Monday, April 20, 2009

Papers



In a period of seven days, running from Monday, April 6 through Monday, April 13, I wrote five papers, including and limited to:

- A paper on how Agamben's critique of Heidegger's "animal" and Bill Brown's thing theory relates to Heidegger's "things," and then how that applies to the Scottish crime fiction novel Laidlaw. One full page, single-spaced.

- A paper on how Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" and Maynard Dixon's Depression-era painting "Forgotten Man" both exhibit Existential alienation and isolation. Three pages, double-spaced.

- A paper on how Samuel Beckett's play Endgame demolishes traditional narratives, especially Aristotelian beginning-middle-end constructs. Seven full pages, double-spaced.

- A paper on how Nuyorican poetry now ironically has a set of rules that its poets must conform to despite how the genre was originally formed around the idea of resisting rules and creating raw, new expression. Six full pages, single-spaced.

- A paper on how, in Moby-Dick, Ishmael's quest to understand the whale bears many similarities to Kant's sublime (as outlined by Paul De Man), while Ahab and the Pequod's quest to kill the whale bears many similarities to Wordsworth's sublime. Nine full pages, single-spaced.

This was all accomplished within that seven day period, i.e., I idiotically didn't even start any of them beforehand.

It's finishing weeks like that that make me A) grateful for the interesting things I get to write about, while also B) glad that Spring term will be my last in the English major.

5 comments:

Schmetterling said...

This post brought to you by the letter P. P is for

Prolificity
Procrastination
Penultimate
Pen
Paper
Pomegranates

Peter V. Hilton said...

Peter appends possibility:

preakin punny (note similarity of the labiodental f and the bilabial p), oh poor, poor person. Papers portend portentous portents. Pinishing papers prepares peace.

Carl Duzett said...

Penultimate and Pomegranates are the things that are not like the others.

Peter, you need to alliterate for every one of your posts/comments from now on. I am impressed.

Schmetterling said...

No, no--penultimate makes sense because it was your penultimate term as an English major. And pomegranates make sense because--dude, they're pomegranates!

Allie said...

AAHH! That picture again! Where's my harpoon??