Since I'm a senior this year, I have a lot of leeway in my class choice; no more core, and all I have to worry about are classes that I love (and that I'd want to take anyway, regardless of major requirements). Yesterday, I had:
-Prof. Westblade on Jonathan Edwards
-Dr. Somerville on Modern American Lit
-Dr. Wyatt-Hayes for Intermediate Spanish
I enjoyed them all, and what's more, those are some of my very favorite professors. :) In addition to those three courses, I've got Dr. Juroe for 18th-century British Lit, and I'm taking choir and writing a thesis. Finally (uber-exciting!!) I have Michael Ward, an Oxford don, for a special two-week seminar on "The Theological Imagination of C.S. Lewis." That's in October. I can't wait.
Funny story from Dr. Somerville: apparently, it was a fad among posh French gentlemen in the late 1700s to take turtles for walks. Did this display their copious leisure time, or was there a more profound reason? "Look at us, we're so rich that we can afford to fritter away the afternoon walking beside a turtle!" Sheesh.
There was a man named Thorsten Veblen, back in the 1800s who wrote a book "The Theory of the Leisure Class". Although the book is too long he has a couple of chapters in which he articulates the theory of "conspicuous consumerism". I believe he was the originator of this concept.
ReplyDeleteIt is alive and well today…. although without the turtles!
daddus