Sunday, December 06, 2009

I Have a New Motto!



On the one hand, I'm feeling deeply disturbed.

On the other hand, I'm feeling pretty good about my teaching.

What's the text for today?

9 comments:

  1. Although I looked up philology, I'm not sure what it means.. At first glance, I read "philosophy leads to disaster" -- which is the truth... at least, for my students :).

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  2. I'm confused ... it's the weekend, why are you teaching?

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  3. Inside, in the US and England, I think, philology has sort of grown into linguistics or literary studies (with a split between classics and modern languages). I think in some places they may still do philology, though.

    Sisyphus, There's no rest for the wicked! At least not until finals are done and grades turned in!

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  4. Please tell us what it is! I've checked back like 3 times, to no avail.

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  5. I, too, must confess myself stumped; my only thought was Middlemarch, but I have a vague idea that Casaubon studied mythology rather than philology, and I'm not sure why you'd be teaching a really long Victorian novel at this point in the semester anyway...

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  6. Okay. Everyone have their pencils ready? Because now you're going to see one of the reasons my semester has been so unhinged. It's not early modern; heck, it's not even English!

    This is my interpretation of Eugene Ionesco's The Lesson. It's a line the maid says as the professor starts to go off on his rant while his student is writhing in pain from a toothache. Then, a few minutes later, he stabs the student to death, and we learn from the maid that this is the 40th student he's served in like manner. And then the play comes around again as the maid cleans up for the next student.

    It's disturbing in all sorts of ways; the idea that someone could just go on and on about some philology BS while a student writhes in pain is horrid. The murder is worse.

    On the other hand, I'm feeling pretty good about my teaching skills in comparison!

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  7. Oh my god! Wow. Well, I never would've guessed that (since I've never even heard of it before). Thanks.

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  8. Speaking of Eugene Ionesco, he wrote a really cool absurdist adaptation of Macbeth (called Macbett) that I used for my MA thesis. It's well worth a read! (In your non-existent free time...)

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  9. Ooh I've read that one, back in high school! We also did a production of The Bald Soprano, which was great fun. I got to be the costume mistress and outfit the entire cast!

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