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/lit/ - Literature

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3149552 No.3149552 [Reply] [Original]

What kind of pretentious teacher has footnotes on their syllabus?

>> No.3149556

a really cool, rad one, who is probably a pretty "real" guy and would be cool to just chat about books with

>> No.3149558

>>3149552
I like Coetzee.

>> No.3149585

>raison d'être
>elucidation

>> No.3149588

>>3149552
>sexier
what?

>> No.3149589

>>3149556
Haha, yeah, ' "real" '

>> No.3149591

>>3149588
He realizes that Prof. [censored] is a better writer than he is

>> No.3149612

I had Wallace and I owed him 4 dollars for xeroxes from kinko's. Needless to say, it was a relief when he died.

>> No.3149616

What's the deal with the block quote; shouldn't it be justified as a block? I don't geddit.

btw I'm backtracing this right now so I can tell your professor his student's been posting course materials online; enjoy ur academic suspension u bitch

>> No.3149626
File: 59 KB, 500x631, 1351355029069.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3149626

>>3149616

>> No.3149629

>>3149616

Good luck contacting him.

>> No.3149633

>>3149616
>btw I'm backtracing this right now so I can tell your professor his student's been posting course materials online; enjoy ur academic suspension u bitch

>professor David Wallace


Good luck with that. You using a ouija board?

>> No.3149637
File: 82 KB, 469x600, Wallace_Syllabus_001_large.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3149637

>> No.3149641

>>3149552
>teaching Steven King

This will confuse and enrage the /lit/ peanut gallery. I have a newfound respect for this man.

>> No.3149651
File: 90 KB, 692x550, Wallace_Books_Stead_002_large.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3149651

>>3149616

I think I found his number, you should call.

>> No.3149652

>>3149641
I'm not confused and enraged, because I already knew DFW sucked

>> No.3149656

>>3149626
i love seeing these image macros

not being sarcastic

>> No.3149657
File: 222 KB, 677x550, Wallace_Books_DeLillo_002_large.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3149657

Will someone translate this for me?

>> No.3149658

>>3149641
It's more likely "This is why Stephen King sucks..."
and "This is why my books are better..."

>> No.3149663

>>3149658


See: >>3149637

>> No.3149661

>>3149657


Okay now this is just getting voyeuristic.

>> No.3149681

>>3149637
“Don’t let any potential lightweightish-looking qualities of the texts delude you into thinking this is a blow-off type class. These ‘popular’ texts will end up being harder than more conventionally ‘literary’ works to unpack and read critically.”

>> No.3149686

>>3149681
The joke is that they are books you have to force interpretation upon to make them seem in any way meaningful

>> No.3149689

>>3149658

>hasn't been to university

>> No.3149697

>>3149686
So DFW was teaching those kids absolutely nothing

>> No.3149702

>>3149689
I would love to know how you came to that conclusion

>> No.3149707

That footnote made me feel like literature is bullshit.

>> No.3149708
File: 68 KB, 577x599, 1347405718158.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3149708

Do Americans think your profs should be revered as gods? Lol, I converse with my profs on fucking facebook about my projects and essays, it's like you people are stuck in fucking high school or something.

Hilarious.

>> No.3149716

>>3149708
What in the world are you talking about?

>> No.3149718

>>3149716
Why shouldn't a prof have a light-hearted joke on his syllabus? Do you think an academic is some kind of alien from outer space, or a robot? They're allowed to make jokes too.

Jesus.

>> No.3149720

>>3149716
profs = professors

>> No.3149722

>>3149720
profs = profits
profs = prophets

>> No.3149726

>>3149722
is this your attempt at humour or are you actually being tight-arsed at abbreviating 'professor' to 'prof'?

>> No.3149728

>>3149726
You touched a nerve so he's being passive aggressive.

>> No.3149729

>>3149728
diddums

>> No.3149735

>>3149718
The joke is that the prof is DFW who wrote a book with a gazillion footnotes and a hundred pages of endnotes

>> No.3149740

My professor's book is more footnotes than main text. Is this a normal thing when you're a Classics scholar?

>> No.3149741

>>3149686
No, it's more likely that genre literature is likelier to take aspects of our culture as a given and expect you to as well, so teasing out what it's "saying" is more difficult.

Sort of a sidenote: It requires considerable craft to be successful in writing genre fiction.

>> No.3149742

>>3149735
never read any

>> No.3149744

>>3149742
There's one that's 17-pages long. It has a footnote inside it.

>> No.3149748
File: 935 KB, 1096x722, lel.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3149748

>>3149744
Do you get the impression he puts them in to be smug about his own style? Is that their sole purpose?

>> No.3149750

>DFW's fiction: LOL DIDNT READ-length, self-indulgent and insufferably self-conscious about it
>DFW's essays: more entertaining and astute than most mid-brow journalists and culture critics, 5/5 bretty good :D
>DFW's teaching: seems legit.

>> No.3149760

>>3149750
>DFW's teaching: seems legit.
Because he teaches students to force interpretations on pleb-tier books?

>> No.3149764

>>3149760
>pleb
>>>/mu/

>> No.3149766

>>3149760
No it's that he's creating artificial themes in a class that's artificially difficult about novels that create artificial enjoyment in the reader.

>> No.3149768

>>3149760
Didn't DFW used to teach philosophy of mathematics or something?

>> No.3149773

>>3149750

He was an awful essayist. Consider the Lobster was one of the worst pieces of journalism I've ever read. It should have been re-titled "what is an editor lol". Self-indulgent, trite and tedious. I didn't rate him massively highly as a novelist either, but he was better at fiction than non-fiction.

>> No.3149774

>>3149768
That's what he went to grad school for originally. He gave it up after checking into rehab for alcoholism (?)

>> No.3149775

>>3149760
this text is very well written.

>> No.3149778

>>3149773
Self-indulgence is more acceptable in an essay IMO, but yeah there are some stinkers in that one. I gave up on the one about John McCain, honestly.

>> No.3149780

>>3149760
>Because he teaches students to force interpretations on pleb-tier books?

You've never studied literature, have you?

>> No.3149787

>>3149760
>pleb

Uppity capite censi detected. Get back to work.

>> No.3149809

>>3149773

Nope.

>> No.3149869

>By way of elucidation I have provided some class logistics for you. The raison d 'etre being that you will process the time and local that the class is to meet.

He is such a terrible writer. It's like reading those posts that off-boarders construct when they post here, trying to sound very high brow and sophisticated but failing completely.

>> No.3149874

>>3149869
Also, 'raison d'etre being' = 'reason being being'.

>> No.3149884

>>3149809

Great argument. Did you take Podgy's course in literary criticism?

I'm open-mouthed at your skill in disputation.

>> No.3149890

no it would be 'reason of being' being
but no one would read it that way because no one automatically translates foreign languages to the point where they don't even notice that the language has changed

stop nitpicking just to troll DFW fans, you're above this

>> No.3149895

>>3149890
was for
>>3149874

>> No.3149913

>>3149874

RIP in peace.

>> No.3149918

>>3149780
No, that's a good thing though right?

>> No.3149921

>>3149874
'raison d'etre' translates to 'reason for being

>> No.3149928

>>3149658
>2012
>thinking Stephen King sucks

Centuries later, he will be seen as the Shakespeare of our generation

>> No.3149938

>>3149928
If Stephen King is the Shakespeare of our generation then we should just forget about this whole literature thing because we're not getting any better at it.

>> No.3150082 [DELETED] 

J.M. Coetzee is dumb.

>> No.3150317

>>3149552

Is this what American education looks like?
I'm beginning to understand why you're a race of arrogant morons.

>> No.3150334

>being this obsessed

>> No.3150344

>using em dashes where parentheses would do

>> No.3150367

>>3150344
Parentheses are way too formal and distracting. Em dashes flow much better.

>you
>confirmed for shit writer

>> No.3150385

>>3150344

The weird thing is Faggot Walrus was the one who got me into the habit of using parentheses.
And most people have forgotten that the em dash exists.

>> No.3150391

>>3150367
>this is what high schoolers believe

>>3150385
>And most people have forgotten that the em dash exists.
in my experience people use hyphens instead of em dashes, so technically you're correct

>> No.3150409

>>3150391
Sorry, can't hear you over how shitty your writing is.

>> No.3150417

>>3150367
so I've been using excessive parentheses in my writing as far back as I can remember (which means like early elementary school (which in middle school I also used double parentheses, of which I believe there's nothing better than double parentheses) like 2nd grade up) and I've always considered them casual as hell

(yeah that double parentheses was shoehorned in to prove a point, so what?)

>> No.3150426

>>3150409
if you couldn't hear me over how shitty my writing is, how did you hear my boot in your ass?

0 deaf atheists
1 christians with rectums

>> No.3150430
File: 45 KB, 600x800, vollmann.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3150430

>you will never visit DFW during office hours

>> No.3150434

>>3150385

Jack Kerouac made me do it.

>> No.3150436

>>3150417
Your teachers then probably thought you were a precocious cunt, and your teachers now still do.

>> No.3150439

Speaking of stylistic perks, what's the deal with people posting seemingly_random_underscores?

>> No.3150454

>>3150439
I do it for emphasis because we can't do italics/underlines.

>> No.3151105
File: 29 KB, 283x357, 1341296977909.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3151105

>>3149552
>mfw Wallace had to use asterisks to footnote
>I used to do this all the time before I discovered the proper footnote function in Word.

>> No.3151112

>mfw those footnotes were manually entered

Don't they teach MS Word to teachers?

>> No.3151170

>>3149661
I love that they have such a fancy sounding word for a peeping tom.

>> No.3151188

>>3149612
If you had given him those 4 dollars, you might have saved him.

Think about that.

>> No.3151202
File: 112 KB, 682x550, Wallace_Books_McCarthy_002_large.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3151202

>those doodles

>> No.3151382

>>3151105
where did wallace use asterisks? iirc infinite jest he uses numbers

>> No.3151543

>>3151382
I think it was in brief interviews or oblivion; don't really recall.

>> No.3151555

>>3150430
Wow. Vollmann is fucking ugly. No wonder he's into whores.

>> No.3151564

>>3151555
He has a wife and kids now. Have you read any of his writing? I have Royal Family and I have been waiting to crack it open.

>> No.3151566

>>3151564
Only Europe Central, it was decent but overly ambitious.
I want to read some of his semi-fictional stuff, though.

>> No.3151567

>>3149589
you just made me completely stop having fun.

>> No.3151584

>>3149874
Better brush up your french, it's correct.

>>3149869
Seriously? You don't see the sarcasm of such a sentence? You truly believe there are people that state the obvious and use phrases such as raison d'être in earnest?

>> No.3151585

>>3149938
>implying Shakespeare was the Shakespeare of Shakespeare's generation

>> No.3151586
File: 42 KB, 250x250, what the fuck am i reading.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3151586

Demanding reimbursement seems a bit tacky. The language is excessively chummy & patronizing. On the other syllabus, "BOOKS YOU HAVE TO BUY" gives cause to wonder why on an English syllabus, one feels the need to translate "required texts" into so-called "simple English" (500 most common words of English, see "The Cat in the Hat"). Is this an English-as-a-Second-Language class? No, I think that the professor's just a faggot. Looks like the sort of syllabus that an edgy graduate teaching assistant uses in his or her first year of teaching.

>> No.3151592

>>3149681
sounds like something that the instructor of a blow-off type class would put onto his course syllabus

>> No.3151650

> BASIC COURSE SPIEL

puking right now

>> No.3151651

>>3149552
its better to over explain rather than to leave the reader scratching their heads

>> No.3151652
File: 90 KB, 500x364, nit.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3151652

>>3151584
earnest or not he writes like shit, he has no feel for language

his sentences are the jumbled anglo-latinate train wrecks of the forever amateur who just can't get past that stage of language shaping that most people grow out of by the time they're 25

it's painful, I feel bad for him

>> No.3151655

I had a teacher quote herself on her power point syllabus. This was at community college.

>> No.3151692

>>3149552

I'd love to have an instructor with that level of enthusiasm.

And footnotes serve a purpose.

>> No.3151703

>>3151652
Most don't ever grow out of that stage.

>> No.3151919

>>3150317
>Is this what American education looks like?

Yes. (And you don't even know the half of it.)

>I'm beginning to understand why you're a race of arrogant morons.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Some of my best friends are arrogant morons.

>> No.3153693

>>3151652
And we are supposed to think, with that sentence, that you've grown out of it?

>> No.3153733

>>3153693
I'm not a professional author, so it is far less cringe worthy and more forgivable for me to be bad at writing than it is for him

the man was a very marginal talent, infinite jest is a book for young adults and the only reason he gets so much hype is cause killed himself

>> No.3153737

>>3153733
But how are you to know that there are these stages of evolution when you yourself have not passed through them? I'm not saying 'How can you judge?', I'm saying 'How can you _know_?'

>> No.3153739

>>3149552
what kind of insecure little teenager complains that their teacher enjoys their work?

>> No.3153743

>>3149558
That Tony Hoagland book is awesome too.

>> No.3153746

>>3149658
Only Chinua Achebe is so brazen.

>> No.3153748

Reality is fragmented and I believe the professor wants to demonstrate that on his syllabus.

>> No.3153749

>>3149702
Because even the grad students that teach composition courses know better than to rank literature. It goes against the entire move away from the canon and you would know this if you had been to university.

>> No.3153750

>>3149697
Have you STEM field kids done away with critical thinking entirely?

>> No.3153752

>>3149735
Yes, which is why the inclusion of footnotes on his syllabuses is such cheeky fun and nothing to get asspained over.

>> No.3153753

>>3149748
Hey! I like you.

>> No.3153756

>>3149780
Welcome to /lit/.

>> No.3153758

>>3149918
Not really.

>> No.3153759 [DELETED] 

It's a syllabus.

105 posts... is /lit/ really this retarded?

>> No.3153760

>>3149938
You're right. We're not getting better at it. Progressivism is a myth, after all.

>> No.3153762

>>3150317
>Is this what American education looks like?
Some of it. I wish more of it had this much humor.

>> No.3153763

>>3153749
Every person has an order of rank in regards to literature insofar as they have preferences, unless you are Musil's Man without Qualities, a perfect incarnation of modernism at its most catholic and meaningless.

>> No.3153764

>>3153763
And keeping those preferences to oneself would annihilate everything human in literary criticism.

>> No.3153765

>>3150344
Em dashes and parentheses aren't used interchangeably.

>> No.3153771

>>3153759
First day on /lit/ I see.

>> No.3153773

>>3150426
>having a whole colon where a semicolon would do

All the Stephen King hate is forgetting that The Stand was one of The Walrus' favorite books
but this >>3153760 is still a truth

>> No.3153817
File: 96 KB, 300x395, michael12.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3153817

Has this turned into a college thread?
Check how cool my Shakespeare teacher is

http://www.michaelbryson.net/about.html
All this swag

>> No.3153825

>>3153773
Colons and semicolons aren't used interchangeably either.

>> No.3153888

>>3153825
>prescriptive grammar
>2012 CE

whitey detected

>> No.3153894

>>3153888
They haven't become interchangeable yet. Nice try though.

>> No.3153896

>>3153894
stop COLONizing my language, cracker

>> No.3153898

>>3149928
Or fucking... Bad Religion of Literature. Pumping out so many goddamn books. Though he's prolific as fuck the average quality of them is nothing to scoff at. He can turn out a C, C+ novel in a year and make a neat dollar while doing it.

and anyways, everyone knows tao lin is going to be our Shakespeare

>> No.3153899

>>3153898
Then like...who would be the Mark E. Smith of literature?

>> No.3155756

>>3151112
You think he'd know how to properly footnote things in a word processor, considering he'd already written, oh, Infinite Jest by that time.