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Jul. 16th, 2008 12:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labellementeuseIt has been many moons (like three days, whatevs) since last we spoke, livejournal, which I fear is because lately I'm knitting instead of reading my flist. Sorry! Lately I have knitted: slippers. I have also stared at a lot of sweater vest patterns and tried to decide which one I want to knit with this blue DK I just bought. Pattern recs appreciated.
Also, I just started term again and got WHACKED with a bunch of reading. I feel like I've been run over by a postcolonial bus. Ouch. (This is a bus that really wants me to know the difference between post-colonialism and post-coloniality, but is doing a really bad job of explaining - so - if you happen to know the difference, I pay in karma! Or baked goods if you live within 50km.)
Classes this semester:
ENGL333: The Exotic. Had two classes of this and it looks fantastic; it's about exotification, chiefly from the post-colonial perspective; we're doing Aphra Behn (Oroonoko), Robert Louis Stevenson (South Sea Tales), Salman Rushdie (Shame), Yann Martel (Life of Pi), and Fiona Farrell (Mr. Albinoni's Ferrets), plus a selection of short stories (Allende, GG Marquez, and other usual suspects of magical realism). I can't quite articulate the aims of the class yet but it'll be concerned with exotification as a process of assimilation/conflict, a category of taste, and as an aesthetic. According to the course outline. Really enjoying it so far; only downside is what looks like vast quantities of highly technical reading.
PHIL/HLTH325: Bioethics B. This is the second half of a full-year, post-graduate Health class, on biomedical ethics; it'll feature a series of guest lecturers talking about real-life issues. We just had a philosopher who just spent the maximum 6 years on the Upper South Ethics Committee talk about a bunch of case studies; next week we're having a clinician. Carolyn was great; no idea what the clinician will be like! However, the class looks fantastic and there's a real mix of people/backgrounds/etc - there are people taking it for PhD, Masters, Post-grad diplomas, Hons, and of course BA/BSc/Health sciences.
DILEMMA: I'm not sure whether to take AMST science fiction and technologies paper (You get to study Snow Crash! And BSG!) or the ANTH Politics and Power paper I'm actually signed up for, so I'm sitting in on them both this week. AMST does clash with ENGL, but I'm comfortable with missing an alternating hour of each every two weeks; also, it's just a filler paper, and I know I'll love the material; the lecturer has a really great reputation and I've heard the paper is wonderful. I don't know anything about ANTH; I've never taken an ANTH paper; but that could be a good reason to! I don't know.
Also, grades are out: A+ (Supernatural, which I already knew on account of my fabulous essays), A+ (History of "Philosophy", AKA epistemology, which I HATED), A (Contemporary political philosophy, which I liked but found really really challenging - it was a 200-level paper, but IMO it was assessing at 300 level - certainly the amount of work done was 300-level equivalent). Thrilled with the latter two, totally don't deserve them (suspect good take-home essays dragged up the atrocious 0 hours of study exams I sat); happy with the former but in the good, I worked really hard, loved the paper, and totally deserve that mark way. Good results for a kind of crappy semester.
Also, I just started term again and got WHACKED with a bunch of reading. I feel like I've been run over by a postcolonial bus. Ouch. (This is a bus that really wants me to know the difference between post-colonialism and post-coloniality, but is doing a really bad job of explaining - so - if you happen to know the difference, I pay in karma! Or baked goods if you live within 50km.)
Classes this semester:
ENGL333: The Exotic. Had two classes of this and it looks fantastic; it's about exotification, chiefly from the post-colonial perspective; we're doing Aphra Behn (Oroonoko), Robert Louis Stevenson (South Sea Tales), Salman Rushdie (Shame), Yann Martel (Life of Pi), and Fiona Farrell (Mr. Albinoni's Ferrets), plus a selection of short stories (Allende, GG Marquez, and other usual suspects of magical realism). I can't quite articulate the aims of the class yet but it'll be concerned with exotification as a process of assimilation/conflict, a category of taste, and as an aesthetic. According to the course outline. Really enjoying it so far; only downside is what looks like vast quantities of highly technical reading.
PHIL/HLTH325: Bioethics B. This is the second half of a full-year, post-graduate Health class, on biomedical ethics; it'll feature a series of guest lecturers talking about real-life issues. We just had a philosopher who just spent the maximum 6 years on the Upper South Ethics Committee talk about a bunch of case studies; next week we're having a clinician. Carolyn was great; no idea what the clinician will be like! However, the class looks fantastic and there's a real mix of people/backgrounds/etc - there are people taking it for PhD, Masters, Post-grad diplomas, Hons, and of course BA/BSc/Health sciences.
DILEMMA: I'm not sure whether to take AMST science fiction and technologies paper (You get to study Snow Crash! And BSG!) or the ANTH Politics and Power paper I'm actually signed up for, so I'm sitting in on them both this week. AMST does clash with ENGL, but I'm comfortable with missing an alternating hour of each every two weeks; also, it's just a filler paper, and I know I'll love the material; the lecturer has a really great reputation and I've heard the paper is wonderful. I don't know anything about ANTH; I've never taken an ANTH paper; but that could be a good reason to! I don't know.
Also, grades are out: A+ (Supernatural, which I already knew on account of my fabulous essays), A+ (History of "Philosophy", AKA epistemology, which I HATED), A (Contemporary political philosophy, which I liked but found really really challenging - it was a 200-level paper, but IMO it was assessing at 300 level - certainly the amount of work done was 300-level equivalent). Thrilled with the latter two, totally don't deserve them (suspect good take-home essays dragged up the atrocious 0 hours of study exams I sat); happy with the former but in the good, I worked really hard, loved the paper, and totally deserve that mark way. Good results for a kind of crappy semester.
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Date: 2008-07-16 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-07-16 09:31 pm (UTC)