Okay so, I know I'm behind on the happenings, but I think you'll all just have to forgive me. Classes have now started, even if the next two weeks are only a trial period, but let me rave for a moment. Today I had Dr. Moyaert's class which was inocuously titled "Advanced Course: Philosophical Anthropology." Had I been able to read the student guide the way it was meant to be read (i.e. to be informative) I would have known that the entire class was on Lacan's seminar on transference!! As it was I realized only a few hours before stepping into the room. Through a broken French (?) accent his introductory lecture had me rapt, the likes of which feeling I have not experienced since the high days at UofT. Yeah, we're talking Comay/McGrath intensity here, and on Jacques Lacan! I was so excited I could barely write my extensive notes. Talking to him at the break was a big challenge, given my awkwardness in the midst of such intense experiences, but he pointed me in the right direction for beginning research on my thesis, so at least I was able to function.
Just after the break he launches in again, and the utter high point proceeded from the following (quoting from notes): "Lacan wants to protect/save the complexity of our spontaneous moral experience from the violence of the major moral theories (utilitarianism, the categorical imperative). Thus, a hermeneutical moral philosophy (!!) that uncovers the elements of our experience which are otherwise obscured, without making the facile judgement that the value of moral decision/action is relative to the particular context."
Okay, seriously. If you have heard anything remotely philosophical that I have said in the last 5 years or so, even if you don't understand any of this, you must be able to appreciate how the smile just split my face. My head practically nodded off my shoulders, I could barely contain myself. I am SO excited about this class. It's gonna be a bear, there's no doubt about it, we're reading not only the seminar on transference, but also the preceding one on ethics. But all the anxiety and melancholy of the last bunch of weeks just paid off in one shot, and it's just the first day!!
I'm going to end this one just here and bury it under some pictures of Brugge, because I don't have the patience to wait until after I wrestle with pictures and half-remembered descriptions. But there you have it, my first day of school!
Just after the break he launches in again, and the utter high point proceeded from the following (quoting from notes): "Lacan wants to protect/save the complexity of our spontaneous moral experience from the violence of the major moral theories (utilitarianism, the categorical imperative). Thus, a hermeneutical moral philosophy (!!) that uncovers the elements of our experience which are otherwise obscured, without making the facile judgement that the value of moral decision/action is relative to the particular context."
Okay, seriously. If you have heard anything remotely philosophical that I have said in the last 5 years or so, even if you don't understand any of this, you must be able to appreciate how the smile just split my face. My head practically nodded off my shoulders, I could barely contain myself. I am SO excited about this class. It's gonna be a bear, there's no doubt about it, we're reading not only the seminar on transference, but also the preceding one on ethics. But all the anxiety and melancholy of the last bunch of weeks just paid off in one shot, and it's just the first day!!
I'm going to end this one just here and bury it under some pictures of Brugge, because I don't have the patience to wait until after I wrestle with pictures and half-remembered descriptions. But there you have it, my first day of school!
2 comments:
Whoa dude! Sweet!!
Man, Nethery, I wish you were here!
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