Month: February 2007 Page 1 of 4

Perpetuating Bad Study Habits

On February 26, 2007

Well, my European Romanticism professor decided to perpetuate my bad study habits by giving me an A- on the paper I turned in last Monday, after writing it on Sunday night. He said overall it was the best group of papers he’s ever graded–no lower than a B+ from anyone in the class, so we all did awesome. Awesome, I tell you. There’s still nothing new in my paper, I don’t think, but apparently my talent for succinctly and clearly explaining things came in handy–I really think that’s where my gift is. Not in coming up with new insights or theories, but in communicating existing theories clearly to a non-specialist audience.

So, the paper is here. How did I do? The prompt was to discuss an aspect of the Romantic aesthetic as it appeared in at least three European countries (i.e., to what extent did the three chosen countries agree in their concept of the aesthetic and to what extent did they differ). I covered the idea of the sublime, using England, Germany, and France. Oh, and we had to do it all in roughly 2000 words; this runs 2100 or so.

Academy Awards for 2006 (spoilers)

By Jandy

On February 26, 2007

In Film

Okay. I was going to live-blog the Oscars last night, but then I decided not to. It was going by pretty quickly, and it was pretty much all my friends and I could do to recover from each unfathomable choice in time for the next one. Okay, to be fair, the Academy got a few right.

I’ll put the rest after a jump for spoilers’ sake.

Langston Hughes poem

By Jandy

On February 22, 2007

In Books and Reading, School

I spent the afternoon reading Langston Hughes poems (for a paper I have to write in two weeks), and wow. He’s apparently pretty Communist. Interesting. But then there’s this great anti-academic one (Hughes went to Columbia for a while, but hated it):

Ph.D.

He never was a silly little boy
Who whispered in the class or threw spit balls,
Or pulled the hair of silly little girls,
Or disobeyed in any way the laws
That made the school a place of decent order
Where books were read and sums were proven true
And paper maps that showed the land and water
Were held up as the real wide world to you.
Always, he kept his eyes upon his books:
And now he has grown to be a man
He is surprised that everywhere he looks
Life rolls in waves he cannot understand,
And all the human world is vast and strange–
And quite beyond his Ph.D.’s small range.

Remember when I used to be all about academia? Heh. Don’t get me wrong, education is great, and I love it, and I love school, and I love taking classes…but there’s a limit.

Videos for my Harlem Renaissance class

By Jandy

On February 21, 2007

In School

I’m posting some videos here for the interest of the other members of my Harlem Renaissance class. Thought it would be easier to maintain one post rather than multiple links to the multiple videos. Feel free to pass by and ignore if you’re not in the class–or not, it’s up to you.

The Colbert Report: Stephen Colbert’s guest, Debra Dickerson, claims that Barack Obama is not, in fact, black. Interesting counter-position to the editorial we read for class. (Obviously Stephen plays it for laughs, but I think Dickerson does a fair job of making her point despite him.)

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a video by a high school student. She’s interviewing black teenagers on racial perception, and includes a recreation of the famous doll experiment from the 1950s.

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30 Rock – This NBC sitcom focuses on a Saturday Night Live-type sketch comedy show, the Tracy Jordan Show. In this clip, Tracy and the only black staff writer (nicknamed Toofer, I don’t know why) are working on writing a sketch together, but they clash because of their different racial experiences.

30 Rock – Tracy vs. Toofer

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30 Rock – In another episode, Jack (the, uh, I’m not sure what he is–he’s the boss, but not of the whole network–programming director, maybe?) wants Tracy to entertain an important client, but Tracy resents that role.

30 Rock – Tracy the Entertainer

Rewriting the Oscars

By Jandy

On February 21, 2007

In Film

Kristin Thompson gives her picks for Oscars from 1928 to now.

Rethinking the Oscars is a favorite pastime every year about this time, and Thompson’s got a lot of really good alternates. It’s interesting to note that most of her picks (up until recent years, anyway) are from directors who were either “rediscovered” by French critics of the New Wave (Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, John Ford, Anthony Mann, Samuel Fuller) or came out of the New Wave tradition (Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, sort of Michelangelo Antonioni), or are genre films (musicals, films noirs, westerns, thrillers), which the Academy traditionally hates and were resurrected by the New Wave critics. It just goes to show what a watershed period the New Wave was in film history. In other words, many of the films she chooses would never have been considered by the Academy, because genre films and the directors who directed them (Hitchcock and thrillers, Ford and westerns, Fuller and crime films, etc.) weren’t considered prestigious enough for the Academy. You can also see the Hollywood/foreign film disconnect, as many of her choices are from France, Italy, Japan, etc.

Anyway. I was going to post my own list, but I actually think she’s got it pretty well covered. I might keep Mrs. Miniver over The Magnificent Ambersons (but I would really need to rewatch the latter before committing to that), Casablanca, West Side Story (though she’s probably right…I just LOVE WSS), Chariots of Fire (again, because I LOVE it), Schindler’s List (Groundhog Day? Really? I like Groundhog Day, but not vs. Schindler’s List), and American Beauty. A lot of the 1970s and 1980s ones I can’t comment on, not having seen either the winning film or her alternatives. I might also keep Lawrence of Arabia because it’s gorgeous, but I have to admit that Jules et Jim is pretty excellent. I’d need a rewatch on Liberty Valance.

In addition to being a good alternative Oscar list, it’s also (obviously) a really good list for building film literacy. I’m going to go add the ones I haven’t seen to my Netflix queue. (Speaking of Netflix queues, if any of y’all have Netflix accounts, let’s be friends! faithx5 AT gmail DOT com is my associated e-mail address.)