Academics
When the stars threw down their spears
You know, I can’t help but feel as though this (academic) year will be an important one.
Finally, I’ve worked through all the administrative problems of being in English Honours for one-half of my Dual Degree and I’m in! I couldn’t be happier…or more frightened. I’ve been spending a lot of time this summer preparing for English Honours (reading books, papers, etc.) but I haven’t a clue how I’ll do in comparison with my classmates. Here goes nothing.
Summer really went by too quickly and although I hardly did anything worth mentioning, I did renew an interest in visual art! Visits to assorted art galleries in the States really fostered that love. Here are some I thought were worth sharing:
After the deluge by Yoshitomo Nara (2006)
Illustration for Milton’s Paradist Lost by Gustave Doré (1866)
La musique by Charles-André van Loo (1753)
Neat, hm?
All children, except one, grow up
Suffice it to say, today was a great deal more invigorating than I had expected. After a late start to the day (breakfast — or brunch, more appropriately), I headed off to the theatre to watch Despicable Me with L and A. Having bought our tickets (and then vacillating whether or not we wanted to sit in a dark, empty theatre so as to save the best seats), we headed in and claimed our Real 3D glasses.
I’m having a bad, bad day
If you take it personal, that’s okay
Watch, this is so fun to see
Huh, despicable me.
– Pharrell, “Despicable Me”
The movie, by all means, was great. The story was fun, the humour well-timed and (gosh darn it!) the orphan girls were so sweet! This makes me think that everyone ought to be forced to care for the young. Perhaps we’d have less villains that way? Behind our seats, a whole row was reserved for (what we assumed) was a birthday party. Hearing the children giggle with glee behind us wasn’t as annoying as I might have imagined — it was quite fun to have them behind us! (Too bad L was thwapped on the head by an overzealous child…)
After a rather long journey to procure a screen protector for A’s (new!) BlackBerry Bold 9700, we wandered over to Chapters where we discovered, much to our mutual pleasure, that we could have dinner together. We ate at The Boss (where I learned that I don’t actually know how to order beef in Cantonese…how do you indicate how well-cooked you want the meat?!).
Once full, we left the restaurant to a rapidly closing mall. We wandered over to a water fountain outside to wonder what we could do. I suggested we take a stroll in Central Park (despite my great fears of creepers running amok in the wooded areas). Off we went.
After dodging incoming golf balls from the pitch-and-putt and trekking through the verdant trees, we sat on a bench and noticed two people apparently shouting at one another. Perplexed, we gazed on to notice a man in a blue cape yelling to some people further away. Nosily, we inched closer and closer until…we noticed that it was a production! Outside! In the park! For free!
Enthralled, we found ourselves sitting on the grass (and swatting away the copious amounts of vampiric mosquitoes) and trying to unravel the storyline. As it turns out, it was a production of Neverland: Beginnings by Rainforest Theatre, a small local company. We watched with glee as Peter Pan was nearly wedded to the daughter of the pirate king and as we learned how Captain Hook gained (lost?) his eponymous appendage. With subtle amusement, we gazed on as one overexcited child-spectator inched closer and closer to the actors until he was actually sitting within the action, gazing upward and asking, “Can I see that?!”
I found it so magical that serendipity (and, admittedly, a reluctance to return home to do readings for ENGL 468) led us to a theatrical production in the ancient pulse of germ and birth. I thought I had encountered something out of Midsummer Night’s Dream! (But of course not. My appointment to see Henry V is this Friday.)
It is some indication of my great love for the theatre but I adored the way the actors interacted with the audience and with their surroundings. With little more than some light costuming, they created a world into which their children-spectators could be drawn by sheer charisma. And what is a more natural setting for a theatrical production than the forest?
The play finished and everyone dispersed. We headed over to P’s house to play poker briefly before I was summoned home with great displeasure at my waywardness.
And I could wish my days to be bound each to each with such wonder, joy and serendipity.
Even when there’s no one sitting there
I typically try to avoid double-posting but after reading through the first chapter of Anne of Green Gables, I had to comment. My disclaimer, of course, is that I have hardly made it through the book in any demonstrable way but I had to comment on this with a wry smirk. I risk the ire of fans around the world (I am led to believe that there must be some following as the back of the book describes the book as having never been out of print since its initial publication in 1908) but I had to get this off my chest.
Let me be frank. Anne of Green Gables begins simply with a nosy, old woman, staring out of her window with her hawkish eyes. And but of course, she spies one neighbour’s husband plodding along for some inexplicable reason. She makes the laborious (not really) trip to her neighbour’s home to prod her nose into the affairs of the adjacent household. Having learned of the reason for the excursion, she gives her unsolicited and frank advice. When mildly rebuffed, she leaves with every intention of setting the neighbourhood tongues wagging by sharing her newly-gained insight.
Not altogether a promising start to what many Canadians would consider a national classic.
Before high piled books, in charactry
I am beginning to find that, more and more, I’m fascinated by the nature and study of knowledge, of epistemology. It strikes me as odd that only after years of studying everything else have I suddenly realized that I’ve never really examined the ways in which knowledge is acquired, synthesized and made useful. Or what constitutes knowledge, for that matter.
I mean, I’ve skirted around the topic before. In ENGL 112, I wrote a paper on metaphoric representations of genes and genetics, citing issues of epistemology. But I never really appreciated the subject until now.
More recently, I discussed the ways in which contemporary theories of knowledge (empiricism, rationalism and German Idealism) contemporaneous to the Victorian Period were explored in Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone. Could this be a legitimate mode of literary scholarly inquiry? My golden ticket into the world of literary academia?
I think I will focus attention this year on learning more about epistemology. Being an armchair epistemologist. Falling down the rabbit-hole, so to speak.
Hm. Curiouser and curiouser.
Nay, fie, let us not be smutty
So the Department of English has posted a provisional list of course offerings with some syllabi. While I am definitely more comfortable with the early area courses, I often wonder why the courses aren’t edgier.
Here’s something I wouldn’t mind taking if offered:
Making the Sexual, Textual: Pornographic Texts of the Modernist Period
Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the “Chatterley” ban
And the Beatles’ first LP.
– Philip Larkin, “Annus Mirabilis”
Numerous literary works have inspired controversy and, indeed, public outrage over perceived obscene or pornographic content. This course seeks to critically evaluate these texts using modern theoretical frameworks as well as to understand the cultural milieu in which these works were published. While a primary focus will be placed upon the texts themselves, some attention will be devoted to obscenity trials and contemporary discussions of the nature of literature and society.
Students are forewarned that course material may contain content offensive to some readers. Enrollment indicates a willingness to read through all texts.
Primary Readings:
- Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1857)
- Selections from Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire (1857)
- Selections from Ulysses by James Joyce (1922)
- Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence (1928)
- The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (1928)
- Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (1934)
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)
Secondary Readings:
- The History of Sexuality: An Introduction by Michel Foucault (1984)
- Dirt for Art’s Sake: Books on Trial from Madame Bovary to Lolita by Elisabeth Ladenson (2006)
- Other related material including scholarly articles, court records, newspaper clippings, etc.
Search
Recently Tweeted
- Sweet. My ecology prof from BIOL 304 on Gizmodo! http://gizmo.do/c6aJhw #UBC
- This week's #ff is brought to you by my high school classmates @allisontang @luwesa @bwabwa @chizzak @gilbert_leung @kvnjjwong @pattiez
- Really bad home invasion nightmare again. These need to stop. Woke up sweating again. #scared
- Feel a cold coming on. This is what comes of long hours in the office and eating unhealthy food. :(
- So I've been at work for 12+ hours. </3


