On Feb 21, 2009, at 7:30 PM, Mark Smith wrote: > On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 10:40 PM, LuKreme <[email protected]> wrote: >> Well, on the one hand I would say that the implication in the >> assignment is "to pick an event or person that you think >> [SIGNIFICANTLY] influenced history" and on that score I'm not sure >> Mr. >> King qualifies > > I almost agree with Lewis. WIth no disrespect to your daughter Jeff, I > don't think its possible to make a case that Steven King has "changed" > history in any significant way. If you let him in, then you have to > let in any big selling author. If its not too late to change, there > are eh... "easier" authors. > > mark. > _____________________________
Thanks for your insights, everyone, on list and off. Thank you. Some answers: It is way too late to change topics. The grade doesn't really matter, although I suspect that as long as my daughter does a good job of _writing_ the grade will be peachy. We have to _show_ that King might have influenced history. One thing I can do is point to this email thread and say "Look, inteligent people around the world seem to think that even though there are problems with trying to demonstrate some causal relationship between King and specific historical events, we can still broadly agree that he certainly has had some impact on society/ culture/history in some important ways." But then we need to hash out: what preciselely is the effect that an author has on society, or specifically, on her or his readers? Do we say: King makes us consider the nature of friendship and teaches us the value of fidelity in novel x. And that is something that as readers we apply to our daily lives in important ways. Or is there some other approach. Again, I'm thrilled and grateful for your replies. Sarah's mind is spinning and she's very excited to learn that her _little_ project could have reached the ears and minds of such a fascinating group of people. There's something to be said about all of this. It is importantant, but tryingto put it all together concisely is difficult. One thing I will do is let my daughter interview me. Or maybe one of you? Or some of you? A few brief questions, perhaps, on how the arts, or lieterature, or something like that has affected your life... Thoughts? That would be putting up some clear evidence at least, and saying "See, there's this nutter in Glasgow, and another in Lisbon, and a third, in Vancouver, who have been affected by Monsieur King's works..." Jeff _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
