Class Summary-March 4

 Anne mentioned at the beginning of class that last week we got stuck talking about specific works we might read for the rest of the semester, so today we broke up into small groups again and discussed possibilities for the rest of the semester's syllabus.  I was in a group with jrf, rachelr, and aseidman.  The four of us discussed the possibility of focusing on parody through mystery.  At the beginning of class, Anne had also mentioned what a brilliant idea she thought focusing on parody would be, and two groups in addition to ours brought up the idea of parody as well in their proposed syllabi.  The fourth group was interested in focusing on the idea of the self as viewed through identity, memory, and reality.

The last half hour of class was spent going over the proposals of each group, and great conversation was had.  Each group had the chance to summarize their ideas and talk a little bit more about them, and in the end it was decided that parody would be the overarching theme for the rest of the semester's reading.  sweetp pointed out that, by focusing on parody, all topics brought up by the four groups could be included.  

As for the specific works we'll be studying for the next six weeks-three out of four groups included Alice in Wonderland in their proposed syllabi.  Alice in Wonderland is a novel which is thought by most to be a parody of the Victorian education system, but Anne made an interesting point when she said that Alice could be viewed as a parody of life, so that should definitely be a great work to learn about parody from.  Works other than Alice that were mentioned were one of Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" graphic novels, the television show "House," and a film ("The Butterfly Effect" seems to be a popular choice).