I am very proud of all of the thinking I have done this semester so far. We have thought over with many difficult concepts like the ideas of self, identity, and worth. As seen in the image on the left above, while discussing Scott’s argument we defined a lot of terms as a class. A few that I found the most interesting were criticism, beauty, and taste. I thought for each of them we came up with a very well rounded definitions. Defining these terms help me, and I think the class as a whole, better form a central argument for Better Living Through Criticism. I think something that was really helpful during this particular discussion was the ground rules that we set midway through. I think setting those really helped me to feel more comfortable speaking up. After weeks of discussion, we finally landed on the idea that art is there for enjoyment but the criticism of it is the true art.
Another section of my CPB I am very proud of (seen in the middle image above) is a spread combining a class discussions and my own breaking down of Greenblatt’s introduction. Of the left page of the image we were talking the first part of the introduction. One idea I found very fascinating was that Greenblatt weaved his definition of self into the writing. I believe he did that to make sure readers knew exactly what he was referring to when he talked about selves. Additionally, I during this discussion, I asked How can self-fashioning exist without identity. Now that we have discussed Greenblatt a lot more, I think I am able to answer this question. I think that self-fashioning is the way that we create our identity, but it does not exist before we self fashion. On the right page of this CPB spread, I broke down every sentence of the first 12 paragraphs of the introduction. Though this seemed like a very tedious assignment, it really helped me to understand the meaning of each sentence. And it made me appreciate the importance of every sentence within Greenblatts’s writing. The last page I was very proud of (seen in the image on the right of the images above) was further in our discussion of how Greenblatt writes to convey his argument across. One thing that really stuck with my from this day of discussion was how many ways that one person can write to get their ideas across. Greenblatt uses references to people, uses m-dashes, dialectical movement, and much more to make readers understand what he is talking about. But one big idea we came out of this discussion is that it’s about the dialectical movement, not the end point that is achieved. Out of this discussion as a whole, I took away that there is a lot of movement that goes into writing, but that movement is an important part of the writing, not where you end up. I have enjoyed this class so far this semester. I love the conversations we have that last multiple days so we can really dive deep into the concepts. I have still been struggling with speaking up during class, but I am working on it. I hope in the near future we move away from summer work and start looking at more writings. I imagine we will continue to grapple with the difficult concepts that have come to light while we have been reading. I am excited to see what we move onto next.
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