Virginia Postrel, "Surface and Substance" and:
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Literature, Aesthetics, and the Politics of Meaning (Assignment 2)
Please write an essay that shows how Postrel’s ideas about aesthetics complicate, elucidate, or better explain O’Brien’s short story. Be sure to give Postrel and O’Brien equal treatment in your paper.
Questions to consider:
Postrel states, “The challenge is to learn to accept that aesthetic pleasure is an autonomous good, not the highest or the best but one of many plural, sometimes conflicting, and frequently unconnected sources of value.” What are the various “sources of value” in “How to Tell a True War Story”? How do they relate to aesthetic pleasure as it is portrayed by O’Brien? What would Postrel think about this relation?
Michael Leong, Rutgers University, Fall 2005
From Literature, Aesthetics, and the Politics of Meaning.
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Literature, Aesthetics, and the Politics of Meaning (Assignment 3)
Drawing on the work of O’Brien, Postrel, and Nafisi, discuss the role of art, aesthetics, and literature in a democratic society. Be sure to formulate an original argument that you clearly state in your introduction and be sure to support your argument with textual evidence.
Questions to consider:
-The narrator in O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story” resists stories with easy morals and generalizations. In contrast, he wishes to constantly retell and change his story, adding and subtracting details “to get at the real truth” (O’Brien 396). How is this desire related to Postrel’s “‘dynamist’ model in which the direction of progress is understood always to be unpredictable, open-ended, and contingent” (Miller and Spellmeyer 420)? How is it related to Nafisi’s support for a forum for thought and discussion where ideas “are not determined in advance” (Miller and Spellmeyer 334)?
Michael Leong, Rutgers University, Fall 2005
From Literature, Aesthetics, and the Politics of Meaning.
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