Grades have been submitted to Testudo. A reminder that it is my policy, as stated on the syllabus, not to discuss grades via email.
Wishing everyone very happy holidays, however postmodern they may be.
As promised, here is one of the questions from next Thursday's final, adapted from an anonymous submission. This will be Part One of the exam. Everyone will be required to respond to this question. Part Two will feature a choice between one of two possible questions. Please remember that you may not bring notes, outlines, or any other material into the exam with you.
Here is the question:
Using the term “pattern recognition” discuss the postmodern condition as it pervades both textuality and culture. How is pattern recognition and the postmodern intertwined? (Recall Bigend: “We have no future because our present is too volatile. . . . We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment’s scenarios. Pattern recognition” (57); think also of Eric Packer watching his screens, the constellations of Strickland’s Vniverse, and Paul Auster’s Quinn shadowing Peter Stillman through the streets of Manhattan—of course there are other examples too.) You may write about books from either half of the course; the choice of how many or how few to write about is up to you. You may also write about broader trends in media, politics, and economics, though you should take care to ground any general assertions in the course content as closely as possible.
Per Testudo, our final exam will be Thursday, Dec. 16, 1:30pm-3:30pm in our regular classroom. I will not give make-ups. The format of the exam will be identical to that of the mid-term. You should concentrate on texts from the second half of the course, but it may be helpful to be able to reference, at least briefly, some of the material from the first half.
I've known for a long time that a lot of the boys in my English classes are more interested in connecting with their Xboxes in the evening than with the next three chapters of Toni Morrison's "Song of Solomon." But ever since I observed their mounting hysteria over last month's "premiere" of Halo 2, the new combat game from Microsoft, I've been trying to find out what's behind the lure of video games. As the boys I teach have endeavored to enlighten me, I haven't known whether to laugh, cry, or go find a new job. What they told me has me wondering how what I teach can possibly compete with the fast-paced razzle-dazzle of this ever-evolving entertainment form and worrying about the young guys who spend so much time divorced from reality and the life of the mind as they zap away the hours before their video screens.
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