Wednesday, February 25, 2015 // The Statement
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T
he ratemyprofessors.com evaluation
said that [name removed] could turn
a phrase, and they were right. The
thing about [name removed] that I found out
on my own, was that his ego sometimes gets
in the way of the point — the point of the dis-
cussion, the reading, the class, educating the
youth, good taste, imparting wisdom, etc.,
etc. Sometimes, there was no point. Some-
times, you could see him peering down at the
point as if from very far away, waiting for it to
catch up with him. I mean to say, that he was
good at his job, but in a way that made want to
bite your own teeth off. (Imagine). Obscure,
unhelpful, and smarter-than-you. And this
was the most consistent vibe in the room, I
found. For a semester, it teetered between
“this is fun and interesting” and “this is sort
of offensive, so now we are going to wait it
out.” The class, I mean. As a whole. The His-
tory of Art. It should be so simple. Jesus.
I guess, put in a different way, my biggest
frustration with this class (although it was
usually interesting and well-presented) was
that there was a certain need to answer the
question in [name removed]’s own personal
way, or maybe the way that [name removed]
found personally meaningful. Oftentimes, it
seemed like we were being tested for under-
standing [name removed]’s last impression of
the readings. The real question is, how well
do you know [name removed]?
For example, I was the guy who was curi-
ous about the social reception of Hume’s
aesthetics (i.e. “can the ‘goodness’ of ‘good
art’ be measured by how it would actually
be received?”), but I was sort of written off
or filtered out because it was construed that
I wanted to take some kind of trans-histor-
ical “survey” or whatever, and that “sur-
veys” weren’t going to help us understand art
through the ages, and that is not what I was
saying with a snide lilt, (which is also impos-
sible since so many of its would-be partici-
pants are dead), but rather must have been
based entirely [name removed]’s terrible
experience with “surveys,” since he seemed
so premeditated-ly averse to this concept. At
other times, I was filtered out because what
I was saying didn’t match a given author,
like X: “What X is saying,” [name removed]
would say, “is that you are basically wrong,
and I have no interest in the point you’re
making divorced of the internal world I have
constructed so that we can all like the same
things because I like them and I have good
taste, thanks for sharing.” Emphasis on the
“X.”
Maybe another example is that I’m writing
this final paper on Ogilvy’s ideas about fiction
and emotions (assigned by [name removed]),
but I’m only quoting him where he’s relevant
to a.) Poulet on the phenomenology of read-
ing, b.) Henry James, and also, c.) it must be
said, the blank, staring obvious. Although
we’ve been led to believe that [name removed]
knew Ogilvy and got tenure by disproving
some of his ideas, it doesn’t seem like a very
good last word on the subject. Rather, and
again, it seems like something that was per-
sonally meaningful to the professor, whose
name has been removed.
Of course, I’m not trying to be a dick, but
hey, maybe it will help with “the quality of
instruction in this course,” which despite the
tenure thing, appears to be something that
[name removed] – who I feel so privileged to
address in the third person, as if he were a
person you and I had just met (it is you actu-
ally reading this [name removed], isn’t it? Hi!)
– “takes seriously,” and “values,” and what a
great start we’re off to already! We are, actu-
ally, (I think). We are probably even past the
start, and into somewhere in the middle,
where the end is the ultimate, unreachable
Form of this class as taught by a manifest god,
or something even less interesting.
In sum: 8/10. I basically liked this class.
“Comment on the
Quality of Instruction in
this Course”
Phillip Whiteveen, LSA Senior
COURSE EVALUATION:
ILLUSTRATION BY JAKE WELLINS
Ernest Hemingway once said, “There is nothing to writing. All
you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Writing is hard. Put-
ting your heart on the page for anyone to read is frighteningly vul-
nerable. Yet, every year the Statement calls out to the University,
begging for your poems, short stories and other golden nuggets of
creativity, and writers respond with gusto.
This year students submitted over 100 pieces, thirteen of which
can be found in this magazine. In these pages you will discover an
old woman knitting, a grizzled sea captain, and a little girl marvel-
ing in a blackout. While they may not have used typewriters, these
writers bled a little bit, and it shows in their poignant, emotional,
and thought-provoking work.
Welcome to the Literary Issue. Happy reading.
Magazine Editor, Ian Dillingham Deputy Editor, Natalie Gadbois
Photo Editor, Luna Anna Archey Design Editor, Jake Wellins
Dear readers,
Magazine Editor:
Ian Dillingham
Deputy Editor:
Natalie Gadbois
Design Editor:
Jake Wellins
Photo Editor:
Luna Anna Archey
Illustrators:
Megan Mulholland
Maggie MIller
Managing Editor:
Lev Facher
Editor in Chief:
Jen Calfas
Copy Editors:
Hannah Bates
Laura Schinagle
Emma Sutherland
THE statement
To view videos accompanying
The Literary Issue, scan this QR
code with your smartphone or
visit www.michigandaily.com/
the-statement.
COVER ILLUSTRATION BY MEGAN MULHOLLAND