Revised Course Schedule: See below

The Updated, Revised, Streamlined schedule after missing almost all of this week! 

REVISED SCHEDULE  

M 30                Weather Cancellation

 

FEBRUARY

W 1                  Weather Cancellation

F 3                   Introduction to The Mahabharata 

 

M 6                  The Bhagavad Gita, Parts 1-4

W 8                  The Bhagavad Gita, Parts 5-9

F 10                 The Bhagavad Gita, Parts 10-14

 

M 13                The Bhagavad Gita, Parts 15-18

W 15                FILM: TBA

F 17                 Film Continued  

M 20                Film Discussion / Oral Presentations (during office hours) 

W 22                Oral Presentations (in my office)

F 24                 Oral Presentations (in my office)

 

M 27                Akutagawa, “Rashomon” & “In a Bamboo Grove”

 

MARCH

W 1                  Akutagawa, “The Nose” & “The Dragon”

F 3                   Akutagawa, “The Spider Thread” & “Hell Screen”

 

M 6                  Akutagawa, “O-Gin” & “Loyalty

W 8                  Akutagawa, “The Life of a Stupid Man”

F 10                 Mid-Term Check in

 

13-17                Spring Break

 

 

NOTE: Monday's class and Paper #1 due date

 In class on Friday, we agreed to move the Paper #1 due date to Wednesday (since last Wednesday's class was cancelled), which means we WILL have class on Monday. There's no reading, however. I'll be introducing our next book, The Bhagavad Gita, and talking a little about Hinduism and the book that the Gita actually comes from, the Hindu epic, The Mahbharata. 

The Paper #1 assignment is a few posts down with the revised due date. Let me know if you have any questions! 

For Wednesday (?): Tao te Ching, Verses 65-81

Your last questions/readings for the Tao te Ching are below. If the university is closed on Wednesday, then I'll bump these to Friday, but for now, let's assume we'll meet again on Wednesday. 

Answer TWO of the following: 

Q1: Bruce Lee (famous actor and martial artist) was a staunch advocate of the Tao te Ching, and claimed that it worked very harmoniously with the martial arts. Which poem might have specifically inspired him? Also, how can the Tao help someone defeat an opponent mentally as well as physically? 

Q2: Though the Tao te Ching often advises against attachment and emotions such as anger and desire, Verse 67 claims that "I have three treasures that I cherish and hold dear/the first is love...With love one is fearless." How can love be one of the most important qualities in cultivating the Tao when selfish attachment/desire to the world brings confusion?

Q3: We've talked a little about the connection between the Tao te Ching and college, and I've always thought that every incoming student should have to read the Tao te Ching, since it offers invaluable advice for starting a journey of the intellect. What poem do you think would function as the best College 101 advice for an incoming student (and why)?

Q4: One final paradox: the Tao te Ching often says that knowledge must begin with the self, and yet in Verse 72, it states, "The Sage knows himself, but not as himself/he loves himself, but not as himself/he honors himself, but not as himself." If you're not your self, who are you? What do you love/focus on? What else are you? Does this poem, or a related one, explain? 

For Monday: Tao te Ching, Verses 48-64

Remember, I'll give you a break from questions this weekend, but we WILL do an in-class writing response for Monday. Below are some ideas you might look out for as you read:

* Consider how the poems discuss the idea of attachment: what is right and wrong attachment? Is all attachment (or relationships) flawed? Would having children and helping the people you love be a form of attachment, too?

* How does denial 'give' you something? Is it a contradiction to 'gain without giving'? Don't you have to relinquish something (or sacrifice something) to get something, even the Tao?

* What do you think is the "Mother of the World" that the poems often refer to? Tao? Heaven? or something else?

* What do you think the phrase "be aware of your own awareness" means? Isn't that like "looking at your own looking"?

* What does it mean that you should see the Tao as a person, a family, a country, and a world? How can it be all of these things individually (even if it creates all of them respectively)?

* Why does the Tao always caution you against speaking--or speaking too much? What is specifically wrong with speaking? Do you think writing is the same way?

* How does the universe reveal itself to you? Don't you have to seek it?

* How can difficulty be an opportunity, especially if it limits your opportunities?

Paper #1 assignment, due Wednesday, February 1 by 5pm

Honors EQ2

Paper #1: SEEING THE WAY

INTRO: For your first paper, I want you to think about how we describe or discuss something that really transcends language, and that we almost have to see, or experience, to truly understand. The Tao is so many things—both everything and nothing—which is too vast for our limited minds to contemplate. But like poetry itself, a metaphor can bridge the gap between the seen and unseen, the known and unknown. So what visual metaphor could help us grasp some aspect of the Tao te Ching and its elusive message toward finding the Way? What would be the perfect cover image to point to the true ‘moon’ of meaning?

PROMPT: I want you to find a work of art somewhere out in the world that you think provides a useful metaphor for seeing or describing one (or a few related) verses of the Tao te Ching. By “work of art” I mean one of the following:

·       A painting (famous or not)

·       A drawing or illustration (famous or not)

·       A poster or album cover

·       Comic book illustration (a cover or an individual frame)

·       A photograph

·       A sculpture

·       A building/structure

In other words, the work of art should be something we can see and contemplate/interpret. For your paper, I want you to do two things: (a) introduce the work in question by describing it and helping us ‘see’ it without the use of an image (please include an image in your paper, but you also have to describe it), and (b) using it to ‘read’ or interpret at least ONE of the verses in the book. You can do more than one verse, but you should focus primarily on one verse, and then perhaps use one-two other verses merely to back this reading up (since many of them are repetitive in nature). Be specific, and use the artwork as a visual metaphor; try to imagine that the work of art is literally based on this verse of the poem. What would it show us? What would it explain? What would it clarify?

REQUIREMENTS

·       This should be about 3 pages long double spaced, but you can do more (that’s a minimum).

·       You must describe the work of art to someone who has never seen it, and feel free to tell us why it moves you, or interests you—but make sure we can ‘see’ it (don’t rely on a picture).

·       You must quote from the poem and show us how individual lines can be seen in the work of art itself.

·       Try to explore and not worry about the grade: find a work that speaks to you, and think about how this work helps you see the ideas in the Tao te Ching

·       DUE WEDNESDAY, FEB. 1st BY 5pm (no class that day)

 

For Friday: Tao te Ching, Verses 22-47

Read the range of 22-47 for Friday's class, but remember, you don't have to read one poem after another like chapters in a novel. You can do that, or you can skip around, reading the first lines and waiting for one to capture you. Sometimes what I like to do is read the even poems, then go back later and read the odds. Just try to read a few poems very closely, even if you skip around a bit.

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: As I mentioned in class, some versions break Verses 1-37 into "The Book of Tao," and Verses 36-81 into "The Book of Te." Do you see any obvious difference in poems 38-47 that would suggest that something has changed? Or do they seem to be variations of the same themes we've already encountered?

Q2: In Western culture, we have a famous adage that goes, "you can't love others until you love yourself." Do you think the Tao te Ching would agree with this? If so, why? What verse seems to explain why this is a more important step than simply loving and serving others?

Q3: In Verse 41, the poet seems to be talking about education itself--perhaps even our modern notion of college. How might this describe an experience you yourself have observed in a classroom? Why might some people take a great effort to know certain material while others simply mock it? Why does the poem suggest that this is a very "Tao" experience?  

Q4: It seems that one of the main purposes of the Tao te Ching is to lead the reader to a larger understanding of the world and their place within it. But so much of the advice says to ignore wisdom, avoid the sages, and speak as little as possible. So where does one find "the Way" if you can't walk it or speak of it? How DO you become enlightened with such a philosophy? Where do you find it? What do you study? Where do you go? 

For Wednesday: Tao te Ching, Poems 1-21

LINK TO THE POEMS: https://www.organism.earth/library/document/tao-te-ching

For Wednedsay, read poems 1-21 in the Tao te Ching, and try to read at least some of them more than once. Then answer TWO of the questions below, but also use them as a general outline to think about the poems and consider what ideas they might be trying to convey to us (and what makes such strange poems simply fun to read!).

(Answer TWO): 

Q1: Jonathan Starr, the translator, leaves a few words untranslated, such as "Tao" and "Wu," among others. Why do you think he does this? Do the poems help us understand what these terms might mean? Or is there a reason he wants them to remain mysterious?

Q2: As we discussed on Friday, a poem often attempts to use new metaphors (rather than the ones we use every day) to help us see the world from a new perspective. Discuss a metaphor in one of the poems that did exactly that: helped you appreciate something in a new way, or made you think about something normal abnormally. 

Q3: Many of the poems, notably Verse 14, repeat ideas such as"Eyes look but cannot see it/Ears listen but cannot hear it/Hands grasp but cannot touch it/Beyond the senses lies the great Unity--/invisible, inaudible, intangible" (16). If "it" cannot be seen or touched or heard, then how can we find it? Or know it? Where are we supposed to find truth or enlightenment if we can't use our senses to grasp it? Do other poems shed more light on this dilemma?

Q4: Which poem did you find the hardest to understand? Why do you think this is? Discuss a line or an idea in the poem that seems to create a wall to your understanding. 

Welcome to the Course!

Welcome to our EQ2 course for the Spring 2023 semester! Remember, you won't need to check Blackboard at all for this course: all the assignments and materials will appear here and/or in class. This is really designed as a virtual bulletin board for the class, and you don't have to leave comments or interact with the site in any way. If you need to ask a question outside of class, always e-mail me instead at jgrasso@ecok.edu. 

Be sure to get the five books for class as soon as possible, since we'll start our reading next week. The five books, in order of reading, are:

* Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching (the edition I ordered at the bookstore is very readable, though you can use any translation if you have another)

* The Bhagavad Gita (again, I recommend the Penguin edition by Mascaro)

* Akutagawa, Rashomon and Other Stories (only the Penguin edition will have the exact stories we're reading for class)

* Naipaul, The Mystic Masseur (only one version) 

* Satrapi, The Complete Persepolis (it's a comic book, so there's only one version)

Right now, we're meeting in Horace Mann 347, since our schedule said "Room TBD." But we might have to move if that room is already taken (I don't think it is). 

Look forward to exploring this exciting, strange, enigmatic, exhilarating literature with you!