Class #14 postgame

Favor: Can you post your objections to Gandhi today? I forgot to copy them down off the board.

Favor 2: Any suggestions for the Doing project?

Homework: Course Reader 151-65 (Savarkar). Answer your study question as assigned below. (I just went alphabetically.)

1. Christine, 2. Joanna, 3. Aubrey, 4. Sarah B, 5. Marko, 6. Marcee, 8. Sarah D, 9. Annie, 10. Kiyomi, 11. Priya, d1. Steve & Elim, d2. Mark & Monique, d3. Ivan & Roselaine, d4. Ankita & Yen, d6. Lorena & Rosa, d7. Stephanie & Alexa

Kickoff: Lorena & Alexa (anything related to Savarkar from lecture or reader)

Research Prospectus: due Friday night, May 8. I'll explain more about that in class, but this page will be super, super helpful. Here's a sample prospectus the HumCore writing director put on the website... but it's probably a bit too long.

Class #13 postgame

Please note, The Plan does not go into effect until Week 9. I look forward to us all going to Chaturvedi's lectures on Savarkar & Vira and Hart's lectures on Kluger, and reading those texts. The only reason I said don't read Savarkar yet is that you're going to read him for Friday.

The Plan is probably better discussed by email and office hours than here on the blog.

Homework: 10 potential book sources for research paper & 40-50 potential article sources

Homework: Post your "Doing" exercise here if you haven't already, and check out my additional comments about the previous ones

Kickoff: Christine & Monique, who didn't get to go today

Back to Gandhi on Wednesday. Our main question... where did Gandhi lose you? At what point did you find it impossible to see things his way?

The Big Questions (as discussed on Monday):

-Do the ends justify the means?

-What causes historical change (meaning real, substantive, significant change)?

-What defines a nation? A political state? A public? A community? Etc. (and, how are "ancient" ones different than "modern" ones, what role does gender play, what role does religion play, etc.)

Thoughts on Final Draft #7

You'll get the grades tomorrow... this is the first set of essays I've hand-graded in two or three years. (I left my laptop in my office over the weekend and printed them out from my wife's computer.) You'll notice I messed with your formatting to save paper. I'm not like, trying to institute rules about tiny fonts and single-spacing.

This is a truly exceptional class. The average grade is about 3.09 (3.00 is a "B"), whereas I have been giving somewhere between 2.65-2.85 for most essays this year. I think part of it is your natural talent, and another part is that you have practiced so many essays over the course of the year. But having seen the first drafts, which were an absolute MESS to tell you the truth, the most encouraging thing to me is that this is a class that is really willing to get their hands dirty doing draft revisions. This will serve you well for the research papers, provided that you can keep up your motivation and your time management. (This is always a problem for students in the last five weeks of the spring term.)

The stuff I emphasized in our workshops last week (paragraph organization, and how to incorporate quotations from sources) will also be key to the research paper. That's the other reason I made such a big deal about it. But let me add one more comment that you should take into the research paper. Something that came up on many of these drafts... some of you need to cool it with the descriptive adjectives and adverbs. And with overwriting the sentences to use thesaurus words and long, winding constructions. None of this substitutes for actually having a point to make. Perhaps it was just a consequence of this particular assignment, but for the next one just be aware that there is a mile of difference between describing something and analyzing it. I don't mean to be mystical about that difference... to make it as simple as I can, good analysis is going to result in sentences with strong nouns and verbs. Otherwise you're just...

Class #12 post-game

We've had a pretty good discussion the past two classes, but many of you are still underprepared. Please take the weekend to catch up.

Post: Your character's response to the Doing list. Yes or no for each, detailed answers for two of them.

Finish: Hind Swaraj and assigned prefatory material

Kickoff: Wasn't it Christine for the lecture and Monique for the book? Or maybe vice versa.

Email Me: by Wednesday morning, 10 potential book sources and 40-50 potential article sources for your research paper

Class #11 postgame

Let's see if I can remember all of this. Appropriately, we have a lot to "do" in the coming week.

Thursday p.m. = Final draft with acknowledgments, reflections, works cited (to Turnitin, classID: 2698576, password: ignite)

Friday: Class outside... hope for good weather

Friday: Catch up on your Gandhi reading (see previous post for page numbers)... I'm not spinning the wheel for you mostly by myself like I did today.

Friday: Marcee & Sarah Devine kickoff

Friday: The people in the back corner who got assigned to be Gandhi, you need to answer Yes or No for the remainder of the items on the Doing list. Then take at least two of the items on the list and explain why you chose Yes or No. Post this to the blog and be prepared to speak on it in class.

Monday: Finish Hind Swaraj (66-119)

Monday: The non-Gandhis need to answer for the thinker I assigned you to... remember that you have the option of substituting a character if you've been given a creative writer (like for Shakespeare you could choose Bottom or Titania, for Morrison you could choose Cholly or Pecola, etc.) Again, that means Yes or No to each item on the list, and at least two fuller explanations. Posted to the blog.

Wednesday p.m. = email or link me a list of 10 possible book sources and 40-50 possible article sources...

Friday 5/1 = midterm

Photos from one of Gandhi's ashrams (thanks to Ankita):

Class #10 post-game

Thanks for being on the ball at the library session today. I hope it was helpful. Now that all of you have settled on a topic and formulated a list of questions, it's time to start gathering sources. I believe it says this on the official prompt, but at minimum you want one book to feature as a major source or theoretical model for your paper, and four or five articles. But as you see, you're going to need to sort through dozens or maybe even hundreds of potential sources to find ones that will actually work for you. I'm going to require a certain number of potential sources for Monday... I haven't decided how many yet, but you may as well get started.

Tip: If you want to procrastinate your Antigone paper, start working on your research paper. If you want to procrastinate your research paper, finish your Antigone paper. If you want to procrastinate both, read Gandhi and help me try to figure out what doing is.

Read: Hind Swaraj xiii-xxxii, l-lxii, & 1-65... you might also find it helpful to consult the biographical timeline (lxv-lxviii) and the glossary of terms (lxxvi-lxxvii) as you read along

Kickoff: Marko (book), Sarah B (lecture)

Final Draft: due Thursday p.m. to Turnitin with acknowledgments, reflections, works cited

Class #9 post-game

Thanks for doing such a great job commenting on each others' papers at the conferences today. I felt they were really successful and I look forward to seeing the final drafts.

As for Kleist, Kafka, and Doing... two more weeks until the midterm, seven more weeks in the course... we'll figure something out. I was sure we'd never figure out Making last quarter, but in the end we did.

And we are going to ignite some research papers, yes we are.

Reminder: Class Monday will meet in the Langson Library (classroom on main floor).

Reminder: Final draft #7 due to Turnitin.com on Thursday night with acknowledgments, reflections, and works cited (I'll explain those next week)

Homework: Write 20 questions about your research project for the library day

Homework: Jiminy cricket this Gandhi book is longer than I thought... I think at minimum you need to read all of the prefatory material so Monday's lecture doesn't go over your head... and then a little taste of Gandhi's writing style (Hind Swaraj xiii-lxxvii, 1-18)

Class #8 post-game

Breaking News: When I said you should print a copy of your own paper for our conference tomorrow, I meant the one I'm uploading to the Paper 7 "Assignment Return" dropbox. Some of them might not be uploaded until 3 or 4 tonight, so check before you go to sleep tonight, and/or in the morning. I should have said that... hopefully you get this message.

Reminder: Working Draft #7 due to EEE dropbox, Thursday 8pm

Reminder: Post Quotations exercise here.

Random: Kohlhaas vs. Luther (clip from German movie)

Random: satirical video from The Onion about "Kafka International Airport"

Random: More than you ever wanted to know about actual eyeglasses during Kleist's era.

Conference Schedule & Instructions:

The conferences will be tomorrow, April 17. Conferences will take place in HIB 196, but there may be a lot of other classes doing conferences, so also look in the kitchen and the conference room. I'll leave a note on the door of 196 to tell you where I am.

Please submit your working draft to the Paper 7 Assignment Submission dropbox tonight, AND to the Paper 7 Shared Student Files dropbox (or c.c. me on your email to your partners).

Please bring a printed out copy of your own working draft and your two (or three) partners' working drafts. You should have at least one positive comment on each of your partner's papers, and at least one negative comment. Two of each would be even better. Try to focus your comments on the tasks enumerated in the ideas draft, rather than grammar, etc. (Unless it pertains to the grammar of incorporating quotations... that would be helpful.)

Oh, and class will meet as usual in SSL 162 from 1:00 - 1:50. Please email me if there is an error in this schedule.

---------------

8:55 - 9:45 Annie (aditta@uci.edu), Priya (kaura@uci.edu), Mark (mmendiol@uci.edu)

11:05 - 11:55 Sarah (devines@uci.edu), Marcee (amdelacr@uci.edu), Joannabelle (jmaquino@uci.edu)

12:00 - 12:50 Lorena (ltalacta@uci.edu), Elim (eloi@uci.edu), Ivan (iperez@uci.edu)

2:15 - 3:05 Sarah (sarahmb@uci.edu), Yen (ysou@uci.edu), Ankita (shuklaa@uci.edu), Marko (mcristal@uci.edu)... Yes, four in this one.

3:10 - 4:00 Kiyomi (kiihara@uci.edu), Steve (sle2@uci.edu), Christine (calanis@uci.edu

4:05 - 4:55 Rosa (rmvargas@uci.edu),Monique (moniquen@uci.edu), Stephanie (svatz@uci.edu)

Monday Roselaine (rrecto@uci.edu), Alexa (aswinter@uci.edu), Aubrey (abayonet@uci.edu) We need to arrange a time.

Class #7 post-game

Very important: Sign up for your Friday conference here

Finish: "Michael Kohlhaas" (if you didn't already)
Read: Franz Kafka's "Before the Law" (Course Reader 149-50)
Read: Course Guide 147-54 "Incorporating Quotations"

Kickoff: Annie (lecture), Kiyomi (book)

Useful: Student confessions about research papers, analyzed by a librarian... helps impart the lesson that you should always talk to a librarian when you get stuck on your research

Class #6 post-game

I hope you have an incendiary weekend. Here's the map I made of "Michael Kohlhaas"... you might need to zoom out a couple of times and put it on "Terrain" mode to get the modern cities & roads out of the way.

Here's the Europe-in-1560 map I gave you Friday, and here's the Europe-in-1800 map... note that Saxony is more or less the same, but Brandenburg has unified with Prussia (where Kleist is from).

KICKOFF: Mark (lecture), Roselaine (book)
READ: "Kohlhaas" 163-213... answer assigned study question
IDEAS DRAFT: Sunday night (before 10 p.m.)
WORKING DRAFT: Thursday night (before 8 p.m.)
AM I CRAZY: Or is this Radiohead song about Michael Kohlhaas?

Class #5 post-game

Post: Your group's 4-5 ideas draft questions
Kickoff: Ankita & Aubrey
Read: Guide ch. 23 & 25
Read: "Michael Kohlhaas" 114-63 (you might also like to read some of the introduction to Kleist... I'd suggest pg. 7, the top half of pg. 8, the middle paragraph on pg. 15, and the paragraph that begins on the bottom of pg. 48)
Answer: Your assigned study question. Unless I gave you the "12 Articles" or "Murdering Peasants" summary. Steve and Sarah Black can choose what they want to post.
Submit: Your Discovery Task #5 if you didn't do it yet... no credit after midnight tonight

Ideas Draft Questions (answer all)

1) Give a brief analysis of the two characters involved based on what you know of them and their status/objectives prior to the argument. (Chorus = character, if you do that one.)
2) What is each character trying to communicate, and why?
3) How is the dialogue structured? Does it change, for instance, from one kind of conversation to another? Do one or both characters shift tone or strategy at any point? Give examples from the text.
4) How does each character represent him or herself in the argument (as a king, as a father, as a son, etc.), in other words what is the character's rhetorical ethos? And again, does it shift at any point? Give examples from the text.
5) How does each character represent/construct his or her opponent? Does this lead to any manipulation of emotion (rhetorical pathos) in the opponent or the audience? Give examples from the text.
6) What techniques of counterargument do the character's employ? Do they use any other techniques of rhetorical logos, metaphors, literary techniques, or what have you? Give examples from the text.
7) What are the keywords in the argument (especially those used by both characters, perhaps in differing ways)? How has Fagles chosen to translate them, and how has this slanted the meaning in a particular direction? (consult Aaron's Greek originals)
8) What could a director do, short of changing the actual dialogue, to give different emphasis or meaning to this scene? (this category includes the acting changes you made last Friday)
9) What did Brecht do, and why?
10) What effect do/would the characters' speeches have on the following audiences: the choral audience inside the play, the original 400s B.C. Athens audience, a contemporary U.S. audience (of regular theatergoers)?
11) Paraphrase the main thesis of your secondary source and choose two representative short quotations. Are you going to agree with this critic, disagree, or reorient/qualify what she says, or what? Are you going to address the critic's main thesis, or just use one of their smaller points? And where do you see using this in your paper?

Notes on Discovery Task

Starting with the article by Christiane Inwood-Sorvino. This answer was pretty good, but I think it confused the article's theoretical framework for the actual argument the article was making. A couple of others did this too.

The author believes readers do not read texts neutrally, but have some sort of bias and preconceptions that shape their interpretation of characters and the plot, and reading with these faults at times may limit the reader and lead to an inaccurate understanding of the text. By basing our readings off of the defaults set by our preconceptions, we are lead to emphasize certain parts of a work of literature more than the others. Additionally, by reading through filters of predisposed beliefs, we tend to label the characters as either evil or good, which leads to a very narrow minded reading of the text.

This answer was more directly to the point of the article being about Antigone, although the first sentence was poorly written and I replaced it with one from another answer.

The author states that the assumptions we have about Antigone are much different than those of the early Greeks. The original audience would have viewed the play from a different perspective due to customs and traditions they practiced. Antigone and Kreon both serve the gods, just different gods. The state buried soldiers, not leaving much for the family to do, and did not bury traitors. Also the doom of the people is because of the will of the Gods and one’s own actions. There is also the mentality that the public’s interests come before one’s own private interests. Antigone is basically the bad person to them. She also goes on to talk about rhetoric of certain characters to draw how Greek audience would perceive it.

This one was pretty good too:

The thesis of this article is that, in order to understand Antigone in the way it was originally written to understood by the Athenian audience, it is necessary for us as today’s reader to understand the ideologies, beliefs, and assumptions of the Athenian people in the period of time that Antigone is written. This is because by instinct our own ideologies and assumptions will shape the way in which we interpret the work. Some of the major points that the author covers are the ideas of distortion and filtering of the work due to prior information and knowledge, also the fact that people are too quick to evaluate and assess the work. An example would be Creon’s relation to the state and his somewhat dictator-like views. In today’s society we would consider this an atrocity, especially in a society that promotes the individual to a high degree. But contrary to our culture today, to belong to the state was held to a high regard, and any deviation from that would be considered blasphemy.

The other issue that seemed to come up was whether Antigone was a primary or secondary source. Primary if we're talking about Sophocles' original Greek, secondary if we're talking about a later translation (e.g. Jebb). But then, it also depends on what you're studying. Brecht's Antigone, for instance, could be a primary source if you were studying Europe in the era immediately after World War II.

Now for the article by Annie Pritchard. It's pretty obvious that this one was more difficult to read, so I don't want to give y'all a hard time. But let me just say this: just because you use quotations doesn't mean you demonstrate that you understood something you read. Indeed using quotations can be a kind of crutch that prevents you from doing effective paraphrasing. I thought this answer was good because it captured both the theoretical framework and the argument about Antigone.

Annie Pritchard challenges popular liberal beliefs that gender-neutral individuals, detached from moral, social, and relational contexts, are the most adequate account of the moral individual for a feminist ethics. She believes that we cannot read the ethical actions of subjects without taking into account the issue of gender because we live in and define ourselves by specific ideological systems. She does this by the challenging various readings/interpretations of Sophocles’ Antigone in which the interpretation of the heroine was made by underplaying her gender and ignoring the ideological systems in which her ethical frame of reference was created.

The problem was, when I went back and looked at what Pritchard wrote, I found that this writer had copied her words exactly without attribution. In an essay, this would be deemed plagiarism, and it stands as further evidence of how much difficulty y'all were having in putting this argument into your own words. So let's use this as a learning experience. The student who wrote this answer is pretty far along toward understanding the article, since she has chosen the most important concepts and put them together in a meaningful order. Now all she has to do is paraphrase. Maybe something like this:

Pritchard is a feminist who wants to challenge the idea that relations between individuals can be "gender-neutral" - an idea that is central to modern legal and political theories. Instead, she sees gender as a fundamental issue that underlies all Western thought, from the ancient past to the immediate present. Thus one effect of our modern myth of gender-neutrality is that it causes us to distort the way we read older texts that acknowledge gender difference more openly, such as Sophocles' Antigone. So Pritchard wants to help us see Antigone more clearly, but also to use Antigone as an example of the dilemmas that modern women face in our supposedly gender-neutral society.

I also think we should add this bit from another answer, which speaks to the way that Pritchard seems to link feminist theory with feminist practice (thinking with doing):

She also wants people to know that women should maintain their role as women but should also break out of the mold cast for them; they should become members of the sisterhood of Antigone.

The other issue that some had difficulty with respecting this article, was whether Pritchard is in agreement with some of the secondary critics she cites. She cites a bunch of them, but I'll focus on two in particular. You could say she agrees with Kathyrn Morgan and her theory of "moral madness," but I think it's more the case that she's applying this theory to Antigone... we have no evidence that Morgan talked about Antigone specifically. You could say that she agrees with Hegel, insofar as she says that Hegel makes mention of the gender issue, but I think for the most part she is disagreeing with Hegel, citing him as the first of a long line of critics in the past 200 years who have ignored the central importance of Antigone's gender difference by seeing the Antigone-Creon pair as symmetrical in terms of their agency/status. (This is where Inwood-Sorvino would agree, since she would consider it an attempt to map a modern viewpoint onto ancient Greek beliefs. But Pritchard goes further by saying, in essence, that even our modern belief that all individuals in a society like the U.S. are ethical equivalents, is wrong because of the fundamental and pervasive influence of gender categories.)

Assorted Interesting Links

I finished all the keyword translations in the reply section of the post before this. It turned out to be really interesting. I was thinking of doing this as a class exercise, but it wound up taking too long and requiring too much translation experience. (I know almost zero Greek, but I've worked with dictionaries a lot.) For your amusement, this is the site I used... use the arrows to click forward in the text, and click "show" on the upper right-hand to see the English translation (it's not Fagles, but an older and much more literal one).

This is an Antigone-related news story from the New York Times. Since the first Gulf War in 1991, through both President Bushes and President Clinton, there has been a ban on news coverage about coffins of American war dead returning to the U.S. from overseas. Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates (W. Bush's 2nd D.S. - Rumsfeld's replacement) have apparently lifted the ban.

This is something Brecht had to say later about his objectives in rewriting/restaging Antigone. (It's section 2.)

This is Moeller's compilation of research tips and suggestions that he gave last quarter (login = moeller, password = moeller).

This (below) is a list of topics that students researched in one section of Core last year... the instructor sent this to our listserv, but pointed out that it's not the topic that matters so much as the researcher's ability to pose important questions about the topic and find useful sources to answer them. I believe the reason that they're mostly politically oriented is because the instructor chose that as a focus... my stance is that you can write about anything that pertains to thinking, making, or doing.

History and legacy of the Black Panther Party, Nationalism and the politics of hijab, Homelessness and charity in Los Angeles’ Skid Row, The historiography and cultural politics of the Nanking massacre, Cabaret culture in Weimar Germany, Child soldiers in Uganda/LRA, FISA and the legal battles over wiretapping, Corporatization and commodification of the “green” movement, Racism and the Turkish population in contemporary Germany, The art of Damien Hirst and animal rights advocacy, Feminism and transgressive performance art, Hip hop and debates about cultural authenticity, Ethiopian coffee growers and Starbucks, Moplah rebellion and Hindu/Muslim relations, The afterlife of the anti-Vietnam War movements, Globalization and the destruction of Swahili language, Contemporary punk’s debate with popular culture and the politics of traditional punk, Hurrican Katrina and debates about government accountability, 9/11 Ground Zero and the politics of memorialization, Military Commissions Act of 2006 and debates about habeus corpus

Finally, this is a good example of revision or translation of a classic text. Or maybe a bad example... but either way it's pretty funny.

Class #4 post-game

AS SOON AS POSSIBLE: Post your group's Sophocles vs. Brecht comparisons in reply to this post

FOR TUESDAY NIGHT: Discovery Task #5 to EEE dropbox. Do the worksheet for one of these two articles... This article tries to understand how the Creon-Antigone conflict would have looked to its original audience. This article rejects the idea that the Creon-Antigone conflict is symmetrical, using feminist theory to discuss the importance of Antigone's gender.

FOR CLASS WEDNESDAY: read Course Guide ch. 22 and 24 ("Counterarguments" and "Translation")

FOR CLASS FRIDAY: read Kleist's "Michael Kohlhaas" pgs. 114-63 and Course Guide ch. 23 and 25

SUNDAY NIGHT: Ideas Draft #7 to EEE dropbox (I'll give you guidelines on Wednesday)

FOR CLASS MONDAY: read Kleist's "Michael Kohlhaas" pgs. 163-213

THURSDAY NIGHT 4/16: Working Draft #7... my addenda to the prompt are:

-You can choose one of the four passages you did in class on Friday to analyze for the paper (Antigone-Ismene on 47-97, Creon-Haemon on 812-859, Antigone-Chorus on 900-958,
and Creon-Tiresias on 1123-1169)... you're not forbidden to go outside those passages, since the actual dialogues are longer, but place your major focus on the line numbers I'm giving you
-You can interpret the assignment somewhat loosely as an analysis of the rhetoric the two characters use... you can invoke ethos/logos/pathos, counterargument (see Guide ch. 22), and any other strategies they use... don't obsess about everything that the prompt says... get the spirit of the assignment, and see my ideas draft questions for further guidance... for instance, the prompt asks you to "evaluate" the arguments... does that mean according to your standards, according to the reception by the Chorus within the play, or according to the probable reception by the original Athens audience? The prompt doesn't really specify, so you can interpret as you wish. Just make sure the bulk of your paper is devoted to analyzing what they say, how they say it, and why they say it.
-You are required to make use of one of the two JSTOR secondary sources, in some fashion
-You are required to make use of one of the dozen or so keywords we found, in some fashion
-You can invoke a comparison to the Brecht Antigone or to another adaptation or translation, but only as a supporting point, not the core of your paper
-You can invoke Hegelian dialectics, but only as a supporting point, not the core of your paper
-You can invoke Erwin Kowalke, or burial practices in your family/culture, or what-have-you, but only as a supporting point, not the core of your paper

TUESDAY NIGHT 4/21: Final Draft #7... to include works cited, acknowledgments, and reflection (ask me to elaborate on that before the due date)

two tips for the future

It looks like you've pulled some pretty good articles for the Discovery Task. I'll pick one out for us to use tomorrow morning.

But as I was browsing them, I thought of two tips for you.

1) How to cite journal articles... my personal feeling is that if the journal is actually published on paper, you don't really need to say that you got it from JSTOR, which would be kind of like saying you got it from such and such bookshelf. So...

Pants, Smarty. "Antigone: You Is My Woman Now." Catfish Row Journal of Haemon Studies (2009): 124-37.

2) To reduce the super-long web links you get from databases like ArtStor and JSTOR, use TinyURL.

Class #3 postgame

I'm posting this ahead of time in case I forget... the reading assignment for Monday is the entire Brecht Antigone (1-64), and Ch. 21-22 of the Course Guide ("Public Writing" & "Counterarguments"). Kickoff is Yen for Brecht and Rosa for the lecture. Oh, and don't forget to post your keywords... I've done some research into the original Greek for you in the comments below, and some of it turns out to be pretty interesting. I also went back and commented on your earlier posts... I would have done this last week, but it was a kaka week for me, as the Greeks would say.

But there's more... you should also read and familiarize yourself with the Paper #7 prompt, and you should do the new Discovery Task by Tuesday night (post to EEE dropbox).

Note on Discovery Task: the instructions say you that your instructor will assign you a certain article. I want each of you to find your own article by Sunday night on JSTOR... you can email me the titles or the links. Try some different search terms in addition to Sophocles and Antigone, like "burial" or "Hegel," or perhaps your keyword. I'll read them and choose the best one, then tell you about it on Monday. Then you can all read that one and do the D.T. worksheet questions about it for Tuesday night (submit to EEE dropbox).

Note on photo: that's not my uncle's grave... his headstone isn't finished yet. It's my grandparents'. Notice the rocks on top of the headstone... I'm not sure if this is just a Jewish custom or if other people do it, but whenever we visit the cemetery we put rocks on top of the headstones. I'm not sure why either... I'll look it up later this weekend. That's my wife and the little kids are my uncle's grandkids... first cousins once removed (?)

Follow-up... the rocks go on the gravestone as a marker of the visit, which won't blow away and lasts longer than, like, flowers. Here's some other details... we use the back of the shovel to shovel dirt into the grave once the casket is placed in, to show regret. We're supposed to wash our hands before entering the house after the funeral. Pregnant women aren't supposed to attend, but on the flipside you're supposed to eat eggs to encourage new life (?). Cover the mirrors. No wearing leather (because it requires another death?). Those last few my family doesn't really do. Oh, but you also have to tear a garment of your clothing... my dad taught me how to sneak away to the bathroom immediately after a funeral so the rabbi didn't cut our ties off. And you sit on boxes. Not joking... I think traditionally they were wooden boxes but now it's cardboard (I think you're suffering discomfort to show solidarity); if you're really religious you're supposed to sit on the box all day for like two days. And finally, the most important funereal tradition in any Jewish family from New York, going to the very first baseball game at the new Yankee Stadium. OK that isn't a tradition, just a consequence of my niece being sick and my sister having an extra ticket. I like to think Zeus rewarded me for breaking my loyalties as an employee of the State of California to go the funeral.

Oh, and yes. I did in fact where that same suit for 48 hours straight.

Class #2 post-game

Hey guys, sorry this is coming a little late, but I was on an airplane all night.

HOMEWORK: Finish Sophocles' Antigone (91-128) and also Course Reader 144-48. Hart's SQ #s 9, 11, 12, d.1, d.2 were assigned to different rows. If you don't remember which one to do, or you don't like any of them, try to come up with another version of a dialectical sequence.

KICKOFF: I believe it was Lorena and Alexa, both coming up with a question about some aspect of the reading assignment to ask Laura (the sub).

ABOUT THE HEGEL STUFF: I was getting the sense that some of you were feeling overwhelmed with the Hegel discussion, because I was going so fast through so many ideas. First of all, you can always rely on your swim buddy, and you can always see me in office hours (uh, well not Friday, as I'll be in Connecticut). But let me say also that my main purpose was to put make a kind of framework for stuff we'll be doing later in the course. If it's important, I'll come back to it. Anytime I go on a rant like that, try to grasp onto something you can use rather than trying to memorize everything. As I recall, the three main concepts were:

1) The Antigone legend is subject to various reinterpretations... Robert Fagles translating Sophocles' interpretation into English, for instance. The next one we read is Judith Malina's English translation of Bertold Brecht's reinterpretation of Johan Hölderlin's German translation of Sophocles' interpretation (!).

2) The Antigone legend seems to stage an opposition between ideas that is not only personal but institutional, and not only institutional, but also possibly historical, and here is where Hegelian dialectics are useful in thinking about how that opposition works. Hegelian dialectics is about the progression of the history of the world, which is simultaneously the progression of human consciousness. Hart gave you this sequence:

-Thesis
-Antithesis
-Synthesis

I gave you examples and showed how in this triple structure, the antithesis poses a challenge or conflict to the thesis, and the synthesis overcomes or negates that conflict, also recapitulating the thesis in doing so. Thus for instance:

-Tribal herding Athens (political unit = family)
-Ancient city Athens (political unit ≠ family, because it integrates many families under one political law)
-Antigone's introduction of universal law (political law is for the entire universe and not just for Athens in particular; an idea that won't be fully developed in Europe until St. Paul)

Or the Marxist structure:

-Feudalism
-Capitalism
-Communism

Or for that matter the Christian structure:

-Eden
-Fall into sin
-Salvation by Christ

Or this one:

-CocaCola
-Pepsi/New Coke
-CocaCola Classic

3) I then went further into Hegel and pointed out the difference between Hegel's theory that history must logically progress in a certain way (there must eventually be an Antigone, or a Dantigone, or a Schmantigone, when the moment is ripe), and Marx's idea that history only progresses when people DO things that force it progress. This will be something we come back to. Another critic of Hegel (Søren Kierkegaard) pointed out that the problem with Hegelian dialectics, and with philosophy more generally, is that it tries to be merely a process of describing oppositions between ideas rather than a true decision or choice between them. And both Kierkegaard and Marx say that you always make a choice, even if you choose to merely sit back and be a philosophical observer. (Which is a choice to do nothing, and thus an act to preserve the status quo.)

4) The stuff about Greek theater history was kind of a footnote. I was just saying that the theater was a political gathering, not just an entertainment event, and that according to Aristotle, the purpose of the extreme sexual or violent content of some of the plays was to get those tribal, irrational emotions out of people's system ("catharsis") so they could get on with having a rationally ordered city. So the theater is often seen as the domain of the irrational (it originates in the cult of Dionysus, the god of intoxication). Like Shakespeare's performances at The Globe in the London red light district. Or you know, like spring break. You went out there in the forest and now you're back in Athens with King Theseus, er, Aaron.