Or, “Skate Philosophy”. This is a subtle joke. Or maybe not so subtle now that I have highlighted it.
I went to see Zizek speak at the RSA tonight.
Filed under: miscellaneous
November 10, 2009 • 11:52 am 0
On Lecturing and Teaching
I think the secret is to have notes in front of you but to make it seem as if you are speaking from memory. I am getting better at this. It is good to speak slowly, to let your mind spool an autocue in your head. I actually had AD LIB in the column of my notes today. I knew that I could talk at length on the subject — it was how a US Congresswoman Michele Bachmann exemplifies the Republican appropriation of the rhetoric of the founding documents of America — and so I just had her name and I knew that this would come out naturally. I didn’t know as much about the linguistic strategies of Thomas Paine, though. I knew that this was the weakest section of my lecture. I felt a bit bad about it because I could’ve done more prep for it but I didn’t motivate myself properly over the weekend and it perhaps showed today. Most of the lecture was good, though, so I felt OK. I paced back and forwards a lot.
Filed under: teaching
November 8, 2009 • 10:15 pm 0
Liveblogging Die Hard 4.0 and a lecture on the American Revolution
This guy is talking about the oppressive nature of the media. A truck controlled by some people with computers crashes into Bruce Willis and the guy. They change the traffic lights. Does this mean he is right? Are we supposed to distrust the media now? What kind of ideology is it advocating? What image of America does it represent?
Filed under: miscellaneous
October 30, 2009 • 10:26 am 0
Schopenhauer and compassion
I listened to the In Our Time podcast on Schopenhauer on my cycle to Goldsmiths today. I enjoyed it. I did not know much about him before. They talked about human endeavour fluctuating between boredom and desire. They mentioned the pain associated with both of these. They said he thought compassion was a way out of this. This resonates with things I’ve been thinking about lately. They said he picked up “compassion” as a philosophical strand from Buddhism. About recognising the “will” of another. The Anthony Doerr story in McSweeney’s 32 is about being subject to the literal thoughts of another. This compassion changes the behaviour of both the subjected character and the original character in interesting ways.
Filed under: mcsweeneys
