The beauty of the Plague is that it creeps up on you in a slow and infectious way. What starts off as just an ordinary, insignificant town can turn into a story that is retold over and over again for years to come. The characters in the Plague show a slow but gradual character development (in contrast to Generosity) that makes sense. The doctor begins as a normal everyday doctor caring for his patients but as the story progresses, the doctor becomes immune to the suffering of his patients. The energetic Rampert desperate to leave the town to return to his love ultimately decides to stay behind with the suffering. Camus builds this gradual character development that pulls me deeper into the story line.

 Time was a central topic in our discussion on Thursday, and is crucial to evolution. Change takes time. Not only is the passage of time important, but so is the point in time and place.

 In Anne's discussion group on Thursday we continued discussing/debating whether the plague itself serves as a form of justice, or whether its blindness means that there was no motivation or cause for administering such a punishment. We went back and forth in regards to the true meaning of justice, and if it can just stand on its own or if it needs to be for something (i.e. justice for...). In my opinion, justice is a punishment for actions or behaviors, a form of revenge. If we all agree that the plague itself is blind, or an equalizer due to putting everyone on an equal playing field in terms of death, then can it be a punishment for something/to someone?

Course Keeping:

    *On Monday, come to class with 3 questions for Mike Chorost
    *For Wednesday watch Teknolust. (available streaming on Netflix)
    *Class voted to watch TRON over Source Code for accessibility reasons
        -$4.99 on iTunes, short wait on Netflix for dvd

Feminist Readings / Critiques of Frankenstein (cont. from Mon):

What really stuck with in my mind from our discussion on Wednesday is the part where we talked about beauty. Beauty is such an abstract term. What is beauty and who is to decide that?

While reading Frankenstein, I noticed that Victor struggled with some of the gender binaries we discussed in class. Victor is a male, yet there is a moment in the text that insinuates an attraction to other men. Although Victor is a man, he has not been told that he should be attracted to only women (by society's conventional standards). This ambiguity in Victor's sexual orientation may be a comment by Mary Shelley as to how much science and society play a part in a how a person relates his gender. Mary Shelley would probably agree with Roughgarden's view on gender and sexuality as a naturally diverse occurrence. Victor is an example of how sexuality is something that is born with a person, and shaped depending on how society interacts with that individual.

I just happened upon this article that claims that scientists have found a mutated gene that allows people to be "short sleepers", meaning they can naturally run on only a few hours of sleep with no harmful side effects. These people are also more upbeat, ambitious, thinner, and dare I say it, "happier". The scientists are currently thinking about how to manipulate this gene so everyone could potentially have this opportunity. Sound familiar? Here's the link.

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/112502/why-people-can-run-on-little-sleep-wsj

From missing class this Monday, for this post I've been thinking about Mary Shelley's novel from the perspective of contemporary composers. This group of people has created a new genre of music, mostly through their use of technology in their compositions. In regard to Frankenstein's monster, I would think that these composers would support his creation and the science/technology that went into it. Frankenstein had created what seems like a new species of human, or at least a new creature. He used modern science and technology (though he keeps the details hidden) to expand how people think of a predefined category. Contemporary composers have made us rethink our definition of what music really is with their new uses of technology in music.