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- From: jwold@meltdown.chi.il.us (Jason Wold)
- Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
- Subject: Re: SF + PC
- Message-ID: <jwold.05r4@meltdown.chi.il.us>
- Date: 3 Jan 93 03:53:20 CST
- Organization: The Meltdown - A Team Star BBS
- Lines: 26
-
- Regarding Reading Lists, I personally liked the ones where we were given say,
- twelve books and told to read six of them. It provided a bit of a choice,
- although it's true that you're really exploring the tastes of your professor
- (or whoever gives the list) rather than your own.
-
- I think the only problem with reading lists depends on how readily one accepts
- authority. I personally never really paid much attention, but gradually too a
- more open minded approach and started giving the books in the curriculum a fair
- shake. Some of them were very good (read:possessed 'Literary Merit' which I
- recognized), and the ones that were bad, I simply took as an excercise in
- proving to my teachers how horrible their taste in literature was. My grades
- were not the best, but I got alot out of the ensuing dialog.
-
- The other benefit of a reading list is that it gives you a sample of just who
- your Teacher is, and what type of literature he believes have merit. I tend to
- see all relationships, be they authoritarian or otherwise, as merely a personal
- interaction. Some people will throw the rules in your face, but what can you
- do except comment on their obsession with power. The point I've been trying
- to make for the past couple paragraphs and haven't managed to fit in, is that a
- reading list can, possibly, by some stroke of luck, introduce you to things
- that enrich your life, that you may have never even heard of otherwise. Things
- that you like, I mean, and didn't realize you liked them because you've limited
- yourself to other channels of exploration.
-
- <I simply must learn to write more structured paragraphs on the fly..>
- J.
-