Freaks of the Core Wherein lies the odd attraction and power of the freakish? Just as often as it introduces us to expressions of common human experience, study in the Humanities also introduces us to the decidedly uncommon--to writers, artists and thinkers who push conventional limits of language and narrative, vision and imagination, memory and history, or logic and rationality. For our Freaks of the Core colloquium, we explored the outer limits of human expression and experience. What, we asked, defines the abnormal or the outlandish? the fanatical or heretical? the illusory or the grotesque? Why are we commonly drawn to the very uncommon? "Nothing, indeed, is more revolting," wrote Thomas De Quincey in his famously freaky Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, "than the spectacle of a human being obtruding on our notice his moral ulcers or scars, and tearing away that 'decent drapery' which time, or indulgence to human frailty, may have drawn over them" (1).[1] But De Quincey chose to tear away that drapery in his Confessions nevertheless, believing that his outlandish experiences with addiction, poverty and illusion would teach his readers valuable lessons that outweighed any offense. "In that hope it is that I have drawn this up," wrote De Quincey, "and that must be my apology for breaking through that delicate and honorable reserve, which, for the most part, restrains us from the public exposure of our own infirmities" (1). The essays below also tear away the "decent drapery" which covers the sometimes unsightly extremes of human experience, and they do so with similar hopes and reasons. Kimberly Tsau, for example, follows De Quincey's lead in her analysis of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, suggesting that among the violence, apathy, and disjointedness of the poem is a call to face and learn from suffering. Her essay, "Hanging in a Jar," examines how Eliot collects a variety of "cultural memories," cutting and pasting them together to form a collection that is both terrifying and edifying. In "Per Repitio Nos Studiare: The Struggles of Abraham and God," Ryan Priester also explores how one learns through repeated suffering. Instead of examining human apathy or submission in the face of pain, however, his examination of the binding of Isaac introduces us to the role of human rebellion and resistance. Both The Waste Land and the relationship between Abraham and God revolve around the human response to excess and extremity.
Wayne Gretzky played a huge role in hockey history. He was a role model for many people who watched the NHL and played hockey across America as well as in Canada. His early years and his determination lead him to where he is today. All of his hard work throughout his life paid off in his great success over his career. Gretzky was the greatest hockey player ever to play in the NHL, his integrity and persistence set the bar for many players today and also influenced the way the game was played. His career started when he was very young, he won many awards and broke several records which ended with him changing the way many viewed the game all together.
The places in which we live are an integral and inescapable aspect of who we are, as they largely determine culture, community, and determine the outlook that one has on the rest of the world. In the American South, physical and cultural geography has played a particularly important role in the historical and modern contexts of racial relations. The dynamic between enslaved peoples and the natural landscape is a complex one that offers innumerable interpretations, but inarguably serves as a marker of the wounds created by institutional racism and human enslavement. In her collection of poems entitled Native Guard, Natasha Trethewey utilizes external features of the natural environment in the South in order to communicate the repressed grief, both personal and collective, which can arise as a result of inflicted systemic violence. Through comparing part one of Native Guard, which focuses on
First we can begin with the early years of this legend. In the wonderful place of Brantford, Ontario, Canada a legend was born on January 26, 1961. Wayne was the oldest in his family, being born first having four other siblings. Wayne wasn’t the biggest human being around that’s why his father was discouraged. His father still had hope in Wayne becoming a hockey player. The first time Gretzky ever received his first pair of skates he was only three years old. Gretzky always was fascinated about skating. Gretzky skated at many places, mostly on the weekends these places including the Ninth River and at public rinks. Wayne’s father admired Wayne’s affection for skatin...
The question of why bad things happen to good people has perplexed and angered humans throughout history. The most common remedy to ease the confusion is to discover the inflicter of the undeserved suffering and direct the anger at them: the horror felt about the Holocaust can be re-directed in the short term by transforming Adolf Hitler into Lucifer and vilifying him, and, in the long term, can be used as a healing device when it is turned into education to assure that such an atrocity is never repeated. What, however, can be done with the distasteful emotions felt about the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Surely the citizens of those two cities did not themselves directly provoke the government of the United States to deserve the horror of a nuclear attack. Can it be doubted that their sufferings were undeserved and should cause deep sorrow, regret, and anger? Yet for the citizens of the United States to confront these emotions they must also confront the failings of their own government. A similar problem is found in two works of literature, Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound and the book of Job found in the Tanakh. In each of these works a good man is seen to be suffering at the hand of his god; Prometheus is chained to a rock by Zeus who then sends an eagle to daily eat Prometheus' liver while Job is made destitute and brought to endure physical pain through an agreement between God~ and Satan. To examine the travails of these two men is to discover two vastly different concepts of the relationship between god and man.
In the text “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” by Flannery O’Connor, a common mood emerges from the somewhat humorous yet unfortunate work. A mood of grotesqueness among the characters and overall story as it presents itself, generally, making the audience feel quite uneasy and uncomfortable while reading it. Grotesque is a literary style, which comically and somewhat repulsively represents a distorted character or a series of twisted actions or thoughts that embody a character. The text creates a grotesque mood simply because the actions carried out by the characters resemble an extreme sense of despair and uneasiness, yet the way in which it is executed is somewhat funny and jocular to the reader, therefore creating an awkward overall mood
Any organism that is genetically modified can be defined as a transgenic organism. The two main benefits of transgenic plants are that they can help increase yields without having to select against bad plants, and they can be resistant to toxins. In order to create a transgenic plant DNA ...
At first, Wright had to decide where the house will be located. After his decision, he understood that that were will be many issues and obstacles. There were two major issues that troubled Wright. One of them was that the area was not large enough to build a strong foundation. This was unusual because most of his structures had a well-built f...
In Virgil’s famous text The Aeneid he writes about the history of the coming of Rome and the journey of its Trojan founder, Aeneas, from the wreckage of his old home at Troy. While this text is extremely supportive of the greatness of the Roman Empire, it also has a distinctly private second voice that talks about loss. We also find that in Confessions by Saint Augustine the author at times addresses God very personally, and at other times does not refer to him much at all. The private tones of these two texts contrast in that Augustine’s is generally positive, while the corresponding voice in Virgil describes loss.
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God , "The God that holds you over the
...ociates of the same background, but also because they can't be trusted. The way these two narrators move is like they are still trying to feel out people of familiarity.
In the work, The building was a structure of beauty with rushing waters and lush foliage comprised of giant tree that grew from the site, the trunk is thirty foot tall but its branches are low cantilevered, there are four largest boulders and the stream is so much the part of the house. Wright was the connoisseur of art and nature and this is also evident at the time when he visited the place and noticed the powerful sounds of the waterfall and appreciated the vitality of the young forests. Though the use of boulders and fine metal is the depiction of the grandeur of the place, it still balances the harmony with the fine gardens and parks which showcase beauty and serenity. Thus, it would be true to say that Fallingwater house is an important portrayal of the natural features along with the scientific elements. By not losing the natural essence of the place, Wright made the building in the most artful manner and provided a pristine outlook to his design so as to form the human shelter. He laid stress
To the uneducated eye, fear may seem uncontrollable, and is usually explained by seeing, hearing, or feeling something “scary” or “creepy”. In reality, it is a very complicated biological process that starts a chain reaction throughout the entire body. The brain begins a cascade of multiple events that allows chemicals to be released in order to start the fight-or-flight response (Layton). The brain is very complex and it is constantly transmitting information subconsciously, therefore, fear is...
As humans have developed so has the improvement of the abodes they called home. Humans strived to create shelters originally for safety and warmth, but as they spread across the planet and grew intellectually, socially, and industrially the idea of the house changed to also mean an extension of the family. What someone does or does not do to their house’s exterior, landscape, and interior was a subtle statement about the family that resided there. As the need to express themselves in their homes grew several careers came forth, in order to meet the demand, one of these was called architecture. One of the significantly prominent building designs of twentieth century architecture was Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, which he designed and constructed for the
So the DNA is mapped and the type of trait in the form of a gene is found that will modify the organism; called the targeted gene the next step is to do the modification. But to work a gene has to placed into an environment where the gene will be stimulated to work and also a stopgap is needed to stop its modification after it works. To do this a construct is created. A construct contains a start switch and a stop switch called the promoter and the terminator. There are very few constructs in plant modification; very famous one called the cauliflower mosic virus and is found in most transgenic modified plants. The virus is inserted with a ‘gun’ through the thick cell walls of the plant. It contains the new construct as a gene and as it affects its host cell the plant 's’ own DNA changes. One famously used gene addition is one that increases the tolerance of herbicides specifically Roundup. There are, however, two types of ways to genetically modify a gene based on the type of gene that is used to make the