The discipline of English as an institutional thing. Is there evidence of this here at Miami? Not being part of the English department, it’s hard to have an opinion…
How does Claire view the affair she had? >She claims she is the victim, even though she says she seduced Howard. This concept almost hearkens back to past discussions in this class: who is to blame in Frankenstein? Is it fate there? Is it sexuality and repression and intellectualism here, or weakness? If you knew what you were doing but participated anyway, are you to blame? Or is that a good enough excuse, that you knew better, but you just didn’t act right? I don’t buy it.
University – all is suspect (romantic, beauty, and idealization or calling something beautiful) is all politically suspect to leftism.
The last two pages give us a de-objectified idealization of beauty, finally! De-thingafied, not treating women as objects.
Howard is completely above all most of the academy, believes in de-objectifying women, etc. And yet when two women look at him, he caves. He objectifies from their beauty!
This is the moment when we really question what an intellectual is, when Zora questions during the discussion at the Bus Stop. Claire has read all these amazing classic works. What is an intellectual? Professors are scholarly trained, to review, etc and do scholarly things required of them in their field. Intellectuals get to read books by other intellectuals. Is one better, or does one lead to more experience/wisdom?
It’s twisted and wrong – Jerome lost his virginity to Victoria, and now Jerome’s dad also slept with her.
Are poor people the play things of radical intellectuals?
Who is the god of the left?
Is Kiki a sell-out? Did she try to escape her race? Jerome, the black son, yells at this Mom for marrying a white man. What?? Reference to when Clinton was elected – the left liberals are finally in office, but a lot of the people coming into office werent’ allowed because they were using the poor, the illegal aliens, for cheap labor themselves.
