Tuesday, May 31, 2005
(9:52 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Tuesday Hatred 3
Snob that I am, I added Le Monde to my Bloglines feeds. Some days I'm not in the mood to read all my news in French, and some days I just give up if I come across a word I don't know and can't figure out from context -- after all, breaking out the dictionary for some online article seems like disproportionate effort -- but it's a nice way to give myself a little practice with French each day, as I work my way through the increasingly complicated and intimidating German tongue. The annoyance here is that they have the same bullshit news we do. In fact, I would say that if we were to put a feed of the New York Times "front page" side by side with Le Monde's, we would find that Le Monde has much better and more thorough coverage of the Michael Jackson trial, Paris Hilton's various romantic encounters, the competition between various video game systems, and what this whole "blogging" trend is all about. (I also put Libération on my feeds, but I rarely read the articles from it because it comes after Le Monde in alphabetical order and seems to largely duplicate the content.)I read Ted Jennings' book on Paul and Derrida in the copy-edited version -- a pile of 500 double-spaced pages, with all the original text that Ted had, then with some of it crossed off or with additions underlined. Detail-oriented freak that I am, I found it quite interesting, particularly in two points: first, when Ted had tried to avoid a split infinitive, they always changed it to create a split infinitive where none previously existed; second, when he tried to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition ("the passage with which we are working"), they always changed it to have the sentence end with a preposition ("the passage we are working with"). This is Stanford University Press, not some fly-by-night organization, so we must assume that the copy-editor was working with a set of defined standards -- and the thing I hate is that after so many years as a grammar and usage fundamentalist, during which I subjected hundreds of undergraduates to my preferences (or is it, "that I subjected hundreds of undergraduates to my preferences during"?), now I'm forced to admit that the standards Stanford is applying are absolutely right. Mentally, I usually mentally translate "correct" structures such as non-split infinitives and ostentatious avoidances of final prepositions into their "incorrect" form, which feels more natural and easier to understand. I will add that it is very annoying to read an entire book in printed-off, double-spaced form.
The Ante-Nicene Fathers volumes are simply impossible to read. They are large volumes, the same dimensions as an encyclopedia, with two columns and incredibly small print. I work at it for an hour and get through ten pages. For example, I have 100 pages left of Irenaeus. Normally I would think, "Oh good -- an afternoon of solid work, and I'll be ready to move on." In this case, however, I can only think, "Oh man -- three more weeks to go."
Now, thankfully, Irenaeus has become actually interesting -- I'm in book 4, the part where he's talking about the Eucharist, and the way he weaves together language of sacrifice and of giving all you have to the poor is really fascinating (the first use of the word "sacrifice" that I've been able to affirm in a long time!) -- but it is still a long road. I'm excited to write out my quasi-lecture notes on Justin and Irenaeus, though. And once I'm done, I'm sure that Clement of Alexandria will be every bit as awesome as everyone has always told me he would be. The pay-off, of course, is Origen, then a long dry spell to get to the Cappadocians. I told Ted that the PhD program should require a class on "Apostolic Fathers through Scotus" (assuming that the Reformers and beyond would take care of themselves in a Protestant seminary), and he said, "But you're the only one who would want to take it."
As an aside to the hatred, I have come up with a tentative list of classes:
Fall:
Contemporary Hermeneutical Approaches (PhD required course, approximate title)
Nietzsche and Kierkegaard (or vice versa)
Patristics (directed study)
either Frankfurt School or Agamben and Nancy (both directed study)
Spring:
20th Century Theology (PhD required course, suicidal reading load)
Paul among the Philosophers (Kotsko required course)
Introduction to Phenomenology with Marion at the Div School
Augustine, Niehbur, Malcolm X (tentatively)
The annoyance here, perhaps mentioned before, is that I had it mentally planned out that 20th Century would come along in the final semester of my coursework based on the normal cycle of when the required courses are offered, but they're changing some things and are offering it two years in a row while they figure out what to do with some other course that is apparently not working out like they had hoped. Since 20th Century Theology is a required exam area for everyone in the non-Bible part of the program and since the course is designed to prepare for that exam, it would also be good to have it at the end of my coursework for that reason alone, setting aside the huge workload (which, of course, no one is expected to "actually do" -- just try their best). I suppose that will be another semester where I'm living off loans.
I have to do 14 courses total, so I'll definitely be right on schedule to get done with the coursework in two years. Then a year for exams, and then I've promised myself that I'm not going to be one of those neurotic people who want the dissertation to be the most perfect and astounding work of scholarship ever produced in their field and who therefore take forfuckingever to get done. Two years tops, then if I'm not done, I'm walking away and becoming an insurance salesman, specializing in claims potentially involving "acts of God" (since I need to put my studies to work somehow).
The female cat (henceforth called Slutty Cat) is in heat again. Sociopath Cat doesn't like Slutty Cat much on a normal day, but when she's trying to hit on him, it's a day full of hissing and scratching. Stoner Cat is more than happy to oblige her, but he's neutered, so it doesn't really work. What we need is a nice virile cat whom we can trust to use a Kitty Kondom.
