Over the past few days we’ve delved into a number of philosophical perspectives on identity. Your current assignment is to research one of the philosophers we’ve discussed, read a selection of his work, write a synopsis of your reading, and present your findings to the class.¹ For your benefit, here’s a list of authors:

• René Descartes (1596-1650)
• Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716)
• John Locke (1632-1704)
• George Berkeley (1685-1753)
• David Hume (1711-1776)
• Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832)
• William Blake (1757-1827)
• William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
• John Keats (1795-1821)
• Lord Byron (1788-1824)
• Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
• William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
• Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
• Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
• Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)
• Karl Jaspers (1883-1969)
• José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955)
• Albert Camus (1913-1960)
• Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
• Erving Goffman (1922-1982)

We’ll sign up for presentation dates tomorrow with the first presentation the following day. If you’ve got your eye on an author, snag a reading (let me know if you have trouble), send me a link, synopsize it, and be ahead of the game for Thursday.

1. We are essentially crowd-sourcing our research for this paper. [↩]

Great first day! We had a solid discussion (one that won’t be over anytime soon) about what it means to be an individual.

Throughout this course we will be exploring characterization in novels ranging from Achebe’s Things Fall Apart to Camus’ The Stranger. The goal is not to establish a universal conception of identity but to understand how each character develops within the work. More on this later.

We read Ursula K. LeGuin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” to stir up some discussion about the individual’s place in society. We’ll discuss more tomorrow.

You should begin Things Fall Apart tonight. To get your journaling started: Why does Okonkwo react to his father the way that he does?

Are full of passionate intensity.¹

So. Okonkwo’s story is reduced to a “reasonable paragraph.” It is a tough story, but perhaps a few questions remain:

• In what way did Okonkwo (by the standards of his society, by his own standards, by the standards of the colonizers) bring about his own fall?
• In what way was he driven to it by events outside his control?
• Can you imagine a way he could have prevented it and maintained his standard of living?
• (Tough question:) What do you think of his final decision?
• We discussed several similar situations in class today. What can this fictional account of historical events tell us about the interactions between societies?
• In what ways are societies like an individual? How does this concept of “identity” play out at the national scale?

More questions to come, I’m sure. Please add your own (or any answers) in class or in the comments below.

We will wrap up our discussion of this novel officially tomorrow, but will continue to come back to it throughout the year. Our next work is Oedipus, which we will follow with The Stranger.

Your midterm paper will follow the same writing process we used your junior year (compilation of patterns and ideas from your journals, organization into outlines, peer review, presentation, rough drafts, peer review and one-on one with me, final drafts. You will be required to pull from multiple works (those read in class and others you discover on your own; check the syllabus for ideas) in presenting your ideas on the development of identity. Keep this in mind as you continue to read and journal. We’ll discuss the patterns you are finding during class discussions and when I check your journals.

1. Full text. [↩]

Or not.  Stupid snow.  Hopefully it gave you guys a chance to spend some time with Okonkwo and crew.  If not, go outside today and finish up the novel.  We’ll be discussing the end in class tomorrow, and I don’t want to ruin the ending for you.  Here’s the plan:

The Plan

Until now, we’ve focused on the effects of Okonkwo’s father’s legacy on the man, and Okonkwo’s choices in interacting with those around him.  The final section places him in an environment that he cannot control, and forces him to realize that he does not have complete power over those around him.  This is a sobering realization for our strong protagonist, and he makes some difficult choices (or are his (re)actions purely a result of his environment?  We’ll see).

On Tuesday and Wednesday (if we finish our discussion of Okonkwo’s life on Monday) I will present a brief overview of Existentialist ideas.  If you want to get a head start, I suggest The Stanford Encyclopedia of Psychology‘s page on “Existentialism” or *sigh* the Wikipedia‘s entry.  We may also read Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Existentialism is a Humanism” to gain a better understanding of our author’s ideas (you can find a copy here).

By Thursday we will discuss Part One of The Stranger.  Thirty pages per night may be more than you’re used to reading, but Sartre’s prose is not too dense.  Do plan to set aside some time to read the book in chunks, though.

On Friday we will discuss your tentative (hypo)thesis statements in class.  I will also ask you to write a brief paragraph contrasting the philosophies of Things Fall Apart and The Stranger. (Hint: it goes beyond TFA=fate and TS=choice.)  More on this later.

This is just getting annoying.

Because I was not present for your discussion yesterday (which I heard was excellent; you all rock.  Truly.), I can only guess how far you got, so here’s the plan:

1. Finish the questions from yesterday (if you missed any).
2. Take a closer look at the final lines of the book:
• Why does Mersault want to be “rid . . . of hope”?
• What is “the gentle indifference of the world”?  Does this explain his attitude toward his trial, the death of his mother, the help from other people, etc?
• He wants “a large crowd of spectators” to “greet [him] with cries of hate” at his execution?! Discuss.
3. How does this tie into our theme of identity?  That is, how do you think Meursault (spelled it incorrectly yesterday—my bad) would identify himself?  Better yet, what if Okonkwo, Holden Caulfield, Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway, Eugene Henderson, Meursault, and Viktor Frankl met?  (J. VDW and E. Mc, insert your main character’s names into the list.)
• Start with Frankl.  What makes a man’s life meaningful?  If you’re reading Man’s Search for Meaning, briefly explain Frankl’s philosophy on meaning.  If you’re not, discuss how your character would react to this philosophy.
• As a group, decide which of your characters have similar outlooks on life, and who does not.  I’ll get you started:  If Okonkwo met Henderson (same continent; different times, different locations, but bear with me), it would probably end in bloodshed.  Henderson’s, that is.  Though he seemed to get along well with King Dhafu, right?  Hmm…
4. If you finish this (you won’t, but I’d like to mention this anyway), begin working on your essay topics.  We have around two weeks left in the session, so I recommend starting now.  Send me an email with your ideas if you want/need help.

I’ll see you all tomorrow.  Even if I have to set up a webcam, I’ll see you tomorrow.