tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post3590056944559265956..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Sunday MorningCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-62126559318610812692008-03-12T08:17:00.000-04:002008-03-12T08:17:00.000-04:00Thanks, Stephanie, and good luck with the instigat...Thanks, Stephanie, and good luck with the instigation of teaching. Holly Crocker taught me a while ago how useful to think with Helgeland's Knight's Tale is, but I haven't had the chance to bring it into my classroom yet. To teach Marie I did use the terry Gilliam classic The Fisher King, and that worked amazingly well. It's so Yonec-like in parts that Marie de France could have composed the script.<BR/><BR/>Dan, my course is not as ambitious as it appears: the students get a total of two weeks (four classes) on the twelve lais. Two of these 75 minute classes are me lecturing ton the group of 80 (though with a fair amount of Very Large Group discussion), and two are led in sections of twenty by some excellent, excellent graduate students. So they get plenty of time to linger, with different voices and different formats.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-54618146708313968672008-03-12T03:32:00.000-04:002008-03-12T03:32:00.000-04:00Really lovely post, Jeffrey. Those rituals are the...Really lovely post, Jeffrey. Those rituals are the most important moments, when it seems you're doing nothing, really, but doing it together, with your child. Lovely.<BR/><BR/>I still find myself in awe when you say things like "the last six of Marie's lais today" because I guess I'm now on the 'less is more' bandwagon, pedagogically speaking. (Or maybe it's just my convenient rationalization for trying not to stress about preparation.) I wrestle with this every time I do any kind of survey: Do I fit into the term all the things I think students need to know and risk moving too far too fast? Or do I slow down a bit and cover few things more thoroughly? I'm sure you know the dilemma. Lately, I've been cutting back - going over just just Guigmar and Lanval and then having students meet in groups and present over the others or, other semesters, having them read on their own and compare and contrast one we do in class with another they've read on their own. Seems to work though it does give me more grading.<BR/><BR/>I don't get the pre-class jitters so much but it's probably because I'm not paying enough attention. It's also prolly just my own weird thought processes but after panicking as an undergrad a couple of times when I came into a test having studied obsessively but suddenly, at that moment before the test, feeling I knew absolutely nothing, it all just came spilling out. I'm kinda that way now with class, so when I'm sure I know absolutely nothing (which is most of the time) I don't panic anymore. Another healthy rationalization for keeping incipient dementia at bay. A brand new class is another story.<BR/><BR/>And Stephanie, I couldn't help but snort at "that Yonec is a great lai." We've never met and I *swear* I'm really not that juvenile ... usually ... unless it's for effect ... or ... well.dtklinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14754509776199786016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-75261419996690167702008-03-10T09:49:00.000-04:002008-03-10T09:49:00.000-04:00Jeffrey, this is a wonderful post. Since "Yonec" a...Jeffrey, this is a wonderful post. Since "Yonec" also includes the *promise* of revenge by a son for the heroine's past imprisonment, and then the son actually does show up and do just that, but after our heroine has died, the story, in relation to everything you have said here, is wonderfully rich in terms of temporalities.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-13264969930281014772008-03-09T21:11:00.000-04:002008-03-09T21:11:00.000-04:00Beautiful post. The wonderful rituals of home, and...Beautiful post. The wonderful rituals of home, and the everyday (or the everyweek, I suppose). This is exactly the kind of thing that we miss most when travelling, isn't it? <BR/><BR/>I also sympathise with the ritual of pre-class panic. We've just started semester here and so the challenge of re-inventing my subject afresh is uppermost in my mind, apart from the dreadful nerves that beset me for three days until I actually walk into the classroom and they disappear. <BR/><BR/>I'm lecturing on Helgeland's <I>Knight's Tale</I> this week and am surprised I am finding new things to think and say about it. Not, perhaps, because it's a great film, in the way that <I>Yonec</I> is a great lai, or that <I>Troilus and Criseyde</I> is a great poem. But it <I>is</I> a great film for a subject on contemporary medievalism!This old world is a new worldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.com