This course has definitely been one of the more unique ones I have taken (and I have taken quite a few by now with this being the final semester of my four-year degree that I extended to five years). At the start of this course, the goal and purpose of this literature course sounded similar to the other literature course I have taken. The goal of the other one was to introduce us to Scandinavian authors and literature. I expected this one to introduce us to writers from the Romance world, wherever that was (my vague sense was Western Europe). Well, that notion was dispelled in the very first week when I found out that there is no one specific region that the “romance world” stands for.
I have always been intrigued by the existence of memories and related concepts like experience (how are memories different from experience – there’s an interesting Ted talk by Kahneman on this), illusions (what is a memory and what’s an illusion?), and regret (are memories related to regret more vivid and does our subconscious re-shape them to avoid regret over time?) Getting to explore some of these concepts, with the added complexity of vagueness of memories was quite interesting. Also, loved that this course gave us the latitude to think and engage philosophically with these ideas.
I contracted for the minimum number of readings because I expected to not be able to fit in too many books in my schedule over the term. I am usually a slow reader, but these books were different. I didn’t need to remember details of what had happened on a previous page, I didn’t need to always make sense of the text and try to weave it with logic (thanks Proust). I just had to get a sense of what was happening, what the author/narrator was feeling, and enjoy being part of the narrator’s (sub)conscious. The fluidity of narration of most books made them a relatively quick read.
I had not heard of any authors we read before this class except Proust, which sounded familiar when I read his name on the list of readings. I am glad I got a chance to read some of his work. I’m not sure I’m done with the Romance world just yet though. I couldn’t read more than four books this term, but I have a feeling I will end up picking up more books from the reading list in the future. 🙂
aliyah
April 4, 2022 — 4:35 pm
Hi Pulkit,
“are memories related to regret more vivid and does our subconscious re-shape them to avoid regret over time?”
This is quite an interesting question! Personally, I look back on memories a lot and think about how I could have done things differently/better, but then I also remember that I was a different person back then, and I’ve grown and learnt a lot since then. I think it’s more about consciously accepting the past and moving forward. Perhaps learning from our past mistakes is related to our subconscious actively avoiding regret?