Anthropology Times

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

Taking the week off… well, not really.  I’m working on the re-design of this site and a couple others.

Will be back next in a few weeks.

Cheers,
S

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

In reading Brackette Williams, in reading through her interviews, I am struck by the fact that she does not at all write/speak in ordered lists. She speaks in layers. She speaks with context. In answering questions it is as if she is all at once several entities inhabiting the sphere surrounding a topic. In an interview (Categories are alive: interview with Brackette F. Williams) she says, “we all already know you can’t make objectivity, rather you can make all kinds of objectivities – just get enough people in a room.” I read this and thought that it echoed this thinking I was having about how Williams writes. I’ve been listening to lectures on literature, on the American novel, and I smiled at the thought that this woman writes anthropology like someone who reads literature and loves literature. She illuminates. I’ve been listening to the Open Yale course, The American Novel Since 1945 with Professor Amy Hungerford, and the novel at the moment is Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood.  At the close of the last lecture, Professor Hungerford brought attention to how O’Connor’s writing is filled with body parts. A character looks through a window and sees a knee, a hand reaches through a car window, etc… I thought, too, that this speaks to my impressions of how Williams writes/speaks. I have the second lecture on O’Connor still. I am curious as to Professor Hungerford’s discussion of body parts in O’Connor and how that discussion might help me better read Williams.

More next time…

Yours ever,
S.

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I’m working my way through the article I chose, but it’s taking longer than expected. I continue to refine what I can get done over the summer. I’ve been plugging away at multiple projects – mostly trying to get the projects outlined and started so that I will have well-structured distractions for those times during the next semester that I don’t want to do math or chemistry but need to stay in study mode.

I’ve been listening to online lectures in various subjects including anthropology, and that’s helping me come up with a more workable study plan and reading list. I’ve lost a bit of focus with my anthropology studies, but I’m working myself back to a more defined path.

Yours,
S.