LA VALANGA DI VITA COMPAGNIA, INC.
LEON'S LANDSLIDE FALL TRIMESTER:
HUFFING HOPE: TRAVEL TO FAERIE WITH JOHN RONALD REUEL TOLKIEN
IS GANDALF URIEL? A QUESTION THIS CLASS COULD ANSWER COLLECTIVELY
TO PARTICIPANTS
HOME PAGE
Reminder of Summer--"THE QUOTEABLE THOREAU: You who govern society..Love virtue, and the people will be virtuous." --from the chapter THE VILLAGE in WALDEN.
Gandalf's concurrence: "I do not wish for mastery"--from The Lord of the Rings.
VOLCANOVISION
NOW PLAYING: EUCATASTROPHE, MOUNT DOOM REMIX
ESSAY ON THE FALL OF ARTHUR
Tolkien was the first author whose ideas the Leopard encountered in her quest to propose a curriculum of joy, since the angst of her relatives was making it impossible to think of anything else but how to solve it.
She was in middle school at the time.
Once we have enough wine from our vineyard to last through a long, dark, cold winter(never admit that the grapes didn't come out so hot this season) the next question is: Turn down for what?
Do we just plunge into mindless bacchanalia because there is no hope, there is no tomorrow? Is there really a Santa Claus?
Happiness Huff hopes to answer that question. It is the second part of the Landslide Program, an introduction to the idea of eucatastrophe.
Eucatastrophe was a concept first proposed by the very popular English author JRR Tolkien, the idea that not all catastrophic events are bad.
Tolkien suggests that in life there is often an unexpected turn of events that changes the trajectory of a story in a good way.
Tolkien was Catholic and in fact, eucatastrophe echos a teaching of Christ that you should "lift up your head" when there is tumult in the world, because "redemption is near at hand".
And significantly Tolkien was a great lover of nature, as the movie shows.
This course is experimental and will involve the life experiences of the participants as course material. We also read the essay by Tolkien, "On Fairy Stories".
As with Bullshit Breath, the course can be adapted to last one week, using the lecture alone (27 pages)
In that case, take one section per day.
For those who wish to complete "a Year with Leon" all of the materials cited can be studied in depth for a whole four month trimester.
In that case, take three weeks for each section and use the last week for the Epilogue.
While reading this, those who are not familiar with the story of "LORD OF THE RINGS" might be glad to take a look or listen at it with Tolkien's essay in mind.
We do not say "you have to watch the movie" because Tolkien would say, if you got together around a fire with a crowd of dwarves who told you the story, that would be very faerie-esque.
Please realize that each segment of the trilogy is much longer than the usual novel, and each movie is at least three hours long and sometimes more.
WEEK ONETolkien suggests that in life there is often an unexpected turn of events that changes the trajectory of a story in a good way.
Tolkien was Catholic and in fact, eucatastrophe echos a teaching of Christ that you should "lift up your head" when there is tumult in the world, because "redemption is near at hand".
And significantly Tolkien was a great lover of nature, as the movie shows.
This course is experimental and will involve the life experiences of the participants as course material. We also read the essay by Tolkien, "On Fairy Stories".
As with Bullshit Breath, the course can be adapted to last one week, using the lecture alone (27 pages)
In that case, take one section per day.
For those who wish to complete "a Year with Leon" all of the materials cited can be studied in depth for a whole four month trimester.
In that case, take three weeks for each section and use the last week for the Epilogue.
While reading this, those who are not familiar with the story of "LORD OF THE RINGS" might be glad to take a look or listen at it with Tolkien's essay in mind.
We do not say "you have to watch the movie" because Tolkien would say, if you got together around a fire with a crowd of dwarves who told you the story, that would be very faerie-esque.
Please realize that each segment of the trilogy is much longer than the usual novel, and each movie is at least three hours long and sometimes more.
EUCATASTROPHE LECTURE
MIDTERM REFLECTION: I AM NO MAN.