Analytical Imagination Challenge Numero Dos

Your magical works are due at the beginning of class on Thursday, April 23, 2015. Place them into the bags at the front of the room in the Eyegasmatorium, GMCS 333.

All essays MUST incorporate research from at least TWO scholarly sources* or they will not even be considered for an A-level grade! All of the other recommendations and suggestions for success mentioned in Analytical Imagination Challenge Numero Uno are still in force for this outing.


*(no, Wikipedia is NOT a “scholarly source”—nor is Spark Notes, for that matter--if your research is not coming from a book off the shelf in Love Library, or a legitimate journal hosted on JSTOR or Project Muse, it is probably not a scholarly source!)


1. Contrast the critical thinking of Oliver Sacks (The Mind's Eye) with Sigmund Freud in "Delution and Dream in Jensen's Gradiva."

2.
American metamorphosis--track the evolution of American Literature as it moves from the prose of Nathanael Hawthorne and Chuck Palahniuk: are they really that different or can similar obsessions be seen to be dominating their peculiar imaginations?
 
3. The Erotic Dimension of the Unconscious Eye: Use the techniques Freud uses dissecting Jensen to explore the role of the erotic in Orson Welles's TOUCH OF EVIL. You may weave in methods from TEXTMEX while you are at it as well.

4. Go to the library of your choice and find and read Freud's case history of Dora. Write an essay that contrasts the Freud you find in the Dora case history with the one you hang out with in "Delusion and Dream in Jensen's Gradiva."

5. Dystopia! Dystopia! Alex Rivera’s SLEEP DEALER envisions a future dystopia—contrast Rivera’s vision of our imperfect future with that to be found in HER, by Spike Jonze. Only essays that include substantive research on contemporary approaches to the idea of UTOPIA/DYSTOPIA in literature and film will be assessed, so only select this choice if you are up to the challenge of doing first-rate intellectual archeology. Also, you cannot do this prompt if you tackled any of these two directors/writers in Analytical Imagination Challenge Numero Uno.

6. Sacks and Berger both delve deeply into "ways of seeing"--but the two writers bring different tools to their tasks. Contrast the critique of visual culture and seeing in the work of Oliver Sacks and John Berger.

7.
Adapt the methodology found in TEX[T]-MEX to explore two works we have read this semester--one from before Spring Break, one from after.

8. Alienation, strictly speaking, refers to a transfer of property. Oddly enough, both Dion Boucicault's OCTOROON and Nathaniel Hawthorne's HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES, develop tragedies that are born out of a conflict that derives from property.  Explore the connection between alienation in the strict, literal sense (property transfer) and alienation in the figurative sense (angst, suffering, tragedy) in the work of Boucicault and Hawthorne.

9. Norbert Hanold and our narrator from Fight Club (Tyler Durden) suffer from such powerful delusions that both of them do not even realize how said delusion takes over their lives. Using Freud’s analysis of the character Norbert as a model, begin to find similarities between the two protagonists. Provide your own Freudian analysis that links "Tyler" back to Norbert. Do try to bring in an outside piece of psychoanalytic scholarly research to support your arguments.

10. Design your own thesis incorporating at least ONE work that appears after Spring Break AND one other work you did NOT FOCUS ON in your first imagination challenge.  Proposals for this option must be typed and printed and brought to me to sign off on either before or after class, Thursday, April 16, 2015—OR you can email it to me at any moment before that class at memo@sdsu.edu  Please make sure to author a well-crafted proposal that outlines the main focus of your proposed study and one that also discloses the scholarly research you will include in your project.

alienation, n.

source: http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/4999?redirectedFrom=alienation&

Forms:  ME alienacioun, ME alienacon, ME alionacion, ME alyenacioun, ME–15 alienacion, ME–15 alyenacion, ME–15 alyenacyon, ME– alienation, 15 alyenation. (Show Less)
Etymology:  < (i) Anglo-Norman alyenacion, alienacioun, Anglo-Norman and Middle French alienacion, alienation (French aliénation  ) transference of property (c1260 in Old French), mental instability, delirium (second half of the 13th cent. in Anglo-Norman), separation, estrangement (1372),
 
and its etymon (ii) classical Latin aliēnātiōn-, aliēnātiō transference of ownership, state of insensibility or numbness, insanity, madness, estrangement < alienāt-  , past participial stem of alienāre  alienate v.   + -iō  -ion suffix1.
 
Compare Old Occitan alienation, alienasion (12th cent. as alienatio), Catalan alienació (13th cent.), Spanish ajenación (13th cent.), alienación (late 14th cent.) Portuguese alienação (16th cent.), Italian alienazione (14th cent.); also Dutch aliënatie (16th cent.), German Alienation (16th cent.).
In sense 1b   after German Entfremdung (K. Marx 1844 or earlier, after Hegel's use of the word in sense ‘action or fact of turning into something strange or different’ (1807 or earlier); earlier in more general senses ‘transference of ownership’ (14th cent.), ‘estrangement’ (17th cent.)); also used to translate Entäußerung  , in the same sense (K. Marx 1844 or earlier; 15th cent. in more general sense ‘renunciation, action of relinquishing’). Compare self-alienation n.  
 
In alienation effect at sense 1c   after German Verfremdungseffekt (B. Brecht 1937, in Schriften z. Theater (1957) 74-89: see Verfremdungseffekt n.). Compare defamiliarization n.
 1.

 a. Estrangement; the state of being estranged or alienated. Also with from, †of.Originally with reference to estrangement from God.

a1425  (▸c1395)    Bible (Wycliffite, L.V.) (Royal) (1850) Job xxxi. 3   Alienacioun [L. alienatio] of God is to men worchynge wickidnesse.
a1500  (▸?c1425)    Speculum Sacerdotale 234   Sche made alienacion and partynge bitwene God and man.
1561   T. Norton tr. J. Calvin Inst. Christian Relig. ii. i. f. 4v,   As the spirituall life of Adam was, to abide ioyned and bounde to his creatour, so his alienation from him was the death of his soule.
1621   R. Burton Anat. Melancholy iii. iii. i. i. 665   Alexander..saw now..an alienation in his subiects hearts.
1670   G. Havers tr. G. Leti Il Cardinalismo di Santa Chiesa ii. iii. 298   The alienation shew'd by the Pope from the French.
1708   J. Boyse Serm. Var. Subj. I. 12   Those who most resembled such a little Babe in lowliness of Mind, and alienation from all wordly Pride, shou'd be greatest in his Kingdom.
1770   E. Burke Thoughts Present Discontents 38   They grow every day into alienation from this country.
1816   J. Scott Paris Revisited i. 12   The downfall of great states has usually been produced by a disregard of the sources of alienation, and the feeders of discontent.
1863   A. P. Stanley Lect. Jewish Church I. xvii. 376   The alienation of the people from the worship of the sanctuary.
1934   G. B. Shaw Prefaces 741/1   If the alienation of our young from Elizabethan English continues it will be necessary to produce revised versions not only of Shakespear but of Sir Walter Scott.
1966   J. Cheever Jrnls. (1991) 216   He explained that I had developed a social veneer—an illusion of friendship—that was meant to conceal my basic hostility and alienation.
1971   B. Sidran Black Talk v. 152   This alienation from mainstream culture, then, remains basically a circular and unresolvable problem peculiar to the Negro.
2004   N.Y. Times (National ed.) 4 Jan. ii. 32/2   Punk is a vast support group for misfits, a community united by alienation.

a1425—2004(Hide quotations)

 

 b. In Marxist theory: a condition of workers in a capitalist economy, resulting from a lack of identity with the products of their labour and a sense of being controlled or exploited. Cf. self-alienation n.

1900   Michigan Miner 1 Apr. 11/3   The feeling of alienation will disappear.
1926   H. J. Stenning tr. Marx Sel. Ess. 95   After Christianity had completed the alienation of man from himself [Ger. die Selbstentfremdung des Menschen von sich]..Judaism [could] attain to general domination and turn the alienated individual [Ger. den entäusserten Menschen]..into alienable and saleable objects [Ger. zu veräusserlichen und verkäuflichen..Gegenständen].
1958   Listener 7 Aug. 194/1   Marx, or at any rate the early Marx, has used a concept, Hegelian in origin..: the concept of ‘alienation’. Men turn or are turned into impoverished things, dependent on power outside themselves.
2000   M. Volf & G. Preece in A. Hastings et al. Oxf. Compan. Christian Thought 760/1   The Marxist critique of alienation has been more influential: capitalism turns the workers' creative labour into a mere means to consumption.

1900—2000(Hide quotations)

 

 c. Theatre. In full alienation effect. A dramatic effect whereby an audience remains objective and emotionally distant from the characters or action of a play. Cf. Verfremdungseffekt n.This effect was first described by, and is particularly associated with, Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) who sought to achieve it in his drama.

1949   E. R. Bentley in Theatre Arts Jan. 38/2   It is Brecht's contention that..we need a kind of acting..that will set the action before us rather than involve us in the action... The German word which Brecht has made up to describe the distancing or estranging of the action is Verfremdung, here translated as ‘alienation’. Any device which promotes such alienation is called an A-effect.
1956   K. Tynan in Observer 2 Sept. 10/2   The famous ‘alienation-effect’ was originally intended to counter balance the extravagant rhetoric of German classical acting.
1962   Listener 29 Nov. 932/2   This method of description seems almost like a parallel to Brecht's ‘alienation effect’. We watch, we judge, but we do not participate.
1990   M. Coyle et al. Encycl. Lit. & Crit. (2000) xxxi. 443   One can discern in Shaw's directorial style an attempt to achieve alienation and gestus.

1949—1990(Hide quotations)

 

 2. Derangement of mental faculties or processes; madness, insanity; delirium; an instance or episode of this. In later use more fully mental alienation. Cf. alienist n.   Now chiefly hist.

?a1425   tr. Guy de Chauliac Grande Chirurgie (N.Y. Acad. Med.) f. 59 (MED),   Of alienacioun i. rauyng, ffondenez, or madnez [L. de alienacione].
1483   tr. Adam of Eynsham Reuelation i,   That he had seyd hyt of grete febulnesse of his hedde, or by alyenacion of hys mynde.
1532   L. Cox Art or Crafte Rhetoryke sig. F.vv,   It was none alienacion of mynde: but som other cause yt moued hym to it.
1607   E. Topsell Hist. Fovre-footed Beastes 349   It infecteth as well the heart as the brain, and causeth alienation of mind.
1749   G. Lavington Enthusiasm Methodists & Papists (1754) ii. 8   Christ gaue her so large a share of the Myrrh-posy of his Passion, that frequently under an Alienation of her Senses she would throw herself on her Back on the Ground.
1749   D. Hartley Observ. Man i. iii. §6   Temporary alienations of the Mind during violent Passions.
1799   W. Godwin St. Leon I. vii. 204   The thought of what I had been..brought on a relapse attended with more alarming and discouraging symptoms than my original alienation.
1832   Cycl. Pract. Med. I. 476/2   This is well exemplified in chlorotic women, and in chronic mental alienation.
1862   Ld. Brougham Brit. Constit. (ed. 3) xiii. 194   He had fallen into a state of mental alienation.
1920   Med. Rec. 17 Jan. 111/2   His memory now returned intact and he recalled the entire course of his alienation.
1977   W. Percy in Michigan Q. Rev. 16 367   We are talking about a species of alienation, the traditional subject matter of psychiatrists, the original alienists.
2007   Isis 98 64   Georget held that lesions of the brain and cerebronervous system could be discerned in most if not all autopsies performed on patients who had suffered from mental alienation.

?a1425—2007(Hide quotations)

 
 3.

 a. The action of transferring legal ownership of something, esp. land, to another; an instance of this.

c1425   Lydgate Troyyes Bk. (Augustus A.iv) v. l. 1139   Whan þat kynges in her bed are slawe?–Whiche bringeth in alyenacioun, By extort title fals successioun.
1463   in S. Tymms Wills & Inventories Bury St. Edmunds (1850) 26   Wich obligacion must be maad at euery alyenacion in a notable summe.
a1500   Rule Minoresses in W. W. Seton Two 15th Cent. Franciscan Rules (1914) 100   Ȝif any Abbesse resseyue þe hous in gode estate & sche dooþ enpeyre hit bi alienacioun or destruccioun of here godes or bi dette.
1587   W. Harrison Descr. Eng. i. ii. ii. 48   Hereford..paid to Rome at everie alienation 1800 ducats at the least.
1654   J. Bramhall Just Vindic. Church of Eng. iii. 38   Prohibiting..the alienation of Lands to the Church.
1664   in S. A. Green Early Rec. Groton, Mass. (1880) 145   Vnto which alienation the wiues of them both doe giue their consent to the giuing vp their thirds.
1710   H. Prideaux Orig. & Right Tithes iii. 161   The Church must have had a civil right in Tithes, before a bare alienation of them, could invest in others a civil Right in them.
1736   Act 9 Geo. II c. 36   Many large..Alienations or Dispositions made by..Persons, to Uses called Charitable Uses.
1788   J. Priestley Lect. Hist. v. lii. 405   Price, however, supposes alienation; and a common standard of value supposes a frequent and familiar alienation.
1844   Some Acct. Conduct towards Indian Tribes (Relig. Soc. Friends) ii. 132   With a view to secure to the Indians the possession of the small portion of land they retained, the President was urged to discourage the alienation of it from them.
1875   K. E. Digby Introd. Hist. Law Real Prop. x. 322   By alienation is meant the intentional and voluntary transfer of a right.
1935   Yale Law Jrnl. 45 1391   If the preemptioner must pay the offeror's price..there is no material impediment to alienation.
2000   Cultural Survival Q. Fall 74/1   Its leaders argued vigorously for the retribalization of ANCSA land as a means to protect Native land from alienation and taxation.

c1425—2000(Hide quotations)

 

 b. The taking of something from a person, esp. without authorization; appropriation; an instance of this. Now rare.

1583   G. Babington Very Fruitfull Expos. Commaundem. viii. 359   The forbidding of stealth which is an alienation of an other mans goods to our selues.
1648   H. Lawes Choice Psalmes Ep. Ded. sig. A3v,   Such an Inscription would not only seem a Theft and Alienation of what is Your Majesties, but..would make me taste of these ungratefull dayes.
1760   tr. S. J. Baumgarten Suppl. Eng. Universal Hist. II. 239   In case of a voluntary confession of a theft, or alienation of the property of others, it shall be restored, with the addition of a fifth part more of the value.
 
2003   D. Dickenson Risk & Luck in Med. Ethics vii. 141   A model..giving control over tissue to the mother, and treating unauthorized alienation of it from her as theft.

1583—2003(Hide quotations)

 

 c. Esp. with reference to land or other property: the state of being alienated, or held by someone other than the proper owner.

1659   H. P. Tumulus Decimarum 11   If Tythes must continue, why should not that branch, or part of them, that has lain so long under alienation from H. 8. till this day, be restored, and a re-appropriation made of all the Impropriations whatsoever?
1689   S. Bold Advice Eng. Protestants 10   Were you not sometimes perplexed with Fears, that the rest of your Lands must be ceased to make amends for the long Alienation of the other?
1756   Bailey's New Universal Eng. Dict. (ed. 4) II. (at cited word),   The state of being alienated, as, the estate was wasted, during its alienation.
1898   Land Mag. Oct. 535   If such district heriots have, in fact, become due, and have been rendered or compounded for during the alienation,..the liability to pay such multiplied heriots will continue.
1918   tr. Treaty of Peace Finland & Germany in Texts Finland ‘Peace’ (U.S. Govt.) 20/2   There shall be returned to him any profits which have accrued on such property during the alienation or deprivation.
1984   I. Blanchard in R. M. Smith Land, Kinship & Life-cycle v. 259   A long-term tendency..for the amount of land held in temporary alienation to increase.