Protocol 4-14-2011

Protocol 4-14-2011

Class starts at approximately 11:15 pm and Ben writes the daily program on the board while students hustle in class. Lots are absent and Ben is furious! State of exception is over, Ben says because he is done with his exams/papers. Office hours are back to normal. Ben admits and apologizes for being so busy lately, but he is now all done. Ben tells an anecdote about the previous night and how he drunk he got. Ben also admits that he hasn’t got much grading done lately and that he will try to get our external writing assignment 2 by early next week before our due date.

Program:

- Housekeeping

- Peer editing

- Oh Kohlhaas and context: reviewing, and extending

- Luther…whoa

Ben says that if he does not get external writing done by next Tuesday, he will give students the option of handing in the final draft of EW#3 the following Tuesday so we get a chance to review errors we made in EW2 so we can correct them in EW3. We should be keeping final assignment in mind as it is approaching. Two weeks from today, we will talk in class about the project and a week prior to that Ben requires ALL students to send him an email stating the group members and a rough idea of what a group is working on. For today, we will do standard peer editing and we will not have to examples for the whole class like usual. Partners will talk to the whole class however and inform them of what his/her partner’s general idea of their paper is. Peer editing takes place! As people are quietly reading, Ben asks whether he should put music on or not and some agree. Ben then goes to his laptop and turns on some classical music. At 11:42 Ben stops the class and asks the class what the common/general issues, problems, mistakes, and challenges that were a common theme between the students? A student says one major problem was making connections to class discussions/class. One solution that Ben recommends is to take a historical approach when writing your paper. For example, Heidi discussed her topic which is “do animals have rights or should animals have rights?” Ben recommended going back in history and research animal rights movements, etc. Another helpful hint that was raised in class was to be precise in your papers and get directly to the point; do not write just to fill up the paper! Ben expects, focuses, synthesized, and detailed work since it is a five page paper. A question was raised which was “does this paper have to be based on opinion, or research?” Ben replies and says that it should be mostly research, but research also requires opinion (professional opinion). Ben will be reading and critiquing this paper as another person… not as Ben himself because as stated in the paper handout, this paper will be for the general public. Ben informs the class that the paper should have some sort of new knowledge so that when it is read, the reader will be more educated about the topic. Ben also tells the class that in an academic paper, when communicating bureaucratic truth, the opinion does not matter, facts on the other hand are really important. What you want to do is give your position and not rely so much on opinion. An opinion is different from a position, Ben states. Ben gives an example of the difference between an opinion and a position based on Jordan’s paper. This info goes to every class that requires you to write academic papers. Ben gives an example from his own work. Ben thinks that Vince Flynn is fascist. Ben’s theory was to have the class look at the state of exception and Nazism and then have the class read Flynn’s book to see the contemporary state of exception and how the current political system shadows previous systems. Ben is then criticized for buying and getting Flynn’s autograph for the book while hating him at the same time. Ben goes around class and asks students for a major problem in their writing. Paper transition was also a major theme. Ben suggests reading the text out loud and see if it flows. Ben also suggests making sure you put your voice in the paper, but not your opinion! We then move on to the book. We are grouped in four and Ben passes around to each group discussion questions. Ben says to read them out in our groups and find specific moments form the text to support our answer. At approximately 12:20 Ben stops the class and makes the whole class form the circle. The discussion begins! Marika’s group starts “to what extent is Kolhaas just or is right? That was the question asked by Ben in Marika’s group. He was not just nor right, he made a state of exception…says Mandy. Alyssa says that his cause was illegitimate. Ben says that the Writ is issued by government and that Kolhaas does not have that legitimacy. Marika says that Kolhaas made his own state of exception which did not excuse his actions. Ben says that by creating a force, he becomes more legitimate. Another question was “do you sympathize with Kolhaas or not?” Sophie says that most in the group did sympathize with him because all the wrongs that have been done to him. Kolhaas is a bourgeoisie capital business man, Ben says. Kolhaas is not just fighting for his horses, but is also fighting against the corrupt system and a man and his wife have been murdered. So Kolhaas’s was not just to fight the system to get back the horses. Another question “what did you make of the ending and how does it relate to the Holy Roman Empire?” An answer was that he was out of his mentality. Ben asks if Kolhaas wins at the end. An opinion was raised that says that at the end his goals were reached. Ben argues that Kolhaas wins in every respect at the end of the story. The empire restores to him everything that was taken from him at the beginning of the story. At 12:32, the class ends and Ben says to read Weber up until the next reading starts because that is what the blog post is about this weekend. Ben wishes everyone a nice weekend and dismisses class.