3/10/2005

We began the day with a discussion of our epic poems to each other. Dr. Sexson cited Judges chapter 5:24 as a good example of what we should do:

5:24 Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Herber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women in the tent.

This shows praise and repitition; two things to be included in our odes.

Remember way back to the question of the 7 Liberal Arts? Dr. Sexson now remembers to enlighten us as to their meaning. Stephanie has done some research and has found that the mnemonic GGRAMAD (stuttering, mad grandmother) works to help us remember:
Grammar
Geometry
Rhetoric
Aritmatic
Music
Astronomy
Dialectic

Reading aloud gives voive to the word and is more authentic than reading to oneself.

ONG
pg 80-81: Writing is a technology; it is not natural. Speech, on the other hand, is natural.
pg 82: Although technology of every kind is artificial, it has become commonplace in our society and we have interiorized it. Technologies no longer degrade our lives; rather, they enhance them.
pg 89: There are many scripts but only one alphabet. Scripts (pictoral representations, hieroglyphs) alphabet (mimics sound, is phonetic). The alphabet is the great democratizer allowing information to be accessed by all people. Despite this, the alphabet can also be seen as tyrannizing in that only 26 individual letters contain and the information in all our books.
pg 92: With references to the word "glamor" Ong argues that writing is secret and mysterious in comparison to orality.

We need to get back some of that magic of the written word. When was the last time you were amazed that you could read? It's been a long time for me.

We all know the "ABC" song--> fascism :O)

3/8/2005

Today we began with a discussion of the ESSENTIAL elements that should be included in our epic odes of our classmates.

1) There must be a central subject. This subject will be a member of this class. Your "soulmate".
2) The following elements should be present in the composition of the poem: repetition, epithets (blue-eyed, fleet footed, wily) rhythm, invocation to the Muse, major achievement, hyperbole, metrics and meter.

Consider adding the following: hardships on the road to achievement, birth place, family.

Next we had a discussion of our impressions of Salman Rushdie's lecture and how it relates to our study of the Oral Tradition.
-he mentioned right off that the oral tradition is "alive and kicking in India"
-his presentation had a definite rhythm to it. He knew when to speed up and when to slow down for effect and in response to the audience.
-he discussed the tension between the oral tradition and the novel but we all think that in his novels he has done a great job of balancing the two.
-he discusses the novel as a vulgar form, it arises with the middle class. Novel accepts the language and speech of real people in real places and real situations.
-he believes that the stories are the important part. Religion boxes us in while stories free us up.
-"Cleanliness is next to fascism"...a little dirt and digression is wonderful.
-Rushdie's storyteller persona emerges greater than anything.
-he discussed the distance between fiction and reality.
-Root stories are the most important
-one cannot let anything get in the way of one's writing.
-he mentioned the power of the writer, the novelist, the artist and us. We all make a difference!

Rushdie rocks!

3/3/2005

Today is Day 2 of meorization recitations. Again, everyone did a wonderful job!

Following our feats of memory, we had a discussion about our methods. Most people chose to do the Memory Palace and those who did tried to make memorable associations in their minds between the books and the loci within their imagined space.

In many respects, those of us who have the titles memorized and are listing to the recitations are listening to and oral story that we have heard before and are remembering and comparing to what we know.

Because we have all done so well inour memorizations, our next assignment will be to compose and memorize an 'epic' poem about a classmate. Yay...this should be fun, right?

3/1/2005

It's March! Woohoo!

Today was our first day of Top 100 Memorizations in front of the class. Everyone did very well!

2/24/2005

Today we went over the exams in class. For those of you who were not able to attend class, Dr. Sexson is counting the essays as extra credit to compensate for the difficulty of the exam. I hope that all did well!

Following the exam, Sexson tempted us with the mnemonic device

G
R
A
M
M
A
D

which he uses to remember th 7 liberal arts. We have to ask him about the corresponding words next time.

We discussed some of our answers to the essays also. Whose ejournals did we discuss on our exams?
*Several people mentioned Brian's journal, specifically his use of visual pictures to help out his text and his discussion of Baudelino as a grey area between the usually black and white issues of orality and literacy.
*Someone also used Wayne's journal and pondered his question about freedom. Who is more free, a literate person or an oral person? Sexson mentions a Wordsworth quotation "Nuns fret not their convent's narrow rooms" to further illustrate that space is not necessarily an indicator of reedom.

Why is Ong wrong?
*He says voice is the most powerful form of communication. Image, sign language, and text are powerful, too.
*DIdn't like the argument that the literate mind has more advantages than the oral.
*We disagree that reading a book is a dead experience.

Someone should write a book/paper on this...Dante's Divine Comedy (#14) as a memory theater.