It’s well known that the FYP science students miss the Thursday lectures. While they’re off studying rocks or tiny bugs or whatever it is they do, they often miss some crucial texts. Be it for their radical ideas or flowing prose, here are the top five texts that should not have been a Thursday lecture.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
I mean, come on, it’s a medieval fairytale. Just because they are science students doesn’t mean they can’t have a little magic in their FYP experience. The kiss between the Lord and Sir Gawain was peak literature and the highlight of section two. Also, it became a vital text in the annual great debate when the Anti-Circle team used Sir Gawain to argue against the idea that FYP is best understood through the circle. Those poor science students must have been so confused when they looked up and saw a shield with a star in the middle.
Michel de Montaigne’s Essays
Montaigne invented the essay — an achievement that haunts students to this day. The science students should have read Montaigne just so they would know who to blame every FYP Sunday. Plus, who wouldn’t want to hear someone rant about their poop?
The Lais of Marie de France
After losing Virginia Woolf, Mary Shelley and Sappho, the loss of Marie De France is even more tragic. Already, FYP does not showcase many female writers. If Marie De France saw this, she would probably reiterate, “Just because spiteful title-tattlers attempt to find fault with me, I do not intend to give up.”
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics
As confusing as the Nicomachean Ethics might be, it’s a fundamental text for the rest of FYP. It’s where students first learn about the vegetative, rational and appetitive souls. These concepts come up again in Ibn Tufayl’s A Philosophical Tale, a text that the science students did have to read.
Molière’s Tartuffe
This play was good, but the lecture was phenomenal. Who do students love more than Daniel Brandes, professor of contemporary studies? Dawn Brandes, professor of performing arts. Interesting that Daniel Brandes (co-ordinator of the section) doesn’t want science students to experience Dawn Brandes’ lecture. Was he intimidated by the possibility that he might not be the best Dr. Brandes at King’s?
