Gates, Race and PBS

Here is a story from the Harvard Crimson that explains about the genetic research by Professor Henry Gates is doing there: African American Lives

Give it a read and if you can catch the PBS documentary on the subject, so much the better.

Here is another article on the series.

Or you can even watch it here.

Something about Harry

The first book that we will read in our course on the Bildungsroman is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I have often wondered, however, if the books were really about the title character. Certainly, he populates the pages of the seven novels that chronicle his passage through junior high to the end of prep school, Hogwarts, as it were, but Harry always seems to be the pretext to something larger. We follow Harry as he journeys to various places, watch as he participates in searches, squirmishes, and quests, listen to him as he tries to explain his world to himself, cry with him as he laments the tragic deaths of friends and family. Harry is learning about the world, and as he learns, we learn. Harry is an apt pupil, and we should pay attention to how he changes from pre-teen nose-picker to young adult, fighting his ego all the way. Perhaps the Potter books aren't about Harry at all?

Welcome to the Bildungsroman

Here are our blog rules:

1. The first blog will be due before the first class discussion of any and all of the works for the class. The topic will be "open" and we hope that you can pick a theme, character, motif, symbol, conflict, problem, or element from the novel and develop it into a 100-200 word micro essay that shows your personal involvment with the work.

2. The second blog will be due within 24 hours after the second class. The prompt for this blog will hopefully stem from our discussion in class. Again, no fewer than 100 words, no more than 200.

3. The third blog will always answer this question: Is this a bildungsroman? Why or why not. This will be your most objective work on the text and should include between 175 and 200 words. Please do not go over the limit. This entry will be due within 24 hours of our third discussion.

4. All blogs must follow all standard rules of spelling and punctuation.

5. Blogs will be graded on a plus or minus basis. You may be asked to edit or redo your work.

6. No late work will be accepted. Since all blogs are time-dated and stamped by blogger.com, we will always know if your work is done on time.

7. Slop will be treated and graded as such. Please do not write about the author, their life, or how any of that may have influenced their work.

8. Creativity, pictures, diagrams, iconoclasm, non-conformity, and originality are encouraged at all times.

9. As soon as you set up your blog, please send me its name and address and I will add it to the blogroll. You may comment on each other's work if you wish.

10. I find that writing and editing my entries in Word, first, is better than trying to type them in directly.