Senior Seminar:  Is it really as stressful as they say?

By Erik Davis

 Each year I would hear all of the seniors complaining about how challenging their particular Senior Seminar class was, but this year I assure you that it is much more challenging than it ever has been before.  It started with our topic. 

 Dr. Bruce chose to focus the course on Russian Literature.  She is most interested in exposing us to aspects of the literature and culture that are "uniquely Russian."  The secondary theme of our course is analyzing how Russian authors influenced their American counterparts.  I have discovered that examining Russian literature can be quite frustrating because it is long, complex, and often decidedly dreary.  It is much different from the American and British literature that I am accustomed to reading in the surveys and special topics courses I have taken thus far.  We are reading works from many of the most famous Russian authors including Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Gorky, etc.  The works follow Russian literary history from its humble beginnings to modern day authors who are still writing.  Russian literature typically deals with extremely complex issues in an ambiguous manner.  That is to say that a piece of Russian literature almost never makes one clear point.  I have found that there are hardly ever distinct “good guys” or “bad guys;” each character has some redeeming aspects and many faults.  In this way Russian literature is more realistic than American or British Literature, but also infinitely more frustrating to read.  The worst part is that the ending of most Russian works is quite anticlimactic.  After spending days fighting my way through a thick tome of Dostoyevsky the reward at the end always seems to be less than satisfactory.  Many of my colleagues have shared similar opinions; Megan Carlson described her feelings in this way, "Russian Literature: it's all Greek to me."

 So far, this course has demanded much more individual accountability from my classmates and me than previous courses I have taken as an English major.  Each day one member of our class is responsible for making up study questions and leading the discussion for a book.  This forces that student to take all the responsibility for making the class enjoyable by creating and guiding meaningful discussion.  The first few classes were pretty rough because the questions did not spawn discussion.  At the class has progressed, and we have figured out what Dr. Bruce is looking for, the questions and discussions have gotten better.  It requires writing leading questions that get at the themes and cruxes within the text, rather than simple recall and recognition.  It has taken my class a while to adapt to this amount of responsibility, but things seem to be going slightly more smoothly now.

 I was also busy working on the first major step towards completing my research paper; my prospectus.  A prospectus outlines the central idea of one’s paper and also discusses the research methods that will be required while pursuing one’s topic.  Including these elements in a meaningful way meant that I had to have completed quite a bit of work on my topic before turning it in.  To give everyone who will be taking senior seminar sooner or later an idea about what you will be expected to do for your senior research assignment I will give you my topic.  It is still a work in progress, so far I am looking at how Turgenev influenced and was influenced by French, German, and English Romantics; specifically as it shows up in Turgenev's Fathers and Sons.  I still need to do all sorts of research to figure out what specifically I going to write about, and to narrow down my idea to a workable thesis statement.

This assignment was extremely challenging for most everyone in the class.  Dr. Bruce wanted each of us to pick out an original topic that was complex enough to make for a great paper, while making sure it was not so abstract that no research could be found on it.  Striking this balance was especially hard for me, and I spent quite a bit of time in Dr. Bruce’s office talking through my ideas with her before I landed on something that worked for both of us.  Many of my classmates share a similar experience.  Generating a suitable topic for a major research paper, entirely on my own, required much thought and planning. 

 The next major project is putting together the famed English Portfolio, but I will save that story for next time.

In the Beginning...

Noelle Templeton

Upon entering English 200, taught by Professor Mark Willhardt, I was quite confident in my ability to compose suitable essays and understand the conventions of the English language.  I hate to admit that I expected to relearn the basics and merely demonstrate my knowledge and skill for sixteen weeks before moving on to more challenging courses.  Not long after these initial assumptions did I realize much of my education was misinformed and the skills that once earned me praise were now representations of my own laziness and misunderstanding.

            Along with my original state of mind—arrogance--the first few weeks in Introduction to English were spent in confusion and distress, (and what a blast they were!) but my uneasiness has since settled.  The first assignment was to define the term “assay,” and although I did not believe an actual word existed, I assured myself that this would be the first of many simple tasks.  How easily I was fooled!  It was soon made clear that I was being asked to do much more than recognize rules of grammar and punctuation.  I, along with the rest of the class, am expected to strain and struggle and question everything I have been taught. 

            After overcoming the uncomfortable realization that I do not, in fact, know everything there is to know about poetry, literature, and language, I got to work.  Four assays and one heck of an essay later, I am still struggling to settle what I know, what I think I know, and what I desperately need to know but am too embarrassed to ask.  A few things do reassure me, however:  a class that appears to share my concerns, a teacher who cares enough about my success to point out my failures, and a drive to become the competent writer and critical thinker that I once thought I was.

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February 28th-May 2nd   

A Crimson Masque Production of Waiting For Godot

This play, written by Samuel Beckett, is a superb example of the "Theater of the Absurd".  Beckett is known as one of the first postmodernists and was friend and fan to James Joyce.  Waiting for Godot is one of his most well-known plays which focuses on two men who wait for someone to arrive.  Grove Press states that the play is, "a comical wordplay of poetry, dreamscapes, and nonsense, which has been interpreted as a somber summation of mankind’s inexhaustible search for meaning."

The tickets are $6 for the general public, $5 for seniors and students, and $4 for those with MC ID's.  The play will be performed in Wells Theatre and the times for performance are 7:30 p.m. for Thursday-Saturday and 2:00 p.m. for Sunday.  

Tuesday March 4th

Blackfriar's Playhouse Touring Troupe Presents William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew

The American Shakespeare Center, which is based in Shenandoah Virginia, is coming to Monmouth College next Tuesday to do one performance of The Taming of the Shrew for free!  The performance will be at 7:00 in the Dahl Chapel.  The Touring Troupe is renowned for their unique and humorous adaptations of the Bard's plays.  The Director writes that the play is, "an Elizabethan farce that addresses the issues of freedom, equality, and the primacy of marriage."  Past performances at Monmouth College include Much Ado About Nothing and The Tempest.  The performance is bound to be fun and informative and it's free!     

Survey Says

Before Aspirations to be an English Major, What Did You Want to be Growing Up?

Erik Davis          egdavis@monm.edu