The Real-Life Application of “Reapers”

Admittedly, I have trouble going back and revising my writing. Growing up, I always kind of had a chip on my shoulder when it came to this. I was always allowed to submit essays without any real necessary needs for extensive revisions. Even recently, I submitted an essay early in my History of Theatre class, and managed an A the first time around, meaning I saved myself a lot of trouble in the upcoming weeks. However, when it came to my “Essay 1” submission for intertextuality, I cringed as I found myself deleting all but 400 words of my formerly 1600-word essay for revisions.

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Zulus and Biology

After going over Zulus in class today, it was fascinating to learn briefly about Percival Everett’s background. It was interesting that despite being a philosophy major in his undergraduate work, he was still well-read on other topics, such as but not limited to the sciences and biology. However this was not surprising to me, as philosophy literally translates to “love of wisdom”.

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The Bedford: “Abecedarian”, Arbitrary or Extraordinary?

On November 2nd 2016, we participated in a class experiment dealing with alphabetical or an “abecedarian” approach to organization. It was interesting to really think about this, as it has always seemed just widely accepted that this is typically how archives and books such as the Bedford Glossary are organized.

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A Whole New “Terrain”

Reading through Moran’s Interdisciplinarity, Chapter 5 Science, Space and Nature, as I read about “bioregional authors”, it reminded me of a similar situation I have been in when it comes to reading Greek mythology. Most Ancient Greeks knew the stories of most if not all of the characters in the plays presented to them. However, in today’s society, it usually requires specific research and knowledge about these characters to even get an idea of what is going on. This is very similar to the knowledge on cultural geography and ecology necessary to understand the region-specific writing that Moran mentions.

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Literature and Legal Cases

During the summer of 2015, I had taken on my first legal internship! While other students were decompressing from the Fall and Spring semesters, I decided it was a good idea to NOT give myself a single solitary break.

For my internship, I worked under the former supreme court justice of New York state, Judge Joseph Gerace. He specialized in tax and real estate cases,  needless to say a challenging and sometimes dry area of law. Continue reading “Literature and Legal Cases”

How Literature Has Shaped History

History and literature have always been greatly distinguished both in high school and in college courses. History courses tend to rely on rote memorization of major events with a grasp of specific concepts and chronology. Whereas literature courses I’ve taken have always relied on being able to read into and decipher allegory, themes, foreshadowing, and other literary elements.

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Interdisciplinarity and the Ever-Changing Hierarchy

Often times I’ve caught myself acting self-conscious about the fact that I’m an English major. Usually when I tell people this fact, it’s greeted with skepticism:

“Oh… what are you going to do with an English Literature degree?”

“Are you going to be a teacher?”

I usually follow up these criticisms with the reassurance that “Well, I’m pre-law so I plan on going to law school afterwards”, as if to validate that my studies are going to be “worth it”. In class discussion, it was nice hearing that I’m not the only one who has experienced this. It’s also interesting that there has somewhat always existed an ever-changing hierarchy in interdisciplinarity as far back as Aristotle, with slight discrepancies from today’s educational hierarchy. Continue reading “Interdisciplinarity and the Ever-Changing Hierarchy”