Christine's Arts Blog!

“ An Essay of Man” by Alexander Pope transcends new world order by making his arguments based off that life is more on man, than it is on religion. I think he bases more of his arguments that man in general is given free will. In in most religions people are given free will, thus; they have the ability to choose from right to wrong. However, I think that Pope takes it a step further in his essay by pointing out that it is man who makes disorder in the world. Thus, also creating the existence of evil.   Pope writes, “ better for Us-Perhaps, it might appear- where all harmony, all virtue here-that never air or ocean felt the wing- that never passion discomposed the mind”(165-168). I feel what he is attempting to say it that no matter the circumstance it is up to man to make his own path and do good in the world. However, I do think that Pope acknowledges the world to not be that great, yet it is up to man to make it better. One of the very interesting things I noticed in “An Ess...

I felt after reading Michel De Montaigne that his assertions were a little off base. I disagree with him when his states barbarism can best be defined as “whatever is not in one’s own practice”, because I feel his statements are unrealistic and selective.  Perhaps it was what was going on during this time period he viewed as barbaric but just because a human being is experiencing something out of his or her own realm, it is not fair to constitute the situation as always barbaric unless it truly is. Now that is to not say there are some pretty horrific and barbaric things that went on during this time period as well as today. I decided to focus on a very important yet extremely disturbing (at least to me) topic which is female circumcision. I feel as though regardless to what studies have been done about female circumcision, the subject matter is still very barbaric and germane to the female gender. I understand that different cultures have their beliefs but I am cannot quite...

In the West African Epic “Sunjata” it appears that Mansa of Konfara ‘s wife magically appears. He has all the power, therefore, all he has to do is dictate what he wants. The story was somewhat hard to follow due to the magical yet beautiful realism in the story.   I thought the whole ritual of the woman belonging to the as a possession to her husband, his family, and the village as germane.   It appears that the wife does not want to tend to her husband, let alone be married to him. It took me a few times to read the story to understand the woman’s role is below man in this particular society. The story does not evoke much hope for the female gender.   I am not sure as to why natural birth is not present in the story, I am wondering if it is because of Mansa of Konfara’s mystical powers. Since we are studying the Middle East and India this week I decided to research wedding customs in Morocco.   I found the sequence of wedding events surprising. For example, ...

The combination of the pieces of artwork and wording of the poems showed the cohesiveness of the story that is narrated to the viewer through artwork and words of poems. In the one poem and artwork combination the viewer sees a beautiful picture of a young Japanese woman brushing her long beautiful black hair. Next the words of the poem which are, "wrapping rice dumplings in bamboo leaves- which one hand she fingers- her hair over her forehead", which goes along with the first picture that is showed to the viewer. This is just one example, however, it shows how the pictures and words go together to ultimately form a story. In another example, there is piece of artwork that shows a house that appears to be synopsis of civilization. In the next scene of the video, the viewer sees the words of a poem as “with the air of a century past- the fallen leaves of garden”, which appears to be talking about the virtue of nature. The creator of this video wanted to show the art and ...