Category: Video

Alexander Pushkin… A man died in a duel? (An episode of the play is also attached)

By YL · · , · Leave a comment

Hi Class,
While we closely examine and analyze Pushkin’s play, it will be interesting to also briefly look at his life and background! As one of the most significant poets in Russian history, Alexander Pushkin greatly affected future literature. At the same time, this big figure also has a dramatic life! Though the characters in his A Feast During the Plague Year are terribly afraid of death confronting the hopeless plague, Pushkin himself did not own much fear towards death and commit to an abrupt duel with his wife’s admirer. Check out his biography! 

Also, don’t forget to enjoy this dramatic play acting by authentic Russian actors… (Though we may understand no word… but their body language has explained everything)

 

 

Enjoy,

YL

Contagion: The movie!

By kg1642 · · , , · Leave a comment

Below I have attached the trailer of the movie, that goes by the name Contagion. This movie is an attempt to depict what might happen if a deadly pandemic takes place in 21st Century.The movie documents the spread of the virus transmitted by formites. The virus causes global pandemic and nobody knows its cure until the very end of the movie(unlike in the real world, most of the movies have happy endings 🙂 ). Similarly to the texts we studied, in the movie the government tries to contain the virus by imposing quarantine but is not completely successful as people find ways to escape it. Although this movie is set in 21st Century, the government and public still act in the same way as they did in the Arthur Mervyn and Journal of the plague year.

Be careful on what you touch and share in public places as you might be carrier of a deadly virus that is about to cause a global pandemic.  🙂

Enjoy the trailer.

The Yes Men – Dow Chemicals Give Additonal Compensation to Bhopal Victims SCAM

By ms7576 · · , , , · Leave a comment

This video is about a duo of activists, who describe their mission as ‘Identity Correction:’ Impersonating big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them, and otherwise giving journalists excuses to cover important issues. Among other things, they impersonated Dow Chemical (the owner of Union Carbide, which ran the factory in Bhopal) spokespeople on BBC. You can see how it turned out at this link.

Ghosts by Almeida Theatre

By Sarah · · · Leave a comment

If you guys haven’t come across it already, London’s Almeida Theatre adapted and produced Ibsen’s Ghosts last year. Here’s the trailer for it, featuring the quote by Mrs. Alving. The quote, however, is a bit different in the trailer. Do the differences between this one and the original change or add anything to the way we think about the “ghosts” in the play? Or is it just a really good paraphrase? Either way, I think it’s beautifully made.

Here’s the original for comparison:

“Ghosts. When I heard Regine and Oswald in there, it was just like seeing ghosts. But then I’m inclined to think that we are all ghosts, Pastor Manders, every one of us. It’s not just what we inherit from our mothers and fathers that haunts us. It’s all kinds of old defunct theories, all sorts of old defunct beliefs, and things like that. It’s not that they actually live on in us; they are simply lodged there, and we cannot get rid of them. I’ve only to pick up a newspaper and I seem to see ghosts gliding between the lines. Over the whole country there must be ghosts, as numerous as the sands of the sea. And here we are, all of us, abysmally afraid of the light.” (pg. 126)

Give it a watch!

– Sarah

Not a Guide Dog, a Blind Dog

By sam · · , · Leave a comment

Here are links to a couple of things… firstly to a blog review of Blindness – it provides a good overview of the book and crosses over with issues we previously discussed, e.g. the lack of punctuation.

Then, to provide some light relief for Eid, and to plug my own poorly made video (!), here is a YouTube video of my dog George. He has been blind from birth but copes really well!

George Running Blind

I feel Saramagos’ depiction of blindness does not give much credit to the abilities of the blind, however I suppose this can be attributed to the suddenness of the event and people’s confusion.

Welcome to Contagion

By Bryan · · , , · Leave a comment

I’m very much looking forward to our conversations this semester. We have a lot in store: you’re already reading Oedipus the King and we haven’t even started the semester yet. I’ll have lots of advice for making it through large amounts of reading and writing, but for now I’ll pass on a different kind of advice relevant to the course topic:

More info here.