Author Archives: Berni Moestafa

Course review

This course’s reading lists provided a good balance of books in what is a broad and ambitious subject to tackle. In fact, just as Liz pointed out, I would not have read many of the readings on my own but … Continue reading

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Hustvedt’s Burden

Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin is a novel that contains a novel and, while not as obvious as Atwood’s approach, Siri Hustvedt’s The Blazing World felt like a similar experience by containing a character inside a character. That is to … Continue reading

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Discussion Questions: There was this Goat

First of all, I could not help but compare the book with my own experience as a former journalist and how the mundane job of transcribing and translating could, in this book, become the central task out of which an … Continue reading

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Prompt #2 The Self and Fictional Characters

My planned research topic looks at how the Self blurs with the identities of fictional characters when reading a novel. A good story compels readers to suspend their Self as they become another person. A group of boys and girls … Continue reading

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Prompt #1 Lieberman and Nietzsche

1. Find an idea or claim that Lieberman can only make in response to a source. Describe how he uses the source, using Mark Gaipa’s categories: Lieberman cites Friedrich Nietzsche as saying that: “Whatever they may think and say about … Continue reading

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Damasio and Lieberman

While both have their root in neuroscience, Matthew Lieberman and Antonio Damasio differ about the idea of Self. Damasio sees the Self as an elaborated tool the brain concocts to ensure the hemostasis of an organism within an environment in … Continue reading

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Autobiographical Self in its State of Balance

Maud Casey’s novel contains plenty of pieces that, just like Elizabeth’s puzzle, shapes one’s identity into a whole. Among these pieces what strikes me as central, at least to the Doctor’s attempt in helping Albert regain his Self, is the … Continue reading

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A Mind on its Own

In the first few chapters of the books The Feeling of What Happens and Self Comes to Mind, Antonio Damasio takes on the mystery of consciousness by grounding his answers to the biological foundation of the mind. Of particular interest … Continue reading

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