Some reading, some talking

Everyone's reading in A Journal of the Plague Year, and should, according to the last prompt, have been keeping track of "reflections, questions, observations, and problems" that arise in reading, and have posted the results on Animadversions upon the Journal of one Henry Foe, Esq., and should have a printed copy with you.

If you forgot to print it out, you might want to go do that; I've got some copies I've printed out, but we probably need more than one. If you didn't read and / or write, go do that.

I'd like us to spend the first part of class reading these documents. What you should do as you read is mark, clearly, by putting a box around the text, things you think worth noting -- that we should discuss, or that you have a comment on, or that just strike you as valuable. When we've spent enough time that everybody has read a half dozen or so, we'll open the floor for discussion

At the end of class, hand me your marked-up printout; I'm going to try to excerpt the most-marked passages and make them available on the Web site.

For next time

Finish reading the Journal, and find and read at least one critical comment on or characterization of the Journal that you think worth thinking about -- because it's illuminating, because it's wrong, because it raises an important issue. It should have some scholarly weight -- that is, it should have been written by someone, or published in a context that, inspires trust (or at least taking seriously).

Transcribe and post it on the Animadversions forum (use the author of it as your title), and explain in a sentence or so why you think it worth knowing about. Post this by Sunday night, so that we can all read them and be ready to discuss them on Monday afternoon.