The Interests of Others (meme)

[ltmurnau]

Gotted from papajoemambo, who obliged.

The Rules:

Comment on this post. I'll choose seven interests from your profile and you'll explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.

Go!

Comments

[scuttle.livejournal.com]

I'm going to reply here too, being too lazy (or short of study time) to make a full post.

Abraham religions: I got really into studying Christianity near the beginning of my undergraduate degree, because I think it is vital to understanding our history, literature and culture. From there I became interested in Judaism mostly for historical purposes, and in Islam because I wanted to understand what motivates Muslims. I think I could have just summed all of that up in history and motivation.

Angela Grossman: I researched her work when I worked at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. One of her pieces was used in the "Gallery in the Schools" program. She studies in Vancouver, and made her debut there as a group of Emily Carr students inspired by New Romanticism. She does 3D collage paintings with found objects, and a common theme is displacement and what is discarded from society. One series I really liked were painting on the inside of suitcases she found in the rubbish of a Parisian orphanage, and another one of paintings build around mugshots of prision inmates from the 1940's.

Christa Wolf is probably the most famous female author from the GDR. Her work often deal with her conflict between being a marxist who did not support either capitalism, or the government of the GDR, which is reflected in her book "Divided Heaven." I first learned about the forced migration of ethnic Germans from territory given to Poland after World War II through reading her semi-autobiographical novel "The Quest for Christa T."

Jeeves and Wooster: This one is pretty simple. I enjoy PG. Woodhouse's novels, and Fry and Laurie's adaptation. Really light and funny, and I've been interested in the 1920's since I was little. It is interesting to see where the Jeeves butler/valet character comes from.

Sturm und Drang (storm and stress): Basically German Counter-Enlightenment or Romanticism literature and music. I went through a period of being into Romanticism. I still am to an extent, but I find it pretty heavy-handed now. I still enjoy many aspects of Romanticism, such as subjectivity, historical and mythological allusions, and the anti-hero archetype.

Urga (aka Close to Eden): This is a Mongolian-Russian film, which I first saw in a Soviet film class. It is about a nomad, Mongolian-Chinese family trying to live under Chinese law and how their culture is disappearing. They meet a Russian truck driver who crashes near their camp, and are able to become friends. One aspect of the plot is that the main character wants more children, but is not allowed to under the One Child Act, even though he lives in the empty steppe.

Victoriana is not the most accurate word for me, since it refers to Victorian artifacts. I should say "the Victorian era," or to be really accurate, "the Wilhelminian era." This is my favourite historical period to study. Specifically urbanization, and nation building. I also find our current nostalgia for this time as being more "genteel" very interesting.

That was very disjointed, but I wrote it in the form of study breaks.