Warriors again

[robinturner]

I'm still working on this "warriors" course night and day, and I think I have, as the Turks put it "broken the devil's back." I now have the following texts;

1. Various translations and interpretations of the Iliad, including Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida and Christopher Logue's amazingly cool account of the last moments of Patroclus;
2. The original Anglo-Saxon and two translations of the end of The Battle of Maldon;
3. the Ground book from A Book of Five Rings;
4. An essay on Taoism and t'ai chi from one of my old t'ai chi friends, Nigel Sutton;
5. a paper reviewing the literature on the psychosocial benefits of martial arts;
6. a chapter from a book about Amazons;
7. a paper on gender duality and Xena.

I need to add some chivalric Arthurian stuff, and I really, really need a good paper on women in martial arts and self-defence courses, but apart from that, it's looking pretty good, and I'm feeling like the Chinese/Japanese ideal of the scholar-warrior. As Miyamoto Musashi said, "pen and sword in harmony."

Comments

[aguirre.livejournal.com]

have you considered Joseph Campbell?

[solri.livejournal.com]

Too hard for these kids, I think. I've done some work in the past with Campbell's ideas, but his writing style is really difficult for non-native speakers to follow.

[cassielsander.livejournal.com]

I assume the movie The Warriors (aka The March of the 10,000) would be too retro?

(or has someone already made that remark?)

[solri.livejournal.com]

Assuming you mean that film based on Xenophon about a gang trying to make it back to its home turf, I haven't actually seen it, though I've heard it's very good. I might have a look for it when I'm in England.

I'm going to do a few films, or at least parts of films. Troy is the obvious one, plus an episode of Xena. I'd like to do The Seven Samurai but I don't think my students will be able to sit through three hours of flickery subtitles, so it'll probably have to be The Last Samurai. If time permits, I might do Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as well.

[cassielsander.livejournal.com]

That's the one I meant. "Very good" might be pushing it..."very interesting" might be more to the point, and the outlandish 70s getup produces a giggle factor. But I can't think of another American movie where the idea of warrior honor (and its good & bad effects) is pushed so strongly. And it gives you a token 20th Century connection.

I'm also suddenly thinking of "Warrior's Code vs. Big Picture" films from recent times like A Few Good Men, Three Kings, 28 Days Later and Spartan.

But only Spartan out of all these really celebrates the Warrior (and even then it's more The Soldier), so maybe they would muddy the water too much for students just trying to get a handle on what a warrior is.

[solri.livejournal.com]

Just found a copy. Thanks for that idea!