Brick Lane

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

For Monday

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

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

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

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.

1. The first time you click the hyperlink on the "Assigned Essays" post, you are taken to the Prject Gutenberg page for the e-text.
2. Under "Formats Available for Download," find the column labeled "Format."
3. Find the first row labeled "HTML."
4. Click the "main site" hotlink on that row under the "Download Links" column.
5. Now, close the bowser window completely.
6. Open a new browser window and navigate again to the "Assigned Essays" post.
7. 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.