Writings

Beowulf and Heroic Virtues. A discussion of the heroic value-system in this early English poem. Written for English 204 during the fall term of 1998.

Games in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. A brief exploration of the huge number of games played by various characters, and by the author, in this medieval poem. Written for English 204 during the fall term of 1998.

King Lear's Folly. What was Lear's mistake? Written for English 205 during the winter quarter of 1999.

Literary Conceptions of Self and Authenticity in Frankenstein and Madame Bovary. Madame Bovary and Frankenstein's monster have conceptions of self and of authenticity that are excessively literary. Written for English 180N during the fall semester of 2000.

Stripp'd of Context: A Publication History of William Blake's Songs of Innocence William Blake's Songs of Innocence contains a group of poetic works that the artist conceptualized as entering into a dialogue with each other and with the works in his companion work, Songs of Experience. He also saw each of the poems in Innocence as operating as part of an artistic whole creation that was encompassed by the poems and images on the plates he used to print these works. While Blake exercised a fanatical degree of control over his publications during his lifetime, after his death his poems became popular and were encountered without the contextual material that he intended to accompany them. Written for English 100/8 at UC Berkeley during the spring semester of 2000.

Symbolic Language in Coleridge's "Kubla Kahn." Written for English 106 in spring term of 1998.

Images of Creativity in "Kubla Khan" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". A discussion of the way in which Samuel Taylor Coleridge uses the main characters of these two poems to reveal aspects of his own creative process. Written for English 121 during the spring semester of 2000.

Temporal Dislocations and Visions of Interpretation in Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind". An argument that a problem in the narrator's conception of time in this poem leads to a variety of poetic difficulties until it is aligned with the natural progression of the seasons. Written for English 100 during the spring semester of 2000.

Daisy Miller: A Fable of American Innocence. Henry James represents, as Daisy's problem, the fact that she is structurally innocent, while she is traveling in an experienced society. Written for English 130C during the fall semester of 2001.

The Poet as Mediator Between Life and Death. For a poet, Uncle Walt (Whitman) takes an odd position on the role of the written word. Written for English 130C during the fall semester of 2001.

An Analysis of the Functioning of Types of Discourse in Selected Works by Oscar Wilde. The ranking social expectations that characters have of different types of language in Oscar Wilde's plays leads to some very interesting results. This was my undergraduate thesis at UC Berkeley, which I wrote for English 150 in the fall semester of 2001.

The Existential Anguish of J. Alfred Prufrock. How T.S. Eliot uses his poetic character J. Alfred Prufrock to uncover the fears of the everyday person. Written for my English 106 class during the spring term of 1998.

Modernist Anxiety: An Examination of the Relationships Between Subject and Object in Several Poems by Eliot and Williams. The structure of anxiety in several poems by these two authors is examined, and found to correlate precisely with the existential anxiety described by Martin Heidegger in Being and Time. Written for English 130D in the fall semester of 2000.

Loving Lolita. How is it that Nabokov's narrator, Humbert Humbert, a self-confessed "nympholept," continues to love Dolores Haze beyond the period of her nypmpholeptcy? Written for English 180N in the fall semester of 2000.

A House of Words: Estrella's Linguistic Development and Her Relation to the Barn. Estrella's development as a person in Viramontes's novel Under the Feet of Jesus is tied to her ability to use language effectively and, ultimately, to move beyond it into competence with other tools. Written for English 31AC during the fall semester of 2001.

Voltaire's response to Leibniz. A fairly self-explanatory title. Written for my Philosophy 101 class in Fall Term of 1997.

Literary Conceptions of Self and Authenticity in Frankenstein and Madame Bovary. Madame Bovary and Frankenstein's monster have conceptions of self and of authenticity that are strikingly literary. Written for English 180N during the fall semester of 2000.

Prototypes of Nietzsche's Übermensch in Dostoevsky. Written for my Philosophy 102 class, winter term of 1998.

Modernist Anxiety: An Examination of the Relationships Between Subject and Object in Several Poems by Eliot and Williams. The structure of anxiety in several poems by these two authors is examined, and found to correlate precisely with the existential anxiety described by Martin Heidegger in Being and Time. Written for English 130D in the fall semester of 2000.

Loving Lolita. How is it that Nabokov's narrator, Humbert Humbert, a self-confessed "nympholept," continues to love Dolores Haze beyond the period of her nypmpholeptcy? Written for English 180N in the fall semester of 2000.

Schlinks Der Vorleser, Nazis als X, und bildungsbüiches Urvertrauen. Bernhard Schlink's novel touches on issues of Holocaust guilt and the traditional arguments for literary education. Written for my "German Literature After 1945" course while I was abroad. Sadly, this is only a rough draft, as I lost my final copy. This paper is written in German, but you could conceivably use a service like babelfish to translate it if you don't speak German.

Voltaire's response to Leibniz. A fairly self-explanatory title. Written for my Philosophy 101 class in Fall Term of 1997.

Prototypes of Nietzsche's Übermensch in Dostoevsky. Written for my Philosophy 102 class in winter term of 1998.

The Free Spirit, The New Philosopher, and Nietzsche A discussion of what the free spirit is in Beyond Good and Evil, what the free spirit has freed himself from, why Nietzsche sees himself as a free spirit, and why the free spirit is merely a transitional figure. Written for Philosophy 184 during the spring semester of 2000.

Punishment and Morality. A discussion of Nietzsche's argument about the development of the moral sentiments in the second essay of On the Genealogy of Morals. Written for Philosophy 184 in the spring term of 2000.

"Affirmative" and "Negative" Religions and Nietzsche's General Religious Polemic. Nietzsche draws a curious distinction between 'affirmative' and 'negative' religions in The Will to Power. How does this fit in with his general religious polemic? Written for Philosophy 184 in the spring semester of 2000.

Modern Technology's Problems and Promises. Another look at the inherent problems posed by modern technology, as well as the solutions that reveal themselves when the question is examined closely. Presented at the First Annual Student Writing Conference on Culture, Environment, and Technology on June 6, 1998.

More Primordial Ways of Being: Heidegger's Critique of the Traditional "Subject," "Object," and "subject-Object" Distinction. A discussion of Heidegger's critique of the traditional (Cartesian) subject-Object distinction. Written for Philosophy 185 in the fall semester of 2000.

Anxiety as Phenomenon and as Manifested by Authentic Dasein. Heidegger's concept of anxiety as state-of-mind is central to his analysis of Dasein's Being. This paper considers the structure of anxiety in Being and Time. Written for Philosophy 185 in the fall semester of 2000.

Modernist Anxiety: An Examination of the Relationships Between Subject and Object in Several Poems by Eliot and Williams. The structure of anxiety in several poems by these two authors is examined, and found to correlate precisely with the existential anxiety described by Martin Heidegger in Being and Time. Written for English 130D in the fall semester of 2000.

The Abstract Vegetation-God. The similarity between the death of Jesus and the death of certain pagan deities associated with vegetation (Osiris, Adonis, etc.) is often noted. This paper explores differences in meaning between the narratives.

The Bull-Symbol in the Royal Line of Crete. The figure of the bull keeps popping up in the legends describing the royal line of Crete. This paper presents a psychologico-symbolic interpretation of this symbol. Written for Humanities 204 in the spring term of 2006.

A Gap in the Greek Mythic System. The Greek mythic system notably lacks a canonical apocalyptic narrative. This short paper explores some of the implications of that fact. Written for Humanities 204 in the spring term of 2006.

The Cursed House of Atreus. Genealogical chart (in .PDF format) showing the family of Atreus, along with notes on the Oresteiad. Used to review for the GRE Subject Test in Literature. Prepared during fall term of 2005.

The Labdacidae. Genealogical chart (in .PDF format) showing the descendants of Labdacus (that is, the family that includes Oedipus) and notes on the family's story, used to review for the GRE Subject Test in Literature. Made during fall term of 2005.

The Greek Mythic Genealogy Project. A sketchy attempt at putting information about the Greek mythic system into a genealogical database.

Trigonometric Identities. A handy study aid I typed out while studying trigonometry. This chart requires Adobe's Acrobat Reader software to view it. Get Acrobat Reader here if it's not already installed on your computer. Written for Math 112 during the summer term of 2003.

Snake River Dam Breachings. A host of thorny issues surround the future management of hydroelectric dams on the Snake River. Written for English C77 in the fall semester of 1999.

Bald Eagle De-Listing. Scientists are debating removing the bald eagle from the Endangered Species list. Written for English C77 during the fall semester of 1999.

Field Trip Report: The Dunes - Hunt for the Yardang. A write-up for this field trip for Southwestern Oregon Community College students, which occurred on 24 January 2004. We chased this geologic beastie up and down the southern Oregon Coast. Lots of pretty pictures, so it may take a while to load on a slow connection.

Field Trip Report: Astoria. A write-up for this three-day field trip for Southwestern Oregon Community College students, which occurred in February of 2004. The trip covered a variety of geological features in northern Oregon, especially on the coast. Lots of pretty pictures, so it may take a while to load on a slow connection.

Several papers on religious topics have not yet made the transition from the Philosopher's Box to MoonBase 3.0. I know that religious papers are the reason that many people come here in the first place. I'll get them back up as soon as I possibly can. Sorry.

The Heirophant's Proselytizer Questionnaire. A questionnaire for unbelievers to hand to annoying Christian proselytes.

The Christ-Caps brochure. A brochure for a product offering salvation in chemical form. Designed for Computer Science 125 in the fall term of 2002.

Semi-Comprehensive Argument Against Belief in Deities. A list of objections to arguments that I should believe in [insert name of god]. Began as a response to a question on a final exam for Philosophy 101. This essay was never finished, and was finally abandoned in 2003. Quite frankly, I hate it, but I received several requests to re-post it when I took it down. You've been warned.

Sample editorial columns from my time at The Southwester.

SWOCC Education or Southwestern Image? A commentary, with plenty of facts and figures, about how the college spends its money.

Topless Women and My Apartment. Does SWOCC spend its money wisely?