The God Fiction

Relevant Links

2010-08-10T14:21:00.000-07:00

Below are links to current stories and articles pertinent to our course focus on God and anti-God.

Here is Anne Rice on her decision to abandon Christianity....but still follow Christ. The video of the interview is relevent to our present look at religion in its social manifestation, with Ms. Rice's reasons for her decision being exclusively political rather than theological.
Controversial British Muslim writer Yasmin Alibhai-Brown on the condition of Islam in present-day Britain: some five years on from Brick Lane, that is. And if you have the courage for it, here is her own utterly heartrendering account of how her father treated her.
The Vanity Fair article by Cristopher Hitchens mentioned in lecture on his present fight with cancer and his appreciation of the many of his Christian adversaries praying for him is online here.
And à propos lecture's debunking of Dan Brown's treatment of self-harm as a religious phenomenon, here is story, with video, ripped from today's headlines (as they say,) about a Russian man who killed himself slowly and agonisingly with excessive sauna use.

Text of Guest Speaker on Richard Dawkins

2010-08-09T08:22:00.000-07:00

Atheists for Rhetoric by Robert Tarzwell, MD.

Kay Perry on Lady Gaga

2010-08-05T14:02:00.000-07:00

For the Lady Gaga admirers in the class, the following from the Hufingtonpost previews Kay Perry's upcoming Rolling Stone cover and her comments on blasphemy & L.GG.

She also talks about her religious upbringing and her 'blasphemy' comment about Lady Gaga. "I am sensitive to Russell English celebrity Brand] taking the Lord’s name in vain and to Lady Gaga putting a rosary in her mouth. I think when you put sex and spirituality in the same bottle and shake it up, bad things happen. Yes, I said I kissed a girl. But I didn’t say I kissed a girl while f-ing a crucifix.”

Dawkins & Hitchens Contrasted

2010-07-29T14:17:00.000-07:00

From classfellow M.J.:

I thought you might enjoy this opinion article from the New York Times as I think it ties in nicely with our Dawkins - Eagleton essay pair.

A useful comparison between Dawkins & Christopher Hitchens qua atheist.

Islam and Superheroes

2010-07-27T14:18:00.000-07:00

From classfellow F.P., this TED video on Islam and superheroes.

Relating to what we have been talking about in class. I have found this video talking about Islam/other religions and superheroes. The beginning of the presentation feels exactly like your lecture. I hope you find it interesting.

I enjoy TED in general, and except for its repetition of the canard about the swasika being a broken crucifix, this was quite good.

(TED = a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design.)

Final Examination Data

2010-07-27T14:09:00.000-07:00

Our Final Examination is Tuesday August 17th 15:30-18:30 in Room B9201.

I'll ask your preference in lecture upcoming for closed book or open book format.
Relax and enjoy....

Reflection on "Kingdom Come"

2010-07-23T11:56:00.000-07:00

From classfellow J.L, the following interesting reflections;
(Nb. (1.) My lecture claim is that Superman and Captain Marvel, in Kingdom Come, are formed together as a duality that amounts to a Christ-type. (2.) "Orion" is a son of "Darkseid" from the Silver-Age classic New Gods.)

Have you seen Italian sculptor Adrian Tranquilli's series on Superheroes? I find it very interesting how he decided to depict them as vulnerable beings when they're so commonly known as 'super'. I've also noticed that Superman's body language is quite Jesus-like, similar to the visual representation in Kingdom Come you pointed out in lecture.

.... a few questions regarding religion in Kingdom Come:

I know Superman is a representation of Jesus, but is it possible that the four groups (the Justice League, Batman's new league, the Mankind Liberation Front, and the meta-humans) each represent a different religion? They all have very different views on how to do things, and Superman even uses the word "converts".

Connecting back to Hey Nostradamus! and the states of mind (heaven, purgatory, limbo, hell), is there something like this present in Kingdom Come too? When I first read it, I immediately associated Apokolips with hell, but started questioning myself when I realized how calm and seemingly understanding Orion is.

Douglas Coupland on CBC

2010-07-22T00:12:00.000-07:00

One recent and one slightly less recent video interview on the CBC website with Douglas Coupland, ahead of his delivery of this year's Massey Lectures.

Reminder: Essay Revision

2010-07-19T16:21:00.000-07:00

The essay revision is due, as you know, in lecture this Wendesday, and a quick not to make sure all are aware that the essay is graded on the quality of revision in light of the marker's comments and analysis on the original, not simply on the quality of the second essay itself. Be sure to attach your original essay to your revised essay when submitted.

"Kingdom Come" and Current Events

2010-07-19T14:45:00.000-07:00

The dialogue that Norman McCay as he walks the streets at the start of Kingdom Come between opposing attitudes to 'superhuman' power has, if one takes the superhero concept as a parable of government, pertinency to present responses to economic circumstances in the West, with the United States of America moving toward an increase in government involvement in society (e.g. State health care; State control of major automotive companies; etc.) and the United Kingdom, on the other side, moving in the opposite direction by (as this Guardian article explains) returning national government power to local authorities.

Cameron promises power for the 'man and woman on the street.'
Prime minister says 'big society' plans will create communities with 'oomph' and denies programme is a mask for public sector cuts.

So, once again, a dialogical representation allows us, the readers, to look at both alternatives and make up our own minds.

Christopher Hitchens' Cancer

2010-07-19T14:31:00.000-07:00

A very useful--because of its dialectical character--article on our "New Atheist" exemplar Christopher Hitchens and religious responses to his recent unfortunate discovery that he is suffering from cancer.

The comments are likewise a dialectical trove.

Instructor's Copy-Editing Symbols

2010-07-07T10:34:00.001-07:00

Follow this link, as well as this other link, for a legend of the standard copy-editing symbols.

Some of the more frequently-used are the following.

SYN: faulty syntax
GR: faulty grammar
AWK: awkward wording or awkward expression of idea.
SP: spelling error
PRON: missing or faulty pronoun.
AGR: faulty agreement (grammar.)
T: incorrect tense (grammar.)
M: incorrect mood (grammar.)
//: lack of correct parallelism
¶ : faulty paragraph structure
CAP: capitalise
MM: mixed metaphor
NO CAP: don't capitalise
CAP: capitalise.
WDY: excessive, roundabout or unhelpful wording that obscures the argument.
ARG: argument required.
STET: ignore comment & leave as was.
DEV: faulty or missing development of the argument.
TRANS: weak or missing transition.
D: faulty diction (e.g. use of jargon or informal idiom.)
PASS: passive (usually adjectival rather than adverbial) form
WC: faulty word choice
WW: wrong word
M: choice of grammatical mood.
RELEV: irrelevant remark.
PETITIO: a petitio principii ('begging the question')—assuming as a conclusion that which needs to be established as a premis. Often in essay argument, a statement delivered as a proof which itself is as yet unproven.
UNCL: unclear expression of an idea
REP: repetitive wording or repetition of a previously-presented idea.
REL: faulty relation of idea or no clear relation to surrounding idea.
TRUISM: statement of the obvious: unnecessary.
P: faulty punctuation.
PL: pluralisation error.
ITAL: italicise this text.
DEL: delete text
PLEON: pleonasm
REPORT: book report--i.e. absence of argument.
CIT: missing citation
DANGL: dangling modifier.
STR: faulty or missing argument structure.
R-O: run-on sentence(s).
FRAG: sentence fragment
CS: comma splice
THESIS: misplaced thesis-level sentence
X: false statement.
INROD: faulty introduction of character, idea, etc.
SS: faulty sentence structure
INDIR: indirect expression of idea--often by weak or padded syntax.

"Can a Man Die? Ay, As the Sun Doth Set."

2010-06-30T01:10:00.000-07:00

From classfellow I.K., this literary analysis of Hey Nostradaus! vid. Beddoes' apothegm.

In response to the "Can a man die?" question, I thought mostly of written legacy.

Aside from the Earth/Body pulling away from the Sun/Soul, I also considered the emphasis on written document in Hey Nostradamus!.
Coupland makes constant references to the medium of writing:
Cheryl "scribbles what becomes her last will and testament on a school binder shortly before a rampaging trio of misfit classmates gun her down in a high school cafeteria..." (back of the book). This "God is nowhere/God is now here" phrase lingers throughout the entire book and her act of writing it down is an additional element which makes her the immortal yearbook picture on the news.
Jason's story/perspective is told almost entirely via the pink slips of paper, as he madly writes in his work car or on-the-go (at the beach, etc). These slips of paper are enforced as crucially important, both as the sole truth which is to be passed on to his sons, and as the treasured (and ziploc-sealed) manner in which he continues to live for, and give peace to, Heather: "I drove home and put Jason's list of instructions inside a jumbo freezer-size zip-top bag in order to protect his pencilings from rubbing away completely. I removed my shoes and belt and fell into bed, holding an edge of the bag up to my face, and sleep came easily" (228).
Speaking of Heather, her release comes from the writing she sneakily starts to do while at work (as a court stenographer). Her story is written in this borderline-forbidden manner, and by writing it all out, she immortalizes it for whoever comes across it one day.
Finally, regardless of the mistakes that Reg has made in his life (through his blind and unquestioning faith), he finds hope and solace through the letters that he disperses for Jason. Even if Reg's old age takes the better of his body, or if death defeats him, his changed and bettered self is also immortalized for Jason/whoever else to see one day. His written document of truth and hope will most likely outlive him and therefore assist him on his road to redemption.
Also notable: Cheryl's parents' and brother's letters to Jason. Did these help them? Were they really that changed? Or did they purposely send these out as a last effort in communication to clear their consciences?

As always, do send these along by e-mail: don't hide your light under a bushel....

Wrath as Love Perverted

2010-06-30T00:25:00.000-07:00

À propos the Purgatory section of Hey Nostradamus!, an excellent (and convincing) attempt from classfellow N.C. to explain wrath as Love, perverted.

...[H]ow wrath could be love perverted.
I believe that wrath is brought about when a person has an excessive need for justice, regarding a heinous act or event upon someone or something a person holds dearly to, but couldn't satisfy this need. Thus their need of justice becomes the need for revenge bringing about rage & wrath.

Please keep them coming....

Lady Gaga: A Big Gun Fires

2010-06-30T00:12:00.000-07:00

The redoubtable Camille Paglia has a editorial in the New York Times this week on sexual failure and white middle-class prosperity -- "No Sex Please, We’re Middle Class" -- which contains an obiter dicum on Lady Gaga.

Followers of the England tabloid press will have noticed them taking the mick out of the professional sensationalist last week for falling off her footware ....

The American press likewise.

This, recall, by way of illustrating the shallows of popular culture and Douglas Coupland's attempt to find some humanity there (as we did in lecture using Paris Hilton as an exemplary case.)

"The Plato Code" Cracked

2010-06-29T11:45:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: excellent explanation of this here.

Science historian cracks "the Plato code"

A truly astonishing discovery has just broken on the intellectual world: one whose significance can hardly be overstated. Delightfully -- almost providentially -- it occurs for us during our course, and from a figure who has helped us in our growing understanding of the literature we are studying.

From the article itself:

A science historian at The University of Manchester has cracked “The Plato Code” – the long disputed secret messages hidden in the great philosopher’s writings.... Dr Jay Kennedy’s findings are set to revolutionise the history of the origins of Western thought....The hidden codes show that Plato anticipated the Scientific Revolution 2,000 years before Isaac Newton, discovering its most important idea – the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. The decoded messages also open up a surprising way to unite science and religion. The awe and beauty we feel in nature, Plato says, shows that it is divine; discovering the scientific order of nature is getting closer to God. This could transform today’s culture wars between science and religion.

The Queen's English

2010-06-16T14:35:00.000-07:00

Here is a Public Service Announcement on the Queen's English.

The Importance of Paris (Hilton)

2010-06-16T00:14:00.000-07:00

Have a read of this (by Christopher Hitchens), and this as well, for tomorrow's introduction to Douglas Coupland. The more time goes by, the more Paris Hilton seems to me like the patron saint of contemporary North American culture....

In the Hitchens polemic, take especial notice of this:

The supposedly "broad-minded" culture turns out to be as prurient and salacious as the elders in The Scarlet Letter. Hilton is legally an adult but the treatment she is receiving stinks—indeed it reeks—of whatever horrible, buried, vicarious impulse underlies kiddie porn and child abuse.

On Douglas Coupland

2010-06-16T00:13:00.000-07:00

Classfellow J.L. sends along an interesting Coupland tidbit. (I can't help but add that the Time magazine writer certainly does nothing here to elevate the intellectual standard of popular journalism by his self-aggrandising application, and peurile understanding, of Wittgenstein on language. This, of course, is no reflection on the pertinancy of the article for our purposes.....)

"This is a Time article detailing McDonald's' effort to alter the OED definition of the word 'McJob', coined by Douglas Coupland over twenty years ago.

The late Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said that the meaning of a word was derived from the way it is used in language. Not according to McDonald's. The fast-food giant is currently lobbying dictionary publishers to change the meaning of the word McJob — or remove it altogether — on the grounds that it denigrates the company's employees.

Academic English Study Method

2010-06-14T14:48:00.000-07:00

An overview of the study method in academic English, along with a breakdown of the University teaching model from general to particular, and a look at Cicero's sexpartite essay arrangement model, is online, here.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Dan Brown’s 20 Worst Sentences

2010-06-14T14:31:00.000-07:00

Via classfellow M.J., here are "Dan Brown’s 20 Worst Sentences"--well worth reading the full article.

"And be sure to read some of the comments. They’re funnier than the article. For example:"
Author Dan Brown strode through the brass lobby of a bar and ordered a beer, his eyes white as something white. The bartender had eyes too.
“What’ll it be?” asked the bartender with his mouth. He raised the tone of his voice towards the end of the statement to express that he was asking a question ‘cos when someone speaks to you you can’t see question marks. “What’ll what be?” replied author Dan Brown, answering a question with a question and putting the emphasis on the what part of the reply, showing that the question he just asked is related to the question he was just asked.
The bartender shifted his eyes. A little too shiftily, thought the author (Dan Brown); was it a challenge? Did he recognise me? Was he expecting me? Was I expecting this? Of course I was, I’m Dan Brown. trust no-one Dan. Disassemble him with your brains.

Mid-Term Topics

2010-06-09T21:23:00.000-07:00

Following the Mid-Term essay criteria posted on the course website, here are the topics from which you chose one.

A dialogic novel is contradistinct to the polemical or didactic novel: a dialogic text avoids a single strong moral position and instead presents two or more opposing positions in dialogue with each other. In a polemic novel, the favoured position is decided by the author; in a dialogic novel, the reader makes his or her own decision. (The difference here is also described as being between polyphonic --'many-sounded'--and monologic--'one-speech'--texts.) Explain whether in your critical judgement Douglas Coupland's Hey Nostradamus! is a dialogic or a polemical novel.
Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code and Anne Rice's Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana antithetically represent Christianity in relation to what Brown terms "the Sacred Feminine." Using an analysis of the text on that subject alone, and avoiding any polemic of your own in your essay, argue which one best meets and which one fails to meet Plato's requirement for Truth.
Examine the differing degrees to which the first balanced pair of course essays--A.C. Grayling's versus A.N. Wilson--use argumentum ad populam in their opposing arguments on religion. Make clear your awareness of the fact detailed in lecture that fallacies are flaws in logic but often values in polemical effectiveness. Note that this topic is a very effective means of ensuring that your own essay work in this course (including on the Final Exam) is soundly formed rhetorically and dialectically.

Ayaan Hirst Ali on the CBC

2010-06-09T14:42:00.000-07:00

In advance of our study of Monica Ali's Brick Lane, I notice that controversial and under-death-threat writer Ayaan Hirst Ali is in Canada promoting her latest book Nomad: here, in a segment of CBC 's "Q" programme. The CBC article is online here.

I see that the Nomad page on amazon.ca contains blurbs from some of the heavy-hitters among the 'New Atheists.' Here is our anti-Catholic exemplar Christopher Hitchens':

“....the story of a young African woman, born into Islam, who was given every possible occasion to feel grievance, resentment and humiliation yet who has employed her own life as an example of internationalism, tolerance, multiculturalism and the redemption of others. Her humor and irony and fortitude constitute the finest counterpoint to the surly cult of death that presses itself against us. For me, the three most beautiful words in the emerging language of secular resistance to tyranny are Ayaan Hirsi Ali.”

A previous interview on CBC (On the Map with Avi Lewis, 2007) has become notorious: a good example of her controverisal self-positioning.

Religion Humour, from tutorial

2010-06-05T12:30:00.000-07:00

TA Jennifer Nahrgang sends alone the following, well worth sharing:

I showed this clip to my class first day. The ingenious Sasha Baron Cohen playing Ali G and interviewing a (quite stern) Roman Catholic Priest, a representative from the Atheist Society, a Jewish Rabbi, and a university professor. It contains some pretty stupid humour [No surprise. Prof.], but I thought it served as a good example of a pretty accepting dialectic round table. ( And a few laughs .....)

I like this Ali G best...

And from classfellow M.P., this:

[Mel Brooks' History of the World Part 1] .... is full of jokes against religion, but here are some links to the main points. I hope you enjoy them.

And of course, supreme is Monty Python's Life of Brian.

And here, courtesy of classfellow J.L., is a harsh and vulgar attack on religion: now that's polemic.

Misinformation on Final Examation.

2010-06-02T14:56:00.000-07:00

It was reported to me today that someone claiming to have been a student in a former iteration of this course was outside tutorial rooms today giving what was presented as intelligence about the Final Examination--specifically, that knowledge of page numbers and text will be tested. This is a falsehood.

The facts of the matter are these. I ask each class with a Final Examination component whether they want an Open Book or a Closed Book examination. Classes that choose Closed Book have no need to cite page numbers in answers.

For classes that choose Open Book, the essay portion of the Final has a requirement that any quotations from course texts that the student uses in their essay be accompanied by page number and course text that they being quoted from. This is for the benefit of the TAs marking the Exams, so that they do not have to search through all the course texts page-by-page, on fifty Final Examination booklets, to verify the integrity, or even the very existence, of each quotation.

Draw your own (obvious) moral from this....

Note-Taking for University

2010-06-02T10:59:00.000-07:00

"Learn how to listen and you will prosper even from those who talk badly.” Plutarch (AD 46-120) Greek Biographer & Philosopher.

The Student Learning Commons at the W.A.C. Bennett Library has an exceptionally helpful on-line guide to effective note-taking at university lecture. (It is a trifle disconcerting reading for the Lecturers themselves, because it implies--indeed, all-but declares--that many of us are dull, confused, inarticulate, habituated and otherwise deficient in our craft.)

The guide is available online in .pdf format at this hotlink.

The Student Learning Commons additionally has an entire page of links to on-line resources to improve the student's "Listening & Note-Taking" at this hotlink.

Note-taking in lecture is one of the skills that one learns at university with broad applicability in life. Arguably, learning how to take written notes from oral delivery is one of the most practically valuable benefits of a university education.

These resources linked here are very valuable: especially as it is increasingly common for undergraduates to confuse note-taking with copying down PowerPoint slides. It is rule worth learning that PowerPoint is not the Lecture: lectures are what happen when you are distracted by copying down PowerPoint slides....

Monday Guest Speaker

2010-05-30T14:59:00.000-07:00

This upcoming Monday lecture we will have a visiting speaker from the SFU Sceptics Club. The subject of the talk will be (to use the language of The Da Vinci Code) the anti-God propaganda campaign the Club is currently running on campus. There will some time for question & answer as well.

The Club website is at http://sfuskeptics.ca/

Example of Dialectical Attitude to Religion

2010-05-15T17:40:00.000-07:00

I came across this delightful example of the dialectical spirit in action vis-à-vis religion. Magician Penn Jillette, an Atheist, describes in the clip (from his blog) an encounter he had with a Christian at a 'Penn & Teller' show.

The dialectical result presented in the clip is not agreement, or conversion, but respect & understanding--and these are glory enough compared to the malevolence and antogonism common in polemics.

Five Per-Cent Punctuality Bonus

2010-05-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

"Punctuality is the stern virtue of men of business, and the graceful courtesy of princes."
Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Punctuality is that nearly-unique quality which is both an essential attribute of a moral being and a do-or-die necessity in professional life. To help develop, and emphasise the importance of, punctuality, a five percent grade bonus will be given for punctuality and attendance at lecture, as measured by the Lecturer.

Lecture Slides

2010-05-13T14:46:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: terminally easy-going, the Lecturer is now posting lecture slides periodically. Fair warning however: this is some making a rod for their own backs ....

Lecture slides are useful for review, but no substitute for faithful attendance to lecture and proper note-taking technique.

Course Website FAQ

2010-05-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

Here are FAQ about the course website.

The 5 most recent posts are displayed on the main page.
A permanent link list, entitled "Pertinent & Impertinent" is always visible on the sidebar of the course website, containing direct links to crucial information.
Also on the sidebar, always visible, is the "Blog Archive" displaying direct links to all posts on the course website.
The "Blog Archive" has sections for years 2009 and 2007 in addition to 2010. Links for our Summer 2010 course are under the "2010" section. The 2007 and 2009 archive is for previous iterations of the course which may, or may not, be interesting for you.
An "Older Posts" hotlink is always visible at the bottom of the main page which displays the next 5 most recent posts.
Certain PowerPoint lecture slides are occasionally posted on the course website.

Course Syllabus

2010-05-11T12:22:00.000-07:00

Course Syllabus & Information
Be up-to-date with the following reading schedule and you will be ahead of lecture.
Nb 1.] This is a schedule for student readings; not a schedule of lecture material.
Nb 2.] Lecture is not a Procrustean bed : week by week, lecture will follow the developing class interests and course dynamic; all material will, sublimely, be covered by course end.

Reading Schedule

Week 1: Brown, The da Vinci Code
Week 2: Brown, The da Vinci Code
Week 3: Assigned Essays #1: Grayling & Wilson.
Week 4: Rice, The Road to Cana
Week 5: Rice, The Road to Cana
Week 6: Coupland, Hey Nostradamus!
Week 7: Coupland, Hey Nostradamus!
Week 8: Assigned Essays #2: Wilson & Chesterton
Week 9: Waid & Ross, Kingdom Come
Week 10: Waid & Ross, Kingdom Come
Week 11: Assigned Essays #3: Dawkins & Eagleton
Week 12: Ali, Brick Lane
Week 13: Ali, Brick Lane

Assignment Deadlines.
Nb: There is a ten percent per day late penalty for all assignments, documented medical or bereavement leave excepted. For medical exemptions, provide a letter from a physician on letterhead which declares his or her medical judgement that illness or injury prevented work on the essay. The letter must cover the entire period over which the assignment was scheduled and may be verified by telephone. For any matter effecting deadlines, consult with the TA in person and before the assignment period.

Schedule of Assignment Due Dates.
(Assignments coded by colour. See separate assignment posts for details.)

May 17th or 19th, Group Project members set: in tutorial.
May 31st or June 2nd, Group Project proposal due: in tutorial.
June 9th, Mid-Term Essay topics posted.
June 23rd, Mid-Term Essay due: in lecture.
July 7th Mid-Term Essay returned graded: in lecture.
July 21st Mid Term Revision due: in lecture.
Aug 4th, Mid-Term Revision returned graded: in lecture.
Aug 9th or 11th, Group Project due: in tutorial.
August 17th, Final Examination, Tuesday 3:30-6:30 am, Room TBA.

Nb: “Participation (10% of course grade) requires participation, and punctuality in seminar and punctual attendance at lecture."

Instructor Contact:
Office Hours: AQ 6094 -- Monday 1:30-3:00. E-mail to ogden@sfu.ca. 778-782-5820

Course Approach:

"[Neither Christianity nor Atheism but] an equally ancient faith .... rooted in the Socratic dialogues. It is the faith that human beings, reasoning together in a disciplined way, are capable of reaching shared understandings that are not merely intelligent, but also practicable and spiritually uplifting. This form of rationalism uses both rigorous scholarship and discursive analysis, i.e. dialectic, to seek out the conceptual basis for action. This rationalism was bequeathed to the world by Socrates himself, and has been reaffirmed by the greatest modern thinkers. My faith is that the deepest magic of our civilisation has arisen from Socratic rationalism, and that this can happen again now.
Socratic rationalism holds that most people are capable are capable of seeing the highest truths and of acting well when they do."
Bruce K. Alexander, The Globalisation of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit. Oxford University Press, 2009.

Course E-Mail Netiquette

2010-05-11T12:19:00.000-07:00

Here are the points of e-mail protocol for our course :

E-mail (indeed, all communication) between Lecturer and student, and TA and student, is a formal and professional exchange. Accordingly, proper salutation and closing is essential.
Business e-mail is courteous but, of professional necessity, concise and direct. It rejects roundabout or ornate language, informal diction, and any appearance of what is termed in the vernacular, 'chat.'
Customary response time for student e-mail to the Course Lecturer or TAs is two to three office days. E-mail on weekends will ordinarily be read the Monday following.
Use only your SFU account for e-mail to the course Lecturer. All other e-mail is blocked by whitelist.

In general, Course e-mail is for matters of Course administration solely. It is not an alternative to, nor substitute for, Office Hours or Tutorial. All questions about understanding of lecture material, course reading, assignment criteria, and deadlines are reserved for Tutorial and Office Hours.

Missed classes and deadlines are not to be reported by e-mail: if a medical or bereavement exception is being claimed, the supporting documentation is handed in, along with the completed assignment, either in person or to the Instructor's mailbox outside the Department Office.

How to Write Proposals for Creative Assignments

2010-05-11T02:20:00.000-07:00

Proposals for Creative Assignments can be helpfully constructed as failure standards. Failure standards are a real-world use of the falsification concept from experimental science, where a theory becomes ranked as scientific only when it is capable of being falsified in a replicable experiment.

So, for your assignment proposals, if you chose to adopt this valuable format, you would list (in either essay or point form) the full set of criteria by which your project can be gauged to have failed. for example "Our project will have failed if:"

the project does not advance an academic thesis.
the project does not have [some measurable degree of] quality
the project does not identifiably incorporate material from relevent scholarship
the project fails to relate directly to some number of the primary course texts
the project fails to represent and demonstrate advanced understanding of the central ideas of the course
&c, &c.

This effectively prevents creativity from being substituted by open license.

Additionally, proposals are accompanied by a concise justification of the academic validity of the project being proposed.

An effective proposal describes (nb. look up the etymology of this word in the OED) three components of a project:

Area
Range
Structure

The Area is the specific subject of your project: e-mail writing, for instance. Range delimits the specific aspect of your subject: courtesy and professional manner in e-mail, say. And Structure outlines the manner in which the project will formed.

Two pages is a reasonable length for a proposal of this type, four pages at most.

Group Polemical Project Criteria

2010-05-11T02:19:00.002-07:00

The group project will consist of a polemical engagement with the topic of Religion in Culture. Use the understanding of "polemical" given in the opening lecture.

Your project will use some written or creative form (a blog, a filmed presentation, a pamphlet or squib, etc.) to make a polemical statement either for or against Religion (or, perhaps, taking both sides.)

Look through popular culture for examples: some of the recent anti-God movies; atheist publicity stunts; Christian rock groups; and much more beside are good sources of ideas.

Format:

Groups of five or six will be set in tutorial on course week two.
A written proposal, two pages maximum, is due in tutorial course week four: May 31st or amp; June 2nd.
Information on how to write a proper proposal is available on the course website, at this address.
Project grading will include the amount of effort put into the project. This is expected to be 20% of the course effort multiplied by the number of members in the group.
The project is due in tutorial the August 9th or 11th.

Course Outline

2010-05-11T02:19:00.000-07:00

[Writing Intensive]

ENGLISH 101W: INTRODUCTION TO ISSUES IN LITERATURE AND CULTURE

Religion: The Prose and Cons

“Quarter of Canadians don't believe in any god, poll says” trumpets a recent headline in that vendor of popular culture, the Toronto Globe and Mail. The inverse, of course, is equally true, yet the headline was not written to show that “Three-Quarter of Canadians believe in a God, poll says!” Newspapers, rather like Mary Poppins, fly the way the wind is blowing, and the negative emphasis in the actual headline indicates that the present cultural climate is experiencing gusts of hot air in an anti-God direction. And this is indeed the case, with a canny crowd of Atheistical writers making small fortunes in the capitalist marketplace from a Being in Whom they disbelieve. Though true, irony this perverse is too implausible for fiction, as this course will demonstrate, using a selection of contemporary novels which have, each in their different way, effected a change in the cultural configuration of religion. At the level of mass fiction, books by two bestselling authors, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and The Road to Cana by Anne Rice, represent opposing stances on Christianity. At a higher literary level, Douglas Coupland’s Hey Nostradamus! revisions evangelical Protestantism using the Lower Mainland as its setting, while Monica Ali’s transgressive Brick Lane bravely and beautifully portrays matriarchy and a Muslim immigrant community in present-day London. And the extended comic book, or graphic novel, Kingdom Come frames modern culture and the superhero cultus within the Biblical Apocrypha. A selection of short online essays dealing with religion -for and against - at the cultural level will be made available both to contextualise the course novels and improve your own religious arguments and understanding.

REQUIRED TEXTS:
Coupland, Douglas: Hey Nostradamus!
Rice, Anne: Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana
Waid, Mark: Kingdom Come
Brown, Dan: The Da Vinci Code
Ali, Monica: Brick Lane
Prose Essays: Online and reserved selection.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
10% Productive participation
20% Mid-term essay (2000 words)
15% Mid-term essay revision
20% Group polemical project
35% Final examination

To receive credit for this course you must complete all requirements.

Assigned Essays

2010-05-11T02:08:00.000-07:00

Here are the three pairs of polemical essays on the reading list scheduled on the course Syllabus.

A.C. Grayling: "The Empty Name of God" —vs— A.N. Wilson: "Why I Believe Again."
Edward O. Wilson: "Intelligent Evolution" —vs— G.K. Chesterton: "The Man in the Cave."
Richard Dawkins: "Atheists for Jesus" —vs— Terry Eagleton: "Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching."

Background articles for "The da Vinci Code"

2010-05-11T00:16:00.000-07:00

Ron Howard: Vatican obstructed 'Angels & Demons'. [yahoo.com] "Director Ron Howard claimed Sunday that the Vatican interfered with efforts to get permits to shoot certain scenes of his "Angels & Demons" religious thriller in Rome — a charge the Vatican said was purely a publicity stunt."
Catholics attack Dan Brown film Angels and Demons. [Telegraph .co.uk] "Catholic leaders have attacked the film sequel to The Da Vinci Code for its "gratuitously outlandish" portrayal of the Church."
Christopher Hitchens. "Mommie Dearest: The pope beatifies Mother Teresa, a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud."
OpusDei.org. The Da Vinci Code, the Catholic Church and Opus Dei. "Many people are intrigued by the claims about Christian history and theology presented in The Da Vinci Code. We would like to remind them that The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction, and it is not a reliable source of information on these matters. "

Course Years Divider

2010-05-10T13:01:00.000-07:00

Posts above this are for English 101W in Summer 2010.

Post below this point are from previous iterations of this course. They may, or may not, be useful to you.

Art -vs- Polemic

2009-10-07T22:25:00.000-07:00

Here's a video clip to a song by Canadian musician: Sarah Slean with "Lucky Me." The lyrics address the dialectic set up in our course, but in an artistic, rather than polemical, manner.

Update: here is a link to a discussion on Sarah Slean's homepage about the dialectic in the song. Note how the dialectic in her lyrics is artistic rather than polemic. (My thanks to "Anonymous" for hard work transcribing the lyrics in the comments here.)

Lecture Slides

2009-08-06T07:03:00.000-07:00

The course lecture slides are available online, here. They are numbered in sequence that they were delivered: and note that some slide sets span two or three lectures.

Last Pair of Essays

2009-07-14T12:55:00.000-07:00

A very useful, and markedly dialectical, engagement with the Dawkins position vis a vis politics or religion as the real cause of particular local conflicts is in this article on HuffingtonPost from science journalist Robert Wright: Why the "New Atheists" are Right-Wing on Foreign Policy.

Brick Lane

2009-07-11T22:46:00.000-07:00

The film version of Brick Lane was released in North American theatres last year, June 20th, 2008.

For Monday

2009-07-10T20:36:00.001-07:00

Our Kingdom Come text and the two remaining course essays are on our schedule for Monday. And might I trouble us all to read this very short blog post ahead of lecture: I'd like us to discuss pertinencies to the Waid & Ross comic.

The blog post is by eminent American literary scholar Stanley Fish. And a note that although the subject is two particular politicians, there is no partisan aspect to the piece.

Lecture Slides on Comics

2009-06-29T14:26:00.000-07:00

The posted lecture slides are updated with the detail on the graphic element of comics. I have included slides from the upcoming lecture in case you wish to get that extra level of preparation on the technicalities.

Good Dialectic on the Religious Question

2009-06-23T10:47:00.000-07:00

I have come across this last week or so some engagements with the question of religion that are exceptionally dialectical. (Frequently, at Arts & Letters Daily.) My supposition is that such are now coming into prominence in response to the intensely partisan nature of the recent polemic from the anti-religion side. (In fact, I believe this is said by implication in two the examples here.)

The first is an interview on Canada's State media by Jian Gomeshi with the estimable Camille Paglia—who describes herself as a "lesbian, Atheist, sex-positive Feminist"—arguing for the value of the Christian religion. Click here for the podcast. Be warned: Paglia is a force of nature and just listening to her is to stand against a hurricane.
The second is an interview in The New Humanist with Economist journalists John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge. They have co-authered a secular book on religion, which, as this interview shows, is a textbook case of a dialectic treatment—and an example of the power & glory of dialectic over polemic. Click here for the article.
The third is an article by science writer Robert Wright—founder of bloggingheads.tv and meaningoflife.tv—summarising his new book The Evolution of God. Here again, you will see a formal example of a dialectical approach—in this case, actually structured dialectically. Click here for the article.

Blatchford Essay

2009-06-20T23:20:00.000-07:00

For the Blatchford essay (our third course essay, R. Blatchford: "Conclusion—Parting of the Ways" from God & My Neighbour) there is a slight trick to getting directly to the specific section which we will be reading -- but your generation is techno-savvy enough to figure it out in any case.

But, for the record, here is the procedure.

The first time you click the hyperlink on the "Assigned Essays" post, you are taken to the Prject Gutenberg page for the e-text.
Under "Formats Available for Download," find the column labeled "Format."
Find the first row labeled "HTML."
Click the "main site" hotlink on that row under the "Download Links" column.
Now, close the bowser window completely.
Open a new browser window and navigate again to the "Assigned Essays" post.
This time, when you click on the hotlink to the Blatchfrd essay you will be taken directly to the "Conclusion--The Parting of the Ways". This is the only section that we will be studying in lecture this week.

Rhetorical Appeals

2009-05-25T12:46:00.000-07:00

A useful link to a sketch of the three types of rhetorical appeal is available here from Durham Technical College.

More discussion to follow in Wednesday's lecture...

New background article

2009-05-25T12:41:00.000-07:00

Today's Arts & Letters Daily has this blurb to a new article online at the New Statesman:

The idea that religion is destined to die out is itself a confession of faith. No evidence will persuade secular believers they are on the wrong side of history... more»

As mentioned in lecture, New Statesman is a credible Left-Centre journal, founded by the Fabian Society, that gives us a trustworthy place to find cultural background to cultural engagements with religion for & against.

Course Reading Break

2009-05-10T16:20:00.001-07:00

A Reading Week is a great idea: opportunity during Term to read the course texts for the second time through.

Accordingly, there are no lectures or tutorials in English 105W on the week of May 18th-20th (Monday the 18th being of course Queen Victoria day.)

Grades Incentive

2009-05-10T15:41:00.000-07:00

Strong attendance, the politeness of full punctuality, and the courtesy of concentration provided by cell-phones & PDA kept out of sight: these lecture protocols are all not only contributions to effectiveness but standard expectations in professional life.

To promote these, this course will add a class-wide five percent bonus to the Final Exam and retroactively to the Mid-Term revision if these established norms are sustained throughout the Term, based on the Lecturer's observations.

Links....

2009-05-07T14:36:00.000-07:00

Via today's Arts & Letters Daily, a link to an article on conspiracy theories.

Here is the link to a C. Hitchens' article condemning Dan Brown's writing

The da Vinci Code sequel is being released, and the director approves of it while others don't.

Lecture: Slides

2009-05-04T19:44:00.000-07:00

This post will be used to link to certain lecture slides periodically uploaded throughout the Term. The full lecture slides will be posted fourty-eight hours before the Final Exam for review.

Periodical slides from lecture.

Mid-Term Assignment Criteria

2009-05-02T13:11:00.000-07:00

Here is the arrangement and the schedule of dates for the Mid-Term Essay, two thousand words and revision. The assignment is worth thirty-five percent of the Course grade, of which twenty percent is for the Mid-Term essay and fifteen percent for the subsequent revision.
Eight-week writing track:

Wednesday June 9th: choice of topics posted on the website.
Wednesday June 23rd: mid-term essay due in lecture.
Wednesday July 7th: essay returned with comments & grade.
Wednesday July 21st: revision due in lecture.
Wednesday Aug 11th: revision returned with comments & grade.

The mid-term essay is an opportunity to get your ideas, argument and structure down on paper. Your Tutorial leader will mark the important errors which require revision. You are encouraged to bring the draft to Office Hours for additional and thorough-going help.
The subsequent revision will be graded according to the improvements made to the mid-term essay from the directions made on your mid-term essay by your Tutorial leader.

Proof-Reading Symbols in Mid-Term Marking

2009-05-02T13:02:00.001-07:00

Follow this link for a legend of the standard proof-reading and copy-editing symbols. These might be used during the grading of the essay assignments.

More here. And here.

Study Table

2007-08-04T19:49:00.000-07:00

Here is the Study Table I promised in lecture (I have also added the version that your classfellow came up with on her own.)

"What I Don't Understand"

2007-07-24T17:17:00.000-07:00

Here's the list of responses to Monday's "What I don't Understand" cards. I'll give enlightment, to varying degrees, to each at Wednesday's lecture:

What I Don’t Understand
• Inversion
• Woods stance
• Wood’s Argument form

What I Don’t Understand
• Dualism in Life after God
• Irony vs. lying in BAG
• Final exam concepts

What I Don’t Understand
• Why BAG is a polemic or anti-God

What I Don’t Understand
• Why Greene’s novel is praised as a work of polemical art

What I Don’t Understand
• Review concept of dust in the Amber Spyglass
• Review “dialectic” from the first couple of lecture

What I Don’t Understand
• Ironic gap

What I Don’t Understand
• sincerity

What I Don’t Understand
• in Pullman’s Amber Spyglass, what’s the relevance of the concept “world separation” (or “multi-world”)? and the sword used to cut an entrance between two worlds?
• Also, how’s multi-world and sword related to the author’s anti-God ideas?

What I Don’t Understand
• The significance of animals
• The concept of Creed

What I Don’t Understand
• Life after God ~ main theme and main vocabulary: if you could maybe brush over it a little I’d really appreciate it

What I Don’t Understand
• Brighton Rock
• Douglas Coupland

What I Don’t Understand
• The Amber Spyglass’ concepts and related definition

What I Don’t Understand
• Genre: one of the lecture you mentioned Amber Spyglass’ genre is polemical
• What to focus on in the course

What I Don’t Understand
• Plato’s cave
• Irony from The Book Against God: can you give examples (from book) and explain the intended effects? (I’m the group of audience that just don’t get the irony but I
need to get the irony but I need to get it for the exam)

What I Don’t Understand
• English pastoral literary type
• Similes and paradoxes

What I Don’t Understand
• How BAG is strictly anti-God (references, examples)

What I Don’t Understand
• You, your inability to bring light to any important issues aroused by the books. I can understand one maybe 2 lectures about genre, style, type etc.
• Maybe you should take some time out of your busy lecture schedule to lecture on things that matter. Life, love, death, time…how these topics relate…
Who cares if BAG is English Pastoral???

What I Don’t Understand
• How to avoid wordy rambling in essay exams
• How to be concise, and stick to the core concepts…

What I Don’t Understand
• The significance of Ida in Brighton Rock

What I Don’t Understand
• Imaginative truth definition (can’t remember)

What I Don’t Understand
• I don’t really understand the point of the Book against God is…
• I don’t understand why we had to read Anne Rice. That book was hard to read. It was awful .
What I Don’t Understand
• What you are looking for when you ask questions. (sometimes)
• How to learn to dissect a novel
• Some of the words you use (LOL!) I can look them up though
• Still how to deal with final exam questions breakdown

What I Don’t Understand
• Different kinds of irony like: Roman irony, dramatic irony…
• Although I attend to the lectures, I find it difficult to study the lecture notes on the web site and to follow it up.
What I Don’t Understand
• Why has Douglas Coupland forsaken us? Do we have to deny him three times or something?

What I Don’t Understand
• Your notes
• Some of your tangents however, some help me understand the text better
• Why some authors have such dissatisfying conclusions

What I Don’t Understand
• Ironic gap
• Difference between “dialogic” and “didactic”

What I Don’t Understand
• Bildungsroman
• English pastoral
• Literary distance
• London and Purnar
Immaturity vs maturity

What I Don’t Understand
• Dialogic novel
• All of the inversions?

What I Don’t Understand
• Why Life After God is a significant read?
• Is there a finite list of literary types/methods?

What I Don’t Understand
• Significance of lies
•The role of music in BAG

…………………………………………………………………………………………

What I Don’t Understand
• How one can argue against something by making it look good
• How you can draw such plausible connections between concepts that before being lectured on seem completely unrelated.

What I Don’t Understand
• Why the ending seemed to be the way it was in Life After God, almost seemed out of place
• Why the Book Against God wasn’t a more harsh polemic, title is very misleading
• Why Sam Harris looks like Ben Stiller

What I Don’t Understand
• If Sam Harris’ definition of Atheist is valid, then the proof of God falls on the believer, not the atheist. Book Against God puts everything in the contexts of belief so that Thomas is less concerned with proving that God doesn’t exist that proving that we shouldn’t humour God.
What I Don’t Understand
• Some of these books (i.e. Amber Spyglass) don’t seem to be ‘anti-God’ but rather anti-institutionalised Religion, and there is a certain amount of Spirituality. Is this valid or are we to argue that it is completely polemical in a formal setting like an exam.

What I Don’t Understand
• Why the only alternative to X-ianity is Atheism
• Is the ultimate irony in BAG that Tom is more credible than the church?
• Anne Rice as literary excellence?

What I Don’t Understand
• Even though I know the direct meaning of English Pastoral, I don’t know how to identify them.
• Irony

What I Don’t Understand
• Chesterton’s Orthodoxy
• Doctrines

What I Don’t Understand
• Literary distance (Book Against God)
• Plato’s cave

What I Don’t Understand
• Not quite clear on Greene’s ultimate message in Brighton Rock. Heaven must exist if there I hell?

What I Don’t Understand
• The significance of the end of Brighton Rock where Rose and the priest talk and
Rose’s thoughts in the end
• What duality has to do with God in Life After God

What I Don’t Understand
• Why Brighton Rock is pro-God
• Why the dialectic of setting in BAG is important

What I Don’t Understand
• Brighton Rock seems to outweigh its supposedly pro-God stance by all the negative events that transpire. I know that the idea is because there is evil there is God but it seems to be such a round about way. How is it Pro-God and not neutral or Anti-God?

What I Don’t Understand
• The difference between sarcastic and irony
• What’s the final exam is going to be like (lots of short answer questions and three essay questions?)
• Is there a similarity between Coupland & Wood’s work (both unstable)

What I Don’t Understand
• The different genre of each novel
• The difference between sarcasm and irony: sarcastic is the basic form of irony?

What I Don’t Understand
• The relationship of Max to concepts of the BAG
• Sarah’s position (mediator?)
• Wood’s an atheist?

What I Don’t Understand
• The concept of Brighton Rock being pro-God is vague to me

What I Don’t Understand
• Dogma
• Heteroglossia?

What I Don’t Understand
• Literary distance

More on Coupland: YouTube-ing

2007-07-16T13:57:00.000-07:00

More helpful material sent along From J.L.:

Here is a link to a pretty old BBC interview with Douglas Coupland. I was very interested to see this, and I suspect many of my classfellows would be as well. In particular, I am fascinated by the way in which Coupland expresses contradiction without irony. He seems very authentic, and yet has no qualms about expressing very contradictory views without making any effort to reconcile them. The interview is in three parts, the link I supplied being to the first, and the other two being accessible from the same page. There is probably an interview somewhere on youtube that deals directly with Life After God. I like the BBC one.

More Relevant Pop Lyrics

2007-07-16T13:53:00.000-07:00

From classfellow J.L.:

I must first make it clear that I don't find the discussion of song lyrics nearly as interesting as the books themselves, but as long as we're doing lyrics, we'd be remiss to ignore Bad Religion. Couple that with the in-class dialectical comment about the state of my own nation today, and we get an obvious choice of lyrics for the general consideration*:

Bad Religion-American Jesus

I don't need to be a global citizen,
'Cause I'm blessed by nationality,
I'm a member of a growing populace,
We enforced our popularity
There are things that seem to pull us under and
There are things that drag us down,
But there's a power and a vital presence
That's lurking all around

We've got the American Jesus
See him on the interstate,
We've got the American Jesus
He helped build the president's estate

I feel sorry for the earth's population
'Cause so few live in the U.S.A,
At least the foreigners can copy our morality,
They can visit but they cannot stay,
Only precious few can garner our prosperity,
It makes us walk with renewed confidence,
We've got a place to go when we die
And the architect resides right here

We've got the American Jesus
Bolstering their ship of faith
We've got the American Jesus
Overwhelming millions every day

He's the farmer barren fields, (In God)
The force the army wields,
(We trust)
The expression in the faces of the starving millions, (Because
he's one of us)
The power of the man. (Break down)
He's the fuel that drives the Klan, (Cave in)
He's the motive and the conscience of the
murderer (He can redeem your sins)
He's the preacher on TV, (Strong heart)
The false sincerity, (Clear mind)
The form letter that's written
by the big computer, (And indefinitely kind)
He's the nuclear bombs, (You lose)
And the kids with no moms (We win)
And I'm fearful that he's inside me (He is our champion)

We've got the American Jesus
See him on the interstate
We've got the American Jesus
Exercising his authority
We've got the American Jesus
Bolstering their ship of faith
We've got the American Jesus
Overwhelming millions every day

One nation under God(x10)

*This is the most complete/correct version I could find online. If any part of these is incorrect I trust loyal fans with access to the actual liner notes will supply corrections.

-J.L.

Vibrant Debates on our Course Theme

2007-07-16T13:27:00.000-07:00

As serendipity has it, there is apparently a climate of dialect in the wider culture on our course theme, as a number of exceptionally potent debates are appearing in print and online fora.

One of them -- the most biting -- features the illustrious Canadian, Steven Pinker, (whom I have met) and Leon Kass, a medical doctor and biochemist who is, I believe, a non-secular Jew, on the topic of Science -vs- Scientism. Two others feature Richard Dawkins and are especially interesting for each coming counter to Dawkins from the side of science and unbelief, i.e. intra-atheist dialectic contra-Dawkins, to a degree.

Roman Irony

2007-07-16T10:38:00.000-07:00

The example of Roman, or Rhetorical, Irony -- common in parliamentary discourse -- to which I referred in lecture can be seen at this LiveLeak link.

More Musical

2007-07-14T14:06:00.000-07:00

Classfellow M.E-P. sends along a recommendation for a Swedish singer-songwriter, Eva Dahlgren, whose lyrics echo several of our course themes. Ms. E-P. has translated and transcribed some salient lyrics, below. This YouTube clip is also worthwhile viewing.

Give me a place in this World
By Eva Dahlgren, 1984

I don’t care about eternity
But give me a place
Here in reality
Another life
In another time
No peace can come from that now

I live by the playfulness
And by sincerity so deep and heated
I dream about fairytale worlds
About the other world
About up and down
That right becomes wrong

Give me a place in this world
Not necessarily in the sunshine
But my own window towards the street
That I can open and close
As I please
That is the only thing I need
That is the only thing
That my heart demands
That I can find somewhere
Where I can choose between
Peace and quiet

I live for honesty
And for all my secrets
For what is a lie
Against a crushed dream
Nothing that bothers us now

I want to love from overheating
Not like some welfare institution
I want to give life
From my own life
For my own sake

Ref: Give me a place in this world………..

Young and Proud
Eva Dahlgren, 1987

Iuvenis et magificu
Miles sum
Fidem mihi habens
Vitam persequor

I am the ground
Underneath your shoes
I am the dust
And dirt
Fields in the spring
I am the insurrection
Where freedom lives
I am the Oxygen
That you breath
I am the light
You dream
Everything lives
In me

Young and proud
I am a warrior
With faith in me
Life goes on

The inheritance from
Another time
In my veins
Flows the sin
But I won’t take
My life
As a punishment
As a tunnel
To eternity
What is it
Without you

Ref: Young and proud…

Never a confession
Until the look
Is murky
And the thought
Has stiffened
If I lie myself down
To die
And take revenge on life
The only thing
You have given me
Don’t blame me
You are a part
Of me.

Live so
Eva Dahlgren, 1991-1992

Looking for the words
To touch a heart
But black lines
On white papers become so black

Lovers in the inks
Greyness
Fall soundlessly
To quiver
The heart requires
Lips closeness

Looking for the language
In order to wander your woods
Your nights
Shall bear fruit from my days

Consolation like
The words shall be breathed
In your thoughts
But in order to live
The thoughts require
Your dreams

Like the stars in the sky
For no ones sake
Stipple the night
Live like the wild wind
For the sake of the game
Over large waters

Like a flower looks for light
Like a poet looks
Live so
Live so
Like a field in summer attire
Like its beauty you are
Live so

Looking for the words
Which will remember my kisses
Just as warm
Just as smoothly they shall caress

Lovers in the night
Whispered
Slowly fading
Looking for the words
That forever
Will carry my truth

Who lights the stars
Eva Dahlgren, 1991

It was seconds of eternity
Three short breaths
My whole life turned
Who made the choice
Not me
I heard words
Coming from my lips
That has never rested in my mouth
Thoughts never thought
Like new walls in a room
As if we’ve always loved
Since my diary’s first page
But that I get to write your life
Only luck
Not a choice
Of all these meetings
And everything that should have happened
How rarely am I the reason
For my life turning

I have no faith in destiny
That thought gives no comfort

But who turns the winds
Who gets me to go
Where I have never gone
Who lights the stars
That only I can see
In your eyes
Who turns the winds
And brings me there
To where my thought
Has never reached

As many years as I have lived
With the person I wish to be
So many women that I have role played
But never done it well
Must dare to just be
With memory of the child
Who let life choose
And dared to say YES

Death
Eva Dahlgren, 1988

Let me be
Let me cry
Until the oceans have dried
Till my heart
Is a wringed out sponge
Let me scream
Let me dance
With the devils
And drink
Let it always
For ever
Be night

They took you
Took you
Why not me

The anger in the body
Has copulated with
The Sorrow
And the kids they give birth to
Have me held hostage
They offer me to eat
Out of repulsive little hands
And I swallow
Guilt

Ref; They took you…

Always when the sun
Shines shadows over life
I know
That I must
To my end
I laugh at the Gods
In heaven
Those who know everything
Poor devils
But they don’t bother me
Now

Ref; They took you…

The moon makes a street in the ocean
Separating black from black
I have to
Have to go
Because over there beyond the night
There my heart is on fire
And that I’m going to pour
Water on

Ref; They took you…

"Book Against God" Appraisals

2007-07-11T13:39:00.000-07:00

This webpage has an array of links to informative reviews of The Book Against God, along with the following blurb:

In The Book Against God, Tom Bunting is the son of a vicar and loving parents, but his life is one long adolescent rebellion against his father and his father's God. Tom is self-centered, lazy, and a compulsive liar, and has spent years avoiding finishing his PhD dissertation. His wife, Jane, has recently left him until he can get his act together and his father has died. Tom spends what little time he does any work writing his "Book Against God,", with which he hopes to prove that God doesn't exist. Yet as his friend points out, how can he be against something that doesn't exist. James Wood is a renowned literary critic and The Book Against God is his first novel. The book has received mixed reviews, although one must wonder how much of that is from other writers enjoying the chance to skewer a critic. The Los Angeles Times calls it "witty, serious and intelligent."

Alternative Media on Science vs. Religion

2007-06-30T15:05:00.000-07:00

I found this to quite intriguing. The alternative Vancouver media sheet The Republic of East Vancouver, a pleasingly eclectic and broadminded anarcho-socialist paper, has a pair of articles in the current edition relevant to our purposes. It represents the possibility of a synthesis - which will either aggravate or stimulate....
Update: responsing to an e-mail from a classfellow; what I am most intrigued by is the organ in which this line of argument occurs. As I mentioned to that person, I can't yet get my head around the significance of this fact.

Contributor Matt Hogan writes on "The false dichotomy of Science vs. Religion."

One of the big questions of the day is whether capital “S” Science will win out against capital “R” Religion. To my mind this is a false debate: no self-respecting scientist would take religion on as a suitable opponent, and no religious person should posit their spiritual conception as factually accurate. Nevertheless they both do, and this immature conflict seems to be one that we can’t get beyond. In a more mature society, the opposition between Science and Religion, or Science and Art for that matter, would simply disappear.

Next, writer Michael Nenonen argues that "Muslims have good reason to fight secularism."

Like many people, I once thought that secularization was always a good thing, and that as Middle Eastern countries secularized they would become more democratic. The longer I study the history of the Middle East, however, the less convinced I am.
I’ve come to suspect that the Muslims of the Middle East have compelling reasons for opposing secularism....

"Skeptical Inquirer" edition

2007-06-30T15:00:00.000-07:00

The latest edition of the journal Skeptical Inquirer is entitled "Science, God and (Non)Belief. The articles, uniformly atheist, are online at this link.

The enticement on Arts & Letters Daily -- itself a pro-secular organ -- reads as follows:

What is prayer, and how can it work? This is not just a question of religion, but of neurophysics – and logic...

The Noah's Ark Theme in "Life After God"

2007-06-30T14:52:00.000-07:00

Course TA Candace Knighton sent me a delightful and subtle pensée on the depths of Coupland's use of the Noah's Ark story, which she kindly permits me to share for wider benefit:

The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth…and the LORD was sorry that he had made man…so the Lord said “I will blot out… man and beast and the creeping things and birds of the air. Genesis 6: 5-7

And the LORD said in his heart “I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done. Genesis 8: 20.
Noah’s ark is a symbol of global destruction, but also a promise from God. On page five of Life After God, Douglas Coupland mentions and illustrates the ark (a truly post-modern moment). We see birds fly in the sky while the sun shines over the iconic boat from the Old Testament. It is a pleasingly cruise-like image, but under the still water (suggestive of Cathy’s secret world “just on the other side of the water”), are the bloated corpses of man and beast. According to the Bible, all humans are descendent from Noah’s family. We are all related to a man who closed up his boat and listened while his neighbour’s drowned. All humans have survivor-guilt, but are also the Christian God’s chosen and blessed.
***
We have been discussing fear of death and the possible symbolism of animals in Life After God. Coupland depicts humans sharing the earth with the animals which were given the chance to survive the Flood. According to Coupland, animals only live in the moment; “Dogs only have a present tense in their lives” (223). In “The Dead Speak” Coupland depicts everyday scenes impacted by nuclear devastation. Understanding of time, past, present and future, becomes meaningless and humans are forced into the present tense, like animals, to watch their own demise. Wisdom, or goodness, or evil becomes irrelevant.
***
Today’s apocalyptic vision is centered on global warming. I do not think it is just a coincidence that the movie Evan Almighty (a Noah’s ark remake) is in the theatres at this time. Many people have seen "An Inconvenient Truth" with its graphic depiction of inhabited land gradually being drowned by rising ocean water. Some others may remember the movie "Waterworld" (1995) in which all but the tip of Mount Everest is under the ocean due to climate change. Anxiety over death and chaos is usually depicted in art. After the Black Death, people danced the danse macabre and created paintings of animated skeletons inhabiting the earth. The comedy “Dr. Strangelove or How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb” dealt with human anxiety over global nuclear destruction. Evan Almighty allows people (Christianity’s descendents of Noah), to huddle together in the dark, to laugh at the ridiculousness of the upcoming Flood as well as their helplessness against it.

Environmental Religion

2007-06-30T14:40:00.000-07:00

Classfellow M.E-P. sends alone the following information about an upcoming event from the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, Protect our Sacred Waters, which she contextualises as follows:

It is both environmental and Religious!! And didn't you say that Generation Y's eschatology was global warming etc. Well in that case some of them might want to go and listen to this.

It does indeed make interesting support for my suggestion.

A Dialectical Response

2007-06-26T22:40:00.000-07:00

Classfellow A.N. makes the following audacious dialectic response to my lecture presentation of Life After God.
Update: by 'audacious' I mean that I like it very much, and would be glad of more!

I don't buy the notion of Life After God being an non- or anti-polemical. Is Douglas Coupland being deceptive? Dishonest? Cunning? Elitist? Probably.Let us take a look at page 273:
"I think there was a trade-off somewhere along the line. I think the price we paid for our golden life was an inability to fully believe in love; instead we gained an irony that scorched everything it touched. And I wonder if this irony is the price we paid for the loss of God. But then I must remind myself we are living creatures - we have religious impulses - we must - and yet into what cracks do these impulses flow in a world without religion?"
This is undeniably an intensely polemical statement regarding human nature. I find myself struggling to remove personal feeling from this argument, but I digress; I cannot help myself. I, as a staunch atheist along the lines of Harris and Dawkins, firmly believe in love. I do not believe that lack of religious conviction equals lack of compassion, but exactly the opposite; citing events such the Crusades of the 13th century, the Thirty Years War, religious conflicts in France in the 16th century and Ireland in the modern day, as well as the numerous acts of violence god commits against heretics and non-believers should be more than enough evidence to prove Christianity's obsession with violence. Furthermore, to assert that human beings are naturally religious is simply ridiculous. The fact that two paragraphs of fiction are inspiring me to angrily write polemic should be proof enough that Douglas Coupland is not only blatantly trying to be polemical in Life After God, but is clearly glorifying Christianity in a way that Graham Greene could never hope to achieve.

Lamenting the Death of a Charming Polemicist

2007-06-26T12:05:00.000-07:00

I have just learned that a most wonderful man, renown polemicist on the anti-God side, and jewel in the SFU faculty (Psychology) has died unexpectedly. Dr. Barry Beyerstein was a gentleman and a scholar, a vigourous, publically activist and unrelenting Skeptic, who remained persistently gentle, gracious, and cheery.

He and I had a public debate back when I was an undergraduate (not on any topic relevant to this course) and we had pleasant encounters periodically after that; including a guest lecture he gave, to my benefit, at a course of mine at Harbour Centre a couple of years back.

Links here, here and here. His like is rare and valuable. Resquiat in pacem, Dubitare.

More response to "Life After God"

2007-06-26T11:59:00.000-07:00

From classfellow J.L:

The idea that an act of human goodness was rewarded by god with the gift of animals directly contradicts the order and (according to my own textual interpretation) spirit of the story of Eden. The naming of the animals takes place before the fall- in fact before the creation of Eve. Coupland's vision of an act of goodness in this time frame makes a substantial change to the story, and the fact that such a huge idea is left as a conspicuous loose end makes me wonder if there's a deliberate literary function for it or if it's just a beautiful thought that made it into the book and just didn't tie neatly into other things. It's quite profound either way. Also, my brief reading on biblegateway.com reveals what may be another direct (though subtle) biblical parallel (and not necessarily a deliberate allusion): 15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." Genesis 2:1 15-17 This is the first time that death is mentioned anywhere in the old testament. There's an odd starkness to this explanation; Adam has no knowledge or experience that could inform him of the nature of death, and God talks about it as if he (Adam) should know. The way that Coupland talks about understanding death- when he compares it with recycling for instance-strikes me as being expressive of what me may infer Adam's understanding of death to be. In scripture we need to see someone die- Abel, at the hands of Cain,before we can grasp the concept in this literary form. Coupland seems to have expanded this dynamic. We are first treated to various views of the Flash, always quite removed from it. We know intellectually what it connotes but it is divorced from the visceral response that comes from confronting death. And then in The Dead Speak we witness death first hand and it becomes real.

Group Project Review

2007-06-25T18:30:00.000-07:00

A reminder that the next tutorial -- Monday July 9th -- is the peer review of the Group Project.

Click on the hotlink here for the criteria. The topic has been left open for your group to decide among yourselves: if you should be uncertain I recommend that you advocate for some aspect of the books which invigourates you by your strong agreement, disagreement, love or hate.

You can chose a literary aspect of the texts -- the characterisations, or the plot, or the settings, or the ideas, or even your judgement of their literary worth-- or, you can start with an idea of your own -- denial or affirmation of God, for instance -- and use two texts to support or elaborate your idea.

Then let the dialectic commence. As always, if you have any questions, simply leave a comment on the blog.

On Coupland & Destabilisation

2007-06-23T13:07:00.000-07:00

K.N. sent the following question by e-mail, which matched an conversation I had in Office Hours with another classfellow, which challenges the lecture expectation of a destabilising effect of reading Life After God.

Do you think that Coupland assumes that the majority of his readers ARE stabilized to begin with? It seems to me that his destabilizing style is actually comforting to the destabilized generation(s) that form his intended audience. The intensely questioning nature of his writing is very familiar to those who have grown up in an increasingly confused world, where a generation gap occurs every 5 years and we are constantly flooded with information that changes our ability to place ourselves in a constant narrative.

This is certainly a provocative point: Coupland's generation "X" (my own generation) is more stable than your generation, "Y," and so what looks like a destabilising book to Gen. X will simply be life to Gen. Y.

For lecture purposes, however, I will cut the Gordian Knot, and say that the uncertainty and instability is the characteristic of Life after God and will ask you to identify and understand the specific literary aspects of that characteristic: the status of the narrator, for example, the presence of existential Fear, etc.

This Weekend's Examples of our Course Dialectic

2007-06-17T23:28:00.000-07:00

This weekend's examples that I found of the course dialectic on the God question are from Scientific American and Foreign Policy, via, of course, our friends at Arts & Letters Daily.

Two prominent defenders of science exchange their views on how scientists ought to approach religion and its followers....the authors explained their respective tactics for engaging the enemy and tackled some of the questions that face all scientists when deciding whether and how to talk to the faithful about science: Is the goal to teach science or to discredit religion? Can the two worldviews ever enrich one another? Is religion inherently bad?
Jürgen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, “Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter.”

Coupland-esque Lyric

2007-06-13T12:07:00.000-07:00

From classfellow K.N.

These are the lyrics to a song by The Weakerthans that I think has total relevance to Coupland's message in Life After God....

"Sounds Familiar"

We emerged from youth all wide-eyed like the rest.
Shedding skin faster than skin can grow, and armed with hammers,
feathers, blunt knives:
words, to meet and to define and to...
but you must know the same games that we played in dirt,
in dusty school yards has found a higher pitch and broader scale than we
feared possible,
and someone must be picked last,
and one must bruise and one must fail.
And that still twitching bird was so deceived by a window,
so we eulogized fondly,
we dug deep and threw its elegant plumage and frantic black eyes in a hole,
and rushed out to kill something new,
so we could bury that too.
The first chapters of lives almost made us give up altogether.
Pushed towards tired forms of self immolation that seemed so original.
I must, we must never stop watching the sky with our hands in our pockets,
stop peering in windows when we know doors are shut.
Stop yelling small stories and bad jokes and sorrows,
and my voice will scratch to yell many more,
but before I spill the things I mean to hide away,
or gouge my eyes with platitudes of sentiment,
I'll drown the urge for permanence and certainty;
crouch down and scrawl my name with yours in wet cement.

Sample Individual Writing Presentation

2007-06-12T18:00:00.000-07:00

I post the following revised version of the Individual Writing Presentation, with the author's permission, chosen as a representative sample which captures the spirit of the assignment, and has itself the absolutist and bellicose tone which exemplifies the polemical mode being treated of.

I will restrain myself from responding to the substance of the poelmic itself, but you are encouraged to do so, using the comments section here. You might look first at the comments to this post for the most immediate direction from which counter-polemic would come.

It is argued by aesthetic philosophers that polemic messages should not be incorporated into art. In this essay I will make two cases. My first task will be to dispose of the claim that polemic and literary art (in this case the novel) are in some way incompatible. I will then argue that not only is polemic perfectly compatible with all forms of art, literary or otherwise, but vital to them as well. In order to make the first case, I am forced first to deal with the idea that the purpose of art is to “create beauty” or to “delight”.
Art is often defined implicitly or explicitly as bearing a direct connection to beauty. This assertion is demonstrably false. Much of ancient art is clearly not intended merely to be pleasing to the eye, but to express and perhaps make sense of difficult aspects of life (the skull motif present in much indigenous art, for instance). More recently, the works of Marcel Duchamp (including Fountain, which consists only of an ordinary urinal) are some of the most well known in examples of art that is specifically intended to subvert ideas of beauty.
The argument that art is in any way defined by beauty, therefore, is reduced to making one of two fallacious arguments. The first is to redefine beauty to include any feeling that art produces in anyone. Obviously if this definition is accepted, then the argument is reduced to a trivial truth, and the word beauty robbed of its meaning. The other is to assert that anything not deemed beautiful (generally by the person making the case) is not art. If we accept this arbitrary premise, then there can be no dialogue about the subject at all.
Having established that art can have any number of intents behind it, and that the intentions of the artist are not always correlated to the way in which the work is received, it is now appropriate to direct our inquiry to the specific instance of polemic, as it is only now that the question becomes truly relevant. Because having set realistically broad parameters for what art intends to do, we open the particular technique of polemic for even more nuanced criticism. For now the question is not whether polemic is compatible with beauty (and we will see that it is) but whether or not polemic is compatible with artistic expression of any kind, and with any intent.
Given that the question is whether polemic and novels should ever mix, polemic need only be proven to be compatible with a single set of artistic goals in order to answer this rather ambiguous question of ought. And here the evidence is overwhelming: not only can polemic be successfully harmonized with art, it has been throughout history. And not only is polemic compatible with some artistic goals, but it is demonstrably so even with the narrowly defined goal of beauty. The Sistine Chapel, Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, and (most relevant to our concern) the works of Orwell, Salinger, and Twain all contain powerful and often explicit polemical statements.
It is not, however, enough to simply state that polemic needn’t hinder a novel. A case can, and should, be made with greater force in defense of polemic as a vital and valuable technique in its own right. For if polemic and novel were never to be combined, some of the greatest works of literature would never have been. There would be no 1984, no Paradise Lost, no Candide.
In modern society, forceful rhetoric and the art of stating one’s views with the intent to convince has become stigmatized through association with politicians and lawyers. Anyone who adopts a polemical approach to self-expression in most public forums risks censure on the grounds of not being open-minded or fair. Given that polemic in its raw form is so frowned upon, and that beauty remains highly respected, the ironic truth of the matter may well be that the novel is in fact the best place for contemporary polemical speech.

Punk Conference

2007-06-12T17:43:00.000-07:00

Those who have the type of musical interest indicated in the comments threads here, note that the English Department is running an International Conference on Punk in Spring 2008, with courses in Punk-Lit in support.

Comment here for more information.

Business & English Courses

2007-06-12T17:08:00.000-07:00

Here is the link to the biennial report from the 2006 biennial "Skills & Attributes Survey Report" from the BC Council of Business titled "What are BC Employers Looking For?"

As shown in lecture, of the top ten skills sought by businesses in all employment sectors, only one -- the lowest ranked-- is a technical skill. Writing, reading, analysis, teamwork and other abilities taught and developed in the Arts faculties are ranked far higher.

Read the document and keep it to mind for guiding your course selection & study focus through your undergraduate years.

An On-going Dialectic on our Course Subject

2007-06-11T02:36:00.000-07:00

The indispensible Arts & Letters Daily has been sustaining an informal dialectic in its "Essays & Opinion" column (main page, right-hand side) for the past few days on out course topic.

Supernatural ideas have never helped human beings to understand the natural world. Alchemy, faith healing, astrology, creationism: none has advanced our grasp of nature one iota... more»
Many agree that the decline of religion may be a cause of the decline of the family. But what if it’s the other way around? Mary Eberstadt speculates... more»
Christian Wiman was raised with “the poisonous notion that you had to renounce love of the earth in order to receive the love of God.” Since he’s had his diagnosis... more»
Shouldn’t every educated person be instructed in the great religious and secular traditions, as well as their greatest books? Atheism is not enough... more»

The article from left-wing journal The Nation indentifies the polemical character of the anti-God warriors -- "The New Atheists" -- this way:

....each man is at war, writing as if no others had preceded him, and with a passion that can only be described as political.

Course Dialectic: Sibling Polemicists

2007-06-03T19:59:00.000-07:00

Update: Here is an 'Anatomy of the Sibling Row.'

Well, well: here's the dual ling sibling polemicist version of our course dialectic. Perhaps the most uncompromising polemicists of the present day are the Hitchens brothers - Christopher & Peter. To get a sense of their extremity, Christopher is literally the Devil's Advocate: appointed advocatus diaboli by the Vatican to oppose the canonisation of Mother Theresa, whom Hitchens charges with Crimes against Humanity. Peter on the other side ... well, let's just say that Peter is on the opposite side.

Christopher Hitchens' current book is one of the currently-popular atheist polemics: God is Not great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Extracts can be found online here. Brother Peter has now responded in an article, online here.

Mid-Term Essay Topics

2007-05-30T14:36:00.000-07:00

Please choose one of the following topics for your Mid-Term assignment. I have used your own very helpful suggestions from the May 30th lecture.

Does either one of Philip Pullman or Graham Greene more effectively integrate his polemical position into his literary art? Construct your case (there are three possible) using direct quotation from the two novels.
Using textual quotation and your own evaluative judgement, place The Amber Spyglass and Brighton Rock into a dialectical exchange about the subject of God, where either novel artistically represents a dialectical position to which the other is a direct literary response.
Explain some of the ways in which Pinkie's "dividers" in Brighton Rock and Will's "subtle knife" in The Amber Spyglass function as literary devices within their respective texts. Your conclusion can be used to give your estimation of their relative artistic effectiveness.
The lecturer has presented Graham Greene as one of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century, according to the aggregate critical consensus and textual evidence. Compare the form and style of Amber Spyglass to that of Brighton Rock and argue for or against the claim that Philip Pullman is an equally great novelist in this the twenty-first century. If you so wish, your comparative evaluation may be framed around the different genres (children's literature versus adult fiction) to which the two novels belong.

Classfellow Dialectic

2007-05-28T13:46:00.000-07:00

Classfellow J.L. sends along this dialectical engagement with a point from lecture which I encourage you to read and leave comment in response. Helpful particularly is the definitional distinction offered in regards to polemic and art of "content" versus "execution."

"On Writing Well"

2007-05-26T00:48:00.000-07:00

From the Nota Bene section of the indispensable Arts & Letters Daily today is a useful article which encourages plain English by offering "some thoughts on writing well."

At my local recycling center, the first bin is labeled “commingled containers.” Whoever dreamed up this term could have taken the easy way out and just written “cans and bottles.” But no, the author opted for words out of the bureaucrat’s style book, and chose the raised-pinky elegance of a phrase distant from normal English. He also added poor spelling (“comingled,” also a correct spelling, would have been clearer) and pointless redundancy (the concept of “co” is already embedded in the word “mingled”). How did they pack so many errors into two words of modern environmental prose?

Discussion Questions

2007-05-23T11:23:00.000-07:00

In our course, it will likely be very difficult for those with strong beliefs on either side of the dialectic to avoid intense feelings, even emotional reaction. Such is the nature of the God question.

Use this post -- accesible from a link in Pertinent & Impertinent -- as an outlet for these emotions by leaving responses or queries arising from lecture. Add them in the comments section, & I will keep a running subject heading here in the post body.

Study Questions for Wednesday's Lecture

2007-05-21T14:22:00.000-07:00

In this Wednesday's lecture, you will have opportunity to discuss a couple of questions that will help make sure of a clear understanding of main issues around The Amber Spyglass.

How was the film clip shown in last Wednesday's lecture relevant to the course?
What is the importance of the attention being drawn in lecture to the 'loadstone resonance' between Philip Pullman's Amber Spyglass and Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation?
What is your judgment of Phillip Pullman, specifically in terms of literary artistry?

Our Course Dialectic: Public Examples

2007-05-21T14:13:00.001-07:00

I've been looking for current instances of the course dialectic between pro-God and anti-God advocates in a polemical form. Here are two that I have found, one in Canada, one in America. (To be scrupulous, for those who are agitated politically, one polemic appears in a centre-right organ, the other a centre-left.)
Remember that our course dialectic is an artistic one: observing the polemics helps us to see the concepts underlying the art.

Please leave a comment if you find any further cases.
Update: how's this for an example from today's DrudgeReport:

FLASH: BOOK SALES: POPE BENEDICT XVI 'JESUS OF NAZARETH' SCANS 14,555 FOR WEEK, REBUKES CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS 'GOD IS NOT GREAT' [13,931] ...

Awaiting the response over on HuffingtonPost ....

Victoria's Day

2007-05-17T16:15:00.000-07:00

We're about to enjoy a holiday in honour of Queen Victoria. Tallying up her vestigial influence on Canada is an inexhaustible pastime -- Victoria, Alberta, Prince Albert, New Westminster, Regina were all named in her honour, for a start.

I came across this oblique & tendentious article in the Telegraph on the predominance of women at the political head of England following on from Victoria's eminent sixty-four year regnancy:

Have you noticed that modern Britain is the most matriarchal society in the history of the world? The four most famous figures in the public service since the war have been women - the Queen Mother, the Queen, Diana, Princess of Wales and Margaret Thatcher.

Lecture Three: Online Notes

2007-05-15T23:24:00.000-07:00

The PowerPoint presentation of the third lecture is online here.

I'm giving the request to put all lecture notes online ..... consideration. (I.e. the only argument in favour seems to be "makes students' lives easier." I'm waiting for a convincing "Makes students' intellectual growth better" type of argument....)

Student Comment

2007-05-15T16:09:00.001-07:00

I received the following engaging email from a classfellow K.N. with permission to blog it. If you have a perspective on the course novels, or in response to lecture, please e-mail it along.

This is something that you probably don't hear much but I have to accuse you of UNDER analysing.
I think some time in lecture devoted to outlining exactly what the concept of God portrayed in Pullman's novel is would be extremely beneficial to understanding the argument of the novel. I thought that the concept of Will and Lyra being on a mission to destroy 'God' was over-simplified. Will and Lyra are definatly on the warpath against the Church because of the Church's actions, but they are less anti-God than pro-conciousness. I felt that what Amber Spyglass stands against isn't the idea of God, but rather the idea of organized religion and buerocratic stifling of what is Good (in the asthetic sense) and natural. This is where a definition of God would come in handy... Amber Spyglass is against Yaweh, against a controlling, punishing and anthropomorphic view of God that is represented in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This is the God that people have acted in the name of throughout history in order to justify the horrific acts mentioned in lecture as well as Pullman's representation of these acts in the separation of children from their daemons (representative of soul and free will). The antagonist in Pullman's novel isn't really God at all, but Megatron. He, like the church, takes advantage of belief and dehumanizes people. The actual death of God at the end of the novel is not a heroic feat, but an accident. This Yaweh figure has become old and frail and useless, so that the slightest puff of wind can blow him away. If the Catholic Church, for instance, knew for a fact that God was dead would they tell anyone? I think not.
Pullman's amazing concept of Dust actually symbolises the true meaning of Religion (from the Latin, re ligio - to reconnect). A theory popular to eastern mysticism and users of psychedelics has us believe that we are all connected through the concious
force of the universe. Pullman takes this a step further and makes Dust (or conciousness) a tangible substance. Humans have, in this 'fall', not fallen from connection with God but fallen from a connection with conciousness. A connection between humans and Dust (when Lyra reads the Alethiometre) creates truth which seems to be Pullman's ultimate goal. Truth stands in direct opposition with the Yaweh concept of God and organized religion.

Philip Pullman HomePage

2007-05-12T02:19:00.000-07:00

It can only be beneficial when a novelist on a course reading list has a website. Here is Mr. Pullman's .....

"The trouble with intending to say something regularly is that I haven't always got something to say. How in the world do newspaper columnists find 600 words without fail every couple of days? And these people who fill cyberspace with their blogs day after day after day? Or preachers coming up with a sermon every week? It's not like writing a novel. I know how to keep going at that. But most of the time I'd rather read than write, and rather listen than talk."

He should definitely steer away from university lecturing, then!

Synopses of First Two Books in Pullman's trilogy

2007-05-07T23:02:00.000-07:00

TA Candace Knighton sends along the links below to excellent synopses of the first two volumes of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy: a help to launch you into our, third, volume.

The Amber Spyglass does work well as a stand-alone novel: we join it, as we often do in novels, in medias res ....

Writing Criteria

2007-05-06T14:43:00.000-07:00

The explicit writing criteria for the course are detailed in The Little, Brown Handbook, ranking Canada alongside England with its Oxford English Dictionary, Fowler's Modern English Usage, and Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases.

The Little, Brown Handbook is set on Course Reserve and is available at the SFU Bookstore, on the tradebooks floor. It is an indispensable work for anyone who will ever write non-fictionally.

Part I of the Handbook gives the specific criteria used in grading writing in 105W. They can be summarised under the following simple headings.

Precise fidelity to the Rules of Grammar.
Correct spelling.
Use of Plain English.
Opening paragraph is a statement of thesis.
Subsequent paragraphs develop the thesis logically (ideally, by dialectic.)
Concise paragraph structure, including:

three to five sentences;
one clearly-identifiable topic sentence;
two or three sentences that develop the topic;
one transitional sentence to conclude.

What is a Writing-Intensive Course?

2007-05-05T13:37:00.000-07:00

What is a Writing-Intensive course?

Definition:

A W course is one that fulfills the following conditions:

Students have opportunities to use writing as a way of learning the content of the course and are taught to write in the forms and for the purposes that are typical of the disciplines and/or professions, in ways that are clearly distinguished from remedial and foundational skills courses.
Examples of writing within the disciplines are used as a means of instruction about typical structures, modes of reasoning, styles of address, and the use of technical language and of evidence.
Students receive appropriate feedback and response to their writing that is based on explicit criteria and is directed at improving the quality of their writing.
Revision is built into the process of writing for formal assignments, usually in terms of revisions of the same paper, or alternatively, in revisions accomplished through successive similar assignments.
At least half the course grade is based on written work for which students receive feedback (see Criterion 3).

Individual Writing Presentations

2007-05-05T00:22:00.000-07:00

This tutorial assignment, worth fifteen percent of the Course grade, is an opportunity for peer-editing.

Twelve-week writing circuit:

Course week two, Monday May 14th: write in tutorial a one-page response to the question "Should novels, works of literary art, be used as weapons in partisan battles about God?" and present to Tutorial leader for five-percent credit.
Course week four, Monday May 28th: in tutorial, groups of four or less read each others' one-page response papers and provide peer evaluation to be used for a first revision.
Course week seven, Monday June 18th: in tutorial, groups of four or less read each others' first revision of the one-page response papers and provide peer evaluation to be used for a final revision. First revision presented to Tutorial leader for grading.
Course week eight, Monday June 25th: first revision returned graded.
Course week eleven, Monday July 16th: in tutorial, groups of four or less read each others' final revision of the one-page response papers and provide peer evaluation. Final revision and peer evaluations presented to Tutorial leader.
Course week thirteen, Monday July 30th: final revision returned graded.

Nb. The draught, completed, receives five percent; the first revision is worth five percent; and the final revision is worth five percent, for an Assignment total of fifteen percent of the course grade.

Course Outline

2007-03-17T15:47:00.000-07:00

Writing Intensive

ENGLISH 105W
INTRODUCTION TO ISSUES IN LITERATURE AND CULTURE
Instructor: S. OGDEN ogden@sfu.ca
SUMMER 2007

The God Fiction
Blog address: http://thegodfiction.blogspot.com

So, we live in a consumerist secular mass-culture among a wired generation of irony and self-fulfilment. On Sunday churches are empty and malls are full, and TV evangelists share Paris Hilton’s sexual ethics .... and her YouTube bandwidth. Why the Hell then is our culture still passionate about a God Who isn’t there? In this course we consider this paradox by reading fiction by five authors who have especially strong engagements with the Christian God: two powerfully against, two powerfully for, and one …. well, one pleasingly uncertain.

This course will improve understanding not only of the arguments, feelings and cultural consequence of both believers and atheists, but also of ways in which novels that engage the God problem become themselves a contributing influence on the meaning which culture gives to religion. The course texts are chosen for the immediate force of the literary treatment of their respective themes. Lecture will present the material fairly and in its full vigour, without respect for personal pieties: this is, as Monty Python saith, the right room for an argument.

PREREQUISITES: None

REQUIRED TEXTS:
Pullman, Philip The Amber Spyglass
Greene, Graham Brighton Rock
Coupland, Douglas Life After God
Wood, James The Book Against God: a Novel
Rice, Anne Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

RECOMMENDED TEXTS:
Chesterton, G. K. Othodoxy
Harris, Sam Letter to a Christian Nation

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
10% Participation
15% Three individual writing presentations
20% Group Polemic Project
20% Mid-term paper (1500 words with revision)
35% Final examination

Welcome

2007-02-08T15:21:00.001-08:00

I must be mad ....