"Words Like Sunbeams" - The English Major Thread of Dorkdom and Nostalgia in honor and memory of Professors Adams, Graham, and Bump (We'll Talk About Him)

[dcbc 14484]

Okay, I'm dooming this discussion to mediocrity by removing it from a cloak room thread, but I'm enjoying the nostalgia about English classes at UT.  So share your stories.  I'll see if I can get the posts migrated.

[TwiceHorn 31471]

As related previously, I took 316K from Kaulbach, a giant class in Jester.  We had to do a midterm paper that we could turn in basically any time after the middle of the semester.  

At one point, he said, "people, midterm papers are coming in and a lot of them are junk.  Please don't turn in junk.  Here's a good one," and began reading mine.  All the Jewish sorority girls were eyeing me for about two weeks.

That was the sole English class I took at UT.  In my time, three were required to graduate, E306, which everyone placed out of, E316, which no one avoided, and a third that wasn't offered so any "substantial writing component" class would do.  Before I graduated, the College of Engineering mandated that the third English, which was supposed to have been "Writing in Different Disciplines," be Technical Writing and all engineers would be required to take it.  One hitch, they didn't offer it.  So I took another class at Richland.  It's now what I do for a living.

[dcbc 14484]

10 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

All the Jewish sorority girls were eyeing me for about two weeks.

[dcbc 14484]

So a couple of things I remembered.  I think it was Professor Graham that would hold one class at Scholz Beer Garden.  I recall not an absolute ton of people showing up, and sitting with Graham and a bunch of people in our class in a big booth drinking lots of beer and him talking about cool stuff I can't possibly remember at this point.

 

Also, Jerry Bump ("Autobiography: yours and others" and "Wordsworth and Hopkins") would have a party at his house at the end of every semester.  I took those two classes back to back.  Super laid-back and interesting.  He had this cool ranch house on a bunch of property off of the west side of Lake Travis.  Lots of booze and board games with English majors.  Pretty fun, looking back.

Edited September 27 by dcbc

[ohchaucer 1443]

I remember way too little of any of my classes. And by that I don’t mean that I didn’t absorb - and still retain - so much knowledge and material. Rather, I mean I don’t remember what years I took what or in what order or what I skipped in freshman year, etc. I’m pretty sure I took 316 British Lit but it’s the only lower level class I remember. Not to say there weren’t others.

But, goddamn, I loved it all. Reading and writing and diverging, even briefly, into poetry and short fiction and cultural impacts and sociology. I wish I could go back now and imbibe it even more. Instead, I spent way too much time in those days “imbibing” in the more contemporary sense.

Ironically, I fled Austin and academics as fast as I could to land in New York trying to break into (book) publishing and hated it so much I quickly drifted online to find all you assholes (or at least a few of you from that long ago) and now here we are 25 years later talking about our majors.

And in a thread about “Former President Donald Trump,” no less. Who could have imagined back then?

Oh, that this world and nation might read more and understand the power of the heart and mind through literature….

[ohchaucer 1443]

And to add about specific memories, I took some sort of short story writing class with a seminar or lab component and we met at least half the time out on the six pack and I hardly remember anything I wrote or did, aside from one essay-like, wannabe New Yorker “shout and murmur” thing lamenting the demise of shoe shine stands in small towns. And while I’m sure it was trite and highly affected, the one absolute smoke show in the class (and kinda all-campus level hottie) raved about how much she loved it. I swooned. Probably should have kept at the writing thing based on that alone….

Also, her name was Wende and she was 5 inches taller than me, infinitely prettier and more worldly and mesmerizing at the time. She now sells real estate in Austin. Looks great still, but she ain’t reading or thinking about Chaucer or even Shouts & Murmurs these days, if I had to guess.

[Chad Fuck 17682]

In mother fuckers.

[dcbc 14484]

24 minutes ago, ohchaucer said:

and she was 5 inches taller than me I

 

 

Sorry.  English major.

Edited September 27 by dcbc

[Bojack 2081]

I graduated in '97 as an English major. Anyone have Ayers for Shakespeare? I dropped it after 2 weeks. I read and wrote more in those 2 weeks than I did in the entire semester of the other Shakespeare class I took later. 

I had Hilfer for American Lit 316K. I had Milton with that old bastard, Val Leclerq.  I took Early British Romantics and Later British Romantics. Later was with Heinzelman. The Romantics were fun. They were like rappers, always having beef with each other.  Postmodernism was one of the best. Can't remember the professor's name. Modern Short Story was excellent. Professor Bremen was one of my favorites. Had some kind of later American Literature course with him. 

[dcbc 14484]

30 minutes ago, Bojack said:

I graduated in '97 as an English major. Anyone have Ayers for Shakespeare? I dropped it after 2 weeks. I read and wrote more in those 2 weeks than I did in the entire semester of the other Shakespeare class I took later. 

I had Hilfer for American Lit 316K. I had Milton with that old bastard, Val Leclerq.  I took Early British Romantics and Later British Romantics. Later was with Heinzelman. The Romantics were fun. They were like rappers, always having beef with each other.  Postmodernism was one of the best. Can't remember the professor's name. Modern Short Story was excellent. Professor Bremen was one of my favorites. Had some kind of later American Literature course with him. 

I had Ayers for Shakespeare.  It definitely sucked.  I survived, but didn't excel. 

[South Austin 52507]

English major, Class of 1996.

I had Betty Flowers for Victorian Literature. She was cool and popular with the students, and although starting to get up there in age I thought she was a cutie.

Evan Carton was one of my favorite professors in college. Took four of his American literature courses, and American Renaissance kicked all kinds of ass. He made us write our asses off. I’m always grateful that he wrote me a recommendation for law school.

Took a course on Chaucer, and don’t remember the professor’s name, but she was pretty good, and we had to read everything in Old English and a translation guide was one of our source materials. She would talk about pretty explicit sexual stuff in Canterbury Tales like licking ass without so much as a blush.

I don’t remember much else. I took a lot of courses in the Government department that were pre-law-ish. Two from Alan Sager, who had a reputation for being a pompous conservative, but his courses really prepared me for law school (reading and analyzing case law and Socratic method), and he genuinely liked being around students and would meet up with them about once a week at Trudy’s. I also had Harold Perry for Civil Liberties, which I loved. He teaches full time at the law school now, I think.

Some students in the engineering and business school might think an English major is a breeze, and I’ll concede that it’s easier than those majors. But the English department at UT was pretty challenging and rigorous, and they definitely make you a better writer and critical thinker.

Edited September 29 by South Austin

[dcbc 14484]

On 9/29/2024 at 10:34 AM, South Austin said:

I’ll concede that it’s easier than those majors.

It is if you can write well.  And I, without any doubt, would have my ass handed to me in any sort of math-heavy major.  But after years spent in a career where all I do is write and read others' writings, I've come to the conclusion that most people are not above-average writers.

Edited September 30 by dcbc

[South Austin 52507]

1 hour ago, dcbc said:

But after years spent in a career where all I do is write and read others' writings, I've come to the conclusion that most people are not above-average writers.

True. And in my 25 years of practicing law, I still come across A LOT of lawyers who, even after three years of law school and several years in the profession, are very poor writers. 

 

[dcbc 14484]

38 minutes ago, South Austin said:

True. And in my 25 years of practicing law, I still come across A LOT of lawyers who, even after three years of law school and several years in the profession, are very poor writers. 

 

Correct.  Lawyers make up most of my sample pool for that sweeping generalization.  And that's not to say that they may not be good lawyers in other ways.

 

/also, in making that statement, I'm not inviting people to evaluate my posts on Surly for grammar and punctuation.  This ain't that.

Edited September 30 by dcbc

[South Austin 52507]

53 minutes ago, dcbc said:

/also, in making that statement, I'm not inviting people to evaluate my posts on Surly for grammar and punctuation.  This ain't that.

That’s fare;