I'm afraid that socialist/communist/anarchist writings would almost teach me how to slander and flatter friends and enemies.

アメリカ観察記断章。何かにつけて大雑把なのがアメリカだが、水周りはとくにいい加減だ。洗面台で手を洗うと、必ず辺り一面に水しぶきが飛び散る。蛇口が微妙に短かったり、水圧が妙に強かったり。明らかに構造的欠陥だと思うのだが、どこにいってもこの状…

"I receive and I give - such is human life. Each directs and is directed in his turn. Therefore there is no fixed and constant authority, but a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and, above all, voluntary authority and subordination.…

The more peer review sessions we have, the more students we miss. I really have no idea how to make them show up. Class dynamics is truly singular each quarter and this time there is weird inertia. Now I'm pretty sure about what I'm teachi…

ここ1週間、読んだ言語の比率があきらかにフランス語＞日本語＞英語になっている。それなのに日常生活言語は英語だ。他人と話す時は英語だし、英作文の授業ではとうぜん英語で講義をする。何なんだろうこの矛盾は。眩暈がして当然の状況だ。 キャンパスで英…

hmm, is it correct to say that the cold war means conflicts b/w communism (Russia) and democracy (USA)? This notion is what I keep encountering in reading students' papers. Since they cannot make any distinction b/w economics and politics,…

An email from AGS: "...you have been selected as a recipient of an Associated Graduate Student Annual Award. In recognition of your efforts working for the benefit of graduate students..." I had no idea why I was selected and took this as …

英語で自己表現することに違和感を覚えないくらいには言葉を操れるようにはなったけど、さりとて、英語が好きになったかと問われると「微妙」としか答えようがない。いや、そもそも、自分の英語がどこまで真っ当なのかもうよくわからない。そこそこのものだ…

数カ月ぶりに楽器に触れる。もともとへぼな腕はますます錆ついていたけど、少しのあいだ我慢してエチュードをさらうと楽器がわずかに鳴りはじめる。うまく言葉にならない歓びと高揚感が心の奥底から湧きあがる。左手は指版に落ち着き、右手の弓が弦をつかま…

I'm always vexed by complaints by students who say "I did what you asked us to do and why I didn't get an A!" Well, why they are SO confident in their own writings, when their analyses are no more than average at best? Interestingly, as fa…

It's always quite a bit fearful an experience to read students' Week 5 mid-term reflection on my class. But this time one student gave me a very flattering comment, which saved me from melancholy. I hope he really felt so, not to please me…

"Three-fourths of the demands existing in the world are romantic; founded on visions, idealisms, hopes, and affections; and the regulation of the purse is, in its essence, regulation of the imagination and the heart." (Ruskin. Unto This La…

In the last meeting I announced: "we'll have a peer review session next time." Today 7 out of 22 students didn't show up. I don't know whether I should feel sad about this, when I have a rather negative view on peer review.

”Absolute justice is indeed no more attainable than absolute truth; but the righteous man is distinguished from the unrighteous by his desire and hope of justice, as the true man from the false by his desire and hope of truth. And though a…

安物のイアフォンでMP3ファイルを再生すると音のバランスが微妙に狂ってしまうように感じる。しかしこのちょっとした歪みのおかげで聞きなれた音源がまるで別物に聞こえてくるから面白い。牧神の冒頭のフルートがホルンのように聞こえて思わずプレーヤーの画…

"The concrete is concrete because it is the concentration of many determinations, hence unity of the diverse. It appears in the process of thinking, therefore, as a process of concentration, as a result, not as a point of departure, even t…

アラン・ギルバート／ニューヨークフィルの演奏を聴いてきた。ドビュッシーの海がトランペットとホルン協奏曲のように聞こえたのは４階席に座っていたせいだろうか。とにかく音響バランスのおかしな演奏だった。しかしラヴェルのラ・ヴァルスは文句なしによ…

It seems to me very fitting to read Der achtzehnte Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte at this moment when a new president was elected in France a few days ago, though I don't mean, of course, that Holland is a Louis Bonaparte, a representative o…

"We, on the other hand, dealing not with the living substance [as Weismann did as regards the soma which only dies in itself and the germ-plasm which recreates and transmits itself beyond itself] but with the forces operating in it [die in…

"Although healthy persons communicate and enjoy communicating, the other fact is equally true, that each individual is an isolate, permanently non-communicating, permanently unknown, in fact unfound." (Winnicott. "Communicating and Not Com…

"Die Philosophen haben die Welt nur verschieden interpretirt; es kommt aber darauf an, sie zu verändern." (Marx. Thesen über Feuerbach.)