English, English, English, Hockey

so one year left at SFU, going for a B.A. in English Literature, registered for the Fall today...3 English courses and the most hardcore elective ever...

Hypocrisy and Self-deception in Chaucer

In order to throw social practices and the behaviour of agents into relief, Chaucer famously arranges to have figures from all walks of life participate in a pilgrimage. The result is a vastly entertaining and humorous but nevertheless relentless exposure of hypocrisy and self-deception, where various weak-willed - if not downright unethical and manipulative - figures savage other people and professions. The differences between characters on the one hand and caricatures on the other become unclear, and all are mocked as they try to deceive themselves and others about their own qualities, and about the truthfulness and accuracy of their (often cruel) accounts. This investigation of social hypocrisy, deception and self-deception is extremely subtle, and the techniques by which Chaucer accomplishes it repay detailed study.

why: Kehler teaching, highly recommended by "graduate" Steven Watts. Mmm deception. Biblical parrallels in the Canterbury Tales?

Sunny Steve and the Silent Screen: Slapstick Performative in Stephen Leacock and Silent Movies
This multimedia course examines slapstick performative in the early fiction of Stephen Leacock (1869-1944) from the first phase of his literary career, in the 1910s, coinciding with the middle decade of the silent film era (1895-1927, and beyond). Leacock's fiction, set in Edwardian-Georgian Canada, satirizes parochial social and political manners and issues of men's power and authority within the paradigm of capitalism. Diegetically, Leacock's comedic or comic performative derives from the fiction of Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and others. Mimetically, however, his comedic derives from contemporaneous silent film dramaturgy, specifically the slapstick comedy of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and others. The course, which examines performance parallels between Leacock's early fiction and silent film, comprises lectures and film screenings. Films will include, featuring Chaplin, Cruel, Cruel Love (1914), Laughing Gas (1914), The Bank (1915), Shoulder Arms (1918), Sunnyside (1919), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), and The Great Dictator (1940); featuring Keaton, The General (1927), Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), The Cameraman (1928), and Spite Marriage (1929); and, featuring both Chaplin and Keaton, Limelight (1952).

why: again, the Steven Watts factor...St. Pierre teaching = "magical"? i get to watch TV, Charlie Chaplin, lauhgter is always nice, if i was a pothead this would be a good one to light up to

Cultural Studies - Suburbia

Desperate housewives, Tupperware parties, garden gnomes, three ducks flying up a wall, adolescent anomie, twitching net curtains, manicured lawns - and punk rock. Scarcely anyone has a good word to say about suburbs; although it is home for many of us at some point in our lives, suburbia is frequently an object of derision or a source of shame. This course will critically investigate the cultural significance of the suburb through the case study of twentieth-century Britain, looking at literary texts, films, and television programs, supplemented by a range of critical, historical, and theoretical readings. It will start from the premise that suburbs act as repositories for numerous cultural anxieties as well as desires, and are therefore as disturbing as they are comforting or numbing. We will explore the particular kinds of fear and loathing aroused by the suburbs, as well as the joys they afford. The course will address such topics as suburban aesthetics (such as kitsch, the Bildungsroman, the sitcom); gender and the suburb, boredom and theories of the everyday; and suburban hybridity. Critical readings will be taken from, among the others, Freud, Silverstone, de Certeau, Fishman, Carey, Felski, Medhust, Bhabha, Hayden.

why: lovely woman from England, as per usual. suburbia...wonder years? going deeper with kevin arnold? new perspectives and a must-take in the wise eyes of thea.

Hockey in Canadian Popular Culture
The game of hockey is perhaps the most central and pervasive form of popular culture in Canada. It has been called the "tie that binds," the "common passion," and the "Canadian game." This course seeks to create a critical understanding of how hockey's significance extends far beyond the ice rink into the cultural, economic and political spheres of Canadian society.

why: grades are mostly unimportant. ..but i WILL get an A+ in this strange but wonderful elective, or quit life.


saturday to saturday i will be at anvil camp 2. see you on Sunday the 17th.