On Friday after a shortened class of Videogames: culture and aesthetics, I stuck around Cornerstone 301 with a couple people from my class. From 10:30 to noon I had one of the most productive conversations about videogames of the block thus far. The discussion challenged my former assumptions of medium, especially the culture that surrounds …
Tot Terror!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1hzhHXiHdc Assignments so far, for those of you who want to read up on some gamer theory or try to beat our high scores! Readings: "Homo Ludens" by Johan Huizinga, "Man, Play, and Games" by Roger Callois, "the Origin of Species by Stephen Poole, and three chapters of half-real by Jesper Juul The Videoames: Space Invaders, …
The 4th Week: Retrospect
As my Islam class enters into fourth week, a lot of us are looking back trying to wrestle with all the information that we gained in this class. I would say this is true for a lot of students at the end of the block, but for us, it seems to be more so. I …
Locative and Utopian: The Peter Triangle
An important concept that has come up every single day of class is that of the Locative vs. Utopian worldviews. The locative worldview is something like, “I am in the place in society that I need to be and that is the way it needs to be. I can’t change it.” The utopian worldview, on …
The Sacred and Secular Histories
One of the questions that I find myself asking most in class is "Is this the secular or the sacred history?" This question is really, "Did this actually happen or is this what the members of the faith tradition believe?" However, this has become a very important topic as Islam has progressed through week two …
A History of God: Our First Text
So, one of the main texts that we started with in the first week of the block was A History of God written by Karen Armstrong, one of the most prolific authors of Biblical studies. This particular book was a best seller, and clearly from its title it is an ambitious project. This text does …
What is Religion and how do we study it?
In every introductory class that I have ever taken, we have discussed the basics of studying and framing religion in an academic way. For this class however, it was framed slightly differently, but effectively. Peter started with the idea that "religion is spilled poetry." A poetic line, to be sure, but what does it mean? …
Re: 140 Islam- A Week of Foundation
RE 140: Islam taught by Professor Peter Wright began the way most 100 level religion courses do, full. The 100 level courses in the department are mostly introductory courses in the major traditions: Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Indigenous Religious Traditions, and Islam. They seem to be increasingly popular these days as all of them that …
Half Blockin’
Off the cuff: Winter break was good. Really good. I needed that. I did a lot of...sitting. Yes, yes, quite a bit of sitting. But lest the sedentary lifestyle infect me for good, I jetted back to Colorado where the people are active and the air is thin. And now, I suppose, I am a …
Life of Colin
There was one day in class when someone mentioned an episode of the TV show Portlandia (a parody of Portland, Oregon) where a couple in a restaurant is so concerned about where the chicken on the menu came from that they drive to a farm 30 miles south of the city to see exactly where the chicken, …