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/lit/ - Literature

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[ERROR] No.2052612 [Reply] [Original]

So I go to my Contemporary Literature class and the teacher is a heavy hipster postmodernist - I'm fucking confused and don't get this shit.

He's having us read books that have NOTHING in them. Hundreds of pages blank, sometimes it's 5 pages of the same line copy-pasted over and over.

He said that "Science is bunk" and "All the enlightenment got us was the holocaust and the atom bomb - how can scientific progress be good?"

I just don't get it. He them claims that nothing can be diluted for information, there are no facts, the world isn't a reality, and that things shouldn't be constricted with "words" and "terms" but rather be expanded upon and "freed"


What the fuck is going on.....

I wanted lit, yet I got this

help pls

>> No.2052620

What books are you reading in the class?

>> No.2052630

Most importantly, keep your composure and don't make any sudden moves. Avoid making direct eye contact with the professor -- it's a sign of aggression. Instead, show the professor you're being submissive by backing away slowly and speaking to it in a calm, monotone voice. This helps the professor identify you as human and not a threat.

>> No.2052632

I didn't know Deep&Edgy was a teacher

>> No.2052638

Tell him to fuck off and if he gets offended just explain that you're delimiting the epistemological space and opening the power-structure of the teacher / student binary to a shape more closely resembling the rhizome.

>> No.2052648

Your teacher sounds like my kinda guy. Listen up, you just might learn something.

>> No.2052652

>>2052638
>>2052638
>>2052638
>>2052638

I lol'd hard. Do this OP.

>> No.2052660

Tell him he's abandoned Sophia. He'll either wut or become enraged.

>> No.2052662

You have two choices and only two - anyone pretending otherwise is lying to you. Here they are:

1. >>2052638 This guy. Learn to speak bullshit. Nothing you say means anything, really, but if you can stomach to pretend it does for a full semester, and you're willing to learn a vocabulary comprised, somehow, of absolute nothingness, then this is an option.

2. Drop the class. I recommend this one.

>> No.2052673

Take a shit on his desk, see what happens.

>> No.2052674

>>2052662

i like how you tacitly admitted you didn't understand that post

>> No.2052689
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>>2052612
Be more hipster than he.

Ask if he has read Blank by Davis Schneiderman. And then if he has not shame him and say "YOU KNOW LITTLE OF EXPERIMENTAL LIT YOU POSEUR BITCH PUNK".

But seriously, Experimental lit is fine, but I wouldn't dedicate a whole Contemporaru lit class to it. Maybe just have one. Then have regular contemporary masterpieces like Infinite Jest, etc, etc.

Your teacher sounds silly.

>> No.2052692

Maybe you are supposed to fill in the blanks. As in write your own book. Or...this guy is just a complete nut.

>> No.2052703
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>>2052692
I think the point in some blank pieces are to say that "The imagine is a strong tool and you should use your own, and not be overcome by letting others ideas into your head. Be your own writer, create your own destinity."

or... "I just wanted to fuck with some trees".

>> No.2052705

>>2052662
The sentence in that post does mean something, though. It's a roundabout way of saying "You aren't the boss of me".

>> No.2052711

>>2052703
True. It sounds like all they're doing is looking at blank pages and nothing else lol. Maybe the teacher will bring in a book on tree fucking techniques though.

>> No.2052718

OP here

Books are as follows:

Lost in the Funhouse
The Female Man
My Amputations
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Gurlesque: The new grrly, grotesque, burlesque poetics
Some other information from the class:

When someone said that he contradicted himself by earlier stating that analyzing text was a good thing, as you can gather further information from it but NOW says that analyzing texts is reductionist and limits the work and "Here we want to EXPLODE the text, apply it to everything!" - His response to the criticism was "Exactly"

>> No.2052724

Sounds like a degree in art and design :(

Complain!

>> No.2052736

>>2052718
John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse is actually somewhat good. It's the only one I have read on that list. Have you looked at that yet? I hope you enjoy it.

Your lecturer sounds terrible though. (Although most who teach lit studies generally are.)

>> No.2052744

My Post-Modern literature class was pretty much:

"THE HOLOCAUST AND THE ATOMIC BOMB DESTROYED THE IDEAL OF PROGRESS"

"HERE'S A FEW SWEET BOOKS THAT I HOPE YOU'LL ENJOY"

"ALSO HERE'S A MOUNTAIN OF POST-MODERNIST METAPHYSICAL BULLSHIT, ENJOY LEARNING NOTHING"

Also, Ken Kesey is a fucking douche.

>> No.2052749
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>>2052744
>Also, Ken Kesey is a fucking douche.

>> No.2052754

some jackass with a literature PhD doesn't know his place and starts talking big boy philosophy

nothing new here

>> No.2052757

>>2052749

Don't get me wrong, the man is a good writer. We read One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and I enjoyed that a lot. It made me look forward to reading Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test later on in the semester.

But, that book annoyed the shit out of me. Fucking Merry Pranksters riding around acting like they know better than everyone else, ESPECIALLY Master Kesey. I was 100% with Timothy Leary.

>> No.2052762

>>2052754

Enjoy working at Starbucks. I'll mail you a copy of the Picture of Dorian Gray.

>> No.2052768

>>2052762
>Enjoy working at Starbucks

I'm a Navy Seal

>> No.2052769

>>2052768

Oh, sorry. I'll mail you a herring.

>> No.2052776

>>2052705

I chose imprecise words. Worthless, or a variation thereof would've been better. Empty, maybe. An exercise in mental masturbation. A result of too many academics, unwilling to admit there is something they don't understand, who sigh and nod appreciatively at language that is mostly horseshit in order to be seen as intelligent. I could have called it a lesson in obfuscation, in appearing smart and enlightened - an entire semester spent in pursuit of that goal. I could, and will, call postmodern language and philosophy a crime against humanity and feel justified in doing so.

But I was hungry and in a hurry. My apologies.

>> No.2052779

>>2052769
why don't you mail me an apology for being so ignorant

>> No.2052781

why would anyone take a lit class and expect to learn something usefull?

>> No.2052783

>>2052757
Wait, you prefer the guys that secluded themselves in a castle to the people who went out to try and spread an ideal of love and openness? I really actually liked the worldview they seemed to be constructing in Electric Kool Aid Acid Test

>> No.2052785

>>2052744
>"THE HOLOCAUST AND THE ATOMIC BOMB DESTROYED THE IDEAL OF PROGRESS"

yeah that's p much inarguable tho

>> No.2052805
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>postmodern lit class
>read shitty autofiction books and a graphic novel
>mfw I realise this is supposed to represent the state of contemporary literature

>> No.2052815

No Tao Lin? Fuck that guy.

>> No.2052816

>>2052805
Which graphic novel?
Because if it's Watchmen or Maus it's better than anything written since 1970 or so anyway.

>> No.2052818

>>2052718
Some of those books are good.

>> No.2052821

>>2052816
>I am deeply ignorant of contemporary literature

>> No.2052829

>>2052612
>>2052718
Your teacher sounds like a lot of guys on campus with a lot of inspiration but little breadth of knowledge. He'll be into postmodern literature in quite a shallow way but I guess you'll have fun in some ways, he sounds pretty eccentric.

>> No.2052835

>>2052829
>implying you can inspire people from a foundation of ignorance into anything other than ignorance alike.

>> No.2052836

>Get into post-9/11 literature class
>Assigned Jonathan Safran Foer
>Cry

Fuck that jew.

>> No.2052839

>>2052835
Ignorance of what sort?

If the guy knows how to think but not necessarily what to think, you've got yourself a reasonable pupil teacher relation to build on

>> No.2052953

>>2052779

Who is this D&E impersonator? Perhaps you should just sign your comments with the pseudonym Cheap&MissingATooth.

>> No.2052958

>>2052953
D&E impersonator

Using the correct trip.
Deep&Edgy!pSkjEcB9sQ

>> No.2052988
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>>2052779
you won't give us your address!