These awards have zero impact on grades. But my decision is final and I reserve the right to change the categories as I see fit and/or terminate the awards without warning.
Week 1 (Introduction):
- Award for Being First: Dave, for Introduction
- Cutting it Fine Award: Shreya, for Introduction, at 11:58pm and 19 seconds.
- Most Amazing and Coolest Images Award: Nana, for Nana’s Introduction ;D
- Cutest Image of Blogger as Small Child with Sibling Making Faces On What Looks to be Some Kind of Fairground Ride Award: Julya, for Why hello there stranger
Week 2 (Proust):
- Best Title: Shreya, for “go upstairs”- someone needs to chin his parents.hey mom, maybe let the boy have his goodnight kisses yeah?
- Most Proustian Post on Proust: Melissa, for proustian rant on proust
- Cutting it Fine Award: Kim, for La Rue De Boring – Proust, at 11:58pm.
- Best Question(s): Jasmine, with “Does documenting a moment right away make it less likely to come back in that sudden, emotional way later?” at Proust
Week 3 (Arlt):
- Award for Being First: Jennifer, for A Whole Day of Arlt
- Best One-Sentence Summary of One of the Main Themes of the Book Award: Zara, for “One thing that Arlt did exceptionally well is demonstrate how a person is a product of their environment, but only to an extent.” From Mad Toy, a well executed coming of age story?.
- Philosophical Point to Ponder Award: Julya, for “We always think adult life is all daisies and roses, and then we get our metaphorical asses handed to us, and we get reality checked to the next plane of existence, so that we can get up and learn to be okay with the fact that life does suck sometimes, but you have to try to make the best of it.” Also wins the Proof that Not Only Proust Writes Long Sentences Award. From What did the “coming-of-age story” genre do to Robert Arlt that made him come out swinging like that?! and what is this arsonist child doing here?!!.
- Best Use of Quotation to Provide Textual Examples Award: Kim, for stay away from state-run “hotels” – Arlt
Week 3 (Breton):
- Award for Being First: Gurman, for A Maddening Infatuation— “Nadja” by André Breton
- Can She Really Keep Up This Plan to Write Every Blog Post in the Style of the Book She’s Reading? Award: Melissa, for NEBULOSITY
- Best Rant: Kimberly, for Nadja: Pretentious Bland French Man x Manic Pixie Dream Girl
- Best Title: Ava, for Andre, hun, with all the love in the world, have you considered therapy?
Week 4 (Bombal):
- Award for Being First: Anora, for Ontological Fiction in Maria Luisa Bombal
- Controversial Opinion Award: Dave, for Another rich kid’s boring selfish wasted life
- Best Use of Quotation to Provide Textual Examples Award: Radha, for Revelations after death – The Shrouded Woman
- Best Post: Tolu, for Who’s the fairest of them all?
Week 5 (Moravia):
- Best Post: Sophia, for Evil under the sun
- Improving Your Reading Attention Span Award: Justin, for Feeling stuck 🙁
- Best Rant: Zara, for and the Grammy goes to … Agostino for the most Freudian MC!
- Title Made Me Laugh Award: Quizzy, for Freud has this RMST course in a chokehold. (Also a contender for this week’s Best Use of Quotation to Provide Textual Examples Award.)
- Would Definitely Have Won Several Awards if Only She’d Got Her Blog Post In a Bit Earlier Award: Julya, for “We shouldn’t be fucking MILFs, it ruined my life”- a MILF’s son’s memoir
Week 5 (Laforet):
- Best Use of Alliteration: Keshia, for This House Has Mold, Memories, and Malice. (But wouldn’t it have been nice if it had been a Melancholy Mansion Made of Mold, Memories, and Malice??) Plus the opening line made me laugh: “Reading Nada felt less like reading a novel and more like being dropped into someone else’s extremely tense family group chat.”
- Best Post: Muhtadi, for The Quiet Weight of Survival
- Best Line: Kavya, for “memory gives shape to what felt meaningless at the time. The year only gains significance through retrospection.” From A book about nothing (that somehow meant a lot).
- Cutting it Fine and Making the TAs Lose Their Beauty Sleep Award: Por, for AH, HOW STUPID YOUTH IS! – NADA, at 11:58pm
Week 6 (Zobel):
Week 6 (Arguedas):
Week 7 (Rodoreda):
Week 8 (Lispector):
Week 8 (Calvino):
Week 9 (Duras):
Week 9 (Manea):
Week 10 (Piglia):
Week 11 (Cercas):
Week 11 (Agualusa):
Week 12 (Luiselli):
Week 12 (Ferrante):
Week 13 (Debré):
Week 13 (Amadou Amal):
People’s Choice awards:
We welcome nominations for what you think were the best of the best (best title? best rant? best line? best blog post? best blogger?) either in a particular week or throughout the semester… Self-nominations also welcome.
