Extraordinary Discourse 405


Gifts Of Gab



For You!



What we do, in English, and in the humanities more broadly, what we teach, what we celebrate and investigate, is human particularity. That is why we become obsessed with individual authors, why we savor specificities of phrasing, why we pounce upon and explore a single word. It’s why we value, above all, writers capable of telling many different stories, populated by many varieties of being, articulated in a kaleidoscope of styles. It’s why I, personally, have always been most fascinated by playwrights, from Aeschylus to August Wilson: Dialogue releases us from the monologues of one mind, clan, tradition.
Death of an English major
By Gary Taylor, Special to the Tampa Bay Times
November 9, 2018



















Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Extraordinary Discourse 531

Image
This’ll Dig Ya In The Intellectual Ribs       The real underlying currency of our world is not gold, nor bureaucratic fiat, nor even military might. The real underlying currency of our world is narrative, and the ability to control it. Everything always comes down to this one real currency. If you look at what all these think tanks, NGOs, media outlets and grant making networks that billionaires pour their money into actually do, it ultimately boils down to controlling the dominant stories that people tell about what’s going on in their world. Caitlin Johnstone  
Read more

Extraordinary Discourse 051

We Could Play Today! Deconstructing work, school, development-- and much more! We assumed that nothing would be published from the very beginning. So the private world of my friends became the center of our artistic activities, rather than the public world of publishing, media, universities and literature. Allen Ginsberg SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In 1878, Thomas Edison perfected the phonograph, a machine that could record sounds and play them back. There had been some primitive prototypes before, but his version was a major improvement. And what were the first sounds to be immortalized on Edison's phonograph? The rush of the wind in the trees? A dramatic reading of the Song of Songs? The cries of a newborn infant? Nope. Edison recited the nursery rhyme, "Mary Had a Little Lamb." When you make your own breakthrough in communication sometime soon, Scorpio, I hope you deliver a more profound and succulent message. Rob Brezsny, Free Will Astrology the poem...
Read more

Extraordinary Discourse 525

Image
Glimpses And Highlights Meet On A Train     There are many, many nouns for the act of looking - a glance, a glimpse, a peep - but there's no noun for the act of listening. In general, we don't think primarily about sound. So I have a different perspective on the world; I can construct soundscapes that have an effect on people, but they don't know why. It's a sort of subterfuge. Walter Murch 
Read more