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A line from Moran’s Interdisciplinarity that my mind keeps circling around like water around a drain is, ““unlike many other disciplines, English does not make a strong connection between education and training for future careers” (18). I sort of view the Creative Writing major as the pot-smoking younger brother of the literature major, which is the ugly stepchild of the science majors.

I had gone to an English Professor and confessed my fears about being a creative writing major, “I know it’s what I want to do, but I don’t know if it’s the smartest thing to do. Like, what if I graduate and the only place that hires me for the rest of my life is Starbucks?”

Continue reading “On Being a Creative Writing Major”

As I was flipping back to find a particular page from Interdisciplinarity, one quote from a different page caught my eye, and honestly, made me mad.  As stated by Graham Hough, “I do not believe that anyone should have their higher education in literature alone.  What is disgustingly called “English” in universities should never have grown into a separate and isolated ‘subject’ as it has.  It needs to be closely integrated with the study of other languages, with history and the history of ideas.” (Moran, 42).

Why did this make me so mad?  Because it was a complete slam to my major!  Hough referred to the major as “disgusting” and it irked me.  Why did English get such a bad rap?  What if going pre-med had this bad of a reputation?  Could we go without doctors in our lives?  No! So why is it okay to give a negative connotation to English?  The world may never know, but I would love to find out why.

In chapter three, Moran discusses the notion of ‘theory’ as it relates to interdisciplinarity. He describes ‘theory’ as being “concerned with big questions about the nature of reality, language, power, gender, sexuality, the body and the self” (75). He goes on to explain how theory provides a framework for people to engage within. After reading this I started to think about music theory prior to the 20th century. 18th-century voice leading is a set of rules in which harmonic progressions must take place. Pitches must move up or down by a specific interval depending on the context of the harmony. For example, one rule prohibits the use of parallel fifths. This occurs when two pitches that are seven semitones away from each other move together by the same interval. This is discouraged because of the hollow sound the fifths create. It is more desirable to move to a non-perfect interval such as a third or a sixth. While this definitely provides a framework for musicians to work within, it seems arbitrary. These strict rules are subjective opinions that have been formed over a long period of time. I will make the jump to say that every time a new rule was added to the practice of voice leading someone had to have made a decision based on their individual opinion of what sounds good. These rules aren’t concerned with the big questions that Moran describes. It’s mysterious to me why musicians followed these rules in the first place since they don’t come from anything other than subjective opinions about what “sounds right.”

Some contemporary art music is composed algorithmically, meaning a composer will follow rules that they have devised themselves in order to make artistic decisions. For example, some composers use the overtone series of a given pitch to make decisions about harmony and melody. I’m not really sure how, but some composers even use computer programing languages to provide them with rhythm and pitch material. Since these styles of music composition are more concerned with the nature of sound itself I think that they better fit Moran’s definition of theory. This may be controversial, but I think that newer methods of creating music better fit Moran’s definition of theory.

In this day and age, there are many social issues such as feminism, like abortion and same-sex marriage, that we as a society are becoming accustomed to hearing in the news. Feminism, however, has been one plaguing the human race throughout history. It dates back to gender roles and responsibilities in ancient times. Unfortunately, women are still fighting for complete and equal rights to those of the male sex.

In Joe Moran’s Interdisciplinarity, it is said that “the experience of women is devalued or excluded” (92). That is why the Brontë sisters published their works under the names of Ellis, Currer, and Acton Bell, so as not to slight the possibility of success.

The question now, though, is whether or not this statement still relates. While it is known that female athletes are still fighting to make the same salary as male players (for example, in tennis female players make significantly less than male players although the earnings from winning a major is now equal), female workers in arts and entertainment are achieving as much acclaim as men. Take, for example, J.K. Rowling who is now one of the most famed authors of our time; however, she chose to write under a pen name for the same reasons as Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë. Her identity was revealed, though, and she experiences continued success with her novels and the Harry Potter franchise. Society is changing.

As a woman in the modern world, I am more confident than my predecessors may have been. Philosopher Julia Kristeva stated that “women are defined by their bodies…in ways that men are not” (96). In some ways this is still relevant, as there are still those that argue against the feminist theory –that a woman’s role is not interdisciplinary, that she should remain in the home with the family. However, as a species we now have means of controlling the functions of our bodies. Women have as much power over themselves and their bodies as men do. As a result, women can attend and pursue schooling without struggle, excel in their careers and climb to the top of the social ladder, and earn respect and acclaim as much as those of the male sex. I am not concerned about my future success as a writer and woman in society because of the advances in the direction toward equality. As a society, we are headed in the right direction. Continue reading “Feminism in “Interdisciplinarity””

Upon entering Cane, we are struck by the blunt sexuality of the opening vignette/story/passage, “Karintha.” We meet the exuberant titular character, and although only twelve, we are informed that she is a “wild flash” and that “men had always wanted her.” Karintha discovers the world of sex: “perhaps she had felt her parents loving,” and with this knowledge she plays ‘home’ with a boy. After this discovery, old men no longer ride “her hobby-horse upon their knees.”

“Karintha” almost immediately evokes the image of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, which came decades later and mirrors its intimate sexuality. In Lolita, we meet another titular character, a 12 year-old girl that emanates enthusiasm and desirability. Lolita becomes the center of the affections of Humbert Humbert, a writer that lives in her home (and later marries her mother, Charlotte, to stay close to her). Humbert dreams of touching Lolita, dreads time spent alone with her mother and survives coitus with Charlotte by dreaming Lolita shares the bed with him. However, throughout the novel, Humbert Humbert stresses that he could not imagine tarnishing the purity of his lovely “nymphet,” and while he hungers for Lolita, he does not allow himself to touch her. Continue reading “Toomer’s Cane and Nabokov’s Lolita”

Personally, I have always been “scientifically challenged.” Meaning, I have always struggled academically and conceptually with subjects of scientific nature. Chemistry, physics, earth science… they have all tripped me up in some way or another. Often times, when staring in a blank daze at a, or any, science textbook, I have attempted to comfort myself by silently declaring, “I’m an English person. Naturally, science just isn’t my thing.”

I had made it so that I was always able to put up a sturdy wall between my beautiful, subjective, lyrical English world and the cold, hard, seemingly intimidating world of science. While time is beginning to teach me that my struggles with the sciences do not necessarily lie in the idea that I have married myself to English Lit, it was my reading of Joe Moran’s Interdisciplinarity which helped me, in many ways, gradually disassemble my dividing wall. Continue reading “Darwin the Wordsmith”

I feel as if the subject of Charles Darwin and his work has been the most controversial issue, especially in the classrooms, because people do not believe his theories to be probable. Also the subject of religion comes into the subject as well. Darwin had an idea that everything had to evolve over time and therefore everything is connected in a way. Darwin is considered a scientist and all scientists theories started out as a metaphor (pg 146).

Darwin was able to prove his theory of natural selection to be true and then came up the issue of Darwin avoiding talking about the humans and how they are related to other species and therefore came to the theory of ‘Social Darwinism.’ This also brought him to discover the theory of the ‘missing link’ or as we know ‘Big Foot.’ That is most likely unreal so maybe that’s why people are so controversial over his theories.

Darwin was a brilliant man and had a lot of logical theories in science but became a part of literary and cultural texts by influencing them by using his theories (pg 147).  So why is his theories so criticized and controversial today if he made such a difference in not only science but literary subjects as well?