fabelhaft's blog

Growing Up James: A Playlist for Haphazard Education and No Backyard Barbeques

An Exercise in Reading Gertrude Stein

or

PRACTICAL PUDENDUM

 How does Gertrude Stein, in her limitless capacity to confound the reader, imbue her texts with the philosophies of William James?

 Although this essay centers on a tiny excerpt from “Objects” from Tender Buttons, I believe that an attentive reader can extrapolate characteristics of William James that resonate throughout the entirety of Tender Buttons.

3/17 CLASS NOTES, YO

Reading William James chronologically

For Monday- read The Will to Believe

Wai Chee Dimock says she was surprised by how smart her students were, via creeping on their online posts

Discussion of Wai Chee Dimock discussion- how literature can be mode/means for some other end, but doesn’t equal the end

Fabelhaft- interesting how literature is not necessarily at the center, looking at literature sideways

Calamity- issue w/ description of how lit can be read and then tossed away, disposable. If you’ve read it, then there is some impact

Wai Chee Dimock’s article “Subjunctive Time: Henry James’s Possible Wars” broaches the idea of a “time-line that makes a subsequent event an important context for a text written prior to it” (249-250). The idea that literature is not temporally bounded is fascinating to me, and it is through this lens that I explore the connection between Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw and an episode of Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Normal Again.”

Throughout the essay there will be clips from "Normal Again."

class notes 2/17/10

Anne begins with pictures of various covers of PL
quote from Ralph

Calamity shows off her stunning memory skills and identifies who is not here

HW: read through ch 26 for Monday

Discussion of Tom Stoppard’s play of same title- play within a play
man and woman- she’s commiting adultery
later find out that that was a play- that he wrote?
layers of “real thing” where is it? is falling in love the real thing, question of performance
how to decide real thing in life/love/etc

Generational difference of perception- scene 7 The Real Thing the play
House of Cards play within the play
“love is colonization”

Anne: the question of real, seeing it everywhere…

SURVIVAL: WE'LL SHOW YOU HOW

Illness, whether it is real or calculated, can be used as a means of survival/escape. It can lead one to much desired physical, or mental, freedom. A headache is a handy method of retreat when confronted with an unwelcome situation. Haven’t you heard someone say, “Not tonight, dear, I have a headache”? Well, SURVIVAL: WE'LL SHOW YOU HOW presents a special edition: ILLNESS 101. In this issue we will provide you with the ins-and-outs of illness.