Lyrical Ballads
I have always loved Coleridge’s Poetry, so I was looking forward to reading his and Wordsworth’s collaboration. I was initially disappointed that there were only five poems that Coleridge contributed to Lyrical Ballads, but I’m glad that I wasn’t going over any familiar territory (that is, besides “Rime of the Ancyent Marinere”). There are a couple common […] Continue reading →
Wordsworth
Sunny Sharma Poetry, like wine, is an acquired taste. In my experience, people either love it or dismiss it as pretentious; there is very little middle ground. Absolutely, there are incredibly flowery poets out there (one only has to Google Shakespeare) who are trying to be grandiose. I greatly prefer I the beauty in Wordsworth’s […] Continue reading →
A Man-Made Illness?
I have many pressing questions regarding multiple personalities as they are addressed in Hacking’s Rewriting the Soul. One of my greatest curiosities is why there has been such an exponential increase in cases of this “disorder” over the past fifty years. Hacking attributes this extreme increase to something he calls “the human loop.” He claims that patients […] Continue reading →
What are not novels?
“Novel (noun): a fictitious prose narrative of book length, typically representing character and action with some degree of realism. . . . ORIGIN mid 16th cent.: from Italian novella (storia) ‘new (story)’, feminine of novello (new), from Latin novellus, from … Continue reading →
Silencing the Past – Race Politics and Historiography
Professor Krause’s lecture had a heavy focus on the potential inaccuracies of historiography, and how silences are deliberately introduced to paint a portrait of the past that suits somebody’s agenda. His examples mostly dealt with race politics and the relationship between whites and blacks as a dominator and submitter. I felt that a lot of […] Continue reading →
Silencing the Past
Whether it is because it’s the last book of the semester, or because of mere lack of understanding, I found Silencing the Past difficult to follow. Or perhaps it’s the repeated references to American history that is alien to me. But here goes. In Silencing the Past, Michael-Rolph Trouillot wrties about how historians write history, […] Continue reading →
A Discourse on Inequality
Some initial reactions: I am torn between Rousseau’s and Hobbes’ accounts of the natural state of man. From an emotional and empirical standpoint, I am more for Rousseau than Hobbes. But from a logical standpoint, I tend to agree more with Hobbes. That may just be a virtue of the length of Hobbes’ text– he […] Continue reading →
Rousseau: The natural man
From reading Rousseau’s A Discourse on inequality, I found it interesting how Rousseau’s idea of a man in the natural state differs from that of Hobbes in Leviathan. Rousseau suggests two principles: first, that one’s “own wellbeing” and “own preservation” (70) are man’s main concerns in a natural state. And second, that man does not […] Continue reading →
Hold up Rousseau
One of Rousseau’s statements that I take exception to in his Discourse on Inequality is his opinion of women and how they should behave in society. He claims that women in the commonwealth “[assure] the happiness of the other” sex (Rousseau 65). Here it seems that Rousseau is proposing that women exist in society to cater […] Continue reading →
What Makes a Good Ruler?
In Hobbes Leviathan, he discusses his philosophy on politics. He believes that one person should have total control to best protect the people. Hobbes states the sovereign “that is to govern a whole nation, must read in himself, not this, or that particular man; but mankind” (8). He is saying that the leader must understand not just […] Continue reading →