While walking around Moma I noticed a painting by Umberto Boccioni named “The city Rises”(1910). Umberto Boccioni was one of the most successful and influential Italian painters among Futurist, which emerged as an art form before the outbreak World War I. After “futurist manifesto” was published many artists started following this movement that depicted modernization, new technology and violent break up with the past. This painting is considered one of the first futuristic paintings. Central theme are blurry looking horses who are running wild and workers who are trying to gain control over them. The name of the painting suggests that the new city is being build, but painting shows conflict between humans and horses, like a struggle between new and old. Horses are depicted as mystical, ancient creatures. Boccioni developed effects of dynamics and action, which were associated with his style. While horses and the humans depicts majority of the painting, urbanization f the city is evident. Upper area of the painting has clearly recognizable factories and the walls of the new city that has being build. Boccioni wants to break up with the past by showing us chaotic struggle between humans and animals. Horses have wings in the painting symbolizing past and contrasting it with new world that is rising. Horses are moving but they are not very distinctive at first while the walls of the city are much more clear. The painter sees the progress of the human kind through speed up industrialization and urbanization of the new raising city.

http://www.moma.org/collection/works/79865?locale=en

Marija Krasojevic

She couldn’t sleep all night, because bed dreams were hunting her. She was turning and twisting around, when the first sun rays lighly touched her face. She felt warm and she didn’t wanted to get up from her cozy bad. her alarm clock went off, and she got up and went to the kitchen to make some coffee. in the midtime she went to to take a shower to wake herself up. she put her music on and it was her favorite piece of classical music “Suite Bermasque” by Clode Debussy. she was six years old again, watching her mother play piano and smile at her. She was long gone by she felt her spirit, as the wind flow was coming through the window and played with her curtians that went up and down. Her old photo felt on the floor. She got out of the shower and had to get ready fast not able to finish gher coffee, she ren out of the door. Sun rays that woke her up didn’t feel that warn as in her house, it was quiet chiily for this time of the year. Air smell fresh and light, and she could feel that spring is in the air. wind was strong and it played with her curly her. she had three blocks to get to the  Woodhaven train station that will take her to the college. stream of people coming down the stairs to get to the train platform. she felt like being a part of the flowing river with people moving in one direction. The train came and she stepped towards the middle of the train. Rush hour in New York City was the worst thought. Half sleepy, half tired faces were commuitn to their jobs, and she was going to her first class. She felt happy she is doesnt have to commute like this every day. in half an hour she was in 51 astret and lexington avenue station, and as the train door opened people  rushed to the escalators. while they were standing in the lanes waiting to get on the escalators, few people went on the stairways. she went wiht them and thought that would be a good exercise for her. she had to transfer to the 6 train to get to the 28 street. when she got to the platform, the train sation was so crowded that she barely could get to the train doors. Train came in station and the people started coming in. it was full, so she decides to wait for another. The train came in, and she was on the way to the school. she get off on 28 street and went down the park avenue to the 25th street, where she turned left. Cars on the streets were honking , people in nice suits rushing to their offices. Man in a shiny blue suit was coming towrds her. They looked each other and she felt intimitaded. He looked so perfect at 9p.m. how long does him takes to get like that she thought. She was happy she didn’t have to do that. she was already in front of the school.

Marija Krasojevic

“Family Romances” by Sigmund Freud talks about family relationship analyzed psychologically. When I was a child my mother and father were my role models. Since my father was away and my mother raised me I dreamed of having the same occupation as my mother. I thought that nobody is a better than her and that she is the most successful person at that time. My father was away, so in my mind I found an explanation. He was a hero in my mind, a secret agent, who had to travel frequently. As I was growing up I realized that other parents are treating their kids better, and I become rebellion. I agree with Freud conclusions because I personally experienced it. It is interesting to notice that mother-son and father-daughter relationship is more affectionate than mother-daughter and father-son. Freud claims that sexual tension has something to do with this. Also children who have siblings can fell neglected by their parents and thus their response to parent’s hostile behavior can be along those lines. Than he talks about “neurotic family romance” that refers to entanglement of child parents. It usually starts before puberty and continues through it. In that period child wants to depart from his parents that he has low opinion about and replace them with other parents of higher social class. A second stage of family romances in child recognizing that mother is always certain and father can come and go. I was undermining father in one point as well, because I felt that mother is more caring and giving. After the puberty period ended I realized that my parents try to raise me the best way they knew.

Marija Krasojevic

After listening to poem written by Phillip’s what grabbed my attention over and over again was how she transformed the word land into language and from language into anguish. Anguish in this case refers to learning a language foreign to you “father tongue”. It is interesting to see how slaves developed their own language to communicate secretly. I have often being told how the tongue is mightier than sword. What is sad was to learn how sword prevailed by removing the tongue of those caught communicating this way.

I can relate to this anguish when I first came to America and struggled whit English language. At times I found myself afraid to speak and felt I would be ridiculed. Fortunately as time went by and my confidence grew, my tongue started to move. Now I find learning father tongue languages exciting. It becomes a new adventure for me.

Slave owners deprived slaves from learning the language and educating themselves, because they could easily justify slavery. Everybody thought that slaves were not capable for social life, because they had a lack of knowledge. Many believed that it is because they brains were smaller, than the ones of white Caucasian man. Douglass learned from Hugh Auld that knowledge is a way to freedom. Auld forbidden his wife to educate slaves, because he claims that it ruins them. At this point Douglas realized that self-education is the only weapon he can use to fight for freedom. He knew that education wont automatically give him freedom, but with learning the language, inhumane treatment of slaves could be talked about and revealed to the world outside plantations.

Frankenstein’s monster is like a little lamb because he is a gentle creature that is brought up to this world alone. He has no family and siblings and his creator Victor acted like a bad parent when he abandoned him as soon as the Monster was born. William Blake’s poem “Lamb” resembles Monster, because lamb is a symbol of innocence and pureness. “He is called by the name,

For he calls himself a Lamb:

He is meek & he is mild,

He became a little child:”

Monster is in away a child brought up to this world lonely. Monster does not have friends to play, neither parents to learn about the world. Monster is pure sole whose heart was broken when he was left alone after his birth. His creator, Victor, was terrified of him when the Monster opened his eyes, because it did not turn out to be as he wished. He was working almost two years on this project to make the most beautiful creature of human parts. Victor describes the monster being proportional with black hair and pearl white teeth, but his watery eyes and black colored lips revel contrast or maybe inner struggle. Monster is outcast from this society, because it is very different from humans, and people are scared of him everywhere he goes. He is ugly to the human eye, but his soul is tender as a little lamb. He wants to learn from other people and he wants to have friends, but everything he does human takes as something bad.

Marija Krasojevic

Reading William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” I instantly see a resemblance between Frankenstein’s Creature and Blake’s Tyger. Blake’s Tyger is a metaphor for a creation that has been made by supernatural powers which seem to derive from the underworld while Frankenstein’s Creature has been created by a man at the time filled with the unknown obsession with death and the act of stealing which is a sin also derived from the underworld.

“What the hammer? what the chain,

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp,

Dare its deadly terrors clasp!”

This stanza is describing how the Tyger was created but also hypothetically asking in what state was it created, as we can already see from the text the Tyger was created to bring deadly terror. By the use of words such as ‘dread’ and ‘dare’ and ‘fearful’ used throughout Blake’s poem we are instantly given the visuals of a creation similar to Frankenstein’s described as “the miserable monster whom I had created.”. Both creators had regretfully created monsters.

The Tyger and the Creature not only share the same purpose but they share the same physical features such as immortal hands and eyes as described by Blake. The Creature is made up of body parts found in the charnel-houses as well as the dissecting room and the slaughter-house, they are of course parts from many different bead bodies. Close to the end of Blake’s poem, he asks a question which could still be asked today “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”, he is questioning how God could create both good and bad implying that humans will never understand the mind of God. As the Creature was not created by God we understand that man does not posses the same powers as God therefore it is no wonder the Creature displayed signs of evil right up until his creator had died.

Sarah Boateng

Movie clips are depicting the Monster’s birth in a different way than it is shown in Merry Shelley’s book “Frankenstein”. In the older movie version of “Frankenstein”, Victor is depicted as a crazy scientist. Unlike in the book, the scientist has a crippled helper and in the time of reviving the Monster he has spectators in his castle. Also, thunderstorms and rain ads to the effect of the crazy scientist. When electricity strikes and the monster become alive, scientist feels like God and yells “It’s alive” and “Now I know how it feels like being a god”. He is proud of his creation. In the book Victor’s Monster is described as a creature that’s skin is yellow and covers arteries and muscles underneath. “His hair is of lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness; but these luxuriance’s only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, …and straight black lips.” In the process of Monster’s creation in the book, Victor is working by himself, as he was hiding his creations from his family and friends for almost two years in isolation inside his apartment. In the book, when Monster gets alive, his mouth opens and his eyes and than it s body started to move, while in the movie his hands move first, when monster gets alive. Victor is by himself in the modern movie version, just like in the book. Also there is a detail of burning candle just like in the book, although they left out details of it raining hard. Victor is running around, as he gets excited about his masterpiece ready to get revived. In both movie versions Victor is excited about monster’s birth, but in the book he runs away from the monster, because it did not turn out to be as he imagined. In the modern movie version Victor is yelling: “It is alive”, when the monster opens his eyes.

These two different adaptations are different than the Merry Shelly’s book, because the director wanted to make it more exciting for the audience.

Marija Krasojevic

Descartes is one of the greatest philosophers of 17^th century whose books influenced not only philosophy, but also mathematics, and science. Discourse on Method has six parts, however part four is important, because Descartes came to the conclusion “Cogito ergo sum”. Descartes said that people often tend to act on opinions, although one could be uncertain about it. Therefore Descartes decide to do opposite and “to reject as if it were absolutely false…”(14). This kind of epistemology led him to doubt absolutely everything in order to get to the truth. He rejected everything that was previously taken as accurate and precise. He also rejected that truth comes from our senses, since it can deceive us, and decided that anything that came from his dreams was an illusion of his mind. In the process of doubting, Descartes concluded that: ”while I was trying to think in this way that everything is false it had to be the case that I, who was thinking was something. I am thinking, therefore I exist”(15) He wasn’t certain about if he had a body or which world he belonged, neither if he was dreaming or being awake. Ability to think gave him an idea that he is a thinking object not depending on material things. Here he separates the human body from the soul and I agree with him in the sense that the body is material thing that comes from the ashes and goes back to it, and soul has ho shape and form and is metaphysical, therefore it cannot stop existing.

Descartes than continues exploring the truth and conludes that if he doubts in truth, he can’t be certain in it. Therefore, there must be something more perfect then knows the truth other than him. Descartes is trying to answer the question how did he get the idea of heaven, earth, heat, light, if it wasn’t from something more perfect than he is? In other words he is trying to say that he has the awareness of it, but cannot explain it. Many things in this Universe we cannot explain, because the capacity of our mind is limited. He questions himself are those thoughts more superior than he is and there fore did they come from some perfection in himself or if these thoughts were false did they come form nothingness. He conclude that thoughts cannot come from nothing, so if it didn’t come from him they must have come from God. This is the first proof of God’s existence. Another proof of God’s existence Descartes is exploring through geometry. Idea of a perfect being includes existence in a same way that “the equality of its three angles to two right angles or the idea of sphere includes the equidistance from the centre of all the points on the surface.”(17) For many people it is difficult to understand God, because people perceive everything through their senses like imagining, however the God and the soul don’t come from our senses. As Descartes says: “trying to understand these ideas through one’s imagination strikes me as being like trying to hear sounds or smell odours through the use of one’s eyes.”(17) We cannot be sure that senses are giving us the right picture, as we cannot understand anything through imagination without help of understanding it. I think of God as a force that created this world the best way possible and living creatures perfect in their imperfection.

Marija Krasojevic

It feels like this winter recess lasted way more than month and a half, because I finally had a reason to get up early and get ready for a first day at school. The other day opened my eyes around 7 a.m. and I was looking forward to start a new semester. It looks like the spring has sprung outside my window, as the sun shone my windows and made outside look warm and inviting. I toasted a bagel and brewed coffee, while getting dressed up. Than I put notebook in my new backpack and and closed the doors. As am going towards the subway I see a homeless guy that sits underneath the passaway and I am thinking what kind a life he had before he ended up on the streets. His emontionless eyes staring at one spot and his body covered in blanket looks timelles. It seems time and space is at no importance to him, as well as wheater conditions and sourrounding. I continue walking and I start noticing nature’s beauty: “I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass”. I feel so strong and healthy and I am embracing the life I have, especially when there are so many less fortunate people. In the same point I cannot be younger than I am now, nor be older, therefor we shout embrace our existence on earth, because we don’t know when is the end. ”And will never be any more perfection than there is now, nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.” I think that poet is trying to tell us that we are perfect the way we are, and that we need to live in present, not looking back or in the future. We should enjoy the beauty of life as well as learn to deal with tragedy and pain in life.

Marija Krasojevic