Ideas for Bilkent: Lacan and Cindy Crawford

A few of you have expressed an interest in going to the undergraduate conference at Bilkent in April (see my earlier post about this, below). I've been asked by a couple of you for links to sites that might help you think about the main themes. To be honest, I think the best way to do this is for you to tell me what you'd like to give a paper on, and together we can work something out. The topic is so broad that almost anything can fit it. Alternatively, simply look at the list of topics in the earlier post, and think about how these are relevant to what you have been studying, or are interested in.

If you are struggling for ideas, one obvious place to start might be with Jacques Lacan's concepts of the big Other and the little other. Wikipedia actually is not a bad place to start - look at the entry for 'Other/other' under 'Jacques Lacan'. Then, if you're still interested, you might want to look here, at Lacan's own introduction to the idea of the other, or here, at a very good short introduction to Lacan's idea that 'desire is the desire of the other' (scroll down to section 2b). Lacan is famously difficult, but worth struggling with, I think.

Also definitely worth a look is this, where Slavoj Žižek introduces Lacan's idea of the big Other via a discussion of Mexican soap operas!

Mexican soap operas are shot in such a fast rhythm (every single day a 25 minutes episode) that the actors do not even get the script to learn their lines in advance; they have tiny receivers in their ears which tell them what to do, and they learn to enact directly what they hear ("Now slap him and tell him you hate him! Then embrace him!..."). This strange procedure provides us with an image of what, according to the common perception, Lacan means by the "big Other".

A little further on, Žižek describes how the big Other

can be personified or reified in a single agent: "God" who watches over me from beyond and over all real individuals or the Cause which addresses me (Freedom, Communism, Nation) and for which I am ready to give my life. While talking, I am never merely a "small other" (individual) interacting with other "small others," the big Other always has to be there. This inherent reference to the Other is the topic of a low class joke about a poor peasant who, after enduring a shipwreck, finds himself on a lone island with Cindy Crawford. After having sex with her, she asks him if he is fully satisfied; his answer is yes, but nonetheless he still has a small request to make his satisfaction complete - could she dress herself up as his best friend, put on trousers and paint a moustache on her face? He reassures her that he is not a hidden pervert, as she will immediately see if she carries out the request. When she does, he approaches her, elbows her ribs and tells her with the obscene smile of male complicity: "You know what happened to me? I just had sex with Cindy Crawford!" This Third, which is always present as the witness, belies the possibility of an unspoiled innocent private pleasure. Sex is always minimally exhibitionist and relies on another's gaze.

Excuse the reposting of the smutty joke, but I think it makes the point very well. Do look at the rest of the website, and do let me know if you are interested in participating at the conference.

Heading for The Gates of Eden...

...to quote Bob Dylan. I had a query about Milton's representation of the Garden of Eden in Paradise Lost. Perhaps I should set the record straight here.

The Garden of Eden is not in Heaven but on Earth. Adam is created from earth, on Earth, and placed in the Garden of Eden by God, who then creates Eve from one of Adam’s ribs. The Garden of Eden is indeed ‘heavenly’, and Satan even seems to think that Earth might be better than Heaven. It is only with the Fall, when Adam and Eve eat of the Tree of Knowledge and bring death into the world, that Earth becomes the squalid, miserable place of which we have first-hand experience!

The passage in which Satan expresses his thoughts about earth can be found in book 9, lines 98-178 (but look especially at 98-102). There is an interesting essay on the Garden of Eden here. It goes into much more detail than you need, but take what you can from it.

I'll take this opportunity to remind you too of a couple of other sites I've mentioned before:  the wonderful Darkness Visible, and the Luminarium pages on Paradise Lost. These are perfect revision aids! They are also much more trustworthy, accurate, and scholarly than sites such as enotes and sparknotes.There is also the text of a very interesting introductory lecture on Paradise Lost here. It discusses Paradise Lost as an epic, Milton's Protestantism, the critical debates about the poem, and the key characters.

Literary Tattoos

Any of you got your favourite lines from Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot or Great Expectations tattooed down your spines? Whether you have or not, this article, and some of the comments, might amuse. Any suggestions for a good literary tattoo? Maybe it's time I got one.....

Dedications

When was the last time you gave a book to someone? And did you write a dedication? I just came across this website, which gathers together dedications found in second-hand books. Each tells a story - you could construct whole novels out of most of them. This might provide some light relief from revision, and encourage you to give someone you love a book, too.

Tree of Codes

Is it a book? Is it a code? I'm not sure, but have a look at this video and tell me what you think.

Arraignment Arrangements

This is just to let you all know that we will have a GENERAL MEETING about the play on 8th February 2011, from 3-5pm.

 AUDITIONS for the play will be held at 3pm on 10th February 2011.

There is also now a facebook group dedicated to the production - IKU IDEA 2011 DRAMA FREAKS. Have a look!

URGENT: UNDERGRADUATE CONFERENCE

Bilkent University in Ankara is holding an undergraduate conference from 28-29 April, and has invited students to apply to present papers. Bilkent will also pay for your accommodation.

The deadline is soon - January 28 - so if any of you would like to do this, I'm very happy to support you. It's an excellent opportunity: not only for those of you interested in going on to further study, but for any of you thinking of a career that involves giving presentations or speaking in public. It will also be an opportunity to meet other students from around Turkey and perhaps even beyond.

The theme of the conference is the representation of "the other" in literary studies, but the organisers say that its scope is meant to be broader. They say on their website that possible topics may include, but are not limited to:

· Experiences of Otherness
· Embracing or Abjecting "the Other"
· Psychology of "the Other"
· Racial Otherness
· Gender Politics
· Homosexuality and Othering
· Selfhood/ Identity/ Madness
· Woman as "the Other"
· Othering in Motherhood
· Culture and Othering

To apply, you have to "send a 250-word statement of purpose to the committee by January 28, 2011. The committee will review the statements on the basis of academic value and originality and notifications of acceptance will be sent by February 15."

If you are have an idea, let me know and I can help you produce a strong 250-word statement. You can also apply to attend even if you don't want to give a paper. You might even want to organise a panel or a workshop.

Hwæt!

I know it is a bit late in the day for those of you sitting the exam, but this new website dedicated to Beowulf is one of the best I've seen. If you enjoyed the poem and want to know more, I strongly recommend it.

I found the link to it here, where there are also links to lots of other websites with good material on the poem.

Jekyll & Hyde

You might find this introduction to the Oxford Classics edition, available on google books, very useful for revision purposes.

Milton and the Epic Hero

Here's a link to a page that gives some good background to Milton's reworking of the epic tradition in Paradise Lost.

Eliot's 'Journey of the Magi'

Here is a link to a BBC radio programme on T.S. Eliot's poem 'Journey of the Magi', a poem that I think is especially interesting to read next to Yeats's 'The Second Coming'. Well worth a listen - and it gets Bob Dylan in, too!

Poetry of World War One

Her is an excellent website dedicated to the poetry of World War One. I've given you the link to the page on Siegfried Sassoon, which is worth a look, and from there you can find others.

More on Auden

The Norton website has some good pages on Auden, and links to some worthwhile, respectable critical essays. Have a look!

Modernism and British Poetry - Final Examination

Please note that there have been some minor changes to the format of the exam. Again, I've circulated this already  by email, but perhaps some of you didn't get it.

The final examination paper will consist of two parts.

In the first part, you will be given some extracts from texts we have studied on the course, and asked simply to identify the author and the title of the text from which the extract is taken. Easy! (10 marks)

In the second part, you will be given a choice of questions. Some of these will ask for a critical reading of a longer extract or a complete poem; some will ask you to discuss a particular issue relating to the poetry we have studied. You should answer ONE of these questions with a short but well-structured essay.  (30 marks)

PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO TAKE THE COURSE TEXTBOOK OR ANY OTHER PRINTED MATERIALS INTO THE EXAM WITH YOU.

Themes for revision

As well as making sure you are familiar with the poems we have studied, you may find it particularly advantageous to revise the following topic areas for part two of the exam:

• Differing Responses in Poetry to World War One

• T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land

• Modernist ideas of the self or subject

• Modernist ideas of the poet and her/his relation to the poem

• Modernism’s changing face, 1880 – 1940

• Poetry and Politics in the 1930s

The Twittering Goblin

Yes, the goblin is now on Twitter, and will be sending out the occasional random literary quote to tickle your synapses. Just search for drudgingoblin and you should be able to find him.

Outlines of English Literature - Final Examination



I think this applies to Literature students too...

(I sent this out by email but one or two people may not have received it, so I'm posting it on here as well.)

Here is some information about the final examination that I hope will be useful.

The exam will cover the whole spectrum of the course, from Old English literature to the Romantics.

İn the exam you will be given a number of short texts. These may be extracts or complete poems. Most will come from texts we have studied together in class. A few may come from texts we have not studied in any detail, but with which you may be familiar.

In the first part of the exam you will be asked to indicate the period in which you think each text was written and the name of the author. If you get the name of the author wrong but give an author from the correct period, you will get half the marks.

In the second part of the exam you will be asked to write short commentaries on some of the texts, explaining your reasons for believing they belong to that period, and discussing in what ways they are typical of the literature of that time. You might do this by pointing out particular features of form, theme or style, and/or making comparisons with other work of the same period.

You will not be allowed to take any books or notes into the exam with you. This includes the course anthology, the Norton anthology, and any dictionaries.

If you have any questions, please email me.

Good luck!

W. H. Auden - The Addictions of Sin

There is an excellent documentary on W. H. Auden, made by the BBC in 2004, called The Addictions of Sin: Auden in His Own Words. You can watch the whole thing on youtube - here is a link to the first part. I'd recommend it as an good way of revising for the final exam. Watching it myself I discovered that Auden's father, like my own great grandfather, fought at Gallipoli.

Sticking with youtube, you might also find this talk about Auden helpful. I haven't listened to it all myself yet, but the first part, which discusses 'Spain', Orwell's criticisms of it, and Auden's revisions, I think you will find very useful. It might even persuade those of you who weren't convinced by the poem to take another look! The programme takes some time to get going (you can probably ignore the first five minutes!) but even if you only listen to the first parts, you'll get a lot of useful information. At 7.30 there is also a good use of the expression 'young Turks'!