Sanders Documents for Tuesday

Hi All!
My presentation is on Scott Russell Sanders, a former professor here at IU who has written novels, children's books, and countless essays ranging in topics from fatherhood to conservation to religion and faith. I have spent my project working with the Lilly's collection on Sanders' book Hunting for Hope, in which Sanders depicts how a hiking trip with his son helped him reevaluate his attitude towards life and find a more positive outlook on the world.

On reserve is a small, green notebook that Sanders took notes in during his hiking trip with in son, Jesse, in June of 1995. Sanders numbers his pages. Please look at pages 21-24 and then 29-42 (I know this sounds like a lot, but the pages are tiny and the handwriting is quite neat!) Feel free to transcribe these notes, but I'm more interested in you all simply getting a feel for the relationship that Sanders has with his son. In class I would like to discuss this relationship as well as talk about nature writing in general and how such concise field notes taken on a backpacking trip can inspire and lead to an entire book on subjects like hope, faith, and family.

If you have extra time, feel free to look through the rest of Sanders Box 9. There is a lot of really neat stuff compiled from his trip- brochures, maps, articles, other ideas for essays and novels that sprung from this trip- and they are all a testament to how much nature can inspire.

Happy reading!

Vonnegut Transcriptions

The pictures of these pages are now up on the blog, and they're available in the reading room, but here are my transcriptions!

The smudged poem on the back of a page of notes:

Her molten breast holds no solid thing

Graven in(?) which the name Plato or Brahms

                                                Or Lincoln –

Might survive –

Undefeatable(?) happiness(?)

A talisman(?) ??? show that on this tiny planet

Amid great Suns and Nebulae

There was a strange condition(?) of matter

An ???????? chemical cowardice(?)

Possible … For an instant in infinite time –

Here was life.

The paragraph on the back of a test:

            Amy Sheissewetter wouldn’t say have said shit if she had a mouth full; Gus, her spouse, was a rabid anti-semite, who couldn’t hit a bull in the ass with a banjo; and Rex Sheissewetter, when he wasn’t trying to light farts in the men’s rooms boy’s lavatory of P.S. 43, divided his time about equally between building model airplanes and masturbating.  The Sheissewetter’s could afford to be indifferent about atomic warfare

And the poem on its own piece of paper in the middle of that test:

Matter can neither be created nor destroyed.

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.

Matter is energy.

Energy is matter.

There we begin our dismal story,

When Man lay aside his crucifix

            for the new Holy Trinity:

Matter,

Energy,

and Time;

When mass suicide was made possible –

The Grand Ideal, Oblivion,

To be shared by all,

No longer to be inhibited

By the faint of heart

Nor by the minority will to live.

Man, thou art but dust:

To dust return.

And wonder not what followed

For no living thing remains on Earth;

Not a bird bursts its breast with melody.

Nor are there forests, nor shy forest creatures

Sarah Helen Whitman for Thursday

Hey guys, here are the Sarah Helen Whitman mss. for Thursday. These materials are also on reserve in the Reading Room.

The first part is a letter from James Wood Davidson to Whitman dated 30 January 1858. He mentions a daguerrotype of Poe that Whitman sent him, and gives some of his own backstory. Then he proceeds to talk about something called "Ione", a reference which is still a bit of a mystery. Also keep in mind that the final page of the letter has been physically cut.

The second part contains two undated scraps. They seem to be notes she's taking on her own letters. They're hard to read because she's writing haphazardly in pencil, so don't worry too much about transcribing. Try to get an idea of the kinds of things she's writing down, and see if you can find any references to the letter (particularly on page I).

See you all on Thursday! =)

Vonnegut for Thursday

Hello everyone - sorry for putting this up so last minute!  The Vonnegut materials are now on hold in the reading room.  There are two folders, one called Anthropology C220 materials and one called I Shall Not Want.  In the Anthropology folder, I've marked two poems and one paragraph which I would like to discuss in class.  There's also an essay with some interesting comments from one of Vonnegut's professors -- you don't have to read the whole thing, but maybe glance at it just to get an idea of the quality of his academic work (the professor's comments are pretty funny too).  The other folder contains several versions of an essay Vonnegut wrote at around the same time as the notes were written.  They're each seven or eight pages long, so you can pick one version and read it if you want, but you don't have to.

Professor Irmscher or I should be putting up images of these pages soon if you can't make it to the reading room, and sometime tomorrow I'll put up my transcriptions of the poems.  I'd encourage you to attempt the transcribe the smudged one too, as some of the words are almost impossible to decipher.

Thanks,
Elizabeth

Susan Brownmiller book and another link, too

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0449908208/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

It's called Against Our Will and was first published in 1975, just two years before the episode we studied today.

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/15/teaching_men_not_to_rape_survivor

And the second link is a recent Democracy Now! episode about a rape survivor who advocates teaching men not to rape.

All in the Family

So I was looking at the stuff that Morgan set aside earlier, and the article on rape really startled me.
It makes me sick that the things they were telling women to do to prevent rape or during a rape to prevent getting hurt worse (in the 1970s) are still being told to women today.
Here are a few satirical videos about this that, frankly, sound a LOT like the article:
How not to get raped
How to not get raped
On another, more serious, note- here is a Rape Prevention video that I believe is from 1977. I don't know if it was made before or after the episode of All in the Family, but I think it was a few years after (correct me if I am wrong). Despite being created later, it does share the same sort of rhetoric that the article did (and unlike the videos above, is NOT being satirical at all).
Rape Prevention Documentary
(all of the below are paraphrased)
"Women should lock their cars"
"Women should not hitchhike"
"Women should keep an eye on the gas gauge, because if they don't they might run out of gas and get raped by the side of the road"
"Women shouldn't go out at night"
"A rapist's strength and ruthlessness will give him the advantage"
"A woman's home has become one of the rapist's favorite places to commit his crime"
This video and the article treat rape as something that is inevitable that a woman must protect herself from. Neither the video or the article put any responsibility on the rapist to not rape and both assume that a rape victim will always be a woman. While I do agree with some aspects of the article and the movie (lock your car, don't walk home by yourself at night when you have a safer option, etc), there are some that make me almost physically ill. The article said that women will lessen their chances of being seriously injured if they cooperate with the rapist or try to do things to make him not want to rape her. It even encouraged women to not scream. I think Edith's reaction mirrors some of this as she tries to distract the rapist.
I can't blame this article for this viewpoint, because it obviously had to stem from somewhere.
 I was wondering if anyone else had a similar reaction to this article/episode and what you think about it.
And lastly, here is a video by Deaf-Hope. Deaf-Hope Video After watching all of the horrible stuff I did, this made me smile.

William Carlos Williams Journal

Sorry this is a bit late but I just had a chance to type it up.
I transcribed 4 of the journal entries Ariel set aside, but I know I got quite a few words wrong (especially the French and especially the March 30 entry).  Does any one know what some of these words could be? and what the French means for that matter?
Also, I was wondering who Fran and Miss Lull are.

 I put the information that was printed in the journal itself in bold.

January                                         1924
Tues
8 
        
Met Doug and Earle at Col. [Club?] 2 orange blossoms and 1 ball. I [toire?] easily after financial discussion. Paul H. & him. to supper- feel fine. To bed early.
At bar: 
J'etais un homme tres bulgair; J'etais un voleur.


January                                    1924
Wed 
16
               Perfect day. "Deux cogniac s'il vous [ploit?]. Je suis poeis moi." {large dot in middle of line} 3d lieutenant. "I don't speak good english in the morning. Afternoon a little better. But midnight I speak very well." One week post. Watched [girls?] [fey?] up close to ship. Ring toss with Floss.
                              I feed baby Barber.  {line inserted between lines}
 Two cogniacs. 10¢ Played backgammon- lost 2 games. Ball in evening- Miss Lull "mousse." 3d lieut. Smoked down to "red haired gal." Danced much. Champagne at invitation of Luces. - wonderful moon and five pointed stars "First time stars look like stars" says Floss.

                                                          1924                                                                         April 
                                                                                                                                           Fri 
                                                                                                                                           18
 Flossies birthday. Went for walk to buy flowers etc. Bough an easter egg for Fran [Ordody?] and Candy and a plant for Floss. In afternoon I typed a while. Floss slept. Then we walked around the Ring finally landing at Ritz Restaurant. There we had a fine bottle of wine (red) Teroldigo 1921. And supper. I mistakenly ordered 1/4 goose for myself and found the quantity and price more than I had bargained for (150,000 K.) Walked home & found there must have been some garlic hidden in Flossies soup or something.

March                                          1924 
Sun 
30 
 Beautiful day. Walked to St. Mark's place- fed pigeons. Went into cathedral for a few minutes then walked to Paris and sat in hot sun. Home again by steamer Wondered about [pricing?] bead bag. 1400₤. Wanted to come down- but no. Had [?] dinner. Left by gondola to [station?]. Tram 2.50, very crowded. By jumping off of first stop managed to get seat in single car. Milan to Vienna.-- 4 Jews. Interesting journey north & east along hall of mountains. [?] a bare campagna. Crossed Piove, [?] fading remains of was same there. Talked freely & [?] [?] in [?].