Bagheera

I'm (still/finally) writing that termpaper for my posthumanism seminar, and since I keep mentioning it, x_los demanded links to online sources on the subject. Posthumanism occupies a space somewhere between cultural theory, literary criticism and science and technology studies. It's also interesting for anyone who writes meta or academic texts on science-fiction and fantasy, as it is a useful tool for interpreting texts and shows with aliens, monsters, cyborgs and the like. Finally, it's interesting for anyone who likes to speculate about where humanity is headed, how human nature might change because of technology, and what the chances and dangers of this process are.

LINKS:

Wikipedia is not terribly helpful on the subject, because the article is incomplete.

Here is a dictionary entry on Post- and Transhumanism from a Bioethics angle. A pdf file.

Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto is probably the most cited text in posthumanist writing. It tries to claim the figure of the Cyborg for feminism.

Like Haraway, Catherine Hayles is also an influential theorist in this area. This is a review of her book "How We Became Posthuman" that looks quite informative.

I recommend the first entry in this anthology ("Monster Theory" by Jeffrey J. Cohen), about the figure of the "Monster", which is one of the most frequent representations of the posthuman. This is quite readable and interesting. A Google Books document.

This text has nothing to do with cultural or literary theory, but with the science behind the Posthuman: nano-, bio-, infotechnology and cognitive science. I haven't read all of this, but it looks fascinating by itself, and might be inspiring for anyone who's writing science-fiction. A pdf file.

Finally, if you really want to challenge your academic mind, try this. What's Wrong With Posthumanism? Judging by this essay, its love for awful sentences. It's a prime example of how horrible academic writing can be. Although it's nearly unreadable, it has some good observations and if you scroll through it, you'll find more useful links.

I wish I could say that the first week of the semester is done, but it won't feel like it. On the weekend I have to do homework and prepare a presentation for Tuesday (already, dammit!) and on Sunday I've stupidly promised to go to a small local RPG convention.

My schedule this semester:

Monday
-Minnesang (courtly love-songs from the middle ages in Middle High German): What it says on the tin. Could be very difficult.

Tuesday
- work in the morning
- Gender linguistics (German): this seminar promises to be very interesting, we got two fat readers and two novels to read but I guess to be a proper fangirl, I must be informed about feminist theory!

Wednesday
Nothing!

Thursday
- Work
- "Cultural Constructions of the Future" (English): it was stupid of me to take this one. It's going to be "how many times can we reference Derrida in one session time" again. In Session one, we have determined that the Future doesn't exist and can't be defined, which is a nice way of saying, "Hi, this seminar is useless to the max." Although, we have already referenced BSG as well and discussed time structures and subjective experience of time, so this is good.
- "Witches in Literature" (English): Cool topic, but there are fifty people in this seminar and it is horrible to be crammed into a rather small room.
- Creative Writing (English)

Friday
- Work
- uni sport in the evening (Step/Aerobic)

So I'm not doing a lot of actual courses, and I have lots of free time to sit around in the library or the computer room. Hm.

Second day of my new job is done, and I'm loving it so far. The professor is a very nice guy, so are the rest of of his staff and my fellow student colleague. The job I'm doing like passing test tubes, only in English Lit. Which means making photocopies, looking for books in the library (today, both the photocopies and the books were graphic novels :D. Any job that consists of me looking through Sandman for Shakespeare references is a good one!), sorting stuff alphabetically, labelling stuff, and buying minor stuff (it's not quite easy to get floppy disks in 2008! One computer store guy made big eyes at me and mumbled, "I think we've got one in storage somewhere..." but I managed.)

Fall/Winter semester starts next week! I've written three of my four term papers. The fourth in the one I could write on Doctor Who, but I'm not quite sure I've got a proper topic/thesis statement yet. "There are many representations of the post-human in Doctor Who, some are positive and some are negative" doesn't quite cut it. And I completely failed to write any original fiction for Creative Writing.

My first term paper (the boring, awful one about the High German Consonant Shift) is done, and I've got preliminary topics for the remaining three.

For Germanistik I'll write, "Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus in literary reviews of Post-War Germany". The course I'm writing this for was about literary reviews in the 20th century, and I did a presentation on Re-Education and Post-War Germany, and I read the novel this winter. I've started writing this paper, and I think it'll be pretty easy and interesting to write.

For English Lit I'm going to write something along the lines of "Julian Barnes's England, England: a way out of Baudrillard's Third Order Simulacrum?". It's possible that this'll be WAY TOO HARD and I'll fail (I did a presentation about Baudrillard in this course and everyone was like "...?"). I'll have to try and read Baudrillard in the (translated!) original some more O__O

And for the Posthumanism course I've decided to just do something fun! :D

"Doctor Who: Stories of Posthumanisation from 1963 to 2008". (I love topics where Science-Fiction is perfectly acceptable source material. This will probably focus on the Daleks, Cybermen and Time Lords, spiced with proper academic source material. "Research" will involve watching episodes *g*)

Also in completely unrelated news, one of the guys from Creative Writing gave me the Dresden Files audio books burned on CD. They're read by James Marsters, whose American accent now bothers me for some reason. (Too much British English?) But still, he has a sexy voice. I now imagine Harry Dresden looking vaguely like Spike in his black leather duster, only with dark hair.

Audio novels are the work of the devil. They enable me to get lost in worlds of imagination even while WALKING AROUND OUTSIDE and thus cause me to APPEAR LIKE A TOTAL LOON in public.

Earplugs in, press on, walk around, listen. Cue sudden outbursts of laughter for no discernible reason, and equally unprovoked sadface in other places. People start looking at you strangely in the bus (or a doctor's waiting room, for that matter.)

Listened to:

Zagreus: TARDIS/Doctor OTP. Or even better, Rassilon/TARDIS/Doctor.

The Apocalypse Element: People apparently really like Evelyn. I don't get why, to be honest. Her snark is so overdone! She never stops. Poor, poor Romana, though. I now have a completely different idea of her as Time War!President fighting the Daleks. It's personal.

The Time of the Daleks: LOL wut. "Shakespeare will be ex-ter-mi-nated!" This plot is so ridiculous that it could have been hatched by the Master. Magna Charta, I'm just saying. But Shakespeare quoting Daleks are... wonderful.

Master: Seven is a surprisingly good audio Doctor, and Geoffrey Beevers as the Master was nice. The story wasn't bad either. But I don't buy it. I don't buy this backstory, and I don't buy "love will save you". What I buy is that Seven (or the Doctor in general) would do something so ultimately pointless and cruel to the Master out of good intentions. Oh, and the Dostoevsky quoting caused some of the lulz that made me seem like a loon.

*

In other news, someone treated me to a coffee (after inciting me to skip the boring part of Creative Writing) yesterday. Only, he's about 40 and a lecturer. And terribly funny, and he likes my original writing. And I haven't got a hard time talking to him! Oh dear :D

Did my first presentation for this semester (High German Consonant shift - enormously boring) and it went very well despite my almost complete lack of preparation. Also, it was a partner work effort, but the girl I worked with luckily is a good acquaintance and very efficient, so my usual horror of partner/group work was not confirmed.

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And just now I sat in on an "open workshop" on Posthumanism (with the writers and publishers of a series of books about Critical Posthumanism), which was awesome. Academia at work! And I even asked a question which doesn't seem to have been stupid or off-topic, because it sparked a lively discussion among them and whether the life sciences and the humanities can/should communicate on such issues as Cyborgization. (It was all, "The scientist get more funding! They hate us! They don't reflect on their work at all!" self pity but then it got better.) And then there was much LULZ because of course Cultural Studies writers can't go for an hour without citing Buffy. (There's, like, a robot! It's totally posthumanist!) And the profound statement that "Japan is a *particular* country." Yes, it seems to be.

1. The Time-Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
2. Gregorius by Hartman v. Aue
3. The Princess Bride by William Goldman
4. The History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes
5. The Golem's Eye by Jonathan Stroud
6. Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes
7. Der Verdacht by F. Dürrenmatt
8. Doktor Faustus by Thomas Mann
9. Arthur & George by Julian Barnes
10. Storm Front by Jim Butcher
11. England, England by Julian Barnes

All the J. Barnes novels were course reading, and "England, England" is the final one I had to read. It's also my least favourite - something about the combination of dystopia, satire and philosophical treatise on simulacra just doesn't work.

*

I have a straight A in my Zwischenprüfung (the half-way milestone) in English. I didn't expect that, I thought it'd maybe be a 1,3 but I was lucky and only those courses where I got an A figured into it. Yay!

*

The availability of online watchable videos will be my doom. I'm now working through S3 of BSG (without having seen all of S1 and 2, I should mention. Occasionally it gets very confusing.) I didn't like BSG much when I first watched the German dubbed version (even though it's a good dub) but the more you watch that show, the more addictive it gets. My favourite character is Baltar, which is absolutely no surprise whatsoever. And Six, Six is just awesome. Sharon/Athena, Roslin and Adama are cool, too, but while Starbuck is hot, I care very little, and I sort of loathe Apollo for no reason except that he's boring as hell. Curiously, BSG is one of those shows where I feel zero need to read or write fic. It's just that good. Well, I guess I wouldn't say no to hot Six/Baltar porn.

The first week of summer term (*very* optimistically called that - it's still freezing and dismal outside) is nearly over. So far, I'm very pleased!

Monday
"Old High German" (that's 750 - 1050 A.D.) - This is going to be incredibly hard and not very interesting, but at least I can amuse myself with the fact that the text we're reading is in both Old High German and in a Latin translation in the textbook: to make it easier for the reader! Yeah.

E Lit "Julian Barnes" - Well, the books are good, so the class can't be too bad. *crosses fingers*

Tuesday
"History of English"
"(Academic) Writing II" - The professor in this looks as if he's about my age, and he's also tiny and cute and has geeky specs and is American. There's nothing wrong with this class.

Thursday
"Cultural Studies - Posthumanism" : This is why I LOVE cultural studies. A class about cyborgs, cyberculture, nano/bio/info/cogno technology, interfacing and just basically cool and cutting-edge stuff.
"Creative Writing" - You get no credits for this, and I am seized with terror at the prospect of original fiction. And yet... it seems fun.

I've been terribly outgoing and social today. Sometimes when I'm speaking English I feel like a whole different person.

Eventually, I'll have to spend at least one semester in an English speaking country, either as a student at another university or as an Assitant Teacher. At the moment I tend towards assistant teaching, which takes nine months but comes with a good pay and maybe even a stipend that'll pay for the flight. If I do assistant teaching, I'll be doing it in fall 2009.

Have any of you done Assistant Teaching? Tell me about your experiences!

Have any of you done an ERASMUS exchange?

And where do you think I should go? I don't really want to go to Australia or New Zealand (since I've already been to Australia), so I'm wavering between the U.S., Britain or Ireland. Where is living the cheapest? Which cities / states are nice?

Oh. That was a sweet ending. I just finished (the day before the exam) the epic in verses "Gregorius, the good sinner" by Hartman von Aue. It's from the Middle Ages, and the best you would expect is that it was interesting, right? But it was entertaining, and actually the philosophy behind it was not at all very unenlightened or strange. And it's touching to read a text from hundreds of years ago that finishes with a plea from the author that you pray for his soul so he may see you in heaven. I have to say, this text was the most convincing argument for becoming a Christian that I've ever read.

It was also a big damn soap opera. King dies, prince and princess commit incest, baby is put onto a boat and sent out on the sea, baby is found by monks and raised, incest-child decides to become knight, returns to home country, defeats evil knight, marries mother. Then a servant girl catches him reading the letter he has from his mother, tells her lady, the lady confronts her husband-son and they both realize they're related. He leaves to become a hermit and lives seventeen years on a rock, because some mean fisherman said he should, shackled him there and threw the key into the sea.

Then the pope dies and some cardinals have a dream about a saint living on a rock and go and find him. The night they rest at the fisherman's hut, the fisher serves them a big fish, and voila! The key is inside the fish. They free the poor hermit Gregorius and he becomes the best pope ever. One day his mother comes to him to confess, but doesn't recognize the pope as her husband and child. He mocks her kindly for a while and then reveals the truth and they live happily ever after (chastely, I presume, because by then they're both old and ugly.) The thing is that this story is told in such a way that it is touching despite its oddness. Reading thousands of verses in Middle High German shouldn't be this much fun!