Work in Education

This article, which references a recent major study on higher education, indicates that a lot of the current trends in higher education--such as group work--is probably quite worthless. Sitting down alone a few hours with a difficult book, a notebook, and a pen will probably do more for you than finishing a team project that probably did little more than require you to apply some currently fashionable ideas.

Want better students? Make them work by giving them difficult reading and writing assignments.

True Confessions

Should 14 year olds be reading Augustine's Confessions? But of course:

http://www.scriptoriumdaily.com/2011/01/26/augustines-confessions-for-middle-schoolers/

The Pleasure of Damnation

One of the guilty pleasures of the Faust tradition is how much fun the Faust set-up can be. Berlioz's damnation of Faust, for instance, is just pure entertainment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBFfoZKylbA&feature=related

(I don't know what is up with the formatting: I can't get the link to embed properly. Sorry.)

Scaring Ourselves Silly

The Faust legend has been one of the most potent of the modern era. Though Marlowe kicked it off with his play, it really wasn't until Goethe got hold of the story that the narrative blasted off and has not come back down yet. The story of the man who wagered his soul has burned its way through opera, novels, films, comic books, and rock music. Much of the result has been awful (for instance, the hilariously bad film Faustus: Love of the Damned), but some of it has turned out quite well, such as "The Mephisto Waltz" by Listz.

We love playing around with Faust and Mephistophiles, telling stories that edge close to the edge of evil but which pull back at the last minute, like the ersatz fear induced by roller coasters. The Faust legend is a pile of fun, yet there's something curious about our love of this story that is so central to modern Western culture. Most of the Faust narratives depict evil, an evil that has been denatured usually by a romantic love which almost always saves Faust at the last minute.

We are entranced by the power of Love to overcome evil, but we seem fixated on Romantic Love as the source of saving power. Maybe we need to read some more Augustine on True Love. Augustine vs. Faust. Now there's an exciting cage match.