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Amanda Wentworth wrote a new post on the site Medieval Studies 9 years, 1 month ago
A writer for Financial Times contends that our modern world is interestingly similar to the Middle Ages, dubbing the 21st century “neo-medieval.” Parag Khanna compares the United States to the Byzantium, while the […]
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Amanda Wentworth joined the group Medieval Studies 9 years, 2 months ago
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Amanda Wentworth wrote a new post on the site Reader and Text 9 years, 4 months ago
I’d like to share my latest experience of the fine arts interrelating with the sciences. Lately in my Environmental Science class, we’ve been able to enjoy many guest lecturers. However, one lecturer from a couple weeks ago was undoubtedly my favorite.
A man who leads local sustainability breezed into the lecture hall wearing secondhand clothes and a face full of crimson whiskers. My classmates and I could already sense that this man had a different air about him as compared to the other scientific missionaries before him. In fact, he was different; he informed us that he had been a fine arts major. This man was a sculptor, and so invested in his artistic training and passion that he was also a professor of this skill. My own attention was captured as soon as he revealed this; thanks to this English class I’m always on the lookout for interdisciplinary connections between the fine arts and the sciences in particular.
While he had no problem introducing his lecture and slinging out a few vocabulary terms for us to grab and scribble down, he was not truly comfortable and confident until he powered up his computer. Wordy, content-dense PowerPoint slides were nowhere to be seen, and in their stead were merely pictures. This man filled our hour and fifteen minute lecture period with his incredible life story, all of it pivoting around the obligation he felt to minimize his impact on our earth’s environment. He and his wife have spent their last seven years building their home using only materials that would not put pressure on the demand market, such as used and upcycled materials. Their end result is a homestead that puts little to no stress on the environment. He admitted that it could not have been done had it not been for his finely tuned sculpting and artistic skills.
To me, this was incredible! It was something that I could only dream of doing. My connection to him and his family’s mission was immediate, as I have always been passionate about the environment and aware of my impact on it. This interest goes so deep that every day I mourn the fact that I don’t have the intellectual makeup to major in the sciences so that I could go into an environmental field of work. Seeing that this man and his family could engage the elements of the disciplines that I am most comfortable and familiar with under the flag of science was inspiring, to say the least.
In Joe Moran’s Interdisciplinarity, he quotes C.P. Snow, saying, “The clashing of two subjects, two disciplines… ought to produce creative chances” (135). In this instance, creativity poured from every effort. Every obstacle that these people were met with they were able to solve with their inclusive knowledge of the sciences and the arts. They took chances and risks with their creativity. The result of this was an incredible home and an incredible story to share with whoever will hear it.
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Amanda Wentworth wrote a new post on the site Reader and Text 9 years, 5 months ago
It was in class, while going back through the definition of the term “romanticism” in the Bedford, when I stumbled across the term that announced itself, in my mind, as the characterization of Zulus: primitivism. […]
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Amanda Wentworth wrote a new post on the site Reader and Text 9 years, 5 months ago
It was mentioned by Dr. Beth in class, weeks ago, that forms of literary analysis and criticism have flexibility; a person may be able to utilize many criticisms in her attempt to analyze and interpret a literary […]
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Amanda Wentworth wrote a new post on the site Reader and Text 9 years, 5 months ago
Percival Everett’s Zulus is an unavoidably thought-provoking piece that has the tendency to trip and mystify the reader as pages turn. As we’ve been trekking forth on our journey in this book, I’ve found myself […]
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Amanda Wentworth wrote a new post on the site Reader and Text 9 years, 6 months ago
The novel at the center of our latest class discussion by Alice Walker, Meridian, is a gem of a book that I have found deeply thought-provoking as well as an overall invigorating read. The protagonist, Meridian, […]
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Amanda Wentworth wrote a new post on the site Reader and Text 9 years, 6 months ago
The discussion in today’s class led primarily by the work of Alice Walker left an impression on me that I have carried all day. Reading her essay, “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens” on my own before class stirred […]
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Amanda Wentworth wrote a new post on the site Reader and Text 9 years, 6 months ago
Yesterday was the fateful day on which I received my first – and so far only – exam grade of the semester. It was naturally nerve-wrecking to me, as it was for my environmental science class. Science has always been a subject that I have struggled in, although I have a surprising amount of interest in many of its concepts, especially when it comes to sustainability and conservation. While I was satisfied with my grade, it reminded me of the countless hours I had spent preparing myself for that exam and I can remember, amidst the haze of caffeine-defiant exhaustion, one particular reading.
In the introductory chapter of my textbook for that class, written by William P. and Mary Ann Cunningham, there is a figure that dissects the issue of a depleted fishery. The course is attempting to relay to the student that “many types of knowledge are needed in environmental science” (3). Six text boxes are placed strategically around illustrated fish, each titled with a different discipline. These disciplines work together in order to solve the one problem of a depleted fishery. All of the subjects mentioned are essential in order to rescue the degraded habitat in the most effective manner. From chemistry to anthropology/religion, there are various angles that must be taken into account in order to properly handle environmental situations (3).
In Joe Moran’s 5th chapter of Interdisciplinarity, he primarily discusses science. In one section of this chapter, he discusses ecocriticism, which is the study of literature and the environment through an interdisciplinary lens, and that it depicts that “science’s understanding of nature is always culturally produced” (157). Moran discusses that ecocriticism raises the awareness of environmental issues through intermingling literature, culture, and aspects of the “natural world” (154). I, personally, find this intriguing because of my aforementioned interest in the awareness of environmental issues and sustainability of the earth. This interdisciplinarity of environmental science is exactly why I feel myself so drawn to it, even as an English major. The fact that environmental science insists on calling on knowledge from virtually all corners in order to work as a functioning instrument of change is what, I believe, will make its goal achievable.
I would like to leave this post with a favorite quote of mine: “The poetry of the earth is never dead.” -John Keats
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Amanda Wentworth wrote a new post on the site Reader and Text 9 years, 6 months ago
I’m beginning to recognize a recurring pattern as I dive into the abstract, at times even murky, English major waters. All around me I hear the unspoken conversations between most students, educators, and all […]
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Amanda Wentworth wrote a new post on the site Reader and Text 9 years, 7 months ago
As this semester rushes forward, and though I fully recognize that it’s only the first month of my first year, I have had numerous ups and downs, revelations and un-revelations, regarding my sense of security in my major. I feel as though I have gone through so many of the motions already: is this the best place for me, should I be putting my efforts into something with more external purpose, is this all just a waste of time? I have spent many a night, face down on my pillow, thinking to myself that majoring in English “could only be for” future teachers or the well-off, who are able to afford to simply study what interests them regardless of potential career options. I fall into neither of these categories.
Sorting through the layers of these questions and concerns, one alone has the capacity to encompass the rest: what am I doing here?
As unlikely as it may seem, I was reminded of the answer to that while reading Joe Moran’s second chapter in Interdisciplinarity. During his discussion of literature and culture, Moran explores the efforts of Richard Hoggart in developing cultural studies. Hoggart, at one point, was known for saying that “literature is uniquely concerned with the total human response,” and can therefore provide understanding and perspective across various and differing aspects of life (Moran 50).
Hoggart’s assertion settled inside my conscious, providing me with my final answer to my self-posed question: I am here because literature has always been my window.
Reading, analysis, and all other facets of literature have deeply enriched my own worldly perspective by exposing me to other, at times contrary, perspectives in a captivating and stimulating way. I have been able to enter a world, and walk in the shoes of all types of characters, through all types of landscapes and circumstances, taking a piece of each one with me upon my exit. Literature has also been a trove for the ideas and messages in the midst of nearly every historical event; it is a kind of archive, although oftentimes through a fictional lens. The value that lies in that is immeasurable.
While I have what seems like a very long college career ahead of me, I know that it will in fact prove to be very short as I continue to sort out and find my direction in my education as well as life. Regardless of how I navigate the future of my education, I will always hold onto the respect and appreciation that I possess for English literary studies for cultivating in me a conscious and responsible individual. That is why I believe I am indeed where I need to be.
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Amanda Wentworth wrote a new post on the site Reader and Text 9 years, 7 months ago
Upon reading Joe Moran’s Interdisciplinarity I was struck, once again, with a connection that could be drawn between a topic of his, and something alive in my own encounters:
A Vindication of the Rights of […]
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Amanda Wentworth wrote a new post on the site Reader and Text 9 years, 7 months ago
Personally, I have always been “scientifically challenged.” Meaning, I have always struggled academically and conceptually with subjects of scientific nature. Chemistry, physics, earth science… they have all tripped me up in some way or another. Often times, when staring in a blank daze at a, or any, science textbook, I have attempted to comfort myself by silently declaring, “I’m an English person. Naturally, science just isn’t my thing.”
I had made it so that I was always able to put up a sturdy wall between my beautiful, subjective, lyrical English world and the cold, hard, seemingly intimidating world of science. While time is beginning to teach me that my struggles with the sciences do not necessarily lie in the idea that I have married myself to English Lit, it was my reading of Joe Moran’s Interdisciplinarity which helped me, in many ways, gradually disassemble my dividing wall.
In Chapter 5, Moran delves into that scientific domain with gusto. By discussing individuals from Mary Shelley to Charles Darwin, Moran drags the sciences into the spiraling mixing bowl of interdisciplinarity, drawing specifically on the connections between them and English in particular. What was most glaring, to me, was the wrangling of Charles Darwin- perhaps the most famous scientist in history- into the sphere of literature. Clearly, he was a writer, considering he penned the famed Origin of Species (1859). However, even he, strict scientist as he was, had to utilize elements of literature in order to convey his discoveries to a largely “non-scientific culture” (Moran, 145). Darwin drew on metaphors and society’s known literature, such as Shakespeare and the Bible. He did not adhere to the natural enemy of subjective mechanisms, that is, the empirical order of doing things. This would have been to limit his claims to merely what he could observe; he couldn’t do this. Darwin needed to convey his theory of evolution, which is not something that can be directly observed by a person in his own lifetime. He, therefore, had to extend past the existing limits of scientific behavior in order to successfully publish his findings (Moran, 146). Such a clear example of interdisciplinarity that was successful in its administration is a huge step in the winning direction for the argument of interweaving the disciplines.
If Charles Darwin can be as successful as his findings were by bridging the gap between science and literature, there isn’t much of an excuse for me, is there?
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Amanda Wentworth wrote a new post on the site Reader and Text 9 years, 7 months ago
One of my first encounters with SUNY Geneseo was for an overnight stay, and it was during this experience that I had my first true exposure to a casual analysis of our disciplinary society.
The two roommates […]
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Amanda Wentworth joined the group Reader and Text 9 years, 8 months ago
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Amanda Wentworth became a registered member 9 years, 8 months ago