Final Session

The final session covers this blockbuster of a read, Dos Passos's USA. You should not fear the length, for the format is such that the text is split up in to many semi autonomous elements - biographies, newspaper clippings, and poetic description as much as the novelistic drama- so you can almost dip in. Wherever you do dip, I can assure you of likely tragedy unfolding on the page, beautifully but unconventionally written.

This volume ends, yet also in a way grounds our previous investigations, for here you have it; a new nation, a new century, a new technology, and a new population, and their adventure, all in one book. You will find the recurrent image of capitalism as inherently tragic unfold in now familiar terms, simply because you have encountered so much subsequent material, and hopefully you will see, in context, perhaps suddenly, both the incongruity of Ayn Rand, and the essential efforts of Eagleton, along with much more.

Monday28th & Friday 2nd

We are nearly at the end of the road, and will take on modernism via two popular texts, the novel Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh and the film 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand. Although this blog is very late, I think I've hopefully flashed these items around enough for you to know.
Hopefully it's not difficult for you, in your ingenuity, to download the Fountainhead film. As a side benefit, it is hilariously funny for such a high minded melodrama so worth the money.

An Apology and Notes

Once more I am indisposed. I've had a nasty relapse. Of course I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, but there's nothing I can do but program this virtual session for Friday 25th November.

Your task, over the time of the session but with a deadline of 7pm Friday, is to submit to me via e-mail your post on Ginsberg and Burroughs. You can use your own laptops or the computer room, and I'll be asking Mathew to set up the computer in VG11 at 3pm to this blog.

There follow some notes below which would mirror those I'd use tomorrow, plus some additional YouTube sites that I encourage you to look at together (nominate somebody to operate the computer) that show Archigram at their most feisty. Simply tap in to the YouTube search 'Archigram' 'ICA' 'David Greene' then try the archigram, ICA plus 'Mike Webb' and as many others from the series as you like. Hopefully you will see some correspondence with Burroughs as you watch this rather strange even unfold.

This is a week where we deal in total alternatives, extreme rejection of the 'normal'. You might ask your self what brings this on in terms of physical and cultural context (cars, drugs, jazz, electricity, Senetor McCarthy, sexual repression, The Bomb, wealth, parents, DH Lawrence, Jackson Pollock and so on) you might ask your self what such expression means to you now, is Glastonbury the same as it used to be? Do people get high to reach a state of higher consciousness....or not? Essentially these are the questions I want you to broach in your blog.

I wonder to how many of you this kind of material feels totally foreign?

I will be reading all the blogs you send in from my armchair, under half a blanket, and will provide feedback.

Best

Paul

Session VI

Howl

The texts this week are the poem Howl and William Burrough's 'The Job'. 'The Job' is a compilation of material, so it can be skimmed for the salient issues. Burroughs of course, does not hold back. The issues we will be addressing are those of 'the machine' (both physical and metaphorical) and paranoia, plus of course, the sixties revolution in general.

Session V

Henri Lefebvre's approach to 'social space', a term we continually abuse, deserves repeated reading. Where with Goethe's Faust, we see the transcendental nature of man, the powers he can employ and abuse, as central to a 'tragedy of development' here Lefebvre attempts a more materialist analysis of compromise and ambiguity, starting with a discussion of the difference between a work and a product. When you read this piece, it might be a good idea to watch Gardeners World or Autumn Watch, followed by Grand Designs, since while you note they appear to employ the same language, that of things being 'beautiful' it should be clear to you that a 'beautiful' petunia is not the same as a 'beautiful' kitchen. Lefebvre would undoubtedly be startled by contemporary kitchen design, with it's inherent division of labour, it's obsession with hygiene and invisibility, of the relationship between the 'natural' food stuff and and the artificially satisfying 'clunk' of a drawer, the exacerbation of the perfection in the machine.

Next week

I think I shall be well enough to hold next weeks session in person! I'm very sorry that since my inconvenient hospitalization, recovery has not been as fast as I would have liked. Please make every effort to read the Berman text, and those of you thinking ahead get hold of Henri Lefebvre's 'The Production of Space', refering specifically to the chapter 'Social Space'.

3.30pm

Remember we are trying to dissect opinions, not simply express them!!

For instance, in the lastest TV ad for Green Flag roadside assistance, you will notice they utilize the ultimate emotional tag line for the audience they are trying to reach, those who have cars which arn't necessarily reliable AND play Coldplay records. They say they will come and 'Fix You'

Aaaaah.

Friday 4th November

Hi!

Open your laptops!

Firstly I would like you to feed me your individual blogspot.com address for this Critical Thinking course. If you use the comment button your message will come to me as e-mail, I will read what you've got and get back to you.

Secondly I want you to start thinking about the way the readings connect together. You started with Jonathan Meades on Zaha, an interesting piece of writing, full of wit and faint praise, perhaps a little too English by half, very clever clever. It came down to him having a problem with the way Zaha could not explain her work, not that he was going to say that directly. Then Badiou attempted to explain something it is almost impossible to explain, our economic hell, he did it by use of an elaborate and appropriate metaphor; 'We're living in a movie'. We live on the information we are given (the media) what happens if that information is false? The third piece, by Dave Hickey, simply took to the age old tactic of inversion; 'You probably think this place is awful, but actually it's great'. It is also a lyrical piece, about opportunity and, in a way, love, a love of writing and a love of ordinary things. Mike Davis started by writing a piece of science fiction, but we soon see he's not very good at it, he's not lyrical at all. The contemporary world hurts Mike Davis, it's iniquities make his blood boil, so he documents the facts so they speak for themselves, and in the process makes you understand that Dubai is indeed a shithole, and the two pieces together do at least confirm that the Las Vegas of the 1990's and the Dubai of the noughties are very different indeed, and only superficially similar to those who are not thinking.

Now to Terry Eagleton. Here we are introduced to something called Cultural Theory, where, in the first paragraph, he explains great work has been done, and goes on to explain it's transformation. Eagleton is also trying to explain something difficult in an easy way, using lots of simile people can understand (Zaha take note). You need to understand what were those great achievements in Cultural Theory and why did they happen? They certainly have a lot to do with the pursuit of truth, the underlying reasons we do things. The second thing is for you to decide whether Eagleton is nostalgic for the old days, or simply preparing us for the moment that Lady Ga Ga ends up running a university sociology department- yet another spectacle perhaps.

Once we get a discussion going and you leave comments against this blog, we can develop this conversation further as I make new blogs responding to your questions.

Finally, at the end of the session, say 4.30, you should turn to the blog beneath this titled 'Session IV' and run down to the library to get Berman's book, maybe photocopy the relevant chapters for each other. That is if you haven't been wonderful and already bought them from Amazon.

Session IV

Following Eagleton, the text I next want you to read are the chapters on the legend of Faust as interpreted in a materialist way (ie not really about characters and individual stories, but a grand dissection of the human project as presented to us from 1750 onwards, as technology takes over, 'God is dead' and there is rampant social change. The point, for instance, is not for you to feel sympathy for Gretchen, Faust's lover as somebody in a fairy story, but to realise we have all been Fausts and Gretchen's in our day, and that this story, which took all of Goethe's life to write, is the universal tragic story of development. Once you have grasped this, so many many things become clear.

Hey!

I've only had two responses so far and it's nearly 10.am. What the hell are you doing? Please forward your blog links so I can discuss them with you, and other general stuff via fresh posts!

Session Monday 31st Oct. I said theory wouldn't kill you...

But we end up in hospital from time to time. Thankfully I'm now simply confined to the couch, surrounded by pills and potions. I might occasionally raise a smile at Great Military Blunders and throw a book at the tv during Autumn Watch, but most of the time I stare horrified at the correlation between what I've read in theory and what's happening on my tv screen.

So 'Hi' from the couch, open your laptops, and send me, via the comments button, the address of your personal theory750 blog. I've had a terrible time trying to access these, but it gets very easy if, next to 'Sites I Follow' we find a 'Link' to this particular personal blogsite of your own.

Then think about what you'd like to say/know about Terry Eagleton. Make those comments also by using the comment button.

You can talk about broarder issues to do with the relationship between the texts as we move forward.I will be making comments back on to the site for the duration of the session, firstly on how your blogs seem to be working so far, secondly on Eagleton. Feel free to use the room computer or your own laptop to communicate, and make sure you refresh my site ocaisionally to get the latest comments. Ill be online until 10.45am. Stay till the end, when I will present your next text.

So lets go!

SESSION III

This is your third session read. Whilst you will find it necessary to understand Eagleton's big picture of present cultural theory, at least you don't have negotiate many of the ingredients themselves, since whilst this book is undoubtedly very serious, it is written with such humour and love of aside, that you almost assimilate cultural theory by mistake.

You can read the first seven pages on Amazon's 'look inside' feature, but you should buy the bloody thing itself as a gesture of defiance.

Session II

We started with our present situation, many conundrums of course- what would you expect! For next week please read Mike Davis on 'Fear and Money in Dubai' and Dave Hickey's 'At Home in the Neon' from the fabulous 'Air Guitar'. Of course the title 'air guitar' refers to the function of the critic, who has to understand something without actually doing it.

S

Welcome

Critical Thinking Module 2011

Welcome.

First thing, follow this blog so that I can begin to know who you are, and so you can begin conversations with each other if you fancy it. Secondly, set up your own Critical Thinking blog via blogspot.com. Thirdly start work, read Jonathon Meades on Zaha Hadid (download) and Alain Badiou 'This Crisis is the Spectacle: Where is the Real?'(download) for the week 4 session.

Be prepared to get hold of Dave Hickey's Air Guitar for the following one.

See below.

Theory 750

SUNDAY, 4 SEPTEMBER 2011

I want you to read and mentally digest an essay from this 'little red book'. The essay is easily found on the web as long as you search for Alain Badiou This Crisis Is the Spectacle: Where Is the Real? It's one of those modest pieces of writing that could blow your socks off. Often Badiou, whilst frighteningly clever, is a bit dense, but this piece is written for a newspaper, hence is more readable.
Please read Jonathan Meades on Zaha Hadid in combination with this text.

Also, please each of you set up your own individual Theory750 blogs via blogspot.com

Discussion: It's difficult to gain a perspective on Badiou at this stage. His introduction at this point was to highlight our necessary confrontation with the question 'What is the Real?' This of course implies we are 'living in a lie', as evidenced by our highly theatrical (and highly nuanced) media and politics where vested interests, not the benefit of all, are paraded before us in a clear period of global crisis. If you are wondering what this global crisis might be, four corners of the discussion might be: Climate Change, Increased National and Global Inequality, Financial Iniquity and the challenges of the Bio-technological.

Theory 750

A 750, just fast enough to kill you, but big enough to have some real fun. It takes a while to get to ride a 750, you might start at 250, move up to 500, then graduate to the real thing. That's my first bike up there, a Honda G5 250 and I was 22.
Theory can fuck you up, it's a well known means to stop you doing anything. The purpose of this course is to talk theory as if it's almost common sense. It won't fuck you up, it might just make you angry.
We go backwards from today. Start by reading Jonathan Meades on Zaha Hadid from the (absurdly titled) 'Intelligent Life' magazine and Alain Badiou's 'If this is the Spectacle, where is the Real' both available via the net.
The books you will need to study from then on, in sequence, are:

Mike Davis: Evil Paradises
Terry Eagleton: After Theory
Dave Hickey: Air Guitar

William Burroughs: The Job
Marshall Berman: All that's Solid Melts in to Air
Henri Lefebvre: The Production of Space
Evelyn Waugh: Decline and Fall
Ayn Rand: The Fountainhead (film)
John Doss Passos: USA

Please join up as followers to this site, and we'll start it up.