Classes, resolutions
Jan. 5th, 2006 04:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhI started doing that "Writing Year in Review" meme, but upon review, the amount of writing I did last year is embarrassingly small. I did manage to complete the 'request a drabble' meme a few times. That would make my count look higher, but I hate to include those little pieces with actual stories; I jot them off without a beta or even much thought.
A New Year's Resolution*, then! I'll write something every day**.
Classes started on Tuesday. I'm only taking fifteen hours this quarter (which actually is the typical amount in the quarter system, because my university is crazy and is probably the only school in the world that hasn't switched to semesters), because I've decided that I need to teach myself Hindi and/or Urdu. I'll need to learn them next year anyway, in grad school, so it can't hurt to pick up a little beforehand.
Does anybody speak either language? Can you tell me something besides 'SO, SO HARD', because I've already had native speakers tell me it was hard, so I'm appropriately terrified. Which one should I try first?
Anthro 656: Issues in Archaeological Theory
Examination of the assumptions and concepts underlying analysis of archaeological data; methods of reconstructing cultural history, past lifeways, and explaining cultural change.
Not the most interesting topic, but I've had the professor before and I like him, so it's a trade off. Also, it was this or Skeletal Biology, and I can never remember the names of all the bones.
History 543.01: History of Ancient India
A history of India from 2500 B.C.E. to the Muslim invasion of the 10th and 11th centuries C.E.
English 577.01: The Fairy Tale in Western Modernity
This course examines the history and uses of the fairy tale in the modern Western world. It argues that the fairy tale is a principal means by which subordinate actors (such as women, children, and the poor) come to terms with dominant cultural constructions of reality, especially those relating to family life and economic success. We'll look first at the oral wonder tale as the peasant's guide to survival in a world where the rules are imposed from above. Next, we'll see how oral tales are converted to the familiar fairy tales of literature and film, in which they are used to teach a wide variety of norms of conduct: good manners, religious resignation, economic aggression, and consumerism. Finally, we'll explore how attacking and reshaping the fairy tale can be a means of questioning the larger culture. In all these transformations, fairy tales explore the tensions between three responses to the promises of modern society: playing the game to win, escaping it, and changing the rules. Our examples will be drawn primarily from late 17th century France, early 19th century Germany, and Italy and the U.S. in the 20th century.
My special bonus class for myself, aka When Your Major Has Few Requirements, You Get to Take All Sorts of Random Shit
*Hey, I can make resolutions five days into the year if I want to. Especially since I usually don't bother with them at all.
**Yeah, that'll happen.
A New Year's Resolution*, then! I'll write something every day**.
Classes started on Tuesday. I'm only taking fifteen hours this quarter (which actually is the typical amount in the quarter system, because my university is crazy and is probably the only school in the world that hasn't switched to semesters), because I've decided that I need to teach myself Hindi and/or Urdu. I'll need to learn them next year anyway, in grad school, so it can't hurt to pick up a little beforehand.
Does anybody speak either language? Can you tell me something besides 'SO, SO HARD', because I've already had native speakers tell me it was hard, so I'm appropriately terrified. Which one should I try first?
Anthro 656: Issues in Archaeological Theory
Examination of the assumptions and concepts underlying analysis of archaeological data; methods of reconstructing cultural history, past lifeways, and explaining cultural change.
Not the most interesting topic, but I've had the professor before and I like him, so it's a trade off. Also, it was this or Skeletal Biology, and I can never remember the names of all the bones.
History 543.01: History of Ancient India
A history of India from 2500 B.C.E. to the Muslim invasion of the 10th and 11th centuries C.E.
English 577.01: The Fairy Tale in Western Modernity
This course examines the history and uses of the fairy tale in the modern Western world. It argues that the fairy tale is a principal means by which subordinate actors (such as women, children, and the poor) come to terms with dominant cultural constructions of reality, especially those relating to family life and economic success. We'll look first at the oral wonder tale as the peasant's guide to survival in a world where the rules are imposed from above. Next, we'll see how oral tales are converted to the familiar fairy tales of literature and film, in which they are used to teach a wide variety of norms of conduct: good manners, religious resignation, economic aggression, and consumerism. Finally, we'll explore how attacking and reshaping the fairy tale can be a means of questioning the larger culture. In all these transformations, fairy tales explore the tensions between three responses to the promises of modern society: playing the game to win, escaping it, and changing the rules. Our examples will be drawn primarily from late 17th century France, early 19th century Germany, and Italy and the U.S. in the 20th century.
My special bonus class for myself, aka When Your Major Has Few Requirements, You Get to Take All Sorts of Random Shit
*Hey, I can make resolutions five days into the year if I want to. Especially since I usually don't bother with them at all.
**Yeah, that'll happen.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-05 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-05 10:58 pm (UTC)&hearts
no subject
Date: 2006-01-05 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 07:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-05 11:47 pm (UTC)But I don't envy you the Urdu or Hindi. That is, I would if I had any ability to learn languages whatsoever, but since I don't even my reptilian backbrain understands that there's no point in being jealous over it.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 07:03 am (UTC)I'm usually good with learning the basics of a language, though I pick up grammar and vocabulary much faster than correct pronunciation, but then I tend to get bored with it and never learn anything more.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 02:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 07:08 am (UTC)I like archaeology, but theory tends to involve many, many essays of people arguing about obscure topics, like what exactly it means to be a science or how classification systems should be set up, which are really incredibly boring in the abstract. Useful in specific cases, but not so much in general.
And I figured I should take Indian history because I'm planning on studying the Indus (http://www.harappa.com/har/har1.html) in grad school, but have no idea of anything that happened in the area after 1500BCE. Which could possibly be useful.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 08:16 am (UTC)::twitch::
You said that just to torment me, didn't you?
I want to take the India class. I have a feeling I'd ram hard against the fairy tale class, since it sounds as though using fairy tales to criticize the dominant social structure is going to be pitched as a new idea, rather than one of the fundamental keystones of the form from its inception. It still sounds like it would indeed be interesting, though.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 06:59 pm (UTC)since it sounds as though using fairy tales to criticize the dominant social structure is going to be pitched as a new idea, rather than one of the fundamental keystones of the form from its inception
Yeah, the class description does come off as that, doesn't it? I got the opposite sense from the professor the first day, though.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 09:17 am (UTC)The professor's a better indicator of what the class will actually be than the write-up, I've found. Hope the class is fun.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 12:06 pm (UTC)So this year I just resolved to go to bed earlier than I usually do. ^_^
no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 07:00 pm (UTC)