Reading through Power's Generosity, I was constantly reminded that "I know the story" and that in addition to the story itself, there was also another story line in a sense that told the story of how the story was being written.  I held the same sentiment as Professor Grobstein when he felt that if one was to question the reasoning behind one of the stories, then there will simply be an infinite regress and the reasoning may never actually be possible to arrive at.  So I wondered to myself, what on Earth could have been Power's purpose in structuring this book this way.  Once I asked myself this, I was reminded of another incredibly confusing novel that I read last year: Juan Rulfo's Pedro Paramo.

 I'm not sure where I stand in regards to my feelings about this book, Generosity. On one hand I find myself itching to underline so many quotes and passages that resonate with me, that I find funny, or that I find thought provoking, but on the other I feel so distant from the characters, so isolated from the book that I just want to take a sledgehammer and break through the narration to get to the characters. The plot I like, the narration not so much. In our section on Thursday Anne stated that this was indeed a novel of ideas, not of characters. I agree with this- and it really pisses me off because I really like what I do see of the characters and the plot and the relationships that are forming.

We've talked a lot about Borges with regards to the notion of his "Library of Babel", but the question raised in Generosity about there being a fixed number of possible plots made me think of another Borges story: "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote". This short story is actually less of a story than it is a theoretical thought experiment. Borges discusses the fictional personage Pierre Menard, a 20th century writer who sets out to write the novel Don Quixote.

 So the other day I received this email on my BMC account. I also got a notification from the Erdman email list-serve that I moderate to have it verified through that so I have NO idea how they got into the BMC email lists. I read it and tried to avoid twitching over the word choices and grammar/spelling mistakes, but thought it was interesting and it connects back to which story of evolution each person chooses to believe… enjoy!!!

THE CAUSE

 I was really fascinated by the debate between the Nobel laureate and Thomas Kurton from pages 149-152. The debate between science and the humanities is really interesting here, and it seems pretty obvious who's supposed to win. The writer is "the most painfully shy person who has ever been forced into a public spectacle," while Kurton is "charming," with "shoulders [that] bob like a boy on his first day of summer camp." The novelist's arguments are fatalistic, pessimistic, backward-looking, tragic, while Kurton's toothy explications on his theories are full of hope and the promise of progress. The audience to this debate seems totally taken in by Kurton, and at the end, Candace declares Kurton, "Optimism," to be the winner, "by a technical knockout."

Upon reflecting on the field of feminist science studies I began to think about the aim or goal of developing this new field. Would this field investigate and try to determine how much of who we are depends on social factors and how much on biological factors? Will it try to understand the complexities of the body and biology with a greater recognition to the social factors that affect scientific interpretation? Subramaniam and Barad are both asking for a new way to structure how we generate knowledge, how we learn and think which could potentially lead to changes in how we educate. In addition to changing the education system I began to wonder if/how the research from this field could be used politically?

 In Paul's class on Thursday, we discussed human emotion and the possibility of being happy in the context of challenging events or disorders (like MDD). Throughout the novel, Candace and Thassa both assert that happiness is attainable regardless of the hand you've been dealt. But can we all escape the clutches of negativity, and is negative affect a result of choices in cognition?