Author Archives: Liz Foley

About this course

Posted on May 20, 2015 by Liz Foley

I should probably be evaluating this course on the basis of whether or not I learned anything in it that shifted my views about selfhood. Instead I’m going to evaluate it using the secret, selfish criteria by which I habitually … Continue reading →

Posted in Research topics | 2 Comments

Hearing voices…of readings past

Posted on April 19, 2015 by Liz Foley

I see this week’s articles and lectures as having similarities or connections, at least on an implicit level, to earlier readings in the course. An interesting question to ask in connection with voice-hearing might be what the other authors in … Continue reading →

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The social self and the political self

Posted on March 29, 2015 by Liz Foley

It’s fitting for us to have read There Was This Goat immediately after Social. If Lieberman’s book is about the neuroscientific foundations of our social selves, then Krog, Mpolweni and Ratele’s book is about the formation/reformation of a particular kind … Continue reading →

Posted in Mpolweni & Ratele, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Prompt #3: Research overlaps

Posted on March 24, 2015 by Liz Foley

It looks like my topic (practice elevator pitch: “The excluded self and the anti-narrative impulse in the gay memoir”? Needs work) has some overlap with both Berni’s (identification/empathy between the reader’s self and the selves of fictional characters) and Mari’s (narrative psychology). … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Prompt #2: Research topic

Posted on March 24, 2015 by Liz Foley

I was struck by Kevin Killian’s speculation, in the preface to Matias Viegener’s book, that there is something in gay men’s lives that “resists taxonomy in some fundamental manner,” which he supported by citing other examples of fragmented texts by … Continue reading →

Posted in Research topics | 2 Comments

Prompt #1: Lieberman analyzed and illustrated à la Gaipa

Posted on March 24, 2015 by Liz Foley

The original description of the first prompt has mysteriously disappeared, but if memory serves, what I’m responding to is option B, which asked us to explain Lieberman via a Gaipa-style cartoon. I can’t remember now whether the prompt required that … Continue reading →

Posted in Lieberman, Mark Gaipa | 3 Comments

A random number of nonrandom things about Matias Viegener

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Liz Foley

1.  True fact: I started writing this post on Friday, before Professor Tougaw sent his email about posting in “25 things” format. I had already thought about posting á la Viegener, but had rejected the idea because I thought that … Continue reading →

Posted in matias viegener, Wayne Koestenbaum | 2 Comments

How to lose friends and alienate powerful CUNY faculty

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Liz Foley

Wayne Koestenbaum was the keynote speaker for the English Students’ Association conference a week or so ago; I knew him by reputation and thought about going to see him. But it would have required leaving work early, and I was … Continue reading →

Posted in matias viegener, Nancy K. Miller, Wayne Koestenbaum | Tagged | 4 Comments

Discussion questions: Casey and Hacking

Posted on March 1, 2015 by Liz Foley

1.  What characteristics or elements, in your opinion, does a work need to display in order to be categorized as a novel? Does The Man Who Walked Away — a fictionalized characterization of two real-life historical figures whose plot is, … Continue reading →

Posted in Discussion Questions, Ian Hacking, Maud Casey | Comments Off on Discussion questions: Casey and Hacking

Two peripheral (?) observations

Posted on February 22, 2015 by Liz Foley

While reading Damasio and Noë, I noticed in passing a couple of details that might not, in the end, have any relevance for their work at large, but that were striking enough to make me wonder. In his TED talk … Continue reading →

Posted in Damasio, Noë | 2 Comments