Lesson 6 Disappearing Through the Skylight O.B. Hardison, Jr.

Objectives of teaching: 1. To know the features of scientific writing. 2. To analyse the structure of the text. 3. To understand the deeper meaning of the text. 4. To appreciate the language features

I. Background information 1) The author O.B. Hardison, Jr. (1928 -1990) was born in San Diego, California in 1928. He was educated at the University of North Carolina and the Universtiy of Wisconsin. He has taught in Princeton and the Universtiy of North Carolina. He is the author of Lyrics and Elegies (1958), The Enduring Monument (1962), English Literary Criticism: The Renaissance (1964), Toward Freedom and Dignity: The Humanities and the Idea of Humanity (1973), Entering the Maze: Identity and Change in Modern Culture (1981) and Disappearing Through the Skylight (1980).

I. Background information 2) The title Disappearing Through the Skylight is not only the title of this chapter but also the title of the book. This shows the importance the writer attaches to this chapter. The book, however, also has a sub-title, “Culture and Technology in the Twentieth Century”. The author is well-known for his profound insights into the change in modern culture brought about by modern science and technology. As the author puts it, “This book is about the ways culture has changed in the past century, changing the identities of all those born into it. Its metaphor for the effect of change on culture is disappearance”. As for the “disappearance”, he says, “In the nineteenth century, science presented nature as a group of objects set comfortably and solidly in the middle distance before the eyes of the beholder….Today, nature has slipped, perhaps finally, beyond our field of vision.”

I. Background information 3) Ford Motor Company (Ford) Ford Motor Company is a global company operating in two business sectors: Automobile sector and Financial Services sector. The Automotive sector sells cars and trucks throughout the world. During the year ended December 31, 2004, the Company changed the reporting of its Automotive sector from two segments (Americas and International) to three segments: The Americas, Ford Europe and PAG, and Ford Asia Pacific and Africa/ Mazda. The Financial Services business includes the operations of Ford Motor Credit Company (Ford Credit), a provider of vehicle-related financing, leasing and insurance.

I. Background information 4)Pablo Picasso Pablo Picasso (1881-1973): Spanish artist. He was best known as the 20th century's most famous artist. One of the most prolific and influential artists of the 20th century, Picasso excelled in painting, sculpture, etching, stage design, and ceramics. With Georges Braque he launched cubism (1906–1925), and he introduced the technique of collage. Among Picasso's works are Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and Guernica (1937).

I. Background information 5)Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519): Artist & Scientist. He is best remembered as the painter of the Mona Lisa (1503-1506) and The Last Supper (1495). But he's almost equally famous for his astonishing multiplicity of talents: he dabbled in architecture, sculpture, engineering, geology, hydraulics and the military arts, all with success, and in his spare time doodled parachutes and flying machines that resembled inventions of the 19th and 20th centuries. He made detailed drawings of human anatomy which are still highly regarded today. Leonardo also was quirky enough to write notebook entries in mirror (backwards) script, a trick which kept many of his observations from being widely known until decades after his death.

I. Background information 6)surrealism A 20th-century literary and artistic movement that attempts to express the workings of the subconscious and is characterized by fantastic imagery and incongruous juxtaposition of subject matter. It also refers to Literature or art produced in this style.

I. Background information 7)postmodernism a term used to designate a multitude of trends—in the arts, philosophy, religion, technology, and many other areas—that come after and deviate from the many 20th-cent. movements that constituted modernism. The term has become ubiquitous in contemporary discourse and has been employed as a catchall for various aspects of society, theory, and art. Widely debated with regard to its meaning and implications, postmodernism has also been said to relate to the culture of capitalism as it has developed since the 1960s. In general, the postmodern view is cool, ironic, and accepting of the fragmentation of contemporary existence. It tends to concentrate on surfaces rather than depths, to blur the distinctions between high and low culture, and as a whole to challenge a wide variety of traditional cultural values.

I. Background information 8)Neomodernism a philosophical position based on modernism but addressing the critique of modernism by postmodernism. It is currently associated with the work of Agnes Heller and Carlos Escudé, and is strongly rooted in the criticisms which Habermas has levelled at postmodern philosophy, namely that universalism and critical thinking are the two essential elements of human rights and that human rights create a superiority of some cultures over others. That is, that equality and relativism are "mutually contradictory".

II. Theme of the passage As the title suggests, the central theme of this passage is “disappearance” --- nature disappears, history disappears, and even the solid banks disappears. The metaphorical phrase “Disappearing Through the Skylight” is used to describe the changed appearance of modern banks which seem to be disappearing.

II. Theme of the passage Another important idea the author puts forward is the universalizing tendency of science and technology. The basic concepts of science are understood, accepted and adopted by scientists all over the world. There is only one science of thermodynamics, genectics, etc.

II. Theme of the passage The third concept is, “If man creates machines, machines in turn shape their creators.” The modern man is no longer a unique individual, the product of a special environment and culture. The homogeneous world he now lives in universalizes him. He becomes a cosmopolitan, a citizen of the world.

II. Theme of the passage Finally, the disappearance of history is a form of liberation and this feeling of liberation is often expressed through play. The playfullness of science has produced game theory and virtual particles, in art it has produced the paintings of Picasso and Joan Miro and so on.

III. Stylistic features Scientific English. This passage uses a lot of scientific and technological terms. Most sentences are short and to the point. The simple present tense is used to express a universal statement. The language of this passage is clear, concise, objective and logical. Meanwhile, the author uses figurative language to make his ideas more vivid and forceful.

IV. Rhetorical devices Metaphor Analogy Rhetorical question Repetition Task: Try to find examples of each rhetorical device used in the text.

V. Organizational pattern The whole material is clearly and logically organized. The author’s views are presented at the beginning of a paragraph as topic sentences and developed of illustrated in the paragraph itself or by succeeding paragraphs.

VI. Questions for discussion How does the author substantiate his statement that science is committed to the universal? How does technology exhibit this universalizing tendency? How has man become cosmopolitan? Why does the banks appear to be disappearing through their own skylights?