october 29

JOURNAL TOPIC: [today's tunes: "Step Right Up" by Tom Waits; "Bloody Well Right" by Supertramp]

Terms such as values and common sense can take on different meanings (how can something you define as common sense confuse me--isn't common sense the sense we share in common?) Cultural anthropologists and social psychologists describe values as learned, enduring, epistemologically grounded moral conceptualizations that assist us in making judgments and in preparing us to act. What values do you see in Hamlet? In online/contemporary American culture? How do the characters in the former and executives in the latter use values to inform and justify their decisions and behavior?

AGENDA:
1. Journal
2. Finish discussing Hamlet: Act III
3. Performative utterances in Hamlet

 HW:
1. Post to your blog under the title THOUGHTS ON HAMLET (IN PROGRESS). Explain how your thinking about the play has evolved from the time we began reading to the end of Act III. Has anything changed your mind about the plot or characters since the ghost showed up at midnight? Where do you see things going from here?
2. Read Hamlet Act IV
3. Read "The Performative Utterance in Hamlet" and take notes to post to your blog (use same title)
4. Watch Eli Pariser's talk on "Filter Bubbles"
5. Post a comment to the "Filter Bubbles" post in which you respond to the video by answering these questions: a)What new information did you learn from the video? b)How does this information make you think differently about what you see online? c)What questions does this video raise about the Internet in general? and d)How can you improve the effectiveness of your searches?
6. [preview-- this is due Thursday 10/31] Read the post entitled, "tools that change the way we think" and comment/post accordingly.