The Beatles

I had to share this snippet of an article I found on Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/03/uk-university-offers-mast_n_171656.html

The Liverpool Hope University is now offering a Master's Degree in "The Beatles, Popular Music, and Society."

This is quite possibly one of the neatest things ever and, of course, yet another reason why the liberal arts rock (and roll)! Literally.

More from the article:
"There have been over 8,000 books about the Beatles but there has never been serious academic study and that is what we are going to address," said Mike Brocken, who is directing the program at the university, which is in the band's hometown in northwestern England. Brocken said students would be expected to study the Beatles' songs, stardom, hometown and cultural impact through four 12-week courses and a dissertation. Brocken said studying the band was really a way of examining society as a whole. "If popular music is about anything, it's about people," he said. "If we look at popular culture, it simply provides us with a very complex mirror of ourselves."

Darwin and the Arts

I came across this article on the NYTimes about a new exhibition entitled, "Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science, and Art." Now, I really wish fly to Yale to see these paintings. The impact Darwin had/has on literature is one of those small pockets of literary study that fascinate me. I like this passage in the article, which sort of succinctly summarizes Darwin's impact:

"The show claims to be exploring, for the first time, the impact of Darwin’s theories on the visual arts. With a few deft selections and explanations, French Impressionism is shown to have been under the influence. (Degas was fascinated by Darwin’s study comparing facial expressions of animals and humans.) So, too, were the aesthetic movements of the late 19th century, with their visions of feminine beauty. (Sexual selection was one of the themes Darwin turned to in exploring the power of plumage.)"

One particular artist I like who I would also like to think was impact by Darwin is Max Ernst. Surely Darwin's theory of evolution and animal life influenced some of Ernst's painting, which feature animals prominently.

For instance, "The Robing of the Bride" featured below. It is hard to see in the painting where animal begins and where human begins. The creatures/bodies/entities in the painting seem to be part animal and part human, suggesting some confluence between how we understand the different species. Now, I am not an art scholar by any means, but just viewing this painting makes think that Ernst is trying to point out some uncanny connection to birds and humans and its mythic overtones, especially since this painting has some sort of magisterial quality with the courtly imagery and title.


This other painting I found some time ago, and I have always tried to look at it because of my initial reaction, which was a cross between, "What is that?", and, "Amazing!" Entitled "Men Shall Know Nothing of This," this painting below makes me think of the relationship between living and non-living. With the machine images on top of the elephant-like creature and then the statue in the foreground, it seems like Ernst is suggesting that these non-living objects can be a burden to us. They can lay on top of us and in our path obstructing our movements.

Regardless of whether Ernst was really influenced by Darwin, I thought it would be interesting to share these paintings. I hope you enjoyed them!

With a Flower

Continuing with the flower poetry posts, I thought I would share this little snippet of a poem by Dickinson. Now, I am not sure if this is the actual title of the poem, or it was left unnamed, which is most likely the case, but I found it on poetry.com like this.

"With a Flower" by Emily Dickinson

I hide myself within my flower,

That wearing on your breast,

You, unsuspecting, wear me too --

And angels know the rest.

I hide myself within my flower,

That, fading from your vase,

You, unsuspecting, feel for me

Almost a loneliness.

I really like that this poem talks about hiding places in a sense. I have been reading Bachelard's A Poetics of Space off and on for a couple weeks, and his book is all about how we perceive and experience intimate space. He also is talking about poetry to a great extent, and this poems by Dickinson seems to fit into his analysis quite well. I think it's great that Dickinson imagines a flower as an enclosure of some kind. Bachelard writes to great extent about shells as homes, and to think of something as natural as a flower as a home is awesome.

I guess I am just anticipating Spring a little early, but I just can't wait until winter goes away. It seems to have lasted really long here in Tulsa, and I am in dire need of some sunlight that is yellow-ish and not that white, hazy overcast sun that hovers around in Winter.

Book of the Month: The Bell

I was very hesitant to pick up a book by Murdoch and read it for the longest time. Byatt loves Murdoch and has published a work of non-fiction on her, and I felt as if my best friend was finally going to introduce me to this friend she had talked about almost every other time we had a conversation but I hadn't gotten around to meeting yet. That is sort of the best way to describe my relationship to Murdoch. Of course, I knew who she was, and I saw the film about her that came out after her death. Well, in my Directed Study last semester, I read Murdoch's Under the Net, her first novel, and I was completely lukewarm about it. Actually, I didn't really like it all. But it felt so good to be able to say that and not feel bad about it. However, this was not the case with reading The Bell, Murdoch's fourth novel, which I fell in love with. I recently finished it, and just felt this desire to talk about it with people. I hate sometimes how the people that I really enjoy reading never seem to find their way onto syllabi, or I just happen to be reading them by myself and no one else can talk to me about them. [I think Chelsea is right when she says reading can be boring.] Nevertheless, the story was very engrossing.

The novel details the events of the summer and the lives of the members of a lay religious community in Gloucestershire. Next to an enclosed order of Benedictine nunnery, the pseudo-Utopian community of Imber Court attempt to live life closer to the Earth and with a more pure existence. Renouncing all past life and prejudices, the members of the community interact with such subtle triangulations that Murdoch deftly crafts a story about sexual desire that is confronted with religious fervor and prejudice, at least that is my own personal spin on the novel. If you could claim a main character or characters for the text, you would most likely choose Dora Greenfield (an (dis-?)illusioned housewife who joins her academic husband at Imber Court) or possibly Michael Meade (the repressed homosexual and leader of the community). Of course a number of other characters hold just as much weight as these two do, and the figure of the bell, Gabriel, is in itself so captivating that its existence remains more intriguing than several of the characters.

I really how the novel made me rethink emotions. Although you might say that the feminist movement has transformed the plight of women a great deal since 1958 when the novel was published, Dora's feelings about marriage and relationships still hold true to day, particularly her analysis of marriage and how, even today, people feel so trapped by it:

"Dora closed her eyes and remembered her fear. She was returning, and deliberately, into the power of someone whose conception of her life excluded or condemned her deepest urges and who now had good reason to judge her wicked. That was marriage, thought Dora; to be enclosed in the aims of another. That she had any power over Paul never occurred to her. It remained that her marriage to Paul was a fact, and one of the few facts that remained in her disordered existence quite certain. She felt no tears and tried to think of something else." (p. 11)

I also think emotions like greed, shame, and jealousy, which the book explores in relation to the Michael-Toby-Nick triangle are particularly interesting. Until people can learn to love their bodies and love the act of sex, there will always be some loathing of the act and of our own bodies. I had always heard that Murdoch's novels were very philosophical, yet I found this book to be very psychological...very emotional. The Bell explored what it meant to have emotions and express them or repress them and the repercussions on acting on these feelings.

Anyways, it was a really good book, and for those of you that are readers, you should add it to your books-I-will-eventually-read list.

The Battle of Carnival and Lent by Pieter Brueghel the Elder

In honor of the Mardi Gras season that I am currently missing in New Orleans, I thought I would pick this really cool painting from my A Year in Art book to share. I know with this picture the detailing is not quite as exquisite as one would hope, but you can at least get a sense for the grandness of the canvas. The Battle of Carnival and Lent by Pieter Brueghel the Elder is in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. Dated 1559, this canvas does sort of capture the amount of randomness of the carnival season in New Orleans. Things are going on all over the place, and who knows if there is really order going on. Surely, chaos is reigning in the picture, and it usually takes over at some point.

I was able to get this detail of the painting to share:

One a rather interesting note, when searching for images on the web, I found out that Zbigniew Preisner composed a short instrumental piece based off of this painting for one of my favorite films, Bleu. I can't wait to rewatch the film now and listen to the piece and see how it fits into the score/film.

My Freshmen Dorm

May you rest in peace Boozman....

Anticipation!!!

Thank the elements for Amazon UK. I just found out they are selling Byatt's book a full five/six months before the US even publishes it. Needless to say, having been working on Byatt for the past four years, I am excited about this. I find myself counting down days and researching for the book's existence the way I re-watch movie previews to make sure I can remember the images of the film before it comes out. I remember watching the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix trailer about 28 times in the Morrison computer lab back in the day and pausing it every second so that I can get it frame by frame. What I am currently thrilled about is Byatt's new book, The Children's Book. Here is a little description from Amazon UK:

"Olive Wellwood is a famous writer, interviewed with her children gathered at her knee. For each of them she writes a separate private book, bound in different colours and placed on a shelf. In their rambling house near Romney Marsh they play in a story-book world - but their lives, and those of their rich cousins, children of a city stockbroker, and their friends, the son and daughter of a curator at the new Victoria and Albert Museum, are already inscribed with mystery. Each family carries its own secrets. Into their world comes a young stranger, a working-class boy from the potteries, drawn by the beauty of the Museum's treasures. And in midsummer a German puppeteer arrives, bringing dark dramas. The world seems full of promise but the calm is already rocked by political differences, by Fabian arguments about class and free love, by the idealism of anarchists from Russia and Germany. The sons rebel against their parents' plans; the girls dream of independent futures, becoming doctors or fighting for the vote. This vivid, rich and moving saga is played out against the great, rippling tides of the day, taking us from the Kent marshes to Paris and Munich and the trenches of the Somme. Born at the end of the Victorian era, growing up in the golden summers of Edwardian times, a whole generation grew up unaware of the darkness ahead. In their innocence, they were betrayed unintentionally by the adults who loved them. In a profound sense, this novel is indeed the children's book."

So, I am like so excited and can't wait. I hope you all think it sounds interesting and might be interested in reading it. I have found that Byatt is one of those under-appreciated contemporary authors that sometimes drifts into and out of the classroom. I hope that I can keep her alive through my syllabi and hopefully get others to read her too. In fact, this whole blog sort of stems from her concept of lamination that is in the Potter Quartet. Anyways, if you haven't read anything by her, put a book on your list. I would suggest starting with something like or Possession or Angels and Insects or The Djinn and the Nightingale's Eye.

Dancers at Rehearsal by Edgar Degas

I have this really cool A Year in Art book that has been sitting in my office all alone and untouched for almost a semester and a half. I had it propped up on the shelf for decor purposes, but today I felt inspired to take it down and see what painting was [emblematic] chosen for today. I feel the start of a new feature to compliment one of my favorites blogs, progress on the prairie's, Sunday Art Chat.

Edgar Degas's Dancers at Rehearsal, 1885-1890, is accompanied with a quote by the artist: "Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do."Firstly, I think this painting is quite pretty. I know that Degas has a number of canvases that detail the life of the ballet girls, and before cracking this book, I had not seen this particular one before. According to the text, the painting is housed a the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, which may have something to do with it not being seen by me; nevertheless, I do think this is one of the more interesting entries in the ballet series. I like the angle of the gaze in this painting. With the little wooden feature that covers the upper-right hand corner, I feel that the view is obstructed slightly because it is almost a clandestine gaze going on. Do these girls know that they are being watched? Certainly, this is a question I had after pondering the image for a while. Another would be, what is the connection between the groups in the painting? The sort of begging, enchanting gesture of the group on the left seems at odds by the nonchalance perpetrated by the group in the far left, and yet, this perfectly captures the sense/schemes of rehearsal that go on.

As far as the quote that accompanies the painting, how true. I think I understand what Degas is saying. When one is a pedestrian in a certain field, it is easy to learn and master because as a newcomer, you know so little. And yet, as a master of a particular field, it is so much harder to learn how to improve because you have often commanded so many skills up until a certain point. In a way, for me at least, Degas's quote sort of explains a little bit of this anxiety I have been having about grad school. It is like you reach this point, and you know there is something beyond it, and reaching the next point becomes harder and more obscure. I'm reminded of a recent blog/note from a friend, "How much can my writing style change by this point?" (I'm paraphrasing/inventing just a bit.) And I have been feeling a little bit of the same. I have been in school for almost 20 years, I have done this whole college thing, and what now?

Bannings Classes

I know I have been posting a lot lately, so if you are sick of hearing from me, I'm sorry. [I have been using blogging as a coping mechanism, I think.] Anyways, aside from that, I am truly outraged at some news that I just read on feministing. I was saddened to hear that Georgia republicans want to ban the liberal arts. I don't want to copy the whole blog entry, but you have to read this quoted part:

"This is not considered higher education," [State Rep. Charlice] Byrd said. "If legislators are going to dole out the dollars, we should have a say-so in where they go."

Byrd and her supporters, including state Rep. Calvin Hill, R-Canton, said they will team with the Christian Coalition and other religious groups to pressure fellow lawmakers and the University System Board of Regents to eliminate the jobs.

"Our job is to educate our people in sciences, business, math," said Hill, a vice chairman of the budget-writing House Appropriations Committee. He said professors aren't going to meet those needs "by teaching a class in queer theory."

To see the whole post, click here.

It's bad enough that people are losing jobs across the nation, but now Republicans want to eliminated entire academic fields in college classrooms. Disgusting! What does this mean for people who don't "business, math, and sciences"? Are our subject no less valuable? Maybe we need subjects like history and English because they teach acceptance and difference.

Ugh!

TV Show of the Month: Upstairs, Downstairs

For my British-Irish Modernism class, I have to create an annotated bibliography for the historical contexts of E. M. Forster's A Room with a View. I came across this really interesting article by Carl Freedman, about the connection between the Merchant Ivory production and a 1970s TV show called, Upstairs, Downstairs. Thus, in the course of research and in honor of feeding my habit, I decided to put the first season on my Netflix, and I finished it just now. While the show covers quite a long time period, the first season focuses on 1903-1909, which works really well with researching the Edwardian period. The show actually starts the same year that Queen Victoria died and features an episode in October 1908, which is the same month that A Room with a View was published. [This episode was a little lame, "The Swedish Tiger." It didn't really fit into recreating history the way a number of the other episodes have.]

This TV version of Altman's Gosford Park has a number of interesting plot lines and twists that makes Altman's attempt to capture the intrigues of early twentieth-century British life as a feeble attempt at best. While their plots are not the same, the documentation of classed and gendered life in Upstairs, Downstairs is amazing! I would say the stand out episodes from the first season would be the first one, "On Trial," episode two, "The Mistress and the Maids," and episode eight, "I Dies from Love." The show does a great job of showing what life for the upper and lowers classes was like and how gender relations were conducted between the classes. Of course, you see the men cheating on women, the servants fighting and dying for the chances of love, and surprisingly, the mother, Mistress Belamy, having her own affair.

This video is from the episode where the maid, Sarah, and the Mistress Marjorie Bellamy are both being painted by this artist only for their paintings to be displayed in public, which goes on to create quite a scandal in the Royal Academy.

Along with the really interesting episodes/writing, the show has some first-class acting. The show went one to win BAFTA and Emmy awards. One of the anchors of the show is Jean Marsh, who plays the main housemaid, Rose, and in fact she helped to create the show with fellow actor, Eileen Atkins. [You might recognize Marsh as Mombi from Return to OZ or Queen Bavmorda from Willow.] I would also note that Pauline Collins, who plays Sarah, is another very interesting actress whose role on the show is great. I've never laughed so hard in my life.

Anyways, I just thought I would share this rather interesting "Bits and Bobs" (as one of my favorite EW blogger says) from Britain would be something cool to share.