HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: msmorris@watsci.waterloo.edu (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Organization: University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 16:25:41 GMT

                                       Sunday, the 16th of August, 1992

John McCarthy offers an addendum:
                         Mike Morris remarks that Hirsch's cultural literacy
  is based on what is required to understand allusions in the _New York
  Times_.  A partial experiment would be to look at the allusions
  in a year of the _Times of India_ and the _Japan Times_.  Well, maybe
  a month would give enough data.

I'm not sure what the purpose of looking at these papers would be.
Are you wanting to measure how much American dominant-culture cultural
literacy overlaps with Indian cultural literacy or Japanese? I think it's
clear that there'll be some overlap, but Hirsch's list is American, he
makes no claim that it represents anything outside the U.S.'s borders,
and he makes no claim that it tries to represent any particular
local cultures or subcultures within U.S. national culture. It's obvious
to me, an American living in Canada for a couple of years, that a Canadian
list would be (at least somewhat) different. A Japanese list is bound
to be a lot different. Anyway, the experiment of trying to do a Hirsch
list for Japan would be interesting.

            Mike Morris
       (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.humor,alt.folklore.urban,rec.arts.sf.misc,alt.religion.kibology
From: schroede@bnlux1.bnl.gov (gary l. schroeder)
Subject: Re: Agnostics and Athiests
Organization: Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 14:14:07 GMT

In article <1992Aug10.230611.7231@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> csquared@coos.dartmouth.edu (C Squared) writes:
>In article <1992Aug10.203035.27768@news.cs.brandeis.edu> st890270@pip.cc.
>brandeis.edu (LUCIFER) writes:
>             ^^^^^^^^^
>>>There *IS* SCIENTIFIC PROOF that man did not exist on the planet Earth
>>>within 7 days of its creation.

Well, I think it's safe to make that statement.  What it gets you, I
don't know.  Of course, I'm taking this line out of context, but it
sounds like somebody's trying to verify biblical topics through
scientific means.

I'd be interested to hear the rest of the post.


>>Nah, it's all a conspiracy. God created the Dinosaur bones to give the 
>>planet a "lived in" feel

Ha ha ha.  That's pretty good.  :-)



-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Schroeder	                |  Warning: prolonged exposure to this
schroede@bnlux1.bnl.gov         |  .sig may cause retinal damage and 
Brookhaven National Laboratory  |  blistering skin rashes.
From: vks0@bunny.gte.com (Vijay Samalam)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: MFK Fisher (Re: Bang, BANG, B-A-N-G!)
Date: 20 Aug 92 12:04:43 GMT
Distribution: world,local
Organization: GTEL

In article <1992Aug20.005532.2195@morrow.stanford.edu> 
francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
>         Where do you rate 'Passage to India'?
> 
> Ah. I feared someone would ask that. You know, I have not read *A Passage
> To India* for many, many years, and I doubt that I ever shall again. I
> found it profoundly uncomfortable reading. Perhaps it was because it was 
> written not out of experience. So, where do you think it lies?
> 
>                                                         Fido

I agree ! I never did like "A Passage to India" though I don't know 
what you mean by being "written not out of experience". Forster 
was the private secretary to a Maharajah(cant remember the name,
we had so many of them those days) for a couple of years in India.
The problem with the book is that Forster never really understood
India or Indians though he was extremely sympathetic and tried 
very hard to understand I might hasten to add. The book tries to 
explore the problems in the thorny relations between the British
and the Indians and does not do a very good job. Forster's experience
of India seems to have been similar to the experience of his heroine
in the book as well as what's her name in "A room with a view", i.e,
overwhelmed by the lushness of the sights and sounds, a swooning 
drunken languor. The same criticism is made of Scott's "The Raj
Quartet" but I don't think it is justified. It is quite clear that 
Scott was primarily interested in the *British in India*
whereas Forster really did think he was exploring the complicated
relationship between the ruler and the ruled.
I agree with Francis (or is it Fido today ) that "A Room with
a view" is his best book.
  



Regards,
-Vijay

************************************
Vijay K. Samalam        fiat experimentum in    
GTE Laboratories          corpore vili                    
Waltham , MA 02254
e-mail vks0@gte.com INTERNET
************************************
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Robert Anton Wilson
From: ed@amigans.gen.nz (Edward Kitto)
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 92 13:40:28 GMT
Organization: Wanganui Amigans, Wanganui, New Zealand

SCOTT C LOCKLIN writes:

>Its relavance (I brought it up in the first place) is that reading Wilson

>helps one come to terms with his/her own reality tunnel, he shows you 
you're

>trapped in your way of thinking and helps you find the way out.

>His writing is relavant for ANYbody who is trapped in dogma, neophyte 
Satanist

>Xtian, bhuddist whatever. The whole Magick thing is seen in a different 
light

>after reading Wilson and so on... Most of his attitudes could be considered

>satanic in the true sense (although he refuses to be trapped in the dogma &

>labels that go with Satanism) and many of his fictional charachters could 
be

>considered satanic, (Hagbard Celiene, Aliester Crowley, Sigsmundo Celiene 
ect.)

Pardon?? Aleister Crowley was no fictional character of Wilson's. Born 
October 12, 1875 - died 1954. Difficult to see how you could have made this 
error. As for Wilson himself, I agree, he writes great stuff. I would 
thoroughly recommend 'Cosmic Trigger' to anyone - most especially to 
dogmatic know-it-alls who may discover that their pretty little worlds are 
not as secure as they imagine.



>The whole "satanic image" is of fire & human sacrifice. The proper attitude 
is

>far more Wilsonian than Miltonian(Milton paradise lost).

Not sure about this.

ed@amigans.gen.nz (Edward Kitto)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: tmccarth@fraser.sfu.ca (Teresa Marie McCarthy)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 02:36:09 GMT

tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
>	Anyone who thinks that canon formation takes place in an atmosphere
>of enlightened objectivity simply has not been paying attention to its
>history.  Through most of the canon's history, a number of extremely 
>tendentious assumptions have guided the multiple processes by which some
>works come to be included, others not.  

>exclusion from the canon means exclusion from cultural centrality; to 
>bring something into the canon is to certify it as worthy of the most intense
>study, teaching, criticism.  



>	In fact, given the necessary cultural pluralism of our times, we might 
>learn to live with structures more flexible than a canon, more inclusive.  
>Perhaps we could view these structures as horizontal, not vertical, and we 
>could also respect the idea that there is nothing all of us must read.  As 
>Northrop Frye (whose ingenuous notions of a canon have been mentioned in this 
>discussion) noted, you can recognize the canonical nature of a work by the 
>fact that you're embarrassed not to have read it; I'm suggesting that this
>response has become simply irrelevant, that we must all define our own canons. 

>	While we're at it, we might do so with a broad, generous notion of 
>person and genre so that we do not exclude writers because of who they are or
>works because they come from despised literary forms.

This is what I was looking for!  Although the discussion on writers that have 
been excluded from the canon is very interesting, I was more interested in 
an alternative.  I think a "horizontal" method of looking at literature is
interesting.

  
I'm also glad that the political nature of the canon has been acknowledged 
in this discussion.  It isn't *canon-bashing* that brings a political 
agenda into literature, but the creation of the canon itself.  Perhaps
I shouldn't have used Amelia Lanyer as an example - I seem to have gotten
myself labelled as a "Dead White Male Basher".  She just happenned to be
on my mind at the moment.  A better example might have been the fate of
Thomas Shadwell.  John Dryden caricatured him in _Mac Flecknoe_, and he's
been largely ignored ever since.  In fact, this is the case which ZZ


    ., .  

                                                                                dd

                 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: wojdylo@maths.uwa.oz.au (INFIDEL)
Subject: Re: Naphtha and Settembrini
Organization: University of Western Australia
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 10:14:48 GMT

msmorris@watsci.waterloo.edu (Mike Morris) writes:




>                                Tuesday, the 11th of August, 1992

>Yes, John, amazing how impotent it all is, isn't it?

This is de Sade's flaw.

The most potent art is that in which it seems that nothing happens.



>If you should ever find your way north for a visit, I'd be glad to
>buy you a beer.


Given that Kundera would have spewed if he'd heard your view of his work
(your relegating his aesthetic considerations), and your persistence with
personalizing a reading of a novel (as a sincere relationship with the author) ,the reasons to avoid each other in a drinking hole are significant. 

However, as Canada can be a rather colder place than Melbourne (where I
am working at present), and pubs with a fireplace remind me of Japan, I
may take up your offer were I to stray that far from civilization.


Regards,
JW




Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Subject: Re: Determinism vs (Re: Omniscience v.) Free will
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 14:53:31 GMT

In article <77426@ut-emx.uucp> sheila@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (

Stark Raving Sane writes:

	A few months ago I was wondering about determinism and free will.
	I decided that it wasn't significant if we had free will or not.
	(that's too general. I mean, It is not significant if we have
	a theoretical free will or not. (?) It is significant to have 
	freedom.)

Always a pleasure to read Sheila's stuff, but she may come to understand
that Freedom is not for the having, but for the believing. 

	I think I am hopelessly confused as far as communication goes.

Curiously, you communicate extraordinarily well. We are invited to share
your confusion, and that is not confusing. There is no mud about your
writing.

						Fido
From: heath@athena.cs.uga.edu (Terrance Heath)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Date: 12 Aug 92 22:13:49 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

In article <BsvxzL.HqM@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca> msmorris@watsci.waterloo.edu (Mike Morris) writes:
>
>                                  Wednesday, the 12th of August, 1992
>
>Michelle Manes chides me I think for not being realistic about
>my expectations for high-school lit education.
>
>I figure that I just did a poor job of communicating what I had on
>my mind, since I think I'm being very realistic about how bad
>this education now is.
>
>When I said ``if I had my druthers, I'd teach Homer and Dante...'',
>I meant ``if I were king'' or ``if I were made U.S. educational tsar
>with powers to implement a complete overhaul of the U.S. educational
>system.'' I didn't mean I'd just start force-feeding high schoolers
>stuffy old books that they wouldn't read.
>
>My context was trying to counter the impression I was getting from
>Terrance that students now all *are* force-fed stuffy old books
>and are never encouraged to read contemporary, politically
>relevant works. I think mostly students read next to nothing in high
>school, and that indeed a good many teachers give up on classics
>entirely and try to teach contemporary stuff in desperation of getting
>their students to read anything at all.

	Perhaps my experience has been the exception to the rule, but
I have been reading the "classics" since high school, American and
Western Lit. Then again, I went to a different kind of school than
most, which had strict rules about the standards a student had to meet
in order to remain in the school.  So my education in the classics is
probably slightly better than others (but only slightly, and there are
a lot of things I've yet to read.   
	It wasn't until I came to college that I became aware that
there were other "classics" written by "other" people, that I hadn't
heard of before. I read them, and found more to relate to within them
then I had in any other thing I'd read. I wondered why that gift had
been kept from me for so long. The longer I wonder, the angrier I get.


-- 
"Black men loving black men is THE revolutionary act!"
			-Joseph Beam_
Terrance Heath 
heath@athena.cs.uga.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Subject: Re: Some Canonical Lists
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 00:22:41 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque


Mr. Morris writes [kind of a paraphrase, I deleted too much]

>
>I'd be much more interested in such a [Afro-American] list from Mr. Heath
>once he has read, say, 1000 such works over many years, . . .
>

        Oh, but I'm not asking for a list solely based on Mr. Heath's
        limited experience.  There probably already exist such
        experienced scholars with their associated lists which Mr.
        Heath or whoever may know of via secondary works.  I see no
	reason why I should have to wait ten years for Mr. Heath to
	finish reading these hypothetical 1000 books just to get a
	silly list out of him.

        It is just not that big of a deal -- it has already been
        mentioned that American slave literature only dates back to the
        middle of the last century, so it is inevitable that books will
        show up on such a list will have more to do with inflammatory bestseller
        lists and youthful infatuation than with timeless values (BTW, is there
        any literature from the milennia old and much larger Arab slave
        trade?  Perhaps some of the English missionaries like Livingston
	would be interesting).  I can handle that; the object is to have
	a starting point for reading on the subject, which I (as a typical WASP)
	do not have.  Such lists are bound to change -- you have to start
	somewhere.  And since various people are complaining about the
	"Canon," I think it is fair to ask these same people to present
	their alternative.  How about it, Mr. Heath?

>                   Mike Morris

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu
From: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: I need a word
Date: 13 Aug 92 18:41:44 GMT
Reply-To: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Organization: COMANDOS Project, Glesga Yoonie

Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca (Crawford Kilian) writes:
> Chuck Smythe asks for a word meaning "letting the part stand for the whole."
> I think the word he wants is "synechdoche" (pronounced sin *ek* da key).

I was once asked a somewhat related puzzler: a biologist friend was looking
for a name for a certain kind of camouflage where an organism draws
attention to a small confusingly-marked part of itself in order to dissuade
predators.  He wanted an allusion to classical mythology.  About five years
too late, I thought of a suitable parallel: the Biblical story in which
Jacob fools his blind father Isaac into thinking he's his elder brother
Esau by getting Isaac to feel his arm, which he has covered with a
sheepskin to simulate Esau's hairier skin.  So we can call this the Jacob's
Arm Strategy, unless someone has a neater analogue...

-- 
--  Jack Campin    room G092, Computing Science Department, Glasgow University,
17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RZ, Scotland   TEL: 041 339 8855 x6854 (work)
INTERNET: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk or via nsfnet-relay.ac.uk    FAX: 041 330 4913
BANG!net: via mcsun and uknet     BITNET: via UKACRL    UUCP: jack@glasgow.uucp
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: egpv29@castle.ed.ac.uk (JHenderson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re:  Unspoken Words
Date: 17 Aug 92 12:45:03 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

=>In article <10223@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall) writes:
=>>
=>>  You pronounce words in your head as you read?  Really?  (I'm not
=>>  trying to be smart, although I know it sounds like it :-) )
=>>
=>>  My wife does that, or at least says she does, whereas when I read
=>>  I just see the word and recognize it, but never pronounce it, not
=>>  even mentally.  I always assumed everyone else read that same way,
=>>  but perhaps *I* am the one out of step :-(  Hmmmmm....

This is why I've never made much progress with Tolstoy. By the end of page 1
there are so many Mr. Thingummys that I'm completely confused.


-- 
-Jeremy Henderson            |  Anisotropic
 egpv29@castle.ed.ac.uk	     |  Density tensor!  Truly
       			     |  a wonderous thing.
			     |			(Joe Green)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Robert Anton Wilson
From: ed@amigans.gen.nz (Edward Kitto)
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 17:40:17 GMT
Organization: Wanganui Amigans, Wanganui, New Zealand

Dartanyan the Witchling writes:

>    As long as we are on the subject -- What are the general

>opinions expressed here regarding the use of recreational

>pharmaceuticals, particularly psychedelics, and most notably

>lysergic acid diethylamide, in ritual.  Are there any special

>things that should be done during the practice of fifth-

>circuit magick, or is the ritual setting in and of itself a good

>enough setting and the ritual mindset a good enough set for use

>in this way?

>    If I am going to metaprogram myself, I do not want to leave

bugs.

I would most earnestly advise you or anyone else not to use

"recreational pharmaceuticals". If it isn't enough that they are

illegal then you should realise that they are only available from

black market sources. Which means that you have no idea what you

are really getting. Dope dealers tend to 'pepper and salt' their

concoctions with subtstances ranging from strychnine to animal

tranquilizer - not to mention chemical isomers of LSD-25. These 

chemical delights may have the unfortunate effect of exhausting

various neurotransmitter receptor sites in your brain. Remember

Christopher Lloyd's character in "Taxi"? It gets worse. See

Wilson's advice in "Cosmic Trigger" under The Sirius Connection

p77 if you have the Abacus paperback.

>    I assume that not all of you have fallen to the dogmatrap

>problem, by the way, and have thusly developed satanic rituals

>of your own.  If so, can somone please post one, preferrably

>avoiding the pompous melodramatic bullshit that Anton Salvador

>LaBarnum was so fond of.  The stuff reeks too much of Gygaxian

>Dungeons and Dragons crossed with masculinist pseudocrowley

>starhawk.

Agnostics don't indulge in Satanic rituals. A non sequitur I

should have thought. If you are suggesting that Wilson is a

"closet" Satanist I think you are reading in something that isn't

there. Wilson, like many others, wonders "what the hell is really

going on?". The area of Satanic rituals is perhaps only

marginally less risky than chemical cocktails. Not so much from

Auld Nick but from the people who are likely to

participate(partake?) - be warned!

Sorry to sound so negative but what you are considering is

extremely dangerous.

ed@amigans.gen.nz (Edward Kitto)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Subject: Re: Bertrand Russell and the Mad Hatter
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 92 20:34:36 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <1992Aug19.191352.9454@sophia.smith.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>There is some resemblance between the the Mad Hatter as depicted
>in the original drawings (by Tenniel?) from Alice's Adventures
>in Wonderland, and Bertrand Russell.  But the timing seems
>wrong, since Dodgson died before Russell became famous.
>Does anyone know if there is a connection nevertheless?

	I first became aware of the resemblance glancing
	through a book edited by Colin Wilson.  I don't 
	recall the name of the book, but it was a collection
	of incredibly stupid and needlessly cruel bashings
	of famous people.  One of these was Russell, and
	along with notes on his sexual preferences was a
	blurb noting the resemblance.  You should also
	check Martin Gardner's excellent annotated edition
	for possible references (I don't have it in front 
	of me).  Certainly Tenniel did model some of his 
	drawings after actual people; Alice was modeled
	after some other child (not the real Alice), and
	I recall that the Red Queen was modeled after a
	painting of an ugly princess nicknamed 'pocketmouth,'
	because of her prominent jowls :)  Now that I think
	of it, doesn't Gardner say that the Hatter was 
	modeled after Lord North, and the rodent after another
	famous politician?

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu	
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Subject: A little learning...
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 13:29:42 GMT



		"Snob and Shit"
		Tommy wrot.
		Manners maketh Maddox?
		NOT!


						Fido
From: KGODDEN@cmsa.gmr.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Book recommendation wanted.
Date: 14 Aug 92 15:35:47 GMT
Organization: GM Research Labs

In article <1992Aug13.171636.18044@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk>
jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin) writes:

>Gaelic and English.  I'm sure any good religious bookshop could find you
>Biblical parallel texts - the most extreme one of these I've seen had four
>languages to a page - the original with Syriac (?) and Latin as well as
>English.  And most opera librettos are parallel-text productions.
>
The Bible was written in neither Syriac, nor Latin.  The OT was in Hebrew,
the NT in Greek.  There are small parts written in Aramaic as well.
No other lgs as far as I know.
-Kurt
From: proberts@informix.com (Paul Roberts)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The nature of enlightenment
Date: 15 Aug 92 21:42:16 GMT
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.

In article <JMC.92Aug13202529@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:

>by fashion than anyone else.  The PC side has no-one to make
>fun of their foes with a talent to match P. J. O'Rourke, and
>we're holding Tom Wolfe in reserve.
>

If O'Rourke is what passes for "talent" in the "we hate PC"
world, then you must be a sorry crowd indeed.

Paul
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<BsxpCA.M55@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca> <#d7mk#m.tmaddox@netcom.com>
	<Bt1pns.Kv8@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca>
Date: 15 Aug 92 18:51:55

Addendum to previous.  Mike Morris remarks that Hirsch's cultural literacy
is based on what is required to understand allusions in the _New York
Times_.  A partial experiment would be to look at the allusions
in a year of the _Times of India_ and the _Japan Times_.  Well, maybe
a month would give enough data.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:14695 soc.history:7384