Hello folks. I’ve been quite a busy young chap lately.
Stuff I read this semester:
1. Hegel, Philosophy of Mind
2. Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
3. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
4. Plato, Gorgias, Phaedrus, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo
5. Aristotle, Rhetoric
6. Cicero, De Oratore, Philippics
7. Thucydides, selections from The Peloponnesian War
8. Demosthenes, Philippics
9. Plutarch, Lives of Demosthenes and Cicero
10. Thomas More, Utopia, Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, Dialogue Against Heresies, Richard 3rd, The Sadness of Christ, selected letters, poems, and trial documents.
11. Erasmus, Moriae Encomium, selected letters.
12. William Roper, Biography of Thomas More
13. Shakespeare, Henry 4th, part one; Measure for Measure; Richard 3rd; King Lear; The Tempest; various sonnets.
14. Donne, Holy Sonnets
15. Various secondary articles.
Stuff I did this semester:
1. Wrote three essays: 1) “Rhetorical Aspects of the Brothers Karamazov”; 2) “Cosmos and Kosmos in Donne’s HSDeath“; and 3) ” ‘If Persuasion Fails’: Rhetoric in Utopia“.
2. Together with several colleagues at UD, organized a graduate salon to discuss the various disciplinary approaches to core texts in the IPS.
2. Attended university lectures with Christian Wiman (editor of Poetry).
3. Attended the Thomas More Studies conference at UD. The theme was More’s trial.
4. Became utterly obsessed with the HBO series Band of Brothers.
5. Learned that an essay I wrote last year on Much Ado About Nothing was accepted for publication.
6. Tutored in the UD Writing Lab, where, among other things, I learned the difference between an en dash and an em dash.
7. Taught a developmental writing class at Northlake College.
8. Attended a performance of Shakespeare’s Richard 3rd by the UD Drama department.
9. Attended a performance of Brahms’ 4th symphony (I think it was his 4th) at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas.
10. Visited the Dallas Museum of Art, where Mark Rothko’s Untitled (1961) seized me.
11. Completed a formal analysis of Donne’s Holy Sonnets.
12. Assisted a professor by writing an index for an upcoming book on rhetoric and Shakespeare.
I’ll be attempting to write more frequently over the next several weeks. Next semester, I will use this blog as a staging area for a Sunday School class entitled “Rhetoric in the New Testament.” In addition, I may review several books required for a January-term course I’ll be taking on the Trivium.
4 Comments
December 21, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Busy chap, indeed! Congrats on the publication! Which journal? I’m excited to hear that you are doing a class on rhetoric in the New Testament. What are some of the sources that you are using for research? I’m excited to hear more!
December 21, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Oops, that was actually Wes. I’ll try to make sure I’m signed in next time.
December 22, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Hi Wes. I hope things are going well on your brief furlough to the US. I’m also excited about the class. It will begin in February, so perhaps you could visit? I’ll send you a syllabus via email soon; it has a brief bibliography attached. The Much Ado essay will be in the upcoming proceedings of the Ohio Valley Shakespeare Society.
January 2, 2009 at 11:45 am
Paul. Thomas More is the patron of my church;
“St. Thomas More Catholic Church”.
You should watch “A Man for All Seasons” as part of your study.