COASTLINE JOURNAL

Van Velde. 1936-41. Collection Samuel Beckett.

One of the joys of the Graduate Liberal Studies program is “discovering” connections between seemingly disparate people and their works. Of course this is the purpose, the raison d’etre, of interdisplinary courses, but it still comes as a pleasant surprise to locate parallels where perhaps one hadn’t imagined finding them. Such is the case with an essay (and its more compact cousin, a journal article) I’m writing now, comparing John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who didn’t want to belong to any club.

A curious book arrived in the mail several weeks ago: Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde, by Charles Juliet (Dalkey Archive, 2009). I am embarrassed to admit that I have yet to read Samuel Beckett’s novels, although the trilogy comprising Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable sits on my bookshelf; I have, however, read and seen performed Waiting for Godot and, recently, listened to an excellent audio version. But who the heck is Bram van Velde? (more…)

Renée L. Haggart, Simon Fraser University

Jane Austen has been both praised and criticized for more than a century over the manner and sparseness of visual description which characterize her novels. While Austen is highly interested in discussing the value of material objects, this is not at all the same as actually describing objects themselves. If such paucity of detail seems counterintuitive to the way in which Austen was known to have described her own work, as the “little bit of ivory” worked with “so fine a brush,” [1] it could be argued that it is due in part to a misinterpretation of this quote. Rather than a painstaking exploration of any one aspect of the minutiae of the material world, the “little bit of ivory” that Austen describes could instead refer to the narrow scope of the private domestic world which is the exclusive subject of her work.  When physical objects do make their occasional appearances and are described in any detail in an Austen novel, however, it is to significant effect. Mansfield Park stands out strikingly as a fine example, and will be discussed below in detail as a testament to Austen’s awareness of the power of objects, and her skill in using minimal description for maximum effect, what Nancy Armstrong calls the “clean line of Austen’s Minimalist art. “ [2] (more…)

Angie Allard, Simon Fraser University

download this essay as a pdf file: Allard_Frankenstein

Jay Hirabayashi, Kokoro Dance. Photo by Peter Eastwood

American philosopher Martha Nussbaum believes that everyone has the capacity for evil and that it is more closely connected with circumstance than with any innate human quality. In Upheavals of Thought she writes,

… in reality it seems likely that all humans are capable of evil, and that many if not most of the hideous evil doers are warped by circumstance, both social and personal, that play a large and sometimes decisive role in explaining the evil that they do (452).

Nussbaum’s argument is supported by empirical research. In his discussion on understanding evil acts, Paul Formosa cites Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments in which students, when told to do so by the researchers, continued to apply shocks to recipients even when they were unresponsive. For Formosa, these experiments were an example of an evil-encouraging situation, one that increases the likelihood of performing an evil act. He explains that individuals always act within a particular situation that, in many cases, allows or even encourages their evil behaviour (Formosa 10). (more…)

The OED defines “flow” as: (noun) “movement in a current or stream;…the gradual deformation of a solid under pressure;…continuous movement;…a flood;…” (verb) to move on a gently inclined surface;…to circulate;…to suffer a permanent, non-elastic change;…to issue or proceed from;…to be in flood;…” Nowhere does it mention capital “F” flow as in the state of aroused hyper-attentiveness coined by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi.

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi uses the term flow to indicate the state of aroused concentration we experience in intense concentration, one in which we are intently focused on a task, activity, or thought to the exclusion of distracting stimuli. He rambles on about it on TED.There are probably more concise descriptions; the book is excellent.

While most often associated with high-level sports (downhill skiing, rock climbing) or religious meditation, I believe we can experience flow in such everyday activities as manual dishwashing or house-cleaning. Certainly I am in a flow state when I am fully engaged in creative writing (as opposed to typing an email): many are the times I have not heard my name being called, or realized the tea I made has been left, untouched and cold, or noticed day has become night.

I’m writing a paper which examines the effect walks in nature had on the philosophies of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Muir. For both men, entering a state of reverie was crucial to the experience;  at other times they were intensely engaged in botanical study, which requires, in the field, a narrow focus of attention on a single plant, and to a single flower of that plant.

If we accept the basic premise of the chart below, flow is not adjacent to relaxation, which one might typically associate with reverie. Yet reverie is not boredom, nor is it simple relaxation. It requires attentiveness, although as Rousseau writes, it “needs only enough of such ideas to allow one to be conscious of one’s existence while forgetting all one’s troubles. This type of reverie can be enjoyed anywhere where one is undisturbed…” (Rousseau, Reveries of the Solitary Walker. 1782. London: Penguin, 2004)

(Chart can be found in either “Flow” or “Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi” wikipedia entries.)

So would reverie be considered a flow experience? Is highly-focused attentiveness reverie or flow; are they the same thing? Perhaps reverie might better be thought of as an open awareness that does not resemble daydreaming, but is more like meditation. Your thoughts?

I’ve been hoping more of you who read some of the essays on this site would consider sending your essay(s) to Coastline. If they are interdisciplinary in nature (for the intelligent reader who isn’t looking for a specialist’s paper), and well-written, we’d like to publish it.