Germinal

Regarding 'Germinal', just reading the back made me understand what Chris meant when he talked about the indepth imagery within the book's description. The insert they chose to put on the back cover as a teaser reads:

"Buried like moles beneath the crushing weight of the earth, and without a breath of fresh air in their burning lungs, they simply went on tapping."

The description used is so powerful you can almost picture yourself amongst the characters; inhaling the dirt into your lungs and struggling to breathe. Any writer that manages to portray this kind of imagery surely has talent, and would surely have to considering the uncompromisingly harsh and realistic portrayal of a coalminer's strike in 1860s France. The title itself refers to a month in the French Republican Calendar, being a spring month. 'Germen' is a Latin word meaning 'seed' and therefore reflects in the novel a hope for a better future amongst the miners.

I will be frequently blogging random updates on how I am finding the novel, and also talking about my favourite descriptive passages or chapters.

We're on a train called history!

My efforts to get ahead in the second year at Uni seem to be failing me miserably so far. I thought I would be clever and download ‘Germinal’ to watch; only to find that it was in French. Fine, that’s what subtitles are for, right? Only, not when they are in another language too. I might give it a watch anyway, pictures are supposed to tell a thousand words so perhaps I can work it out. Secondly I was eager to grab the books mentioned in the lectures as quickly as possible, only to find that they are out of stock for the mean time, however I have managed to pick up my copies of ‘Germinal’ and ‘Ulysses’ after reserving them from the bookshop. So I will be attempting to read those as quickly as possible so I can get blogging about them!

For now, I will go over what we have learnt so far in the lectures. The first lecture back was taken by Chris, and the main focus was socialism, alienation, and the Young Hegelians. I think the most important thing to note about German philosopher Hegel was his thought of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, which basically translated to the starting point (intellectual proposition), the contradiction (a reaction to that proposition), and the resolution (the resolved conflict). This theory was adapted by Marx who said “Philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways – the point is to change it”. He went on to use the same structure as Hegel, but instead talked about idealism, materialism, and instrumentalism. Idealism translated to ‘you are what you think’, materialism to ‘you are what you eat’, and finally instrumentalism to ‘you are what you do’. He placed these economic factors into Hegelian context by saying that they are internal contradictions which drive the development of prosperity. Both Marx and Hegel see the state as the vehicle of historical change; an instrument for the domination of one class to another.

Hegel famously stated “The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk”, meaning that philosophy comes to understand a historical condition just as it passes away; philosophy cannot be prescriptive because it understands only in hindsight. In Greek and Roman mythology Glaucus is the symbolic owl of Athena, often referred to as ‘owl of Athena’ or ‘owl of Minerva’. It is seen as a symbol of wisdom in Roman myths because the owl is capable of seeing in the dark and is awake at night when it is seen as the ‘norm’ to be asleep.

Quote of the lecture: "National debt sits there like an economic fact" - Chris Horrie

Banks, banks, and more banks. I officially know everything there is to know about them, or that’s how I felt after Tuesdays lecture anyway. Investment banking, central banks, retail banks, you name it, we covered it. A term I did find quite interesting sounding was ‘quantitative easing’, and as I’m not too sure about what it is I decided to find out. Apparently it refers to the creation by a central bank (covered those) of a predetermined quantity of new money as the start of a process to increase the country’s money supply. Ok, so basically it’s where we print new money so as to ensure that we have more than enough? My research goes on to reveal how interest rates are decreased in order to INcrease the money supply, and this will only happen if we are lacking in money and therefore unable to stimulate the economy.

Another thing that Chris covered in the lecture was talking about Keynesian economics, and how they believe that debt is not a problem. Founder of this concept John Maynard Keynes believes that the solution to the depression was to stimulate the economy by a reduction in interest rates and government investment in infrastructure. This would result in more spending in the general economy, which in turn stimulates more production and investment, involving more income and spending etc etc etc.


Another interesting point that Chris did mention was how he believes that the city is run by greed and fear. He was talking about the stock market, and how people invest their money into various shares out of greed of gaining profit, however when their shares are doing badly they quickly move them around out of fear. I think when there is money involved greed and fear are generally the only two words that surround it, a greed to gain more, and a fear to lose it all.

Our first lecture back...

For our first lecture back Chris delved straight back into politics and the law etc etc, with topics from Jacobitism, and Presbyterianism, to cartoon drawings of Gordon Brown depicted as a pig in The Independent, and John Major’s secret romps with Edwina Currie. For the moment I will start with the former topics, exploring Jacobitism first of all, as I had never heard of the term or been aware of the movement prior to the lecture.

So, Jacobitism refers to the political movement dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland. The term was coined from the Latin form Jacobus of the name of King James II and VII. The movement was a response to the removal of James II and VII in 1688 when he was replaced by his own daughter Mary II, along with her husband and first cousin (?!) William of Orange. After that, the Stuarts resided on the European mainland, however occasionally they attempted to regain the throne with the help of fellow countries France and Spain. The primary seats of Jacobitism were Ireland and Scotland, and in England the movement was the strongest in the north. Many people supported Jacobitism because they believed parliamentary interference with monarchical succession was illegitimate. Many Catholics hoped that the Stuarts would end discriminatory laws, whilst others belonging to various allegiances became involved in military campaigns. Jacobitism is celebrated on June 10th, known as White Rose Day, and its emblem is the White Rose of York.

A brief paragraph on Presbyterianism now, which refers to a number of different Christian churches conforming to the Calvanist theological tradition within Protestantism. It typically emphasises the sovereignty of God, that is, the right to exercise the functions of the state. The religious group evolved primarily in Scotland, and the few members found in England can trace a Scottish connection somewhere in their family tree.

As for Gordon Brown and Edwina Currie, I think I will leave them for my next blog to be written very soon!

Nothing to do with Journalism, but hey it's an article none the less...

To be 15 again. The younger sister of my best friend Mark is having a party and I can hear the music perfectly. You were about to be shocked then, that I could hear it from wherever I was, the sad fact being that I’m only one door away. But that’s not the point. Sitting in the bathroom listening to their topical conversations and girl’s screaming, probably being chased by boys no doubt makes me nostalgic for the days when I was that age. I can’t see them but I can picture the party now, girls parading around in short skirts and tops, lusting over boys that probably don’t really care. Boys, swooning about like they own the place, can of Foster’s in one hand, fag in the other, because they’re hard, you know. Not to mention the music. God. I admit I do still listen to some of the stuff I can hear, but at a party? No no. Just to cut in quickly and prove my point, I just heard one girl shout ‘Emily how many people have been in your bra tonight!!?’ Ahh, the wonders of being 15. Listen to me, acting like I’m a mother of two or something, when in actual fact I’m only three years older, and probably none the wiser. I still parade about in skimpy outfits, the only difference being I wouldn’t be flattered by guys staring or wolf whistling at me, in fact I hate that. Another thing I must touch upon because it’s the single most eventful part of a party is the drama. Oh, the drama. You have to love it, as long as you’re not involved, that is. For the 15 year olds one door away I can tell you now the drama will consist of who kissed who, who got too drunk and wrecked the house, who had a fight with who (over a boy, probably), who had a fight with who (over a girl, probably). I remember the innocent days of who kissed who at a party, a few years later you lose that innocence and it becomes who fucked who, pardon my French. Since when did that start to happen at parties? It becomes who could be pregnant, who cheated on who, who’s having a sex change. Well, maybe not that far. I’d give it another few years. All in all, nothing really changes, but as you get older house parties become less frequent, it’s all about the pub now, the boring, atmosphere-lacking pub. How I miss a good house party. Somewhere down the line girls favoured flashing their IDs at bouncers rather than flashing their boobs at a house party. How times change.

Belated Blog!

I wrote this on the 26th of March but I hadn’t got round to posting it yet, it had just been lying around in my word files. So, here it is:

I read in a book today that storytellers are “keepers of wisdom; they weave spells which feed the human soul.” What an imaginative quote. I must say I automatically went to reference that, and I will tell you what book it was from, but I won’t do it the Harvard way like I am so inclined to do. I am taking it as a good sign however, that I felt the urge to reference; my brain must be embracing this university way of thinking well. Anyway, the quote is from ‘Creative Novel Writing’ by Roselle Angwin. As smart as I sound quoting books in my blog I’ll admit that I read this in the first paragraph of the first page, but I’m working my way through it. The reason for my

I had my tutorial with Angus today, which I thought went well. Although there wasn’t much work to look at article wise because we haven’t really had much to submit, he said that my style of writing and forming a sentence in an article was “absolutely right”, so I’m happy with that. I may regret this but I also mentioned to him about starting a second blog for his side of the course where I’ll write an article or two every week so he can look at my progress. A good idea, we’ll just see if it’s carried out as well as it was thought up. I hope so.