use “land of giants.”
Gnome = dwarves
The Silver Chair uses classical view of gnomes, miners.
Tolkien uses the mining gnomes.
Narnia: “dragon-like salamanders swimming” like Tolkien: innocent barnards (?)

Second Prophecy of Nandis similarity (from Tolkien)

4 references to “day of death” in Lord of the Rings, evil will be cleared in “the last battle”
Narnia has the Last Battle.

Most of references are not conclusive individually, but taken together there is an impression of Tolkien.

Bonnie Noonan says she is convinced. (I was less convinced.)

 

Mark Hall at Oral Roberts University
“‘Carrying the Fire’: Images of Light and Darkness in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road”
co-editing a work on science and science fiction

Most in the room had already read the book. Many had seen the movie.

Paper prepared for those who had not read the work prior. (Full disclosure: I have not read the book.)

The tale is set in a post-apocalyptic world, bleak, barren, few humans remaining.
There is little punctuation (doesn’t like semi-colons, he told Oprah).
Only done three interviews in life and only one television interview with Oprah.
few contractions
unnamed main characters: boy and his father

disturbing and unforgettable tale as folks struggle to survive

carrying the fire is a central motif in the novel
The Road is essentially a spiritual journey.

Morning:
first gray light
gunmetal gray light
swirling ash
birdless
dead trees
barren

Father and boy
Father realizes he has one sacred responsibility.

“He knew only that the child was his warrant. If the child is not … God, then…” never God.

“You wanted to know what the bad guys look like. Now you know. … I will kill anyone who touches you. I have been appointed by God…”

“Are we still the good guys?”
“Yes, and we always will be.”

Father talks to God. Whispers. “Are you there? … Have you a neck to throttle?”

Father is sick the entire journey. He is trying to do everything for his son to prepare his son.
When they meet an old man Eli (who says it’s not his name later), he marvels at the boy.
(Similar to The Book of Eli.)

“When I saw that boy, I thought that I had died… I never thought to see a child again… What if I said he is a god? … Where men can’t live, there is no god. … To be on the road with the last god would be a terrible thing. … There is no god and we are his prophets.”

Boy realizes the future is in his hands.

“Yes, I am (the one who has to worry about everything). Yes, I am. I am the one.” (Reminds you of The Matrix.)
Boy seems to exhibit a messianic consciousness.

Observe all kinds of human depravity, especially cannibalism.
So vivid on the imagery. It is quite shocking.
See people holed up in a basement, being kept there as food for other humans.

Man struck by lightning.
Boy wants to help, but Father doesn’t.

A discussion about how to kill themselves and if the father would ever kill the boy.

Both father and son near starvation.
But the boy continues to want to help others.

“carrying the fire”
1. security for boy
2. hope to find another family
3. deathbed of father, encouraging son to go forward
4. son questions a new-found family’s beneficence

Cannibalism must be abjured.

“We wouldn’t ever eat anybody, would we?”
“No.”
Not even if we were starving?
No.
Because we are the good guys?
Yes.
And we are carrying the fire?
Yes.
Okay.

The man and the boy reach the beach, would they ever see a ship again?

“What’s on the other side?”
“Nothing.”
“Maybe there’s a boy and his father and they are sitting on the beach. They could be carrying the fire, too.”
“Yes.”
“But we don’t know so we have to be vigilant.”

Where is the fire? I don’t know where it is!
Yes, you do. I can see it. It is inside you.

Father confirms that son is the good guy.
“You’re the best guy. You always were. The best guys carry the fire.”

Carrying the fire: What does this mean? Some options include:
1. carrying seeds of civilization
2. intentions towards others
3. civility as honorable behavior
4. hope for the future

Hall does think McCarthy tells us what he means by carrying the fire.
As father faces impending death, he gives his final words to his boy.

“Do you remember that little boy? … Do you think that he’s all right? … Do you think that he was lost?”
I don’t think he was lost.
I think he was lost.
No, he’s all right.
But who will find the little boy if he is lost?
“Goodness will find the little boy. It always has.”

This revelation of the father to this little boy gives credence and meaning to the hopeful conclusion of this little boy. Goodness will find the little boy and give him a future.
Carrying = goodness motivated by human decency

People of the fire don’t eat other people.
They reach out to others, even when they are dangerous.

Boy stayed with his father for three days, after his dad dies.
arises out of the ashes of his father’s death
looks down the road

Meets a benevolent family who are willing to take him in.

“How do I know you are one of the good guys?”
“You don’t…”
“Are you carrying the fire?”
“Yes. We are.”
“Do you have any kids? We do.”
“Do you have a little boy?… You didn’t eat them?… And I can go with you?”
“Yes, you can.”
“Okay then. Okay.”

Bleak and terrible book and a hopeful ending.
Kennedy says: “The father was right about goodness. It arrives on cue as a deus ex machina that has been following …”
“redemption of the father and his child… holy”
“will bring goodness to the next generation”

The woman put her arms around him when she saw him.
She talked to him about God.
He didn’t talk to God, but he did talk to his father.
The woman said that was all right.

“He walked back to the woods beside his father. He was wrapped in a blanket as the man had promised. … I’ll talk to you everyday and I won’t forget no matter what. … Then he rose and turned and walked back out to the road.”
(end of book)

 

Jonathan Himes at John Brown University
“On Lewis’ The Dark Tower“
produced the critical edition of The Old English Epic of Waldere

CS Lewis’ work less familiar to those than Tolkien.
The question of whetehr Lewis wrote The Dark Tower is a posthumous discussion. It was not published until 1977.
Men use chronoscope to see across universes.
Handwriting is indistinguishable from Lewis’, so it is not fake.
One may conclude that he worked on it in stages. Lack of polish and crudity is reasonable, because it was a draft and abandoned.
Himes said he was trying to write an allegory against sexual addiction.
Abortive attempt by Lewis to portray deviant and self-centered sexuality.

Notorious episodes of “stinging man” or “unicorn lord.”
Butting his head into the minds of victims.
McFee character (from That Hideous Strength, statements from both are the same) plays a major role and assists Lewis afterward in narrating them.
Scudamore is the assistant to the chronoscope’s views. He sees a double in another dimension and gradually grows a sting of his own. He has a headache in sympathy while waiting for his fiancee. The double of S- sees the double of his fiancee (admirable, old fashioned double), who tells what happened. They grew up together until he went to become a stinging man/unicorn lord.
People could either become a stinging man OR a minion.

The stinging man looks through his chronoscope at the Cambridge man.
Watches Lewis, Ransome, and McFee “while stroking his forehead’s appendage” for ten minutes
“They’ve got one of our buildings and hundreds of our people… It’s all mixed up with us somehow.”

Ransome: “contains these replicas… there may be any number of others”
McFee: “It’s long odds against particles … in the same body… got the boy and the girl…”

Lines of dialogue explains how they can find themselves in another universe.

Sting used to produce more replicas, while observing, and creating minions.

Lewis says the many-bodied idol can’t be described without endangering others…
Idol matches with the unicorn’s stinger
Scudamore finds that human brains are powered by chronoscopes in their alternate/evil universe.
Exchange twisted minds with happy, normal people.
Decent earth folk have their psyches erased while the evil folks have taken their place on our earth.

Near the end of the fragment McFee and Ransome realize that it is another time and it is coming closer to us. Eventually they won’t need a chronoscope to corrupt our world.

“deviant solitary” = masturbation

Lewis’ interpretation might be “just say no to sex.”
Spenser and others say Christian chastity is beautiful married sex. Not the absence of sex.

Lewis’ conservative view of normative sex: “full of goodwill, not forgetful of God… embraces…” and then next time may regard the person as a thing, a way to get a feeling

Radcliffe equates stingings with sex warned against.
BUT private sexual fantasy uses the other person as a sexual object without the other person’s permission, thus breaking their relationship in the masturbator’s psyche.
The stinging man is at the mercy of his own horn, but it grows wearisome and doesn’t want it.

Radcliffe believes Scudamore may castrate himself “handing over their stings”
BUT Lewis’ presentation introduces the option of sacrificial release
Stings are objectification, but

Warning against dangers of totalitarianism and sexual addiction.
Both have in common treating other people as objects.
In Dark Tower the semi-obscene literature is too crude to discuss totalitarianism and sexual addiction.
Scholars in Cambridge are watching Scudamore play with his sting.
Male or female victims– Their sex is immaterial to the unicorn man. “I am your son and your daughter,” says one of the drones/jerkies/minions.
Scholar is older and a bore. He sees the alternate universe as art. He isn’t shocked or titillated anymore by watching the unicorn man.

Thomas Hubbard’s Homosexuality in Greece and Rome
Plato has Socrates refer to their life as “much to be pitied”
Homosexual promiscuity and heterosexual XXX were similar.
Hubbard adopts word “pervert.”
Stoic philosophy was profoundly against any sexuality against nature.
refers to Romans

Lewis was well-read in these texts.
His ideas were influenced by the texts.
Long term vices, indulged without restraint, are worse.
If Christianity is true, an individual is very important because his vices are stronger, more, and thus become hell. (So a pederast becomes even more pederastic. How would that happen in Hell?)

Adjectives applied to The Dark Tower by Bonnie Noonan:
violent
obscene
crude
atrocious
heinous
lascivious
repugnant
smutty
pornographic
sickening
unwholesome

Questions:

For Himes, some answered by Christopher and some by Himes.
Dark Tower was abandoned earlier in Lewis’ life? Yes.
Surpised by Joy was written in 1944. Is it the fact that he is getting married that causes him to abandon him?
He re-wrote the bulk of the Dark Tower in This Hideous Strength.

There are corrections on the Dark Tower in blue ink and the blue ink didn’t come into existence until after 1944. It came in later. So if Lewis’ work, he definitely worked on it two different times.

Alistair Fowler was shown a typed version when he was working under Lewis. We don’t know what that looked like, but it was in existence.

Dark Tower is poorly written. A bad rough draft.
Lewis normally wrote good first drafts.

Christopher thinks that Lewis wrote something like this. But Dark Tower was probably changed/padded by Hooper. (Had the tumult of his editing died down in the US? Hooper asked recently. Supposedly Lewis’ work was burned and Hooper took it out. The man who supposedly burnt the papers said he doesn’t remember any fire.)

Fowler said he doesn’t remember the white riders at the back, but they aren’t as interesting as the things in the first part, so he might not remember. (In letter to Christopher.)

Was Lewis reacting to any kind of Freudian psychology?
Yes. Says Scudamore has read his Freud.
Narrator admits this could be read in a freudian way.
Narrator says they would have been appalled to see this depravity in a back alley too.

Idea of depravity of man and yet the books are hopeful. Lewis is making a moment of critique. McCarthy is offering a possibility of hope.

For Hall
No Country for Old Men the sheriff has a dream where his father is carrying the fire.
Is there some kind of arc on carrying the fire in all three novels? Is there a McCarthy reaction against modernism and postmodernism in this?

Answer: I almost put that in. Do you think it has the same meaning as it does in this book?
Response: Maybe not a meaning, but insistence upon a functioning moral order.
Answer: He is interested in something that is worth carrying on in humanity.

For Christopher
Mentioned the story of resurrection in cannonical gospels, curious of how Lewis would have viewed that and how it might have shaped his thinking.

Answer: Lewis makes negative comments on the whole de-mythologized thing.
Hall says: Myth “dying god who without ceasing to be myth comes down from heaven to earth. … This myth is fact. It actually happened.”
Lewis saw myth and fact coming together in birth and resurrection.
Myth is fact.
Christopher: That is what Tolkien was arguing. B/c Lewis responded to myths where gods were reborn and Tolkien says “the Christian story is a myth and a fact.”
Lewis later stated that the resurrection myths were earlier prefigurings of Jesus. (responding to The Golden Bough.) They are marvelous myths and one time myth became fact.
Hall: Baldar the Beautiful is dead. That is one thing that attracted him to Christianity.

For Christopher
Are you advocating creative plagiarism?
So Lewis was plagiarizing from Tolkien?
Christopher: Yes, Tolkien would have thought it was plagiarism.
Tolkien children had the books. But Tolkien must not have read them, because he would have been writing to Lewis or others complaining of Lewis’ use of his work. Lewis was a magpie. At the end, Tolkien decided that no one should borrow or have ideas from others and so he denied all the influences on his own work.