Driving up Lake Shore Drive last night en route to a reunion with some dear friends whom we haven't seen for several (too many) weeks I proclaimed to Lauren: I know what I'm going to write my thesis on!
Now, understand that this is not the first time I've made the claim out loud to her (she's totally an amazing sounding-board, the best a grad student could ever ask for). And for each time I've claimed it out load there have been a handful of other similar inner-claims that I've kept to myself.
Also, this is not a terribly urgent matter. I've decided to go to CTS part-time beginning in the Fall, which means I'll be kicking around the CTS community for another couple years, and won't be writing my thesis until next year, Fall 2012-Spring 2013. I'm rather ecstatic about spreading my grad experience out. I consider it an opportunity to delve deeper into the subject matter I'm exploring and to work up a more solid foundation for that penultimate plunge into thesis writing.
The realization that I had while on LSD (Lake Shore Drive) was boosted a bit by this video, an animated companion to a Slavoj Zizek lecture. It's worth a watch (or two or three if that's what it takes to track with it). The bit that I'm ruminating on doesn't come in until the end when he suggests a sort of soft-apocalypticism. What might it look like, from an ecological standpoint, to critique the hard-core apocalypticism found both in popular media and fundamentalist Christianity while arguing for the necessity of a soft-apocalypticism in our scientific, social, and theological language? It needs refining I know. And is subject to change, but what do you think? I welcome any of your offerings of insight.
Zizek is exploring a different question and domain. But, like I said, it's good stuff - as are some of the other RSA Animate videos I've perused. Enjoy...
what a wonderful video.
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