tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76260052012-02-16T22:58:48.754-05:00"Words fly up, my thoughts remain below."KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.comBlogger1031100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-30851187208235068412012-02-03T15:25:00.000-05:002012-02-03T15:25:22.628-05:00

Recently, I've been looking a lot more at game theory, leadership, and how the two relate in the context of videogame criticism, as well as "real life." In terms of a discussion of ethics, the idea of "moral currency" seems particularly relevant to a discussion of a non-zero-sum n-person game system; in essence, when what you're "playing" for isn't a monetary, but a morally coded reward. Ian

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-28395480572790392402012-01-13T11:32:00.000-05:002012-01-13T11:32:40.495-05:00

I am apparently not done with Ms. Penman yet. This next bit is just about as irritating as the claim I just posted. Central to the new postmodern constellation of beliefs is the crucial role played by language and communication. In this world, language is not subservient to knowledge, as Locke would have it; rather it is the means whereby knowledge is created. Our knowledge of the world is

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-72731418535248061222012-01-13T11:01:00.002-05:002012-01-13T11:16:11.529-05:00

during the seventeenth century, the philosophers of the day – most notably Descartes – made a number of fundamental moves away from the foundational beliefs of the Renaissance and the humanism entailed in that era. First, the seventeenth-century philosophers moved from an oral mode of argument for making judgments to a written form of proof that could be judged in terms of formal logic.

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-60266289688214817162011-11-01T11:46:00.000-05:002011-11-01T11:46:13.560-05:00

"God isn't compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make your choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness. That's why I have to keep these books locked up in the safe. They're smut. People would be shocked if..." The Savage interrupted him. "But isn't it natural to feel there's a God?" "You might as well ask if it's

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-79560857610461191622011-10-07T10:17:00.002-05:002011-10-07T10:29:03.173-05:00

All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life and his relations with his kind. -- Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, Communist ManifestoMy question in response to this is fairly basic - why, exactly, is this a bad thing? If religion is the opiate of the masses, why object to its removal? Is the truth

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-4166332236509689322010-07-01T17:26:00.002-05:002010-07-01T18:08:06.748-05:00

Over the last week or so I've been plowing my way through the Kaufman collection of Nietzsche's writings, and several of them have struck me as particularly poignant. Now Nietzsche has quite a reputation for coming up with evil and villainous conceptions of human nature. He has been used as an excuse for racism, Nazism, general Antisemitism, and maligned for his philosophic atheism.Thus far, I

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-13785858302868236412010-04-22T19:30:00.002-05:002010-04-22T19:51:02.885-05:00

Although I and many of the people I know best and love are all members, graduates, or products of higher education, I have been noticing a recent trend in anti-intellectualism among politicians, society in general, and even among the members of my own family. Admittedly, those to whom I am closest (parents, cousins, aunts and uncles) are mostly in accord with my beliefs, but there is something

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-74799853466991449052010-04-21T19:34:00.002-05:002010-04-21T20:07:59.859-05:00

In this case, the "A" is not a scarlet fabric representation of marital (or extra-marital) infidelity emblazoned upon my breast so that the world can read my shame and shun me accordingly. However, I am fairly convinced that in some parts of the country (and the world), the "A" to which I here refer would in fact earn me far worse treatment at the hands of the local population. Fortunately for me

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-88930516360375190902010-03-18T19:17:00.000-05:002010-03-18T19:18:18.450-05:00

What characterizes gamer theory is a playing with the role of the gamer within the game, not by stepping beyond it, into a time or a role beyond the game, but rather by stepping into games that are relatively free of the power of gamespace. The game is just like gamespace, only its transformations of gamer and game have no power beyond the battle in which they meet. In a game, you are free

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-31531074812693422272010-03-10T12:32:00.002-05:002010-03-10T19:17:49.364-05:00

My current in-process read is Gamer Theory by McKenzie Wark, which, while it certainly has its flaws in interpretation, raises some very interesting questions about games, gamespace, and gamers. For instance,Stories no longer opiate us with imaginary reconciliations of real problems. The story just recounts the steps by which someone beat someone else - a real victory for imaginary stakes. [007]

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-21857335522733517942010-02-22T19:16:00.003-05:002010-02-22T19:25:32.081-05:00

So my husband sent me this link today from work. He thought I would be particularly interested in the portion that discusses one teacher who works his classroom on an XP (eXperience Points) system and how the students respond so well to that system.My response: "But... that's just how grading works." And it's true. For those of us who use a numerical system to do our grading, we're - in essence -

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-25772727020702037592010-02-19T20:46:00.002-05:002010-02-19T22:00:19.226-05:00

So this week's theme - aside from grading - has been books. Not a surprising thing, given my choice of profession, really. But I've been reading The Book on the Bookshelf by Henry Petroski, and we recently began a lengthy process of replacing all of our mismatched shelves with matching ones.As a bibliophile, I like owning books. I like owning pretty books, old books, and books that I enjoyed

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-4594686394827868962010-01-07T23:20:00.002-05:002010-01-07T23:32:33.021-05:00

My new book for today is John W. Loftus' Why I Became an Atheist, which details not only Loftus' conversion to and then from Christianity, but his arguments against it. I'm not terribly far into the book just yet, but came across a rather interesting argument I haven't seen in the many similar books I've read.It concerns the notion of a moral compass and addresses the argument that atheists are

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-38141485886745511182010-01-04T09:08:00.002-05:002010-01-04T11:26:01.723-05:00

A few days ago, I received an email from a very distant relative who is attempting to put together his family genealogy, into which I apparently fall. After sending him the requested information, I became curious. I knew that I had some relatives from Germany, and rumors of someone from Ireland, but I didn't really know that much about them (other than one particular couple who had a suicide pact

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-55869369958536252882009-12-17T21:54:00.002-05:002009-12-17T22:12:55.573-05:00

The close of the semester - and the accompanying grading - always makes me ponder the nature of our current educational evaluative system and all its flaws, variants, and benefits. My husband frequently objects to the idea of "grades" as "meaningless" or "false" indicators of ability. And in some ways, he's right. First, what any particular grade means is somewhat arbitrary from system to system

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-84010524165161033682009-12-16T21:00:00.002-05:002009-12-16T21:19:49.158-05:00

Recently I seem to have been unintentionally preoccupied with the supernatural - ghosts, ghouls, dead things, and so on. Not that this is entirely unsurprising, of course. My research involves plays - like, say, Macbeth or The Changeling - that contain not only gruesome deaths, but the returning (and revenging) spirits of the dead. In my other job, I work in a 323-year-old building with a crypt

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-26522432630815758672009-11-15T17:19:00.003-05:002009-11-15T17:25:22.015-05:00

Although I find Derrida much more accessible now than when I was barely old enough to legally imbibe alcohol, I still hold the opinion that he is a good deal more interested in hearing himself talk than he was in being clear. Clarity is a good thing – and deliberate lexical obfuscation (while I’m good at it) is a personal pet peeve.The other day I picked up The Beast and the Sovereign: Volume 1

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-28931631330563138012009-10-03T16:25:00.003-05:002009-10-03T16:39:04.352-05:00

My university, like many others, has recently joined the "Freshman Experience" bandwagon. Recently, many universities have begun fretting about this so-called problem, as Brian's Coffee Breaks notes (article here). In short, universities are worried that the poor freshmen will be "lost" in their new - presumably larger - communities.This focus on the "Freshman Experience" seems to me to be little

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-72028721836339418992009-09-24T14:24:00.002-05:002009-09-24T14:35:19.627-05:00

So my university (at which I both teach and am a student) has really started pushing going as paperless as possible this year.On the one hand, this is proving to be an annoyance, as my students have this rather marked increase in their ability to forget due dates and assignment specifications. As a result, I continue to hand out sheets in class.On the other hand, though, I have required all

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-22987850748942140092009-07-26T13:16:00.003-05:002009-07-26T13:21:39.318-05:00

Typically, I do not post about personal events on this blog, but today I'm going to make an exception. Theoretically, you only get married once, and I think it is a momentous enough occasion to warrant a post, as it will be my last with this name and social status ("single").As is the nature of such things, I don't imagine the process will change between now and the next post. That's the way life

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-72046348737081747202009-07-04T16:54:00.002-05:002009-07-04T17:11:51.514-05:00

In learning about history, one of my favorite things to do is dig up the little-known or "losing" side of the story. The story of the witches burned by the Inquisition, of the Spiritualists and atheists in the nineteenth century, of the Germans in WWII, of the unspoken and unsung.That is not to say, of course, that the history written by the victors is unimportant. Or that written by the allies

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-45926213533226163512009-06-21T10:03:00.002-05:002009-06-21T10:24:42.686-05:00

Like many other Americans, I have been watching the protests in Iran from the safety and comfort of my home thousands of miles and an ocean away, wondering whether there is anything I can do to help them, and wondering whether - in similar circumstances - I would have the courage to face what they are facing. In my comparatively sheltered life, I have stood up for idealism more than once, but

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-26553607358511179162009-05-31T12:41:00.002-05:002009-05-31T13:17:21.280-05:00

In Karen Armstrong's A History of God, Armstrong talks about the fact that monotheism was an unusual creation, but - further - that the refutation of other gods was a practice unique to Christianity. This is a point reiterated by Jeffrey B. Russell in A History of Witchcraft, in which he discusses paganism and the vilification of non-Christian deities.Armstrong's point was that early Christians

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-18078572493407364302009-05-30T20:38:00.002-05:002009-05-30T21:03:17.139-05:00

As a person who travels frequently, both for work and pleasure, I find myself often in a position to consider both the nature of the airline industry and the types of people who make use of it.Travelers come in all shapes and sizes, all ages, both genders, and a variety of self-limiting economic strata. The most impatient are the business folk - the people who have a pressing, important, or

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-40231598025440945852009-05-11T17:17:00.003-05:002009-05-11T18:03:04.053-05:00

This week I finished Karen Armstrong's A History of God, which catalogs the last 4,000 years of religious monotheism. She makes some interesting points which I felt were worth a comment or two. The first is the idea of our tendency as humans to anthropomorphize our deities. We want our gods - for some reason entirely unclear to me - to be like us. Personally, I think we're horrible enough a

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-63641573468110711692009-04-21T15:38:00.002-05:002009-04-21T16:00:31.649-05:00

In Breaking the Spell, Dennett quotes Rodney Stark's assessment of the need for the demonic to counter our understanding of the divine:he even proposes that a God without a counterbalancing Satan is an unstable concept - "irrationaland perverse." Why? Because "one God of infinite scope must be responsible for everything, evil as well as good, and thus must be dangerously capricious, shifting

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-88840781845093754182009-04-19T11:35:00.002-05:002009-04-19T11:49:46.238-05:00

So as we were watching The Colbert Report (a few days late, thanks to technology), I had one of those I-don't-believe-someone-really-thinks-that-way moments. Colbert was interviewing Douglas Kmiec, a Catholic Professor of Law at Pepperdine about his new book, Can A Catholic Support Him? (the "Him" is Obama). My surprise was not at the book, but at a comment made by Kmiec regarding gay

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-81237892551363909542009-04-11T22:35:00.002-05:002009-04-11T22:59:50.669-05:00

So it appears that I unintentionally gave up blogging during Lent. Oops. I have good reasons why this happened, but regardless, I have been remiss.At present, I'm reading Daniel C. Dennett's Breaking the Spell, which attempts to rationalize with "believers" that "brights" (his adopted term for atheists and agnostics) are not out of their minds and that "believers" should feel obligated to

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-9119112501490137882009-02-27T23:43:00.002-05:002009-02-28T00:07:30.314-05:00

Weddings are unique things.And not just because they're (supposed to be) once-in-a-lifetime experiences or because they're an opportunity for family and friends to gather together in fancy clothes and eat free food, though these things certainly contribute. Nor because the people for which they are ostensibly a celebration spend a good deal of time, money, effort, stress, blood, sweat, and tears

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-76958926742017427072009-01-17T11:19:00.004-05:002009-01-17T11:29:59.884-05:00

As I have posted before, I'm working on a new portfolio project this semester with my freshman writing class. I'm thrilled. I think this is a great new teaching opportunity, and I think it will be much more effective for my students, as well. But they seem to be afraid of it. Afraid, perhaps, of weighting all of their grade (though technically only 40% of their grade) on a single project, leading

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-67809353178480427252008-12-01T16:30:00.002-05:002008-12-01T16:49:11.068-05:00

Next semester, I will be participating in a new pilot project at my institution. I teach freshman writing; next semester I have the second part of the sequence, in which students learn research and writing. I've elected - partly out of a desire for a new experience and partly out of a belief that the project will actually help my students learn better - to participate in a project that will

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-39502736420259852892008-11-07T12:01:00.004-05:002008-11-07T15:38:00.588-05:00

The current obsession with keeping everything tidy, not accepting long grass and leaning tombs, and treating a funeral as a refuse disposal problem, reflects a deep malaise in society... Death was never a tidy thing: it is foolish to try and make it so, and to compartment it away from life and the living. -- James Stephen Curl, 1972 (from Death, Dissection and the Destitute by Ruth Richardson, p.

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-76692647808592851962008-10-13T15:51:00.002-05:002008-10-13T16:09:36.738-05:00

It's an election year. The time when, once every four years, we embark upon the farce of pretending that we as a nation are gullible enough to believe all the drivel that comes out of the mouths of the chosen candidates. And of the press, their propagandists, and "unbiased third-party commercials." Right.It's the time when all self-respecting citizens want to bang their heads repeatedly against

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-22354695335677671552008-10-10T13:09:00.002-05:002008-10-10T13:36:40.064-05:00

There is a good deal of critical consternation surrounding the "show of kings" in Shakespeare's Macbeth. Just how many people are on stage? What does the "glass" do? Is Banquo one of the eight, or is he a ninth body in the procession? How like to James I are the kings meant to appear?The "show" itself is not described in the text beyond Macbeth's broken speech:MACBETH Thou art too like the spirit

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-27111313763169006272008-09-26T13:12:00.002-05:002008-09-26T13:36:35.868-05:00

I find it interesting that a good deal of people - scholars included - insist that "myth" is a different creature from "religion." Now, I know that my atheism probably introduces a good deal of bias here, but I still don't see a technical distinction. Even if I were religious, I would consider what is popularly considered "myth" a form of religion. Just because one thinks it is wrong should not

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-91791331327265473432008-09-08T13:13:00.002-05:002008-09-08T13:31:14.585-05:00

Having just finished rereading Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra for class next week, I am reminded yet again of the absurdity of so many of our "epic love stories," this one (and, of course, Romeo and Juliet) included. In particular, I am irritated by our response to the tragic love stories with which we we are inculcated by literature classes and movies.These two of Shakespeare's - along with,

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-79836139091845020852008-08-21T16:26:00.002-05:002008-08-21T17:07:52.593-05:00

As a literary critic and (hopeful) creator, I find myself taking exception not simply to the idea of Intelligent Design in the anti-Darwinian sense, but in a creative sense, as enumerated in Roger Shattuck's Candor and Perversion:Few of us can resist the wish to put the pieces of the world together, and we give lasting recognition to some, like Jesus, Muhammad, and Gandhi, who convinced many

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-51288852266870419182008-07-28T19:18:00.002-05:002008-07-28T19:33:06.229-05:00

Every few months, I - and, I suspect, many others - wonder what, precisely, it is that I'm making out of my life. What it is that I really want to do. Do I want to spend the rest of my life devoted to the largely insular world of academia? Not particularly. Devoted to my students? That I could do.It brings back, again and again, the recognition that I do what I do because of the students. Not

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-89704963048555380382008-07-10T18:05:00.004-05:002008-07-10T18:24:40.720-05:00

I've noticed an alarming trend of late in student writings, and, it appears, in our educational system: the permissiveness and even encouragement of treating our "feelings" as though they were valid sources of fact and argument. This is, "I feel," complete crap. As an academic, I view it as a degradation of the art of interpretation.It is part - or is at least an off-shoot of - the increasing

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-20520419509845531482008-07-09T17:42:00.002-05:002008-07-09T17:56:37.765-05:00

We, as a species, often find ourselves in the position of interpreters. It is our nature to interpret - not simply on the most basic level of language, but on so many various sublevels. We read one another - body language, tone, expression, eyes. We interpret these extralinguistic cues on a daily basis - and we believe them, often more readily than we believe the language that accompanies them.We

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-332806902783944342008-06-25T17:21:00.002-05:002008-06-25T17:50:04.329-05:00

It's approaching the anniversary of our nation's declaration of independence, the one day out of the year that the entire population (more or less) feels obliged to wear red, white, and blue; to wave flags; to run about stuffing their faces with both food and drink while saying "God bless America." The time of year when those of us in the tourist industry in colonial cities gear up for the influx

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-16521558358064339532008-06-18T17:12:00.002-05:002008-06-18T17:28:19.225-05:00

I've recently been reading about the Jesuit missions to England in the 16th and early 17th centuries, specifically, as they relate to the Gunpowder Plot. I find it interesting how the majority of the authors I've picked up seem so sympathetic toward the Jesuits, and critical of the Elizabethan/Jacobean governments.Is it that we, as a society, tend to automatically vilify the dominant regime? To

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-49313058724369130412008-05-22T16:59:00.003-05:002008-05-22T17:18:17.658-05:00

There is a reason we still, after 400 years, read Shakespeare. And it's not because he's a dead, white male. He is, but that isn't why we read him. The man had a gift. I hesitate to say "genius," if only because that is a word charged with so much angst and excuse, but Shakespeare, he is good.Some of Shakespeare, of course, is not good. Some of it is downright terrible (and yes, I still think the

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-35028718469777303772008-05-21T18:43:00.002-05:002008-05-21T19:00:19.022-05:00

I've been reading a good deal of history lately - and along with it, some historical fiction. Sets the brain cells a-churning.The most recent book to have filtered its way through my brain is C.J. Sansom's Dissolution, purchased on a whim at Kalamazoo. It's set in Tudor England under Henry VIII just following the death of Jane Seymour (that's after the Reformation and after the execution of Anne

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-25599431178303103632008-05-10T19:48:00.001-05:002008-05-12T11:09:43.710-05:00

Writing from a Medieval and Renaissance Conference, at which I am surrounded by not just hundreds, but thousands of academics and scholars from all over the globe, I can’t really help but be prompted to think a bit about what it means to be an academic.My musings began on the flight over. During the second leg of the trip, two men were seated in the row behind me, a older and a younger, seemingly

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-54758393664994860552008-05-05T18:19:00.002-05:002008-05-05T18:53:41.992-05:00

In the spirit of several recent events - and a plethora of student papers - I'm addressing death. The death of people, the death of things, the death of relationships. (No, this has nothing to do with my own personal life.)Phoebe S. Spinrad writes in The Summons of Death on the Medieval and Renaissance English Stage,The human mind is afraid of Nothing.It is at the moment of death that Everything

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-49631970378987111792008-04-27T16:06:00.002-05:002008-04-30T08:29:01.521-05:00

Today, we watched The Colbert Report, the episode where Edwards comes out and does the “edWords” of the day. Putting aside the frequent comments on Jetskis, Edwards rather crudely paraphrased Martin Luther King Jr., stating that he would like to see the day when his children could wake up in a world where economic equality was more than just a fantasy. It’s a nice thought. But one that – I’m

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-42091644940518788032008-04-21T09:22:00.002-05:002008-04-21T09:42:34.214-05:00

Our society, as I have mentioned before, is preoccupied with violence. With watching it, with committing it, and - yes - with censuring it. We go to movies slathered with more gore than eloquence, we watch murder and war on the news, we save Darfur (as well we should), and we enter into the cybernetic domain of exploded pixels on our computers, Xboxes, and PS-whatevers. And then we click our

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-89720599047031047912008-04-15T15:35:00.002-05:002008-04-15T15:57:04.171-05:00

As I work through the impossible process of producing a book-length (and hopefully book-worthy) academic work, I find that much of what I have to say all boils down to the same basic point and the same basic elements.On the one hand, this is A Good Thing. This means that my organizing thesis isn't insane. It means that I am on to Something. It also means that each of my plays ends up proving the

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-55002444870076664642008-04-12T18:38:00.003-05:002008-04-12T23:23:04.802-05:00

An interesting question, in this day and age. What causes us to valorize, to deify particular people within our culture? Why these people? Particularly - if one considers the Brittany Spears and Lindsay Lohan type - why these people? What is it about them that attracts our attention, draws our collective eye, makes us want to worship not only them, but the proverbial ground they walk on?I often

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1995660723846714892008-04-01T19:48:00.002-05:002008-04-01T20:26:16.344-05:00

Violence is something with which today's society is eminently familiar. Something that has become so much a part of our everyday lives, that we no longer cringe to see it on the news. That we go to movies that valorize the violent hero. That we dismiss it as "terrorism" or "patriotism" without bothering to realize that they are often one and the same.And yet, when we look back over the centuries,

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-23486250886610382542008-03-28T18:17:00.003-05:002008-03-28T19:21:19.225-05:00

Having finished Dawkins' The God Delusion yesterday, I have some further thoughts on the book and its general premise.Dawkins proves himself to be a remarkably enlightened individual who has an incredible level of frustration with the current state of international psyches. He just doesn't understand how so many people could be confronted with the same universe as the one in which he finds

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-2936687765709966282008-03-20T15:48:00.004-05:002008-03-21T21:55:02.895-05:00

I'm teaching Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. At first glance, it is a play that seems to have little to do with the rise and fall of kings and kingdoms, with the rampant violence that typically graces the pages I study.But then I got to thinking.It's been a long time since I read the play. But I remember, vividly, the experience of reading it, if not the play itself.I remember the way it

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-25450446431552616882008-03-17T14:38:00.003-05:002008-03-17T15:55:35.263-05:00

As an (aspiring) author - though I suppose, technically, I am a published author, just not in the genre in which I would like to be published - I often think of myself in terms of words. Not language, in general, but words. I see myself sometimes as a me-shaped bottle filled with ink, all swirling and dark and filled with the loops and whorls of letters. I can envision my skin covered with words,

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-16287802008585737242008-03-11T17:03:00.004-05:002008-03-11T17:43:52.356-05:00

In this day and age of televangelists, the rising power of the Religious Right, and the encroaching theocracy of our government, I find the attitudes of people like Richard Dawkins refreshing. Frustrated, angry, and exasperated, but refreshing nevertheless. Dawkins' recent book - The God Delusion - has recently made its way into my pile of things-to-read, and I find most of what he has to say

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-74775217014236763612008-03-06T15:32:00.002-05:002008-03-06T15:42:26.840-05:00

I must say that one of the things that encapsulates the theatrical experience for me is the very simple act of carrying strange objects around with me, knowing what they're for, and knowing - as I do so - that nobody else has a clue why I'm carrying that with me as I walk through the hall, down the street, or on the subway.In the past, that has been canoe paddles, a medical bag, swords, a staff

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-49401661395993390072008-02-27T20:43:00.002-05:002008-02-27T22:13:02.617-05:00

Watching "Adam" from this season of Torchwood made me think about the quality, the nature, of memory. Of how our identities and our selves are constructed not only of flesh and bone and blood, but of the scraps and threads of thought and recall that construct what we think of who we are.What are the things we tend to remember? The really happy moments, the tragic ones, the traumatic ones. But we

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-51343482177097509012008-02-25T17:26:00.002-05:002008-02-25T17:39:19.290-05:00

Pre-Production Stress Disorder:The result of Murphy's Law as applied to theater.Everything that can possibly go wrong, is.But rather than allow this unfortunate condition to cause me to become homicidal, I've decided to wax philosophical for a while.Why do we, as human beings, elect to subject ourselves to situations we know will cause us inordinate amounts of stress? Theater, after all, is

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-12334369247949691912008-02-16T19:26:00.002-05:002008-02-16T19:51:16.197-05:00

Not my usual subject for ranting, I know, but this post over at Pixiepalace got me thinking. The venerable Rosepixie was a friend of mine from long ago and a land far away, though we've been only intermittently in touch for the last couple of years.Her post deals with issues of marketing to female gamers, specifically, the over-sexualization of female characters and avatars in the gaming industry

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-14908876347942262182008-02-12T15:33:00.000-05:002008-02-12T16:55:17.535-05:00

Sometimes it occurs to me just how much like our political ancestors we really are. For instance, for all that we purport to be a democratic state, there are shocking political similarities between our current government and the early modern English absolute monarchy. There are many reasons why I find this profoundly disturbing.Yes, we could find ourselves with a glorious monarch *ahem* president

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-33203222582788205102008-02-11T20:11:00.000-05:002008-02-11T20:26:34.854-05:00

Brought to you by Neil Gaiman."writing is, like death, a lonely business."This encapsulates so much of what writing is about, at least for me. "A lonely business." There is something about that which is very, very true. You can share your aches and pains, complain about the blockages and the cramps, but, ultimately, it is something you do alone. A lot like aging. Like dying.And writing is its own

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-22853459772616143202008-02-07T20:09:00.000-05:002008-02-07T20:10:07.847-05:00

While it’s been a long time since I actually believed in any sort of god or savior beyond my own psyche, I never fail to grow contemplative around Ash Wednesday. As a holiday – a holy-day in the truest sense of the word – Ash Wednesday always fascinated me. It was eerie, beautiful, dark. The creature hidden in the closet that nobody talked about but, when you open the door on that one day of the

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-25048689551591724472008-01-23T23:46:00.000-05:002008-01-23T23:56:38.687-05:00

Now the Christian church was founded on blood, strengthened by blood, and augmented by blood; yet nowadays they carry on Christ’s cause by the sword just as if He who defends His own by His own means had perished. And although war is so cruel a business that is befits beasts and not men, so frantic that poets feign it is sent with evil purpose by the Furies, so pestilential that is brings with

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-8401342270727746682008-01-22T14:56:00.000-05:002008-01-22T15:27:08.280-05:00

In his article, "Rational Control, or, life without virtue" (from The New Criterion, September issue, 2006), Harvey C. Mansfield suggests something with which I want to simultaneously agree and for which I'd like to beat him with a wet noodle.God is the foundation of the irrational order. Modern liberation is liberation from God as the source of irrational custom. (41)Mansfield defines "rational

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-63309705965291676142008-01-10T17:12:00.000-05:002008-01-10T18:06:37.908-05:00

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,And then is heard no more. It is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing. (Macbeth 5.5.24-28)This particular passage, so often quoted (and, like any Shakespeare, misquoted) is the subject of today's rant. Specifically, the following elucidation by Harold Fisch:The problem arises when

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-47461573225125149002008-01-06T10:51:00.000-05:002008-01-06T11:09:27.023-05:00

Signs that times haven't changed all that much since 1515... All these revolutions, treatises made and broken, frequent risings, battle and slaughter, all these threats and quarrels, what do they arise from but stupidity? And I rather think that some part of this is due to our own fault. We do not hand over the rudder of the ship to anyone but a skilled steersman, when nothing is at stake but

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-34826809760603526882007-09-20T15:21:00.000-05:002007-09-20T15:28:16.563-05:00

So it's been a while, I know. I've been remiss.Not much happens academically over the summer... mostly because this magical thing called "eating" needs to be subsidized by "working."So I've managed to churn out a large chunk of the Edward II chapter, though it's much bigger than either of its brothers. I'm currently working on turning the Maid's chapter into an article, and I have an outstanding

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-36635364476756665052007-07-05T15:36:00.000-05:002007-09-20T15:29:58.328-05:00

So today's "mission accomplished" was turning in the corrections for the final page proofs of my article - "Martial Maids and Murdering Mothers" - set to appear in volume 3, issue 2 of Routledge's journal Shakespeare in November of 2007 (going to press in August - next month).Look, ma! I'm a real acamademic!Not much else to announce... I don't know whether or not I get a "real" copy of the

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-55985845833727953112007-06-09T14:27:00.000-05:002007-06-09T14:31:23.438-05:00

So in reading this book (some of which is useful, but most of which seems to be tangential to my purposes), I came across the following sentence, which contains one of the oddest parenthetical comment I've seen in non-fiction in a very long time:"it is impossible therefore to think of the human individual without the family, and in all families authority rests in the male because (says Bodin) the

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-75604933474323043332007-06-09T11:41:00.001-05:002007-06-09T11:46:59.352-05:00

Well, the Edward II chapter has been outlined. Not begun, officially, I suppose, but I've decided what I'm going to talk about and roughly in what order. It's a step, even if not the "big" step.The last two weeks (and it has been [only?] two weeks, which is a little alarming to me) have reminded me yet again why it sucks to have to work to eat during the summers. While I know that *most* people

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1814102821668415772007-05-17T18:37:00.000-05:002007-05-17T18:51:51.559-05:00

Well, the introductory chapter is finished. And it was a bitch and a half, let me tell you. Like pulling teeth from a very irritable and unusually voluble sphinx.Have you ever attempted dentistry on such a beastie? Not an easy thing, believe me. They drool, they talk when you've got your hands in their mouthes, and then there's the tail...But the draft is done. I fully expect to have to return to

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-41067789196000323912007-04-19T17:01:00.000-05:002007-04-19T17:08:33.265-05:00

Well, there's another project well under way. And by "well under way," I mean "only needs to knock off a few pages and make sure it makes sense." So, Richard II conference paper draft, done.I'm kind of sad that I'm not writing on Richard II for the dissertation now, though I wouldn't want to replace anything already in there (except The Maid's Tragedy, but I've already written that part). I think

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-90907778445652640272007-04-17T15:33:00.000-05:002007-04-17T15:37:54.833-05:00

So in a concerted effort to avoid writing my most recent conference paper, I started the introductory chapter to my dissertation today. (This is the second chapter I've worked on thus far, the other one being the last actual chapter.) I think I've finally figured out how to present these ideas in something resembling a clear manner, but there's just SO MUCH to cover. For instance, my quotation

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-19669094036883752472007-04-06T18:14:00.000-05:002007-04-06T18:19:05.613-05:00

Specifically, an amusing read for anybody who wants to do some hating on James Fenimore Cooper. I'm always up for some good Cooper-bashing. In this case, it's Mark Twain doing the bashing.K sent this to me a while ago while he was reading all the Leatherstocking tales (that's two more than I ever managed to force myself to read) and I've been a bad girlfriend and not read it until now. But it's

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-82449743536658357872007-04-06T16:05:00.000-05:002007-04-06T16:09:54.628-05:00

Stephen Gosson and Phillip Stubbes are not only incredibly boring, they're also wrong.Funny, at times, but wrong.Then again, I'm a horrible heretic and participator in that great evil, the theater, so what do I know?According to Stubbes, at least, that must mean I'm a sodomite, or worse:marke the flocking and rūning to Theaters & curtens, daylie and hourely, night and daye, tyme and tyde to see

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-81716019534329813322007-03-24T16:14:00.000-05:002007-03-24T16:22:18.471-05:00

Though I have to say, that was more time than I ever want to spend with Beaumont and Fletcher ever again. Unfortunately, I have the feeling I'm not going to get my wish.On the other hand, I very clearly hit several very important and interesting things today. For instance, I have a rather fascinating argument about the title of The Maid's Tragedy and a reading of the play as a whole that I've

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-4203142268718969102007-03-20T14:54:00.000-05:002007-03-20T15:00:28.485-05:00

From Elaine Scarry's The Body in Pain (New York: Oxford, 1985), which is a fascinating book for those of you who might be interested.The invented god and its human inventor (or, in the inverted language of the scriptures, the creature and his creature) are differentiated by the immunity of the one and the woundability of the other; and if the creature is not merely woundable but already deeply

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-49953015568594153122007-03-11T18:26:00.000-05:002007-03-11T18:28:52.152-05:00

Well, let's see.Performing (In)Visibility Conference, check.Abstract and chapter breakdown passed on to second advisor, check.Show, check.To do during spring break:Write state of the criticism.Finish chapter one.Maybe start thinking about the Medieval/Renaissance Congress. Maybe.Shake this nasty-ass cough.Life goes on. Sometimes ploddingly, sometimes quickly, sometimes with these funny little

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-46445548692356048352007-01-27T10:47:00.000-05:002007-01-27T10:53:03.890-05:00

Well, yesterday and today a couple of rather profound (I hope) things occurred to me regarding The Dissertation. (Yes, it has taken on capital-letter status in my head.)One of them provides, thankfully, the link between the two main ideas I've been throwing around for months, and the other allows me to connect those ideas to the plays I'm intending to use. Both also allow me to fight with various

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-72497135464794644182007-01-09T16:17:00.000-05:002007-01-09T16:20:14.874-05:00

Well, it's official. I have written something for my dissertation. Not much, mind you, and it probably won't stay in the final version, but I've actually started it.My current dilemma - which isn't admittedly much of a dilemma - is that there isn't much out there written on The Maid's Tragedy. I think I've gotten most of the articles, etc., but if anyone happens to know of a chapter, book, or

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-30925986777011569572007-01-03T10:52:00.000-05:002007-01-03T10:57:13.169-05:00

To do list:1. Write conference paper on Richard III and Henry V for Performing (In)Visibility in February.2. Put on show (Edward II).3. Write conference paper on Richard II for Medieval Congress Medieval/Renaissance conference in May.4. Write chapter of dissertation on The Maid's Tragedy. Maybe convince self and advisors I should write the chapter on Edward II instead. Maybe not.5. Turn

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1163634817684034902006-11-15T18:48:00.001-05:002006-11-15T18:48:04.012-05:00

About a month after my last post here... and pretty much everything is still as it was.The Ohio Shakespeare Conference went quite well, actually, and I discovered - much to my surprise - that The Maid's Tragedy is somehow quite popular. I'm still sick of it and, if my advisors are to be believed, I'm going to get much, MUCH sicker of it before this whole dissertation thing is over. Ugh. Yup, I've

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1161005717434760622006-10-16T08:30:00.000-05:002006-11-15T18:48:03.867-05:00

It seems to have been an eternity since I actually said anything here...Well, that's mostly true. Part of the issue is that I've reached that point in my life where my work - the prospectus and all - has become something to safeguard, rather than share. In other words, I have to be careful about the places in which my ideas appear, as intellectual theft could wreak havoc with an academic career.

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1144959772673755232006-04-13T15:21:00.000-05:002006-11-15T18:48:03.717-05:00

More dissertation thoughts... these about the gendered issues of the actors playing women on the Elizabethan/Jacobean stage. Part of performing gender on the Elizabethan stage is, as Mary Bly argues, the eroticization of the male player by virtue of his performance of a female character. While Bly concentrates predominantly on the Whitefriars plays, her point about the self-aware nature of erotic

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1144609479847167812006-04-09T14:01:00.000-05:002006-11-15T18:48:03.566-05:00

Here is one of the thoughts that has recently been driving my ideas about my dissertation - just an exerpt that talks about how I see early modern theater functioning with relation to certain methods of performance and the spread of popular concepts of gender and treason.The implications of theatrical marginality provide a space from which the possibilities of performance disseminate from stage

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1128691180933724762005-10-07T08:16:00.000-05:002006-11-15T18:48:03.407-05:00

Part of the PhD thing, apparently, is writing a rationale for the oral examinations.Well, mine also happens to contain the questions and ideas I'm currently planning for the dissertation, so here goes.(My advising professor has yet to approve it, so it's very likely it will change a bit.) I propose to be examined in Renaissance literature from the period of 1530-1642 with a particular emphasis

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1115347173999073052005-05-05T21:27:00.000-05:002006-11-15T18:48:03.257-05:00

To follow up on my earlier post about Margaret of Anjou from Henry VI and Richard III...The basic thesis of this particular paper - on the women of Henry VI and Richard III - is that the women of Shakespeare's tetralogy are the source and reason for the presence of the corrupt monarch Richard III - the Scourge of God and the bane of the kingdom. Richard, in an attempt to

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1112904605426992032005-04-07T15:09:00.000-05:002006-11-15T18:48:02.943-05:00

In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, the body establishes a corporeal link between spiritual and physical corruption; the spiritually figured and physically manifest body of Satan – as opposed to the more simple human bodies of Adam and Eve – enacts a performative signification for his self-corruption and as the vehicle for the corruption of the mortal bodies of Adam and Eve. The

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1108584815712157742005-03-29T17:31:00.000-05:002006-11-15T18:48:02.818-05:00

The figure of the feminine in Shakespeare’s 1, 2, and 3 Henry VI and in Richard III continually transgresses the boundaries of femininity, rendering her a continual threat to King, Country, and Religion; in Henry VI and Richard III, the women are figured as both masculine and demonic, using witchcraft and war to achieve their ends. The fundamental problem of these plays lies with the continual

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1108313642495242252005-02-13T11:35:00.000-05:002006-11-15T18:48:02.705-05:00

What fascinates us about Satan is the way he expresses qualities that go beyond what we ordinarily recognize as human. Satan evokes more than the greed, envy, lust, and anger we identify with our own worst impulses, and more than what we call brutality, which imputes to human beings a resemblance to animals ("brutes"). Thousands of years of tradition have characterized Satan instead as a spirit.

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1108146632849442042005-02-11T13:24:00.000-05:002006-11-15T18:48:02.562-05:00

A reaction to John Milton's Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, Of Education, and Areopagitica. The first is a defense of divorce, the second elucidates Milton's ideas on Education, and the third is a defense of publication freedom. In the excerpt from Writing the English Republic, Norbrook suggests that Milton, “Finding that the government was dealing well with liberty in the state

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1102802612282219432004-12-11T16:58:00.000-05:002006-11-15T18:48:02.414-05:00

And again I post a bit of my Macbeth paper. This is the conclusion, which doesn't fully do the paper justice in that it doesn't give a nice tidy overview, but it does give the conclusion I came to while writing it... which, surprisingly enough, is where I thought I was going. So cookies (mmmm... peppernuts) for me for getting it right this time. Macbeth is a play whose complex and

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1102278018012680782004-12-05T15:17:00.000-05:002006-11-15T18:48:02.285-05:00

The current project is on Shakespeare's Macbeth and the language and performance of treason - not only how treason is depicted in Macbeth, but how Macbeth himself is forced into committing treason (and ultimately destroying himself) by his inability to fully comprehend both the prophecy of the Weird Sisters AND of the text of the play itself. The following is my working introduction. In the

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1100967865966828832004-11-20T11:16:00.000-05:002006-11-15T18:48:02.082-05:00

For a course in Romanticism and the Orient - for those of you who have any familiarity with Edward Said, his book is a central focus of the course - I have decided to write on Lord Byron's The Giaour and the politics of poetic fragmentation. If you'd care to comment, I'd be happy to take either suggestions, comments, or questions of any sort. Or you can simply read for your own personal amusement

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1097271807161048272004-10-08T16:36:00.000-05:002006-11-15T18:48:01.972-05:00

It is truly amazing how much I can tweak out of a few scant lines... BANQUO: “Thou hast it now – King, Cawdor, Glamis, all / As the weird women promised, and I fear / Thou played’st most foully for ‘t” (3:1:1-3) Banquo’s speech at the opening of Act three carries several interesting implications about both the theatricality of Macbeth’s roles – “King, Cawdor, Glamis” and the

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1095609333552832552004-09-19T10:33:00.000-05:002006-11-15T18:48:01.843-05:00

So after a few weeks of Genesis-filled class time, we've moved on to some of the contemporary feminist representations of the story. I'm particularly fond of Michelene Wandor's "Gardens of Eden," especially the opening poem, "Eve in the Morning." So God created man (sic) in his (sic) own image? 'Male and female he created them' Genesis 1:27 Look it was only a tree, for God's sake a nice tree

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1095025371181720652004-09-12T16:37:00.000-05:002006-11-15T18:48:01.667-05:00

My class - the one I teach - is reading pieces from John Milton's Paradise Lost this week. I've always been especially fond of Satan in this poem, and I have a few thoughts about how the poor guy just gets co-opted into spouting all sorts of self-defeating religious ideology in Milton's poem. Satan in Paradise Lost I:249-263 - "Farewell, happy fields, Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors!

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1092504660195935112004-08-14T12:11:00.000-05:002006-11-15T18:48:01.559-05:00

Time out of mind strength and courage have been the theme of bards and romances; and from the story of Troy down to to-day, poetry has always chosen a soldier for a hero. I wonder is it because men are cowards in heart that they admire bravery so much, and place military valour so far beyond every other quality for reward and worship? This passage from Thackeray's Vanity Fair makes me wonder

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1091669062269498292004-08-04T20:04:00.000-05:002006-11-15T18:48:01.441-05:00

Today, in the midst of putting together the reading packet for my course this fall, I began to seriously think about what it means to teach poetry - specifically, what it means to teach poetry to an introductory class. My students are freshmen and a sophomore - essentially without exposure to the kind of difficult poetry I will be asking them to read - and I have set for myself the goal of not

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7626005.post-1090715859431791192004-07-24T19:06:00.000-05:002006-11-15T18:48:01.300-05:00

Recently, I've been doing a bit of thinking and a lot of reading (shocking, I know) and I've come to realize that there is something about literature that I'm having trouble pinning down. It's an old question, but I don't think it's ever been answered to my satisfaction. Put simply: what makes a work of literature a classic? The thoughts that dragged me back (because I've been here before) to

KMSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08880330271118854892noreply@blogger.com0