Hello RMST 202, my name is Sarah and I’m a fourth year psychology major here at UBC; however, I will be doing 5 years since I love being a student! While I’m taking this course for a literature requirement, I chose this course over others because I heard how fun the content is to read and learn about. How cool is it that we get to pick our grades on the basis of knowing how much reading we have to do? I appreciate this so much since it will help me manage my time as a full-time student and a part-time worker.
Some fun facts about me: I’m from Vancouver Island and moved to Vancouver to attend UBC. I enjoy hiking, playing field hockey, and playing video games like Minecraft and The Sims 4. I’ve recently entered the dog sitting business and I love spending time with animals. I also know nothing about romance studies, but I do love romance!
Anywho, I have some thoughts after listening to the lecture “Inventing Romance Studies” and the conversation video that goes with it, specifically responding to the question, “Where is the romance world?” My first thought was very broad and basic: everywhere. Inspired by Professor Jon’s prodding questions from our introduction class, I feel encouraged to dive deeper and think more critically. So, what does a romance world being everywhere mean? This made me think of the popular Christmas movie (which I watched over the holidays) called “Love Actually.” Its famous line narrated by Hugh Grant came to mind: “If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love actually is all around.” Cue the infamous montage of people reuniting in an airport. How romantic, and sweet! Friends, family, and romantic partners find each other again after some time away from each other. Love seems to be ingrained in all systems. Like International airports, which will have many people speaking different languages…
…Which is a great segway into the course’s preliminary definition of literature: a form of writing that forces us to pay particular attention to how language works and the mechanisms of representation. As Tim said in the conversation video, interacting with a new language can create new constellations. This phrase is even romantic, talking about the stars in a metaphorical way. As such, it seems as though literature itself is a kind of language: a way for self-expression and connection. Hopefully, comparing novels will allow me to understand perspectives outside of the Western world. As a psych major, I’ve learned this pseudonym to describe samples of people: WEIRD. Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. A very large percentage of participants in psychology research studies consist of WEIRD people, limiting the generalizability of a study to universal populations, because believe it or not, most of the world is not WEIRD. Please, less WEIRDness! I’m looking forward to recognizing any overlap between my psychology classes and the information I learn in this course.
With love,
A romantic fanatic.
4 replies on “Introduction: Literature itself as a Language”
Sarah, welcome to RMST 202! I like the way in which you’ve run with the idea and resonances of the word “romantic.” (We will have more to say about that in class tomorrow, I think.)
I hadn’t previously heard of the acronym WEIRD, though I like it, not least because in fact such people are often taken to be the norm, with others cast as “weird” or “deviant” (or whatever). In this course, I think we embrace monstrosity in all its forms, starting with the barbarians who destroyed Rome and were the first to speak “Romance” languages.
Hi Sarah! As a fellow Psychology major, I think it’s really interesting that you’re trying to find the connections between what we’ve learned in our psych courses and what we’re going to learn in this romance studies course. Although they seem to be drastically different areas of study, I think you might be on to something and I’ll now be keeping an eye out for any comparisons that I can draw too. Looking forward to seeing what you’re able to find, and I agree… no more WEIRD-ness!
Hi Maysen,
With Proust: Combray, did you think of Freud’s Oedipus complex at all? That came to mind lolll
Hi Sarah! I really liked this post, especially the Love Actually reference (I love that movie). The way you describe literature as its own language really resonated with me, because it makes reading feel more like something you grow into over time rather than something you’re immediately supposed to get right, which is how I feel too.