I am getting ready to travel to Santa Fe this weekend to visit friends Freya and Jake at St. John's College, and have plans to sit in on the junior seminar Monday night with my non-Johnnie friend Lauren. The seminar is on Rousseau's Social Contract. Last night, I pulled out my copy and perused through the text. As one who likes to underline, mark up, and take notes in my books, I occasionally run across notes from seminars. And so it was, that in Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, I stumbled across this note:
le monde - the world as a "cosmic tofu": colorless, formless, texturelessIsn't seminar great??? If only I knew who to attribute that to...
This may start me on a hunt through seminar books in search of other seminar quotes, whether quirky, inane, or profound... Other Johnnies, feel free to share "great" quotes from seminar (whether the quotes actually constitute of greatness qua greatness is another matter. ;)
3 comments:
Jenny Lowe related to me one time that she was leafing through one of Sarah Navarre's books, and found various amusing things written in the margins, such as "Santa Beans." Also, while it's not a St. John's story, David related to me one of his frantic scribblings while trying to keep up in Bob Turansky's European History Class in high school. He had written down: "1699: Things gonna get stuff."
In my freshman seminar, before the tutors arrived, we would have a "seminar word" and try to be the first to use it, in such a context that the tutors would not suspect the tradition of the seminar word. It was quite fun at first, and we had some very clever integrations of the word into the dialogue, but eventually it degenerated. By the night that the seminar word was "honeycakes," we weren't even trying any more.
please say hi to Jake for me.
I believe the "seminar word" tradition also happened in Sir Robert's sophomore seminar, between him and Mr Mawhawr only, but I am not wholly positive... he would have to verify the story. It can lead to interesting logical acrobatics, if you will... or just sheer absurdity ;)
I was lucky enough to just contribute in seminar, much less, worry about a peculiar word getting into the discussion...
Cosmic tofu is a pretty funny illustration - I'm imagining a firm piece of tofu floating through space....
In a similar way, you mention something about your seminar words... this sounds quite familiar... Pee Wee's Playhouse used to have a magic word that made everyone scream if they used it in an episode. Perhaps this is where it originated, long ago in the 80s? Except that it's funnier to think about putting it in a conversation when the professor doesn't know.
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