Discussion Questions from 9.24

Please give your own response to these questions by 2 a.m. on Sunday morning; then read your colleagues' thoughts and respond to them by 2 a.m. on Tuesday morning. Have fun! I hope it'll be an interesting discussion.

Remember to treat everyone with dignity and respect.

1. The movie argues that romantic love could withstand quite profound changes in personal qualities - what do you think about that?
2. What do you think about the relationship between love and sex implied by the movie?
3. What else did you find particularly interesting about the concept of love raised by the movie?
   

Project for 9.29

…this touch binds and unbinds two others in a flesh that is still and always untouched by mastery. Dressing the one and the other without and within, within and without in a garment that neither evokes, not takes pleasure in the perversity of the naked but contemplates and adorns it, always for a first time, with an in-finite, un-finished flesh. Covering it, uncovering it again and again, like an amorous impregnation that seeks out and affirms otherness while protecting it...

The most subtly necessary guardian of my life is the other’s flesh.

--Luce Irigaray, An Ethics of Sexual Difference

Assignment
For Tuesday, bring in your favorite expression of love. That is, something that you think captures some insight about what love is, how it feels, what are its obligations, moods, or consequences.

This can be a poem, a section of a book, a scene from a movie, a song, a short story, or anything else that makes some statement, or asks some question, that you think is particularly insightful about love. A photograph of someone you love is not an expression of love. It's a more or less realistic depiction of that person. A song that you really really love is not an expression of love unless the song itself says something about love - the thing you bring in must actually express something about love.

Reading for Thursday September 10

Here's a link to a PDF of the reading for Thursday, 9.10.

Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience

This is an excerpt from a longer work; it's a very short reading, so be sure you spend time on it.

There will be a quiz on the reading this Thursday.