Archives for February 3, 2016

HW due 2/4: The Encounter with Nothingness

February 3, 2016 By

1.  Read and annotate William Barrett’s The Encounter with Nothingness (Second reading in the packet). Be sure to read all three parts (the third part being Science and Finitude). Barrett’s reading will give us just a nugget of context before we move ahead. Remember, you must annotate all readings for this class! Failure to do so will result in a zero!  You will learn how to provide some focus to your annotations.  Ultimately, focused annotating prepares you for your reading responses, formal essays, and class discussions.  To annotate is to supply with critical or explanatory notes:

  • identifying lines that resonate with you, confuse you, or make you want to know more
  • asking questions of general thematic/philosophical value
  • tracking the development of a theme that may connect to one or more of the philosophical readings or other fiction.

2. Values! Be prepared to talk values!

HW due 2/4: A Few Lines of Verse

February 3, 2016 By

Again, ensure that you have registered for the website! I am closing the site at 8 p.m. You should see all of the crazies who have registered!!!

1. Excerpt from Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet (Letter 6):

I don’t want you to be without a greeting from me when Christmas comes and when you, in the midst of the holiday, are bearing your solitude more heavily than usual. But when you notice that it is vast, you should be happy; for what (you should ask yourself) would a solitude be that was not vast; there is only one solitude, and it is vast, heavy, difficult to bear, and almost everyone has hours when he would gladly exchange it for any kind of sociability, however trivial or cheap, for the tiniest outward agreement with the first person who comes along, the most unworthy. But perhaps these are the very hours during which solitude grows; for its growing is painful as the growing of boys and sad as the beginning of spring. But that must not confuse you. What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours – that is what you must be able to attain. To be solitary as you were when you were a child, when the grownups walked around involved with matters that seemed large and important because they looked so busy and because you didn’t understand a thing about what they were doing.

Tonight, a two-pronged writing activity. Find a place where you can be at peace, alone and take a walk “inside yourself.” What do you see there? Who is there? What’s going on there? No need to give shape and form to this; so feel free to list here!

Second prong: Write at least 6 lines of verse capturing a bit of that journey inward. That is all the guidance you get here… at least 6 lines of verse.

2. Letters to a Young Poet–Please purchase by the end of next week!

HW due 2/4: Class Forum

February 3, 2016 By

1. Post your three statements on the class forum.
2. Decide! Will you write your essay on 1984 or Slaughterhouse Five?