Week 14-15 Journal Prompts (Apr 18-29)

Write a course reflection: what did you most enjoy about this class? What could have been improved? How and in what ways have you grown as a writer? What has been most useful in helping this development? Which course texts did you find most useful to our course theme and analysis? Which did you find least useful?

OR

Outline your Essay 3

Week 13 Journal Prompts (Apr 11-15)

Write a response to our in-class Roundtable. You may respond to the Roundtable itself (what you liked, what you didn’t like, what worked well, something you found especially interesting) or to the Roundtable texts (which stood out, which intrigued you, which raised interesting questions, etc.)

OR

Write a response to material culture day. After visiting each of the stations, what similarities did you notice? Differences? Which station did you find most interesting? Why? Which station did you find least interesting? Why? 

Extra Credit Opportunities

MEST Symposium (April 8-April 9):
http://www.indiana.edu/~medieval/symposium.shtml

Attend one of the panels (details above) or the keynote. Please stay for the whole panel. Choose one of the presentations a write a brief response. Include the following in your response:

1. What was the paper about?
2. What is one thing you learned?
3. What did you find particularly effective about the presenter's presentation or style?

*(optional) please note if something weird or totally nutty happens during any one of the presentations or panels.

Total credit: +5 Points on any assignment.

Material Culture Day (April 14):
We are having a material culture day on 4/14 and I’d love to look at stuff that you are interested in.

This includes wedding blogs, engagement or wedding shoots, pinterest pins, proposals, teen or women’s magazines (Cosmo, Marie Claire, Ladies’ Home Journal), BuzzFeed articles/quizzes, favorite songs or music videos, commercials, etc.

Please email digital submissions to emaffeto@indiana.edu by Wednesday (4/13) at 12 pm
OR
Let me know by Wednesday (4/13) at 12pm if you intend to bring a physical submissions to class; then remember to bring your physical submission to class on 4/14.

Each submission (max 2) will count as a Discussion Starter (2.5 points each)

Week 12 Journal Prompts (Apr. 4 - Apr. 9)

Think about your working thesis and consider the following questions: 

What is your confirming evidence? What do your sources say that seems to support your claim?

What is your complicating evidence? Is there any way your sources don’t quite fit? Is there a source that seems to go against what you’re saying? Or going against another author? Is there a way that your primary text is bringing up things not addressed in your sources?

What has engaging with this source given you? Why does it matter? Ask and answer the “so what”?

OR

Using the following sheet (Evolving Thesis Handout) work on evolving your thesis for Essay 3!

Week 11 Journal Prompts (Mar. 28 - Apr.1)

What are you considering as your primary text for Essay 3? What is this text about? What appeals to you in this text? Where are places you might focus? What are issues you think you might focus on? Which of the authors that we've read in class seem to speak to your text the most?

OR

Take the attached BuzzFeed-Style Theory Quiz. What theory did you get? Does the description of this theoretical style seem to mesh with what you value in a text? Why or why not? Who that we've read so far in class seems to mesh most with your theoretical style? In what ways?

To use your new-found theoretical framework in your searches, consider checking out the following flowcharts:

Theory & Theorist Flowcharts for Philosophy, Religion, Formalism, Reader Response, Narratology, Historicism, Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis, Gender & Queer Theory,

Theory & Theorist Flowcharts for Critical Race, Cognitive, Marxist, Postcolonial, Game Studies, Performance, Disability, Posthumanism

Week 10 Journal Prompts (Mar. 21-26)

Catron notes 36 questions you can ask to “fall in love” (really, build a closer connection) with another person.   Click the link above and go through the activity with a buddy (friend, relative, significant other, etc.) and reflect on that experience: what surprised you about this activity? How does your experience mesh with or differ from Catron’s?  Do you feel differently about that person? In what ways?

OR

Choose one of the music videos we did not get to talk about in class today. Answer one of the following question-strands:
1. How the video uses narrative? What narrative is being constructed, in what ways?
2. What role does gender play in our reception of this video? How are masculine or feminine expectations/behaviors communicated? What are these expectations? What assumptions does the video engage or destabilize with regards to gender?
3. What are some of the ways this video exposes some of the potential problems (either implicit or explicit) in romance narratives?

Nobody Needs to Know (Last 5 Years, on Netflix), Try, Girl, You Don’t Need Makeup, Stuck Like Glue, The One That Got Away, Gaston, Expectations vs. Reality (500 Days of Summer)

Week 9 Journal Prompts (Mar. 7-12)

Unit 3 is mainly focused around preparing for and writing your final paper, because of that I haven’t asked you to read much outside of class. This gives us a lot of flexibility in Unit 3: What are some things we haven’t covered yet you’d like to get to? What are some topics within the soulmate genre you’d like to consider more in depth? What are some objects of analysis you’d like to suggest?

OR

Outline your Essay 2.

Week 8 Journal Prompts (Feb. 29-Mar. 4)

Respond to the end of Atonement. Is a soulmate narrative the best medium for Briony’s atonement? Has Briony atoned? Why or why not? How does the conclusion’s revelation change how we read the previous chapters?

OR

Use one of our secondary texts as a lens to read the final chapter of Atonement. What does this lens draw attention to? What aspects of this conclusion does it best illuminate?

Week 7 Journal Prompts (Feb. 22-26)

Consider a moment that was particular life-changing for you: did you recognize that moment as life-changing at the time? Or only until much later? In telling your story (that is, the story of you, who you are, and how you got here) do you include this moment? If so, what do you choose to emphasize or omit? If not, why do you choose to downplay its impact? Why do you think this is? What effect do these decisions have on both how you view yourself and how others come to view you?

OR

Write a response to the opening of Atonement. What major themes or issues do you see cropping up already? Which themes have we seen elsewhere? Which seem to be “new”? Where do you see this narrative going or where do you hope it goes? Why? What are some things Atonement does to create those expectations for you?

Week 6 Journal Prompts (Feb. 15-19)

Now that you have a better handle on Lacan, write a response to his ideas. How useful do you consider his work for an investigation of soulmate narratives? How useful or applicable do you find his ideas to real life? What are some things you think you’ll take and use from Lacan? What are some things you will abandon?

OR

Practice using Lacan on a song (or poem) that deals with love in some way. Do the method on the song/poem and then consider: what are elements of the song/poem that Lacan would draw attention to? What are elements he would overlook? How might you use Lacan to come to a different interpretation of that song or poem?

Some suggestions (if you can’t think of any):
Poems: Poe “Anabelle Lee,” Browning “Porphyria’s Lover”
Songs: The Killers “When You Were Young,” Jimmy Eat World “23,” Mumford & Sons “White Blank Page,” Passenger “Let Her Go,” Vanessa Carlton “White Houses”

She's got a blank space, baby. It is das Ding.

Week 5 Journal Prompts (Feb. 8-12)

What are some of the assumptions embedded in the soulmate narrative? That is who, according to these stories, “gets” to be soulmates? What obstacles are most easily overcome? Who is excluded from these narratives? Why do you think that might be?

OR

For your Essay 1, you had to choose a definitive feature of the soulmate. What was your feature? Do you see either Murakami or Barrett engaging your definition in their texts? In what ways? In using the soulmate narrative, what do these texts reveal about its assumptions or its utility?

"The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts."
(Murakami "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl")

Week 4 Journal Prompts (Feb. 1-5)

This week you may either respond to one of the traditional journal prompts (included below) or write an outline for your Essay 1.

Respond to Armstrong: How does Armstrong characterize the soulmate? How does his definition differ from some of the other texts we've read in this class?

OR

Take one of the ideas Fludernik talk about, apply it to to one of the films we've watched.

Week 3 Journal Prompts (Jan. 25-31)

Using either The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or The Notebook brainstorm a definition of the soulmate. What are the soulmate's defining features according to the text you've chosen? Which of these features seems to be most integral to the concept?

OR

Consider how Hegel or Plato subverts or extends the argument made by one of our films (ETSSM or The Notebook). How does their definition of love/the soulmate mesh with the film's? In what ways does it differ? What do you think is the most compelling difference or similarity?

These journal entries will totally help with your Essay 1

Week 2 Journal Prompts (Jan 18-25)

Week 2:

Brainstorm for your Short Paper 1: Choose one film tool to trace through Paperman. Explain how this film tool is working towards the text’s larger message.

OR

Respond to Hegel: How does Hegel define love? What are some ways his definition meshes with yours? Where are some points of departure? How does his definition extend or complicate Plato’s?  

Plato's "Symposium"

Wilhoit’s Critical Reading Questions:

Who is the author? What possible biases might have influenced his work?

What are your beliefs about the issues addressed in Symposium? How open are you to opposing views on this topic?

What audience is Plato trying to reach? Who would be attracted to his writing? Who would be alienated by it? How does your understanding of audience influence your reading of Symposium?

What’s Plato’s purpose? What’s his thesis? How successful is he at reaching his goals?

How is Symposium organized? What gets stressed as a result of this organization?

How do you feel about the issues addressed in Symposium? What is convincing? What is unclear? What ideas contradict your understanding of the topic? What ideas here are new to you? Which do you accept or reject? Why do you think that is?

Discussion Questions Symposium:

How does Plato choose to set up his argument (pg 14)? What effect does this have for you as a reader?

Aristophanes’ speech is where we get our conception of the soulmate: what are the main points of the story he tells?

What is the problem the gods encounter after the initial split? What does Zeus do to remedy this problem (19)?

For Plato there is a clear hierarchy of sexual relationships/pairings, what is the hierarchy? What do you find most striking or interesting about this hierarchy?

What does Plato value male/male attraction? By extension what is it that love values (pg 20)?

How does Plato describe the sensation of falling in love? What it is then that love or desire, according to Plato really is?

In what ways do you see Plato’s conception of the soulmate informing the modern conception of the soulmate? In what ways do you feel the modern conception of the soulmate differs from Plato’s?

What premises about love does Socrates object to? Why does he object to them (21-23)?

What, according to Socrates’ speech, does love desire most? Why does he claim that love desires this (24)?

Socrates takes a pretty broad definition of pregnancy. What are his primary definitions of pregnancy? Within these various definitions, which is the best?

What is the process, according to Socrates, of falling in love? How does this differ from the definition Aristophanes provides? How are they similar? Which explanation do you find most compelling? Why? 

Week 1 Journal Prompts (Jan. 10 - Jan. 16)

Week 1:

Do you believe in the Soulmate? Why or Why not? What do you most hope this course will illuminate about this trope?

OR

Write a short response to Plato’s Symposium. What struck you about his conception of the soulmate? Of love more generally? What are some of the ways his definition informs our modern understanding of these concepts? What are some ways modern (or popular) conceptions of the soulmate differ from his view?

Searching "soulmate" in Google images returns the above.

Welcome to W170!

Hello All!

Welcome to W170: Representations of the Soulmate in Popular Culture! In this course we will investigate the cultural hold of the soulmate narrative and the assumptions embedded within in. As part of our investigation into these narratives, you will be asked to respond to a series of weekly prompts in your journals. I will posting those weekly prompts to this page.

In addition, I will also be posting various discussion questions for our readings to this page. These questions will act as a jumping-off point for our class discussions; as such, you will want to keep them in mind during your reading of our course materials.

Looking forward to working with you all this semester!

Ms. Maffetone

Img. from Philip Tseng's "Taste Buds"