Aesthetic Thursdays: Two Versions of Judith Slaying Holofernes

Judith Slaying Holofernes
Judith is a hero of late Jewish antiquity who slew the Assyrian dictator Holofernes, by first seducing him, then decapitating him while he slept. Check out these two very different artistic representations. What do you notice?

⬆️ Artemisia's version in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy

⬆️ Caravaggio's version in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome

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Derrida's Definition of Western Philosophy

Derrida writes in "La Différance," in Margins of Philosophy, "For the middle voice, a certain nontransitivity, may be what philosophy, at its outset, distributed into an active and a passive voice, thereby constituting itself by means of this repression" (9).

Christmas Post: If Jesus were Albrecht Dürer

Self-Portrait of Albrecht Dürer

The twenty-fifth day of December is an odd time to commemorate an incarnation of a God? I agree with T.S. Eliot, though, "satisfactory." (the best use of that word in a poem is reprinted below).

Jesus, a rabbi from the first century (a century named after him, so to speak, in the year of our Lord) was born in Palestine, in the Northern Hemisphere, correct? So, he came into the world at the eclipse of the sun’s strength. The Winter Solstice (which by the way, this year was also marked by another eclipse, a lunar one). If he had born in Australia, however, he could have at least eschewed swaddling clothes. And there would have been more reason for sheep(or kangaroo) to be lowing.

How do the Australians celebrate seasonal Christian feasts? I suspect their Christmas's are void of hot chocolate and burning fires. More like surfing and tan lines to fête the baby Jesus.

And their Easter has to be a mess? But, that’s another story. Just suffice it to say, it’s a difficult stretch to celebrate new birth when everything around is falling into winter.

Aesthetic Thursdays: Medusa

If the canvas is Perseus's shield, then this is Medusa's last stare.

Caravaggio, Medusa, 1597, Oil on canvas mounted on wood

Perseus, a son of Zeus, an epic hero of Greek myth, was locked in a chest as a boy by his grandfather with his mother inside and thrown to sea, because an oracle foretold he would kill the king Of Argos; he was saved by a fisherman and raised to manhood. His most famous deed: he sought to behead the Gorgon Medusa, partly from a wager with Polydectes the King of Seriphos, his mother's husband, and partly out of despair, for he knew Polydectes wanted to get rid of him. Perseus traveled to the edge of the world to find the Gorgon, one of three Gorgons, who were sisters, Medusa was the only one mortal. The Graeae, nymph sisters, helped him, as well as several gods and goddesses. To kill the Gorgon, Perseus had to avoid eye contact with her lest he turn to stone by looking her directly in the eye. So armed with a shield, bequeathed to him by Athena, and a scimitar, from Hermes, and a cape of invisibility, and winged sandals, he was able to peer on the Gorgon indiscreetly in her lair without looking at her directly, and slew her with his blade. When Perseus slew the Gorgon she was pregnant, and out of her belly flew Pegasus, the winged horse.

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NB: If you want to check out the real shield, haunt the Uffizi gallery in Florence, Italy.
image credit: New Crafts, Co.

The American College of Louvain To Close Spring 2011

A letter addressed to me when I was a resident at the American College of Louvain

The American College in Leuven, Belgium closes its doors.

I learned the other day that my alma mater, the American College of Louvain, where I lived when I studied philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven, is shutting its doors for good at the end of the Spring 2011 semester.

On Wonder

 An essay by Greig Roselli reprinted from Canon Magazine

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In the Theatetus Plato writes, “philosophy begins in wonder” (155d). The Greek is θαῦμα which translates as “puzzle,” “problem,” or simply, a “marvel”. The definition suggests to wonder is “to solve a conundrum.” In this sense, θαῦμα carries with it an active puzzle-solving. Wonder is open to activity but is also somehow passive in its reflection. I say this because to wonder means both to reflect, to bring a thought into motion, and also, the active thinking of the thought, which we call roughly, the idea. The quip, then, “Philosophy begins in wonder,” seems to suggest a something that originates in a person who wonders, like the birth of an idea, and rises to the surface — call it consciousness, and it is there, an eureka moment, “ah ha!” I got it! Archimedes sat in his tub, noticed that the water level rose equal to the volume of his own body. Before Archimedes’s discovery, an object’s displacement of water was a mystery, something to be puzzled out. Is wonder then what allows us to rise above Baudelaire’s animal who is stupid in his sleep? Wonder, then, is the origin of an eureka moment. Isn’t this what we do when we attempt to puzzle out questions of being?

Archimedes in the bathtub, "Eureka!" image credit:strongnet

Aesthetic Thursdays: Caravaggio

Caravaggio's "Sacrifice of Isaac" is remarkable because it uncharacteristically depicts Isaac not as subordinate to Abraham's desire, nor blithely unaware of his fate, but rather as horrifically terrified by God's injunction to have him killed by his own father.

Caravaggio, Sacrifice of Isaac, 1603

Caravaggio, Sacrifice of Isaac (Detail) 1603

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Family Photo: Brother Brother

In this post, I share a photograph of my younger brother and me.

My brother Nick and I chillin' in New Orleans

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Quotation: Walker Percy on Gentilly

"The swamps are still burning at Chef Menteur and the sky over Gentilly is the color of ashes."  (p.17)

Walker Percy,The Moviegoer.

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Source: Percy, Walker. The Moviegoer. Farrar, Strauss, Giroux. 1961. Print.

Aesthetic Thursdays: Death of Marat

Jacques-Louis David's painting "Death of Marat," tells a real story. One of political intrigue and murder.

Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David 
(held by the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, Belgium)

David's Painting Is a Record of a Real Assassination 

I don't have to create a story about the above painting. History already has one. During the French Revolution, Jean-Paul Marat was a journalist. Marat was killed in his bathtub. Apparently, he loved taking long, luxurious baths. He had a skin problem (so he needed to take soothing baths). On July 13, 1793, He was assassinated by Charlotte Corday because she thought Marat was a cause of the violence and bloodshed (The French Revolution is famous for how many heads rolled.) in France. 

A Painting That Captures The Scene of a Crime

Marat was a radical Jacobin (which meant he was full-on anti-monarchy and full-on revolution). The jury is out on Corday's allegiances — some say she was in favor of the Monarchy while others said he was a supporter of the Girondins, a political faction who originally supported abolishing the monarchy, but later, became less radical in their politics. She was caught by the authorities and sentenced to capital punishment by the guillotine.

The Portrait of Marat Is Painstakingly Detailed and a Tribute to a Revolutionary

Looking closely at the painting, several features of the work are noticeable. The body of Marat is an idealized portrait of a corpse — similar to the paintings one sees of Jesus's body laid to rest. Marat's arm lays languidly on the side of the bathtub and he holds the tools of his trade — a quill and a parchment with a petition that had been given to him by Corday to sign. The knife that was used to kill him lies on the floor. David's careful arrangement of the scene makes Marat out to be the person he purported to be — a writer, and a revolutionary.   

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On the Manufacture of Childhood Innocence

In this post, we present a quote by James R. Kincaid on the production of childhood innocence in contemporary culture.

The Author as a Child From a Department Store Photo Shoot (c. 1980s)

Few would question that the innocent child was manufactured by Rousseau, with refinements by Wordsworth and thousand lesser writers, interior decorators, and producers of greeting cards.

— James R. Kincaid

Source: Kincaid, James R. Child-loving: The Erotic Child and Victorian Literature. New York: Routledge, 1994. Print.

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A Little Bit of Poetry: "Poem for a Trieb"

In this post, I present a poem I wrote inspired by a night of Scrabble where I felt the tug and pull of friendships and a desire to break through the mundane.

The author as a teenager —in Mandeville, Louisiana
at Georgette Pintado's house on Live Oak Street (with Amy and Jeff).

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I never venture to believe in avatars anymore
for they seem too
much like
superheroes,
like Jesus,
in his benign human nature, divine,
so I dismiss the idea of divine blood,
vouching for more a raw libido, exhausted
breaths, numbing existence,
mere existence —
The funny thing is
that
I

… when the coffee table
is cleared and Brian
sets up the Scrabble board,
David and Juniper
are determined to win,
so they joined in the fight to
beat us —

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Vocabulary Essay (Or, Short Brief): "On Bereft"

A very short brief on the word "bereft".
bereft (adj.) \buh-reft\
A state of loss, deprived. Often used with "of".

The face of a boy with a bereft look.

"Bereft" is a poetic word for it connotes loss without the slippery slope of s’s doubled in "loss".

The strong consonant sounds in bereft leads to a charge, tapering to a whisper, to a closure of the mouth, a word of leftover things, forgotten things, bereft things, a swallow of breath, exhaled, then exeunt.

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Setting Up The Scene: A Fight

Misè-en-scene of a too comfortable relationship:

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At Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Library, beneath the colored dome, we fought; because we were tired and travel-weary, more comfortable with our ordinary looks and automobiles, than here, in this constant going and coming.

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Flash Fiction: Laundry

When you appeared to me one night as a heap of laundry ...

Looking up from underwater . . . 

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Once, I woke up in the middle of the night, warm beneath the covering, and I thought you were there, on my bedroom floor, your face resting on my naked foot. So, I called out your name but you didn’t reply. "Hey," I said again. But, nothing. Remained. And then I realized, after a moment, no one was in the room. I was alone. You were only an apparition. Like when I visited Georgette in her calloused age, I washed her tired calloused feet with hard, soapy water and she thought I was George, her son. The pain for me is more acute, because I know I am alone. More alive. But alone. I drift back to sleep. In the morning I see the laundry haphazardly arranged at the edge of my bed. And I realize it was the heap of clothes that I thought was you, come to comfort me.

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image source: ohaytv

Quote on Empathy

On Walking in Someone Else's Shoes:

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"There are people who have the capacity to imagine themselves as someone else, there are people who have no such capacity (when the lack is extreme, we call them psychopaths) and there are people who have the capacity but choose not to exercise it."

J.M. Coetzee, The Lives of Animals
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Quotation: Walker Percy on Bourbon Drinking

Bourbon, Neat

Not only should connoisseurs of Bourbon not read this article, neither should persons preoccupied with the perils of alcoholism, cirrhosis, esophageal hemorrhage, cancer of the palate, and so forth — all real enough dangers. I, too, deplore these afflictions. But, as between these evils and the aesthetic of Bourbon drinking, that is, the use of Bourbon to warm the heart, to reduce the anomie of the late twentieth century, to cut the cold phlegm of Wednesday afternoons, I choose the aesthetic.

Walker Percy, Signposts in a Strange Land, "Bourbon", 1991

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Lesson Plan: World's Most Valuable Thing

See the end of this post for a
printable version of the World's Most Value Thing.

It's very simple to use this game designed by the folks at The Philosopher's Magazine. A few years back they did an issue devoted to children and philosophy. The issue has a game a teacher can organize with their students called "The World's Most Valuable Thing."
    I provided a scanned image of the handout above you can use, or if you are feeling creative you can use your own handout with your own world's most valuable things.
The rules are simple (click the link to read more):

Lesson Plan: An Example of Teaching Poetic Tone in the Classroom (with William Blake's "London" and "Jerusalem")

Class objective:  To continue the theme of Poetic tone by using examples from film and the poetry of William Blake.

The following class can be tailored to fit a high school language arts course or a college Introduction to Literature, or British Literature section.