Discourse!

Whatever universe a professor believes in must at any rate be a universe that lends itself to lengthy discourse. A universe definable in two sentences is something for which the professorial intellect has no use. No faith in anything of that cheap kind!

--William James from "Pragmatism: A New Name for
Some Old Ways of Thinking Thinking"(1907)




I’d really like this blog to help us to create a class discourse. Any extra activity on the blog can help to supplement your overall course participation grade. I encourage you to read other people's posts and to comment on them.

Also, I’ve started adding labels to people’s posts. I'll probably hand that duty over to you soon. Feel free to change labels if you don't like them. I encourage you to add labels since, I think, the they will help to create ties between blogs.

Also, I’m not really an expert in adding multimedia to blogs, but if you’d like to add a video, song, story, a relevant story from the NY Times (for example), or something else that you think is relevant to the material that we’re covering in class and you know how to do so, then feel free to post it on the blog.

I repeat: any extra activity on the blog that shows that you are engaging with the course materials can supplement your course participation grade.

The First Blog Assignment

You are about to leave for another culture (you may specify the one you are going to or would like to go to) for a stay of at least 6 months.

What do you think that you’ll need to take and why?

What do you think will sustain you while you are there – here you may think of favorite books or other items as well as certain psychological capacities.

Do you think that the things that you like will be translatable or understandable in this new culture?

Feel free to post before the first class.

To Post Here

This semester, we'll be trying to establish a class 'discourse' by creating a class blog. I'd like you to interact with each other and respond to each other's posts when appropriate.

Hopefully....it will be fun too.

First, I'll need to invite you to the blog.

Next, you'll have to log in through blogger.
After you've done this, your email address should appear in the top right corner of this page, along w/ the option to make a "new post."

When you've created a new post, click "publish post" and check to make sure it's up.

Make sure that you publish your posts.