The Grey Literature – Page 29 – The Grey Literature

I just remembered

I just remembered why it is that I posted my review of District 9 under bioethics.

[There is a medium-grade spoiler in this post, so if you want to know nothing about the film before you see it, stop reading.]

I realised while watching the movie that my bioethical training has been having an effect on me. There is a scene toward the beginning of the film, where the main character is about to be cut up and his organs harvested for scientific experiments, against his will, while he is still conscious. When I saw that, I was struck with the horror of the idea of that happening to someone, but in my mind, all my objections were couched in the language of academic bioethics:

“He has not given informed consent for this research!”

“They are breaking the Dead Donor Rule!”

“That action is contrary to all four of Beauchamp and Childress’s principles of medical ethics!”

If you can name all four of Beauchamp and Childress’s principles, then you get 8 points. Two for each one.

Grr …

I did some research for my final paper in my bioethical theory course recently. I was going to write a paper defending the disaggregation of death. It turns out that Halevy and Brody (1993) already wrote the paper that I meant to, and did a better job than I would have.

I think I was able to salvage it, though. I’m writing a paper that uses the Halevy and Brody as a source, but takes up a different question, namely, When is it appropriate to bring in organ donation policy considerations when justifying a definition of death?

I’m actually feeling happier about this paper topic than the last one, anyway. I have more to say about this topic, and I think my abstract is ready for Wednesday!

It was much better than I thought it would be

District 9 was a very good movie. I was surprised. I didn’t think that I would like it, but Pickles and I went to see it and it was certainly worth our time.

There is certainly violence in this movie, but the violence wasn’t gratuitous—it always serves the storyline.

The story itself is engaging and I found the characters convincing. The story also serves to make a commentary on human nature, generally.

This is very grown-up sci-fi, in that the aliens are not there just because it’s cool to put funny make-up on people. (To be honest, I think they were computer-generated anyway.) The way that they look is an essential part of the telling of the story. One immediately has a gut reaction against the “prawns,” due to their physical appearance. The way that one comes around to see things from the perspective of the aliens by the end of the film is a very clever bit of storytelling, and it’s worth the time to watch it.

I liked the way that it ended, with a bit of mystery. As much as I liked this film, I don’t think I would want to see it again, though. It was really quite graphic.

Signposting

Something that one of my students drew for me

Being a TA is one of the best parts of grad school. In the class that I’m a TA for, the first essay of the year was due last Monday. I guess I must have done a good job emphasising good “signposting” in essay-writing in my conferences, because this week, one of my students came up to me and handed me this hand-drawn cartoon that she made while writing her essay.

Some of the other grad students say I should put it up somewhere in the philosophy grad student office.

By the way, I do realise that it’s been over a month since I posted last. Sorry guys! My life is pretty complicated right now, and I don’t want to blog about it yet, because there are people who I need to talk to in person, before I start letting the whole world know what’s up with me. I expect that sometime this week, I will resume regular posting again.

The Bioethics Unit party

Today was the Bioethics Unit party, held at the beautiful home of the director of the Bioethics Unit. I finally got a bunch of long-awaited details on exactly how the programme works.

We discussed supervisors, length of thesis (no more than 100 pages – darn :P) and details regarding the practicum that will be happening in the Winter term. The majority of the evening was spent getting to know my classmates and other members of the Unit.

It was both a “Welcome to the Bioethics Unit” party and a “Happy Retirement” party for one of the profs who will be stepping down as the Unit director.

Pictured to the right are two of my four classmates at Vendome station. They were headed in the opposite direction from where I was going, so I took the opportunity to photograph them from the opposite platform.

Weird to find this in the pages of one of your books

Pickles was looking through some of the books that we don’t plan to keep, either because we have multiple copies, or because we don’t like the book enough to keep it around forever, and she found this. It’s a post-card sized advertisement for the beef that McDonald’s uses in its hamburgers. She was using it as a bookmark at some point in the past.

This is just weird.

If you can give me a good translation of the Chinese phrase at the bottom of the advertisement, you will be awarded 4 points.

The Humanities and Social Sciences Library

A staircase in the Arts and Social Sciences library — A staircase in the Humanities and Social Sciences library

I went to the Humanities and Social Sciences library to try to get a book on Merleau-Ponty. I still don’t get Phenomenology. I found one of the books, but I didn’t find the Cambridge Companion to Merleau-Ponty.

The library is pretty fun, though. What’s most fun, I think, is the rare books collection. It’s climate-controlled and the doors are locked, so you have to be buzzed in by a librarian.

Rainbows are fun

Today, there was a rainbow on my way to class. Fun for the whole family.

Morty’s driving school

We have a friend who goes by the name “Morty.” I can’t believe he’s been keeping this from us. I like the use of clip-art in the sign.

Merleau-Ponty

Maurice Merleau-Ponty is my worst enemy. This is the cover of the newest edition of his book, The Phenomenology of Perception. It is terrible.

I tried to read the Preface, first and fourth chapters for class last week. I read them, read them again, downloaded some articles on them from the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, and even checked out Wikipedia. I still don’t get it.

I went to class, and on the way there, the instructor for my first class, Bioethics Theory, was talking to me, trying to explain what’s going on. I went to the seminar, which was a class discussion, in which the professors didn’t participate. I felt a little better, because at the end, one of the other students asked what the motivation behind Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological project was. That’s philosopher-speak for, “Why on earth did he write this terrible book?”

If the Preface were submitted to me as an essay by one of my third-year students in the class for which I am a TA, I would fail him. He does not define his terms. He does not give a clear thesis. He rambles. I do not like phenomenology.

I spoke to the prof afterward, asking for some help, and she indicated that it’s normal to feel totally confused. That didn’t make me feel much better. I’ll have another go this week. I don’t have a choice. Maybe it won’t be as bad.