The Misanthrope Social Networking Experience

Ok guys,

A few requests have been made to have the Facebook wall post for a scene from The Misanthrope posted on the blog!  So here is a link to the wall post, which is presented here in it's entirety: http://thewallmachine.com/uz63KD.html .

Additionally, I have decided to upload the Prezi slides used to display the modernized characters.  The link to that one is here: http://prezi.com/wn3ggzewefz4/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share .


Thanks for all the great feedback and the positive comments.  I hope you guys have a great summer!


Christian Grondin and Erin Ekart

Poll Results (The Beaver Coat V.2)

Stevan and I just wanted to share what results we were able to determine from the poll that we provided during the poster session.

An overwhelming number of submissions agreed with us, in that they felt the original plot of The Beaver Coat failed to adequately deliver justice as they felt it might have been deserved. This came as no surprise.

Almost everybody submitted that they liked The Beaver Coat V.2 better than the original plot, and these responses coincided with the fact that nearly everybody thought justice was better served in the version Stevan and I drew up.

A confident majority of people claimed that they felt justice was the deciding factor between the two plays.

Finally, and this was somewhat of a surprise to us, but while the majority of people that took our questionnaire indicated that they were predominantly "left-brained," there was not enough data to draw a trend. If we had to extrapolate, we feel that our trend would have some truth to it, but to get the best results, we would need to certainly update our questionnaire to provide us with better identification results.

Potential source of error is that there really weren't that many people who filled it out. I would say less than 25, if I had to guess. Another potential source is that the group of people who actually took the survey were not a general enough group to foster withstanding results. A wider variety of people would be necessary to fully examine the data, and many more of them. 

Thanks to everybody who took the survey, and came out (whether by choice or not...) to ask us about our project.

-thedayofdays (If for whatever reason you haven't figured it out yet, Brandon)

Results - Project Awards

Before I share the results of the ballots, let me again tell you all how proud I was last night to hear you share your work with others. I've tried to instill in you that in our class you aren't just writing for me--your peers and the larger world make up your audience. I know many aspects of this course (e.g., this blog, our research exhibition, etc.) might have challenged you to leave your comfort zone, but I hope you these aspects also supported you in your intellectual and personal development. We have challenge ourselves to develop. 

And hopefully this development won't end with this class. Just the other day, while watching "The LEGO Movie", I found myself thinking of Frye's formal cause and I have no doubt I will continue to find connections to this class in the future. My hope is you will, too. 

Now, onto the results! 

I am pleased to say that every project received an impressive number of votes on one category or another, and for that you should all be proud. 

AND THE WINNERS ARE...

• Most Interesting Project = "The Misanthrope Social Network Experience" by Erin Ekart and Christian Grodin (15 Votes)
• Most Sophisticated Project = "Is Laughter the Best Medicine?" by Zach Arnold and Danielle Sexton (13 Votes)
• Most Attractive Poster = "Clue: Beaver Coat Edition" by Emily Humphreys and Emily Reed (16 Votes)

Congratulations to the winners and to all who shared their creative ideas this whole semester! Each winning team earned 2 extra points (mathematically, .2 in the grade-book calculations) on their poster session grade. 

I hope you all have a fun, safe, productive summer!

Course Goals

For my own reference as much as anyone else's, I'm going to list the course goals:

·      discuss the central characteristics of several comedic forms as well as the range of Digital Humanities research methodologies analyzed in this course
·      demonstrate knowledge regarding the interplay of comedies and the historical, political, literary, and cultural contexts in which they were written and performed
·      apply this foundational knowledge to approach texts critically, to design research projects creatively, and to present their ideas professionally
·      demonstrate an ability to make connections between the information, approaches, ideas, and perspectives in this and other courses while discerning connections between the course materials and the students’ own lives.

I feel I have made great gains in the overall course goals this semester. The one I have made the greatest gains on, however, is the second one. I love to learn the interplay and connections of the different contexts and seeing how they balance one another. As an English major, the literary connections are easy for me to identify, and I love seeing history weaved into anything I read, so naturally I'm more biased to this particular course goal. I enjoyed reading all the plays and discussing them in class, especially to hear everyone's different opinions, in particular the non-humanities majors. As a humanities major, I feel I was well prepared to reach abstract ideas in this class. Being able to apply this course goal makes it easier to understand the others, as they all feed into each other. The only course goal I think I have problems with is the first one, as keeping the terms straight is sometimes difficult for me.


I don't think there is anything I would add to the course. The interactions between students really made me see things in a different light, and even other honors courses I have taken in the past haven't spent as much time in group conversation than this course has. As a lone wolf myself, I feel this made me branch out and talk to people I normally wouldn't have in other classes, or at least not in depth like I had to do in this class. Though sometimes I was uncomfortable being made to discuss my opinions out loud (not on paper, like I usually do), I think this has benefited me in the long run. I certainly feel a bond with my classmates because of all this.

I think I was a successful student in the areas of the course goals, and the class was certainly worth it because of the friends I have made.

Reflection Post

The course objective I think I made the most progress towards is probably “approaching texts critically, designing creative research projects, and professional presentation.” While I think I made great strides in others as well, I feel this is one I am most qualified to discuss. At the beginning of the semester I never would’ve expected to learn that comedy is actually used to point out people’s flaws or that it has the potential to be intricate enough to have the Four Causes. I have always prided myself on being able to make my way through pretty meaty texts but this is the first time I was asked to answer complex critical thinking questions related to literature. I think this course will even prove helpful to my engineering curriculum too. While comedy itself isn’t extremely relevant, the critical thinking and group collaboration is very important. I also made progress in my ability to come up with a solid project. As for professional presentation, I think I was already fairly competent in that area.

The thing I enjoyed the most in this class was the collaborative nature of the classroom setting. I have been in many classes where we sat like bumps on a log and the teacher just talked at us for an hour. I don’t learn as well in those settings. I especially liked the “panel of experts” thing we adopted towards the end.  That was an excellent way to encourage us to really engage. I would always try to remember everything that was said in my panel because I didn’t want to let my group down when we came back together. Overall, I guess I would classify myself as a fairly successful student in this class. I wasn’t the most studious when it comes to keeping up with homework but I think I did well as far as class discussions go. 

Reflections of a Left-brain Right-brain Hybrid

As I consider myself to be a global thinker, I also consider myself to analyze a text best when I understand not only the raw words, but also the context in which it was written. Therefore, of our course goals, the one that seems to be most relevant to the way I think stands out significantly. “Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge regarding the interplay of comedies and the historical, political, literary, and cultural contexts in which they were written and performed.” Because this was the one which I would say I knew the most about going into the course, it was also the one to which I came “closest” to achieving, so to speak. While the course certainly helped my development in these capacities, that particular objective doesn’t fit the rest of the prompts. To answer the question “Which goal do you believe you made the most progress towards?,” therefore, I will base my discussion on a capability, which the course helped me to develop, that wasn’t quite as strong coming in as it will be when I depart.

                As some of my fellow students may have discerned during in-class discussions, my forte isn’t always in my creative capacities, and with drawing elaborate, long-reaching connections between two distinctly abstract elements of a text in a way that somebody a little more artsy might be able to. For example, when Donny dies at the end of The Big Lebowski, 2013-Brandon might not have been able to formulate a justification. My typical line of thinking would be, “Why did Donny die? Because the writer wanted to mess with us. Because they wanted him dead. Who cares?” However, post-colloquium-Brandon wrote something along the lines of “The writers could have been trying to make the lack of justice in the film more obvious by killing off a character that was inconsequential, and therefore blameless to misdeeds, the likes of which were committed by some of the other characters in the movie. Other examples of the lack of justice in The Big Lebowski included: the destruction of the Corvette/the lambasting that the kid received by Walter, the uselessness of the police figures in the film, and the fact that Mr. Lebowski (not “the Dude”) was never punished for his embezzlement, other than by falling flat on his face, arguably an unsuitable punishment.”

                I think this course has showed me the importance of breaking these things down. The relevant course goal reads: “Students will be able to demonstrate an ability to make connections between the information, approaches, ideas, and perspectives in this and other courses while discerning connections between the course materials and the students’ own lives.” Trying to grasp at the connections made in a text, while perhaps not always the direct source of epiphanies and miracles in my life, do indeed serve to strengthen my critical thinking/analysis skills; the consequences of being able to think critically and logically are well understood. Learning about this type of cause-and-effect school of thought has the power to make a man a better thinker. For example, a lawyer would definitely need these skills when making clear to a jury the motive of a potential criminal for his acts. In Engineering, my field, critical thinking would be useful in designing safety features on the next model Mercedes-Benz. What kind of errors are people likely to make? How can we make these less likely to happen while still maintaining the car’s usability? Clearly identifying cause-and-effect connections, as we have done with all of our texts this semester, makes for better lawyers and engineers.

                Given the amount of critical thinking applications we’ve undergone in this course, I would say the course certainly met this goal. I enjoyed discussing the different connections between different events in the course. As a detractor, the three-hour format really burned me out around hour two. If I had to postulate, I would say the artsy types might have been able to endure at maximum for a little longer, as they’ve got more practice, but I think it would be foolish to say that even they wouldn’t have struggled with the format. For me, it was a long time to dig into the texts, but there were things I got out of those discussions that helped, so I don’t think I could argue that another way would be better. The blog posts were fairly assigned, and forcing us to think about the text twice in the week was a good idea, and made our in-class discussions both less laborious and more focused, which are obviously both good things. I think the readings were fair as well, in length as well as complexity.

                Overall, I have improved as a thinker, and would say my ability to draw connections has improved by great measure. With this in mind, I would say I have been a very successful student, because I learned not only to analyze material and identify methodology, but also to apply these things to my life in other avenues.

(Sorry for the length! I had a lot of thoughts and it wouldn't have done it justice to be coarse and leave out important details. Plus, there were quite a few questions in the prompt.)

______________________________________________________________

TL;DR: I learned how to better make connections (and make better connections) and while the discussions could be exhausting for my left-brained half, it was worth the labor, as I feel I've become a better thinker.

Photo credit: http://www.harunyahya.com/en/Books/4619/the-miracle-of-electricity-in/chapter/4989

Laughing Matters

I feel that I have learned a great deal in this course.  It opened my eyes to all the different kinds of comedies that existed and still exist, most of which I didn’t even know existed, like Carnivalesque laughter and New Comedy.  It helped me realize certain tropes in comedies (such as the green world) that I was previously unaware of and some of the reasons as to why we laugh and even how it ties in to our own biology and instincts.  Thanks to this, I believe my skills in critical thinking, analysis and interpretation of literature have improved greatly. 

As an engineering major, I have learned to think in new ways, to think about the literature I read and to realize the depth which the classic novels I have shunned for most of my life really reach.  I feel that I better understand the choice of comedies, and while they seemed boring or lethargic at first, I now realize how engaging they really were and that I only disliked them due to my own misunderstanding. 

In the end I grew quite fond of this class.  Not only was it a break from the endless control systems, chemical process and plant layouts I had to learn to read and speak about, but it was also a way to explore the creative depths of my mind I had so long neglected to nourish.  It felt good to read comedies that I had never heard of, and to finally enjoy a classic piece of literature. 

A nice touch in this class was the study of The Big Lebowski.  It was a good demonstration of how the concepts we learned in class could very easily be applied to the real world and to modern comedy, not only old.  Now every time I go to watch a comedy, I feel that my brain has been primed to automatically detect the presence of topics that we have talked about.