As some of you know, I'm taking what I would think of as a "Dual Arts Course" i.e. English Literature and Music. I'm now in my second year and both courses have started to run modules pertaining to Artistic Philosophy. It's fascinating, and no less so because the same theories apply to both artistic areas (and, indeed, to art!)

The irritating thing here, is that there is no correspondence between the two halves of my degree, and therefore there is no awareness that I'm learning the same theories in two different courses. It basically means that by the time I get to a seminar at the end of the week, I've already had twice as many lectures as everyone else, in a wider field than others, on the same subject. And now I've clarified the context, this is the point of this blog:

**It's more interesting to analyse my classmates than it is to discuss philosophy with them.**

This is because one class has pure English Lit students, and one has pure music students. The English students will analyse a concept purely on it's technical tones, its context and its application to literature. The Music students will analyse it in a more general sense, concentrating on the thematic content, and then taking a huuuuuuuge leap and applying it to music. It's very entertaining to watch someone trying to apply Semiotics to music when they haven't read the text properly- think of someone using a crowbar to open a jewellery box.

I make even more of a fool of myself in these lectures, because as I said I've already pretty much covered 90% of the angles. I've also connected it to other theories that are unique to one or other of my areas. The problem in class discussion is that if you bring one theory in to support another, it only makes sense if everyone else knows of the first theory. So I have to think very carefully before making a point. (It's even worse when you've been put in a group where no-one else reads the text at ALL, but I digress.)

This post makes me sound incredibly arrogant... I'm really not. I just want to know if anyone else has had a conflict like this?