story telling

Here is the link to our video:

www.youtube.com/watch

My final project was a collaborative one with cr88, in which we created word clouds of the full texts of The Plague and The Origin of Species to look at 1) the differences and commonalities between scientific and literary texts, as embodied by this bizarre representational form, and 2) different forms of literary analysis outside of the ones we are used to and how they can be useful. These were the images we produced:

The Origin of Species

      For our presentation, my group conducted a barometer exercise similar to those that may be seen at the Posse retreat or in education classes on campus.

What I like about Borges's "Library of Babel" is idea of randomness and connectivity that permeates the story and the construction of the library.  In a real library, we organize everything based on their genre: fiction, travel writing, childrens stories, etc.  However, these are superficial relationships.  True connections between literature are much more random (maybe a writer of childrens literature found inspiration in a science textbook, like Lewis Carroll being influenced by mathematics and producing Alice in Wonderland.  Borges is an author who is very involved in genre, and the evolution of genre.  Part of what's great about the evolution of genre is that one must accept random connections beneath the surface, going across all the genres.  This

In Anne Dalke’s discussion section, we discussed the role of humor in Adaptation and in evolution as a whole. We started off with the idea that maybe Adaptation is telling us that humor is key in evolution because it makes us more resilient. Charlie Kaufman is depicted as anxiety-ridden, miserable, constantly suffering from an existential crisis, and unsuccessful. He is obsessed with creating the perfect movie and drives himself nuts with it. Donald Kaufman is depicted as a much more carefree, fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants guy, and (ironically?) it is his ridiculous screenplay that is successful. Perhaps it is Donald’s humor that helps him be so much happier and more resilient than his brother.

In Professor Dalke’s Thursday discussion section, we explored the idea of solidarity in times of struggle and talked about a lot of different scenarios in which we, like Rambert, might be tempted to leave a difficult situation. The difficulty of being separated from one’s homeland because of a difficult situation, however, seems to be a problem even for the people who remain in Oran, for the place they are staying is not like the one that they knew before The Plague descended upon the city. They are transformed and develop a different relationship to the space they inhabit; the disease fundamentally transforms their relationship to their city.

In Anne Dalke’s discussion section, we talked about the last paragraph of The Plague in relation to what we’ve read so far. Many people in the class saw the last sentence as challenging our agency. People seemed troubled by the idea that, no matter what we do, the rats will rise up again – randomly, unpredictably, and inevitably. So what do we do? How do we create things and feel good if we think that no matter what we do, bad things are going to keep happening?