Some say the world will end in fire,Some say in ice.From what I’ve tasted of desireI hold with those who favor fire.But if it had to perish twice,I think I know enough of hateTo know that for destruction iceIs also greatAnd would suffice.
Thanks for indicating your midterm report preferences, Amanda (17th) and Markeem (24th). Everyone else, please indicate yours.
Here are some discussion questions on this week's reading. Feel free to respond to any of them, offer your own, or just share your own observations. Try to post at least three separate comments on the reading prior to each class. First: Questions JAN 27...
Please scroll down to the midterm reports post below, all, and indicate a date preference for your first presentation in the comments section. And stay safe and warm! We still have no power in my neighborhood, hope you do have wherever you are. jpo
Still powerless in my neighborhood. Please continue reading Be Mine and post your comments as you are able. ALSO: select a midterm report date and indicate your preference below. Looking forward to seeing you all (including a new student) Tuesday in the 3d floor JUB conference room. jpo
Or tomorrow. Probably not the rest of the week, though that determination has not yet been made as of 5 AM Tuesday. I hope you are all well, staying warm wherever you are. It’s day three of no power where I live, in Nashville. We’re spending a lot of time bundled and huddled around the fireplace and consuming warm beverages. Last time this happened was the big chill of ‘94. Every 30 years or so is often enough!
Please keep up with the readings and post your comments about them as you are able. We’ll catch up when we can. See you soon. jpo
MALA (Master of Liberal Arts) 6050-Philosophy in Recent American Fiction
(For more info: phil.oliver@mtsu.edu... https://prafmtsu.blogspot.com/)
We'll all read three novels* together, and each of us will additionally read and report on either a fourth novel or on a specific author's life and works.**
"Philosophy" = searching for wisdom, clarity, enlightenment, meaning, perspective, purpose, reality, truth, understanding, ... especially with regard to the human impact on nature, the environment, other species, & other humans.
"Recent" = 21st century
*The three novels:
**Possible fourth choices, for individual reports:
IMPORTANT DATES Fall 2026
Jan 20 - Classes begin
Jan 27 - Select/assign midterm report presentation topic & date.
Feb 3 - Mid-term report presentations begin.
Mar 3 – Exam 1. Select final report presentation topic & date.
Mar 9-14 – Spring Break – No Classes
Mar 17 – Final report presentations begin
Apr 28 – Our Last Day of Class. Exam 2
May 2 - Final report blog post (final draft) due. Post earlier for feedback
May 7 – Last Day of Term
May 9 – Commencement (Days and Times TBD), Official Fall Graduation Date
May 10 – Deadline for Submission of Final Grades, 11:59 p.m.
https://open.substack.com/pub/rebeccanewbergergoldstein/p/on-the-transitory-nature-of-happiness?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer
LISTEN (audio file on Google Docs)
'Tis the season of William James's birth, in 1842.
By an odd twist of coincidence, January 11 happens also to be my wife's birthday. So it's a date I cannot and dare not ever forget.
The late great biographer Robert Richardson, noting the legendary James "family tradition" according to which Emerson blessed infant William, cautioned against attaching either too much or too little import to that mythic connection. It does seem too right to be true, but also too good not to be...
https://wjsociety.org/news/"What’s confusing about the woke movement is that it’s born from traditional left-wing emotions: empathy for the marginalized, indignation at the plight of the oppressed, determination that historical wrongs should be righted. Those emotions, however, are derailed by a range of theoretical assumptions that ultimately undermine them. ‘Theory,’ in English, is such a nebulous and trendy concept that it’s even been used to launch a fashion line, but if the word today has no clear content, it does have some direction. What unites very different intellectual movements bound together by the word ‘theory’ is a rejection of the epistemological frameworks and political assumptions inherited from the Enlightenment. You need not spend years deciphering Judith Butler or Homi Bhabha to be influenced by theory. We rarely notice the assumptions now embedded in the culture, for they’re usually expressed as self-evident truths. Because they are offered as simple descriptions of reality rather than ideas we might question, it’s hard to challenge them directly. Those who have learned in college to distrust every claim to truth will hesitate to acknowledge falsehood."
"Left Is Not Woke" by Susan Neiman: https://a.co/6Q2Ymat
"I feel so sorry for anyone who misses the experience of history, the horizons of history. We think little of those who, given the chance to travel, go nowhere. We deprecate provincialism. But it is possible to be as provincial in time as it is in space. Because you were born into this particular era doesn’t mean it has to be the limit of your experience. Move about in time, go places. Why restrict your circle of acquaintances to only those who occupy the same stage we call the present?"
"Brave Companions" by David McCullough: https://a.co/2aRCw9Q
…James Danckert, who runs a "boredom lab" at the University of Waterloo in Canada, where he studies the psychological and neurological roots of boredom, cautioned new practitioners not to indulge a "gross misunderstanding of boredom," in which this mental state is assumed to be a de facto good.
"Boredom is signaling for you a lack of meaning, a lack of purpose in your life," he said in an interview, calling the TikTok challenge in particular "a misguided approach." The goal, he explained, is not to wallow in feelings of disinterest and malaise but to find some way to alleviate them.
There are better ways for people to cope, Dr. Danckert said, other than locking themselves in a cage of existential ennui — by going outside or finding a new hobby, for instance. Reading also works. "You don't have to do nothing."
