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Journal Entry #10

In today’s journal entry, I will be discussing a country that released an insane amount of art and music during the renaissance period, Italy. OR as I like to call it Eatily, cause the food is almost as good as the art they create. One could say that Baroque art and music came from the city of Rome! Thanks to individual patrons in cities, art was commissioned and created for wealthy families, including a powerful Florentine family we have mentioned before, the Medici. On many occasions, the church prevented the birth of a lot of wonderful art, but thanks to these families, it was commissioned specifically for them. Most of the art, as well, went against many Christian Catholic beliefs such as paintings of pagan gods or depictions of a naked Venus as seen in the famed painting of her in the half shell. 

Another amazing creation from Italy during this time period is the piazza. A piazza is an insanely beautiful architectural design created to allow thousands of people into one square. They are incredibly common around all Italian cities and my personal favorite piazza is in Santa Maria Novella, but that's because my hot Italian boyfriend, Jacamo, worked at an eatery in the piazza and I got free food. But for real, the Italians released some of the most influential architectural designs for this time period and we can fortunately see some of them today. For example, the famed New St. Peters Church in Rome was a huge advancement when it comes to architecture. The size of it itself if astounding and if you ever have the opportunity to visit it, take it. 

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk!

-Claire

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Journal Entry #9

For this entry I am going to discuss a man written in the textbook we have been reading, Galileo. Chapter 16 mentions him and discusses some of his achievements and I would just like to go further on him and what he did. Born in Italy, Galileo was extremely passionate about furthering the sciences and one of my favorite sciences, astronomy. This man risked so much to achieve what he did and you know what happened to him in the end? He was put on freaking house arrest, all cause he was brilliant. Also he was a badass because at the time, the church was extremely against the advancement of science and here came Galileo not giving a shit and going against the views of the church. 

Galileo was also close with my personal hero in the astronomy field, Kepler. I mean besides the most obvious advancement of furthering the telescope, Galileo also was the first to discuss the theory of gravity. His feather experiment is extremely famous and is ultimately part of why he went on house arrest. A second reason, which is also what he is famous for, is that he discovered that the  planets all revolve around the sun instead of the idea that all the planets revolved around the Earth. Of course those selfish church believers were hell bent on the idea that Earth was the center of our solar system but ha! We are certainly not and it all stemmed from Galileo. 

Not only did Galileo further the world of astronomy and science, he was a good man. I am so jealous that I was not born in the time frame he and Kepler lived in because the discover of galaxies and solar clouds is incredible. 

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk!

-Claire

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Journal #12

Let us start todays journal entry by discussing the good old demons of the body and mind! Now, you have read it too so you can understand my slight trepidation on discussing this one since it blows my mind so entirely. I mean do Tissot even mention a girls P.O.V. on this? NO! He literally titles a part of it manhood, meaning only men experience this feeling and activity. To hell with that Tissot.

He goes on and on about how evil it is to perform this act and that it could even cause a disability for a man, which is very obviously not true I mean come on. The times they were living in had very strict rules about that, but when you think about it, doctors were getting off women at their own houses and getting paid for it under the belief of hysteria! How insane. I would also like to mention how Tissot wrote this with one clear intention in mind, to instill fear into men who may not or may perform this act. And yes I will call it this act since this blog post is being written in a public library. But come on Tissot, you don’t have to scare people, that’s just cruel. He even mentions a “portrait of terror” which to me sounds unbelievably not cool. Nothing says blue balls better than a portrait of terror. Especially when the portrait depicts the person doing this act as a skeleton and basically fading away to nothing. 

I would also like to jump back to the disability part of this document. He claims that this act will not only disable your body, but it will also disable your mind, which is a huge accusation. Most people back in this age were creators of insanely cool things and their minds were a huge part of their work. To say that performing this act will in capitate the mind is a scary thought so I believe that is part of why Tissot made this claim. This whole document in general seems like a bunch of bullshit, but what do I know?

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk!

-Claire

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Journal Entry #13

Ok hardcore going out of order now with these journal entries but I would just love to continue our in class discussion we had today on Mary Shelly and the doppelganger text. I did indeed choose to write about how the doppelganger piece connected to her writing of Frankenstein and the scientist who created him and here is why.

So basically, the text describes a doppelganger as someone the alter ego of someone else and I 100% am certain, even though I have never read Frankenstein itself, that the creature is the alter ego of the scientist or the darker half. He is a creature risen from the dead hell bent on destruction, or at least I believe that is what the scientist wanted him to be. Now what does that say about the scientist? That he is probably a sadistic fuck, but we already knew that through his creation of Frankenstein himself. Why would one man go through all the trouble without any evil or dark intentions? 

Frankenstein is nothing more than the evil that truly lives deep down inside of the scientist and again, don’t quote me on this because it is just my educated guess on what the story is actually about. I do think, though, that this doppelganger fits incredibly well with the scientist seen. I hope this was laid out well enough that you can understand the point I am trying to make here lol. 

Anyways thanks for coming to my TED Talk 

-Claire

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Journal Entry #8

So I hope this is ok, but I would like to branch off from the opera Mefistofele and talk about a main character in it, the Devil. I feel like the Devil is something humans are trained to be afraid of from such a young age. Most people learn pretty quickly that he is this being living below us watching all the bad things we do on Earth. In my opinion, I think he is more something we are told about from a young age to keep us on the right track. I will admit I have always been a little afraid of him, but now that I am older I can admit the fear stemmed from the idea of him.

Even calling it a him gives that fear more power. It is truly insane how much fear people bring into their lives at the idea of the Devil, I mean even the fact that there is an opera about the Devil proves how influenced by the idea of him we are. The depictions made of the Devil throughout our humanity shows how much effort we have put into making a face for this fear, even though it is something that we can’t clearly describe. I am not denying that he is something that is we shouldn’t fear if you believe in hell and heaven, but I do believe we spend too much time and energy fearing an object we do not really knows exists. 

I definitely believe that there is an evil out there that we cannot fully see and understand, which is part of where my own fear stems from. These thoughts were all floating around my brain as I watched this opera through canvas and I just felt it important to put it all out so you can get a glimpse into what my brain was thinking abut during the opera. I was also thinking about this lol. 

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk!

-Claire

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Journal Entry #7

Welcome back to entry number seven! I will be taking you on a trip back in time to a glorious rat infested Europe, aka the time of the black plague. Now before we even fully go into this, I would like to start out by saying that throughout a great part of my childhood, I was super into studying the black plague. You have probably heard of it, but there were hundreds of people who literally believed that if you had an orgy on top of a mass black plague burial site, you would be safe from the disease, but do you think that actually worked? Nope!

Now we would all like to blame rats for the ultimate spread of this disease, but trade was the whole reason as to why these rats and the disease itself was just floating around waiting to infect someone. This plague not only would infect you incredibly quickly, but people were falling so fucking fast that they did not know how to bury all the dead people. And imagine being that poor fellow that had to bury all these dead, infected bodies. You knew 100% there was no way you would be able to not get that plague since you are touching all these corpses. YIKES!

Now here is where I imagine myself coming in and surviving. I would stay away from literally everyone and just seclude myself because when you look at the numbers, around half of the European population died from it. So just fucking hide it out and you should be fine, until you run out of food at least but why am I worrying about it, I don’t live in that time period. My real concern is that if this disease were to spread rapidly today around the United States, would we be able to come up with a vaccine in time? And would these fucking antivaxxers actually take it? Nah screw em, let them get this plague. 

Anyways, thanks for coming to my TED Talk!

-Claire 

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Journal Entry #6

In today’s journal entry, I will be discussing a very interesting man who created some of the most thought provoking art known today. Although his name is long and hard to spell, Hieronymous Bosch was born in the 1400′s and little is known of his upbringing. He left us no diaries or letters to give us a clue about his training, but there are luckily some references about him we can learn from. 

His painting The Garden of Earthly Delights is possibly his best known work of art and definitely one that I can stare at for hours and still find new discoveries within it. So much is happening in one painting and I think that is a part of why it has been so popular, because it tells such an intricate story that one can continue to learn from for generations. I also think that we are still questioning underlying meanings today about this painting. 

Of course, the main meaning behind this painting is the depiction of Adam and Eve and the fall of humanity. It shows the punishments faced in hell as well depictions of animals throughout the painting. Me being me, the animals are my favorite part of the painting to look at, but the entire piece forces me to really think about what else Bosch was thinking. The great suffering seen makes me think that Bosch may have feared what comes after death and may have also feared where he may go when his life was over. 

If it is anything like what his painting depicts, I do not want to go there!

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk!

-Claire 

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Journal Entry #5

Here we are again, the fifth journal entry! We are creating quite the dent in this blog and for this post I would like to discuss possibly my favorite piece of writing we have covered in this section, the Sola Scriptora. We have read this document for our Luther group game and it has not only been the best source I have used in this episode, but it has been the most interesting to me. 

I think it is incredibly interesting that we as humans worship people, like the pope for example, while the sola scriptora specifically says worship through Christ alone. And here we are laying down an entire Sunday afternoon to catch even a glimpse of the pope in Vatican City. It sounds crazy that we collect pictures of him in our houses and praise him even though its Christ that is supposed to be worshiped according to the document. 

Secondly, it briefly mentions acts of goodwill towards one another on earth and this is something that I myself have been taught in church growing up. Doing good deeds for others is something that is pushed so heavily in church and it is 100% something that is supposed to stay between you and God alone, but I feel like everyday I see people posting on Instagram or Facebook about the homeless person they helped or aiding an animal and claiming that God is what brought them there or that through worship they help others. That is complete bullshit because if it was true worship, you would have kept it to yourself, not plaster it on social media for everyone to see. 

These scriptoras may not be what everyone follows, myself included, but they relay these messages that have been passed on through worships in church and nobody seems to be actually following it. So why are they claiming to be devoted to their religion? It all seems very suspicious to me and this is part of where my interest in this document comes from. 

Thank you for coming to my ted talk, you’ll be seeing more of me soon!

-Claire 

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Journal Entry #4

For this blog post I am going to be taking it back quite a few years and discuss a man named Niccolo Machiavelli. The first thing I feel like I have to say about this man is holy shit you went must have gone through an extreme amount of pain in your life. After being charged with conspiracy in 1513, he was thoroughly tortured and then released after claiming he had not indeed conspired. Now what the actual fuck was Florence thinking charging him without actual proof? 

I mean sure you may have some arguments against him, but in the long run, people were arrested and tortured for all kinds of bullshit back in those times and rarely did you ever see them make it out. Luckily for Machiavelli, he was pardoned from his arrest and spent the remainder of his life focused on his literature, but how the hell do you move on from that shit? I have first hand seen some of the cruel devices used to torture people back in the day and hot damn were they sick and sadistic. If I had been tortured like that, I too would retire to a life of writing and stay the hell away from the rest of the population. 

Then after the fact that he was pardoned, his writing was interpreted to be diabolical and even though is was misinterpreted, I would write some pretty diabolical shit too if I had been tortured and that is all I have to say on this bullshit. 

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk, I am out!

-Claire 

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Journal 3

Our reading this week, although fairly short, was incredibly mind melding. It was one of those things where if I had read it right before I went to bed, I would probably have nightmares of disformed people coming out from my womb. Yep that is right, my fucking vagina.

Chapter 11 from Of Monsters and Marvels went into depth on some cases of women who gave birth to dead and deformed children. One woman in particular that was pretty terrifying was described by Egidius Hertages, a physician in her time, which probably means that she has seen some crazy shit, talks about a woman who carried a dead skeleton child in her womb for thirteen years.

What the hell? How is that even possible. Even thinking about it makes my stomach cramp. It only gets worse too trying to think about what it looked like coming out of her those thirteen years later. I mean it obviously came out of there, but how did she just chill around for thirteen years with the skeleton of a child in her stomach?! Its too crazy to even think about.

Another insane thing mentioned in this chapter was that if a woman constantly sits with her legs crossed, her child will come out hunchbacked, which when you think about it today, you know that is not going to happen. But who truly knows what people believed back in those days. One weird thing this reminds me of is how Chinese people would break their toes at birth in order to have small feet. I don’t know why it crossed my mind while reading it because obviously the point of chapter 11 is to keep people from having disformed children, whereas people in China deformed their children on purpose.

I wonder what people who believed in all this deformity mumbo jumbo back then would think about that now?

Thanks for coming to my TED talk

-Claire

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Journal Entry 2

Well one thing I can start off by saying is that the Medici family is one that will live in infamy, but honestly its mostly because they are so incredibly hated by the Italians. They literally will never get over that family, even the young children are being taught the horrors of the Medici family.

Sure Lorenzo might have been a good looking guy to many people back then and possibly even now, but does it excuse everything he and his family did. I don’t know actually, cause we all know a pretty face is always nice to have around.

But in all seriousness, that family was wild. No family should have such a tight grip on an entire city and all its inhabitants. You know it is truly bad when even the church wants you out of the city you have under siege.

Now the question I would like to address from the reading “The Prince” is this, is it better to be feared or loved? I do believe in both, but many people argue both ways are the way to rule or govern. Both love and fear creates a bond between you and your people, but the fear factor along with love provides a safety net for people stepping out of line. You murder your neighbor because he stole your paint? You will be punished. All fear and all love would end in a revolt against you, but a leader who remains firm with punishments, but provides love for their people is one that will most likely reign for a longer period and maybe are less likely to be overthrown.

When I think about this, I think about people such as the Assyrians. They are an ancient group who lead with fear and just fear and guess what happened to them. Yep you guessed it, the neo-Babylonians came in and destroyed them fear and all. Then they ruled with fear and yes they too fell, fear an all. Fear does nothing for you but make people scared, scared enough that one day. they decide they no longer wish to live in fear and will fucking throw down.

In my opinion love is the same way. If you show all love and no fear, you are a squishy overlord who can be easily overthrown. So my advice would be to rule with both so you don’t end up like this guy. 

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

-Claire

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Blog Post 1

Welcome to my first blog post as a part of my humanities 4.2 class! The first week of class flew by and we accomplished many things. To start, we created our guilds and chose which character we would play as. Because my brain is like every other college student my age, I have forgotten what being in a guild entails until we started discussing it again. After the first in class introduction we had on Tuesday the 15th, we started discussing our first reading assignment.

The first section of our reading is the one I will be focussing on in this blog post, why study humanities. Humanities, like other very important subjects denied the right funding by colleges and high schools alike, are incredibly useful skill sets when finding a job and just living in general after you graduate from college. One important quote I would like to pull from the text to put in this post is from the second paragraph stating that humanities teach students how to “examine social cues and rituals”. I find this quote incredibly important mostly because it is true that unless a person learns how to understand social interactions within different cultures and their own, they will literally fail in many aspects of life. This includes social cues as well. 

Imagine walking into a job interview at an esteemed publishing house in a big city. You show up and instead of introducing yourself and shaking the interviewers hand, you walk straight in and sit down, ignoring the formal cues that come with first introductions. 

Now typically, you would still get another chance, but first impressions are vital to building relationships and without a class, like humanities, you would fail to learn many important aspects on living with other humans. Why do you think humanities has the word human in it? It is literally going to benefit you so much in your life and you won’t have people living in the world around you looking at you like this. 

Thank you for listening to my TED Talk. 

-Claire