Seminar:
Jesse is a careful reader and is able to place his contributions in the text under discussion. His participation ranged
from pure wit to insightful commentary. Because of what one student described as a "Lord of the Flies" ethos, Jesse
was sometimes simply an informed audience to the pandemonium. Nevertheless, when there was something at
stake, he found a way to insert himself in the various cross-currents. He's a connoisseur of satire and, as such,
could provide clarifying and text-based observations.
Written work:
Jesse wrote a variety of satiric, essay-istic pieces during the quarter. He wrote a piece, "Blade Runner, A Movie by
William Burroughs" as a template/springboard for shaping his impressions about therapism and health care in
futuristic scenarios which seem to run from the very present, which is to say we have passed the threshold into a
science fiction dystopia where people compete for diagnoses in the DSM and where genetic eugenics distribute
their leveling effects.
His portfolio demonstrates his active attendance at lectures where he took notes that are so detailed that they
helped me recall events, discussions, occasions that would otherwise have escaped my memory. These intense
scribblings further show his drive to capture and organize the essence of the program.
Jesse's work came to fruition in "Interview With an Anti-Christ." In this faux interview format, Jesse invents a
perfectly rational and absolutely crazy person who has complete recall, detailed and precise, of his initiation into a
cult of the devil. His story is drawn out by a perfectly neutral interviewer who asks question that don't so much
probe as they do elicit the Anti-Christ's loquacious and kinky narrative responses. As the Anti-Christ fills in his
story/hallucination, he remains quite lucid, exceptionally articulate, an expert who has developed himself as the
object of study. What the Anti-Christ reveals is so completely conceived, so well-crafted, so detailed and precise, and
so sound in narrative terms that the reader is set back on her heels by the sheer force of verisimilitude: it seems
too real. We are delivered the blow-by-blow of seduction and other occult activities (in a tree house!) so that if this
crazy person isn't telling the truth then we are left helpless as we look for ideas about where (or why!) he got his
information. In developing this strange history, Jesse takes on the issues of altered memory, suggesting the almost
overwhelming power that can be claimed by self-identified victims via the instrument of the willing therapist.
Another way in which Jesse anchors this piece is through his Anti-Christ's knowledge of history and the sacred
texts of Satan worshippers. He calls forth the works of Aliester Crowley whose 19th Century spiritualist
power-mongering cast a shadow over the likes of Yeats and other elitist seekers after extraordinary--special--forms
of experience. This is consummate Jesse whose intellectualism, eclectic researches, and disciplined scholarship
give him a strong grasp of historical sources and influences on present public issues. In fulfilling the assignment to
write satire Jesse met and exceeded the mark. He created a world in which the facts that he presents could be real
or, if they are fiction, it makes little difference because every crack and crevice is filled in with well-crafted
narrative event. The ironic tone is so steady that it takes a truly smart reader to understand the more erudite jokes,
allusions, and cultural critique. Jesse's interview with the Anti-Christ is a tour-de-force.
Suggested Course Equivalencies (in quarter hours) TOTAL: 16
6 - Satire
6 - Sociology
4 - Cultural theory
FICTIONAL SOCIOLOGY
SYLLABUS Fall, 1998
Faculty: Bill Amey, Chuck Pailthorp, and Sara Rideout
Photography, graphic imaging: Hugh Lentz and Steve Davis
This was a program with a premise: that therapy-variously known as the therapeutic mentality, the therapeutic
response, the Therapeutic (Philip Rieff), Therapism (Fay Weldon) enlarges the scope of human suffering. During the
first weeks of fall quarter, we developed this premise by reading historians and social theorists who have described
the development of modem institutions-schools, hospitals, prisons-and institutional power.
Our principal question was, How does one respond to the Therapeutic?" In some senses, this is a silly question. Is
there something wrong with therapy, with trying to help those in need?, is the obvious rhetorical response to our
premise. If therapy causes problems while solving others, the only reasonable response is to improve therapy, to
solve the secondary problems as they arise. In this program, we tried to see if it is possible to avoid being
reasonable when dealing with the Therapeutic. To that end we taught the students satire.
Satire-literary and political-was, for us, a model for responding to a given social problem, issue, ideal and to all the
helpful people who assemble around a problem. We read books and saw films that did political and literary satire.
Students and faculty worked in groups to make responses to particular issues they chose to study. Since satire
provides a variety of discursive and visual strategies, students could work in photography, script writing, story telling,
graphic imaging, video, essay writing.... They were free to choose their medium. Mastering some of these
persuasive tools should have given students a critical edge with which to target the rise of therapism.
The program met twice each week in all-group meetings, once for lectures, once for films. Students attended two
seminars each week. Some students learned photography and graphic imagining techniques; others attended
writing workshops. Readings for the quarter included, Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back Erasmus,
In Praise of Folly, Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub, Al Franken, Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot,
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Dave Hickey, The Invisible Dragon: Four
Essays on Beauty, Charles Lemert, Social Things: An Introduction to the Sociological Life, Allan Young,
The Harmony of Illusions: The Invention of PostTraumatic Stress Disorder, Lenny Bruce, How to Talk
Dirty and Influence People: An Autobiography, C. Wright Mills, "On Intellectual Craftsmanship," Fay Weldon,
"Where Women are Women and So Are Men," L. J. Davis, "The Encyclopedia of Insanity," Joan Acocella, "The Politics
of Hysteria," Ivan Illich, "Life, Death, and the Boundaries of the Person," and John L. McKnight, "John Deere and
the Bereavement Counselor," Edgar Z. Friedenberg, "Truth: Upper, Middle, Lower."
"Friends don't let friends be sanctimonious"
Garrison Keillor