I just happened upon this article that claims that scientists have found a mutated gene that allows people to be "short sleepers", meaning they can naturally run on only a few hours of sleep with no harmful side effects. These people are also more upbeat, ambitious, thinner, and dare I say it, "happier". The scientists are currently thinking about how to manipulate this gene so everyone could potentially have this opportunity. Sound familiar? Here's the link.

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/112502/why-people-can-run-on-little-sleep-wsj

From missing class this Monday, for this post I've been thinking about Mary Shelley's novel from the perspective of contemporary composers. This group of people has created a new genre of music, mostly through their use of technology in their compositions. In regard to Frankenstein's monster, I would think that these composers would support his creation and the science/technology that went into it. Frankenstein had created what seems like a new species of human, or at least a new creature. He used modern science and technology (though he keeps the details hidden) to expand how people think of a predefined category. Contemporary composers have made us rethink our definition of what music really is with their new uses of technology in music.

In Paul's class yesterday we became engrossed in a conversation about writing in journals and why people blog online/ are now so open to expressing themselves and sharing with millions of strangers what they used to keep secret and so privately stored away.  After thinking about it more, I think that this conversation also connects to the second half of our discussion about The Plague. 

Coming out of class on Wednesday really made me think about how Frankenstein, (and really any other novel) could be presented in the future. I remembered this project that Professor Katherine Rowe showed me and it really got me thinking about the presentation of the novel. Frankenstein is presented in codex form where a reader simply picks up the book, reads and finishes it (hopefully) and close reads the text. While every reader can come up with their own interpretations, the gist of the book remains the same. The narrative is the same way, the characters are the same and the reader starts and finishes (given that the reader does finish) at the same points.

In Professor Dalke’s Thursday discussion section, we explored the idea of solidarity in times of struggle and talked about a lot of different scenarios in which we, like Rambert, might be tempted to leave a difficult situation. The difficulty of being separated from one’s homeland because of a difficult situation, however, seems to be a problem even for the people who remain in Oran, for the place they are staying is not like the one that they knew before The Plague descended upon the city. They are transformed and develop a different relationship to the space they inhabit; the disease fundamentally transforms their relationship to their city.

In our small group today, we discussed justice and whether justice is impartial. Can we make accommodations for others while being just? Does justice require accommodations to be just? My first answer was that justice cannot make accommodations to be just, and in demanding that justice also be kind that we confused it with fairness or humanity. But then I decided to consult our favorite source, the OED. The OED online lists the meaning of justice as "The quality of being (morally) just or righteous; the principle of just dealing; the exhibition of this quality or principle in action; just conduct; integrity, rectitude."