Just an update on life (relatively brief):
- I’m working on updating this site. I still have a few aesthetics to fix. I’ve just put up a test site on my computer after running through all the upgrades. Most worked flawlessly.
- I’m kinda holding off on reading through Difference and Repetition in order to stay up-to-date with Nietzsche. It’s been a very difficult read for me, so I’ve been toying with it more so than imbibing it.
- I’ve surprised myself with how much German I do remember, as well as how well I’m picking up French.
- I got another piercing (right ear cartilage).
- And lastly, my reading list through mid-December:
- Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols
- –, The Antichrist
- –, Ecce Homo
- –, Beyond Good and Evil
- –, The Gay Science
- –, The Case of Wagner
- –, Nietzsche contra Wagner
- Kierkegaard, Concept of Anxiety
- –, Fear and Trembling
- –, Book on Adler
- –, Concluding Unscientific Postscript
- –, Stages on Life’s Way
- Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy
- –, Difference and Repetition
- Berkowitz, Nietzsche: The Ethics of an Immoralist
- Westphal, Becoming a Self
- Plato, Ion
- –, Meno
- –, Apology
- –, Crito
- –, Phaedo
- –, Symposium
- –, Republic
OK, I put together a short to-do list of things I would like to do before school resumes (Sept 11 is my first day back).
- Update this site’s code and template (relatively simple, provided I have time)
- Post my more recent papers
- Finish Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition
- Brush up on my German skills (mainly the vocab)
- Start a new blog series (haven’t decided on which to do…I have three choices sketched out on my whiteboard)
- Finish the fix-up-around-the-house to-do list currently on my whiteboard (it’s only three fairly painless, yet time-consuming)
- Get something that will remain a secret until after the fact
I’ll be posting a to-do list for the new term pretty soon, but I’m hoping to do a good bit of reading since I’m only taking one class for credit (both French and German will be for non-credit). Sorry I don’t have anything more right now.
A few updates before running off to the mountains for the weekend (again):
- I am staying at DU for a while longer.
- I am staying in Colorado.
- My comps went well.
- I’m burnt out from school.
- I’m getting a Vespa look-a-like scooter.
- Yes, there is a difference between scooters and mopeds.
- I actually have nothing I need to read at the moment.
Today, I finally received my reading lists for my comprehensive exams. I still don’t know which two of the three traditions I requested will be the chosen traditions. As it stands, I was given a list of 10-13 books for each possible tradition, as well as for the “theory” exam. I choose seven for each and return that list to the professor that will be giving the exam. Here’s my list for each exam (I put up all three traditions I requested). I have underlined the ones I have read previously for classes or own.
Theory
- Bell, Catherine. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions
- Durkheim, Emile. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life
- Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents
- Freud, Sigmund. Totem and Taboo
- Roy, Olivier. Globalized Islam
- Taylor, Mark C. About Religion
- Smith, Jonathan Z. Imagining Religion
Christianity
- Ahltstrom, Sidney. A Religious History of the American People
- Ehrman, Bart. The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings
- Logan, F. Donald. A History of the Church in the Middle Ages
- McGrath, Alister. Christianity: An Introduction
- Ozment, Steven. The Age of Reform, 1250-1550: An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe
- Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Volumes 1-5
- Stevenson, James. Creeds, Councils and Controversies: Documents Illustrating the History of the Church
Islam
- Arberry, Arthur. The Qur’an Interpreted
- Denny, Frederick. Introduction to Islam
- Geaves, Ron. Aspects of Islam
- Madelung, Wilferd. Succession to Muhammad
- Rahman, Falzur. Major Themes of the Qur’an
- Schimmel, Annemarie. The Mystical Dimension of Islam
- Watt, W Montogmery. The Formative Period Of Islamic Thought
Hinduism
- Bayly, Susan. Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age
- Eck, Diana L. Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India
- Flood, Gavin. An Introduction to Hinduism
- Khandelwal, Meena. Women in Ochre Robes: Gendering Hindu Renunciation
- Miller, Barbara S. The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna’s Counsel in Time of War
- Ramanujan, A K. Speaking of Siva
- Smith, David. Hinduism and Modernity
I guess that means I have quite a bit of reading to do over the next 10 weeks.
It’s that time again. Next week is the last week of the quarter (already!). On my agenda is a paper for the Study of Religion class, a take-home final for it, and an in-class final for Buddhism. i’m pretty sure this is my first in-class final as a grad student. Practically speaking, i’ll be finished a week from this coming Monday (i.e. the 20th) even though i still have that in-class final on Wednesday the 22nd. In other news, i was “encouraged” (to say the least) to say around Denver for another year and wait to do my thesis. So, i’m going to go for the dual-MA (again) so that i’m not wasting any time. i have to add 8 books to my list to make 100, many which will be the rest of the Chronicles of Narnia series. i am still thinking of 2-3 more books to complete the list… i’ve got a lot of reading and coding to do between now and Dec 31 to fulfill my goals, but i think i’ll be able to do it.
Read for Buddhism class:
Buddhism in Practice by Donald LopezBuddhist Religions by Richard RobinsonThe Foundations of Buddhism by Rupert Gethin
Read for Study of Religion class:
Globalized Islam by Olivier RoyA Thousand Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari
- Read for Thesis
- The End of Modernity by Gianni Vattimo
- The Adventure of Difference by Vattimo
- Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition by James K.A. Smith
- Introducing Radical Orthodoxy by James K.A. Smith
- Religion by Vattimo and Jacques Derrida
- Weak Thoughts by Vattimo
- Philosophy and Theology by John Caputo
- The Parallax View by Slavoj Zizek
- Dogmatics in Outline by Karl Barth
- Read for “fun”
- Phenomenology of Spirit by Georg Hegel
- The Voyage of the Dawn Treadle by C.S. Lewis
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Inferno by Dante Alighieri
- The Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel Kant
- Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysicsby Kant
- De Anima by Aristotle
- Categories by Aristotle
- Physics by Aristotle
- Metaphysics by Aristotle
- The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
- Of Grammatology by Derrida
- Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf
- Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume
- Coding projects
Well,tomorrow is my inaugural post at Church and Postmodern Culture. It is part 2 of the four part discussion around Pete Rollins’s How (Not) to Speak of God and is my attempt at locate Pete in the greater context of what has been called weak theology and a/theology. My paper links Pete with Jack Caputo (author of The Weakness of God) and Mark C. Taylor (author of Erring). Look for it tomorrow morning.
Also, i am updating my list:
- Read for Buddhism class:
- Buddhism in Practice by Donald Lopez
- Buddhist Religions by Richard Robinson
- The Foundations of Buddhism by Rupert Gethin
- Read for Study of Religion class:
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life by Emile DurkheimThe Sacred and Profane by Mircea Eliade- Globalized Islam by Olivier Roy
Relating Religion by Jonathan Smith- A Thousand Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari
- Read for Thesis
- The End of Modernity by Gianni Vattimo
- The Adventure of Difference by Vattimo
- Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition by James K.A. Smith
- Introducing Radical Orthodoxy by James K.A. Smith
- Religion by Vattimo and Jacques Derrida
- Weak Thoughts by Vattimo
- Philosophy and Theology by John Caputo
- The Parallax View by Slavoj Zizek
- Dogmatics in Outline by Karl Barth
How (Not) to Speak of God by Peter Rollins
- Read for “fun”
- Phenomenology of Spirit by Georg Hegel
Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? by James K.A. Smith- The Voyage of the Dawn Treadle by C.S. Lewis
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Inferno by Dante Alighieri
- The Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel Kant
- Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysicsby Kant
- De Anima by Aristotle
- Categories by Aristotle
- Physics by Aristotle
- Metaphysics by Aristotle
- The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
- Of Grammatology by Derrida
- Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf
- Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume
- Coding projects
Wow, it has already been an entire year since i started my Master’s program, and yet it seems like i’ve learned relatively little, yet i’ve learned many things. To keep with this trend, i am attempting to have read 100 books for this calendar year (January through December). i like to add the books that i’m reading to the “Now Reading” list on the left side of the page. Somewhere in that list is a link to my “library” which has all the books that i’ve read since i began keeping track (which was in January). As of today, there are a total of 88 books in there, which means i need 12 more for my target of 100. If you know of a good book (especially if it deals with theology/philosophy), tell me about it so that i can add it to my list. i don’t count reference books (so Wrox’s Web Standards is out, even though i have been using it here and there).
Also, if you notice, i’ve added a few more books today for my classes. Because of that, i have a new list for this quarter:
- Read for Buddhism class:
- Buddhism in Practice by Donald Lopez
- Buddhist Religions by Richard Robinson
- The Foundations of Buddhism by Rupert Gethin
- Read for Study of Religion class:
- The Elementary Forms of Religious Life by Emile Durkheim
- The Sacred and Profane by Mircea Eliade
- Globalized Islamby Olivier Roy
- Relating Religion by Jonathan Smith
- A Thousand Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari
- Read for Thesis
- The End of Modernity by Gianni Vattimo
- The Adventure of Difference by Vattimo
- Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition by James K.A. Smith
- Introducing Radical Orthodoxy by James K.A. Smith
- Religion by Vattimo and Jacques Derrida
- Weak Thoughts by Vattimo
- Philosophy and Theology by John Caputo
- The Parallax View by Slavoj Zizek
- Dogmatics in Outline by Karl Barth
- How (Not) to Speak of God by Peter Rollins
- Read for “fun”
- Phenomenology of Spirit by Georg Hegel
- Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? by James K.A. Smith
- The Voyage of the Dawn Treadle by C.S. Lewis
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Inferno by Dante Alighieri
- The Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel Kant
- Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysicsby Kant
- De Anima by Aristotle
- Categories by Aristotle
- Physics by Aristotle
- Metaphysics by Aristotle
- The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
- Of Grammatology by Derrida
- Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf
- Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume
- Coding projects
i got a new jump drive on Saturday, a Kingston DataTraveler 2.0 — 256Mb. It claimed to be “Linux compatible.” Well, it had a screwed up partition table that made it unreadable in Debian systems. Well, after playing around with QtParted, fdisk, cfdisk, parted, and sfdisk, it now works correctly as a “Linux compatible” drive while still being readable in Windows. Then, because KDE has been giving me problems with mounting the usb drives, i finally edited /etc/fstab for the jump drives.
Also, i am resurrecting a Pentium 150MHz laptop for a friend and have found that Ubuntu Lite has been the best solution. With only 80Mb of RAM and 4.8Gb of hard drive, UL, with iceWM, has been the fatest GUI for the 800×600x8bit display. i am still working on playing with Xorg to display in 16-bit color (and hopefully even 24-bit), but that hasn’t been resolved yet. i put into the PCMCIA socket a USB reader (so that it can use a USB mouse and jump-drive) and a wi-fi card. Ubuntu came with the necessary module (airo) preloaded, so it worked right out of the box, but i’m having problems with the USB card. dmesg and cardctl report that the card isn’t powered on, so i’m hunting down a solution for that one. Also, i haven’t been able to get ALSA working (apparently, Ubuntu lacks alsaconf and module-assistant), so it is currently without sound. Once those problems are resolved, it will be a decent computer, resurrected from the grave, and able to be a stable terminal.
- Read for Nietzsche Study:
Twilight of the Idols, NietzscheTotal Presence, Thomas AltizerNietzsche & Christianity, Karl JaspersNietzsche, Heidegger (selections)Kierkegaard & Nietzsche, J. Kellenberger
- Read for Fundamentalism
Islamic Fundamentalism Since 1945, Beverley Milton-Edwards
- Fun Reading
Apology, PlatoPhaedo, PlatoCratylus, PlatoParmenides, PlatoTimaeus, Plato- Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Hume
- Misc. Reading
- Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
On Certainty, WittgensteinPrimer on Postmodernism, Stan Grenz- Eldest, Christopher Paolini
It looks like i’m finishing up everything….Finishing last paper (the one on Nietzsche) and ready to have it over.
- Read for Nietzsche Study:
- Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche
The Antichrist, NietzscheThus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche, books I & IIOn the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche- Total Presence, Thomas Altizer
- Nietzsche & Christianity, Karl Jaspers
Erring: A Postmodern A/Theology, Mark Taylor- Nietzsche, Heidegger (selections)
- Kierkegaard & Nietzsche, J. Kellenberger
- Read for Fundamentalism
Terror in the Mind of God, Mark Juergensmeyer- Islamic Fundamentalism Since 1945, Beverley Milton-Edwards
- Fun Reading
Republic, Plato- Apology, Plato
- Phaedo, Plato
- Cratylus, Plato
- Parmenides, Plato
- Timaeus, Plato
- Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Hume
- Misc. Reading
- Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- On Certainty, Wittgenstein
- Primer on Postmodernism, Stan Grenz
- Eldest, Christopher Paolini
Almost finished everything required for classes…and one week left. Also, it looks like i will not be doing both degrees, so the “Reading for Comprehensive Exam” is now “Fun Reading.” i am finalizing my paper topics today and it looks like they will be on:
- Nietzsche’s (non-)relation to Christianity. This is for my Nietzsche study and will argue that Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity is no longer applicable to today.
- How fundamentalism influences the mainstream. This is for my fundamentalism class and will look at how fundamentalist ideologies shape the mainstream counterparts in both Christian and Muslim circles.
- Knowledge without perception. This is for my epistemology class and will discuss the possibility of knowledge without perception, building off of Plato’s Theaetetus, Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, and Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations.
Talk
RSSClint, christopher, Jasen
Chris
thainamu
Chris Martin
Wilson, Rick, brad, christopher, brad, christopher, brad, christopher, brad
christopher, Jeffrey Rodriguez