by the Harvard Advocate
Set I
1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, which Frankfurt School critical theorist would you want as a dinner guest?
5. When did you last recite a John Ashbery poem to yourself? To someone else?
7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will be consumed by the oblivion?
8. Name three things that you and your partner appear to have in common besides thick Warby Parker glasses and the tendency to over use the word “discourse.”
11. Take four minutes and tell your partner the plotline of The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen in as much detail as possible.
Set II
14. Is there a poetry chapbook you’ve dreamed of writing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?
15. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life that is not making it all the way through Infinite Jest?
Set III
30. When did you last complain about Rupi Kaur in front of another person? By yourself?
32. What, besides the integrity of the Western canon, is too serious to be joked about?
34. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your secondhand copy of Gravity's Rainbow and your black Moleskine notebook, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. Which Faulkner novel would it be? Why?
36. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how to conduct a Lacanian reading. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem – how deeply you relate to the washed-up protagonist in Birdman.
