syllabus schedule links assignments class-mail last-words contact |
PARTING WORDS, FURTHER READING, AND FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS |
| I'd like to thank you all for a great semester!
I'm not sure about you, but I, for one, have learned a
lot from teaching this class. I hope you will have gained something
from this class also, even if it is just a different way of looking at
things. You probably hated some of the articles, but hopefully you
also loved some other ones. And hopefully you saw something useful
even in the ones you hated. Now that the class is over, where do you go from here? Well, anywhere. But if you wish to learn more about a certain idea that we talked about in class, please refer to the reference I've compiled below. It is far from complete, but perhaps a good starting point. It is important to know that almost every article we discussed in class could have been expanded into a whole semester long course! So don't think that what you've learned in this class is the last word on any of these issues. Rather, I hope it is the beginning of a long term dialogue/relationship with some thinkers of the past and present. Let me know if you have any other questions, and feel free to contact me at any time in the future! |
| What books did our essays come from? Where can I find more writing from a certain author? |
| Here are the books that the essays came from,
in the order in which we discussed them: Raymond Williams : The Long Revolution Stephen Jay Gould : Bully for Brontosaurus Plato : The Republic Jean Baudrillard : Simulacra and Simulation Walter Benjamin : Illuminations Erving Goffman : The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life Michel Foucault : Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison Nick Mansfield : Subjectivity : Theories of the Self from Freud to Haraway Langdon Winner : The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits... Naomi Klein : No Logo Judith Williamson: Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising Edward Said : Orientalism Louis A Sass : Madness and Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature, and Thought Sigmund Freud : New Introductory Letters Deleuze & Guattari : A Thousand Plateaus Paul Virilio : The Art of the Motor Thomas Kuhn : Structure of Scientific Revolutions Alan Lightman : Einstein's Dreams Also, try Amazon.com and perform a search on the author. |
| If I'm interested in a certain topic discussed in this class,
where can I find more info by other/similiar writers? |
| These books relate to what we've been talking about this semester in one way or another. I highly recommend you click
on the links and read a little bit about the books to see if it's something you'd want to explore further.
Jared Diamond : Guns, Germs & Steel Richard Dawkins : The Selfish Gene Marshall McLuhan : Medium is the Massage Karl Marx : The Communist Manifesto Italo Calvino: If On a Winter's Night A Traveler Italo Calvino: Invisible Cities Roland Barthes : Mythologies Jacques Derrida : Of Grammatology Donna Haraway : Modest-Witness, Second-Millennium: Femaleman Meets Oncomouse : Feminism and Technoscience Jorge Luis Borges : Ficciones / Fictions Douglas Hofstadter: Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid Davidson & Lytle: After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection Vol 1 John Gribbin: In Search of Schrodinger's Cat Guy Debord: Society and the Spectacle Chomsky & Herman: Manufacturing Consent : The Political Economy of the Mass Media Gaston Bachelard: The Poetics of Space Howard Zinn: A People's History of the United States Eduardo Galeano: Century of the Wind Virginia Woolf: The Waves Ben Marcus: The Age of Wire and String: Stories |
| Can you point me to some interesting websites and/or online articles? |
| There's not much in this section YET, but I'll add more.
Come back often for updates! Remember, the class has ended, but this website will never die!
Articles: Richard Dawkins: Viruses of the Mind Derrick Jensen: Cultural Eyeglasses Leslie Stevenson: Is Scientific Research Value-Neutral? David Neiwert: Rush, Newspeak and Fascism: An exegesis Gertrude Stein: Tender Buttons Websites: The Onion: Really funny newspaper. HomestarRunner.com: You need Flash to see this hilarious site, but it's worth it. Check out the Strong Bad e-mails. Propaganda Critic: It is very important for you to be able to distinguish between propaganda and other types of discourse. Propaganda is dangerous and hurtful even when it's for the "right" causes (the ends never justify the means) because it discourages rational thought. Keep this site handy for ENG 102 and beyond. UBUWEB: art, archives, artifacts etc. Found Magazine: all sorts of found objects. You can submit! Project Implicit: an interesting test to see if you're racist. Independent Media Center: your alternative to FoxNews Arizona IMC: local Arizona version of Independent Media Center |
| You showed some movies in your class. This wasn't a film class, but if it were what films would you recommend for further study? |
| I highly recommend Jacques Tati's Playtime, which we only got to see clips from.
There's a copy in the ASU library. Also, if you watch a lot of movies, consider Netflix as an alternative
to the traditional video rental places. Other films that may be interesting and may illuminate some of the concepts
we talked about in this class include:
Control Room: A documentary comparing the US media's coverage of the war on Iraq with Al Jazeera's coverage. Promises: On the Israel / Palestinian conflict. Mulholland Dr.: Great movie, hard to describe. Rushmore: Quirky comedy involving prep school dropout 12 Monkeys: The Hollywood movie that La Jetee inspired. Capturing the Friedmans: Documentary on a family accused of horrible crimes Persona: Before Fight Club, there was Persona Brakhage: Short films from Stan Brakhage, the director of Window Water Baby Moving The 400 Blows: A simple story that is endlessly complex & satisfying. Down by Law: 3 men in Louisiana: a character-based comedy 2001: A Space Odyssey: A true cinematic experience Movie Related Websites Criterion Collection: Releases some of the best films on DVD. Almost everything they release is worth watching. Internet Movie Database: Your source for movie information. |
| I noticed you took the class title "Giving Yourself Ulcers" from a Gang of Four song. Who are they? |
| Gang of Four is a late 70's post-punk band. They are really good. I would recommend starting off with their first album
Entertainment. Here is some other music that might interest you:
Nina Simone - Anthology Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea Tom Waits - Rain Dogs Joni Mitchell - Blue The Clash - London Calling Low - Trust Elvis Costello - My Aim is True Gillian Welch - Time Pixies - Doolittle The Velvet Underground & Nico - The Velvet Underground & Nico Music Related Websites All Music Guide: Music resource and information site. Very good information, but also really slow. Smithsonian Folkways: This record label releases some of the most interesting and neglected music. For starters, check out their Classic Series. |