What Are You Reading

[Dr Doran]

I saw that thread too. I posted today there and mentioned the Trojan war....not by chance. I felt the tensions raising a few hours ago just like before a volcano erupts.

Than I went off to post at WWII.

Returning from there I saw all that war going on.

Too much beauty is very delicate: it started real life wars.

I can only say again: hats down to all the Ladies.

Regards

What thread? I thought he was responding to my thing about thucydides. Is there a thread somewhere about the Peloponnesian War? Or maybe also about the Trojan War? Do tell, always interested in those two.

 

[HungaryTom]

Nothing new under the sun

What thread? I thought he was responding to my thing about thucydides. Is there a thread somewhere about the Peloponnesian War? Or maybe also about the Trojan War? Do tell, always interested in those two.

Thucydides-eternal wisdom.

There is a 'thread' also outside FL. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditionalist_School

With tons of books to read.

 

[Dr Doran]

Thucydides-eternal wisdom.

There is a 'thread' also outside FL. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditionalist_School

With tons of books to read.

Unless I missed suthin', the Thoukster is not mentioned on that Eternal Wisdom thread.

 

[HungaryTom]

Threads-weaving

Unless I missed suthin', the Thoukster is not mentioned on that Eternal Wisdom thread.

The Greeks are mentioned a thousand times in the books of Hamvas Bela another scholar from that 'school'.

That FL thread was rather about
that:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eros_and_the_Mysteries_of_Love

Author belongs to the previous thread.

Regards.

 

[Harp]

The fascist homosexual angle has always interested me ... although I am completely straight, I did enjoy reading Jean Genet.

Mishima's embrace of fascism intrigues me also; whatever his personal
orientation, and I believe his psychological deterioration, Occidental
paranoia, fascism, and public suicide overshadows his literary legacy.

 

[Dr Doran]

Mishima's embrace of fascism intrigues me also; whatever his personal
orientation, and I believe his psychological deterioration, Occidental
paranoia, fascism, and public suicide overshadows his literary legacy.

A general freak. Occidental paranoia would be a good study for an English language book. Kind of a counterpart to Said's extremely annoying book Orientalism.

 

[Harp]

A general freak. Occidental paranoia would be a good study for an English language book. Kind of a counterpart to Said's extremely annoying book Orientalism.

Glad to see Berkeley isn't rubbing off on you....

 

[Dr Doran]

Glad to see Berkeley isn't rubbing off on you....

Being critical of Said, and of radical politics and of postmodernism as well, is a tough row to hoe at a place like Berkeley; but I have been trying to walk the line. Keith Windschuttle's The Killing of History has helped me walk it, and so has Camille Paglia's refreshing Sexual Personae which gives the only sophisticated look at gender that does NOT try to deconstruct it. To tell you the truth, the Lounge has helped too, in many small ways ...

 

[Diamondback]

Ouch, Doran. I had a postmodernist Lit prof at my local community-college who had a 'tude the size of West Texas toward any dissent from his view, so I cringe at what Berkeley must be like. You're a far braver man than I, sir, being in the lion's den...

 

[Dr Doran]

Ouch, Doran. I had a postmodernist Lit prof at my local community-college who had a 'tude the size of West Texas toward any dissent from his view, so I cringe at what Berkeley must be like. You're a far braver man than I, sir, being in the lion's den...

It's brutal, man. Brutal.

 

[Jack Scorpion]

Hey, wait, are we Berkeley bashing? I want in! I did 4 years time there.

 

[Harp]

... and so has Camille Paglia's refreshing Sexual Personae which gives the only sophisticated look at gender that does NOT try to deconstruct it.

I love Camille-hardly agree with her(sometimes ) but ya gotta love her.

 

[Harp]

From the foreword by Richard Holbrooke:
Part of the reason I'm reading this book is that I completely, utterly, and totally botched a paper on Hitler's rise to power in a college Western History class. I think I got a C minus or a D. Since I apparently didn't understand the subject then, I thought it would be nice to try and remedy that situation now.

Bye-the-bye Org: I recently finished John Barry's The Great Influenza, 1918-20
in which he rips Wilson for Versailles; attributiion to the bug
and Wilsonian dictatorial fiat. An interesting postscript.

 

[Orgetorix]

Bye-the-bye Org: I recently finished John Barry's The Great Influenza, 1918-20
in which he rips Wilson for Versailles; attributiion to the bug
and Wilsonian dictatorial fiat. An interesting postscript.

Interesting, indeed.

 

[Haversack]

If you want to read a scathing satire of academic post-modernism and deconstructionism within a fair-to-middling murder mystery, then I would recommend to you _Book, A Novel_ by Robert Grudin. There is one chapter in it which is the minutes of an English department faculty meeting in which the department is changed to the Department of Literary Theory. Grudin was an English professor at the University of Oregon. I've heard it said that in some parts of the book, very little artistic liscense was necessary.

Haversack.

 

[jamespowers]

What thread? I thought he was responding to my thing about thucydides. Is there a thread somewhere about the Peloponnesian War? Or maybe also about the Trojan War? Do tell, always interested in those two.

I was referring to Thucydides. I mentioned the Peloponnesian War in another thread about a year ago, if I remember right but I mistakenly gave credit to Herodotus. Herodotus merely commented on Thucydides. It is through him that we know who Thucydides' father was and can put him in a better context.
The Trojan War was related by Homer---they thought it was all a myth until Schleiman found Troy. :eusa_clap So much for the skeptical mind.

Regards,

J

 

[Dr Doran]

Hey, wait, are we Berkeley bashing? I want in! I did 4 years time there.

Buddy, you are definitely in. PM me any time. I am doing my PhD there after having finished my BA there. I can bash Berkeley 24/7 -- it's a hobby.

 

[Dr Doran]

If you want to read a scathing satire of academic post-modernism and deconstructionism within a fair-to-middling murder mystery, then I would recommend to you _Book, A Novel_ by Robert Grudin. There is one chapter in it which is the minutes of an English department faculty meeting in which the department is changed to the Department of Literary Theory. Grudin was an English professor at the University of Oregon. I've heard it said that in some parts of the book, very little artistic liscense was necessary.

Haversack.

Phatness. I'll find it.

 

[Dr Doran]

I was referring to Thucydides. I mentioned the Peloponnesian War in another thread about a year ago, if I remember right but I mistakenly gave credit to Herodotus. Herodotus merely commented on Thucydides. It is through him that we know who Thucydides' father was and can put him in a better context.
The Trojan War was related by Homer---they thought it was all a myth until Schleiman found Troy. :eusa_clap So much for the skeptical mind.

Regards,

J

Herodotus is generally thought to have written earlier than Thucydides, though. He does not mention anything that happened after circa 425 BC and his account proper only goes down to 478 BC. Thuc on the other hand is writing about the events right after Herodotus; after his "archaeology" in Book 1 he starts with the period after 478, so from about 477 BC until the abrupt breakoff in Book 8 in 411 BC. Herodotus does not mention Thuc. Thuc was son of Oloros, a Thracian prince. He owned gold or silver mines (i cannot remember offhand) in Thrace.
That's so funny about Schliemann finding Troy. People give him a lot of grief now, but his accomplishments were huge. I've been to Troy. It's all low walls, fallen plains, bushes, crud. It's no longer very close to the sea. My guide (one Nursel Demirdelen) warned me "The best way to appreciate Troy is to lower one's expectations." Hee hee.

 

[Diamondback]

Doran, if it's not around your area or Amazon, try Powells.com--usually when I get to the "ready to hock a kidney for it" stage trying to find a book, they come through. If they can't, I usually have to deal with a specialist bookseller for that field.