Swank Digital Campus – Swank provides access to feature films and documentaries.

Literature may not make you a better person. But it may make you a better reader. And it may inspire you to become a scholar, to learn how to learn. Critical thinking, imo, is often a misnomer. It often means: think the way I do; arrive at the same conclusions the same way. Thnking critically, for our purposes, means posing questions, learning what a good question is.

This will be a discussion class, not a lecture, and I encourage you to befriend each other by meeting on group on and by continuing discussion independently after class.

If you have a question or a problem in urgent need of resolution, please contact me in class or at [email protected].

There will be no film screenings. You must watch the films on disc or streaming on your own.

I WILL GIVE A SHORT QUIZ at the beginning of every class. If you miss the quiz, I count you absent.

The Google doc gives examples of the format for discussion questions and three shots. Assignments are always due Mondays and Wednesdays by 5:00 p.m.

Discussion Questions etc. are due every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday by 5:00 p.m.

Swank Digital Campus – Swank provides access to feature films and documentaries.

Tentative Schedule: (Please expect minor adjustments to be made in the schedule from time to time; all changes will be announced both in class and on the class email listserv

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
"I’m possibly cheating to include this film on the list, but The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of the first to showcase black-and-white as an aesthetic choice rather than a filmmaking necessity; four-color inserts of three-strip Technicolor were used for Dorian’s portrait, utilized as a special effect in a black-and-white world. Having that isolated moment of Technicolor heightens the horror of seeing Dorian’s painting age while he himself remains youthful. The film is a triumph in deep-focus cinematography, and earned Angela Lansbury her second Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress (not to mention her first Golden Globe win in the same category)."

https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/gothic-nightmares-fuseli-blake-and-romantic-imagination

Monochrome: Painting in Black and White

An open letter written in March by Jenny Martinez, dean of Stanford University Law School, in which she affirmed her decision to apologize to Stuart Kyle Duncan, a Donald Trump-appointed federal appeals judge, after hecklers interrupted his speech.

There is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
Which to this day stands single, in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore:
Not loathe to furnish weapons for the Bands
Of Umfraville or Percy ere they marched
To Scotland's heaths; or those that crossed the sea
And drew their sounding bows at Azincour,
Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers.
Of vast circumference and gloom profound
This solitary Tree! -a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent
To be destroyed. But worthier still of note
Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;
Huge trunks! -and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Up-coiling, and inveteratley convolved, -
Nor uninformed with Fantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane; -a pillared shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially -beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose decked
With unrejoicing berries -ghostly Shapes
May meet at noontide: Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight, Death the Skeleton
And Time the Shadow; there to celebrate,
As in a natural temple scattered o'er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.

"This Film Does Not Exist" NY TIMES JANUARY 13, 2023 On Jodorowski's plans for Tron and A.I. imaging of film.

Vienna and Schubert: 'Death and the Maiden' String Quartet - Professor Chris Hogwood CBE

"The greatest pieces of music are called classics simply because at a first hearing--that is terribly...very complicated to work out what's going on or even more complicated to explain to yourself why it's going on--even to hear it has to be heard several times. Probably after first hearing, immediately go back and hear it again, and on repeated hearings repeated things come to light."

To learn how to understand a piece of music, a philosopher said, you have to hear it twice.

A conductor of baroque music said you have to listen to repeated hearings before you understand it.

"How full of meaning and significance the language of music is we see from the repetition of signs, as well as from the Da capo which would be intolerable in the case of works composed in the language of words. In music, however, they are very appropriate and beneficial; for to comprehend it fully, we must hear it twice."

"We can’t imagine what’s next, except that it will surely involve more make-work for more administrators, whose proliferation has driven much of the rise in college tuition and student debt. For 16,937 students, Stanford lists 2,288 faculty and 15,750 administrative staff."

--"The Stanford Guide to Acceptable Words
Behold the school’s Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative."
By The Editorial Board
Dec. 19, 2022

"Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book, as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship.

How will we defeat communism unless we know what it is, and what it teaches, and why does it have such an appeal for men, why are so many people swearing allegiance to it? It is almost a religion, albeit one of the nether regions.

And we have got to fight it with something better, not try to conceal the thinking of our own people. They are part of America. And even if they think ideas that are contrary to ours, their right to say them, their right to record them, and their right to have them at places where they are accessible to others is unquestioned, or it isn't America."

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States: 1953 - 1961 "Remarks at the Dartmouth College Commencement Exercises, Hanover, New Hampshire." June 14, 1953

"I am sorry for the boy or girl, or man or woman, who has never been touched by the spell of this mysterious sensorial life, with its irrationality, if so you like to call it, but its vigilance and its supreme felicity. The holidays of life are its most vitally significant portions, because they are, or at least should be, covered with just this kind of magically irresponsible spell.

And now what is the result of all these considerations and quotations? It is negative in one sense, but positive in another. It absolutely forbids us to be forward in pronouncing on the meaninglessness of forms of existence other than our own; and it commands us to tolerate, respect, and indulge those whom we see harmlessly interested and happy in their own ways, however unintelligible these may be to us. Hands off: neither the whole of truth nor the whole of good is revealed to any single observer, although each observer gains a partial superiority of insight from the peculiar position in which he stands. Even prisons and sick-rooms have their special revelations. It is enough to ask of each of us that he should be faithful to his own opportunities and make the most of his own blessings, without presuming to regulate the rest of the vast field."

On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings

--William James

Gould Gould: Mozart in one minute

--V. F. Perkins

"One should never bear grudges against people, never judge them by the memory of one unkind act, for we can never know all the good resolves and effective actions of which their souls may have been capable at another time. And so, even from the simple point of view of foresight, we make mistakes. For no doubt the bad pattern we observed on that one occasion will recur. But the soul is richer than that, has many other patterns which will also recur in the same man, yet we refuse to take pleasure in them because of one piece of bad behavior in the past."

The Prisoner, trans. Carol Cook, p. 311

Nothing Below is Required for this Course. You Are Free to Stop Reading Here and Now:

Inside the Academic-Freedom Crisis That Roiled Florida’s Flagship

A ‘Chronicle’ investigation tracks how a decision to silence professors emerged from the depths of bureaucracy.

Sept 7 2022

Nothing Below is Required for this Course. You Are Free to Stop Reading Here and Now:

La leçon de Marcel Proust selon Roland Barthes

Retrouvez bien d'autres archives sur Marcel Proust ici : http://bit.ly/2EeojUr

The Kuleshov Effect / Effetto Kuleshov

Gov. DeSantis wants retired cops as teachers

Judge Issues Stinging Free Speech Ruling Against University of Florida The New York Times January 21, 2022

Judge Walker's Motion for Preliminary Injunction Ruling 01212022

If to read a book as it should be read calls for the rarest qualities of imagination, insight, and judgment, you may perhaps conclude that literature is a very complex art and that it is unlikely that we shall be able, even after a lifetime of reading, to make any valuable contribution to its criticism. We must remain readers.

Virginia Woolf, “How Should One Read a Book?” 1926 (read for pleasure and for profit)

How the HR Monster Destroyed the Workplace: The Woke Mission Creep of Human Resources Departments

Rescuing the Left From Its Obsession With Culture — Vivek Chibber

Chris Hedges on Cancel Culture, Empathy And Grace

Peter Hall - Pauses are as important as the lines (28/40)

I.A. Richards, How to read a page : a course in efficient reading, with an introduction to a hundred great words

"What a stupid f***ing way to have a really important conversation": Reflections On A Yearlong White Fragility Training

The Bellows in Conversation with Adolph Reed and Walter Benn Michaels

The Sex Bureaucracy Jacob Gersen & Jeannie Suk*

Politics After Trump: A Conversation with Chris Hedges

Slavoj Zizek — Why white liberals like to humiliate themselves

Slavoj Zizek — Why white liberals love identity politics

Laura Kipnis Academe Is a Hotbed of Craven Snitches: How did scholars become such tattletales? March 17, 2022

Louis Menand , "What’s So Great About Great-Books Courses? The humanities are in danger, but humanists can’t agree on how—or why—they should be saved." New YorkerDecember 13, 2021

Critical judgment

suspension of moral judgment

John Keats, "negative capability"

Sigmund Freud,The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Chapter Nine, "Symptomatic and Chance Actions" and Chapter Ten, "Errors."

Required Reading: Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Sections 1-IV (1 though IV, including IV). Bring a copy of the book in print or a print out on paper to class (Kindles, iphones, lap top computers, etc., will not be allowed.

Required Reading: Edgar Allen Poe, "The Purloined Letter"

Required Reading: Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Sections V-VI (the rest of the book). Bring a copy of the book in print or a print out on paper to class (Kindles, iphones, lap top computers, etc will not be allowed). Recommended: Sigmund Freud, "A Note upon the Mystic Writing Pad"

Required Reading: Jacques Derrida, "To Speculate--On 'Freud'" in The Post Card, 257-291 ("1. Notices (Warnings"). Bring a copy of the book in print or a print out a copy on paper and bring it with you to class (Kindles, iphones, lap top computers, etc., will not be allowed).

Required Reading: Jacques Lacan, "Seminar on the Purloined Letter" (click on link to left for pdf)

Sigmund Freud, "The Uncanny"

Recommended Readings: (T.B.R.S.,P.) Wilhelm Jentsch, "The Uncanny" ; E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Sandman; Ernst Mach, Analyse der Empfindungen (The Analysis of Sensationsand the Relation of the Physical to the Psychical), cited

The author and the work of art--Cancellation; Ad Hominem

Self-cancellation:

Gerard Manley Hopkins burned his poems when he entered a seminary. See William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity

Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature--no relation between an author and text (Yet . . . )

Erich Auerbach, Mimesis--an author is always in history

Martin Heidegger on the German poet Georg Trakl in On the Way to Language and Poetry, Language, Thought--ignore the author.

"No matter how scandalous and unsavory the Derrida-Heidegger-Trakl encounter may seem, therefore, it may well be that the encounter has - as Merleau-Ponty said of the artwork - most of its life still ahead of it.

Certainly, there seems to be no great interest in the Anglo-American world in either Heidegger's Trakl interpretation or Derrida' s reading of it.

While many philosophers continue to brave Heidegger's Hölderlin interpretations, very few take the risk of engaging with Trakl. Why? I am not sure. Perhaps because of the unsavory atmosphere that suffuses the Trakl world: cocaine, incest, war, suicide - conservative Heideggerians have to wonder why Heidegger was drawn to any of this, and why Derrida would want to make Heidegger's reading of Trakl one of the principal foyers of his reading of Heidegger.

It may be that the new waves of scandal lapping against the shores of Heidegger's life make it less likely than ever that students will want to take up Heidegger's and Derrida's readings of Trakl, especially in the United States, where Puritanism continues to reign in the academy, in our political life, and in our military detention."

--David Farrell Krell, "Marginalia to "Geschlecht III": Derrida on Heidegger on Trakl"

The New Centennial Review, Fall 2007, Vol. 7, No. 2, Remainders: Of Jacques Derrida (Fall 2007), pp. 175-199

To counter widely circulated allegations, let it be stated here explicitly that the dedication of Being and Time mentioned on page 16 of the Dialogue remained in Being and Time until its fourth edition of 1935. In 1941, when my publishers felt that the fifth edition might be endangered and that, indeed, the book might be suppressed, it was finally agreed, on the suggestion and at the desire of Niemeyer, that the dedication be omitted from the edition, on the condition imposed by me that the note to page 38 be retained— a note which in fact states the reason for that dedication, and which runs: "If the following investigation has taken any steps forward in disclosing the 'things themselves', the author must first of all thank E. Husserl, who, by providing his own incisive personal guidance and by freely turning over his unpublished investigations, familiarized the author with the most diverse areas of phenomenological research during his student years in Freiburg" (Being and Time, Harper & Row, 1962, 489).

--On the Way to Language, pp. 199-200

Textual unconscious

irony

incomprehension

Booth on unmade puns

Fireworks are apparitions par excellence. They are an empirical appearance free of the burden of empirical being in general which is that it has duration; they are a sign of heaven and yet artefactual; they are both a writing on the wall, rising and fading away in short order, and yet not a writing that has any meaning we can make sense of.

--Theodor Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, 120

Woke Dictionary

'All-American Nativism' with Dan Denvir, Part I

Tulsi Gabbard Introduces Bill To Completely Repeal The Patriot Act.

“A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader.”

--Vladimir Nabokov

Cultural Stagnation

Kenneth Goldsmith, It’s Not Plagiarism. In the Digital Age, It’s ‘Repurposing.’SEPTEMBER 11, 2011

Mark Fisher : The Slow Cancellation Of The Future (2014)

2014 CineNOma?

Small adjustments to the same versus something different, new, or renewed

Can you hear it? An ear for music history and the end of medium specificity

Sampling 80s synth pop this century

Modern Fears (Pilotpriest Come True Version) (Original Motion Picture Sound) 2021

sounds like

the CHROMATICS PLAYING "SATURDAY" at the end of an episode of David Lynch's Twin Peaks, the Return (2018).

See also the

CHROMATICS' "SHADOW" (Official Video)

80s synth pop

Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch and "Laura's Theme" in "Twin Peaks"

Pet Shop Boys
Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark

Drive (dir. Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011) —with 80s Miami Vice pink opening titles

Chromatics - Tick Of The Clock

Electric Youth - A Real Hero

1980s --"postmodernism" stockpiling of images; last decade of high fashion. "Pastiche" versus "parody" Frederic Jameson

haute couture

recycling Art Decco by Madonna (Vogue, Horst P. Horst / Horst corset

Express Yourself)

Metropolis (1927) - (1984) Giorgio Moroder

30's fashions Bryan Ferry (Slave to Love).

Periodization of fashion history

Roxy Music - Avalon (Official Video)

The Gong Show (1978)

Survival Kit For the Anguished: A series of podcasts by Avital Ronell

One of the most important books on a chapter of American History you never ever knew about:

Eric Foner Reconstruction-Americas-Unfinished-Revolution

Eric Foner, "Why Is There No Socialism in the United States?"

History Workshop, Spring, 1984, No. 17 pp. 57-80

Guy J. Williams, "Harkness Learning: Principles of a Radical American Pedagogy"

Harkness table

Barbara Johnson, "The Frame of Reference: Poe, Lacan, Derrida," Yale French Studies, 1977, No. 55/56, Literature and Psychoanalysis. The Question of Reading: Otherwise (1977), pp. 457-505

Various first words

Who is supposed to find this video funny? JOE BIDEN: ACCEPTABLE UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES Steve Buscemi narrates this short film 8/20/2020

Joe Biden

"Don't Be a Sucker" (1943 / 1947)

Shant Mesrobian gives an illuminating account of the authoritarian Biden voter's contempt for progressives starting at 54:02 and ending at 56:32. The entire interview is worth a listen.

"In Amazon’s Bookstore, No Second Chances for the Third Reich. The retailer once said it would sell “the good, the bad and the ugly.” Now it has banished objectionable volumes — and agreed to erasing the swastikas from a photo book about a Nazi takeover." New York Times Feb. 9, 2020

Holbein's extraordinary 'Ambassadors' | National Gallery

Nonsite.org

WATCHING FILMS TO THE END

DARK WATERS | Official Trailer

All the President's Men - Original Theatrical Trailer

The Candidate - Original Theatrical Trailer

Medium Cool (1969) ORIGINAL TRAILER

The Mothman Prophecies - Trailer.

Secrecy and the Press. Remarks by. Katharine Graham.

Megan Zahneis, This Tenured Professor Said His College’s Reopening Plans Risked Deaths. That’s Now in His Personnel File.

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

Widescreen vs. Pan & Scan

Shockproof (dir. Douglas Sirk,1949) Opening Sequence and the reveal; see also the reveal at the end of the first five minutes of Hitchcock's Marnie

The Bellows in Conversation with Adolph Reed and Walter Benn Michaels

Exercise and Depression "When you exercise, your body releases chemicals called endorphins. These endorphins interact with the receptors in your brain that reduce your perception of pain."

Edward Snowden: How Your Cell Phone Spies on You

2012: When I Knew My Job Was Over (Time Stamp 1:50)

'All-American Nativism' with Dan Denvir, Part I

"We had expected the great world-dominating nations of white race upon whom the leadership of the human species has fallen, who were known to have world-wide interests as their concern, to whose creative powers were due not only our technical advances towards the control of nature but the artistic and scientific standards of civilization - we had expected these people to succeed in discovering another way of settling misunderstandings and conflicts of interest. Within each of these nations there prevailed high norms of moral conduct for the individual, to which his manner of life was bound to conform if he desired to take part in a civilized community. . . .

A human being is seldom altogether good or bad; he is usually 'good' in one relation and 'bad' in another, or 'good' in certain external circumstances and in others decidedly 'bad'. It is interesting to find that the pre-existence of strong 'bad' impulses in infancy is often the actual condition for an unmistakable inclination towards 'good' in the adult. Those who as children have been the most pronounced egoists may well become the most helpful and self-sacrificing members of the community; most of our sentimentalists, friends of humanity and protectors of animals have been evolved from little sadists and animal-tormentors.

Sigmund Freud "Thoughts for the Times on War and Death" (1915)

Now that the TV show COPS has been cancelled, it should be replaced by a show called STOPPED. Each episode of STOPPED would show iphone videos of black people who have been murdered by police or who have talked their way out of an illegal stop with guns drawn by cops. Payment for videos that haven't gone viral but can be posted after the show airs. Copyright belongs to the original video recorder.

1 youtube.com/watch

2 .youtube.com/watch

3. Youtube.com/watch

These Scholars Denounced the Police

"What a stupid f***ing way to have a really important conversation": Reflections On A Yearlong White Fragility Training

Trump Tells Agencies To End Trainings On 'White Privilege ...

The 1619 Project - The New York Times

The Truth About the Confederacy in the United States (the 1619 part is wrong.)

I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me.

Scholars are eviscerating The New York Times' 1619 Project

Seven months later, 1619 Project leader admits she got it wrong

Conservatives rail against New York Times 1619 Project on ...

Trump warns schools teaching 1619 Project 'will not be funded'

So much for "representation":

Melania Trump touts husband's record on women

Jed Rubenfeld, "Mishandling Rape ," Nov. 15, 2014

Yale Law Professor [Jed Rubenfeld] Is Suspended After Sexual Harassment Inquiry

The Never-ending Story of Men and Women Laura Kipnis 2016

from Thomas Mann, Doktor Faustus, trans. John Wood, p. 63

A Black Marxist Scholar Wanted to Talk About Race. It Ignited a Fury.

Algorithms rule us all - VPRO documentary - 2018

Cybertopia - Dreams of Silicon Valley - Docu - 2015

The financial brain of the London City - Docu - 2013

HyperNormalisation: A new film by Adam Curtis

The Humanities After Covid-19

--Martin Heidegger, "The Thing"

"Happiness has no story."

--Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

U.S. Propaganda in one minute

Why Should You Be for Free Speech?

Mighty Ira: Ira Glasser, Free Speech and the ACLU Tmestamp31:00 on

Mighty Ira Documentary Trailer

Essential Viewing: Russell Brand On Trump and Free Speech

If you’re mildly conservative on Twitter, you’re Hitler | Ricky Gervais

The Free Speech Movement

Wall Street is diversity-inclusion-belonging

https://www.nasdaq.com

NASDAQ

2020-12-16/fifty-years-of-tax-cuts-for-rich-didn-t-trickle-down-study-says

"Music is the space between the notes."

--Claude Debussy or Miles Davis

Guy J. Williams, "Harkness Learning: Principles of a Radical American Pedagogy"

Harkness table

Nonsite.org

The Second Civil War (dir. Joe Dante, 1997)

2001 A Space Odyssey 4K

Conventions and Creativity

Montage

Mindhunter Season 1 (dir. David Fincher, 2017)

Shot Reverse Shot

Long take framed by standard shot reverse shot intro and exits:

Amazon Prime Patriot 1, Season 8 Episode

Synthesis and Sound Design

Cross cutting editing

and Opening Title Sequences

Mindhunter (2017; 2019)

Terrence Malick’s “Introduction” and “Critical Notes” for his translation of Heidegger’s The Essence Of Reasons

NOMAD: IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF BRUCE CHATWIN

A Conversation with Werner Herzog - Doc/Fest 2019

The Never-ending Story of Men and Women Laura Kipnis 2016

Scholars Denounced the Police

The Humanities After Covid-19

EXPOSED! Mainstream Media Caught Using Fake Sources

"Unity"

Cancel culture

Slavoj Žižek on "They Live"

They Live (1988) - Seeing the Truth Scene

Shockproof (dir. Douglas Sirk,1949) Opening Sequence The Reveal

The Truth About the Confederacy in the United States (the 1619 part is wrong. The United States was founded in 1776.)

BIBER PASSACAGLIA

Koyaanisqatsi part 1/9

You already know how: Mr Robot ending S4E10: 410

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/08/arts/television/mr-robot-episode-10-recap.html

Happy ending or sad ending: Dom and Darlene are going to go to
Budapest, then Dom changes her mind, then Darlene does not use her
ticket and does not board the plane. Cross cutting as Dom runs back to the boarding gate. Music Carly Rae Jepsen "Run Away
with Me" on E.Mo.Tion album Darlene is in the
bathroom having a panic attack. So you think it's going to be a happy
ending. But last shot reveals the empty seat next to Dom. Music
still playing.

So students. You already know how to read by genre. Happy ending--or
shock from happy ending withheld. Only upbeat is Darlene calming down
and saying to herself in the mirror "I can take care of myself."

http://watch-mr-robot-season-4-episode-10-tvshow.over-blog.com/hompilya6a

Climate Change: what do you want me to say?

Adam Ruins Everything - Why Billionaire Philanthropy is Not So Selfless | truTV

Sandy Hook Promise 'Back-to-School' PSA

Sandy Hook Promise: Gun violence warning signs

Wagner au cinéma - Blow Up - ARTE

Mozart au cinéma - Blow Up - ARTE

Beethoven au cinéma - Blow Up - ARTE

Bach au cinéma - Blow Up - ARTE

Schubert au cinéma - Blow Up - ARTE

Tchaïkovsky au cinéma - Blow Up - ARTE

It's so hard to be a billionaire.
https://www.ft.com/content/1e477dda-070e-11ea-9afa-d9e2401fa7ca

https://www.ft.com/content/0bab153a-026b-11ea-b7bc-f3fa4e77dd47

https://www.ft.com/content/1997bc42-0609-11ea-9afa-d9e2401fa7ca

https://www.ft.com/content/752ffc50-079d-11ea-a984-fbbacad9e7dd

Michael Kiwanuka - Cold Little Heart

Big Little Lies: Season 1 Opening Credits | HBO

Twitter Thread on U.S. Slavery

IF AMERICANS KNEW - TRAILER

"First of all, they're all psychopaths."

Mindhunter Season 1, Episode 3 (2017)

Long take framed by standard shot reverse shot intro and exits:

Amazon Prime Patriot 1, Season 8 Episode

Please don't be hard on your grad student teachers:

Why adjunct professors are struggling to make ends meet

Btw, don't even think of going to graduate school to get a Ph.D in English--or any other kind of--literature.

ANDREW KAY," Academe's Extinction Event: Failure, Whiskey,
and Professional Collapse at the MLA," May 10, 2019

Back in the MLA

Stephen Marche, a survivor of academia, returns to a troubled field

Dan Cohen, "The Books of College Libraries Are Turning Into Wallpaper: University libraries around the world are seeing precipitous declines in the use of the books on their shelves" The Atlantic May 2019

Rudy Giuliani Loves Fascism "God Bless America!"

The Purge: Election Year

ROBOCOP Original Trailer - 1987

Why did police have military-grade equipment in the first place?

365 Days and 605 Armored Military Vehicles Later: Police Militarization a Year After Ferguson

Military veterans see deeply flawed police response in Ferguson

Ferguson, Mo., police routinely violated blacks’ rights, federal inquiry finds

STANLEY FISH The Trouble With Tolerance NOVEMBER 10, 2006

Cardi B: I Became a Stripper to Escape Domestic Violence

William Wordsworth, THE PRELUDE

BOOK TWELFTH

IMAGINATION AND TASTE, HOW IMPAIRED AND RESTORED

There are in our existence spots of time,
          That with distinct pre-eminence retain
          A renovating virtue, whence--depressed                     210
          By false opinion and contentious thought,
          Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight,
          In trivial occupations, and the round
          Of ordinary intercourse--our minds
          Are nourished and invisibly repaired;
          A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced,
          That penetrates, enables us to mount,
          When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen.

I remember well,

That once, while yet my inexperienced hand

Could scarcely hold a bridle, with proud hopes

I mounted, and we journeyed towards the hills:

An ancient servant of my father's house

Was with me, my encourager and guide: 230

We had not travelled long, ere some mischance

Disjoined me from my comrade; and, through fear

Dismounting, down the rough and stony moor

I led my horse, and, stumbling on, at length

Came to a bottom, where in former times

A murderer had been hung in iron chains.

The gibbet-mast had mouldered down, the bones

And iron case were gone; but on the turf,

Hard by, soon after that fell deed was wrought,

Some unknown hand had carved the murderer's name. 240

The monumental letters were inscribed

In times long past; but still, from year to year

By superstition of the neighbourhood,

The grass is cleared away, and to this hour

The characters are fresh and visible:

A casual glance had shown them, and I fled,

Faltering and faint, and ignorant of the road:

Then, reascending the bare common, saw

A naked pool that lay beneath the hills,

The beacon on the summit, and, more near, 250

A girl, who bore a pitcher on her head,

And seemed with difficult steps to force her way

Against the blowing wind.

Heirich von Kleist, "On the Gradual Production of Thoughts Whilst Speaking"

The current version of this website is the binding one, if you are taking this course.

STEAM, not STEM (The "A" stands for "Arts," as in Liberal Arts.)

If Students Are Smart, They’ll Major in What They Love

How to Think Like Shakespeare

Free Movies Streaming Online at UF Kanopy

Criterion Films on Hulu Plus

Missing UF Faculty (mostly from English)

Thinking of Going to Law School?

Claudio Arrau Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 32

Mitsuko Uchida Masterclass Comparing Beethoven N.4 in G Major and Mozart’s K. 503

Satie Vexations Complete non-stop performance ( 9.41 hours ) by Nicolas Horvath

Erik Satie - Tapisserie en fer forgé

Did Led Zeppelin steal Stairway to Heaven's opening notes?

What is a "strong woman?" Who is a "strong woman?" A corporate oligarch funded by Wall Street and former prosecutor? Or a combat veteran funded by individual donors?

Check these out:

Kamala Harris Was Not a ‘Progressive Prosecutor' Lara Bazelon, NY Times, January 17 2019

Former DNC vice chair: Democratic primary was 'rigged' for Clinton

Tulsi Gabbard Calls Assange’s Arrest A Blow To Transparency And Free Press

Morning Joe Attacks Tulsi For Opposing War (Time Stamp 3:30)

Tulsi Gabbard challenges Kamala Harris record as a prosecutor | full exchange

Harris dismisses Gabbard attack: I'm a top-tier candidate, she's at 0 or 1 percent

Watch Tulsi Gabbard's interview with Anderson Cooper

Tulsi Gabbard: Kamala Harris 'didn't give any answers'

Gabbard to MSNBC Host: These Are Talking Points Kamala Harris And Her Campaign Are Feeding You

Some "strong women" = mean girls? Tulsi Gabbard Takes On Kamala | The View

Tulsi Gabbard Says Kamala Harris' Jab Was 'Pathetic' and 'Cheap Smear' | TMZ

Mueller Testimony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EbrfiAxjY0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6CYXdspaBY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfFtq8C_1_4

LP - Lost On You [Official Video]

my-ears-could-hear-the-war-but-the-censors-wouldnt-let-me-read-it/

LP - Lost On You [Official Video]

Judith Herman, Healing the Incest Wound

Rene Descartes, Part Three of Discourse on the Method

Student Co-Leaders:

When you prepare to co-lead, send the final draft of your notes to me via google docs at least twenty-hours before class begins.

Fables of School Reform

Hamlet, In Our Time Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the inspiration for Shakespeare's Hamlet, the play's context and meaning, and why it has fascinated audiences from its first performance.

The Best Years Of Our Lives 1946 music and image

domed bookshelf

Philip Roth, "Writing About Jews" (DEC, 1963)

TIMOTHY SNYDER, It Can Happen Here

"The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s decision to speak out against Holocaust analogies is a moral threat" JULY 12, 2019

U.S. Banks Are Terrified of Chinese Payment Apps

To understand how I have designed and planned this course, please be sure to look at

PK Feyerabend, Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge (1975)

Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, "Scrips and Scribbles," MLN, Vol. 118, No. 3, German Issue (Apr., 2003), pp. 622-636.

John Law, After Method: Mess in Social Science Research Routledge, 2004

Consider everything I say as parts of the contents of a time capsule from long ago that has yet to be opened, much kess indexed and archived.

Katha Pollitt, "Roe Isn’t Going Down Without a Fight," May 2019

Commencement Speeches From Out Of Touch Celebrities 2019

Dr Van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Academic Time circa 2000: Dr. Judith Lewis Herman, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Harvard ... joins UC Berkeley's Harry Kreisler

Not a very good take:

The Americanization of Popular Culture Should Terrify Us All

A very good take:

Why Netflix and Amazon Algorithms Are Destroying the Movies

Gadaj?ce g?owy/Talking Heads (1980)

Alain Badiou, The True Life

SENIORS FOR STUDENTS, Richard Burt, President

Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1872 Anti-Education Harper's Magazine

Alexandre Kojeve, "Chapter 2 Summary of the First Six Chapters of the Phenomenology of Spirit" in Introduction to the Reading of Hegel

At Berkeley (dir. Frederick Wiseman, 2013)

Philosopher Ray Monk: why I went vegan

‘If we cut out meat and dairy, we would all live longer, healthier, happier lives’

Left Behind America 9/11/2018

Jeff Bezos’s “Montessori, Inc.” Sets Up the Ed-Tech Takeover of Pre-K

Exercise and Depression

"When you exercise, your body releases chemicals called endorphins. These endorphins interact with the receptors in your brain that reduce your perception of pain."

This Is What It’s Like to Be a Teacher in America (2018)

Close Listening

5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Classical Music

"Teach us to care and not to care"

Ash-Wednesday
by T S Eliot

Stewart Lee on UKIP

Larry David Curb Your Enthusiasm (2017) | HBO

“Won’t You Be My Neighbor” (2018)

Look for the Helpers. --Fred Rogers

Songs which begin before they begin

The snare drum. The Letter Boxtops

Avalon Roxy Music

Peter Gabriel In Your Eyes

John McGlaughlin in Bitches Brew

The Who - The Kids Are Alright

austerity fails.mp4

Werner Herzog talks books

Former CIA Director Admits to US Foreign Meddling, Laughs About It (2018)

ANTICIPATORY LEARNING

Hillary Clinton Says the ‘Future is Female’

vs.

Sorry to Bother You (dir. Boots Riley, 2018)

"The Future is Female Ejaculation" (It is against the law in Australia.)

This segment below is really worth watching in its entirety: One brave anti-war candidate gets through the gauntlet of four furious, total establishment enemy combatants. Gabbard is incredibly poised and strong, calling out the smearing of her and other leftists as it happens in real time, face to face. Bizarrely, it now appears that a woman from the military who actully thinks rationally about foreign interventions and regime changes would make a better than the militarized chickenhawk civilians now running the country.

US Rep. Tulsi Gabbard on MSNBC's Morning Joe -- Feb. 6, 2019

New Episode - Episode 4: New York - Tulsi TV On the Road

Theodor Adorno, " Behind the Mirror" in Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life

Citizne Kane (the mirror scene); reepated in lady from shanghai and the Immortal Story

To sign up to co-lead class, go to this google doc. Do not co-lead with the same person twice and co-lead at least four weeks after the first time you co-lead.

DUE by noon Friday February 11: write me an email at [email protected] with this sentence filled in: "I want to write about . . . . . [describe your topic] in . . . . . . [give the title of text or film] focusing on . . . . ." [what part exactly do you plan to close read?]. Again, email me your sentence by noon Friday February 11. You are free to choose to write about anything in the assigned readings and films that we have not already discussed in class. You may of course change your topic after you begin writing. But the end of Friday afternoon, I will email you back and greenlight your planned paper topic or not. If I do not greenlight it, I suggest you email me. I will then email you back explain to you what the problem is. And we can keep corresponding until I do greenlight your paper topic.

SECOND PAPER DUE by 11:59 p.m. READ THROUGH THIS WEBPAGE. READ ALL OF IT. CLOSELY. VERY CLOSELY. PLEASE NOTE: Now that you have learned from your mistakes in our discussion of your first paper, and now that you have practiced writing twice a week through your DQs, I fully expect you to be able to make an argument in your essay, write grammatical sentences, use words properly, and punctuate properly. Papers that have ungrammatical sentences, mispunctuate, or misuse words will get "D" grades. Be sure to give yourself time to revise and to proofread your paper carefully before you send it to me at [email protected]. I recommend reading your work aloud. It's a good way to see what you need to revise. You can also get help at the Writing Program. See also the Plain Style: A Guide to Written English. READ THROUGH THIS WEBPAGE. READ ALL OF IT. CLOSELY. VERY CLOSELY.

April 7

April 12

April 14

April 19

I designed this course myself and am looking forward to teaching it this semester. If you have a question or a problem, please contact me in class or at [email protected]. (I am the manager.)

Due January 14 by 5:00 p.m: Second Viewing Responses. Give the timestamps of the shots or scenes in the film you think are related by design to two of the four shots I will give you.In your word doc, give the timestamps of the single shots or sequence of shots for two of the four out of mix, and give a description (around 40 words) of the formal relation you observe between the shots I gave you and the shots you noticed. Email all work for the course to me at

Put your DQs and three shots in one word document--.doc or .docx--and send the word . Don't send me a google doc or copy your document into your email. Don't forget to put your name in the upper right corner of your word document. If you want to know how to improve your discussion questions, I will be happy to meet with you on zoom during office hours or by appointment and show you.

Example of the word document format for discussion questions due Mondays by 5:00 p.m.:

Due JANUARY 21 by 5:00 p.m: DUE: Viewing Responses. Listen to the sound design of the film. Note five timestamps where bells or extra-diegetic music plays. Discuss what you hear in two of the five timestamps you've noted. You'll notice that some musical themes are repeated. Email all work for the course to me at

Listen to the sound design of the film. Note five timestamps where bells or extra-diegetic music plays. Discuss what you hear in two of the five timestamps you've noted. You'll notice that some musical themes are repeated.

Due JANUARY 24 by 5:00 p.m: Write two Film Discussion Questions (DQs) on . Send your DQs and three shots in one word document as an attachment to me at . Don't forget to put your name in the upper left corner. That is all you need to put: just your name. :) Email all work for the course to me at

Once you have a partner to co-lead class discussion, create a google doc for your notes and share it with me by 5:00 p.m. the day before you are co-leading so I can add my thoughts. Make sure you give me permission me to edit the document.

Third Paper due April by midnight. You will formulate your own paper topics and them to me by April 15 for approval. I will respond within twenty-four hours or lss. Email all work for the course to me at

I will be asking you to learn how to do something no one may ever have asked you to do: it's called close reading. (Please do not confuse being moralistic and judgmental--"it didn't do 'x' and it should have done!"--with being critical--"why is the work doing what it is doing the way it is doing it?")."

Close reading means paying attention to language, to the words the author has used, the order in which they are used, and appreciating how well they are used. It means paying attention not to what is said but to how it is said; it means paying attention to the structure of sentences and the structure of the narrative; it means paying attention to tropes such as metaphor, metonymy, and irony, among others; it means being alert to allusions a work of literature makes to other works of literature.

Close reading is a practice designed for literature, for texts that are extremely well-written. Literature is universal. Literature is often difficult to write. And it is often difficult to read. Not just anyone can write it. And not just anyone can read it closely. (If you do not know how to write a grammatical sentence or how to punctuate or how to use words correctly, you cannot learn how to read closely.) All writers of literature are excellent close readers. They know humongous amounts of (big) words.

Do not ask about the author or the historical context. Do not ask speculative questions. They cannot be answered and so are not productive for discussion. Do not ask what the work tells us about some general issue today. Ask about what the work says.

"What we must not forget, however, is that it is in the completion of the text by the reader that these adjustments are made; and each reader will make them differently. Plurality is here not a prescription but a fact. There is so much that is blurred and tentative, incapable of decisive explanation; however we set about our reading, with a sociological or a pneumatological, a cultural or a narrative code uppermost in our minds, we must fall into division and discrepancy; the doors of communication are sometimes locked, sometimes open, and Heathcliff may be astride the threshold, opening, closing, breaking. And it is surely evident that the possibilities of interpretation increase as time goes on. The constraints of a period culture dissolve, generic presumptions which concealed gaps disappear, and we now see that the book, as James thought novels should, truly "glories in a gap," a hermeneutic gap in which the reader's imagination must operate, so that he speaks continuously in the text.

Barthes denies the charge that on his view of the reading process one can say absolutely anything one likes about the work in question; but he is actually much less interested in defining contraints that in asserting liberties.

When we see that the writer speaks more than he knows what we mean is that the text is under the absolute control of no thinking subject, or that it is not a message from one mind to another."

The reason literature, film, and philosophy are so great, so deeply admired yet often controversial, even despised, is that writers are free to say anything they wish they way they want to say it, fillmakers get to show images of anything they wish, they way they want to show them, and philosophers can ask philosophical questions about anything they wish whenever they want. It's called FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION. As anyone who understands anything about language knows, intention and context do matter. I find attempts to get people fired from their jobs because of something they said repellent and unseemly.

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE (Please expect adjustments to be made in the schedule from time to time; all changes will be announced both in class and on the class email listserv.)

In order to include all students in class discussion, and in order to make it easier for you to read closely and thereby improve your own writing, We will close read, read slowly the assigned text sentence by sentence or the assigned film shot by shot. Discussion co-leaders and I will call on a student at random and ask that student to read a specific sentence out loud and then to close read it. If the student is unable to read the sentence closely, the co-leaders will call on another student and ask that student to read a specific sentence out loud and then to close read it. We will continue to discuss the same sentence until a student reads it closely. We will then proceed in the same fashion with the next sentence. And so on. Due to time constraints and because close reading is slow reading, we will skip parts of the assigned text, but we will always be talking and only be talking about words, syntax, punctuation, paragraphing, and narration in the text. As we move through the text, we will be able to make more general comments about parts of it. If students have comments to add on the sentence under discussion, they may raise their hands and make them once they have been called on by the co-leaders or me.

In order to learn the names of all the students in the class, I will take roll on canvas at the beginning of class. As I state on the requirements webpage, if you are late to class, I consider you absent. If you are absent more than twice, your final grade may suffer. If you are absent four times, you fail the class.

"Attendance means not only being in class, but includes completing the assigned work for each class by the time it is due and arriving to class on time. (If you arrive late to class or if you don't do the discussion questions, you are counted as absent.)

To learn how to understand a piece of music, a philosopher said, you have to hear it twice.

A conductor of baroque music said you have to listen to repeated hearings before you understand it.

"How full of meaning and significance the language of music is we see from the repetition of signs, as well as from the Da capowhich would be intolerable in the case of works composed in the language of words. In music, however, they are very appropriate and beneficial; for to comprehend it fully, we must hear it twice."

Vienna and Schubert: 'Death and the Maiden' String Quartet - Professor Chris Hogwood CBE

Make sure sure you order copies of one of the critical editions below, or buy an e-book, or rent a copy, etc. To follow the schedule, just find the dates below in red and blue. Like this: January 13

Monochrome: Painting in Black and White

A ‘Chronicle’ investigation tracks how a decision to silence professors emerged from the depths of bureaucracy.

Did Led Zeppelin steal Stairway to Heaven's opening notes?

April 7

April 12

April 14

April 19