Reddit mentions: The best literary movements & periods books

If you want web resources, there's a few good things floating about out there. First is [Erin's Web] (http://www.erinsweb.com/gae_index.html). She offers lessons, which seem to be decent. I haven't used them, because I have the good fortune to have classes, but perusing them doesn't lead to any glaring errors. I would suggest you start there, as it also has the approximate English pronunciation equivalents.

If you want books, there's a few that could be helpful. [Briathra na Gaeilge] (http://www.litriocht.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=795) and [Leabhar Mór Bhriathra na Gaeilge] (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6407961-leabhar-m-r-bhriathra-na-gaeilge) are excellent books for verbs. The first smaller, and has a smaller index, and is easy to carry around and study. The second is huge (Literally titled "Big Book of Irish Verbs"). It contains 112 sample conjugations, as well as a history of the language. On top of that, the index is near inexhaustible, containing over 3,000 verbs, along with their verbal noun, verbal adjective, and a reference to which one they are conjugated similar to.

For general grammar, you have several options. The one my school recommends is [Irish Grammar Book] (http://www.amazon.com/Irish-Grammar-Book-Nollaig-MacCongail/dp/1902420497/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363504088&sr=8-1&keywords=irish+grammar+book) by Nollaig Mac Congáil. It's a good overview of the grammar. However, I would suggest the series of [Basic Irish] (http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Irish-Grammar-Workbook-Workbooks/dp/041541041X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363504147&sr=8-1&keywords=basic+irish) and [Intermediate Irish] (http://www.amazon.com/Intermediate-Irish-Grammar-Workbook-Workbooks/dp/0415410428/ref=pd_sim_b_4) both by Nancy Stenson. They're part of Routledge's series (Essential Grammar, Comprehensive Grammar, etc.), and I really like how that series, as a whole, is laid out. There's an online grammar, Gramadach na Gaeilge as well, though it's slightly more technical than some of the others, and the Christian Brother's Grammar is widely considered to be one of the best.

For nouns, there's [Irish Nouns: A Reference Guide] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Irish-Nouns-Reference-Oxford-Linguistics/dp/0199213755/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363504256&sr=8-1). This books is immense, and awesome. It contains a shit ton of nouns. And also a lot of verbal nouns as well as describing how to decline them and when to decline them. It's an amazing book. I wish I had a physical copy.

For courses, there's the simple [Teach Yourself Complete Irish] (http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Complete-Irish-Audio/dp/0071758984/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363504328&sr=8-1&keywords=teach+yourself+irish) and [Colloquial Irish] (http://www.amazon.com/Colloquial-Irish-Complete-Course-Beginners/dp/0415381304/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363504346&sr=1-1&keywords=colloquial+irish), however one that's used a lot in Ireland is [Búntus Cainte] (http://www.amazon.com/Buntus-Cainte-Ceim-hAon-Edition/dp/1857910656/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363504385&sr=8-1&keywords=buntus+cainte). There are three levels of it, if I'm not mistaken. There's also [Gaeilge Gan Stró] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gaeilge-Gan-Stro-Beginners-Multimedia/dp/0956361447/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363504420&sr=8-1). I haven't used it, but supposedly it's good.

There's also immersion courses, if you have the time and money. One is offered by [Oideas Gael] (http://www.oideas-gael.com/en/), in Donegal. [Another] (http://www.nuigalway.ie/acadamh/cursai/dianchursai_gaeilge/neachtrannaigh_irish.html) is offered in the town called Carraroe, by NUIG. It's the one I've done, and I prefer that dialect.

Which reminds me. That's another thing you're going to need to know: there are three main dialects, one for each province minus Leinster, and the standard official. A brief glance at the [Wikipedia] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language) page will help explain some of the differences.

If you want to practice speaking, there's a Facebook group called [GaelSkype] (http://www.facebook.com/groups/GaelSkype/) which does Skype sessions. Don't worry; you don't have to show your face if you don't want to. Also using Facebook, there's an Irish-language only group called Gaeilge Amháin. Feel free to talk about anything, as long as it's in Irish. There's also several other, smaller groups, depending on your location. Most of them I know of center around Chicago and Indianapolis, however.

I forgot dictionaries! [Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla] (http://www.amazon.com/Focloir-Gaeilge-Bearla-Irish-English-Dictionary-ODonaill/dp/1857910370/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1363505112&sr=8-9&keywords=irish+dictionary) is one of the most respected dictionaries out there, and most comprehensive. However, it only goes Irish -> English. [Foclóir Póca] (http://www.amazon.com/Focloir-Poca-English-Dictionary-Gaeilge/dp/0828817081/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363505172&sr=8-1&keywords=focloir+p%C3%B3ca) is a smaller one (pocket dictionary), which goes both ways. Very useful! Then there's a few websites that help. [Irish Dictionary] (http://www.irishdictionary.ie/home) is a good one, though it can get really, really annoying at times. The same can be said about [Focal] (http://focal.ie/Home.aspx). It's more official, but is really only good for technical terms (like Libertarian, something I looked up the other day.). Google Translate can be helpful, if searching for one word, but I'd check around other places first. [An Focloír Beag] (http://193.1.97.44/focloir/) is a nice one as well, but it's solely in Irish. However, it will conjugate verbs for you, and can find the root based on any conjugation. There's also an [English-Irish] (http://www.amazon.com/English-Irish-Dictionary-Terminological-Additions-Corrections/dp/1857910354/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368104543&sr=8-1&keywords=english-irish+dictionary) dictionary that is the equivalent of Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla. Both of these are now available online here. There's also a new edition of the English -> Irish coming out in a few years, in print. This is the online equivalent of the English -> Irish dictionary, and will be published in print in a couple of years when it's closer to complete. It's useful if you have internet access. [Collins] (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=collins+dictionary++irish+app&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Acollins+dictionary++irish+app) also has an app for both iOS and Android which gives you a free 1-day trial, then costs $10. It's extremely useful as well.

If you want to watch TV in Irish, there's TG4. Most shows are subtitled in English, but the news is not, so that can prove quite useful. To listen, there's Radió na Life and Radió na Gaeltachta. However, RnG plays English language stuff later in the evening, so if you're listening to it in America, it could get bothersome to find Irish material.

If you have no scruples, you can take a boat out of a certain bay. But I don't condone that or link to it.

--------------------------------------------
But to answer your question: I learned at my university, then through two summer immersion programs and a lot of self-study.

There once existed this philosopher named Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (most people just call him Hegel for short). Hegel was an extremely influential philosopher during his time, and many people considered themselves Hegelian philosophers. The thing about Hegel is that he's very difficult to understand, and his works were interpreted in many different ways. Basically, you had three schools of thought regarding Hegel (we'll call them the Post-Hegelian philosophers): right-wing Hegelians, left-wing Hegelians, and another group that was a reaction towards left-wing Hegelians. The right-wing Hegelians believed that Hegel was saying Christianity is basically true, but that the Bible speaks in metaphors. The left-wing Hegelians believed Hegel was saying Christianity wasn't true at all, and thus he was advocating atheism (Marx fell into this category). The final group believed that the left-wingers were correct, that Hegel was saying Christianity was false, and therefore Hegelianism is an evil fraud (Kierkegaard). The final group did not align themselves with the right-wing group, because they felt that the Bible is literal (doesn't speak in metaphors), and that the right-wingers were misled.

Marx puts forward a theory of alienation, where our internal issues can be fixed via society. Kierkegaard believes you can fix your problems by establishing the right relationship with God. However, Kierkegaard also believes that one must fix themselves before anything else. (Marx believes on must fix society, and the fixing of self will follow from that). So, Kierkegaard focuses on self rather than society.

Now, the thing that's kind of interesting about Kierkegaard is that he's not really a philosopher -- in fact, he despises philosophers. He is a literary figure in Denmark who happens to find himself in a Denmark that becomes very Hegelian -- even the religious establishment goes Hegelian. Kierkegaard makes religion the topic on which he constructs his literature, thus his literature espouses much of his religious beliefs.

In Either/Or Kierkegaard puts forward two stages of human existence: the aesthetic stage, and the ethical stage. In order to better understand how Kierkegaard can reconcile his Christianity with his existentialism, it is important to understand these two stages. So, below I go into a very minor amount of detail on them, and in doing so I give you an incomplete picture. This is just scratching the surface, and if you find yourself interested in the subject I highly recommend reading the books I suggest at the end of this post.

The Aesthetic Stage

The aesthete is concerned not with the self, but rather with the world that they live in. They want the world to become a work of art. The aesthete lives for the immediate satisfaction of his senses, which conflicts with the aesthete's ability to reflect on his own life, and the way he in which he lives it. The aesthete moves from one pleasure to another, and enjoys himself, but he lacks introspection. The aesthete is not immoral, but rather pre-moral. Also, aestheticism does not equal hedonism. The aesthete abides by morals insofar as they are not boring or inartistic.

The Ethical Stage

To become an ethical human one first needs to take very seriously the norms of the community. The main thing that distinguishes Kierkegaard from Hegel here is choice. It's not a process of evolution that one becomes moral (Hegel), but rather you choose to be ethical. This means that you also have the choice not to be ethical (existentialism!). There can be no ethical life until you've chosen that there can be a difference between good and bad. In the ethical stage one can reflect on one's life, and thus is accountable for living a moral life (or not). The ethical person no longer sees the world as the most important part of living, but rather he now sees himself as the most important part of the world -- his inner existence is more important than anything else. The ethical person now has the choice to take control of his/her own life, or to not do so. The ethical person works towards being a moral and good person by shaping himself as a moral and good person, thus he is the most important aspect in his being, not society or any other external sources (existentialism!).

The Religious Stage

This is discussed in Fear and Trembling, not Either/Or. This stage is not reached by being ethical or anything else. In fact, it is my interpretation that Kierkegaard actually says the person in the ethical stage cannot reach the religious stage, but that's my spin and I could be wrong -- I didn't mention this, but Kierkegaard thinks that living in the Aesthetic stage leads one to despair, and suicide. However, it is my belief that in the state of despair in the Aesthetic stage, one makes the leap of faith to the religious stage, thus skipping the ethical stage entirely. Again, this could be wrong.

End Stages

So, we are still left with the question, if Kierkegaard looks to the external (i.e., God), then how can he be considered an existentialist? The point that Kierkegaard is making with these stages is that we have a choice in this stages, thus we are responsible for our own lives. We have the choice of being religious, or being an aesthete. We are in control of our own lives, therefore we are responsible for everything that happens to us. It's important to note that these stages are not like Freud's stages of development. An aesthete can choose to be an aesthete for his entire life, and never enter a different stage. An ethical person chooses the ethical stage. Kierkegaard believes deeply in personal reflection, and the fact that we are responsible for our own lives. This is existentialism.

TL;DR (and encapsulated for a 5 year old): It is true that Kierkegaard looks to God, but his work is still existential because he focuses on the fact that we are free to choose our lives, and thus are responsible for how our lives are going. As well, Kierkegaard places a lot of importance on reflecting on ourselves, and the importance of the self rather than the world.

Further Reading

Either/Or

Fear and Trembling

The Living Thoughts of Kierkegaard - This book gives you a clear picture of Kierkegaard's religious beliefs. Also, gives a decent understanding of his philosophy, but not great.

Kierkegaard: An Introduction - This book makes things amazingly clear about Kierkegaard's philosophy.

I'm really glad you enjoyed my reply. It's difficult to learn about these things, unfortunately, and it takes some special study. It's a very foreign time period, and because we know so little about Anglo-Saxon England, everything we do know has been very hard to come by. The world of AS scholarship is very small, and there is very little incentive to reach out beyond that world.

But don't stop pursuing it! When I was in high school, I hated Beowulf and used to joke about how bad it was. We read a terrible, outdated translation from a text book and it couldn't have been more boring. It wasn't until I read the original in college that I saw something in it. But I have the highest respect for high school English teachers. I remember telling my English teacher in my senior year that I was going to be a literary critic, and she told me she believed I would. I can still hear the sincerity in her voice to this day, and it motivated me for years. Actually, now that I think of it, it still does. You do incredible work and probably don't even know it most of the time. I can tell you that I never saw Mrs. Fennimore after leaving high school, and it took me years of reflection even to realize that I'd been so deeply influenced by her.

As to how I know all this crazy stuff: I studied OE for years, ultimately culminating in a phd in English, and I can tell you that OE meter is not something that even many professors of OE lit have a strong grasp of (it was just something I was particularly interested in, so I learned a lot about it). I was lucky enough to study with some of the world's best medievalists, and I learned history (it was my minor), paleography, codicology, dialectology, and historical linguistics, in addition to reading the literature. Most of the professors who were influential to me are retired now. They were old school, and had a very different perspective, and different training, than many current medievalists. The old guard talked about "training" and a "well trained medievalist" like you'd talk about a well trained doctor or mechanic, and I love that. My dissertation adviser is thanked by Heaney in his translation, and produced an illustrated version of it for Norton (it's a beautiful book!).

But academia was not for me. I couldn't help but look around at all the incredible research we were doing, and wonder why no one knew about it. I was in England visiting libraries to do some codicological work one time, and a man and woman struck up a conversation with me in a small, local museum in Winchester (which used to be the capital of England in the AS period). They asked me what I was doing there, and I mentioned that I was studying the Anglo-Saxons. It turned out that they hardly knew who the Anglo-Saxons were or what they did. This struck a chord for me, and I realized that I wanted to do something different with ancient history.

I loved teaching more than anything else I ever did in academia, but there are a lot of sacrifices in time and energy just to keep your job. I made the decision to try to do something else with all the incredible research we've done on the ancient past over the course of the 20th century. It just seemed such a shame that it all seemed so inaccessible to everyone but hardcore specialists. I don't see the point in producing so much incredible research, that people have devoted their lives to, while it just gathers dust in the library. And academia, as you probably know, doesn't recognize anything but monographs and articles as worthy of the scholar's time. I had to choose whether to keep on doing what I was doing, or strike out and try to express all this incredible stuff we've learned about the ancient past, and what's more important, the incredible feeling of engaging the past.

So to do that, I've begun working on the first of what will hopefully be a series of historical novels. If I accomplish a fraction of what I hope to do with the first one, I'll be happy. If few people read it, that will be fine, because no one read my academic stuff either, outside of the very small world that is the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists! As for work, well work's work. It's there to pay the bills so you can do the important stuff.

I wish I could point you in the direction of some resources for self study of OE lit, but there isn't much out there. If you have the time, you could work through a book like Mitchell and Robinson's Guide to Old English, which is what I first learned with. I know that Richard Hogg's An Introduction to Old English is well respected by some of the Anglo-Saxonists I know too. If you know anything about German or Latin, the grammar won't be so foreign to you, since Old English is a case based language. But even if you don't, you could still learn to read OE with some determination and a few months time. To be honest, reading Beowulf is hard, but most other OE poetry and prose isn't that challenging once you get the hang of it. The Beowulf-poet is legitimately on another level though--Beowulf is the crown jewel of OE lit, and reading it with pleasure takes work but it's definitely worth it.

Thanks for your interest. Good luck with your studies!

Having read some of the comments below here are some TV and book suggestions if you're interested in exploring some of Mr. Fry's work.

TV

A Bit of Fry and Laurie a sketch comedy show he did with his friend Hugh Laurie (Dr. House on TV's House. Yes, he's English.)

Jeeves and Wooster Television adaptations of P.G. Wodehouse books. (Wodehouse is definitely worth reading.)

Kingdom A typical quaint village TV show that's not particularly exceptional but is entertaining (if you like British TV).

Stephen Fry in America A really great series in which Mr. Fry drives through the United States in a London style cab meeting locals and making observations.

Also worth seeing: Last Chance To See and Black Adder.

BOOKS

The Liar I recommend this if you like clever writing and unusual stories but I read it well over 10 years ago and can't sum up the plot.

Hippopotamus An odd and humorous tale of a not exactly friendly middle aged man who is asked by an old friend to investigate some unusual goings on at a country estate.

Revenge A clever retelling of a classic story. (I won't name the classic as I wasn't aware it was a retelling until a ways into the book I realized the plot was similar to the classic. So, if you're interested in making your own discovery skip the jacket notes and site reviews.)

Moab Is My Washpot The first of Mr. Fry's autobiographies, this one covers his childhood and teen years. He's completely honest about growing up gay and also about the less than ideal fellow he was.

The Fry Chronicles Mr. Fry's second autobiography which covers his college years and the beginning of his professional career.

The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within A surprisingly interesting and informative book about writing poetry.

INTERNET

The New Adventures of Mr. Stephen Fry Mr. Fry's website.

Stephen Fry on Twitter

Stephen Fry on Tumblr

And for something really interesting and easy to access, watch (or listen to) a video free-form talk he did for a magazine or website. He makes some great observations and points about modern times, life in general, and how to be a happy and decent person.

I'm no expert in Medieval or Old-Norse studies, however I've do have an interest in it & from some searching on various different aspects of the Vikings I come across these:

The Cambridge History of Scandinavia: Volume 1. Prehistory to 1520 it's a anthological survey book consisting of both historiographical and hagiographical (biographies of saints) primary & secondary sources ranging from prehistory ( before historical events were documented) through to medieval history of Scandinavia. It's quite pricey but definitely worth the money if your serious...

>The first part of the volume surveys the prehistoric and historic Scandinavian landscape and its natural resources, and tells how man took possession of this landscape, adapting culturally to changing natural conditions and developing various types of community throughout the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. The rest - and most substantial part of the volume - deals with the history of Scandinavia from the Viking Age to the end of the Scandinavian Middle Ages (c. 1520). The external Viking expansion opened Scandinavia to European influence to a hitherto unknown degree. A Christian church organisation was established, the first towns came into being, and the unification of the three medieval kingdoms of Scandinavia began, coinciding with the formation of the unique Icelandic 'Free State'.

The History of Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Denmark,Finland and Iceland) is similar to Cambridge History yet significantly cheaper

The Viking World by Stefan Brink & Neil Price is a mid-range anthological book compromising of many articles from various scholars.

>I would really appreciate material that covers linguistics.....philology, morphology and the like
As for the other categories, I would really appreciate some introductory material on archaeology.

This book will probably be the best one for you because it includes all of the above.

Myth and Religion of the North: the Religion Ancient Scandinavia this book is a good overview of the different mythologies before the christianisation of the nordics.

Women in the Viking Age is a good book on the niche subject area of Women roles within the viking age nordics & its various colonies (from Greenland to Russia). Jesch uses various pieces of evidence from archaeological finds, runic inscriptions, historical records & Old Norse literature.

I would also recommend you look into the Icelandic sagas & Eddas. I'd use SagaDB because there are many various different icelandic sagas & in a variety of languages including English, Icelandic & Old Norse. If you'd like to go about learning O.N. you check the Viking Society for Northern Research or check out the books: A New Introduction to Old Norse: I Grammar: 1 or Viking Language 1: Learn Old Norse, Runes, and Icelandic Sagas

If you're interested at all in the presence of the Vikings (and later scandinavians) in Eastern Europe check out Viking Rus: Studies on the Presence of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe

Hopefully this helps if you have any more specific questions don't be afraid to ask :)

If you want to write, write.

Most novice writers are not good. I'm not good, but I write because I love writing. Keep writing and you'll become better.

Somethings that I noticed while reading it once-over:

> A half empty whiskey bottle sat on the nightstand, its remaining contents enjoying their final moments of freedom

How is bottled liquid ever free?

> Worldly matters were hardly his concern anymore.

This feeling could be very powerful shown rather than told. Show the reader his feelings through action.

> he whispered.

and

> remarked Craig

And

> he coughed

and

> he slurred

There is nothing wrong with "he said." The impact of 'he whispers' isn't as intense when you frequently use tags like this.

If you seriously want to get into writing, I recommend Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft (8th Edition) by Janet Burroway. It's a great book for beginning writers and has some absolutely fantastic samples.

Best of luck.

It depends what you mean by "Read Runic".

​

Runic Alphabets

Runes themselves are an Alphabet, not a language, each character represents a sound, ᛖ means "E", ᚠ mens "F". Some charicters mean multiple Latin letters, þ means "th" and ᛠ means "ea". I could write the word "East" as "ᛠᛥ"

This alphabet can be used to write most European languages, simply replace the Latin characters with their Runic counterparts. This is easy to learn, simply find a guide online (for example, Google Anglo saxon runes) and replace your normal letters with the Runes. This only took me a few hours to do proficiently. Reading is harder than writing.

There are many Runic alphabets, I use Anglo Saxon because it works well with writing English and Old Norse, but you can choose whichever ones you like, for example Celtic Runes may work better with some romance languages.

Runic Languages

Runic is Also used to write Archaic languages. For example the other Language I wrote in my original comment was Old Norse, I wrote it in the Latin alphabet because it is easier and better for the sounds of the language.

Archaic languages are usually difficult to learn, because there are not a lot of easy to use resources for them. There are some good books on Old Norse, but there is thankfully a lot online for free.

Personally, I use: https://notendur.hi.is/haukurth/norse/

This is a good book if you want to learn more, but it is fairly expensive so make sure you are dedicated!

There are also a few good YouTubers such as Jackson Crawford, who make it easy to understand.

Other Runic languages include Old English, Proto Norse and Saxon. These are all equally difficult to learn, and are usually written in the Latin Alphabet for simplicity.

However, as with any language, Old Norse requires a lot of patience to learn, you need to make notes and practice. Modern Icelandic would be an easier alternative to Old Norse, because it has a lot of resources and fluent speakers.

If you want to Practice Old Norse, you can always look for people on r/Norse, I am still pretty amateur at the language, but you can DM me if you like after you've learned the basics.

Every time questions similar to this pop up, people recommend Neil Gaimen. Well, his book is not bad (I own it), but recommending it to a person asking for a detailed recount of the original myths is downright silly. It's a pretty short collection of myths retold into short-stories by Gaimen. They're well written and absolutely closely based on the original myths, but he still invents new stuff, and again, it's a novel-like retelling, not a detailed account of the actual myths. Here are some further suggestions:

Gods and Myths of Northern Europe by H.R. Ellis Davidson is a great and thorough description of Nose myth and religion by an acclaimed specialist in the field. It's also laymen-friendly.

The Poetic Edda is arguably the single most important source of Norse myths. It's a collection of poems, written down in Christian times but many dating to well into the Pagan era. I've linked the new translation by Jackson Crawford (whose channel is great for learning about Norse myth, btw), but there are others.

Then there's the Prose Edda, which is likewise a very important original source. Whereas the Poetic Edda is a collection of poetry, the Prose Edda sees many of them retold into more consistent prose narrative (hence the title). As a source, however, the Prose Edda is less reliable than the Poetic, since the latter is a collection of actual Pagan myths, while the former is a compilation and retelling by an (early medieval Icelandic) Christian.

The Sagas of Icelanders important sources to Norse myth and particularly religious practice. The Sagas are actual prose stories (and good ones, too), written in the first few centuries after conversion. Figures from Norse mythology, particularly Odin, are often prominent, but the narratives tend not to primarily concern the mythology.

A notable exception is the Saga of the Volsungs, which is one of the most important narratives in Norse myth. Wagner's Ring Cycle and Tolkien's works were both heavily influenced by it. The Volsunga Saga features Norse gods, viking raids, dragon-slaying and much more.

There are more good books, but those ought to be a decent start.

Dear Despondent,

I am not the Highly Qualified Literary Academic you really need, but I've spent enough time in academia to have an opinion anyway.

The vast majority of literary study work that I have come upon in the 21st century consists of incredibly arcane deconstructions of minutiae that have a very small chance of ever helping someone trying to understand literature.

I don't know anything about your professors, but my guess is that they are (a) desperately trying to justify their own existence in the academy by writing material of the type described above — and therefore unable/unwilling to carefully review your work to see if it fits the mold; and/or (b) too unclear on what exactly you should be expected to compose in order to grant you a seal of approval for your own work.

This is a common trend in cultural studies, sociology, and some schools of philosophy as well. I wish I had some advice on how to navigate it all, but I can only tell you, as someone who enjoys reading the 10% of well-written, worthwhile literary analysis that makes it into print: Please make sure your work actually contributes meaningfully to the world, instead of merely pumping it full of more fashionable nonsense to acquire tenure and/or publication.

Good luck!

Kind regards,

HS English Teacher Who Wishes He Could Do More Analytical Scholarly Work Instead of Grading Papers All the Time

So ever since getting into folk metal a few years ago I've been real big on Finnish myth, so much so that I actually give annual guest lectures on it and have done so for I believe five years now. As others have said, Kalevala is your bread and butter for Finnish myth, and is generally referred to as the cradle of Finnish mythology. I would advise you stay far away from the John Martin Crawford translation, as he did a really awkward job of anglicizing some names but not others. If you want something a little more straightforward, I'd recommend the Bosley translation and if you want something a bit more poetical, go for the Kirby translation. All in all its personal preference. Except the Crawford translation, as that's dogshit.

If you want stuff beyond Kalevala, then there are a few more reads worth looking into, namely Kanteletar, which is a book of folk songs, however that one's almost impossible to get a hold of in English.

Something else to take in mind is the Ballad of Bishop Henrik, which gets a bit away from some of the more fantastical elements of Kalevala.

Also, there's a film called The Sampo which is split up into a few parts on Youtube. It's basically an alternate telling of Kalevala which focuses far more on Ilmarinen and Lemminkäinen than the Kalevala's actual protagonist, Väinämöinen.

Aside from literature and film, there's also a bit of art and music which ought to be taken into account. If you want to know about Finnish myth, and if you read the Kalevala, you're going to want to know what a kantele is, and more importantly you should familiarize yourself with this tune as it pops up quite a bit from various sources. Finally, the artwork of Akseli Gallen-Kallela is pretty important to Finnish romantic nationalism, as many of his works depict scenes from Finnish mythology, with the most notable of his paintings being Sammon puolustus/Defense of the Sampo. Anyways, hope that helps. Feel free to PM me if you want more info.

Sartre presented a lecture called "Existentialism and Humanism," which can now be found in print as Existentialism is a Humanism. It's almost like an Existentialism manefesto, per se. The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus is a good treatise on existentialism (Absurdism, really, but it'll do).

I would not hesitate to start reading fiction novels that have Existentialist themes. Camus' The Stranger, Sartre's Nausea, and Dostyevsky's Notes From the Underground are just a few that will find your studies well.

As for secondary literature, the only text I can knowledgeably recommend is Existentialism For Dummies, as I'm currently working my way through it. It's actually not as bad as you might think coming from the "For Dummies" series. It doesn't go too in-depth, and ideas are very concise and oftentimes humorous.

I have also heard good things about David Cogswell's Existentialism For Beginners, though I have never read it myself.

If your niece feels comfortable with this level of writing and philosophical examination, it is almost imperative to read Kierkegaard's Either/Or and Fear and Trembling, Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, and Sartre's Being and Nothingness, among others. It is good to have some background understanding of Kant and perhaps have a few essays by Schopenhauer under your belt leading up to the more rigorous academics like Heidegger and Hegel.

Good luck, and happy reading!

First of all, I'm thrilled that you're committed to continue learning Gaeilge! Like you, I picked mine up from the library also. I've actually had fairly good luck with libraries being willing to do an inter-library loan for materials not in their own system, so even if your local library doesn't have these discs for example, they may be able to acquire them from an affiliated library.


A quick note on the Pimsleur program. One thing you may have encountered is that Irish has a number of unique dialects which are not always mutually intelligible. If I recall correctly, the Pimsleur course exposes you to the Munster dialect (think, Cork for example). As a result, you'll learn Conas tánn tú? for "How are you?" as opposed to Cad é mar atá tú?, Cén chaoi a bhfuil tú?, or Conas atá tú?. Michael O Siadhail's 'Learning Irish' uses a dialect spoken in and around Connemara, for example, so you'll want to check beforehand if it makes a difference to you.


Now, personally I quite enjoy Michael O Siadhail's 'Learning Irish', but I'm hesitant to recommend it as a beginner's book. Routledge puts out the 'Colloquial Irish' CD/Book set focusing on the same dialect, but it's supposed to be a bit more accessible.


Have you seen any of the Living Language courses before? They recently updated their 'Living Language Irish' course. While I've heard good things about this one as an introductory course, I haven't used it, and thus cannot vouch for this one. At ~$35 though, the price certainly seems right. 'Teach Yourself Irish' is an old standby for a lot of folks too, but it might not be what you're looking for if you're primarily interested in speaking.


On the side, I suggest watching programming online via TG4's site. They have a good selection of shows across a wide variety of genres. Ros na Rún is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine...


I haven't tried Rosetta Stone's Irish offering yet, primarily because it's still prohibitively expensive (at least for my tastes), but that's always an option as well. Is it the best? I cannot say, perhaps someone else here has tried it though and could offer their opinion.


Hopefully this helps somewhat. I've found the most frustrating aspect of trying to learn Irish to be the dearth of other students of the language, or even native speakers, near me. The Gaeilge subreddit is a help of course, and there are plenty of Gaeilgeoirí on the net these days, so hopefully if you stick with it you'll be able to eventually arrange some further speaking practice opportunities.


Go n-éirí an bóthar leat!

> I would like to find something with mythology of the gods and goddesses

If you would like a modern rendition of the Irish and Welsh tales, then Peter Berresford Ellis' Celtic Myths and Legends is a good choice.

If you are interested in delving into the lore directly, check out Táin Bó Cúailnge and other tales from Ireland's mythological cycles, or The Mabinogion for Welsh myths and legends. These are also available for free online, but I recommend buying the books if you can swing it because they tend to have higher quality translations and copious foot/endnotes that help put the stories in context and explain things to the modern reader.
> nothing goes into enough detail to connect dieties, or tell their stories, just general "this is the god of this, that and the other"

There are a lot of deities who we have only sparse information about. The majority of Celtic deities were local gods and goddesses, which gives us very few sources of detailed information. However, there are a good number of more widely-worshiped deities about which we know more. The myths and legends I mentioned above are the biggest sources of information about these figures, though we learn a lot of important info from the archaeological record as well.

You can check out http://www.maryjones.us/index.html which we link to in our sidebar. It has some decent articles and sources for many different Celtic figures and gods. If you would like a book that gives good info about archaeology and how it connects to the myths, check out Proinsias McCana's Celtic Mythology.

Wikipedia's Celtic and pagan projects have grown quite a bit, so you can even find some informative articles there with reference lists that can point you to more sources. For that, start with:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_deities

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Celtic_deities

Happily. Here a few few quick resources I found for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_(narrative)

http://www.storymastery.com/articles/34-ten-simple-keys-to-plot-structure

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/how-to-structure-a-story-the-eight-point-arc/


And here a couple references that might interest you if you want more detail on what we generally expect from fiction:

http://www.amazon.com/Plot-Structure-Techniques-Exercises-Crafting/dp/158297294X

http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Fiction-Guide-Narrative-Edition/dp/0205750346


Now, I hope you don't mind if I assume you may feel that I have attacked your opinion of ME3 with my comments. It wasn't my intention to say that you can't enjoy it. Hell, I'm happy for you if you did. But there is a real difference between enjoying something and believing it is good.

In the case of ME3, we can see that some of the most well established principles of writing, thematic and structural elements which are integral to the crafting of a quality narrative, have been abandoned.

If you honestly want to know more, I'd encourage you to take a course in creative writing, or even better, in literary history. With a little background and perspective, you can start to understand why some books, films and games seem to be lacking and why others have a stronger appeal.

EDIT: As I look at your post again, I wonder why you are asking me for specific examples at all, when I have clearly outlined a major structural failing of the narrative in my last post. Oh well, maybe this additional information will be of use to you anyway.

Absolutely read Ulysses. I'm not sure I could have done it without a class to guide me, but if you're clever and determined you can do a decent job on your own. If you do, I'd highly recommend keeping two things close at hand: The Bloomsday Book by Harry Blamires, which gives you barebones but crucial information about what's literally going on in the narrative, and the Oxford English Dictionary.

The great thing about Joyce is that his writing rewards any amount of work – the more time you spend figuring out why the text does what it does, the better you'll respond to the material. So take a class if you can, but give Ulysses another shot. It'll get under your skin in a serious, lifelong kinda way.

The vast majority of the 'witchcraft' books are reconstructionist and 100% shit made up and adapted from myths and legends.

Wicca was created in 1954 and any book remotely connected to "wicca" is 100% reconstructionist, basically the opinion of the author or whoever taught them.

Some authors, Cunningham for example, are far more well respected but in the end you aren't practicing something people did 100 years ago, 1000 years ago, 10,000 years ago. If it's in a book like that it's almost certainly someone's personal folk-magic.

The exceptions to this would be stuff based on earlier sources, like Solomonic magick which mostly draws from texts like Clavicula Salomonis Regis (Lesser Key of Solomon) which is a compiled grimoire or 140 spells from the mid 1600's which may or may not be based on texts from the 1400-1500s.

Unless a book is claiming to be newly divined/gifted information but then it is absolutely someone's interpretation of magick or the alleged interpretation of spirits/entities they were contact with.

Magic(k)/witchraft/druidry/asatru isn't like Christianity where you have a documented history going back 1700 years (Counsel of Nicaea and then moving on to any particular denomination's history which may be tens of years old or 1700ish years old) where you have a documented history.

Just like organized religion, magic(k)/witchraft/whatever is something that is very personal. You adapt what works for you, you adopt what calls to you.

You want to start somewhere? Start with mythology.

• https://www.amazon.com/Myths-Legends-British-Richard-Barber/dp/1843830396/
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Early-Irish-Myths-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140443975
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Celtic-Myths-Legends-Peter-Berresford/dp/0786711078
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Poetic-Edda-Lee-M-Hollander/dp/0292764995
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Edda-Everymans-Library-Snorri-Sturluson/dp/0460876163
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Bulfinchs-Mythology-Legends-Charlemagne-Chivalry/dp/0440308453
  
  
• The Iliad and the Odyssey, just search Amazon for a copy with reviews that speak to you
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/DAulaires-Greek-Myths-Ingri-dAulaire/dp/0440406943
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Pushkins-Fairy-Tales-A-Pushkin/dp/5938934176
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Folktales-Collection-Afanasyev-Dual-Language/dp/048649392X
  
  
  That's a good start.
  
  
  I'd also find the Audubon society book for trees and the like in your area, you should be able to find one for your region on Amazon used for 5-10$. Becoming aware of the plant life in your area will help you be able to find materials from the earth instead of coughing up money to some 'new age' shop or witchcraft supplier like 13Moons or Azure Green for a horribly overpriced piece of wood or herb.

My MFA in Creative Writing is for poetry, so I apologize for the bias here.

One of my favorite books from my MFA program was Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Traveled. I highly recommend it as a primer for poetry. It's very approachable, has great examples, and includes exercises. Plus, it's Stephen Fry, so it has an enthusiasm and charisma that you don't always see in reference books like this.

I'd also recommend having both "free weeks" and structured writing prompts. Especially for people who aren't already comfortable with poetry, having a prompt of some kind can do wonders for getting started. You're likely to have students on both sides of the spectrum, so having a mix of free writing and prompts should be helpful. There are loads of prompts online if you get stumped.

Here are a couple of my favorite exercises:

1. Once they've written a poem (and workshopped it, if you're going that route), have them cut it down to 100 words. Poetry is very much an art form that relies on compression and economy, and this exercise should help them understand just how much they can say in a few words.
   
   
2. This would work for poetry and fiction: When you discuss imagery, pick an object and have them write down as many adjectives as they can for it in a couple of minutes. I usually pick "grass," but any object would work. Then ask what they came up with. In my example, the first words out of their mouths is almost always "green"...and that's the point. This is another compression exercise to a degree, but stress the fact that a reader can supply certain information on their own. Grass is green. Fire trucks are red. The sky is blue. Those adjectives are obvious and therefore not especially interesting.
   
   
3. This would also work for both: Print out a bunch nouns and adjectives (enough that each student can have one set of each), but use "odd" words. Put each group of words in a separate envelope, and then have the students draw one word from each envelope and write a poem or scene with the resulting word pair. They could end up with "forested aardvark" or "celestial palm tree," and hopefully seeing words/concepts combined in new ways will spark some creativity. My poetry "guru" from undergrad said something that always stuck with me: "What you say will not be new, but how you say it should be." It is highly unlikely, nigh impossible, for your students to have an original idea for a poem simply because poetry has a long history...however, they can approach the idea from a different angle, with interesting images and diction, with an apt structure, and convey their ideas in a way that reflects their personalities.
   
   Have fun!

A few? He did the first 88 if I recall. Not the whole thing, but at least it's all of the practical advice section which is best suited for this style anyway.

On a bright note, the author (who shows great skill in translation by being able to accomplish this) is releasing a translation of the whole Elder Edda in modern English later this year.

EDIT: Now that I look again, by later this year I mean in three days. Awesome, now I know where part of my paycheck is going... I needed a new physical copy to supplement my digital anyway. Maybe I'll not give this one away for a while.

Yes, please join us at /r/jamesjoyce. You'll get lots of tips and can ask questions all day long.

In the meantime, here's what worked for me: get one of those audio book versions, for instance, the version we link and read along. That way, you see the words, feel them as they unfold in the book--but, at the same time, you have a professional voice actor relating mood and tempo and pronouncing those tough words. Also, the listening goes much more quickly than reading--you can finish the book in a matter of days--and the ineluctable pull of somebody reciting keeps your motivation up.

Here's another tip: center yourself with a guide such as Harry Blamires's The New Bloomsday Book...he doesn't get everything right, but it gives you a good sense of what's going on.

...Or, watch the wonderful 1967 film, Ulysses, with Milo O'Shea.

Good luck and hope to see you at /r/jamesjoyce!

The best FREE online source (http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/ice/)

The most important works on the subject are the EDDAS, the poetic and prose and your collection cannot be called complete without them (http://www.amazon.ca/The-Prose-Edda-Mythology-Classics-ebook/dp/B002RI9HRU/ref=pd_sim_kinc_8?ie=UTF8&refRID=0M032MEETG0CVXAT539W) (http://www.amazon.ca/Poetic-Edda-Oxford-Worlds-Classics-ebook/dp/B00LKGBK1Q/ref=pd_sim_kinc_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1CGS5F6Q2WWB3HR2DKFR)

Sagas of the Icelanders is a pretty comprehensive book and an easier than scholarly text read (http://www.amazon.ca/Sagas-Icelanders-Penguin-Classics-Deluxe/dp/0141000031/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425947217&sr=1-1&keywords=sagas+of+the+icelanders)

A great historical (a little mythology) view of the Vikings in John Clements the Vikings (http://www.amazon.ca/Brief-History-Vikings-Jonathan-Clements-ebook/dp/B00AJN9KHC/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1425947425&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=the+vikings+john+clements)

A great dictionary/listing of Viking myths can be found in Cassell's Dictionary of Norse Myth & Legend (http://www.amazon.ca/Cassells-Dictionary-Norse-Myth-Legend/dp/0304363855/ref=sr_1_cc_8?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1425947500&sr=1-8-catcorr&keywords=dictionary+of+norse+myths+and+legend)

A great source for the kings of Norway and their (mis)adventuires would be the Heimskringla but there isn't as much mythology in there, more historical (http://www.amazon.ca/Heimskringla-History-Norway-Snorri-Sturluson/dp/0292730616/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425947617&sr=1-1&keywords=heimskringla)

There's a bunch of other sagas you may want to sink your teeth into: Njal's, Grettir's, etc... If you want to listen about some Viking sagas via podcast, I'd recommend Saga thing, both entertaining and informative (https://sagathingpodcast.wordpress.com/)

Some recommendations:

Gods and Fighting Men. This covers a lot of the Irish myths.

The Four Branches of the Mabinogi. This covers a great deal of the Welsh myths.

Celtic Gods and Heroes. This is a brief but decent overview of Gods and Goddesses of Irish, British and Gaulish origin.

The Isles of the Many Gods. I have not yet read this one, but it's on my wish list and sounds about right for you.

Celtic Myths and Legends. This covers it all, but perhaps not as directly focused on the gods as you would like. Its a decent read though.




There are some great online sources for the Welsh and Irish myths. If finances are an issue try them out. Good luck!

For Old Norse, I strongly recommend Jesse L. Byock's Viking Language Series. Getting your hands on E.V. Gordon's work is going to be pretty expensive, and the material is pretty dated and dense. Byock's approach is very beginner friendly while still introducing the reader to the technicalities of the language. In the second book, it's very reminiscent of Wheelock's Latin where you will be asked to translate excerpts from the sagas. Hope that helps!

Welcome!

A Practical Heathen's Guide to Asatru is a great beginner book. Probably essential for new heathens.

If you want to start reading about the gods, the Poetic Edda is our main source for Norse mythology. I recommend Jackson Crawford's translation. I have it, and it is a simple English translation. Crawford also has a great Youtube channel about Old Norse language and mythology. Heathen Talk, the mods' Youtube podcast, is pretty good as well for getting a feel for everything.

I recommend reading it with a Schema in hand, highlight or make note of every time a corresponding item is mentioned in the chapter (color grey in Nausicaa, tumescence by firework exploding) or even read along with a guide book, which I personally found extremely helpful, along with websites like Robot Wisdom (which I guess is now obsolete, unfortunately) or shmoop.

I definitely recommend you doing it with a Gilbert or Linati Schema at first try, finding things out on your own, and then using the other methods when you really want to fully discover a chapter. There is always more to appreciate and find when reading Ulysses, and the deeper you dig in the internet, the more you'll appreciate it.

Just beware the horrors of 'Oxen of the Sun' aka Chapter 14.

I actually found that reading the pertinent sections of the Ulysses guide before each chapter helped.

I liked the Molly section of the book. But otherwise Ulysses really seemed to me to be essentially a written collage or mix tape, in that Joyce strung together so much of what he'd studied and called it a book. Which I don't mean as a slur against mix tapes or collages.

Did reading Ulysses give me insights into existence, as any great work of art should? Hard to say, though that last section was pretty good--not because of what all Joyce did, but because of the sheer disconnect between Bloom and Molly.

Probably I'd recommend reading at least half a dozen other books instead. Heck, Shantaram was more important to me than Ulysses.

The combination of Shantaram, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and A Fan's Notes taught me a lot more than did Ulysses, and they were far more fun, interesting, and quick to read.

Jesse Byock's unfortunately titled but very well-executed Viking Language course has been compared to Wheelock's Latin in terms of its quality, as has Michael Barnes's A New Introduction to Old Norse.

For Old English, I recommend Baker as mentioned below or, if you're like me and like a straight-up grammar, Sweet's A Primer of Anglo-Saxon.

I'm new to Ásatrú but an old hand at ancient languages. Sweet was my grammar in undergrad years ago. PM me if you'd like more info.

Cheers. Honestly, I really recommend reading the actual source material of the Norse sagas where all of these originate from - the Poetic Edda, Prose Edda, Heimskringla, Ynglinga saga, Völsunga saga, Egil's saga, etc. I grew up hearing these stories here in Scandinavia (added: hadn't heard of Ratatoskr until now though) but there are still a lot to discover and appreciate anew even for me. There's a new translation of the Poetic Edda by Jackson Crawford that is supposed to have a much more natural flow to our modern language sensibilities. Often these materials seem translated to sound old, with a rather stale language which makes the wonder and magic of the stories harder to soak up. This new one should be much more natural and possibly more entertaining to read.

Totally worth it. It's a must have for any big fan. It adds all kinds of extra content that wasn't in the books. It's not written by King, but fully endorsed by him. It was developed in part by the work of Robin Furth, King's personal research assistant. Apparently when King started writing the last three DT books, he hired Robin to research the first four and write the concordance. Robin and some other people produced the comics which include stories referenced or not included in the books. The wind through the keyhole was actually dedicated to her and the people at Marvel. Also, the artwork is amazing.

It's great that you're interested! However, you're asking for two different things.

This should be a nice book of the [Anglo-Saxon Chronicles] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anglo-Saxon-Chronicles-Michael-Swanton/dp/1842120034/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521744983&sr=1-1&keywords=anglo+saxon+chronicle) in translation, for a non-academic reader.

As for the language, that's a bit more tricky. As Old English is basically only taught at universities and the ubelievable greed of academic publishers, the prices are more than 20 pounds or dollars for a paperback copy. And these are textbooks for learning the language, mind you. They will explain the pronunciation, the case system, the nouns and adjectives, the grammatical gender, the declension of verbs, the poetic metre, etc etc. They also have some shorter texts in Old English, both poetry and prose, with a glossary at the end.

From those, I'd recommend [Peter S. Baker - Introduction to Old English] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Introduction-Old-English-Peter-Baker/dp/047065984X/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521744924&sr=1-8&keywords=old+english) (my favourite), [Richard Marsden - The Cambridge Old English Reader] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cambridge-Old-English-Reader/dp/1107641314/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521744918&sr=1-5&keywords=old+english) (which is more of a collection of texts and not a textbook for learning the language, though does provide some very limited help), or [Mitchell and Robinson - A Guide to Old English] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Guide-Old-English-Bruce-Mitchell/dp/0470671076/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521744828&sr=1-12&keywords=old+english)

For a non-academic book to learn the language, I don't have any experience with it, but people seem to like it on Amazon, so it's [Matt Love - Learn Old English with Leofwin] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Learn-English-Leofwin-Matt-Love/dp/189828167X/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521744828&sr=1-4&keywords=old+english). There is also a book+CD set by [Mark Atherton - Complete Old English: Teach Yourself] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Old-English-Teach-Yourself/dp/1444104195/ref=sr_1_14?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521744446&sr=1-14&keywords=old+english)

That is true, in a sense, but not wholly accurate.

The idea that Ahti Saarelainen (his epithet means of the Island, the Island being a locale in Finnish mythology) is the same character as Lemminkäinen is for the most part a 19th-century literary invention. (A few poems suggest this, but it's evidently a late addition.) It is mostly the handiwork of a certain Elias Lönnrot, who, at the middle of the 19th century, compiled a number of Finnish and Karelian poems to create a Finnish national epic, the Kalevala (Finnish for "the land of Kaleva".)

In actual Finnish mythology, Lemminkäinen is a character who appears uninvited at to the feast of the gods, is killed by the host, thrown to the river of the Underworld (Tuonelan joki) and then resurrected by his mother. Since this myth includes the motif of death and rebirth and the name Lemminkäinen bears an similarity to the name Lempo and the Finnish word lempi or "love", some researchers have surmised that Lemminkäinen was actually a male god of fertility and love, somewhat akin to Freyr (or Baldr, considering the manner of his demise).

Ahti, on the other hand, is not a mythic character, but a mortal hero. Ahti is a warrior and a raider - a Viking, if you will - who swears a double oath with his newlywed wife Kyllikki that he should never again go to war, while she vows to never visit another man. A long poetic passage describes Ahti's ship lamenting its fate, having to lie on the shore while other ships bring home gold and silver. Kyllikki breaks her oath, and as a result, Ahti breaks out his weapons, assembles his old warband and sails off. He first goes to Finland to fetch Teuri, a skilled navigator. The ending of the poem is not known, since it usually trails off or merges into another narrative, such as the story of Lemminkäinen.

I hope this is helpful to you. Very little in general is known about Finnish mythology - we don't have any written pre-Christian sources for Finnish myths like we have for Norse ones, just oral poems. If you're interested in Finnish mythology, the best source is probably Wikipedia, although the quality of the articles varies heavily. There's also this paperback translation of the Kalevala, if you're willing to have a go at that.

Otherwise, English sources are practically nonexistent, which is a shame, really.




^This ^recontruction ^is ^the ^courtesy ^of ^the ^Finnish ^folklorist ^Matti ^Kuusi. ^The ^original ^poems ^are ^fragmentary ^and ^contain ^conflicting ^information, ^but ^this ^reconstructed ^version ^holds ^water ^reasonably ^well.

I want to also plug an awesome pagan religious work; the Nordic “Bible”: the Poetic Edda.

You reminded me of it when you said the ‘thirukkural’ was written like psalms; the Edda is a collection of poems telling many stories that is like that too, with parts giving words of wisdom accredited to Odin himself. A recent 2015 translation by Dr. Jackson Crawford is very good.

I've been in a mode for a while of reading only classics--which, of course, everyone already knows of. It's been a long time since I picked up a completely random book without knowing the author or something about the title.

With a few exceptions. Two weeks ago I was at B&N and wandered into the "Essay" section (which has some surprisingly good stuff) and there found, and immediately loved, a volume of Celtic Myths. This one as a matter of fact. I think it was the cover that drew me in, as well as a general love of myths (largely thanks to Tolkien.)

It’s a great little book, Mark Atherton is a brilliant scholar of Old English (and his work on Tolkien is equally good, if you’re a fan). It starts very easy, then works up through real texts and cultural context. The same is true of Hough & Corbett’s Beginning Old English– lots of original sections of prose and poetry, starting with basics and building enjoyment alongside the language.

If you want something that’s more academic from the start, I’d recommend Peter Baker’s Introduction, which contains a good grounding in grammar more generally, or the more linguistics-based one by the late Richard Hogg. The best overall textbook is undeniably Mitchell & Robinson’s Guide – but it is dense and (despite what the authors claim) not easy to use in independent study. Their sections on syntax are vast and comprehensive, however, so that might be what you’re looking for.

A much less serious but still worthy book is The Ode Less Traveled.
https://www.amazon.com/Ode-Less-Travelled-Unlocking-Within/dp/1592403115

It only really covers meter and classic forms, but it's very fun, has great examples and exercises to try at the end of every chapter. Plus you can get it for less than 10usd.

I've found Peter Berresford Ellis is a good author to seek out for an introduction at least. He breaks the Celtic world down in very informative way that's easy to digest. He has a book called The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends but it is not available in an audio format as far as I know. For me it has the best compilation of Celtic folklore, drawn from some of the most popular stories. There are sections where he addresses the history and culture of the various Celtic peoples, but the stories are largely all told via narrative. But again, no audiobook.

Another of his books, A Brief History of the Celts, does have an audio version. However, it's much more focused on history, culture and society. There's some mention of Celtic folklore but not presented in a narrative fashion.

I did a [quick search] (https://www.audible.com/search/ref=a_hp_tseft?advsearchKeywords=celtic%20mythology&filterby=field-keywords) on Audible and it gave me quite a few audiobooks on Celtic mythology and folklore, but I haven't listened to any of them so I can't speak to their quality.

I just looked it up (I was in bed last night when I posted the previous message) and it seems Birthday Girl is in the Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman collection. So if you want more short fiction that's probably the best route to go.

If you're interested in jumping right into a novel, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is one of his most generally well received novels and a good place to start for some of the signature Murakami weirdness. Kafka on the Shore would be a great choice as well, and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is many Murakami readers' favorite novel of his, but I haven't read either of those yet so I'm more hesitant to recommend them.

I'd suggest reading the blurb of each and picking the story that sounds like it'd appeal to you most.

Definitley Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami. Its about a dude who's wife leaves him and he has to find her. There is even a talking cat and some dream state scenes. some of it is a retelling of different histories and it has a lot of branching narratives. Kafka On The Shore is another great one by Murakami.

For Vonnegut,you're likely looking for Sirens of Titan, a retelling of Jonah and the Whale through an Alice and Wonderland lens. It's got a character who is very much representative of the Cheshire Cat. He has three different phases. His early books are the best. After (or even during) Breakfast of Champions he start writing a little more autobiographically (Slapstick is about his late sister and Hocus Pocus is about his brief tenure at Rollins college) and it's not as poignant (I don't think). And then later with stuff like Galapagos, he goes back to more philosophical lit, but it doesn't pack the same punch as his first phase.

Finally, House of Leaves is an amazing haunted house book that dramatically alters how you read a book. His other work is good too, but I haven't given any of it enough attention.

Edit: If you want to get meta, check out Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth or If On a Winter's Night a Traveler... by Italo Calvino.

While it isn't exactly Norse Mythology, the Finnish national epic, The Kalevala, was an important catalyst for inspiring Tolkien to create what would eventually become Arda. I'm currently about 1/3 through and while certain cantos are quite dull, overall my experience with it is very positive. If you're the least bit interested in Finnish culture, I definitely recommend reading it.

Ah, oh well.

I'm looking to pick up The Nature of the Gods for Christmas or whatnot since Oxford World Classics has a translation. From everything I've read that was published by them, they've tended to be the best, as well as safest, bet when it comes to translations. They've also got a great looking translation of Lucretius.

I mean... what you claimed is analogous to:

1. Favorite colors are subjective
   
2. There are no favorite colors.
   
   > Please go ahead and link me to the literature claiming that objective morality exists.
   
   Have you heard of Kant? The vast majority of moral philosophy since Kant is positivist. Consequentialism, utilitarianism, realism, cognitivism, humanism, etc.
   
   

• Kant http://strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/kant-prolegomena-cambridge.pdf
  
  
• Nagel https://books.google.com/books/about/What_Does_It_All_Mean_A_Very_Short_Intro.html?id=Nz_XMrjBQEUC
  
  
• Harris https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/143917122X
  
  
• Aristotle https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=l&ai=DChcSEwi15MyouJ3lAhUReIYKHegkBy0YABADGgJ2dQ&sig=AOD64_21788sEwZMxKR6XQV75vb2z30EeA&ctype=5&q=&ved=0ahUKEwjVyMOouJ3lAhXnwVkKHfmUCPoQwg8IPw&adurl=
  
  
• Plato https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwilgKC6uJ3lAhUZh4YKHYblBf4YABAEGgJ2dQ&sig=AOD64_3YfFiJI7vTwB33w_dRIJD3gqWUDw&ctype=5&q=&ved=0ahUKEwi1ipa6uJ3lAhUl01kKHe0pDs4Qwg8IOg&adurl=
  
  
• https://books.google.com/books/about/Critique_of_Pure_Reason.html?id=7bRychF0y0EC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button
  
  
• Kagan https://www.amazon.com/Limits-Morality-Oxford-Ethics/dp/0198239165
  
  
• Bentham https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwjh7M3Mt53lAhWahVoFHb0wAKUYABABGgJ2dQ&sig=AOD64_3mWpjrlKMHHZMoM__CmFus8jO4xw&ctype=5&q=&ved=0ahUKEwjB5sXMt53lAhWpq1kKHQJaDPkQwg8IOA&adurl=
  
  
• Kierkegaard https://www.amazon.com/Either-Fragment-Life-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140445773
  
  
  > I refer you back to my last comment. An individual can believe that something is moral but not be obligated by it. I am certain that you are not obligated to do every single thing that you believe to be moral.
  
  Then you aren’t a moral agent right? And if you are a moral agent, then to be a rational actor you’d have to act rationally. To be a rational actor, are you obligated to act rationally?
  
  PS do you want me to write a summary of why moral realism is so prevalent so you don’t have to read them all? It’s super straightforward logically.

Realize that it was written during a certain period, for certain readers.

The person who was interested in this book in 1922 would have likely read Joyce's earlier works and been familiar with Stephen Dedalus. He/she would likely have been familiar with some Latin (the Mass was still conducted in Latin then). ...would have understood the history of Irish and English conflict. Ideally (and Joyce did not expect this) he/she would have been familiar with Dublin.

All of this means that Joyce basically skips the entire common (and expected -by-the-reader) concept and writer's device of exposition.

Which makes for a confusing ride if you aren't an Irish catholic living in Dublin born at the turn of the 19th century and who has read all of Joyce's previous works. And especially because most of us come at this book due to its reputation and being lauded as a Modern Masterpiece. ...we don't usually choose to read it because we have read his other books and loved them, but because it is required reading, or because we have heard so much about it, that we give it a shot. This means we come to it unprepared.

But sheesh... who ever prepares to read a book? Well, we would prepare ourselves if it were a foreign language, or in a technical field we knew little about, or was perhaps Shakespeare in the original English, or Beowulf in Old English, or the Canterbury Tales, etc. etc.

Lots of books require a little more effort than we are often prepared for. The reward is in reading them in their original sense rather than in a sanitized easy-access version. This is one of those books, that's all.

Sure, I'm exaggerating a bit. But let's look at merely the FIRST PAGE (This is the page that convinced me I really wasn't quite the reader that I thought I was, when I picked this book off the shelf for the first time with false bravado).

What the hell is Buck Mulligan doing and saying? What's with the frigging Latin, and can I buy a footnote clarifying it? Well, no, you can't. You're supposed to know it's basically the Catholic Mass, in Latin. Hell. My mother, who had no desired to read Joyce, basically laughed at me when I showed her and she plucked it all out. "It's the Mass!" she said, whacking me in the back of the head.

Where are they? what the hell is this gunrest crap? Barbicans? Towr? WTF? ...well. Martello Tower. What other tower is there on the bay in Dublin? sheesh. everybody knows that

Why's he wearing black, and saying he can't wear grey pants? Jesus. I'm two paragraphs in and sinking fast. ...well, his mother died. When someone was wearing black then, it wasn't a fashion choice. You automatically assumed the person was in mourning.

And so (to beat this to death), Joyce doesn't trip over himself explaining this stuff. The characters do not think to themselves for the purposes of letting us in on things, or for explanation's sake, they simply think the way you do, to yourself. You don't use full sentnces, or explain to yourself what you already know.

So you aren't going to get a line from Joyce that says:

"Buck Mulligan, a guy who is kinda fun on the surface but is really just a blowhard ass, and who is taking from Stephen what he can get (lodging, beer money, and intelligence-cred, among other things), comes from the stairwell getting ready to shave, but first goofs around by pretending he's a priest and so (blasphemously) holds up the shaving cream in a bowl like the sacraments held aloft by a priest, and says "Coming to the altar of God", only in Latin."

This is why the book benefits from a little view behind the curtains. Because as u/danuscript says, except for Joyce, no real all-knowing reader exists. There's also no reliable narrator running consistently throughout who can hold our hand.

It's essentially unfolding in little vignettes seen though others' eyes, or from an uninterested narrator (objective as possible).

So, grab the Gifford annotated volume (the bigger thicker one HERE ). But realize you don't need EVERY notation here to understand it. And some are speculative. really, does the yellow color of the dressing gown warrant three paragraphs? A lot of folks have read in more than joyce may have intended.

Also, try the "New BloomsDay Book". It is is an excellent synopsis, with as much exposition as is needed to understand the meat, and what is happening.

Last... the book is NOT meant to be a one hit wonder. It's not a beginning/middle/end thing, which is read once, and whose 'climax' is some great revelation or surprise. It's meant to be re-read. You would then understand the subtle unsaid things (e.g. which occur in interactions between people, which hinge on these), and you'll understand what's happening which you will have missed the first time through.

And skip.

There. I said it. Bogging down? Eyes glazing over? Try skipping a bit, or reading the first and last line of the medium-sized paragraphs. No shame in it.

If you find that you like the language, are getting the story (with help), and are glad you waded in, then you'll likely be back for a second read, and that can be the one where you focus, and delve, and read each line.

Took me three times, frankly, to make it through.

But I was aware that it wasn't Joyce's failings. but mine, which kept stopping me.

There really is a there there.

Yes. This one. There may be a better one, but that's the Classical Greek grammar that was recommended to me and that I have.

Despite your lack of success the first time, I would think your prior exposure would make things a bit easier this time through.

I have this edition, but interestingly, it seems to lack "Hermes Trismegistus, His First Book". The Copenhaver edition begins with "(Discourse) of Hermes Trismegistus: Poimandres". The edition which includes The First Book is called "The Divine Pymander". Both of these can be bought on Amazon.


"The Divine Pymander"
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B002ECE6GQ/internetsacredte


"Hermetica"
(Copenhaver Translation)
https://www.amazon.com/Hermetica-Hermeticum-Asclepius-Translation-Introduction-dp-0521425433/dp/0521425433/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1537562450

David Copperfield will teach you just how long a sentence can be; The Old Man and the Sea will teach you just how short. A seven- or eight-word description can be just as vivid as a flowery paragraph, while a long sequence can be just as emotionally hard-hitting as a blunt fragment.

Something like Gulliver's Travels or Don Quixote will introduce you to archaic syntax and idioms, while Catch-22 and The Sound and the Fury will introduce you to non-linear and stream-of-consciousness structures. All of this will expand your appreciation of what can be done with the language.

Some novels have messages: 1984, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, The Great Gatsby, Brave New World, etc. These can be good for familiarizing yourself with the origin of many references in popular culture, such as allusions to Big Brother.

Explore beyond the novel as well: read Shakespeare and go see it performed, read poetry and have a go at writing some, and read in-depth essays.

I would recommend the work of Haruki Murakami. Some of his work has elements of speculative fiction, surrealism, and metaphysics but it is also very grounded with real emotional weight. That, and his prose is sparklingly clear and filled with empathy and wonder. A good entry point is his novel Kafka On The Shore.

Very exciting, I hope you enjoy the hell out of it for many years. I've written about this before but you might be surprised when you get out there how little you need any kind of formal system. KISS, at least to start. :) To wit:

> Ideally we'd like enough power to power 1 or 2 led nights [sic] at night, maybe a small 32in TV etc. If there is enough power, a coffee maker maybe.

All that said I may not even get to my place next week and if I do I may die in the cold there, so there is the downside to just winging it. Do you have any pictures to post of what you got?

No problem! It certainly is ambitious for a first-time attempt, but for what it's worth I think you're doing great so far!

For a quick-and-dirty guide you can check out this quick meter explanation. If you've got a little bit of spending money, I highly reccomend The Ode Less Travelled by the disgustingly talented Stephen Fry. Again, poetry isn't really my forte, but hopefully these will give you enough information to know what to google!

I just happened to end up at a university that had a professor of Old Norse. Modern Icelandic and Faroese are pretty close and there is an Old Norse dictionary (Zoega's concise dictionary - it's concise because he was going to make a larger one but died before he could). My old norse professor has two textbooks you can get on amazon (textbook 1 and textbook 2) but I don't know how good those are because he was writing them while I was taking his courses. There's also this textbook which I've never used but has good reviews.

You can also learn modern Icelandic and then study Old Norse because they very similar. It may be easier to do it that way. We also read the sagas in the original Old Norse which was very interesting.

This is writing. Kick at darkness till it bleeds ... something decent.

I envision an image, and draw it like a 9 year old. Because no practice.

I'm no genius at storytelling, but find like anything the skill slowly grows. Best resource I've ever come across was Janet Burroway. Like drawing, storytelling requires a specific set of skills you can hone.

I second The Longship.

​

Asatru is a type of Heathenry. Heathenry is an umbrella term for religions, philosophies, piety, lifestyles that are based in Germanic Paganism and/or Germanic Pagan culture.

A good place to start is reading books.

Here are the ones I recommend:

A Beginner's book: https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Heathens-Guide-Asatru/dp/0738733873/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542673929&sr=8-1&keywords=heathenry

​

And the Poetic Edda translated by Jackson Crawford: https://www.amazon.com/Poetic-Edda-Stories-Hackett-Classics/dp/1624663567/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542673980&sr=8-1&keywords=jackson+crawford

​

Also, for some spiritual music to meditate to, I recommend starting with

Wardruna: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fnPwj1AMpo

And this song by Heilung: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqdk34f210w

​

Ancestors are very important to Heathenry, so I would meditate on some of your ancestors that have passed on, if you don't already.

​

Connect with the energies of your local land and woods. Some Heathens think these energies are literal beings called Land Wights. Some see them a bit more fluid and amorphous but still relational energies tied to the local land.

​

I also recommend learning a bit about the three major ritual forms: Blots, Sumbels, and Fainings.

​

At least, these are the places I would begin.

And THAT right there is pretty much the only reason that I want tWoT to get made into a televised series where it is certainly guaranteed to butcher the bloody hell out of Jordan's great story.

-

We will most likely get flooded with tWoT merchandise. Specially companion and artwork books.

-


And that was one of the joys for me when I got hooked onto Tolkien's world almost 40 years ago. Whenever I went into my local bookstore every six months or so, their would be a new Tolkien related book out with fantastic artwork in it.

-

This was one of my favorites- Tolkien Bestiary Hardcover

-

Jordan's series deserves this so much. (sigh)

I would have never learned it if I didnt have a teacher. Honestly your best bet is to sign up for greek class at a local Bible College.

However if you do want to learn it alone, you have several options.
The best option is to buy Logos software THis has countless tools to help you learn Koine.

If you are looking for a text book, start with this book

THis book will help you with words, grammar of Koine, and interpreting sentences. All the basics you need to start translating the Bible. If you can successfully work your way through this book. You will be able to get the gist of most Bible passages.

In addition to all of this, Koine Greek is to common day greek as Shakespere english is to us but it still may help you to subscribe to the Greek subreddit here. If you can read that, you can read anything.

>but there's another side to the story

That's correct, and it's published here, by Lingua Franca, along with Sokal's rebuttal, where he says:

>I confess to amusement that one Social Text editor still doesn't believe my piece was a parody. Oh, well.

>As for Social Text's editorial process, readers can judge for themselves the plausibility of the editors' post facto explanations, which if true may be more damning than the incident itself. Some of their chronology is at variance with my own documentary record, but let me not beat a dead horse.

BTW, Sokal and Jean Bricmont also wrote a book called Fashionable Nonsense, and it delves into many of these issues. They say, for example:

>"For us, as for most people, a 'fact' is a situation in the external world that exists irrespective of the knowledge that we have (or don't have) of it—in particular, irrespective of any consensus or interpretation" {Bricmont and Sokal@102}.

and they offer this advice for people reading literary theory, doing science, or trying to understand "the relationship between the natural and human sciences," {Bricmont and Sokal@185}:

>1. It's a good idea to know what one is talking about.

>2. Not all that is obscure is necessarily profound.

>3. Science is not a 'text.'

>4. Don't ape the natural sciences.

>5. Be wary of arguments from authority.

>6. Specific skepticism should not be confused with radical skepticism.

>7. Ambiguity as subterfuge {Bricmont and Sokal@185–189}.

They elaborate on what each point means in the book.

From there, the authors go on to speculate how the social sciences and the humanities came to take parts of science and scientific discourse out of context and, implicitly, how one might correct these kinds of issues.

EDIT: Yes, I am a grad student in English lit, and I've written about why you shouldn't be in What you should know BEFORE you start grad school in English Literature: The economic, financial, and opportunity costs and in various other places.

Thank you for posting this! A short note on bibliography: Mead's translation of Corpus Hermeticum is nice because it is free (link), but one of the best modern translations is the (non-free) one of Copenhaver (link) .

The guy wrote a whole book on the subject actually, it's quite an entertaining read:

http://www.amazon.com/Fashionable-Nonsense-Postmodern-Intellectuals-Science/dp/0312204078

Apparently E=mc^2 is a "privileged" and "sexist" equation to these people. It's great having a book that makes fun of them so thoroughly, it's very quotable!

I would recommend The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry. It might not strike you as college level but it works through all the techniques used by poets and serves as a solid intro while remaining accessible.

I believe the poster 0HAO is referring to this course from Open Yale: Modern Poetry. I would recommend this as a good intro to the modern period along with many of the key poets, though the video lectures alone teach you little about how poems are made up. Langdon Hammer is also great at reading poetry IMO.

Penguin Classics has a short story set that I'm working my way through and it's pretty awesome. I highly recommend it. It's 80 little books for less than a dollar a piece. Penguin Little Black Classics

I would recommend you purchase the Bloomsday Book. It was very helpful for me to read this while I was reading Ulysses. The book doesn't tell you how to interpret Ulysses, but it helps you to notice more of the references/inspirations/jokes in the story. Google books has a brief preview that you can use to see if it seems useful for you.

https://www.amazon.com/Poetic-Edda-Stories-Hackett-Classics/dp/1624663567/ The Poetic Edda by Jackson Crawford is good, he makes pretty interesting videos on youtube about Old Norse as well.

The concordance /u/spewner got me is awesome. It's really in depth. Tells you the page numbers and everything. I would highly recommend it. I'm loving it so far, not many refrences to his other books so far, but I'll be patient :)

http://www.amazon.ca/Stephen-Kings-The-Dark-Tower/dp/1451694873

I studied Intro to Old English at uni, and we used Peter Baker's Intro to Old English:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Introduction-Old-English-Peter-Baker/dp/047065984X

If you buy it new it also comes with online resources like worksheets which are super helpful for learning the grammar and sentence structure!

Maybe try crossposting with r/druidism. On there when this came up, there were a lot of recomendations, but this stood out. From what I can tell, it's way different than other pantheons in that most of the deities were worshipped in their local enclaves, as Celtic land wasn't united back then. This also lead to much of the info we have on their religion being lost (also because they didn't have a writing system). Then there were the Christian poets that came later who did have writing but also used oral tradition a lot too. They created the Mabinogion myths, which is definitely worth looking into, though it isn't centred on just deities.

Great video! His translation of the Poetic Edda is also another awesome resource.

>I couldn't recommend translations for either of these to English, as I've read them in Norwegian translations.

I have this edition of the Heimskringla and this of Egil's saga and found them both to be pretty solid and readable. The Penguin edition of Njal's saga is also pretty good.

Chase and Phillips is pretty decent (though definitely reflects the period when it was written):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0674616006/ref=mw_dp_olp?ie=UTF8&condition=all

Hansen and Quinn is also good:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0823216632/ref=mw_dp_olp?ie=UTF8&condition=all

I’ve taught with H&Q and used C&P as a supplement when I started to learn Greek.

The books my high school friends and I desperately loved are usually the same books this subreddit as a whole desperately loves: American Gods, Ender's Game, Fight Club, and so on. My personal favorite was Kafka on the Shore. There are sexual themes, but nothing that shocked me as a 15 year old. Reddit's favorite book list might come in handy here too.

Read "Kafka on the shore" by Haruki Murakami!


It's about two characters you'll fall in love with who, at first, don't seem to have anything to do with each other. But towards the end of the book you'll see that the paths converge. One of the characters is a 15-year-old boy who goes on an adventure, and the other character is an older man who is adorably stupid and goes on another adventure. A lot of strange things happen in the book, such as fish falling from the sky and talking cats.

Be sure to update us on which books you have chosen!

I've yet to see that title, though I'll check it out. Gonna drop these here for posterity, as the're generally regarded as wonderful books on the various forms, mechanics and techniques of writing poetry. The more resources, the better, aye?

The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry, Kim Addonizio

The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within, Stephen Fry

A Poetry Hanbook, Mary Oliver

You can find the AS Chronicle here.
If you’d like to get into poetry (which is generally a bit easier to translate than prose), McGillivray has a very useful site.

I’m not sure how much of a beginner you are, but if you’re just starting out, I also highly recommend Peter Baker’s Introduction to Old English. The textbook has a free-access companion website with loads of exercises.

To my knowledge there isn't an online translation tool for Old English. UToronto has a dictionary/corpus that may interest you.

If you can get it, the Mitchell and Robinson Guide to Old English is a great book for learning translation (though they do standardize the OE texts substantially).

Don't know what you like to read so I'm going to go a few ways, but these are good ''stuck in bed'' books. By Author (because thats how i like to read):


Haruki Murakami:

• Kafka on the Shore **
  
• The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
  
• After Dark
  
  Hunter S Thompson (and related):*
  
  
• The Rum Diary
  
• Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
  
• Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo
  
  Manuel Puig (these are shorter):
  
  
• Eternal Curse on the Reader of these Pages*
  
• Kiss of the Spider Woman
  
• Boquitas Pintadas
  
  Not by same authors, but would be good together:
  
  
• The Tin Drum- Gunter Grass*
  
• House of Leaves
  
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
  
• Earthly Powers- Anthony Burgess **
  
  Favorites
  
  Feel Better!
  
  

I bought this book for my boyfriend because we love the series. It may help you.

http://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Kings-The-Dark-Tower/dp/1451694873

https://www.etsy.com/market/stephen_king

Has plenty of gift ideas.

This book is good for fans as well:

http://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Kings-The-Dark-Tower/dp/1451694873/ref=pd_sim_14_4?ie=UTF8&dpID=51P2JRHHcSL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR107%2C160_&refRID=0C6XDDCQBNJ1XMHJ9GWA

Well so much depends on everything. Some basic suggestions:.

Contemporary Science Fiction:
Ted Chaing, Stories of Your Life and Others his short stories are science fiction gems. https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-Chiang/dp/1101972122.

Classical: Vladimir Nabokov Short Stories, amazing prose. Though English was his second language he wrote a good number, especially the later half, in English, often challenging themes from dubious narrators.
https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Vladimir-Nabokov/dp/0679729976.

International Fiction: Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore, reductionist, clean prose, with symbolic/metaphorical imagery that blends hard-boiled noir, Japanese animism, and surrealism. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1400079276/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_RxntybB7PYK93

Post Modern: Roberto Bolano, 2666: A Novel, perhaps the odd relative of Murakami in structure if not style. Sometimes rambling, though powerful prose with surrealist moments within graphic and "visceral" scenes. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0312429215/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_ZAntybTW2XXJX.

Deconstructionism: Mark Danieleski, House of Leaves, carefully crafted entangled adventure horror of a story, explained in the footnotes of an essay, edited by a tattoo artist, written by a blind man of a homemade video of a house gone awry. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0375703764/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_XMntyb3RT3RKQ

A start

Once you start researching Esoteric interpretations, and secret societies, you won't turn back.

I suggest you start with "The Kybalion", and "Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius" http://www.amazon.com/Hermetica-Hermeticum-Asclepius-Translation-Introduction/dp/0521425433. This will give you a good base of understanding the source of mystery religions.

After reading these books you are going to need to decide on what your morals are, and what are your goals for learning the material? Are you learning to be wiser, and closer to God? Or to serve yourself? There are many schools and societies for both.

If you really hope to finish, I suggest the Bloomsday Book.

I think anyone who says they just read through it, finished, and enjoyed the book is a liar. That said, it's worth the effort to understand, and the companion book helps a whole lot.

I've been working through The Ode Less Traveled, a book about writing poetry by Stephen Fry. I'm not sure if it's helping, but it's just as delightful to read as you'd imagine a book on writing poetry by Stephen Fry would be.

I should have been clearer. I'm referring to a kind of commentary. The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses

Chapter by chapter it summarizes the theme and the plot. It's admirable that you want to read it on your own. However, unless you're a Joyce-scholar who somehow hasn't read Ulysses, you're going to find that you need support.

From what I'm told, this is one of the best books to start with: https://smile.amazon.com/Viking-Language-Learn-Norse-Icelandic/dp/1480216445/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483301517&sr=8-1&keywords=learn+old+norse

I'm currently learning as well so definitely curious as to what resources you find!

Viking Language 1 and 2 by Jesse L. Byock. Here's the first one:

https://www.amazon.com/Viking-Language-Learn-Norse-Icelandic/dp/1480216445

You can get audio recordings for the lessons on Amazon or iTunes as well.

The courses are by far the most modernized, user-friendly courses available. A close second would be 'A New Introduction to Old Norse,' which can be purchased here:

https://acmrs.org/publications/catalog/new-introduction-old-norse-part-i-ii-and-iii-discount-set

I have that same Penguin version of de rerum natura, but I'll check out the Loeb one. I see that the new Penguin version is done by A.E. Stallings, who seems to be well regarded, so I might check that out as well. This seems to be a reliable versed translation, or so reviewers ranked highly by google tell me. Alas, I've read the wikipedia and many random articles on sexuality in Rome, I'll just have to use the google to find further resources. Thanks for the recommendations.

I would strongly recommend having this: guidebook by your side, its pretty cool to be able to understand what the hell is going on :)
(makes me think of that Marx brothers scene where Chicos trying to con Groucho into buying all those horse racing books)

It's not that entire universities are plagued by postmodern thinking. Postmodernism as it relates to art and subjective things has its place, and I think it's interesting, even sometimes valuable. But it is rare that postmodernism is treated as belonging only to the area of subjective topics, as it often is incorporated in other areas in which it cannot contribute something substantial.

Humanities departments in universities are the primary source of postmodern scholarship, in departments like English, Sociology, Communications, History, Gender Studies, Cultural Studies, Cultural and Social Anthropology. It is not unusual for members of these departments to extend postmodernism to areas it doesn't belong, like science. In fact, there are quite a few books written by scientists and academics addressing this very problem.

The links in my previous post also do a fine job of outlining the problem.

Holy crap I actually know this guy IRL. Uhm. Wow.

Yeah he's one of a dozen or so people in the world doing the work he's doing. He wrote a book a few years ago that is a translation of an Icelandic epic poem from the 13th century. Well worth the ~$15. I think my dad has a signed copy floating around somewhere.

He also worked with the production team of Frozen to help with translations, and providing cultural/linguistic authenticity to the story and worldbuilding.

He was also working on a retelling of the Star Wars saga in the style of an Old Norse epic poem a few years ago. IIRC he might have recieved a C&D from George Lucas's legal team for it, but don't quote me on that.

Super cool guy, incredibly knowledgeable.

Link to his retelling of SW: https://tattuinardoelasaga.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/tattuinardoela-saga-if-star-wars-were-an-icelandic-saga/

Link to the full pdf retelling of all 6 episodes (then extant) of the Star Wars saga: https://tattuinardoelasaga.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/tattuinardoela-saga-complete.pdf

Camus was both an essay writer and a fiction author, so reading a piece of each is a good idea. The Stranger would be his best work of fiction to read, and "The Myth of Sisyphus" his best essay. It really lays out his ideas regarding the absurd. It usually appears in a book called The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. Both books, especially the first, are in most libraries.
I haven't read Kierkegaard, but I've heard that Either/Or is both a simple read and puts his ideas on display. If you'd prefer to read it online, here's a link that I found.

It's included here, along with many other discourses. I highly recommend it :)

I have A Guide to Old English, Introduction to Old English and Old English: Grammar and Reader at home and they all are pretty useful if you are interested in the language (plus Clark-Hall's dictionary). I've never tried to study it as a live language - I just wanted to read some old texts :)

There is also Complete Old English - not sure how good it is but you may want to look at it.

For Norse sagas, Penguin classics has some fantastic editions:

• The Saga of Icelanders
  
  
• Njals Saga
  
  
• Prose Edda
  
  
• Volsungs saga
  
  
• Kalevala
  
  For eastern mythology, you'll want:
  
  
• Bhagavad Gita
  
  
• The Epic of Gilgamesh
  
  
• The Arabaian Nights Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3
  
  
• Journey to the West Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4
  
  For Celtic mythology:
  
  
• The Mabinogion
  
  
• Arthurian Romances
  
  
• Early Irish Myths and Sagas

Pardon my ignorance, but could you tell me where this button is? My friend told me this as well, but I could not find it anywhere. Do I need to use the browser on my Kindle? Or does it have something to do with me not being in the US? (I am browsing Amazon.com)

for example

I like Dr. Jackson Crawford's translation. It's easy to read.

Link

For the book version the Tolkien Bestiary is great!

Bloomsday has a great guide, though it's a bit pricier.

if you like kafka, you'll like this

This book is excellent:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Guide-Old-English-Bruce-Mitchell/dp/0470671076/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369787220&sr=8-1&keywords=guide+to+old+english

I have Keith Bosley's translation, which seems to follow the meaning more than the rhythm. This isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I'm not a fan of the free versions I have seen online. They are quite dated.

That beauty known as Little Black Classics Box Set is back in stock at Rs 2649. Also, you can get an additional 15% off with Citi Cards if your cart is 5000 or more, thus making it a steal price of Rs 2250.Perfect for gifting or that bookshelf :)
http://www.amazon.in/gp/product/0141398876/

Excellent channel. I also recomend his translation of the poetic edda. Ive really enjoyed reading it.

His characters and settings appear interwoven throughout his books. There are a large number of them that relate to the Dark Tower series, in either direction (the book makes reference to the Tower, or the Tower series makes reference to the book). The world of The Stand, for example, makes a pretty heavy footprint on one of the DT books. I don't have time to do a complete concordance (and it would fill a book if I did), so suffice it to say this kind of thing is EVERYWHERE in his books.

Stephen Fry wrote a very very good book about poetry and how to write it..

According to the information in A Tolkien Bestiary, krakens were one of many various evil beings spawned by Melkor when he first ruled out of Utumno, before even the Elves awoke. When he was defeated and chained, many of these things persished, but a few survived, and this particular kraken resided in some dark underwater place under the Misty Mountains for many Ages. When Moria's Dwarves were getting their asses kicked again, the Orcs found it and dammed the river outside Moria to create the lake we see in the movie for it to infest.

I've read about 90% of King's work.

If you just want a quick rundown on King's universe without reading an entire library full of books, someone made a pretty handy guidebook for reference:

https://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Kings-Dark-Tower-Concordance/dp/1451694873

WARNING! This books is pretty much nothing BUT spoilers, so if you think you might read any of his books in the future you're probably better off avoiding this.

When I took an Old English module a couple of years back we used a couple of different resources for learning the language:

• First was Wordloca (good grammar guide), which if you private message me I can send you a PDF of or you can make an account and use their website online. However, this doesn't use the long vowel markers, but if you use it in tandem with the second which was...
  
  
• Bruce Mitchell's Guide to Old English (available here) as a reader. He does use the long vowel markers you're looking for.
  
  If you're getting started with the language I would recommend starting with translating 'Cynewulf and Cyneheard' before tackling Bede's account of the poet Caedmon - both of which can be found in Mitchell's book.

I recommend Bruce Mitchell and Fred Robinson's book, and Stephen Barney's Word Hoard isn't bad either.

Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami

>The opening pages of a Haruki Murakami novel can be like the view out an airplane window onto tarmac. But at some point between page three and fifteen--it's page thirteen in Kafka On The Shore--the deceptively placid narrative lifts off, and you find yourself breaking through clouds at a tilt, no longer certain where the plane is headed or if the laws of flight even apply.
Joining the rich literature of runaways, Kafka On The Shore follows the solitary, self-disciplined schoolboy Kafka Tamura as he hops a bus from Tokyo to the randomly chosen town of Takamatsu, reminding himself at each step that he has to be "the world¹s toughest fifteen-year-old." He finds a secluded private library in which to spend his days--continuing his impressive self-education--and is befriended by a clerk and the mysteriously remote head librarian, Miss Saeki, whom he fantasizes may be his long-lost mother. Meanwhile, in a second, wilder narrative spiral, an elderly Tokyo man named Nakata veers from his calm routine by murdering a stranger. An unforgettable character, beautifully delineated by Murakami, Nakata can speak with cats but cannot read or write, nor explain the forces drawing him toward Takamatsu and the other characters.

>To say that the fantastic elements of Kafka On The Shore are complicated and never fully resolved is not to suggest that the novel fails. Although it may not live up to Murakami's masterful The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Nakata and Kafka's fates keep the reader enthralled to the final pages, and few will complain about the loose threads at the end. --Regina Marler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

https://www.amazon.ca/Little-Black-Classics-Box-Set/dp/0141398876/ref=sr_1_13?keywords=black+classics&qid=1570827281&sr=8-13

I don't have any favourites yet. I save them for days when I don't have time to read much.

These two textbooks are terrific:

https://www.amazon.com/Viking-Language-Learn-Norse-Icelandic/dp/1480216445

https://www.amazon.com/Viking-Language-Old-Norse-Reader/dp/1481175262

Thanks for the help, everyone, but I've found one that I'm going to buy!

http://www.amazon.com/Heimskringla-History-Norway-Snorri-Sturluson/dp/0292730616

I must give that companion a look. I used the Bloomsday book and found it very helpful.

I haven't seen any evidence that postmodernism is anything other than nonsense, and thinkers I respect, like Russell, thought badly of it. So let me ask you: what is postmodernism? What interesting ideas does it introduce? Perhaps you can clarify.

By the way, have you heard of the Sokal affair?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

Sokal wrote a book about postmodernism, called "fashionable nonsense":
http://www.amazon.com/Fashionable-Nonsense-Postmodern-Intellectuals-Science/dp/0312204078

Kafka on the Shore, Murakami.

Edit: Or, if you're in the mood for some awesome but super-depressing short stories, you can always check out the Kolyma Tales by Varlam Shalamov.

Kafka on the Shore: http://www.amazon.com/Kafka-Shore-Haruki-Murakami/dp/1400079276/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1289933997&sr=8-1

Kolyma Tales: http://www.amazon.com/Kolyma-Tales-Classic-20th-Century-Penguin/dp/0140186956/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289934035&sr=1-1

https://www.amazon.com/Fashionable-Nonsense-Postmodern-Intellectuals-Science/dp/0312204078

throwing this out there as well—has good analysis of lacan

You're better off just getting The New Bloomsday Book. It's basically a whole other book that's just annotations.

I took an Old Norse class in college, and we used Viking Language by Jesse Byock (https://www.amazon.com/Viking-Language-Learn-Norse-Icelandic/dp/1480216445). It would be a good book to work through on your own and also includes culture and history lessons.

A good place to start.

Sokal authored and co-authored a couple of books on the matter. Check out Intellectual Impostures if you are interested in it deeper than a Wikipedia article. The US edition is called Fashionable Nonsense.

This is the one I have by David Bay. I really like it

My go-to resource: http://www.oldenglishaerobics.net/

Companion book: Introduction to Old English https://smile.amazon.com/dp/047065984X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_9sR4Bb0CWZR0P

If you want familiar reading material: Æðelgyðe Ellendæda on Wundorlande: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in Old English (Old English Edition) https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1782011129/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_twR4Bb5EWXJZY

It is hard work, though. I found these two books extremely helpful:

http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Bloomsday-Book-International/dp/0415138582

http://www.amazon.com/Ulysses-Annotated-Notes-James-Joyces/dp/0520253973/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410914627&sr=1-1&keywords=ulysses+annotated

I understand this. Some relevant links in Norwegian:
University of Oslo on how Christianity came to Norway

Here an article on the first Christian inscriptions in Norway from University of Technology and Science in Trondheim

Both the above articles refer to the fundamental academic book on early Christian influence in Norway: Fritjof Birekli Tolv vintre hadde kristendommen vært i Norge = Christianity had been 12 winters in the country

Snorri Sturlassons books on Norse mythology as well as on king Haakon the Good and other early Norwegian kings are available in English. His books are fundamental sources for an understanding of the Norse universe of thoughts for the twelfth century when they were written - and is what OP is looking for

I used to have an older one http://www.amazon.com/Tolkien-Bestiary-David-Day/dp/0517120771

I think it's probably the same one. I lost it a few years ago :(. I loved it.

If you're looking for an intro, try Our Father's Godsaga by Viktor Rydberg. Other than that, you can't go wrong with the already mentioned one by Kevin Crossley-Holland.

Besides that, Dr. Jackson Crawford (Ph.D., Scandinavian Studies; Taught Old Norse, Norse myth, Sagas, Vikings, etc. at UCLA) is releasing a version of the Poetic Edda which is worth checking out. It's available for Pre-Order here

> It's amazing how the 'critical theory' has managed to corrupt academia and science from a discipline of objective research to a form of political activism.

Fashionable Nonsense is a must read.

I'd recommend both of these books:

https://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Kings-Dark-Tower-Concordance/dp/1451694873

https://www.amazon.com/Road-Dark-Tower-Exploring-Stephen/dp/0451213041/

This penguin collection of 80 classics, which was up for ~ ₹2700 earlier, http://www.amazon.in/dp/0141398876 It's still a good deal at 3000! And not to mention beautiful.

• The artist
  
  
• The original image
  
  
• The book

Miguel de Unamuno "Tragic Sense of Life"

Paulo Freire "Pedagogy of the Oppressed"

John Ruskin "Unto This Last"

William Morris "News From Nowhere"

Marge Piercy "Woman on the Edge of Time"

Aristotle "Nicomachean Ethics"

Tommaso Campanella "City of the Sun" / Michel de Montaigne "Of Cannibals"

Habermas "Philosophical Discourse of Modernity"

Soren Kierkegaard "Either/Or"

Kafka "The Castle"

Lewis Carroll "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There"

Of each, I would do as the King says: start at the beginning, and go on until you reach the end: then stop.

>I wouldn't recommend any single source in the first place.

I'll recommend a single source for hermetic philosophy: the Corpus Hermeticum.

First off, thank you responding so quickly, when I searched this in english I came across this (640 pages) and also this (702 pages) and this (536 pages), but when I try to find the turkish translation I can only find this (117 pages, seems to be about Johannes Climacus?).

>Are there any good academic critiques of it?

Fashionable Nonsense is probably the most widely circulated criticism of this general school of thought.

> In some of the intervening time, it seems to have become dominant (at least in internet dialogue).

I'm not sure this is the case, certainly not in America.

I prefer the originals. And if you want a story that's actually about a Viking family, try this one.

I agree with everything you've just said.

You might be interested in Fashionable Nonsense.

Edit. Apart from one thing.

> Not just scientists...

I made no comment on the groups of people who were not scientists. When talking about scientists using exact language you may have felt I was commenting on groups that where not scientists but I was not. ;)

You should read Alan Sokal & Jean Bricmont's "Fashionable Nonsense". Alan Sokal published a parody of post-modernist lit-crit in fairly respectable journal. There was nontrivial backlash when he went on to write about how he had published total nonsense, etc. etc.

> This is entertaining, but nobody is wrong in this debate as far as I'm concerned.

I agree. This is because:

• Chomsky is absolutely correct.
  
  
• Zizek is not even wrong---like all post-structuralists/POMO/'critical' theorists (as [Chomsky](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzrHwDOlTt8
  http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong) and others have pointed out).

http://www.amazon.in/gp/product/0141398876/

this has been the most illuminative book for me:

http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Fiction-Guide-Narrative-Edition/dp/0205750346

Here is a Postmodernism paper generator.

There is a book too if you are really interested... and another... and another

Link, for the six people who might see this

It's a separate book.

https://www.amazon.com/New-Bloomsday-Book-Routledge-International/dp/0415138582

I should start some kind of reddit book club. I'm actually not teaching right now. Health issues.

The New Bloomsday Book is a handy companion for Ulysses.

I personally didn't find Ulysses impossible to understand, but Finnegan's Wake will forever be beyond me, I'm afraid.

Using this is pretty much a must. http://www.amazon.com/New-Bloomsday-Book-Through-Ulysses/dp/0415138582

I guess for next time, if there will be, I will have to read up more thoroughly on my source and cite it. You are right though, that an academic community demands the same level of rigor and proof.

Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami

It's a tie between Brave New World and Kafka on the Shore for me.

Also checkout:

The Road to the Dark Tower: Exploring Stephen King's Magnum Opus

And

Stephen King's The Dark Tower Concordance

It's already out.

https://www.amazon.com/Viking-Language-Learn-Norse-Icelandic/dp/1480216445

>"Scrierea unei poezii este precum prepararea unei cafele [...] nu oricine poate face asta"

Am invatat sa folosesc un espressor din cela mare, de restaurant, in cateva ore. De scris pozii? Nici dupa ce am citit "The Ode Less Travelled" nu imi iese ceva la fel de bun precum o cafea.

Dar faina initiativa!

He wrote a book about it.

I'm just leaving this here.

Oh and read these.
http://www.amazon.com/Poems-Poets-Poetry-Introduction-Anthology/dp/0312463197

http://www.amazon.com/Ode-Less-Travelled-Unlocking-Within/dp/1592403115/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348630139&sr=1-1&keywords=the+ode+less+traveled

The same guy from the video translated that!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1624663567/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_c_api_0BqFybN17GJPS

This translation of The Poetic Edda came out earlier this month. It is very readable.

Crossley-Holland oversætter de nordiske mytologier til et mere gammeldags engelsk, som kan være svært at forstå for nogen.
I anbefaler at vælge Jackson Crawford's oversættelse af den poetiske edda. Den er mere ny, og er mere forståelig fordi det er oversat til nutiddags engelsk.

Here you go if you are getting charged too much for shipping then it's Amazon just being a bitch....

There are not many grammars of OE out there that cover syntax. If you want a quick overview for beginners, you could read the first half of Bruce Mitchell and Fred Robinson's Guide to OE. Mitchell, who recently died, was the expert on syntax (If you want all the details, check out his two-volume Old English Syntax from the library.). You will find most other grammars of OE cover phonology and morphology and that's about it. There is, however, a small section in Lass's OE: A Historical Linguistic Companion.

As for Middle English, I don't know the bibliography as well, but the introductory Book of ME by Burrow and Turville-Petre have a short section on syntax.

Yes. I take issue with the notion that these authors have something secret to say, and that uninitiated people "just don't get it." This is an age-old trick used by theocratic systems of oppression, and it won't fly any longer.

As for documenting the imposture (since Dawkins' article is just a book review, not the actual book):

Higher Superstition

Fashionable Nonsense

The Sokal Hoax: The Sham That Shook the Academy

Edit: Formatting

It's funny to me that you think calling something a cabal and desperately mocking your opponets argument trying to make the worst form of it so that you can feel emotionally gratified in your bias is more important to you than making the best form of the argument to see if you're right. That postmodernism is becoming increasingly popular at universities and that by its own claims is anti modernism. I mean would it not be easy enough to justify that with the sokal affair? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

https://www.amazon.com/Fashionable-Nonsense-Postmodern-Intellectuals-Science/dp/0312204078

Or if you are really desperate you could ignore evidence that compelling about postmodernists and still be left with how campus policy has been changed after much lobbying by feminist groups.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-johnson-taylor-campus-sexual-assault-20170303-story.html

What about polling done by Bucknell Institute for Public Policy that shows democrats are the lowest for believing in the right to cross examine their accusiors? Now I too might ask is that the result of feminist teaching in academia maybe not but is it not strange that so many public womens and genders studies professors support such changes or are against such basic rights?

http://thefederalist.com/2017/09/27/poll-americans-still-believe-innocent-proven-guilty-even-college-students/

Is that argument actually so ridiclious? Or are you trying to save your bias by only being willing to pretend its as if its some secret cabal?

you are on the right track. Most of what they teach in Communications, Sociology, 'Critical theory', 'oppression theory', 'deconstructionism' is PoMo non-sense. I suggest you read this :
Fashionable Nonsense

http://smile.amazon.com/Fashionable-Nonsense-Postmodern-Intellectuals-Science/dp/0312204078/ref=smi_www_rcolv2_go_smi?_encoding=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

If you come across people who are fans of : Simone deBouvoir, Foucault, Dworkin, Solanas etc.

If you should ever like to pick it up again, and for everyone who reads this outside of a class, I really recommend a guide through the book. Any honest appreciation of Ulysses hinges on the demand it makes on its reader; the immensity of its achievement is outside the realm of most folks. I know that sounds snobby as hell, but Joyce was a literary genius, and I was a snobby English major.

I think the author of this article is discussed in this book. It's quite an entertaining analysis of misleading or incompetent use of science in social science and philosophy.

The Bloomsday Book helped me immensely. Realistically, you should posses an encyclopedic knowledge of Catholicism, Literature and Irish history. If you lack that, turn to this guy.

I got this book a while ago, it's full of Norse mythology. Some might be familiar (the real story of Cinderella, where the prince murders a village to find her), others are less so. The book is light on analysis though, just a series of stories.
https://www.amazon.com/Celtic-Myths-Legends-Peter-Berresford/dp/0786711078

> Got any examples there, bud?

There's an entire book on the subject called Fashionable Nonsense filled with examples of humanities scholars bastardizing science to create an anti-colonial narrative. In the cited works by popular academics you'll learn that math and physics aren't simply ways of describing the world around us and making predictions, but secret vehicles for racism, sexism, and colonial oppression. If decrying the disciplines that enabled human spaceflight and doubled the average lifespan is not anti-intellectual, I don't know what is.

> You realize the scientific method has limits right? Like by definition. Science is a process of constant revision.

So what's your point? Observing facts, coming up with a hypothesis, falsifying it, and producing a theory to explain the relationships between the facts you're documented and tested, then correcting it when new facts are discovered is a pretty damn good way of learning about the world and the way all humans have done it since we gained sapience.

When humanities scholars say that "indigenous cultures had the scientific method forced upon them by colonists," they're not decrying colonialism as much as they're insulting indigenous cultures by refusing to acknowledge that they too understood how science works and conducted some form of scientific studies.