These are all first lines from various essays or books--I think they're all generally recognized as "classics." Have at em... Name of Author? Name of Work? 1) National liberation, national renaissance, the restoration of nationhood to the people, commonwealth: whatever may be the heading used or the new formulas introduced, decolonization is always a violent phenomenon. 2) Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island’s beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. 3) On a visit to Beirut during the terrible civil war of 1975-1976 a French journalist wrote regretfully of the gutted downtown area that ‘it had once seemed to belong to…the Orient of Chateaubriand and Nerval.’ 4) By mid-December, 1914, British troops had been fighting on the Continent for over five months. 5) Herein lie buried many things which if read with patience may show the strange meaning of being black here in the dawning of the Twentieth Century. 6) This is a very great book by an American genius. 7) It has been remarked, my Hermippus, that, though the ancient philosophers conveyed most of their instruction in the form of dialogue, this method of composition has been little practiced in later ages, and has seldom succeeded in the hands of those who have attempted it. 8) The object of this study is the condition of knowledge in the most highly developed societies. 9) For many years now historians have preferred to turn their attention to long periods, as if, beneath the shifts and changes of political events, they were trying to reveal the stable, almost indestructible system of checks and balances, the irreversible processes, the constant readjustments, the underlying tendencies that gather force, and are then suddenly reversed after centuries of continuity, the movements of accumulation and slow saturation, the great silent, motionless bases that traditional history has covered with a thick layer of events. 10) If we compare the relative progress African Americans have made in education and employment to the struggle to gain control over how we are represented, particularly in the mass media, we see that there has been little change in the area of representation. 11) The main question to be answered in the __________ is: What does Justice mean, and how can it be realized in human society? 12) In English writing we seldom speak of tradition, though we occasionally apply its name in deploring its absence. 13) Since we see that every city is some sort of partnership, and that every partnership is constituted for the sake of some good (for everyone does everything for the sake of what is held to be good), it is clear that all partnerships aim at some good, and that the partnership that is most authoritative of all and embraces all the others does so particularly, and aims at the most authoritative good of all. 14) It is strange that philosophers have been able to argue endlessly about determinism and free will, to cite examples in favor of one or the other thesis without ever attempting first to make explicit the structures contained in the very idea of action. 15) After considering the historic page, and viewing the living world with anxious solicitude, the most melancholy emotions of sorrowful indignation have depressed my spirits, and I have sighed when obliged to confess, that either nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the civilization which has hitherto taken place in the world has been very partial. 16) Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. 17) While the problem of humanization has always, from the axiological point of view, been human kind’s central problem, it now takes on the character of an inescapable concern. 18) When Marx undertook his critique of the capitalist mode of production, this mode was in its infancy. 19) To raise the question on the nature of narrative is to invite reflection on the very nature of culture and, possibly, even on the nature of humanity itself. 20) Perhaps without being much noticed yet, a fundamental transformation in the history of Marxism and Marxist movements is upon us. 21) An old photograph in a cheap frame hangs on a wall of the room where I work.
First of all, you're a rat-bastard for sending me to my basement to rummage around in dusty books again, after Gringo Tex just finished doing the same thing. I got some of them, anyway. 1) National liberation, national renaissance, the restoration of nationhood to the people, commonwealth: whatever may be the heading used or the new formulas introduced, decolonization is always a violent phenomenon. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth 2) Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island’s beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. A people’s history of the united states, by H. Zinn and J. Zinn 3) On a visit to Beirut during the terrible civil war of 1975-1976 a French journalist wrote regretfully of the gutted downtown area that ‘it had once seemed to belong to…the Orient of Chateaubriand and Nerval.’ Said, Orientalism 5) Herein lie buried many things which if read with patience may show the strange meaning of being black here in the dawning of the Twentieth Century. The souls of Black folk, WEB Dubois (happy 100th anniversary) 20) Perhaps without being much noticed yet, a fundamental transformation in the history of Marxism and Marxist movements is upon us. Anderson, Imagined Communities And here's a guess, because I can't find it: 11) The main question to be answered in the __________ is: What does Justice mean, and how can it be realized in human society? Rawls, A theory of justice?
7: Hermippus... That would be Hume's Dialogue Concerning Natural Religion. 12 is most definitely T.S. Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent" 16: Sounds like Orwell in "Politics and the English Language." 21 sounds like Orwell as well, either Road to Wigan Pier or Down and Out in Paris and London. I'm going to guess Wigan Pier. 19: Is that Fredrick Jameson's The Prison House of Language? If not, may I change my guess to Jameson's The Political Unconscious? 11: Is that Rawl's Theory of Justice? EDIT: evidently not. Hmmm. well, since the blank isn't "theory of Justice," maybe it's "Republic." So I"m going to try Plato's Republic. On my wife's advice, that is.
I knew there had to be a Foucault in there somewhere. 9) For many years now historians have preferred to turn their attention to long periods, as if, beneath the shifts and changes of political events, they were trying to reveal the stable, almost indestructible system of checks and balances, the irreversible processes, the constant readjustments, the underlying tendencies that gather force, and are then suddenly reversed after centuries of continuity, the movements of accumulation and slow saturation, the great silent, motionless bases that traditional history has covered with a thick layer of events. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge and Discourse on Language
Dr. Wankler was correct on 7, 12, 16, incorrect on the others. bunga got the Foucault one, so that leaves the score: bungadiri 6 Dr. Wankler 3 Ferris Beuller 1 eleven to go... Get them quick before Gringo, pething, Michael K, or irvine show up.
Re: Re: Opening Lines Quiz: The Non-Fiction Version Oops, missed that one. Correct. Dr. Wankler has 4, with an Assist to Missus Dr. Wankler.
This one was niggling at me for a while: 19) it is by Hayden White in his "The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality," 15) Mary Wollstonecraft in her "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" 8) "The Postmodern Condition" by Lyotard?
13 is Aristotle's Politics. All the rest that I knew are already taken, although number 10 has put me (I'm sure erroneously) in mind of Henry Louis Gates
Oh, wait. 18 is Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," right? Now I'm really peeved that I got in on this late.
No worries...this is only Round One. Current standings: bungadiri 6 Dr. Wankler 4 Ferris Beuller 4 irvine 2 riverplate 1 The following ones remain. Hints now following each one: 4) By mid-December, 1914, British troops had been fighting on the Continent for over five months. HINT 1: Argues that WWI was more ironic than any war before it in that it actually put the lie to the Idea of Progress 10) If we compare the relative progress African Americans have made in education and employment to the struggle to gain control over how we are represented, particularly in the mass media, we see that there has been little change in the area of representation. HINT 1: Contains an infamous chapter on Madonna as the "quintessential white girl." 14) It is strange that philosophers have been able to argue endlessly about determinism and free will, to cite examples in favor of one or the other thesis without ever attempting first to make explicit the structures contained in the very idea of action. HINT 1: Nobel Prize winner 21) An old photograph in a cheap frame hangs on a wall of the room where I work. HINT 1: Title of this collection of essays was inspired by another book on this list
I'm pretty sure the author is bell hooks but I don't know her work well enough to name the particular book/essay.
4) Paul Fussell: THE GREAT WAR AND MODERN MEMORY 14) Jean-Paul Sartre: CRITIQUE OF DIALECTAL REASONING. Or "Existentialism is a Humanism." 10) Based on the hint: Dennis Rodman: BAD AS I WANNA BE.
4) Correct 14) It was just answered correctly a few posts ago: Sartre's "Being and Nothingnes." 10) So close! (Actually, someone has alredy noted the correct author as bell hooks)
Me: Honey, what book did bell hooks write about Madonna in? Mrs. Dr. W: I'm watching Law and Order. Wait 'til the commercial. Me: But it's important. Mrs. Dr. W: Are you on line talking to your invisible friends again. Me: No. Well, yes. Mrs. Dr. W: Why do you need to know. Me: Actually, I'm writing my syllabus for next semester and I'm thinking... Mrs. Dr. W: You're teaching basic writing. I don't think bell hooks on Madonna is a good idea for that course. Me: Okay, there's this game on big soccer and I'm trying... Mrs. Dr. W: It's in Black Looks. I think the subtitle is Race and Representation. Me: Thanks. Mrs. Dr. W: When are you going to do the dishes?
Correct on "Black Looks" (1/2 pt) That just leaves #21, which thus gets a second hint. 21) An old photograph in a cheap frame hangs on a wall of the room where I work. HINT 1: Title of this collection of essays was inspired by another book on this list. HINT 2: Contains "Is Nothing Sacred?" a famous essay that begins with the following great line: "I grew up kissing books and bread."
ROUND TWO 22) The following is one of the many myths told by the Bororo Indians of central Brazil, whose territory used to extend from the upper reaches of the Paraguay River to beyond the valley of the Araguaya. 23) When we look to the individuals of the same variety or sub-variety of our older cultivated plants and animals, one of the first points which strikes us, is, that they generally differ much more from each other, than do the individuals of any one species or variety in a state of nature. 24) Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess. 25) Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was a officer in the Union Army. 26) These words, it seems to me, give us a particular picture of the essence of human language. 27) If at this moment, someone were to ask, “What are you doing?” you might reply “I am reading,” and thereby acknowledge the fact that reading is an activity, something you do. 28) At the end of the World War of 1914, there was a deep conviction and almost universal hope that peace would reign in the world. 29) All states and all dominions that hold and have held power over men have been and are either republics or principalities. 30) The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labor, and the greatest part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labor. 31) World politics is entering a new phase, and intellectuals have not hesitated to proliferate visions of what it will be -- the end of history, the return of traditional rivalries between nation states, and the decline of the nation state from the conflicting pulls of tribalism and globalism, among others. 32) There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience. 33) The primary aim of this book is to explain the remarkable rule which regulated the succession to the priesthood of Diana at Aricia. 34) Toward the end of September 1917, an alien professor of sociology visiting Russia came to see me in Petrograd. 35) The most notable distinction between living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by renewal. 36) It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement—that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life. 37) According to one mode of regarding those two classes of mental action, which are called reason and imagination, the former may be considered as mind contemplating the relations borne by one thought to another, however produced, and the latter, as mind acting upon those thoughts so as to color them with its own light, and composing from them, as from elements, other thoughts, each containing within itself the principle of its own integrity. 38) The study of the novel as a genre is distinguished by peculiar difficulties. 39) The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. 40) We have to begin with the Oriental World, but not before the period in which we discover States in it.