For Wednesday: Hearn, Japanese Ghost Stories (pp.3-68)

NOTE: Read as many as you can between pages 3-68, and feel free to skip one or two if they don't grab you. But most of them are very addictive and fun--you'll want to read most of them. But if you don't finish, no big deal, since you can easily answer the questions below. 

Answer TWO of the following: 

Q1: How do any of these stories seem to relate to concepts we’ve read in the Tao te Ching and Gibran’s poems?  Do we still find ‘Eastern’ values expressed within the ghost stories and legends of the book?  Are people punished for their failure to follow something tantamount to the “Way” or for being attached to selfish desires and passions? 

Q2: What is unusual about the narrative style? Who seems to be telling these stories? Why aren't these stories more typically third-person omniscient narrators, and could this make the stories seem scarier or more unusual? 

Q3: Throughout the stories, Hearn (an American by way of England) struggles to translate the culture and customs of Japan through these colorful, exotic stories. But as in the Tao te Ching, some terms and ideas don't translate. What story had an untranslatable concept or idea? What seems to make it so foreign to Western readers? 

Q4: Do you feel these stories were meant to be read literally, similar to our own horror movies, which are supposedly “based on a true story?”  Or are these metaphorical stories, like The Prophet, which are meant to be enjoyed and then puzzled over to catch its true meaning?  Which story best illustrates either approach? 

Revised Schedule for Next Few Weeks

Ugh--with all these snow days, we lost another week of classes, and still have 3 more presentations to finish! However, I have a potential solution so we don't lose more class time--but it is OPTIONAL. 

For the three groups who haven't presented yet, you could e-mail me a short video of your presentation (5-10 minutes) going through all the slides with narration. This way, I could post the video on our blog for the class to watch, but we wouldn't necessarily have to do them in class. HOWEVER, this is just an alternative; if you would rather present in class and/or don't know how to make a video, don't worry about it. We can easily finish on Monday. But if everyone would prefer to do videos, I can post them on the blog and we can try to resume our missed classes. 

Either way, here's our revised schedule until it gets back to the original:

21                    Group Presentations

23                    Snow Day

25                    Snow Day

 

28                    Group Presentations (or) Context: The Uncanny Tradition

 

MARCH

2                      Hearn, Japanese Ghost Stories

4                      Hearn, Japanese Ghost Stories

 

7                      Hearn, Japanese Ghost Stories/Writing Exam #3

9                      Narayan, The Ramayana

11                    Narayan, The Ramayana

 

14                    Spring Break

16                    Spring Break

18                    Spring Break

 

21                    Narayan, The Ramayana

23                    Narayan, The Ramayana

25                    Writing Exam #4

 

28                    Critical paper due by 5pm

30                    Context: The Futures of Science Fiction

 

APRIL

1                      Scissortail CW Festival (no class)

For Monday: Writing Exam #2 (The Prophet) & Schedule Changes

Because of the Snow Days, I decided to move things back a little, which includes your presentations, which will now be on the week of the 21st. Note the change of the schedule below for the next four weeks. 

Also, on Monday we'll have our second Writing Exam over The Prophet. I won't make you match passages to art this time, but instead, I'll ask you to create a spontaneous performance art piece using dance and mime (ha, kidding). But seriously, I'll ask you to think about why The Prophet thinks laws and particularly, moral laws, can be dangerous in society, and why the Prophet cautions people not to get too attached to them. This ties into the nature of good and evil, and why people are so keen to weigh into this debate, always seeing the 'other' person as the evil one. 

REVISED SCHEDULE 

14                    Writing Exam #2

16                    Excerpt from Kwaidan (1965)

18                    Context: Ghost Stories & The Uncanny 

 

21                    Group Presentations 

23                    Group Presentations 

25                    Group Presentations (if needed) 

 

28                    Hearn, Japanese Ghost Stories 

 

MARCH

2                      Hearn, Japanese Ghost Stories

4                      Hearn, Japanese Ghost Stories 

7                      Writing Exam #3

9                      Narayan, The Ramayana

11                    Narayan, The Ramayana  

14-18               Spring Break

For Friday: Gibran, The Prophet: Try to Finish!

Read as much of the book as you can for Friday's class, finishing it if possible (if not, you can finish over the weekend). In many ways, this is a book that you don't need to finish to appreciate, since it's not about getting to the 'end,' since even at the end the Prophet predicts his return in the body of another woman. Yet like life itself, you never know where you're going to find a hidden treasure, so keep reading! 

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Just as the Tao te Ching claims that "he who knows much knows nothing," so the Prophet claims that "You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts." But he seems to go a step further when he claims, "in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered." How can speech murder thought? Why might the very nature of speech/talking/writing be a threat to the very nature (or purpose) of thinking? Could this be another moon/finger scenario? 

Q2: The book talks a lot about the nature of Good and Evil (or Justice and Injustice), and it claims, memorably, that "what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst? Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and why it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters." How does this relate to our earlier discussion about victims being guilty of their own crime? Why might evil not be the enemy of good, but its accomplice? 

Q3: The Prophet seems to worry about people who are too keen to observe and enforce laws, whether laws of the state or of morality. Though he's clearly not against laws or morality, what might be wrong with blindly (or dogmatically) enforcing them? Or of using laws to define the nature of what is "good" or "just"?  

Q4: The allegorical frame story comes full circle at the end when the Prophet finally leaves the city and boards his ship. But he makes a final prophecy: "A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and foam for another body. A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me." This seems to more than hint that he is going to die, but that he will eventually return, reincarnated. How do you interpret this allegory? How might a "prophet" return among the people over and over again, especially once his voice fades in their ears, and his love vanishes from their memory? 

For Wednesday: Gibran, The Prophet, from "Joy and Sorrow" to "Teaching"

I know your book has different page numbers than mine (or the one I tried to order for the class!), so try to read through the chapter on "Teaching." You can read a little more than this, or a little less, but get close to this, so you can finish for Friday's class. But again, it reads very quickly, and I often have to force myself to slow down because every sentence has a tricky meaning that can easily slip through your grasp if you read it too superficially! 

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Why might the section on "Self-Knowledge" almost be a paraphrase or a free translation of one or more verses of the Tao te Ching? In what way is it echoing many of the key sentiments of that work, suggesting that either Gibran knew it intiamately (or simply really agreed with its ideas)?

Q2: When I was teaching English as a Second Language way back in 2001, a student from Oman once told me, "the problem with Americans is that they have too much freedom. When you have too much freedom, you are no longer free." I kind of brushed him off at the time, but I think he was paraphrasing Gibran here, who says in the section on "Freedom": "I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff." How can freedom be stifling and create its own fetters? What does he mean that "freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle your eyes?"

Q3: In one of the most controversial passages of the book, the Prophet suggests that "The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder. And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed." How can a victim be 'guilty' of the crime of their victimhood? Isn't this like blaming someone who gets raped for wearing the wrong clothing? Or is he striking at something deeper here? 

Q4: In a passage that echoes what he earlier said about love, the Prophet suggests that "joy is your sorrow unmasked...The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain." Why is sorrow necessary for joy? Why is pain necessary for pleasure? Ugliness for beauty? (and why might this start reminding you of the Tao?) :) 

Schedule Change and Some Art Links!

Sorry for the delay, but I've decided not to give you extra reading/questions for The Prophet. Instead, we'll just return to class on Monday and discuss the opening chapters as we were going to do on Wednesday. I'll simply sandwich the book into 3 days instead of 4, and lose one of our presentation days. The new schedule will look like this:

M 7                     Gibran, The Prophet

W 9                     Gibran, The Prophet

F 11                    Gibran, The Prophet

 

M 14                   Writing Exam #2

W 16                   Group Presentations

F 18                    Group Presentations

If we need another day for presentations, we'll take the following Monday. So start talking to your group members and planning the roles each member will take in the presentation. I'm always available with questions if you have them. To help you get started, below are some links to art which you might want to use for the Curators in each group. You can use ANY art you think helps complement the verses, from album covers to photographs to manga. It's up to you! But here are a few works of art you might consider:

* The paintings of Paul Klee, which we wrote about in class: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/paul-klee-1417 

And many more here: https://www.paul-klee.org/paintings/

* The paintings of Rene Magritte, the famous surrealist painter and creator of The Treachery of Images (the big pipe): https://www.renemagritte.org/rene-magritte-paintings.jsp

* The paintings of Khalil Gibran, author of The Prophet: many of these were creator to illustrate his books:

https://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/archive/events/exhibitions/2010/kahlil_gibran/items/image_7.html

* The paintings of Hokusai, the 19th century Japanese painter: https://www.katsushikahokusai.org/

* The paintings of Nicholas Roerich, a Russian painter who traveled in China and Tibet and who was obsessed with the Himalayas and Buddhism: https://www.tallengestore.com/collections/nicholas-roerich

* The abstract paintings of Vasili Kandinsky: https://www.wassilykandinsky.net/painting1896-1944.php

* The illustrations of Moebius, a French comic & sci-fi artist: https://www.iamag.co/the-art-of-moebius/

University is Closed on Wednesday after Noon, so NO CLASS

 In case you didn't see the university's texts, the campus closes at noon today, so we can 't have class today (Wednesday). I assume it will be closed on Friday, too. I'll adjust the schedule to give us more time to read The Prophet, which means I'll move back the Group Presentations as well. 

I'll post some new questions for The Prophet soon and you can turn both of those in on Friday, if we have class, or on Monday (more likely). You can e-mail me the questions for Wednesday today or simply keep them until we return to class. 

Enjoy the snow and I'll post more soon!