Fall 2023 First Year Seminar

The Body

Professor Patrick Frierson

Office Hours in Olin 193: Tuesdays and Thursdays 9am-11am

Class Meets Mondays and Wednesdays from 11-11:50am (typically in Olin 184), and Fridays from 11-11:50am (usually at various locations on campus, see detailed syllabus)

Come see me!

I’m in my office (Olin East 193) and happy to meet with students on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9-11am. We can talk about questions related to class, but you don’t need a specific reason to come. If you can’t make these times, send me an email and we can make an appointment for another time. I’m also happy to meet with students over zoom who prefer to meet in that format. I’ve set aside Monday evenings from 9-10 PM for zoom office hours (at https://whitman.zoom.us/j/92189368747), but if you want to be sure I’m going to be there, please shoot me an email to let me know you are coming.

Course Description

This seminar introduces students to the liberal arts through an interdisciplinary discussion of the locus of a moving, experiencing self as the foundation of cognition and being in the world — the body. The course includes interdisciplinary plenaries that explore both text and movement in the form of somatic/dance practices. Both textual analysis and movement investigate the body's relationship to power as both shaped by, and resisted through, culture, race, gender, and dis/ability. Through exploration of the body historically and politically at both the local and global level, the course begins with and continually returns to the most basic question: What is the body? How do the boundaries of the body exist in intersection with the environment? How is the body a site of memory, trauma, or resistance?

Other Instructors in your pod are Xiaobo Yuan (Religion/Anthropology) and Renee Archibald (History). I offer many thanks to these colleagues, and past colleagues such as Elyse Semerdian, for material that has made its way into this syllabus and this course.

Required Materials

A good notebook for keeping a personal journal over the course of the semester.

Rene Descartes, Selected Philosophical Writings, trans. Cottingham, Stoothoff, and Murdoch, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, ISBN: 978-05213-5812-5

Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric, Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2014, ISBN: 978-1-55597-690-3.

Vauhini Vara, The Immortal King Rao, W.W. Norton, 2023, ISBN: 978-1324050308

Optional Materials:

Andrea Olson, BodyStories: A guide to experiential anatomy. Wesleyan University Press, ISBN: 978-0-8195-7944-7

Anatomy Coloring Book. Kaplan Test Prep, ISBN: 978-1-5062-7640-3. (Selections available here.)

A good set of colored pencils

Course Goals

If you put forth an effort into this course, by the end of the semester you should be able to:

Demonstrate improved ability to ask increasingly focused and complex questions.
Demonstrate improved ability to read inquisitively and generously, with attention to detail and nuance.
Demonstrate improved ability to formulate productive questions that guide exploration of a complex text (broadly construed)
Demonstrate improved ability to use writing and discussion as means to discover and reconsider ideas.
Demonstrate improved ability to understand how a writer’s overt purposes and readers’ expectations influence the structure and style of writing.
Demonstrate an improved sense of your own body and what it can do
Demonstrate improved understanding of various theories about the body and of how attention to the body can enrich engagement with art, literature, philosophy, and other fields.

Course Requirements

Participation

Meaningful classroom participation is essential for the seminar format to work properly. We are going to have a variety of different classes with different formats. The majority of class sessions will focus around discussion of a text. For these classes, your task is to carefully read the text before each class with the ability to select themes that characterized that reading. Once during the semester, you will do a presentation for one of these classes, and for every class for which there is a reading, I recommend the “How do I prepare for class?” linked here. Other classes involve participation in various specific forms of embodied practice, often with guest speakers/guides. You are expected to fully participate in the activities of those classes unless you have specific accommodations that preclude such participation, and to show respect to your guides and your classmates. In some cases, we will be putting ourselves in unfamiliar bodily situations, which can feel very vulnerable, so we must take care of each other during these sessions. At any time, you can opt out of an embodied practice if you choose to opt out.

For every class session, you are expected to participate in ways that are responsible, respectful, and fully present. With rare exceptions, I will ask you to put away all electronic devices when you enter the classroom and to pay attention to yourself, your classmates, and me. You must show others respect, and you should invite anyone in the class—including me—to reflect on ways that we might be intentionally or unintentionally creating a climate of disrespect. This class will work best when we are all able to be vulnerable and even uncomfortable around one another. For related reasons, I ask that you keep our classroom activities confidential unless you have express permission to share what you experience in class.

Class attendance is mandatory. If you have more than four absences, whether or not these are excused absences, you will suffer a one grade notch decrease in your final grade for each additional absence (i.e., if you had six absences and otherwise would have gotten an A-, you will get a B). This means that you should save absences for genuine emergencies. If you miss more than 9 (nine) class sessions, you cannot pass the class.

I will adjust your final grade based on your participation in class. Excellent participation can boost your final grade by up to a full grade notch (from B+ to A-, for example). Lack of participation can lower it by a notch. Poor participation (disruptive or disrespectful) can lower it by a full grade point (from A to B).

In addition, there are two specific participation-related requirements in this course which will count as a specific percentage of your overall grade:

Presentations (10% each, 20% of total grade):

Discussion Leadership Presentation. In order to encourage participation and collective ownership of our class, students will pair up with a partner once for a 10-minute presentation during the first half (ish) of the semester. In the presentation, you will lay out a theme from the reading and generate questions to guide our discussion. Students are also welcome to use their presentation to make a meaningful connection between texts to synthesize the course material. A great presentation should model close, analytical reading and inquiry for our class. A presentation should work to pose questions that bring greater understanding to the content of the reading, yet questions can also include provocations that spark a lively debate about the reading. At the very least, your presentation should

Identify at least three important questions the text addresses
Identify a thesis that the text defends, and/or an insight that it seeks to communicate
Identify how the text advances reflection on the questions it addresses (including, if it has a clear thesis, the overall argument in favor of that thesis)
Identify at least three crucial passages worth discussing as a class. At least one of these should be one that you think you understand and that you think is central to the overall point of the text. At least one should be a passage you find genuinely puzzling (in ways that you can articulate).

While not necessary, this presentation also provides an opportunity for you to connect what we are reading together as a class with material you wish we were reading/discussing as a class. For example, last year one group connected a discussion of gender identity from the text we were reading with news stories about the feminist revolution taking place at the time in Iran. Another group shared pop music songs that related to our readings and had the class use songs as a way of summarizing what we had just read. Consider this an invitation to get creative and embrace the ways that our texts speak to you and your world! If you have any questions about your presentation, please consult me at any time or just drop by office hours.

Passion Project Presentation. Your second presentation should be no more than 10 minutes in length, and many be on any topic related to the body, embodiment, or the texts that we read in this class. This, again, is a chance to be creative and to introduce the class to material we might not otherwise engage with. You are free to assign up to 15 pages of reading or up to 20 minutes of viewing for your classmates in anticipation of the presentation, but you are not required to do so. You may present in whatever format you find most suitable for your topic. If you have any questions about your presentation, please consult me at any time or just drop by office hours.

Written Work

This course has several important writing-related goals, most of which are best served through less formal styles of writing. At the same time, however, the course will prepare you for college-level writing through more formal assignments. Note that even though these assignments are typically worth only 10% of your grade, you must complete all of them in order to pass the class, and to complete an assignment, you must (among other things) meet the minimum word count (if there is one for that assignment).

Journal (up to 10% of total grade). Each of you should have a physical (non-electronic) notebook or journal in which you can hand-write reflections over the course of the semester. You should bring this notebook with you to class. During class, as you hear or experience things that you want to reflect on later, you should jot them down in your notebook. As you encounter something particularly provocative or interesting in the readings, you should jot it down. You can, if you choose, keep your reading notes (see above) in your journal. In addition to those items, you should spend at least 10 minutes a day, for at least four days a week, writing and reflecting on the themes of this course. You should do this writing with a hand-writing implement (pen or pencil) in a notebook. This exercise is both an intellectual practice of using writing as means to discover and reconsider ideas and also an embodied practice where you are exercising manual and bodily skills and remaining attentive to the embodied experience of writing in a journal. I will periodically check on these journals, and may collect them just to make sure you are keeping up with them. I will not read them, and if there are specific pages you do not want me to read, you may staple those together when you turn in the journal. This is writing you are doing for you. If you keep up with the journals regularly, you will get an A for this part of your grade.

Daily Written Prep Work (20%): Over the course of the semester, there will generally be written assignments due before class (on Canvas). These will be graded for completion. You must complete the assignment in good faith and prior to class in order to get credit for it. Your grade will be based on the percentage of assignments that you complete and submit on time. (93-100%=A, 90-93%=A-, 87-89%=B+, etc.). Late assignments will receive no credit, and assignments that are below the required word count will receive no credit.

Four Short Papers (35% total; the first is worth 5% of your grade, the others 10% each): Over the course of the semester, there will be four specific short papers to encourage engagement with the course material. These papers are to be written with appropriate citations of text (see Diana Hacker, A Pocket Style Manual) and clearly constructed. Assignments are indicators of the students’ proficiency in understanding and critically engaging the course texts. I will “grade” papers with a score from 1-10. For my expectations in terms of your writing, and an interpretation of the scores on papers, see my grading criteria. Short Papers are listed on the timeline below. There are two required revisions, one on Paper #2, and one on the paper of your choice. (Failure to complete at least two revisions will result in replacing your highest short paper grade with an F.) You are also allowed to revise any short paper as often as you choose until the last day of class. The final grade on a given short paper will be the average of the grade on your first version and the highest grade that a draft receives on that assignment.[1]

Final Paper/Project (20%): At the end of the semester, you must write a final paper of your choosing that deals with The Immortal King Rao in a substantive way. If you choose to do an additional final project (demonstrating an embodied practice, creating a video or work of art), then the final paper must be at least 600 words. Otherwise, the final paper must be at least 1500 words. As with the short papers, these final papers are to be written with appropriate citations of text, clearly constructed, and meet my grading criteria.

Deadlines: Work must be turned in on time. If you turn in work late, it will be marked as not completed, though I will give you feedback on the work. You may “rewrite” work that was turned in late, but the initial grade for that work will be an F, so the highest you can get through revision is a C. Once during the semester, you may take a 48-hour extension on a paper with no penalty. The purpose of this extension is to deal with genuine emergencies (sudden illness, breakdowns, etc.), so it for such emergencies. With extremely rare exceptions, I will not give other extensions.

Academic Honesty: I expect work that you turn in to be your own. You are encouraged to talk with your classmates (both in this section and in other sections) about the material. You are highly discouraged from consulting the internet for help with this material, except in ways that are specifically called for by me. Part of the goal of this class is to engage with college-level material for yourself, and the internet is a handy shortcut to mindless groupthink. If you consult with other sources (whether people, texts, websites, or whatever), I expect you to cite every source that you consult in any way in a “works consulted” section of your papers (which does not count towards the word count), and I expect any paraphrase or quotation to be properly cited.

Overall Grade

Your final grade will be based on your two presentations (25% total, 15% for group discussion leadership and 10% for passion project), daily written prep work (20%), four short assigned papers (35% total), and your final paper on King Rao (20%). I will adjust this grade upwards or downwards based on the overall quality of your participation in and preparation for class.

Course Timeline

	Reading to complete before class	Writing to complete before class	What to expect in class	Discussion Leader/ Location
Aug 30	Descartes, Meditation 1 (we’ll read this together in class), pp. 76-79. Tamar Schapiro, “What is a Child?,” opening paragraph. Spatz, What Can A Body Do?, selection Barnes, The Minority Body, selection Anatomy Coloring Book, pp. 198-199 (Cardiovascular system)		Cartesian Meditation, Asking Complex Questions, Discussion, Embodied Practice, Syllabus review
Sept. 1	Reese et. al., “How the Microbiome Challenges our Conception of Self” (with replies). Read one of the articles cited in Reese et. al. or the response article. For instance, you might read “A Symbiotic View of Life” (Gilbert et. al.) or “Holes in the Hologenome” (Douglas and Werren) Anatomy coloring book, Digestive System, pp. 274-275 or 288-89.	Daily Written Prep Work: Write a short summary of the main claim of the supplemental article that you read. How could you use this article to support either Reese et. al. or the response to them? What new questions about the (human) body do you have after reading this article?	What is a human body?
Sept. 4	Descartes, Meditation 1 (pp. 76-79); Discourse 1-4, pp. 20-40. Anatomy Coloring Book, pp. 200-201 (Circulation)	First Paper, first attempt. Identify a question that Descartes asks in his Meditations. Reformulate that question in a way that makes it clearer, more complex, and more interesting. Make that question the title of your paper. Then write a single clear and coherent argument defending an answer to your reformulated question. The first sentence of the paper should be your answer to the question, and the rest of the paper should show you’re your answer is correct. Do not give three separate arguments with their own evidence. Do separate your argument into paragraphs that each present a distinct step in the argument. For this paper, pay special attention to avoiding run-on sentences. (You can google “how to avoid run-on sentences” for good tutorials. Purdue OWL is generally good for many basic grammar lessons.)	Class discussion of Descartes.	Class Observation Day
Sept. 6	Descartes, Meditations 1-4 (focus on meditation 2), pp. 73-105. Anatomy Coloring Book, pp. 204-207 (Surface of Heart)	First Paper, Revision: Revise your first paper.	Short lecture and discussion of Descartes’s Meditations, focused on Meditation 2.	Class Observation Day
Sept. 8	BodyStories, Day 2 (do at least the “Constructive Rest” activity) Optional, but read only after our yoga session: Body Keeps the Score (vanderKolk), chapter 16; and/or What a Body Can Do (Spatz), pp. 73-110 (focus on pp. 73-4, 83-86, and 100-109.)	Daily Written Prep Work: Reflect on your experience with Constructive Rest. What surprised you as you engaged in that practice? What questions, if any, do you have at present that you hope your experience with yoga might help you to answer. Optional but recommended: After our yoga session…What do you wish you had asked, or how do you wish you had asked your question differently, or what new and different question do you now have?	Yoga *Bonus: Friday movie. Let’s watch a movie together: Choose the Matrix* or The Truman Show or A Beautiful Mind.**	Dance Studio
Sept. 11	Descartes Meditation 6 (preread Passions), and correspondence with Elizabeth, pp. 110-122, handout. Anatomy Coloring Book, pp. 110-111 (Nervous System) BodyStories, Day 4. Do the “cellular breathing” exercise (p. 21)	Daily Written Prep Work: Make up a conjectural theory about how the heart works. Be as creative and silly as possible. Bring a hard copy of your answer to class. (Note that “how the heart works” is really vague. You need to first formulate the right question…What version of “how does the heart work?” are you interested in answering. Then you need to answer it.)	Daily Written Prep Work: Revise your pre-lab report.	Class Observation Day
Sept. 13	Descartes (Discourse 5-6), pp. 40-56 and handout. Anatomy Coloring Book, pp. 208-209 (Coronal Section of Heart) and/or pp. 210-211 (Superior Aspect and Heart Conduction Pathway)	Daily Written Prep Work: Write a pre-lab report. (Click link for details.)	Draw “Descartes’s Heart” and discuss what primary question Descartes asks about the heart, what answer he gives, and what evidence he offers.	Meet in Fouts (Art Building) Room 201.
Sept. 15	Descartes (Meditation 6 and Passions), pp. 110-122, 218-238.	Daily Written Prep Work: Revise your pre-lab report.	*Bonus: Friday movie. Let’s watch a movie together: Choose the Matrix* or The Truman Show or A Beautiful Mind or . . .**
Sept. 18	Anatomy Coloring book, pp. 208-209.	Daily Written Prep Work: You do not need to turn anything in today. I very strongly encourage you to do as much pre-work as you can on your Lab Reports. In particular, think carefully about what information you need to gain from our dissection in order to develop and defend an account of how the heart works.	Heart Dissection	Science Building, Room 206.
Sept. 20	Descartes, Passions of Soul, pp. 218-238.	Daily Written Prep Work: You do not need to turn anything in today. You should be working on your lab reports.	Discuss Cartesian Lab Reports	Class Observation Day
Sept. 22	Descartes, review. Drew Leder, Introduction and Chapter One from The Absent Body. (Focus on the selections marked in red.)	Paper #2. Cartesian Hearts Lab Reports Due.	Frierson Plenary: “Two Cartesian Dualisms” *Bonus: Friday night movie. Ex Machina* (or…?)**	Reid Ballroom
Sept 25	Watch this video starring Renee Archibald: https://vimeo.com/464584628/7862138662?share=copy And read these field notes by Xiaobo Yuan.	Daily Written Prep Work: Come with at least two questions for each of the faculty members in this learning community (Frierson, Yuan, Archibald), based on the plenary lecture as well as the supplementary material you’ll read for today.		Reid Ballroom
Sept. 27	Thomas Hanna, “What is Somatics” and “Introduction” to Somatics.” Ben Spatz, What A Body Can Do, pp. 1-4, 11-14. (Optional: Start on Spatz, “Embodiment as First Affordance”)	Daily Written Prep Work: Articulate two questions about somatics. One should be a basic comprehension question about something that you just don’t understand. The other should be a “complex question” that you think would be worth investigating and writing a book about.		Discussion Leadership Presentation: ___ and ___
Sept. 29	Spatz, “Embodiment as First Affordance”		Somatics Friday Night Movie: Bebe Miller, In a Rhythm.	Dance Studio
Oct. 2	John Locke, Second Treatise on Government, Chapters two, three, and five, especially sections 4, 6, 7, 17, 18, 25-51. Karl Marx, Economic and Political Manuscripts, “Estranged Labor.” Anatomy Coloring Book, pp. 104-105 or 106-107.	Daily Written Prep Work: List at least 20 ways that your property is an extension of your body. Circle (or put in bold) the one that you think is the most important. Circle (or underline) the one Locke would think is the most important.	Extending the body 1: Property	Discussion Leadership Presentation: ___ and ___
Oct. 4	Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Chapters 13 and 14 (up to the two laws of nature), and Chapter 17 (be sure to print only the relevant chapters). John Locke, Second Treatise on Government, Chapter VIII, §§95-99, and Chapter IX, §§123-131. Optional: Citizens United vs. FEC (scroll to bottom of page to get the actual court opinion)	Daily Written Prep Work: Identify one key difference between Hobbes and Locke with respect to the origin and nature of government. Drawing on your personal experience and/or current events, give two pieces of evidence to support Hobbes’s account over Locke’s.	Extending the Body 2: The “Body” Politic	Discussion Leadership Presentation: ___ and ___
Oct. 6 – Break
Oct. 9	Clark and Chalmers, “The Extended Mind”	Daily Written Prep Work: Formulate 10 questions about the body that could be worth writing a short paper about.		Discussion Leadership Presentation: ___ and ___
Oct. 11	Terrence Turner, “The Social Skin,” Journal of Ethnographic Theory 2:2 (Fall 2012), pp. 486-504. Anatomy coloring book, pp. 160-161 (Skin) or 16-19 (Body Regions)	Daily Written Prep Work: Revise two of your questions from the previous assignment to make them more interesting, more complex, and more realistically addressable given the resources you have to answer them. Then choose one of them and formulate a provisional thesis that answers the question.		Discussion Leadership Presentation: ___ and ___
Oct. 13	Dance Monsters, episode 1, Netflix.		Friday Night Movie: *Memento*	Virtual Reality Lab
Oct. 16	Read: Sarah Hendren, What Can a Body Do?, pp. 1-33. Watch: The Examined Life, with Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_N84BffPcM Watch: Aimee Mullins, “It’s Not Fair Having 12 Pairs of Legs”	Daily Written Prep Work: Recall Ben Spatz’s distinction, in What a Body Can Do (p. 11), between “technique and technology.” Write a short dialogue between Spatz and one of the authors of one of the texts we engaged with for today. In your dialogue, each character should deepen their own view through incorporating an insight they learn from the other. Let this be a model of the sort of conversation(s) you would hope to have with your friends in college and beyond.		Discussion Leadership Presentation: ___ and ___
Oct. 18	“Women and the Knife,” Katheryn Pauly Morgan Our Bodies Ourselves pp 52-57 (really the whole section on Body Image would be great) “Unbuilding Gender: Trans* Anarchitectures In and Beyond the Work of Gordon Matta-Clark,” Jack Halberstam Watch: Aimee Mullins, “It’s Not Fair Having 12 Pairs of Legs”	Daily Written Prep Work: Write out 10 questions that could help someone (including yourself, or me) decide whether to get “elective” surgery to change their bodies.		Discussion Leadership Presentation: ___ and ___
Oct. 20		Paper #3: ChatGPT paper	Embodied Practice, Drawing the Human Body Friday Night Movie: TBD	Harper Joy Theater (probably the costume shop)
Oct. 23	Herring and Well, “The Nature and Significance of the Right to Bodily Autonomy”	Daily Written Prep Work: Relax.		Discussion Leadership Presentation: ___ and ___
Oct. 25	Ellie Anderson, “A Phenomenological Approach to Consent”	Daily Written Prep Work: Identify a central thesis of Anderson’s essay. Who is she arguing against? How/Why might someone reasonably disagree with her?		Discussion Leadership Presentation: ___ and ___
Oct. 27	Do not read until after the embodied practice. Gina T’ai, “Exploring Consent”	Daily Written Prep Work: Again, let’s take a little break today.	Group Movement.	Dance Studio
Oct. 30	Library Day	Daily Written Prep Work: Go back to your Paper #3. If you were to do library research in order to further explore your question (either the one you started with, or the one you ended with), how would go about finding good sources? What do you consider to be the criteria for a “good source”?	*Monday Night Movie: Get Out.*	Library, Room 313
Nov. 1	Read Claudia Rankine, Citizen, pp. 1-55. Recommended: Harris, “Whiteness as Property”	Daily Written Prep Work: Drawing on at least three different texts that we’ve read this semester, list at least 10 ways that “the body has memory” (Rankine, p. 28). Spend at least 150 words writing about what makes Rankine’s articulation and defense of that claim more or less impactful than the way at least one other text we’ve read articulates it. Use at least three specific quotations from at least two different texts.
Nov. 3	Rankine, Citizen, pp. 81-136.	Daily Written Prep Work: Choose one page from Citizen. Make 10 observations about that page.	Yuan Plenary: Title TBD	Reid Ballroom
Nov. 6	Rankine, pp. 137-162. Watch Kimberley Crenshaw on Intersectionality	Daily Written Prep Work: Identify one place in Citizen where the narrative is driven by an intersectional identity. Briefly say why this can’t be explained as a mere combination of two or more identities. Optional: Write a short story about an experience of your own that is grounded in your intersectional identities.	Class Shuffle	Reid Ballroom
Nov. 8	Rankine, review.	SAP #4. Write an essay of at least 300 words that clearly expresses some important aspect of your experience making your way through the world in your body. Then compose a “lyric” that expresses your embodied presence in the world and that shows the limitations of your “clear” essay.
Nov. 10	Passion Project Presentations	Daily Written Prep Work: Based on the titles of the presentations, write up at least one question for each presenter.	Passion Projects:
Nov. 13	Passion Project Presentations	Daily Written Prep Work: Based on the titles of the presentations, write up at least one question for each presenter. Also write up at least one thing that you learned from the previous presentations and that you hope to use in your final paper.	Passion Projects:
Nov. 15	Passion Project Presentations	Daily Written Prep Work: Based on the titles of the presentations, write up at least one question for each presenter. Also write up at least one thing that you learned from the previous presentations and that you hope to use in your final paper.	Passion Projects:
Nov. 17	Vaihini Vana, The Immortal King Rao, pp. 1-22	Daily Written Prep Work: Write up a question that was provoked by the presentations and that you hope you can explore in The Immortal King Rao. Link that question to one or more specific presentations. Paper Revision: Submit a revision of one of your previous Papers (other than Paper #1).	Something really fun…
Thanksgiving Break
Nov. 27	Vaihini Vana, The Immortal King Rao, pp. 1-109.
Nov. 29	Vaihini Vana, The Immortal King Rao, pp. 109-169
Dec. 1	Vaihini Vana, The Immortal King Rao, pp. 169-225		Embodied practice, choose what we need at this point in semester, and/or what works well with King Rao.
Dec. 4	Vaihini Vana, The Immortal King Rao, pp. 229-319		Thesis workshop for final paper/project.
Dec. 6	Vaihini Vana, The Immortal King Rao, pp. 320-370
Dec. 8	Course review
Dec. 13	Final Exam Time 9-11 am	We will not have a final exam in this class. Instead, we will meet during our final exam period to share final projects.	In addition to sharing final projects, we may have some form of embodied practice during our exam period.

[1] (So, if you turn in an SAP and get a C+, and then revise it and get a B-, and then do a major revision and get an A-, and then take a big risk with a complete rewrite and get a B-, you’ll end up with a B (the average of C+ and A-) for that assignment. I may also give you a bit of a boost for the risky rewrite, even though it didn’t pan out.)