It's wonderful to know that somebody somewhere is teaching a course like that. For years I taught a freshman seminar entitled The Pursuit of an Inquiry in which they could do book research on any topic and write a paper about that they found. By the end of the first month many were begging for assignments, but I would not do it. Nor would I take the role of expert, EVER. I claimed inferior knowledge on anything they wrote about.
The one moment when I broke discipline was when the kid who was doing a paper on the Oedipus Complex claimed that it was named after the dinosauer Oedipus Rex. When I asked him - butter wouldn't have melted in my mouth - how he came to this information, he said he had read it in his introductory psych text. As it happened, I had written that text, so I was pretty sure he was wrong. Out of some, I got wonderful wonderful work, and they went on to take charge of their education, rather than to be victims of it. Lord how I miss it. Nick From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tom Carter Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2010 3:38 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Best 10 Fictional Works Nick - I teach a Junior level course for our Honors Program. Our program is open to students from all majors, so my "audience" in the class comes from everywhere -- majors of students in the class this Fall range across Art, English, History, Math, Biology, Business, Teacher Prep, Psychology, Computer Science, etc. One of the primary objectives of the class is to get them started on / excited about doing their Senior Honors thesis (which typically is some form of research/scholarship/creative activity in their own discipline). The title of my course is "Methods of Discovery" . . . so some of it is "research methods" type stuff, but I do quite a bit of "interdisciplinary" work with them. Latour, for example, makes them think hard about how science really works, but also how sociology/philosophy of science works . . . I like to have them read a reasonable amount of fiction, partly so they can develop a sense of the roles that narrative and metaphor play in our efforts to understand the world. I like ending with Richard Powers' "Gold Bug Variations" because it is "science fiction" in the sense that main characters are scientists doing real science (much of the book is set in the 50's in a research lab working on making sense of the DNA codon coding system) -- but also Bach's Goldberg Variations plays an important role in the book (whence, partly, pace Poe, the title :-) tom On Oct 9, 2010, at 1:44 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: Tom, You wrote This semester, in a class I am teaching, we're reading (among other things, including "Pandora's Hope" by Bruno Latour). Can you say a bit more about the context in which you are reading these things? Nick From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tom Carter Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2010 12:07 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Best 10 Fictional Works All - 10??? Oh, well . . . When I was a kid, my parents installed this in the living room (you can still sometimes find it in used book stores -- saw one a few years ago for $150, missing Marx and Freud !). I learned a lot :-) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Books_of_the_Western_World Some years ago, I was asked for "recommended reading" (by a group of students), and I pulled this together: Fiction - July, 2001 (html) <http://cogs.csustan.edu/~tom/booklists/Fiction-2001.html> (mostly 20th century, but some other stuff . . . This needs to be updated :-) This semester, in a class I am teaching, we're reading (among other things, including "Pandora's Hope" by Bruno Latour). Earth Abides, by George Stewart Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig The Goldbug Variations, by Richard Powers In prior years of the class, we've also read "A Canticle for Leibowitz" by Walter Miller, "The Golden Notebook" by Doris Lessing, "Naked Lunch" by William Burroughs, and "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad (so we could watch Apocalypse Now :-). I guess if I'm ready to require students to read them, I must think they're worthwhile . . . tom On Oct 8, 2010, at 12:44 PM, Robert J. Cordingley wrote: Ok, so I've decided my literary education is somewhat lacking and would like to know this group's recommendations for the "10 Best Literary Works" I should read. They have to be works of fiction and available in English and not just say of 2009 but of all time. Google searches tend to list the best of a year or be listed by one particular publisher. This is a good group to poll since you all (most) have at least some kind of scientific/technical bent. So I know the suggestions will be good ones for me! Once I have a list of all suggestions maybe I'll ask you all to vote on them. My list currently starts with Frank's recommendation today: "Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West" by Cormac McCarthy Thanks! Robert C. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
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