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diff --git a/docs/umich/index.md b/docs/umich/index.md index ee428cb..b71de2f 100644 --- a/docs/umich/index.md +++ b/docs/umich/index.md @@ -9,3 +9,4 @@ so basically i live in ann arbor now - [EECS 482, Intro to OS](w24_482.md) - [EECS 373, Intro to Embedded System Design](w24_373.md) - [EECS 311, Analog Circuits](w24_311.md) + - [GERMAN 386, Fairy Tales](w24_fairy.md) diff --git a/docs/umich/w24_fairy.md b/docs/umich/w24_fairy.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d728682 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/umich/w24_fairy.md @@ -0,0 +1,400 @@ +# Winter 2024 Course Review: GERMAN 386 + +2024-05-07 + +Course Title: Fairy Tales + +Rating: 3.5/5 + +## Instructor (Laura Okkema) + +I took her [GERMAN 103 last semester](f23_wrapup.md#german-103), and wrote +a review there. + +I align with a lot of her opinions, including the appeal of physical +books, the danger of generative AI, and how the culinary value of the +rich. (Last semester when I asked her what the plural of "der Reiche" is, +she replied "die Reichen. Essen Sie sie.") + +This semester I needed a 300-level humanities course, so I looked up the +catalog and bang, Laura's teaching this one. Instant yes. + +## None of this is proven (a rant on humanities) + +Up front, I will state the problem I have with this course and most of +humanities. The things we learn are very often factoids and theories, not +laws and axioms. And it's impossible to get to the latter; otherwise it +would not be humanities. So, for the majority of the course you'll see us: + +- Read fairy tales A, B, and C +- Read some work some guy wrote in the year of our lord X +- The guy argues that a common thing in A, B, and C is someone did Y, and + they argue it's because of Z +- We are now expected to know that Some Guy said Z causes Y on the test + +Is it true that Z caues Y? No one cares! Except those who make the test, +those who take the test, and both of those scholars who still study this +topic. + +(One of these people is Jack Zipes, who wrote our textbook. Less of +a textbook than an English translation of KHM. The book is _The Complete +Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm_, 3rd edition, Bantam 2003.) + +Of course, I take all ideas with a grain of salt, and mentally I always +preface the knowledge with a "Some Guy said" tag, no matter how likely it +is true. And when I tell it to a friend on a party, I'll always make sure +to make it clear that it's a _theory_, not a known fact like someone dug +the Grimms' graves and interviewed them. + +One exception, though, is obvious differences in the multiple versions of +the KHM. The changes are certainly intentional. But the reasons behind +them are subject to speculation. + +Sometimes we see contradicting takes on a certain topic, and that's cool +because an unsettled debate means someone's out there in the depths of +JSTOR looking for evidence and hopefully will keep their job for a while. +(I sometimes wonder why we as a society set out a place for academia in +the humanities, other than "cultural heritage" and other buzzwords. Then +I remind myself that CEOs exist, and I find it pretty easy to justify.) + +## Course topics + +When I told my family I wanted to take this course, they thought I was +joking. A university? Teaching nursery rhymes? + +This is not a "hey children sit down and I'll read you a bedtime story" +type of course (although Laura did this type of thing on GERMAN 103). It's +an academic approach to primary sources, including Grimm's fairy tales +(_Kinder- und Hausmärchen_, or KHM), and analytical articles, by a handful +of people who study (studied) them. And it's certainly not for children. + +We first discussed what everyone knew was coming. + +- Origin of the KHM (it's hard to pin down what the Grimms actually did) +- Ownership of fairy tales (spoiler: no one owns them) and different + versions of the same tale +- Sex, violence, eroticism, and pedagogy of fear (yes we get to learn this + sort of shit on the second lecture) + +Then things got tense. + +- Antisemitism, racism and colonialism (wow 19th century Germany was + racist? who knew) + +Here are some guys' ideas that may or may not make sense just read it and +remember what they said + +- Propps's morphology (the idea that all fairy tales are built on a subset + of these 32 functions) +- Freudian and Jungian psychology (to Freud, a pen is what he thinks a pen + is) +- Walter Benjamin's idea of fairy tales providing "good counsel" +- And whatever Bruno Bettelheim has to say about "Hansel and Gretel". + I made the best joke of the semester on the discussion session: + +> They had dinner. It's on the house. + +And we're back on coherent theories I understand. + +- The "liminal stage", rites of passage, and the "hero's journey" +- Overthrowing tyrants, and how one single tale hints socialism +- Spinning and a "woman's job" +- The "angel woman" and "monster woman" + +And finally we extended beyond the corpus of Grimms' works. + +- Modern adaptations of "Bluebeard" and "Snow White" (where everything + goes wrong) +- Romanticism, e.g. "The Sandman" by ETA Hoffmann +- Kunstmärchen, by e.g. HC Andersen +- Animation by e.g. Lotte Reiniger, Tex Avery and Walt Disney's team + +Let me expand on some of the more interesting ones. + +(Disclaimer: what I write below is what I remember two weeks after the +course is over, on a 15-hour flight and I don't wanna cite sources I don't +know at the top of my head. If you're reading this as a student, please do +NOT use it as an exam guide. Just imagine a huge [citation needed] hanging +on the end of the page.) + +### Who wrote the KHM? + +Nobody. + +The Grimms, Jacob and Wilhelm, set out to collect German folktales to +preserve German culture just as printing press was hitting the market. So +they went ahead and collected tales from the Volk — before Hitler +destroyed that word — to tap into that authentic Volkspoesie. Except it +was not the Volk and some of it was not German. + +Linda Dégh says the Grimms collected tales from middle-class women they +knew, such as KD Viehmann, who had French ancestry. So the Grimms did not +create the tales from scratch. + +The 1812 edition is geared toward fellow scholars like themselves, and was +intended to be an archive of some sort. But it was massively popular (by +19th century standards), unexpectedly among children, whose guardians had +one criticism about the book: it was too profane. Not the violent type of +profane (in fact, the Grimms added more of it), but the mentions of: + +- premarital pregnancy +- incest +- evil biological mothers (hence the abundance of evil _stepmothers_) +- and anything that goes against the Catholic patriachy + +So the Grimms did it faithfully — faithfully betraying their original +intention to stay authentic. Now in their 1857 edition, they had these +somewhat family-friendly, somewhat authentic tales, and they were +criticized by both parties. + +I would hate to be in their shoes. Partly cause it's hard to hit +a compromise between the public and academia, and partly cause _have you +tried 1800's shoes?? They're not good_. + +So, to put it down, for the KHM we ought to credit the Grimms, the +Germans, the French, the other European people who happened to live near +the Grimms, and angry Karens. + +### Assorted racism + +It was one of the more uneasy lectures, as you people get tense and Laura +herself becomes visibly uncomfortable as we described what today we would +call the Fucking Nazis. + +KHM was banned in Germany in the years following Moustache Massacre Man's +death, who used it for propaganda. The Grimms regained their reputation +a few decades later, but these tales were… still racist. + +Some publishers (not Bantam) received complaints about the depiction of +Jews in the KHM, so what they did is `s/Jew/miser/g`. Familiar? The Grimms +edited complaints into their 1857 edition. Now publishers are doing the +same thing. + +Of course, they did it out of good intentions, and honestly what's the +alternative? Expose unsuspecting children to antisemitic stories and +embarrass guardians who never knew there was racist stories in KHM? Delete +these tales and deny racism? Both sound horrible. I believe we should +quarantine these tales — don't let children read them unsupervised, but +let scholars read them all they will. + +The status quo in 1800s Germany was Christians hated Jews, because they're +"obsessed with money" and stuff while Christians wrote themselves a Bible +that forbade them from the banking industry. So they did shit like blood +libel and wrote some horrible stories that stereotyped the Jews to the +extreme. There was one tale ("The Clear Sun Will Bring It To Light") that +wasn't actively antisemitic, but was "anti-antisemitic" at best. + +I was cautious not to assume that every single soul was racist, so in +a discussion post I defended the author of "The Clear Sun" — hey, what if +they were innocent? We do not have enough evidence to get a small enough +p value, so we cannot reject the hypothesis that they're racist. However, +racist or not the author may be, the society was. + +Apparently the German hated Black people as well. Except there were +practically no Black people in Europe at that moment. So the Europeans +were just clinging on to their own beauty standards: white == beautiful +because they look like us, black == ugly because they don't. + +There were tales where the hero tries to "save" some women who were +"cursed" to be covered in black skin. He fails and the women are stuck +with half-white, half-black skin, and they blame him for not completing +their transformation. They shouted my favorite sentence of this course +(to the best of my memory): + +> You cursed dog, our blood shall cry in vengeance! + +The German for "you cursed dog", "du verfluchter Hund", will forever be +stuck in my head. + +This is kinda similar to how Christian missionaries went to Africa, tried +to convert locals to the religion of the Fish And Bread Man, but were met +with resistance. + +### Propp's "Morphology of the Folktale" + +Vladimir Propp studied hundreds of Russian fairy tales, and extracted 31 +"functions" (32 if you count 8 and 8a as different ones), which are +surprisingly similar to a mathematical function in that they map +characters to a plot. + +An example: the 7th function is "The victim submits to deception and +thereby unwittingly helps his enemy." It could be modeled as a function +with four arguments, `victim, villain, deception, help`. You can fill in +the blanks and make part of your own fairy tale! + +What Propp argues, is that if you take a subset of these 32 functions, in +the order they appear, and piece them together with your own characters, +premises and events, you can reconstruct every fairy tale in existence! + +Now, what's the problem? + +The problem is I think it's bullshit. I mean, some fairy tales have a lot +of in common, yes. And I respect Propp for bringing forth his reductionist +theory. But it's like somebody left a mathematician in the literature +department. And I can defeat his argument with math. + +First, his argument implies that there is a finite amount of fairy tales +that could exist before you run out of ideas. In this case, the upper +bound would be 2^32, or around 4 billion. But keep in mind there's +a substantial difference between infinite and 4 billion. We thought +4 billion was enough; now we have the 2038 problem. + +Consider if someone found an unpublished book of fairy tales in their +basement. Inside of the book is a fairy tale where something happens that +doesn't easily fit in any of the 32 functions (which, if you look at +today's bookstore, is pretty likely). What does Propp do? + +Does he: + +1. disqualify the tale from being a "fairy tale"? (i.e. gatekeeping fairy + tales) +2. loosen one of the 32 functions? +3. add a 33rd function? + +If he does any of 2 and 3, then by induction, if you give him a 34th +function, he'll have no choice but to do it again, and by induction, +eventually the list will either be infinitely long, or just a vague list +that applies to every story ever. + +So, if I were to add one function and one function only, it would be "none +of the above". + +### The Hero's Journey + +Campbell wrote about how every great story goes the same way: someone goes +on a quest in an unfamiliar realm, does something (e.g. defeats a dragon), +gets something (e.g. chests of gold) , and brings it back where they came +from, and everyone's happy, forming a cycle. The interesting part is the +how the hero navigates the unknown, growing up in the process. + +Sounds familiar? It's just like Propp's morphology idea, but better. But +at least it makes sense to me. Instead of insisting that _every_ tale is +built upon these functions, what Campbell says is all _good_ tales follow +the hero's journey. That's why pretty much every Disney movie is like +that. + +### Angel woman and monster woman + +Gilbert and Gubar wrote that, in a patriarchy, woman fight against each +other for men's attention. The angel woman is a beautiful virgin, sought +for by all men. The monster woman is jealous and tries to sabotage the +angel woman's ascension to power. + +In "Snow White", the titular character is an angel woman and the queen is +the monster woman. Contrary to popular opinion, G&G argue that the monster +woman, namely the queen, was the more interesting of the two, precisely +because her evilness propels the plot. It was not the passive doll as is +Snow White. If you count the things Snow did, she: + +- was born beautiful af and made queen jealous af +- was sentenced dead by the queen but spared by the hunter +- did some housework for the dwarves +- was deceived by the queen a few times, but saved by dwarves +- finally ate an apple and went comatose +- was laid in a coffin +- was kissed by a prince +- married the prince + +Not many of these were in active voice. I think it is an interesting way +to look at how 1800s Germany treated genders. Would make an awesome dating +show, "Angel or Monster". + +### Modern adaptations + +KHM has been in the public for a long time, and it's as well known as +cheese. As such, it's an open door for parody writers and serious writers +to reinterpret them. + +What Coover did in "The Dead Queen" is to imagine that it was Snow White +who ordered the queen to dance to death in hot iron shoes, and after the +queen's death she becomes the monster woman, while being in an angel +woman's body who will perpetually remain a virgin ("hymen intact"), +despite a night with the prince and the seven dwarves (a… ninesome??) + +Just… read it for yourself. + +### Romanticism + +Laura reveals Romanticism to be one of her favorite topics, because of how +much she relates to the idea of melancholy, alienation, and human emotion +in general. The texts we read both involved people in disturbed mental +states, or the Nachtseite, like depression and childhood trauma. The +depressed guy got a girlfriend at the end and was healed; the PTSD guy +leapt off a tower and killed himself. + +On the discussion session, Laura shared her experience of being alienated +at a gathering at her in-law's. "I wanted to talk about books and music, +and I really don't care how Aunt Sue is doing." (paraphrased) + +Would be awesome if a whole family was into RATM though. + +What I did not expect though was to experience first-hand symptoms of the +Nachtseite just that evening. For more, read +[2024-04-05](../random/2024-04-05.md#the-nachtseite). + +### Animation + +Lotte Reiniger was coerced to make a few paper cutout animations for the +Nazis. If you look at that, it's completely understandable why Hitler +didn't get into the art school. She set the bar so high. + +Tex Avery made cartoon shorts like "Swing Shift Cinderella", who is +actually a grown up Little Red Riding Hood and drives a Cinderella-mobile +in that the magic disappears when the clock strikes twelve. It's about how +the wolf (from "Little Red") flirts with Red but attracts her granny +instead. So you see him wooing Red and getting hit by granny with a hammer +conveniently stowed in her purse. Red rushes home by twelve and boards +a shuttle bus to "Lockweed". The bus is full of wolves. + +Help did Tex Avery invent furries? + +Walt Disney was another one to tap into the oil rig. But Zipes argues he's +pretty egoistic and refused to credit his team initially. It's just +a giant "Walt Disney Presents", no one else. Like bruh. I credit all my +teammates and instructors on my PCB. I enjoy giving people the credit they +deserve. It's not like they'll take my cut or anything. + +## Assignments + +Lots of reading. Prepare for 50 pages per week, and most of them isn't +even fairy tales, but secondary texts by Some Guy. You can skim them, but +there's either a quiz or a discussion on Canvas for each of the lectures. +They're pretty easy though. Some PDFs are scans of physical books and OCR +may or may not work, so "I'll open the quiz and just Ctrl+F" is a bad +idea. + +Heaviest assignment is an essay, which requires you to choose a topic, +make an argument, and find evidence in KHM that supports it. You cannot +make speculations ("it seems to me that…"), because it's a closed reading, +meaning deductions can only be based on the original text. You can also +cite secondary sources to make it stronger. The requirements are +>1400 words. + +In my essay I defended violence in KHM. At one point, I mentioned how Red +in "Little Red" was complicit in the wolf's death by carrying stones to +the hunter. That's how closed the closed reading is. + +If that's the kind of job a humanities student does, I'm glad I'm in +engineering. At least we can look at an oscilloscope and go "yup, that's +a sine". + +## Verdict + +Really extensive, but comes at the cost of superficiality. I knew +everything and knew nothing. But at least I might be more fun at parties. +Or less boring. Either way helps. + +I like it when a course changes the way I look at the world. The lectures +on racism and sexism made me better informed whenever I am involved in +such discourse. However, in the face of fascists, try punching. + +The last time I did humanities was in academic writing in 2021. this +course brought back that memory of going through papers without graphs or +tables in search of noteworthy sentences that's not there for the page +limit. + +The course probably adds two to three hours of workload per week, except +the week the essay's due. + +I grew up in a culture not dominated by KHM and managed the course, so you +can take it regardless of how much you know about KHM. diff --git a/docs/umich/w24_wrapup.md b/docs/umich/w24_wrapup.md index 386f374..0f20d0f 100644 --- a/docs/umich/w24_wrapup.md +++ b/docs/umich/w24_wrapup.md @@ -15,6 +15,7 @@ them up into individual articles, listed below. - [EECS 482, Intro to OS](w24_482.md) - [EECS 373, Intro to Embedded System Design](w24_373.md) - [EECS 311, Analog Circuits](w24_311.md) +- [GERMAN 386, Fairy Tales](w24_fairy.md) - Other courses WIP ## Notable material gains |