Classes recap

Katie D.

March 6, 2009 - 7:00 PM

So, with just one week of classes left this quarter I'd like to write a little about each of my classes this term. I have been very lucky with my classes this term, and have really enjoyed each one of them.

20th Century Spanish Literature: Repression and Resistance
Spanish 407 Professor Lisa DiGiovanni

I am so happy to have finally reached 400 level Spanish classes. We are discussing some amazing literature in this class, focusing on Repression and Resistance in the literature of Chile and Spain in reference to the military dictatorships in each. This focus is so interesting and has led us to discuss a wide variety of cultural aspects of these countries, from the history of the dictatorships to the cultural repression in the form of violence, imprisonment and torture, disappearances, and censorship. We have read about theories of memory and methods of collective recovery after such social devastation.

And it is so fun to be in a Spanish class having real discussions. Instead of practicing vocabulary we are practicing literary analysis. Instead of filling in blanks we are writing essays. And instead of learning verb forms we are putting all of our studies into practice by speaking and reading about topics that have huge importance in the literature and culture of Chile and Spain.

Don Quijote
Spanish 460 Professor Luis Verano

I am also taking a 400 level Spanish class about the famous novel Don Quijote (sometimes spelled Don Quixote). I love this class. Our professor, Luis Verano, has been teaching this novel for thirty years and is still incredibly excited about it. The class is in lecture format, with each of us reading the novel and then attending lectures about the literary importance and cultural/historical context of each segment. We bought the book in both Spanish and English with the hope that we would do the reading in Spanish, and use the English translation to help with comprehension. I had the best of intentions to begin with: I had planned to read the whole novel in Spanish, cover to cover. I have had to adjust that plan in the face of over 500 pages of Renaissance-era Spanish, but love to listen to our professor lecture in Spanish. I think that this book is a fascinating tribute to its literary moment and am in awe of its impact on culture since then (the only book that has been translated into more languages is the Bible).

Senses of Place
English 469 Professor William Rossi

I've already written a lot about this class, I know, but let me just say again that I really, truly love it. It has been the best class I've taken in the English department. We have read some amazing literature, had great discussions, and have our Personal Place essays due next week, which we are all going to post on blackboard! It is wonderful to be in a small class like this, with everyone sharing ideas and perspectives. People will be writing essays about hometowns and Eugene, about service projects and senses of displacement. Each one of us has picked an important place or series of places, and taken their own interpretation on the construction of this important place in their lives. I can't wait to read them! (Not to mention finish writing my own.)

Our final book for the class is called Tropic of Orange by Karen Tei Yamashita. It is absolutely fabulous. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in an alternative look at our American identities and the conflicting senses of place that can arise in a single city. I haven't finished it yet, but the discussion of the first half was amazing, and I can't wait to finish the reading for class on Tuesday. So check it out if you're looking for a new book.

Social and Cultural Roots
Honors College 431H Professor Joseph Fracchia

I signed up for this class originally not because I was particularly interested in the topic but because I had had Professor Fracchia for freshman history and had been wanting to take another class with him ever since. He is a fabulous professor, specializing in introducing new topics and ways of thinking in a way that forces students to expand their perspectives. He told us during the first week that confusion is a good thing as it leads to new discoveries.

Despite initial doubt about my interest in exploring the corporeal roots of human society and culture, I have come to truly love this class. Honors college classes are so fun because they bring together students from a huge variety of majors and set them in discussion-based classes and encourage them to dialogue. Professor Fracchia does a great job of this, too-because we are talking about human body structures we need the human physiology majors to help us understand what that means. We need the biologists to tell us why we might have arrived at this form. We are exploring a kind of alternative philosophical pattern, so the philosophy majors in the class help us out a ton. And because we are looking at society and culture, we need the sociologists, art majors, and other humanities-based students to bring everything into a perspective of what is going on in the world so we can look backwards and try to understand what place our physical bodies have in the scheme of culture.

We are all writing essays on a basic corporeal unit (such as hands, or vision, or the sense of balance), and writing an essay about the place this corporeal reality has in our culture. The basic idea is that if we had vision like a bee's, our constructed reality would be completely different, or that without a sense of balance we might have different metaphors for justice. My paper is about human body frame (stature and bipedalism) as it relates to labor and the construction of our built environments.

Rock 1
Rock Climbing, Professor Jenny Strong

I love this class! I'm asking for a climbing harness for my birthday and have plans to go climbing out doors this summer. I spend a lot of time looking forward to the next time I get to climb.

This term has been really fun for a lot of reasons. I've gotten to be more physically active with my rock climbing class, been busy with my jobs, done a lot of writing, and had really wonderful classes. I'm excited about the literature I've been reading in both English and Spanish, and have felt truly challenged intellectually, especially by my Social/Cultural Roots class. Now that the quarter is ending, all I've got to do is finish all my papers, take a couple of finals, and mentally prepare myself for a whole new set of classes starting in April.