Reading in French

Next semester should be one of my lighter semesters as far as my academic workload goes, as I’m only taking 15 credits (and only 6 of these are for classes that will require a lot of effort). I’ve been wanting to at least start a language for grad school for a little while now, and the logical choice seems to be French. Now that I’m going to have an easier semester, I’m entertaining the idea of bearing down and getting a good start on French in the spring. I’ve looked around at various programs, and even entertained the idea of getting Rosetta Stone (someday I’d really like to be fluent in at least one language, and maybe spend some time abroad during grad school), but the one book that seems to stand out for me is Sandberg’s French For Reading. I’m wondering if anyone who has happened by the blog and is reading this has anything to say on the matter. It would be especially helpful if you can read French and/or have used Sandberg’s book.

Here is a link to the book on Amazon. What do you think? Should I order the Sandberg book and dedicate 10-15 hours a week to reading French? Do you have a better alternative for learning to read French (by alternative I don’t mean easier, but instead more efficient, etc)?

Introductory study on Paul Ricoeur

Throughout the semester, I’ve been working on an independent study on Paul Ricoeur. I’ve hopefully gained much more knowledge in the reading process than has come through in the paper, but last night I finished the first draft of my paper. I’m toying with the idea of throwing it up on the blog when I’m done with it, in case anyone would like to read it. My goal for the paper was roughly speaking to situate Ricoeur historically and explore some of his important influences while also charting some of his own insights. I quickly realized that this goal was too vague for one paper; obviously, such a task is better suited for a Ricoeur scholar who is writing a book for something like the Oxford Very Short Introduction Series.

In any event, writing the paper was still a beneficial process for me, and working on Ricoeur generally has been a good way to become exposed to some fields of philosophy that I haven’t had to chance to study as an undergrad, such as phenomenology. Lately, it has also led me to appreciate Gabriel Marcel, who was Ricoeur’s university professor and I suspect a pretty influential figure (at one time he hosted Friday evening philosophical discussions that were attended by Ricoeur, Wahl, Levinas, and Sartre among others). As chance would have it, Marcel is one of the figures I will be looking at closely in a seminar next semester.

The paper is historical/explanatory and probably somewhat boring if you know anything about Ricoeur, but I hope is a good introductory study that can give the reader some inroads into understanding where Ricoeur is coming from. I noticed while I was writing that there were multiple possibilities for smaller, more focused topics and I wish I had more time to keep reading and exploring these issues. One general area that I think some interesting work could be done in is reading Ricoeur alongside existentialist thinkers.

The paper is a little over 7100 words currently, and I’m meeting with my professor tomorrow to talk about some things that I might need to sharpen up, cut out, or work in. If anyone thinks they might want to read it (even if you know a lot about Ricoeur and want to critique me!), feel free to post a reply. I’ll probably end up putting it on the blog anyways, since the Augustine paper I uploaded a while ago still gets me a ton of hits.

Birthday books

Last year, while in England, I randomly decided to buy Barth’s Epistle to the Romans at Blackwell’s on my birthday. This year, I kept with the Romans theme and ordered Agamben’s The Time That Remains and also ordered Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer. I’m excited to get to both books over break, and am especially looking forward to Agamben’s. This past spring, I decided to write a paper for my class on Pauline Literature on Alain Badiou’s Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism, which I found to be interesting, although I’m not sure I was able to get as much out of it as I would have had I been more familiar with Badiou. From what I’ve read, Agamben’s is more like a commentary that sticks to the text, unlike Badiou who jumps around quite a bit. I had looked into all of the various philosophical appropriations of Paul, but went with Badiou thanks to the advice of the posters over at An und fur sich. I was very impressed with Agamben after reading Infancy and History this summer, so hopefully his book on Romans won’t disappoint. Perhaps I will have the ambition to blog through it.

The theological reception of Darwinian evolution

In one of my classes we are discussing Jerry Coyne’s book Why Evolution is True, and during the discussion, I thought I remembered a book that deals with Darwin’s reception in the theological community in the nineteenth century. From what I remember, the author argued that the stereotypical hostile contrast between the two only came about due to the rise of fundamentalism in America. (This is all speaking from an American context, I think).

Anyways, I can’t remember the name of the book or the author, so I figured I’d post an inquiry to see if anybody knows. I know that this isn’t much to go on, but maybe someone who has more knowledge in this area can pick up on my vague recollections. I am fairly sure that this was a published dissertation. I distinctly remember stumbling across it on Amazon and writing it down, but that was a few years ago. I’ve done a little bit of looking, but am unsuccessful so far. Any help would be appreciated, even if it’s not directly related to the identity of the book or author.

Speechless

In keeping with the recent trend of insane Americal civil religious output, I offer this, courtesy of a friend’s facebook update.

I really hope that the author(s) of that entry are not as blinded to themselves as the entry makes it seem.

The gospel according to Woody Guthrie

As performed by Slaid Cleaves.

Amen.

Any French translators out there?

Please translate this. I need it for my independent study. Thanks.

On Indoctrination

John Cole, The Scranton-Times Tribune

Republican Gomorra

Here is a very interesting interview with Max Blumenthal, author of the forthcoming book, Republican Gomorra: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Republican Party.

Blumenthal has a pretty convincing argument that the Republican Party has turned into a one-ring circus that uses personal crisis to manipulate followers. Basically, he explains how we get from Eisenhower to Sarah Palin. Blumenthal seems progressive (and this is Democracy Now! of course), but even for some conservatives/libertarians, he’s probably preaching to the choir.

As someone who was once influenced by this movement and some of the characters like Dobson (in a non-radical way, with the kind of Christian conservatism that many in my generation grew up with and still embrace in some way), I think that Blumenthal’s work is pretty important.

Clear and distinct ideas

The other day, in an online discussion, I posted a quote from W.H. Auden. According to some completely unverified website, Auden once said or wrote that “a real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.”  My original impression of the quote was that it conveyed the idea that in some way we get out of the book what we bring into it, but this obviously depends on what kind of book we are talking about. A few people objected to this quote immediately, arguing that Auden was saying no more than that there are books that he really likes, and that the same sentence would be as vague and nonsensical if other words were inserted instead of book.

Upon some reflection, I think that the objectors are correct to point out that Auden is just being too vague. I probably read too far into it at the beginning, based on some other stuff I’m reading/thinking about lately, and for this reason it’s always good to have some fresh eyes. However, I think the initial reason that I argued back instead of rethinking Auden’s quote was that I perceived them as trying to assert some kind of logical positivist argument that would render Auden’s statement meaningless. I decided not to go down that road, and instead argued for what I thought was a more charitable reading. And, frankly, I doubt that these objectors were ascribing to that very narrow discourse (although, no doubt, it’s possible that they were influenced by positivism in other ways).

I was reading through Vattimo’s pseudo-intellectual memoir Belief today, and Vattimo struck me as presenting a pretty well-reasoned defense of slightly imprecise language in arguments that is nonetheless rigorous. I think that whether you accept Vattimo’s argument will depend on your position towards metaphysics; clearly Vattimo is arguing the way he is because he attempts at post-metaphysical philosophy. These technical quibbles notwithstanding, I think Vattimo is on to something here, especially in the context of semi-academic blogging.

I am not saying that one should accept any statement no matter how vague and contradictory it may be. I am trying to propose arguments, which, even though they do not claim to be definite descriptions as they really are, seem to be reasonable interpretations of our condition here and now. The rigor of post-metaphysical discourse consists in the effort to cultivate an attitude of persuasion without proclaiming a “universal” viewpoint, which is no viewpoint at all, am attitude that is aware of coming from and addressing someone belonging to the same process, of which it has no neutral vision but risks an interpretation. In this case, a neutral reason is not only impossible, but literally senseless, as if one were to try to pull out one’s eyes in order to see things objectively.

Vattimo, Belief, Stanford UP, 1999. 46.