Celestial Models

Hello All,

For this entry, describe the history of your name. Why did you parents give you this name? What does your name signify/mean?

For example, my last name, "Woodman," means that sometime in the past, an ancestor of mine was named for his occupation: he was a logger or wood distributor.

My first name, "Matthew" is Biblical and in Hebrew means "gift of God." However, the family story is that my father chose the name because of a character on the television show Gunsmoke: Marshall Matt Dillon.

In this case, my name has a number of competing "celestial models."

The Myth of the Eternal Return, 2-48

Hello All,

As I warned you at the beginning of the quarter, Eliade's text will be the most difficult of our three texts to read: his tone (vocabulary and syntax) is the most formal and academic of our authors, and he refers to many obscure (to us) figures from religions and mythologies that span the globe (and history).


Because of this, the most effective strategy (for us in this class) for reading this work is to focus on the core concepts and the relationships between those concepts. Don't get caught up in trying to decipher and research each and every name he references; instead, read with a highlighter or pencil, and annotate (underline or mark) the sentences or passages that you think are most important in terms of the overall ideas.


For example, one key concept Eliade defines and illustrates is that of the Center (and Symbolism of the Center). The Center is a physical place that represents the core/essence/heart of an idea or system. For example, for Christians, a Center would be Jerusalem; for Muslims, a Center would be Mecca. However, these centers can also be secular. For example we could discuss a library as representing a Center of knowledge (we would thus look for the "best" library as the most representative of this center) or Hollywood as the Center of entertainment.


This blog post will have two components:


1. Find a quote from pages 2-48 of The Myth of the Eternal Return that you find interesting/important/thought-provoking.

2. Describe one Center that is important to you and your world.

Homework for Monday, April 18

Hello All,

For this blog, post one body paragraph of your literary (song) analysis.

For an example and some advice, see an analysis of Tom Waits's "Whistlin' Past the Graveyard."

Take care!

In-Class Post for April 13

Hello All,

For this post, analyze one artwork from Walter Martin and Paloma Munoz's series Islands.

In your analysis, be sure to use an example of each of the following types of sentences:

Simple
Compound
Complex
Compound-Complex

Post for April 11

As we discussed on the first few days of class, Carl Jung is one of the first to define the concept of archetypes, and Anthony Stevens refers to him throughout Ariadne's Clue, especially Jung's idea of the "transcendent function of symbols [...] part of the autonomous developmental principle operating throughout life, which he called individuation [... which] also imples becoming one's own self. We could, therefore, translate individuation as 'coming to selfhood' or 'self-realization'" (as cited on p. 77).

For this post, describe one symbol that has been a part of your process of individuation.

For example, one symbol that has been essential for me is that of the book, which symbolizes the idea of knowledge, expression, and freedom. I usually take a book with me wherever I go, and it functions as both a spark for my imagination and an extension of my self; one way I have of describing myself is to list the books that are most important to me or, conversely, the books I am currently reading.

Post for April 2-3

Hello All,

In our reading for Friday, Stevens argues that a primal motivating cause of our symbols and archteypes is fear:

"many of the symbolic rituals devised by our ancestors arose out of the anxieties that inevitably afflicted human beings living in the environmental circumstances in which our species evolved and lifed for most of its existence. Fears that the vegetative forces of regeneration might wear out and the crops fail gave rise to the fertility rituals, sacrifices of animals and the first fruits, etc., practised by human communities all over the world. Fears that the winter sostice might not mark the end of the sun's withdrawal over the horizon and the beginning of its return explain the ubiquitous existence of solstice rituals, saturnalisa, orgies, and so on. Omnipresent fears of predatory animals and hostile tribal neighbors generated teh surpernatural strength and magical powers of myriad heroes and hero-gods, enabling them to triumph over the monsters, snake-haired medusas, ogres, ghouls, and terrible chimeras which have horrified the imagination since the beginning of anthropological time. While the fear of sickness, spells, bad magic, demons, and jealous ancestral spirits generated the need for shamans, wizards, medicine men, white witches, adn wise women, with their amulets, masks, drums, ecstatic trances, and magic flights necessaery to counter the evils lying in constant wait for us. Our capacity to find symbolical means of dealing with these fears is one of the most striking characteristics of humankind." (42)

One medium for our modern exorcism of these fears is through film, so for this post, describe one film you find especially frightening.

For example, the last film to give me a scare was The Blair Witch Project. I used to go camping quite a bit with my friends, and this film reminded me of the fears of getting lost and of the noises one can't help but hear in the darkness: What was that? Is it getting closer?

1st Post: Spring 2011

Hello All, In his section "The Logic of Symbols," Anthony Stevens describes a study Calvin Hall and Vernon Nordby conducted in which they collected and categorized over 50,000 dreams: "The typical dreams reported involved predatory animals, flying, falling, being pursued by hostile strangers, landscapes, sex, getting married and having children, taking examinations or undergoing some similar ordeal, travelling (whether on foot, horseback, car, aeroplane, or ship), swimming or being in the water, watching fires, and being confined in an underground space. They concluded: 'These typical dreams express the shared concerns, preoccupations and interests of all dreamers. They may be said to constitute the universal constants of the human psyche'" (as cited on p. 20).

For your first blog, describe one of these universal dreams you have experienced recently.

For example, I recently had the dream where I was swimming in the ocean on a starless night; the water was pitch black, and it felt like I was going to be swallowed by the sea, as if the water itself were some sort of monster. I kept anticipating something pulling me down, but nothing happened: I just kept swimming . . .