The Books/Reading Thread

[Der Morgenstern]

http://undergroundnewyorkpubliclibrary.com/

 

[Master_Yoda77]

So, there is a hot chick in yoga pants on the first page. I'm a fan.

 

[Dak]

What a depressing existence.

 

[Vegard Pompey]

http://undergroundnewyorkpubliclibr...3/the-necromancer-the-secrets-of-the-immortal

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

I've tried, but haven't been able to track it down. I only have Netflix Instant Video, so my choices are limited. Eventually I'll buy it if I can find it cheap and/or used.

http://www.movie2k.to/The-Pervert-s-Guide-to-Cinema-watch-movie-621236.html

 

[Zephyrus]

Reading this as a possible text to use for my Rhetoric class in the Fall.

 

[Dak]

Looks good.

 

[unknown]

if you're teaching Rhetoric, Jeremy, check out James Berlin. He's a Rhetoric and Composition scholar who tries to make a case for reintroducing classical rhetoric in the modern classroom. There's also The Rhetorical Tradition which is edited by Patricia Bizzell, one of the bigwigs in Rhet/Comp theory

 

[Einherjar86]

http://www.movie2k.to/The-Pervert-s-Guide-to-Cinema-watch-movie-621236.html

Splendid! Many thanks.

 

[Zephyrus]

if you're teaching Rhetoric, Jeremy, check out James Berlin. He's a Rhetoric and Composition scholar who tries to make a case for reintroducing classical rhetoric in the modern classroom. There's also The Rhetorical Tradition which is edited by Patricia Bizzell, one of the bigwigs in Rhet/Comp theory

Unfortunately neither author is on the list of approved texts from which to choose. I have the option of using just a reader, but also to throw in a "trade book" that focuses on one particular issue. Here's the list:

Any recommendations? I'm really liking The Shallows so far, since it draws from many, many fields of knowledge (history, linguistics, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, etc.).

I have till July 16th to make my final decisions.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Ive read Eating Animals by JSF. For a hot button topic it's actually an enjoyable book.

 

[The Butt]

Currently reading The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Awwww yeeeeee

 

[unknown]

I meant more for your own edification. Your students would be bored to tears by the books I suggested.

They Say/I Say is one of the most popular freshman books to use. A couple colleagues I know who are pretty picky really like it. I've only read a few of the tradebooks, but I think it might be cool to use Persepolis since it's a graphic novel

 

[Cronopio]

Currently reading The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Awwww yeeeeee

Is that for a class you're taking, or just for your own pleasure?

 

[Blind Guardian]

 

[Zephyrus]

How is that? I quite enjoyed his book How Rome Fell.

 

[Blind Guardian]

It's quite good. Of course I'm not a historian but I think he does a good job of not only describing Caesar himself, but also of explaining his world (f.e. detailing how Rome was governed and administrated during the last century B.C.). It would've been interesting to have him discuss the aftermath and the transformation into empire, but that's for another book I guess.

 

[Zephyrus]

Reading Sartre's Huis Clos to give my French a workout. Loving it so far.

 

[Einherjar86]

Damn, I need to learn French.

I own Sartre's Being and Nothingness, but it strikes me as slightly pale in comparison to the other 20th-century ontology behemoths, i.e. Heidegger's Being and Time and Badiou's Being and Event.

Then again, I can honestly claim to have probably understood less than half of Heidegger's work. The famous sections are the ones I tend to focus on and re-read. I'm slowly coming around to Badiou.

 

[Addo_Of_Nex]

I feel like I made a mistake in tackling Badiou before reading Heidegger (though I'm taking a seminar on Being and Time with a Heidegger nut this fall, so this won't be an issue for long) because I feel like I need to understand Badiou's orientation in Heidegger's ontological scheme before I make any final judgments about his work. Nevertheless, I appreciate Badiou's "radical thesis" on the surface, but I have trouble swallowing it whole when he takes such extreme liberties with Plato and Spinoza (the latter of which he quotes partially for his own gain) and the seemingly arbitrary nature of his entire ontology. There was actually a pretty good co-authored by a mathematician and a professor of history/humanities published last summer that provides a critical refutation of Badiou's ontology. It's available on JSTOR iirc, though it's been a while since I've read it closely; and that was only once. With that being said, my stance on Badiou is always in flux.

Anyway, I'm going through my old Poe and Lovecraft favorites; straying from my normal habit of exclusively reading philosophy, science, and math. I'm going to make an effort to get around to the other preeminent weird/proto-weird fiction authors (Blackwood, Dunsany, Ashton Smith, etc.) as well as science fiction in general. I'm eternally incensed by the fact that academia seems to have a history of ignoring a genre that I consider just as fertile, if not more so, for philosophical discourse as the canonical Western "classics".