stephen moore

Hey everyone. My name is Stephen Moore, and I am a senior English and Government major from South Burlington, Vermont. I guess I chose these two different majors because I’ve always enjoyed reading and writing. Math and science never really came that naturally to me, so it made sense for me to pick a major where I could just read books and write stories. I decided on the Government major a bit later, after I realized that I had taken a bunch of gov. classes and had enough to do a major there as well.

Being an English major though, I have had definitely had a lot of experiences with English courses. My favorite areas are fiction and drama, and these are probably where I have had the best experiences. I really enjoyed taking both the intro and advanced fiction classes because I was able to have a lot of fun in creating and telling my own stories. I think this is probably why I like taking writing classes. I really enjoy creating and telling stories. I’m actually really excited about this semester, because I am doing an independent study on absurdist drama where I am going to write my own absurdist play. I’m hoping that this will actually end up being my best experience with an English course because I pretty much made it up for my self. If there is one area that I’ve had trouble with it’s creative nonfiction writing. I seem to have a bit of trouble with this style and struggled a bit trying to figure it out.

In this class I’m really interested in reading literature from the 20th century. I’ve already had some exposure to early African American lit, although of course not all, but I would really like to see how it developed during the last century. I’d especially like to learn about African American drama. I’ve read A Raisin in the Sun, and Fences, but am not really familiar with other dramatic works.

I would describe my self as being a white, upper middle class liberal. I have a Jewish background, but was not raised to be very religious. Now I don't have any religious affiliations, and am pretty skeptical of organized religion. Growing up in Vermont has also given me a pretty liberal perspective. I generally believe that people should be free to live and do whatever way they want as long as they are not hurting anyone else. Although I like to think that Vermont is liberal and forward thinking, I also realize that I have not lived amongst a lot of diversity. Vermont is pretty homogeneous, and my high school and town were almost all white. This has definitely affected my perspectives, although I would like to think that I have grown up to be an accepting person. Being white in America, I also realize that I have lived my life as an insider, and have really had very little outsider experience. I don't think that I can really even imagine what it would be like as a true outsider in society, as I have always been a privileged member of society.