CL201, Feb 14, 2008
Comical interruptions started with a moment of embarassment for the Prof. when the audio was turned up too high, and again with a lot of futile bumbling about with the curtain concealing the blackboard, costing precious minutes in a short class period. Time did run out on the lecture and I was left wondering if there wasn't a page at the end that was never got to...
Prof. Rhodes started with an unequivocal endorsement of E.L.D., staking his personal scholarship and professional position on the commitment. Those qualities also make his lecture highly instructive in how to go about reading, in general, and Ragtime in particular.
Taking the bull by the horns, Prof. Rhodes confronted us with perhaps the most salacious passage in the book by reading it out loud. The scene occurs early in the novel and it is not until near the end, at the story's very climax, that the other shoe drops.
"...the semi-fictional cast of Ragtime are at times presented as puppet victims of history, jerked around in both comic and tragic ways by overwhelming forces, whether of repressed sexuality or institutionalized racism: Younger Brother by the rampant penis that "whips him about the floor" at the lesbian encounter of Emma Nesbitt and Emma Goldman (55), Coalhouse Walker by the firing squad that jerks the body about the street "in a sequence of attitudes as if it were trying to mop up its own blood"(222)". (Derek Wright, "Ragtime Revisited: History and Fiction in Doctorow's Novel", International Fiction Review, Vol. 20, No. 1, 1993, pp.14-16.)
I learnt somewhere that in French "l'petit mort" or "the little death" is a colloquialism for sexual orgasm. That connects the early passage to the climactic real death at the end.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Prof. Meeropol Sets the Stage for Ragtime
CL201Feb06,2008
Prof. Meeropol set the stage for Ragtime, focusing in some depth on the changes in economic structure since the Civil War, and aspects of racism, linking the reading of The March to the reading of Ragtime. The main point was the transformation of the economy from being mainly a collection of small independent producers to being dominated by large corporations, monopolies and "Robber Barons". Henry Ford is the archetype in manufacturing while J. P. Morgan represents financial domination.
As I was walking up from the parking lot I spied Prof. Meeropol hurrying into Sleith, holding a sheaf of papers. Just as he made his way in, one sheet fell out of the bundle in his hand. Following behind him came a tall, blond man. He picked up the fallen sheet and became absorbed in reading it as I sidled up along the wall and peered around the corner, catching a brief glimpse of what was written on the paper. I could only make out a few disjointed words and phrases: "Reasons for the transition from Ancients to Corporate"... "Lumpy Capital Projects, e.g., Railways ... "role of Chinese labor"..."Segregation in Ford's factories: Reducing racial frictions or implementing racial stereotypes of specialization?"
Late for class due to the distraction, I wondered how the Professor would adapt. Sure enough, he hesitated briefly at one point, and his lecture ended early, but being the consummate speaker that he is, he threw out some extra questions for discussion. Is violence the only effective agent of social change? Idealistically, I would certainly hope not, but realistically, I can see hate and greed prevailing against reason quite universally.
My mind kept going back to the dropped page. In the intersection between economics and race there may be some answers to the violent aspects of race relations, specifically in the subtler violence of social theft embodied by exploitation. Perhaps Prof. Meeropol will comment on the dropped page, or Prof. Winthrop will shed light on the matter when he speaks on Ragtime in the next class meeting.
Prof. Meeropol set the stage for Ragtime, focusing in some depth on the changes in economic structure since the Civil War, and aspects of racism, linking the reading of The March to the reading of Ragtime. The main point was the transformation of the economy from being mainly a collection of small independent producers to being dominated by large corporations, monopolies and "Robber Barons". Henry Ford is the archetype in manufacturing while J. P. Morgan represents financial domination.
As I was walking up from the parking lot I spied Prof. Meeropol hurrying into Sleith, holding a sheaf of papers. Just as he made his way in, one sheet fell out of the bundle in his hand. Following behind him came a tall, blond man. He picked up the fallen sheet and became absorbed in reading it as I sidled up along the wall and peered around the corner, catching a brief glimpse of what was written on the paper. I could only make out a few disjointed words and phrases: "Reasons for the transition from Ancients to Corporate"... "Lumpy Capital Projects, e.g., Railways ... "role of Chinese labor"..."Segregation in Ford's factories: Reducing racial frictions or implementing racial stereotypes of specialization?"
Late for class due to the distraction, I wondered how the Professor would adapt. Sure enough, he hesitated briefly at one point, and his lecture ended early, but being the consummate speaker that he is, he threw out some extra questions for discussion. Is violence the only effective agent of social change? Idealistically, I would certainly hope not, but realistically, I can see hate and greed prevailing against reason quite universally.
My mind kept going back to the dropped page. In the intersection between economics and race there may be some answers to the violent aspects of race relations, specifically in the subtler violence of social theft embodied by exploitation. Perhaps Prof. Meeropol will comment on the dropped page, or Prof. Winthrop will shed light on the matter when he speaks on Ragtime in the next class meeting.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Prof. Beagle on The March
CL201, Jan31,2008
Prof. Beagle's lecture on The March will be posted and we should have a link to it. The lecture was a commentary that wraps up our reading of the book. The main point of the lecture is that the noble cause of freedom's war against slavery is definitive, and yet there is ambiguity in the conduct of the war. The lecture explores the conflicting emotions and moralities through the course of the novel, telling us how it felt as opposed to the historian's question about why it happened.
As we leave the story behind I wonder about its aftermath. The "class war" was aimed at dismantling the plantation system, to uproot the socio-economic basis of slavery, but what would replace it? In the context of the time, "freedom" was bringing forth the "free-market" economy, but not right away. First the vacuum is filled by a reversal to an "ancient economy" of independent producers, family farms with only their own labor, to begin with. (Remember Scarlett O'Hara getting blisters on her hands from holding the plow towards the end of "Gone With the Wind"?) Sharecropping would become prevalent, putting poor whites and freed slaves into an economic structure that would breed the next stage of racism, on the very grave of slavery. And when Capitalism's "free market" does flourish, we cling to the image of freedom to this day, even as we sell our life's duration by the hour.
One of the discussants at the end of the lecture pointed out a link between The March and the next reading, "Ragtime". There is a minor character in The March named Coalhouse Walker. In Ragtime Coalhouse Walker Jr. is a major player, arguably the central character. Although The March is E. L. Doctorow's most recent novel and Ragtime was written over thrity years ago, the writer is able to put them in chronological order with a connecting link in the name of Coalhouse Walker.
Prof. Beagle's lecture on The March will be posted and we should have a link to it. The lecture was a commentary that wraps up our reading of the book. The main point of the lecture is that the noble cause of freedom's war against slavery is definitive, and yet there is ambiguity in the conduct of the war. The lecture explores the conflicting emotions and moralities through the course of the novel, telling us how it felt as opposed to the historian's question about why it happened.
As we leave the story behind I wonder about its aftermath. The "class war" was aimed at dismantling the plantation system, to uproot the socio-economic basis of slavery, but what would replace it? In the context of the time, "freedom" was bringing forth the "free-market" economy, but not right away. First the vacuum is filled by a reversal to an "ancient economy" of independent producers, family farms with only their own labor, to begin with. (Remember Scarlett O'Hara getting blisters on her hands from holding the plow towards the end of "Gone With the Wind"?) Sharecropping would become prevalent, putting poor whites and freed slaves into an economic structure that would breed the next stage of racism, on the very grave of slavery. And when Capitalism's "free market" does flourish, we cling to the image of freedom to this day, even as we sell our life's duration by the hour.
One of the discussants at the end of the lecture pointed out a link between The March and the next reading, "Ragtime". There is a minor character in The March named Coalhouse Walker. In Ragtime Coalhouse Walker Jr. is a major player, arguably the central character. Although The March is E. L. Doctorow's most recent novel and Ragtime was written over thrity years ago, the writer is able to put them in chronological order with a connecting link in the name of Coalhouse Walker.
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