This reading experience has been very different for me than my summer reading experience for many reasons. Firstly, I felt much better prepared with the tools and resources needed to attempt to comprehend the information and the meaning behind why the specific pages and works were assigned. Secondly, I enjoyed the content and information provided much more because of their historical significance and because of their fictional attributes as well. I could also make many connections to the significance that human progression holds on both the summer readings and the Thanksgiving break reading. All of our assigned reading seemed to focus greatly on creation and human progression; with the two different interpretations of Metamorphoses, I understood the significance that Dr. Holt wanted to put on growth and human desire and passion. With A.O Scott and Stephen Greenblatt’s works, we saw an up close and personal attempt to influence and perceive our own progression as human beings. Stephen Greenblatt urged us to view our non autonomous agency in a positive and enlightening manner by giving us examples and instances in time that display those ideas and the placement of those ideas by important thinkers. This idea of unattainable autonomous agency has influenced so much of how we think today that it provides a perfect example of how significant the idea of philosophy and self understanding has influenced human culture and society. I think what struck me the most was Milton’s interpretation of creation and the discussions had between the devils. Although I do wish it was written in a manner that I understood and could easily comprehend, I was incredibly interested in the purpose behind why he approached the old creation stories in an almost comedic tone. The almost comedic setting in which multitudes of devils discuss in a town hall setting how they should take their revenge against God’s tyrannical rule created a rather confused sense of understanding within myself. I believed I understood the ideas that he was trying to express, but I wondered why the tone in which he chose to convey those ideas was comedic and mysterious.
In our future discussions, I believe we will be discussing how the creation story relates to our philosophical ideas as a species as well as its reflection of our progression. I also want to watch out for our discussion about the usage of tone and the differences between different renditions of popular stories. I noticed that although we read a great deal, we never truly strayed from the story of creation and metamorphoses, so I would definitely like to understand what we will be learning and absorbing from the same story being told multiple times in different time periods. Overall, I am very excited to see how the impact of fictional tales has affected or reflected our progression as a human race. I am also excited to see and learn about the progression of the usage of tone in fictional books to portray different ideas in different styles as well as the different writing style in different time periods.
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My experience reading “Renaissance Self Fashioning” and “Better Living through Criticism” has surmounted to an immense amount of self reflection and internal thought. We have grappled with philosophical and personal ideas and turmoil that has resulted in an almost total recall of my own personal beliefs and philosophical understandings. I think this is most reflected in my page of my CPB where I attempt to draw out the specific diagrams for the relationship of self to authority and alien as well as the process of self fashioning.This diagram shows my attempt to visualize my thoughts and my attempted understanding of the concepts presented. Often times in my CPB I attempt to describe my thought processes and understanding of the lengthy summations we as a class come to, but it almost always results in a rather messy culmination of spare words and thoughts that I begin but am unable to piece together. Fortunately, this struggle has improved greatly for me as I have been able to formulate my ideas and think more before I speak. In my earlier CPB page in which I am attempting to explain the purpose for each individual audience he may be speaking to, it is clear that I am desperately trying to connect each of my individual thoughts into coherent ideas that I have in my head. Arrows and eraser marks flood the page making it almost incomprehensible, but as the CPB continues we see less eraser marks and a much more coherent thought process where I am able to truly comprehend, disect, and describe the problems or comments I have regarding “Renaissance Self Fashioning”. I have been very happy with my personal progress as I have seen myself grow into a much more contemplative and positively hesitant person, but I am even more excited to see how my newly formed thought process translates when we begin reading fictional and other classical pieces of literature. I believe that I will be able to gain a new form of insight that is not simply my first response and reaction and a continuous process with that response as the base but one that is open and constantly willing to be changed and bent with the means of truly understanding the concepts and meaning. I am also excited to incorporate the new methods of deliberate textual reading that I have adopted through the class. I believe the understanding of purpose behind sentence structure and word placement is a skill that I am only now beginning to understand and find meaning within, so although I feel like I would have gained a lot more from historical and literary classics that I have read in the past, I am not looking to the past but instead excitedly gazing towards the future and towards a future of excitement and passion for literature and all that it has to offer. I am excited to see how the grueling yet rewarding work will apply to Metamorphoses and Paradise Lost; I have heard that Paradise Lost can be a difficult read for many people, so I hope that our close reading and purposeful search for the true meaning of the story gives me a new patience and passion for even the slowest of novels and historical texts. How can these writings connect and support ourselves as emerging conscious members of the community?7/30/2019 My recent readings have ventured me through musings regarding wonderment, curiosity, imagination, inquiry, and age, and although the range of topics were vast, they all felt connected and intentional. First, I concluded my reading of “A More Beautiful Question” which felt like a satisfying conclusion to Warren Berger’s central thesis regarding the strength and necessity of a question. His confrontation with the human being’s fear of inferiority, and its direct impact on our comfort with posing questions was incredibly significant in my eyes. In my experience as a student, I have come across many situations in which me or my classmates are confused and frankly lost but are afraid to ask questions for fear of appearing behind or less than others. My views align with Berger’s almost identically, and I believe that it is only with situations of questioning that we can push ourselves into achieving greatness in our craft whether it be educational or professional. His mention of the effect of the internet on our continued curiosity and tendency to ask questions does not seem like an issue we will address in class, but it does seem like an issue we as human beings growing up in the 21st century will come across. Personally, I believe that the internet has done great things to assist in human curiosity and knowledge, and although there are cons, as there is with anything, I believe that the internet has brought about a new age of accessible information to be curious about and to ask questions about. |
Avsha WeinbergArchives
November 2019
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