The following clip, "The Five Minute University," featuring Father Guido Sarducci (comedian Don Novello), is a few decades old, but still current:
What will you remember from English 206/CWL 257 in five years' time?
There are two ways to answer this question:
1) As Father Guido Sarducci would.
2) As a hard-working and idealistic college student fresh from the course would.
You can decide how to answer (giving two answers in an option).
Deadline: Friday (5/6), 11am.
12 comments:
In terms of Father Guido's five minute lesson, the question would be what did you learn in class? my answer, people became more open and an expansion of various thoughts were expressed to a wider audience. From a point of view of a hard-working and idealistic college student, I don't know how many kids are actually idealistic college student :/, I would say if there is anything that I remember about this course it would be that the enlightenment period was not only a time when people began to move away from the church's view on life, they began to form their opinion. There were contrasting view of the world and what each person's hidden ability or hindering abilities were. While someone may view one thing as a brand new idea that would help the human race, that exact same situation could represent something completely different to someone else. There seem to be a greater acceptance of new ideas that contradicted preconceived norms. There also seem to be more debate on what was the correct interpretation. An example would be that while Pangloss argued that everything in the world was well and that this was the best of all possible worlds. On the other hand Martin who experienced similar situations had a completely opposite view than Pangloss in that he believed that everything in the world dealt with misery and a complete pessimist. He always viewed the glass as half empty. Another example would be in that when we read about Orou, he offered his daughters and wife to the priest. In this story this was considered one of the best societies that could exist, yet on the other hand when we read about the yahoos who seem to share similar characteristics they were regarded as disgusting. The yahoos only seemed to care about themselves and had very primal instincts and only cared about how they could best satisfy them. I view Orou's way of life in a similar manner in that they do not really care about marriage, its more about satisfying their sexual desires. This is probably longer than that five minute idea. I wish college could be taught in five minutes, but then you don't get to have the true college experience. Can't wait for summer :)
Father Guido Sarducci would probably not remember the texts specifially, but the messages that the authers of the different works had. He would most likly remeber that in some stories the characters traveled to foriegn lands and appreciated the foriegn culture either as much, or even more than their own. He would remember that women did have a role in the Enlightenment Era. I will also remeber that women had a large role in the Enlightenment Era, but I will also remember how diiferent authors and works portrayed women. I will remember that writers really did move away from talking about religion and talked about sexuality and trvel, and many other topics as well.
I don't really think Father Guido Sarducci would use so many words but I believe he would say "eh. All you need to know is that people were enlightened. That's all."
Lol. I agree with Vivian. Father Guido Sarducci would remember the basics about the Enlightenment era. "They came, they traveled, and they change the world." He would comment on the way that most people in the era would try to remember each important detail about the time, but he would give a brief outline, excluding all important information that leads to the reasoning behind the action. He sticks to basic knowledge.
I think father Guido would teach the enlightenment era much like what everyone has said on the blog. "People became enlightened and some books were written" is most likely how he would teach it.
Personally, I'm hoping I take away more from the class. Because of the style of discussion we use in our class, I'll be more likely to remember some major themes we discussed in class. I may not be able to remember if it was Hume, Basho, or Behn who criticized religion, but I will remember that many major ideologies were critiqued during the Enlightenment era through these fictional stories.
I know Father Guido will remember talking about sex and poop on more than one occasion. He would a-say dat a majority of a-da stuff we a-learned in class was about how the men and the women were-a in love and loved to write about it; even when it didn't go too well.
I, Russell, will remember all of that, but I think what I will remember most is this idea we keep coming back to about the so-called "upward-arrow trend of Enlightenment". I think this concept (and how untrue it is) applies to a lot more than just culture; it pertains to the way we mature as people. More often than not, if you bothered to graph it, people grow up in as haphazard a curve as the stock market. Up down up down, with a trend that fluctuates over time too. From what we read in class, I might not remember Celebi's melons or Eloisa's mocking of God and society, but I will remember that from all of the works we read, the conclusion is that people and society's advancement are not measurable in steady growth. Consciousness of this will aid us in thinking critically throughout our lives, no bout a doubt it.
I think if I were Father Guido Saarducci, I would say the more I would remember would be how opressed women seem to be, and that the thing that seems to inspire most who wrote during this time period is love. And as we all know, love does not always work out according to plans- in fact sometimes it ends up being a tragedy. In most cases, the pieces we read this year proved that true, actually.
As an idealistic college student, I will be able to explain much more about the Enlightenment than I knew before I took this class. Literature is what teaches people about certain time periods, and without reading the literature that we did, I would never be able to explain what different cultures, religions and races thought was normal behavior or thought process during the Enlightenment period. Before taking this class, I merely thought of the Enlightenment as a religious movement in Europe. Now, I know that was an era where people began to branch out, break rules and wear their heart on their sleeve if it was for something they cared about, whether it was a person, a culture, a religion or a cause.
I will actually use what I learned in this course frequently. Not only will I be fresh out of college, I will be a new teacher, which takes an extra level of idealism. I will use not only what I've learned in terms of analyzing a text, but the actual content we talked about. I will probably use one of these texts in a class when discussing the Enlightenment and I think I will find the non-European texts the most useful, because those are texts that are generally ignored during this time period particularly in U.S. education which tends to focus on western issues. I will not be only idealistic myself, but I will hopefully get to use what I learned in this class to help my students be a bit more idealistic as well.
The favourite lesson I have from this course is the non-linearity of the Enlightenment, whether it is regarding gender, travel or the big mess of 18th century literature.
If I were Guido, I could boil it down to something like, "The Enlightenment wasn't straight up."
I still remember a whole lot of things from 5 years ago. For example, that sickle cell anaemia (and other blood disorders) are more prevalent in human populations subject to selective pressure from malaria or that Sartre experiences your absence if he expects you to be in the cafe but you aren't. Also, I will probably never forget Foucault's panopticon because we are living in it. Facebook = the panopticon and try as you might you can't avoid it.
So I know that I will forget a lot of what I learned in this course, but in five years I will probably still at least remember that the Enlightenment wasn't straight up and that if you were silly enough, you might get deceived into a relationship 4 times with the same woman.
I think my answer could work for both 1 and 2, but I think I'll most remember writing and thinking about the Enlightenment Era in general rather than any specific text. I say that as a college student because of the emphasis on writing skills placed on the midterm and final - they didn't so much test our knowledge of what we had studied, but how we had studied.
And for 1., I agree with Russell about remembering the recurring image of the upward arrow questioned by the Enlightenment Era. Like Father Guido Sarducci's "classes" the theme is simple - people kept arguing that things weren't getting better and looking around for places that were.
This is awesome! But, I would have to answer this as an idealistic college student - or rather, one who stood on the side of the room that all of the Martins stood on. I look at the Enlightenment as an exploration of what exactly makes the world go around, and I point to the upward arrow that was previously mentioned. The arrow seems to continue to make a motion towards progress, but at the same time, there are still "WTF?" moments like there were prior to the Enlightenment that makes me question what progress exactly is. There were still scenes of ethnocentrism, and A-ok! towards slavery (even in Oroonoko), and a crap load of people died in our readings. So, I guess, if there's one way for me to look at the Enlightenment era as a whole, I think it's just as a beginning of a mass exploration by the world to figure out why the hell we're here in the first place...
Well, being the idealist that I am, I would say that I will remember EVERYTHING that I learned in class this semester... Although I'm being sarcastic, it applies only to my exaggeration. I like to believe that even though we may forget things, in the way that we aren't easily able to recall what we learn, what we are exposed to leaves a long-lasting impression in our brains, well depending how much you paid attention in class. I mean, difficult math is quite easily forgotten but you know general ideas and concepts, I feel, stick much longer in our heads and I like to think that I will forever keep the insight gained from class.
Post a Comment