My Thoughts on Our Future

 I believe that the constructed syllabus for the next few weeks is intriguing in its form as well as its content. Personally, I am interested in utilizing some of Wai Chee’s suggestions because they were simply SO different! I have never read Dante’s Inferno, yet I have heard a lot about it—and no description I have heard has ever sounded like Wai Chee’s classification of it as an early “science fiction.” I think reading this piece of literature with an eye towards its science fiction characteristics could prove to be extremely interesting and helpful towards our search of what genre exactly is. I am also interested in pursuing Wai Chee’s other recommendation The Man in the High Castle because as a more recent look at science fiction it would allow us to see how time and audience influence a certain genre.

On another note, I completely see Anne’s difficulty with understanding how watching episodes of House would fit in with the rest of the syllabus. However, the latest episode in the sixth season  (“Private Lives”) deals with an addicted blogger who has become so attached to her audience that she does things in order to please and entertain her readers. This addiction comes into play when she makes a medical decision based on the audience’s opinion. When I saw this episode I couldn’t help but think of how interesting it was to watch as a student who has recently studied blogs. The episode faces many of the same questions we asked ourselves about the relationship between bloggers and their audiences during the first few weeks of the semester, and I feel like watching this towards the end of the class would bring our discussion of material full-circle.