Hi, My name is Ryan and I will be blogging for the Block 6 class titled “Topics in Comparative Literature: Vladimir Nabokov”. This class will be focusing on the writings Vladimir Nabokov, the author most notoriously known for writing Lolita. We spent the majority of our first week reading and reflecting on Nabokov’s autobiography Speak, …
Week 1: The Class of Three Making Mistakes
Have you ever had a class fewer than five students? Well, our Music in Western Culture course (MU150) this block consists of only two students including myself! At the beginning of the first week, I was a little intimidated by the class size. A class this small means that class discussions are fueled by only …
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Week 3: Movements, Members and Music
For our last full week of class, we focused on art's ability to influence social movements. Art is extremely multifaceted, which makes it the perfect tool for communicating values, drawing interest, and motivating community members to take part or join a movement. A more simple work can easily and quickly communicate a paramount message. Complicated artworks …
Week 3: HIV Tomatoes?
Okay, so this title clearly requires a bit of context but don’t worry it all comes together in the end. Let’s start by talking about GMOs. Yikes. But what exactly is a GMO? Dubbed as “Frankenfood” it undoubtedly has a negative reputation among most today. But what is it that incites so much fear in …
Week 2: Gatekeepers, Bricolage, and Social Activism
This past week, we dove into the processes of how one enters and, more importantly, stays relevant in the art world. A variety of intricate social circles, firms, and gate keepers dominate the art world. To be a part of a movement, is to join and work in a specific stylistic group. To get one's work …
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Week 2: Genes are Accommodating
While it seems logical to think that gene expression is a fixed, unchanging thing, like the Rosetta Stone of human biology this isn’t necessarily the case. Genes are often viewed as sequences written into our DNA that remain unaltered through our lives, yet today we spent the majority of class time disproving this idea. As …
Week 1: A Peek into the Genome
Imagine a stack of textbooks, packed like sardines with words, and standing four stories high. Now think about being given the task to find not one page, not one paragraph, but one word. Seems like an impossible task. To some extent, this is comparable to the task scientists were charged with in the late 1980s …
Week 1: Self Reflection, Hegemony, and Eating Chocolate in the Dark
On Friday I finished my first week in Kathy Giuffre's Art and Society block and I can already tell that this block will be one to remember. On the first day, I wasn't sure what this class had in store. As we moved through the week, we developed a definition for art, discussed art's role in …
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Farewell
As everyone else on campus prepares for Fourth Week, EC385 has scattered. The COP is over, though at the moment there is no formal rulebook (the entire point of the conference). While negotiators from throughout the world continue to work, everyone else observing the conference has left. While most of my posts have had a negative …
COP’s Representation Problem
This morning, I went to a panel in the #wearestillin pavilion regarding the U.S. midterm elections and how they relate to advancing the climate agenda. This was essentially about the 'blue wave' that swept the states one month ago, flipping the house from red to, well, blue. These elections were remarkable in many ways- there …
