“If we see climate change destroying entire countries, and we know we have the technology to stop this, what is stopping us from taking the necessary action?” – UN General Assembly President María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés” This question, from the opening session of the COP weighs heavy on my mind, and the mind of every …
Category Archives: Block 4
Arrival in Katowice
After a class-combined 3 days of travelling, we all arrived safely in Katowice (pronounced cat-oh-vee-cha) and have spent the past 24 hours exploring and getting oriented to our home for the next two weeks. Last night, we all went to explore the downtown area, ate perogies, and bought towels. While Katowice is a small city, …
EC 385 Prepares to COP
Hello, and welcome to the block blog for EC 385 “International Economics: the Economics of International Climate Policy,” my name is Lily Weissgold, I am a junior double major in Economics and Environmental Policy and I will be blogging for our class while we are abroad. Our class will be traveling to Katowice, Poland this …
A Mild Case of Stendhal Syndrome
As my adventure in Florence comes to an end, I circle back to the discussion around what makes art so impactful. Though most works, especially those from Renaissance, are static, flat, and unresponsive, I find them personally meaningful. In psychology, the inner stirring that art can inspire is called “aesthetic experience”: a feeling of sublime, …
A Talk With a Cell
The majority of this week has consisted of learning about proteins, one of the most complex, necessary, and incredible things that make up our bodies and the world around us. Forgive me as I go off on a bit of an absurd tangent – I blame the astonishing nature of cells and proteins for skewing …
Aesthetics
Today, we talked about the concept of an aesthetic experience. When I first heard the term, my mind immediately jumped to the visual factor. Given that this is an art-heavy class and Florence is renowned for its visual beauty, this felt like a fair assumption. As the philosophy major in our class explained, however, the …
Scary Excitement of Third Week
Second week has come to a close and third week starts up tomorrow… Scary? Exciting? Both! We are more than half way through the block – we have leaned so much yet still have so much to learn! At this point in any block, you are fully submerged in the material of your course yet …
A Giant Leap for Womankind
We’re moving from two dimensions to three this week, from painting to sculpture! During the Renaissance, sculptures were a way to influence public perceptions and identity- a form of political propaganda. The sculpture that I fell most in love with is the Juno Fountain, by Bartolomeo Ammannati. The fountain was commissioned by Cosimo I of …
Beyond the Face
Ciao! Artwork in this city is starting to feel much more interconnected than I had realized before. Quinn’s last blog post described the process of VTS, or Visual Thinking Strategies, which involve slowing down and observing before making judgments or coming to conclusions. I feel that by constantly reminding myself to practice VTS while observing …
Thoughts on Gazing
Gazing: Gender, Bodies, Faces, and Emotions Well, we just finished week one of our class here in Florence. I’ve been really enjoying it, partly because the curriculum involves so many cultural immersion experiences, but also because the discussions we have been having in class have proven to be remarkably thought provoking. So far in class …
