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Sept. 15: Creativity

Leader: Thomas

Are we capable of independent thought?
In today’s world, we are so connected, how can we have a creative, original thought?

Creativity: has to be original and of value

Technology: creativity
Philosophical ideas: all thought of before?

Psychology: creativity springs from collective unconscious.  Creativity is funneling ideas into reality

Can you reasonably have “original” ideas?  To have value, they have to be connected.

I can’t imagine what Will would look like with hair.

Does creativity have to be out of nothing?  Even God created Universe from chaos.  The matter and forms that we use

Ben Whorf: “the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized in our minds—and this means largely by….minds” (190)
    *language determines how you think, maybe even how you feel

“Snow” idea:  Eskimo’s are awesome.
    -Although we only have one word for “snow”, we could learn to distinguish.

Tarzan: grew up without language and without social structure.  He was still able to create things.

Language makes us creative.  Without language, you can’t express youself.

Language creating meaning: “what the bleep do we know”. 

GROUP VS INDIVIDUAL CREATIVITY

HOW CAN I BE MORE CREATIVE:

(181-182): “Once we stop rationalizing…framing”.

FLOW:
Makes you feel completed:
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
Let go
Practice: you have to have the mechanics and habits for flow to hit.

Sept. 19: Liberal Arts and Plan II

Getting caught up in technology is not desirable. 

Susan: Can’t relate to Business Honors.  She has always been interested in literature and art. 

Noel: Professional pursuit as a “backup” which she gave up because it won’t make her happy.

Rachel: Important to “nourish your whole individual,” but we have to realize that that can lead to professionalism.

Puja: Plan to become a lawyer.  But, she doesn’t really know what to do.  The “backup” of planning on being a lawyer allows her to do what she wants now.

Meghan: Business Honors has a variety of fields just like Plan II.

Sharon’s Journal: Personal attacks against “liberal arts” curriculum.

May: Internships and Jobs available (newsletter).

Rachel: We are able to survive in the real world even without education.  We shouldn’t be afraid of the real world.

Bump: Fear (Rachel said it means “False Evidence of Anything Real”). Healthy fear: caution.  Family and friends have fear for you.  People at university have fear; causes a strong push to make this a vocational institution.  “No” voice comes from ancient liberal arts model, oxford model.
Responses to fear: freeze, fight, flight. 
Fear can kill you.

Geneva: vast majority of people change fields.  The pressure really isn’t entirely on you when you leave school.

Ben: We have always been tracked to some extent and have been in “honors” programs.  Its an entirely different way of learning.  Government should create universal liberal arts curriculum.

B en’s Journal: “this is why we are here: To become part of, and to create, a society which encourages a broad understanding and an open mind.”

Bump: Higher Purpose: to become guardians of democracy

Susan: Our fear seems to be of failure.  Honors kids haven’t ever had to deal with failure. 

Pgs 170-174: Perfectionism leads to suicide.

Sharon:  Pressure exists.

Geneva: Proving yourself against doubt is a good motivation.

Eleanor: needs positive reinforcement. 

Bump:  How to manage all your emotions.  Everybody needs a personal management program.

Laura: “Looking back”

Sept. 22: Reading Room Inspiration

“A nation can only be free, happy, and great in proportion to the virtue and intelligence of the people.” –Stephen F. Austin

This quote’s message is similar to that of the Dalai Lama’s.

Sept. 27: HRC: Dodgson, Beerbohm, Hemingway

The relic that caught my attention first was Joyce’s pile of barely legible letters. I can almost see him writing them furiously in his favorite pub in Dublin. Joyce, who I know employed a stream-of-consciousness writing style must have been full of thoughts and ideas and words. I want to believe words were something more like music to Joyce, like units that did not only convey ideas and meaning, but also formed our underlying melody.
    I tried writing in a steam-of-consciousness style once, but could not stop thinking about what I was writing. I also could not abandon the safe order that I have been so used to as a writer. Joyce seemed to truly employ the right side of his brain when he wrote. Perhaps I should take a lesson from him. Maybe I should write a stream-of-consciousness paragraph right now? No. My own inhibitions and self-conscious feelings would prevent me from truly “flowing” on a paper that my professor would eventually see. What I need is practice. Should I write in the solitude of my dorm room about nothing in particular? Should I write letters? Were Joyce’s letters even intended to be read by others?
    What about stream-of-consciousness implies “escape” or even “freedom”? It seems that no matter how creative we can be, we are always confined to some degree by language, which is further confined by an endless number of cultural influences. Can we escape our own culture or our own language?
    Unfortunately, I think the answer is “no.” Even Joyce had to have been influenced by Dublin or else he wouldn’t be so well known as the Irish writer. The solution, then, is to accept and even embrace your own culture when writing. In that case, I’ve decided that I will take this new lesson I have learned from the ghost of Joyce and write about my culture. And, my culture, is a Starbucks culture.
    Andy Warhol idolized America in a really patronizing way. He blew up our celebrities and made them multicolored pop-art creations. He worshipped Levi’s jeans because of their Americanness. He would even sleep in his Levi’s. But the most American thing he could think of became his most memorable creation- Campbell’s soup. At the time, there was nothing more American than Campbell’s soup.
    So, what is the American icon of today? I would say the Starbucks coffee cup, in all of its hyper commercialized, caffeinated, double-shot splendor. I’ve decided to paint a picture of a Starbucks coffee cup.

Oct. 2: Writing at Bump Ranch

Concrete Slab/ Foundation in Field – October 2005
    I am now sitting on the edge of an old concrete foundation which no longer serves as the base for the long term structure that once defined a space around it. Even though the hard concrete has been here for many years, its temporal nature has the most profound effect on me. If I had been here for a hundred million years, the existence of this slab would be entirely insignificant. The rocky plain and the hints of greenery around it are what I would identify most with. These permanent natural characteristics have remained pure even after being interrupted by the slab.
    Another feeling I get while sitting on the foundation is loneliness. Nothing has happened here. No animals or humans or change seems to exist in this bleak cylinder. Only the omnipresent undergrowth with its little yellow flowers provided any relief from the rocky nothingness.
    However, when I look closer, I see hints of life of life and a vibrant history in this cylinder. A bird feather is caught in the grass and periodically dancing in the cool breeze. Sounds of a longhorn rustling in the woods pass through the cylinder and tickling your ears. The very concrete is evidence of an intricate human history in this place. So, although, nothing currently keeps me company in my cylinder the ghosts of the past and vestiges of an active nature reassure me that I am not alone.

Oct. 6: Hopkins at Oxford

Hopkins:
Went to college, went away for a while, and came back.  Then wrote Binsley Poplars.  Loss of ideal?

St. Francis of Assisi: saint of nature-lovers

Poplars were along the Thames River. 
On right side of the Thames existed a commons. 

Thomas: quoted the mystery.  “Nobody knows what it really is or how it came to be.”

Bump: expert on Hopkins.  Why Hopkins?  He wanted to focus on a nature poet.
-He first wanted to study Wordsworth. 

“Hammer your thoughts into unity” –Yeats.  Nobel Prize winner and general good guy. 

“Kissed my hand to the stars.” Used to be a sin.  But, Hopkins …

Anglicanism: Henry VIII wanted an annulment.  The Catholic Church said “no” and he created his own religion. 

Transubstantiation: Real Presence—a Catholic idea

Rachel: ability to really see the world is important to grow as a person.
-    help us moves of our chrysalid days of adolescent aestheticism.
-    Important for us to recognize that there is something out there

“to see a World in a Grain of Sand Blake

epiphany: manifestation of a deity. 

onomonopoetic etymology: joyce was interested in it. 
-noel: “volumptuous”
-rachel: “mamaquatia”

Oct. 13: Antimodernism

Industrialization:
-    are we rejecting God, or has He left us
-    Susan: we are destroying nature, therefore we are rejecting God
-    Laura: Industrialization is necessary
-    Rachel: concept of time—instant gratification vs. planning
-    May: what is wrong with American culture
o    Society is meant for isolated success
o    But, no focus on the human
o    Individualism doesn’t need to be isolationism
-    Anush: culture of taking (Ishmael)
o    As civilization began, less need for community
-    May: belief that meek can only feel god, while people who do great things reject god.
-    Miller’s Thesis
o    No longer a shared sense of God.
o    Rationalism is a substitute for religion
o    18th century: watchmaker God
o    Romantics: attempt to find God again
o    Movement: disappearance of God
o    Nitsche: “God is dead”
-    Facts to remember:
o    London is the first big city
o    Used to king/squire/priest dynamic
o    No longer a place to gather
-    “New Urbanization” making industrialization work with nature
o    Frank Lloyd Write
o    Organic-style building

Oct. 19: Joyce III

Noel: “acts” The Wall

Ben: “Idealism has been disappointed”
    -Connection between how Hopkins believes there is truth in nature, in reality.

Epiphany: manifestation of a divinity

Perfect and imperfect contrition

Is the “conversion” ion 135 an epiphany?

How much of this book is ironic?
-Dramatic Irony

Courtly love > sublimating sexual desire in his art.

Girls swoon for emo boys and desire to be lied to.

Oct. 25: Joyce IV

Hopkins: kingfishers
-    know thyself, individualism

Is Steven Daedalus or Icarus

“nets” quote, 203:

May Flam: nets could be like Daedalus’s warnings, not really a prevention from escape
“old father, old artificer” quote, 253. 

Rachel: (235)—

“I will not serve”
Anush: many of us have put a positive spin on this, but if you look at the booknotes, the quote alludes to Lucifer’s sin. 


Date of the book: 1904.  During literature movement called Modernism--1890 (another version of Romantiscim--1780).  Byron (Steven’s favorite) is a modern poet.

Modern writers are elitist and use allusions to alienate the middle class.

Hermeneutics: the art of interpretation (hermes)

Rachel brought up principle that you must read in order to understand writer’s intention.  Group of hermeneutics would say that you can’t know the author’s intention.

Nov. 11: Jude the Obscure, Part 1

Rachel leads!

449 F: Halloween
-The grotesque allows us to approach through play and irony matters which we would be unable to confront directly.

-Halloween/ All Saints Day > day for ghosts

Stone > connection among readings
1.    Biography > Hardy was a stone mason
2.    Oxford’s Gargoyles and Grotesque
a.    Stone-masons > distinguished, wealthy
3.    Jude > becomes stone mason in order to save money and enter a certain place in           society.

Arabella
-Should have been distracted
- May and almost everyone else: school is the constant.
-What were Arabella’s options?
    -Marriage or Prostitution

Experiential Learning
-Arabella is Jude’s experiential learning experience.

-Susan: Arabella is only Jude’s failure to the extent of our view of marriage

-Bump: One does not necessarily learn from experience.
-Cheryl: He may not learn > he doesn’t intellectualize any lessons.

-Mary: Hardy is a big fat misogynist

-Anush: Arabella wins.
    -She gets money, sympathy
   
Jude > vocation is Doctor of Divinity > this can procure him prestige, but requires that he be religious > he is not religious to begin with.

We aren’t that different from Jude if we don’t integrate this knowledge

Jude as a Christ-like figure
-Criticism of Christianity

Nov 15: Jude, Parts 2 and 3

Hopkins: poet of modernity
-    what is modernity: we have lived past the disappearance of god and Nietche death of god.


Susan: 
-    Jude is impractical until Sue comes into his life
-    A lot of people said they felt bad for jude

May:  the actions jude and sue were taking were crazy and immature.  They don’t learn from their previous mistakes.  They don’t understand social and emotional situations. 

EMOTIONAL INTELIGENCE:
-psychotherapist now use the family-system’s theory: “recover or repreat”:  but, the expectation is that everyone will repeat
-you will pick someone who gives you the chance to finish unfinished family business.
- we don’t want to discount how difficult recovery is. 

Puja: at some point your will breaks. 

Susan: should have looked at where he was going so that he could have avoided such failure.

Rachel: does he have self-awareness to do so?

I think this is taken out of context because Jude is in a society different than ours.  He really does have a course predetermined for him.  However, he takes the small chance that he will get into a university. 

Living in world without God, but striving for something sacred.

BEN: blames disappearance of god for Jude’s downfall. 


Exploring the MOO

Owen Wilson:  B+

Suggestions:
1.    It seems the keyword “meet” returns a response about Meet the Parents. Perhaps you should the keyword more specific in case someone wants to ask “When/ where did you meet Wes Anderson?”
2.    I think the Owen Wilson site should include more information about UT. Where did Owen Wilson like to “chill?” I think there should be some interesting responses to questions about his time at UT.

1.    Educational value: 7/ 10 The bot does a great job describing the life of Owen, but it doesn’t attribute any importance to Owen’s life.
2.    Setting(place): 7/ 10 the setting is well described in the home page. However, there really isn’t a significance about the place.
3.    Characterization: 10/ 10
4.    Visual Impact: 5/ 10
5.    Extra Features: 8/ 10 The “trivia” feature is really fun.

Blanton Bot: B

The Blanton Bot provides a series of small pieces of information when asked multiple times about the same subject. Not only is this easier to digest, but also this style makes the bot-experience seem more like a conversation. There was a lot of information about the museum, as well as Blanton’s life.

Educational Value: 9/ 10
Setting: 5/ 10
Characterization: 7/10
Visual: 5/10
Extra: 7/10

Clive Staples Lewis: A+

    This site is great! The only thing that could be improved significantly is the visual layout of the home page.

Oscar’s House of Debauchery: D
   
    This site provided little satisfaction . I wasn’t able to get a good idea of who Oscar was and the conversation was very muddled. Furthermore, the black text on black and white pictures was not a good idea.