WEBVTT

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So thanks, Matthew,
for thanking everyone

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who I was going to thank.

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[LAUGHTER]

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This has just been a really,
very transformative thing

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to be part of.

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And so I'm going to
read the beginning

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part of one of my
lectures for the series,

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and then if I have
time, I'll read

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from a long poem that is shaped
by the experience of writing

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these lectures.

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The poem is kind of a lecture.

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I really put my bow
tie on, big time,

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when this whole thing started.

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I'm going to time myself.

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So this talk is called Wonder--

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a Syzygy, and it's
in three parts.

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The first is called
"The World Worlds."

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It's probably not the
most promising beginning

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for this talk, for me to observe
that my subject, like silence,

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has a way of disappearing
the moment you speak of it.

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Love, anger, regret, even
boredom may entrench themselves

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in us more deeply over
time, but wonder, I'd say,

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is always a fugitive affair.

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Maybe it's a matter of
developmental psychology.

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Already in the middle
of life, I find

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myself becoming a nostalgist
of childhood wonder.

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These days, I feel it
mostly in my dreams.

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Or maybe it's
civilization itself

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that's outgrown its
wonder years we start out

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with the marvel of
the ancient world--

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the Great Pyramid of
Giza, the Hanging Gardens

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of Babylon, the
Colossus of Rhodes--

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only to arrive in
our disenchanted era,

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at wonder bread.

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Any way you slice it,
wonder is ever vanishing.

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Still, I suspect the
occasional sighting

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of this endangered
emotion has something

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to do with why a
middle aged writer like

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me continues to write
poems in the twilight

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of the Anthropocene.

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Of course, William Wordsworth
said all this more eloquently,

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and in pentameter verse, too.

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Maybe poetry is a faint trace
of wonder in linguistic form.

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By following that trace for
the next 20 minutes or so,

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I hope we'll come a bit
closer to wonder itself.

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Let's begin with
an early wonder of

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the Western literary tradition.

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In book 18 of The Iliad,
the God Hephaestus

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forges a shield
for Achilles, who's

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lost his armor in the
bloody fog of war.

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But as Hephaestus works
the shield's surface,

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this peculiar blacksmith,
being a God after all,

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simply can't resist
creating a world too.

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There he made the Earth, and
there the sky and the sea,

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and the inexhaustible
blazing sun,

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and the moon rounding full,
and there the constellations,

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all that crown the heavens.

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A little creation myth
blossoms amid the slaughter

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as Hephaestus hammers
not only the Earth,

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but within the brief passage
of three dactylic hexameters,

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the totality of the known
cosmos onto the shield as well.

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He's only just getting
warmed up, really.

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Over the next 150
lines of the poem,

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Hephaestus emblazons
the shield's surface

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with a compact survey
of ancient civilization,

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including the arts of war, law,
agriculture, animal husbandry,

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astronomy, music,
dance, and so-on.

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Essentialist at heart, he sets
this panorama buzzing all over

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with epicurean minutiae.

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We see bunches of
lustrous grapes in gold,

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ripening deep purple.

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We hear a boy plucking
his lyre so clear it could

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break the heart with longing.

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We even taste the savor of a
cup of honeyed mellow wine.

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Not bad for a piece of
antiquated military equipment.

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Faced with such
artistry, I can't

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help thinking of the
shield's disabled maker

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as a kind of poet, like
the blind Homer himself.

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Isn't every poet a crippled
little god, after all?

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Sure enough, Hephaestus
incorporates a miniature epic

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into the shield's pageantry
too, with its own besieged city,

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fraught war councils,
interfering gods,

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and loved ones watching
anxiously from the ramparts

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as a tiny surrogate Hector is
hauled through the slaughter

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by his heels.

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No wonder Homer
describes the shield

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as "a world of gorgeous
immortal work."

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It contains an entire Iliad and
more within its gilt compass.

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Beguiled by Homer's
art, some readers

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have even tried to reverse
engineer real shields

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from this literary blueprint
over the millennia.

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Probably the most spectacular
example of all time

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was fabricated for display at
George IV's coronation banquet

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by the sculptor, draftsman, and
Homer enthusiast John Flaxman,

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in 1821.

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It's a marvel of 19th century
British punctiliousness

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in low relief.

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Here we find bunches of
lustrous grapes and gold,

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a boy with his lyre, and
that cup of honeyed wine

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all meticulously accounted for.

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And yet, I can't help feeling
this luminous artifact offers,

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at best, only a low resolution
copy of the Homeric original.

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Let's zoom in for a moment
on those golden hounds

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at their master's feet
to have a closer look.

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The bow tie is coming out.

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I'm not sure why
Homer enumerates

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the figures in this tableau
with such exactitude

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amid all the shield's masses,
and the golden drovers

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kept the herd in
line, four in all,

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with nine dogs at their heels.

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But it offers us a
perfect opportunity

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to check Flaxman's work
for quality control.

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Four drovers?

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Check.

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Now let's count the dogs.

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You might think I'm being
a little persnickety here,

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and with good reason.

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But bear with me
just a little longer.

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Where is that ninth hound?

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Marianne Moore famously
claimed that omissions are not

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accidents.

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It's hard to say whether
Flaxman's missing

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hound is an omission
or an accident,

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but it makes me wonder.

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Listen carefully.

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You'll hear the poor
beast barking, cringing

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away somewhere in the
vaporous limbo between fiction

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and reality, paws flickering.

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It's a creaturely
cipher for what's

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lost when we translate
the virtual into the real.

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The former US Army cryptographer
and Homer enthusiast Cy Twombly

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illustrates this splendidly
in oil, crayon, and graphite

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in his post-modern Shield of
Achilles a century and a half

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later.

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You won't find our
missing hound here either,

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and that's precisely the point
of Twombly's abstraction.

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All those kinetic scribbles
convey Homer's ἐνέργειᾰ,

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or literary energy, but they
also make an absolute hash

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of the shield's
pictorial imagery.

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Not even a cryptographer
can code so much world

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into so small a space.

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Whether you reconstruct
it like Flaxman

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or deconstruct it like
Twombly, the shield of Achilles

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will forever remain
an impossible object.

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It belongs to that
wondrous category

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of things that are larger
inside than outside

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like a poem, or a
person, or a world.

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"The world is not
the mere collection

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of the countable or uncountable,
familiar and unfamiliar things

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that are at hand,"
writes Martin Heidegger

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in The Origin of a Work
Of Art, "but neither

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is it a merely imagined
framework added

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by a representation to the
sum of such given things.

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The world," writes
Heidegger, "worlds."

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Homer's shield isn't
a picture of all

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the countable or
uncountable things--

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star systems, ripening
grape clusters,

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flickering hounds that
populate the world.

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As Flaxman and
Twombly discovered,

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it can't even be
pictured at all.

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But it worlds.

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"All the many men who see it
will wonder at the sight,"

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Hephaestus predicts as he
hammers the glowing cosmos

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on his forge.

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If you were to
survey the readers'

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responses to this literary
marvel over the millennia

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from the anonymous
commentators of antiquity

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to moderns like Alexander
Pope and G.E Lessing,

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to undergraduate term
papers in Hum 101,

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you'd end up with something
like a brief history of wonder

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in Western civilization.

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Describing the plowman
at work on the shield's

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figured surface,
Homer himself is

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the first among mortals
to express wonder

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at its construction.

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I think I might--

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yeah.

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"And the Earth churned
black behind them,

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like Earth churning
solid gold as it was.

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That was the wonder
of Hephaestus's work."

00:10:20.220 --> 00:10:23.410 align:middle line:90%


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I can't imagine a more
gorgeous description

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of humanity's passage through
the dark field of world.

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"The Earth churned black behind
them like Earth churning."

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But why doesn't Homer say
the shield's golden surface

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churned like Earth churning?

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This Mobius strip of a simile
is a wonder in its own right.

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Spellbound by
Hephaestus's artistry,

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we forget the shield's a
shield in the first place,

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so we feel we're watching
soil behave like itself.

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It's a kind of reverse alchemy
where gold becomes dirt,

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vehicle becomes tenor,
and shield becomes world.

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Sometimes it seems
there's no escaping wonder

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before such worlding work.

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Of the golden women depicted
in the sheild's wedding

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procession, Homer writes,
"each stood moved with wonder."

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I'm not sure whether
we should envy or pity

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these embossed figures,
forever frozen in transport

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at the wonder they inhabit.

00:11:31.180 --> 00:11:34.180 align:middle line:90%


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But here's the thing.

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Though Hephaestus prophecies
that "all the many men who

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see it will wonder
at the sight," none

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of the many men in The
Iliad, Trojan or Greek,

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ever marvel at the
sheild's construction.

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Achilles's fellow
soldiers won't even

00:11:52.960 --> 00:11:55.480 align:middle line:90%
look at the God's radiant work.

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None dared to look
straight at the glare.

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Each fighter shrank away.

00:11:59.275 --> 00:12:01.780 align:middle line:90%


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Only a blind genius could
invent such tragic optics.

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Homer embeds a gilded
cosmos in the midst

00:12:09.760 --> 00:12:13.360 align:middle line:84%
of the epic for his readers
to marvel at through the ages,

00:12:13.360 --> 00:12:15.670 align:middle line:84%
but The Iliad's
inhabitants remain

00:12:15.670 --> 00:12:21.040 align:middle line:84%
forever blind to this
wonder hidden in plain view.

00:12:21.040 --> 00:12:23.020 align:middle line:84%
Beholding his gift
from the gods,

00:12:23.020 --> 00:12:25.330 align:middle line:84%
even Achilles, the
only mortal who

00:12:25.330 --> 00:12:27.850 align:middle line:84%
scrutinizes the shield's
figured surface,

00:12:27.850 --> 00:12:29.470 align:middle line:90%
fails to wonder at the sight.

00:12:29.470 --> 00:12:33.348 align:middle line:90%


00:12:33.348 --> 00:12:37.390 align:middle line:84%
"The more he gazed, the
deeper his anger went.

00:12:37.390 --> 00:12:40.550 align:middle line:84%
His eyes flashing under his
eyelids, fierce as fire,

00:12:40.550 --> 00:12:43.790 align:middle line:84%
exulting, holding the God's
shining gifts in his hands."

00:12:43.790 --> 00:12:47.570 align:middle line:90%


00:12:47.570 --> 00:12:52.550 align:middle line:84%
Rage, μῆνις, is the
first word of The Iliad,

00:12:52.550 --> 00:12:54.710 align:middle line:84%
and we usually associate
it with blindness,

00:12:54.710 --> 00:12:56.525 align:middle line:90%
rather than perception.

00:12:56.525 --> 00:12:59.960 align:middle line:84%
"I was blinded, lost
in my inhuman rage,"

00:12:59.960 --> 00:13:02.420 align:middle line:84%
says Agamemnon during
one of his many changes

00:13:02.420 --> 00:13:04.940 align:middle line:90%
of heart in the poem.

00:13:04.940 --> 00:13:08.480 align:middle line:84%
But homer envisioned something
like a phenomenology of rage

00:13:08.480 --> 00:13:10.400 align:middle line:90%
in this scene.

00:13:10.400 --> 00:13:11.930 align:middle line:90%
Bow tie.

00:13:11.930 --> 00:13:17.120 align:middle line:84%
"The more he gazed, the
deeper his anger went."

00:13:17.120 --> 00:13:20.790 align:middle line:84%
For Achilles, anger
is more than feeling.

00:13:20.790 --> 00:13:24.830 align:middle line:84%
It's an adjunctive
perception itself.

00:13:24.830 --> 00:13:27.830 align:middle line:84%
Only once he's "thrilled
his heart with looking hard

00:13:27.830 --> 00:13:29.990 align:middle line:84%
at the armor's
well-wrought beauty

00:13:29.990 --> 00:13:33.710 align:middle line:84%
does he break off
his furious gaze."

00:13:33.710 --> 00:13:36.320 align:middle line:84%
Far from blinding
him, rage furnishes

00:13:36.320 --> 00:13:39.495 align:middle line:84%
this exceptional character
with a singular perspective

00:13:39.495 --> 00:13:39.995 align:middle line:90%
on things.

00:13:39.995 --> 00:13:43.400 align:middle line:90%


00:13:43.400 --> 00:13:46.520 align:middle line:84%
Why does Achilles alone
rage at this world

00:13:46.520 --> 00:13:49.700 align:middle line:90%
of gorgeous immortal work?

00:13:49.700 --> 00:13:53.810 align:middle line:84%
Maybe it has something to do
with his sense of vocation.

00:13:53.810 --> 00:13:56.990 align:middle line:84%
In book nine of The Iliad,
we find him in his tent,

00:13:56.990 --> 00:14:01.280 align:middle line:84%
plucking strong and clear on the
fine lyre he won in battle long

00:14:01.280 --> 00:14:06.050 align:middle line:84%
ago, singing the famous
deeds of fighting heroes.

00:14:06.050 --> 00:14:07.700 align:middle line:84%
But I can't help
feeling this armchair

00:14:07.700 --> 00:14:11.900 align:middle line:84%
bard would have made a passable
poet in a different world.

00:14:11.900 --> 00:14:15.320 align:middle line:84%
Isn't every poet a sulky
egotist with a hyperactive death

00:14:15.320 --> 00:14:18.560 align:middle line:90%
drive after all?

00:14:18.560 --> 00:14:23.330 align:middle line:84%
But Achilles is born
to fight, not sing.

00:14:23.330 --> 00:14:26.390 align:middle line:84%
Anything that comes between
him and his bloody vocation,

00:14:26.390 --> 00:14:30.230 align:middle line:84%
including the beautifully carved
lyre, its bridge set firm,

00:14:30.230 --> 00:14:34.430 align:middle line:84%
must be cast aside for
him to follow his calling.

00:14:34.430 --> 00:14:36.800 align:middle line:84%
Not even life itself
matters more to him

00:14:36.800 --> 00:14:40.040 align:middle line:90%
than this grim occupation.

00:14:40.040 --> 00:14:42.830 align:middle line:84%
"Hard on the heels of
Hector's death, your death

00:14:42.830 --> 00:14:45.620 align:middle line:84%
must come at once,"
his mother warns him.

00:14:45.620 --> 00:14:51.170 align:middle line:84%
But Achilles only retorts,
"then let me die at once."

00:14:51.170 --> 00:14:55.730 align:middle line:84%
What's the point of living
if you can no longer kill?

00:14:55.730 --> 00:14:59.570 align:middle line:84%
Achilles doesn't work to
live, he lives to work.

00:14:59.570 --> 00:15:02.810 align:middle line:84%
Homer uses the word ἔργον, which
means something like "labor"

00:15:02.810 --> 00:15:06.020 align:middle line:84%
to describe the hero's
exertions on the battlefield,

00:15:06.020 --> 00:15:07.805 align:middle line:90%
and his business is death.

00:15:07.805 --> 00:15:10.790 align:middle line:90%


00:15:10.790 --> 00:15:14.030 align:middle line:84%
Wonder for the Greeks led
to a very different sort

00:15:14.030 --> 00:15:15.830 align:middle line:90%
of vocation.

00:15:15.830 --> 00:15:19.370 align:middle line:84%
We see this illustrated in a
scene from Plato's Theaetetus

00:15:19.370 --> 00:15:22.430 align:middle line:84%
where Socrates plays his
customary role of career

00:15:22.430 --> 00:15:24.620 align:middle line:84%
counselor to a youth
he's interrogated

00:15:24.620 --> 00:15:26.450 align:middle line:84%
to the point of
utter perplexity.

00:15:26.450 --> 00:15:29.870 align:middle line:90%


00:15:29.870 --> 00:15:32.330 align:middle line:90%
Theaetetus.

00:15:32.330 --> 00:15:34.680 align:middle line:84%
It's always hard to
read Plato out loud,

00:15:34.680 --> 00:15:37.580 align:middle line:84%
because you feel
like kind of should

00:15:37.580 --> 00:15:39.365 align:middle line:90%
be wearing a toga or something.

00:15:39.365 --> 00:15:42.740 align:middle line:84%
"By the gods, Socrates,
I'm lost in wonder

00:15:42.740 --> 00:15:44.420 align:middle line:84%
when I think of
all these things.

00:15:44.420 --> 00:15:46.640 align:middle line:84%
And sometimes when
I regard them,

00:15:46.640 --> 00:15:50.990 align:middle line:84%
it really makes my
head swim" Socrates.

00:15:50.990 --> 00:15:54.050 align:middle line:84%
"It seems that Theodorus
was not far from the truth

00:15:54.050 --> 00:15:56.570 align:middle line:84%
when he guessed what
kind of person you are.

00:15:56.570 --> 00:15:59.270 align:middle line:84%
For this is an experience
that's just characteristic

00:15:59.270 --> 00:16:03.170 align:middle line:84%
of a philosopher, this
wondering." θαυμάζειν.

00:16:03.170 --> 00:16:06.650 align:middle line:84%
"This is where philosophy
begins and nowhere else."

00:16:06.650 --> 00:16:09.630 align:middle line:90%


00:16:09.630 --> 00:16:11.880 align:middle line:84%
Funny how Theaetetus
must first become

00:16:11.880 --> 00:16:16.080 align:middle line:84%
lost in wonder in
order to find himself.

00:16:16.080 --> 00:16:19.830 align:middle line:84%
He learns what kind of
person he is, a philosopher,

00:16:19.830 --> 00:16:23.370 align:middle line:90%
from his brush with θαυμάζειν.

00:16:23.370 --> 00:16:27.900 align:middle line:84%
This beats any aptitude
test I took in high school.

00:16:27.900 --> 00:16:32.520 align:middle line:84%
For Plato, wonder is
where philosophy begins

00:16:32.520 --> 00:16:35.010 align:middle line:90%
and nowhere else.

00:16:35.010 --> 00:16:40.240 align:middle line:84%
No wonder no philosophers,
even Aristotle,

00:16:40.240 --> 00:16:43.140 align:middle line:84%
who built a whole philosophical
system from his lover's quarrel

00:16:43.140 --> 00:16:46.330 align:middle line:84%
with Plato, agrees
on this point.

00:16:46.330 --> 00:16:50.400 align:middle line:84%
"It is through wonder that men
now begin, and originally began

00:16:50.400 --> 00:16:53.430 align:middle line:84%
to philosophize," he
observes in The Metaphysics,

00:16:53.430 --> 00:16:57.300 align:middle line:84%
"wondering in the first
place at obvious perplexities

00:16:57.300 --> 00:17:00.540 align:middle line:84%
and then by gradual
progression raising questions

00:17:00.540 --> 00:17:03.270 align:middle line:84%
about the greater
matters too, e.g.,

00:17:03.270 --> 00:17:06.390 align:middle line:84%
about the changes of the
moon, and of the sun,

00:17:06.390 --> 00:17:12.490 align:middle line:84%
about the stars, and about
the origin of the universe."

00:17:12.490 --> 00:17:15.660 align:middle line:84%
If this sounds familiar, it's
because we've come full circle

00:17:15.660 --> 00:17:17.880 align:middle line:90%
to the origin of the cosmos.

00:17:17.880 --> 00:17:21.540 align:middle line:84%
The Earth, the stars, the
inexhaustible, blazing sun

00:17:21.540 --> 00:17:24.292 align:middle line:84%
and the moon rounding
full that Hephaestus

00:17:24.292 --> 00:17:26.250 align:middle line:84%
hammered onto the shield's
bright circumference

00:17:26.250 --> 00:17:29.010 align:middle line:90%
in the first place.

00:17:29.010 --> 00:17:32.070 align:middle line:84%
But we've yet to consider
those greater matters that

00:17:32.070 --> 00:17:36.870 align:middle line:84%
form the astronomical rungs on
Aristotle's ladder of wonder--

00:17:36.870 --> 00:17:43.620 align:middle line:84%
the moon, the sun, the stars
the origin of the universe.

00:17:43.620 --> 00:17:45.120 align:middle line:84%
Let's take the next
step in wonder's

00:17:45.120 --> 00:17:48.150 align:middle line:84%
philosophical progression
and look to the moon.

00:17:48.150 --> 00:17:51.020 align:middle line:90%


00:17:51.020 --> 00:17:53.630 align:middle line:90%
So I'll stop there.

00:17:53.630 --> 00:17:55.610 align:middle line:84%
Obviously, I talk
about the moon.

00:17:55.610 --> 00:17:58.340 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:17:58.340 --> 00:18:00.770 align:middle line:84%
Maybe I'll maybe I'll put a
little picture of the moon

00:18:00.770 --> 00:18:06.920 align:middle line:84%
up on, but I think now
I'll just read just a few,

00:18:06.920 --> 00:18:12.253 align:middle line:84%
two or three pages from a new
book, called Underworld Lit.

00:18:12.253 --> 00:18:17.460 align:middle line:90%


00:18:17.460 --> 00:18:20.170 align:middle line:90%
One.

00:18:20.170 --> 00:18:23.570 align:middle line:84%
"In the inky, dismal,
and unprofitable research

00:18:23.570 --> 00:18:26.780 align:middle line:84%
of a recent leave of
absence from my life,

00:18:26.780 --> 00:18:30.170 align:middle line:84%
I happened upon a historical
prism of Ashurbanipal

00:18:30.170 --> 00:18:35.000 align:middle line:84%
that I found to be
somewhat disquieting.

00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:38.120 align:middle line:84%
Of an enemy whose remains he
had abused in a manner that

00:18:38.120 --> 00:18:41.000 align:middle line:84%
does not bear repeating
here, this most

00:18:41.000 --> 00:18:44.525 align:middle line:84%
scholarly of Mesopotamian
kings professes,

00:18:44.525 --> 00:18:47.450 align:middle line:84%
"I made him more dead
than he was before."

00:18:47.450 --> 00:18:50.740 align:middle line:90%


00:18:50.740 --> 00:18:52.630 align:middle line:84%
Prisms of this sort
were often buried

00:18:52.630 --> 00:18:54.940 align:middle line:84%
in the foundations of
government buildings

00:18:54.940 --> 00:18:59.580 align:middle line:90%
to be read by gods, but not men.

00:18:59.580 --> 00:19:02.700 align:middle line:84%
Somewhere in the shifting
labyrinth of movable stacks,

00:19:02.700 --> 00:19:07.480 align:middle line:84%
I could hear a low dial
tone humming without end.

00:19:07.480 --> 00:19:09.820 align:middle line:84%
In Ashurbanipal's
library there's

00:19:09.820 --> 00:19:12.970 align:middle line:84%
a poem written on
clay that corrects

00:19:12.970 --> 00:19:16.270 align:middle line:84%
various commonly held errors
regarding the venerable realm

00:19:16.270 --> 00:19:18.580 align:middle line:90%
of the dead.

00:19:18.580 --> 00:19:22.300 align:middle line:84%
Contrary to the accounts of
Mulian, Madame Blavatsky,

00:19:22.300 --> 00:19:26.470 align:middle line:84%
and Kwase Benefo et al,
it is not customarily

00:19:26.470 --> 00:19:29.800 align:middle line:84%
permitted to visit
the underworld.

00:19:29.800 --> 00:19:31.420 align:middle line:90%
No.

00:19:31.420 --> 00:19:33.490 align:middle line:90%
The underworld visits you."

00:19:33.490 --> 00:19:40.320 align:middle line:90%


00:19:40.320 --> 00:19:41.640 align:middle line:90%
I'll skip some sections.

00:19:41.640 --> 00:19:43.440 align:middle line:90%
Three.

00:19:43.440 --> 00:19:46.110 align:middle line:84%
"For the past
several years, I've

00:19:46.110 --> 00:19:48.330 align:middle line:84%
done an introductory
course on world literature

00:19:48.330 --> 00:19:52.200 align:middle line:84%
at the university where
I'm presently employed.

00:19:52.200 --> 00:19:53.640 align:middle line:84%
The offering has
frequently proven

00:19:53.640 --> 00:19:58.380 align:middle line:84%
to be a disappointment both
to myself and to the students,

00:19:58.380 --> 00:20:01.320 align:middle line:84%
some in headscarves,
some occasionally dressed

00:20:01.320 --> 00:20:04.290 align:middle line:84%
in fatigues, who
register for this seminar

00:20:04.290 --> 00:20:07.050 align:middle line:84%
in order to satisfy their
humanities requirement.

00:20:07.050 --> 00:20:09.560 align:middle line:90%


00:20:09.560 --> 00:20:14.030 align:middle line:84%
As far as classes go, it was
an almost painless experience.

00:20:14.030 --> 00:20:17.120 align:middle line:90%


00:20:17.120 --> 00:20:20.870 align:middle line:84%
The instructor is fairly
intelligent and enthusiastic

00:20:20.870 --> 00:20:25.370 align:middle line:84%
about the material, but he's
un-receptive, even intolerant

00:20:25.370 --> 00:20:29.300 align:middle line:84%
of anything that is not a
poem or a poem in prose form.

00:20:29.300 --> 00:20:32.200 align:middle line:90%


00:20:32.200 --> 00:20:34.990 align:middle line:84%
Made me question
things, including

00:20:34.990 --> 00:20:36.906 align:middle line:90%
the value of higher learning."

00:20:36.906 --> 00:20:40.480 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:20:40.480 --> 00:20:42.040 align:middle line:90%
One of those is real.

00:20:42.040 --> 00:20:44.860 align:middle line:84%
"Looking over the
feedback last summer,

00:20:44.860 --> 00:20:47.500 align:middle line:84%
I began to consider a
different approach--

00:20:47.500 --> 00:20:50.890 align:middle line:84%
new assignments, self
assessments, and regularly

00:20:50.890 --> 00:20:53.350 align:middle line:84%
scheduled office hours
this time around,

00:20:53.350 --> 00:20:56.230 align:middle line:84%
followed by a transitional
withdrawal of black gowns

00:20:56.230 --> 00:20:58.840 align:middle line:90%
through the spring morning mist.

00:20:58.840 --> 00:21:02.140 align:middle line:84%
And because I know comparatively
little of this world,

00:21:02.140 --> 00:21:04.060 align:middle line:84%
I've decided to work
my way up from below."

00:21:04.060 --> 00:21:06.580 align:middle line:90%


00:21:06.580 --> 00:21:08.410 align:middle line:90%
I'll just read one more section.

00:21:08.410 --> 00:21:09.930 align:middle line:90%
Four.

00:21:09.930 --> 00:21:13.870 align:middle line:84%
" HUM 101, Introduction
to the Underworld,

00:21:13.870 --> 00:21:17.290 align:middle line:90%
cross-listed with comp lit.

00:21:17.290 --> 00:21:19.810 align:middle line:84%
In this course,
students will be ferried

00:21:19.810 --> 00:21:24.520 align:middle line:84%
across the river of sorrow,
subsist on a diet of clay,

00:21:24.520 --> 00:21:26.170 align:middle line:84%
weigh their hearts
against a feather

00:21:26.170 --> 00:21:29.620 align:middle line:84%
on the infernal balance,
and ascend a viewing pagoda

00:21:29.620 --> 00:21:31.810 align:middle line:84%
in order to gaze
upon their homelands

00:21:31.810 --> 00:21:35.380 align:middle line:90%
until emptied of all emotion.

00:21:35.380 --> 00:21:38.350 align:middle line:84%
Texts will include the
Egyptian Book of the Dead,

00:21:38.350 --> 00:21:42.580 align:middle line:84%
the Tibetan Book of the Dead,
the Mayan Book of the Dead,

00:21:42.580 --> 00:21:46.780 align:middle line:84%
the Ethiopian Book of the Dead
and Muriel Rukeyser's Book

00:21:46.780 --> 00:21:47.908 align:middle line:90%
of the Dead."

00:21:47.908 --> 00:21:49.222 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:21:49.222 --> 00:21:51.910 align:middle line:84%
"The goals of the seminar
are to introduce students

00:21:51.910 --> 00:21:56.050 align:middle line:84%
to the posthumous disciplinary
regimes of various cultures

00:21:56.050 --> 00:21:58.630 align:middle line:84%
and to help them develop the
communication skills that

00:21:58.630 --> 00:22:03.610 align:middle line:84%
are crucial for success in
today's global marketplace.

00:22:03.610 --> 00:22:06.160 align:middle line:90%
All readings in English.

00:22:06.160 --> 00:22:09.280 align:middle line:84%
Requirements include the
death of the student,

00:22:09.280 --> 00:22:14.890 align:middle line:84%
a mid-term oral report,
and a final paper."

00:22:14.890 --> 00:22:15.490 align:middle line:90%
Thanks.

00:22:15.490 --> 00:22:17.340 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]