For Credit: Science, Progress, and Glasses that are Half-Full/Empty

Oof.

So where did today's Martin vs. Pangloss exercise leave us?

Is the difference just one between those who see the glass as half-empty and those who see it as half-full, or is there a more far-reaching distinction between the two positions?

To what extent does Voltaire think that change is possible, either for individuals or for the human race as a whole?

What would you have liked to say today but didn't have a chance to?

Deadline: Friday (4/29), start of class.

For Credit: The Winding Down of the Semester

In random bullet form, because there's not a lot of coherence here, but I don't want to make a series of microposts. The bloggy question is the last bullet point.

• You people don't eat wings? The senior English majors in Later C18 Lit (427) had lots of suggestions. So did the folks in Intro to Fiction (109). I'm not sure what to make of the silence from my (ahem) Enlightenment class. 
• In case you were wondering, good wings are, apparently, to be found at Buffalo Wild Wings, Hooters, Farren's, Black Dog, Brothers, Applebees (half price after 9:30), and Gumby's. But  the Intro to Fiction class mostly recommended BWW.  Then again, according to a 2-year old Buzz review of CU wings, which someone in Later C18 Lit helpfully linked to, BWW isn't that good. So now you know. (Me, wings have always seemed like a lot of work relative to the payoff. I'll have a brisket sandwich with extra sauce and sweet potato fries at Black Dog or a cheeseburger at Farren's--and leave the wings for someone else.)
• As I announced in class today, we'll finish up Candide on Friday; Monday we'll review the semester and I'll pass out the exam questions. Wednesday, we'll discuss the reading that will appear on the exam. 
• I misspoke in class.  The exam will have three questions: one requiring you to make sense of some Enlightenment-era text you haven't seen before, one inviting you to think broadly about the semester's reading as a whole, and (this is the part I forgot) a question on Candide.
• As some of you have noticed, there's an Exploration Assignment listed on the syllabus that never got assigned.  It won't be.  You all have had plenty to do this semester as it is.  Instead I'll just give everyone the 10 points.
• SO, here's the bloggy question for credit: How should the exam prompt your best thinking about Candide?  Propose a good exam question. It should elicit 2 - 3 pages of double-spaced interpretive writing, be only answerable by someone who has read the text attentively and paid attention to the issues raised in class, and demonstrate the skills one has mastered over the course of the semester.

Deadline: Friday (4/29), start of class.

For Credit: God (as Promised)

Not ALL religious feeling comes under satirical attack in Candide. Jacques, the generous Anabaptist, and the El Doradans profess their faith and seem to go uncriticized for it. An oversight on Voltaire's part, or a cue to the positive views being advance in this novel?

Deadline: Wednesday (4/27), start of class.

Happy Easter!

Wishing a festive holiday to everyone who is celebrating today.

The image is the earliest known depiction of an Easter bunny in the Americas.  It is thought to be by a Pennsylvania schoolmaster (originally from Germany), Johann Conrad Gilbert.  It's on display at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware, which only recently acquired it.  You can read more about the picture here.

For Credit: Candide Goes to Eldorado

As I announced in class on Friday, for Monday you should read up to the end of Chapter 19.  Feel free to respond to any of the following questions, just specify which you're responding to and cite some text to support your claims.

1.  Even in a novelistic world filled with brutal acts of violence, the old lady's loss of a buttock (which is mentioned several times) seems like a particularly strange data-point.  What's up with that?

2.  Which characters in this novel seem fully developed with rounded and psychologically complex identities?  Which characters are little more than the narratives of of the misfortune they've endured?

3.  It's a comic novel.  What moments, episodes, events, remarks strike you as particularly funny--and why?

4.  Among the many objects of satire in this novel are (a) the novel and (b) travel narratives.  How and where specifically do you see those literary forms coming under attack?

5.  At every point in the novel there are circumstances that could provoke Candide to reject Pangloss's teaching.  What are we to make of the fact that it is only the events of Chapter 19 that finally "plunged him into a black melancholy" and led him to the conclusion that "if all is going well, it's happending in Eldorado and not in the rest of the world" (p. 486-7)?

Deadline: Monday (4/25), start of class (whether your post counts for Week 13 or Week 14 depends on whether it appears before or after midnght on 4/23).

For Credit: Third Paper (BUMPED)

The assignment for the third paper is over there in the sidebar, in case you missed it in class. Please feel free to post here with any confusion, questions, or difficulty that you're having--or just to compare notes with your classmates.

Deadline: open, but posts only count for Week 13 up to Saturday midnight; after that it's Week 14.'

Not at all for credit; in fact, entirely irrelevant to this course, but...

a friend has moved to the area from the East Coast and is desperately in need of buffalo wings.  I have strong opinions about many food-related matters, but I'm not a big fan of wings so I have not been able to guide her.  Any suggestions about where to get good wings around here?  (Preferably non-chain...)