Dickinson College Humanities Program in Norwich

I don’t consider identity to be one’s race, religion, gender, colour, sexual preference, or class. These are all things that other people use to identify and classify other people. For example, I would define my identity by who I am rather than what I am. I may be a white middle-class female but that is only what I am defined as, not who I am as a person. It is often hard for people to distinguish who people are from what they are, because the who is a lot harder to define than the what.

I believe that a lot of problems arise from people confusing the ‘what’ with the ‘who’. Racism results from people judging others by ‘what’ they are rather than ‘who’ they are. A second generation Bangladeshi like Magid, from Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, is unable to be fully accepted into British culture because of his skin color, despite the fact that he was raised in England and has lost most of his ties with his Bangladeshi culture. He and others like him are discriminated against because the dominant culture make assumptions about who he is based on how he looks. For this reason Magid turns to an Islamic Radical group for support and acceptance.

Stereotypes are vehicles that people use when confusing what someone is with who they are. Yesterday when we all went to visit the Gurdwara I had some preconcived notions about what I thought Sikhs would be like; I thought they would be sexist, conservative, closed minded, and discriminating. Once I began to listen to our guide speak I realized that I could not be more wrong. By getting to know him, even just for a short time, I was able to see past what his is (Sikh) and past all the stereotypes that I associated with his religion, and learn who he is. I feel that in order for there to be more tolerance in this world more people need to step out of their comfort zone and realize that what a person is is not who they are, and furthermore it is not their identity.

Tonight I went to the play All’s Well That Ends Well which was preformed at the on the Olivier stage at the National Theater. Though I greatly enjoyed the performance of the play, I question Shakespeare’s choice for the title.

(spoiler alert) The play began with the main character, Helena (who loves Bertram), cures the King of France of his illness and is therefore granted the choice of any man she desires for her husband. So naturally she chooses Bertram, whom does not like Helena (mostly on account of her social standing) and is appalled by the thought of taking her hand in marriage. However, he cannot turn down Helena’s marriage proposal by the King’s decree, so instead he decides to become a soldier and leaves Helena before he beds her. After leaving he sends Helena a letter saying that he will have no wife in France until Helen is impregnated with his child and possesses his family ring. After reading this Helena leaves France in search of her husband. When she arrives in Florence (where the war is) she decides to stay with an old widow and her daughter, Diana (with whom Bertram is in infatuated). She then convinces Diana to seduce Bertram and to blind fold him before Helena comes in and makes love to him (Bertram still believing that he is with Diana). So, through Diana Helena comes to possess Bertram’s ring and becomes pregnant with his child. At the end of the play she confesses what she has done and Bertram vows to always love her, yeah right!

All is not well at the end, for Bertram is still a jerk and Helena is still married to him. This is the classic story of many present day teen pregnancies: boy does not like girl so girl decides to trap boy by forgetting to take her pill (opps!) and boy is stuck putting up with girl until the child is raised. In All’s Well That Ends Well is Shakespeare trying to suggest that this method of entrapment actually effective? Or is he poking fun at those who believe it to be effective? Neither of these options make the play contingent with the play’s fairytale motif. Also, both options make this comedy funny only in a very twisted way.

I can see why this play is considered one of Shakespeare’s problem plays. Like Troilus and Cressida, it seems to confuse and confound the audience. Why did Shakespeare choose to make a mockery of the Greek and Trojan heroes in Troilus and Cressida? And why did he choose to name a tale about a teen pregnancy All’s Well That Ends Well?

However, I can see the value in All’s Well That Ends Well as a social commentary. Though the King assures Bertram that he will personally boost Helena’s position in society, Bertram still does not want to marry her because she is the daughter of a poor physician and he is a count. This reflects the English society’s belief at the time that a person’s class is permanent and does not change from the day they are born to the day that they die. The fact that Bertram finally accepts Helena once she is pregnant also reflects the norm of the time: that if a man impregnates a woman then he is forever after responsible for her well-being. In All’s Well That Ends Well Shakespeare uses these two social to show the disjointed nature of the British upper-class’ social rules. In this way I feel that Shakespeare is trying to critique the contradictory nature of these social guidelines. I am very interested in how other people read this play.

In the past three days I have visited 3 museums, the Globe, and a carnival so needless to say I have a lot to blog about.

On Friday 28 Aug. I went to the Tate modern. Before arriving I was very excited to start through the modern art gallery, however it drastically started to go down hill from there. In the first few rooms I was happy to see works by Miro, Matisse, and Picasso. As the rooms went on the artists became more obscure and the works became more and more disturbing. If any of you out there are considering taking your young children to the Tate Modern, think again unless you want them to have nightmares for weeks afterward. The unsettling works began with photographs of men with bandaged bleeding genitals and escalated to projected images I would prefer not to describe in this blog post. Needless to say I did not make it through the entire museum before I had had enough. I do not like nor do I respect shock art of this style. I feel that it is pointless and is only shock for shock’s sake; it does not hold a message nor purpose. I think that shock art is produced by otherwise obscure artists as a method of getting attention, publicity, and money. For this reason, I decided not to support such art and artists and I left the Tate Modern

After witnessing the projected images I went to the Cabinet War Rooms.The Cabinet War Rooms were a much better experience than at the Tate Modern. With my student ID I was able to get a ticket for 10.40, which included the entrance fee into both the Cabinet War Rooms and the Churchill Museum and awarded us the opportunity to us a hand held audio listening device. At the Cabinet War Rooms Museum we were able to walk through the cabinet war rooms and see them through Plexiglas as they were during World War II while listening to historical commentary through our hand held audio devices. Walking under slabs of concrete through very small corridors and rooms really helped me imagine how it would have been like for Churchill and the others to live during the air raids. I personally cannot fathom having to stay underground for months at a time without being to leave such a small dwelling and get outside. However, the museum gave me a taste of what it would have been like.

Yesterday, 29 Aug. I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Everyone else wanted to go to the British Museum around the corner, but I wanted to go to a required museum that was further away while I still had time. So as everyone else headed to the British Museum I went to the Victoria and Albert by myself. At first I was a little nervous about heading out in the city on my own but as soon as I made it to the museum I immediately began to see the benefits of going by myself. I could walk at my own speed and visit all the exhibits I wanted to see. So, I decided to purposefully get lost in the museum (which was easy to do considering the museums vastness). I wandered from the sculpture room through a room filled with Islamic art, to a the Japanese exhibit, a fashion exhibit, a Raphael exhibit, a British exhibit, a iron wok and wares exhibit, and a jewelry exhibit before getting to tired to continue any further. Of all the things I have done in London so far going to the Victoria and Albert museum has been the most enjoyable experience so far. I loved the LARGE variety of exhibits the museum had and would greatly like to return. The museum has something for everyone and is a a must see stop for any trip to London; I am glad Prof. Qualls required us to go!!

Though I liked the Victoria and Albert Museum I found it rather confusing. It did not seem to have any distinct layout or purpose; it was simply a bunch of different things shoved together into one overarching museum. Most other museums I have been to have a distinct type of art and artifacts on display. The Docklands Museum was all about the history of the London docks, the National Gallery consisted of only classical art, and the Tate Modern stuck to only modern art. However, the V&A did not just have art nor did it just have artifacts and it did not stick to a particular time period or place. The museum’s art and artifacts were all over the place only separated by rooms, almost as though each room was its own distinct museum. In search for the museum’s overall goal I looked at the website and found that their mission statement was:

“The purpose of the Victoria and Albert Museum is to enable everyone to enjoy its collections and explore the cultures that created them; and to inspire those who shape contemporary design.

All our efforts are focused upon a central purpose – the increased use of our displays, collections and expertise as resources for learning, creativity and enjoyment by audiences within and beyond the United Kingdom.”- http://www.vam.ac.uk/about_va/

To me this goal, like the museum’s collection, seems a little too broad for a single museum. Most of the exhibits are organized by the objects they contain rather than the cultures they represent, and therefore the museum’s goal cannot simply be for the visitors to learn about the art of various cultures. It also cannot only be for the enjoyment of those who visit the museum. I can understand the museum’s goal to use the collections for educating the public, but still the question arises: “what are they teaching and why are they teaching it?”

The Victoria and Albert

Princess Diana's Dress at the Victoria and Albert

Within the past three days I have visited The Tower of London, Stonehenge, the Roman Baths, and the Globe. Visiting these tourist traps has made me realize that in one respect I actually agree with A. N. Wilson, the author of London: A History, I think that the Disney-fication of these places has drastically transformed and even destroyed their historical significance.

When visiting Bath in particular I had trouble grasping that I was actually looking at the real Roman Baths. Not only is this hard for me to fathom this because I have never laid my eyes on something so old, but I also felt that the way they were presented made the idea of their authenticity completely unimaginable. I fold that the amalgam of the old with the new, the numerous signs, and tourists confused me and made it difficult to decipher the authentic from the fake.

I enjoyed every place that I have visited but I feel that attaching a gift shop to a place like Bath and the Tower of London makes them lose all possible historical value, and makes the places feel like an amusement park. After Stonehenge and the Tower of London I was left feeling a sense of unfulfillable and wanting more, almost as though I had missed something.

In fact, I have had a hard time grasping the fact that I am in England at all. The only time that I really started to comprehend that I am actually in England was when we driving through the countryside on our way to Bath. Unlike Stonehenge, the Tower, and the Globe I found this strangely refreshing and honest. There were no tourists snapping a million pictures, fences, snobby people in suits, or signs telling you which buttons to press on your listening device. For me that was England, not the double decker buses nor the red telephone booths with porn pasted on the inside. I am loving London but am anxious to settle in at UEA.

The Jewel House at the Tower of London

On our way yo St. Martin in the Field we ran into an wonderful violinist in the Tube. Each of us in the group dropped some of our excess change into his violin case and went on our way. At that point we did not realize what was waiting for us at St Martin’s. After taking our seats the E.L.F. Trio began to play and all of us were completely blown away! I find it mind boggling that such an AMAZING concert could be free open to the public.

We then all headed over to the National Gallery. The National Gallery was also free, so we all got to see Rubens, Di Vinci, Turner (my favorite), Monet, and Van Gogh for FREE. The longer I am here the more I am impressed by the extent to which London embraces and supports the arts. There are free concerts everywhere, all the time, and extrordinary people simply playing in the street or in the Tube. I would move here in an instant, if givin the chance and lets face it the finances, simply for the arts.

As a person who went to urban public elementary, middle, and high schools that were primarily African-American, I used to consider myself well read on the subject of slavery. I was taught very little about world history and anything remotely confrontational. My pre-college history education could probably be described as being very limited in all areas except 2: Slavery and the Civil Rights movement. When a teacher would introduce the subject of slavery I admittedly let out a big sigh, as I really wanted to learn something new.

When I arrived in the slavery section of the Docklands Museum, I quickly began to realize that like most of my early history education I was not taught the full story. I only ever learned about the enslavement of Africans in America and only very briefly covered how the Africans came to be enslaved. The triangle trade route was just a picture in my history book that confused my middle school self; I would stare at the picture wondering why the route went from Britain to Africa and then to the West Indies rather than to America. Also, if asked in my early years of high school to point out the West Indies on a map I probably would not have been able to.

The Docklands Museum focused on the how and the why of slavery in the West Indies (and the Americas) that I was never really exposed to in high school. I learned that the Portuguese were actually the first to start the slave trade, not the English like I was taught. In high school I was taught that England started the slave trade and that they were the only ones completely to blame for its beginning.

I also learned a lot more about what slavery looked like in the West Indies, as opposed to in America. I learned that even after African-Caribbean slaves were given their “freedom”, indentured servitude was used in a way that greatly resembled slavery and that they really were not free at all. I was also able to read profiles of slaves, slave owners, and slave dealers in England and in the West Indies. These profiles enabled me to see the human side of slavery. This, rather than the dates and statistics, made the history of slavery more real for me and gave it a very personal dimension that I found very touching.

The longer I am in England the more I learn, and the more I realize that I have A LOT to learn. The Docklands Museum helped me to see a different side/perspective of a history that I thought I knew a lot about.

Outisde the Apple Market

Although it has only been two days, we were beginning to become a little skeptical of A.N. Wilson’s portrayal of a London overrun by American corporations and solely meant for tourism. All of the places that were not already tourist attractions were certainly un-American, and the cuisine was not only worldly but also a surprising amount of fusion food available (Indian/Japanese anyone?). However, after visiting the Covent Garden Market, we caught a glimpse of the England that was made for the tourist. The market is best described as a market for those who want to buy foreign things, but not too foreign. In the Jubilee Market, the shops almost entirely consisted of souvenir and novelty stalls.

A Keychain Shop

People visiting were welcomed to buy everything from London t-shirts, to calendars of David Beckham, and even London-themed condoms (“Want to see Big Ben?”). For those who didn’t have the local currency, there were numerous exchange agents and even stores that accepted American dollars and Euros.

The Apple Market was located in a 12th century abbey where the local monks would grow and sell their vegetables. Keeping in the tradition, there were a variety of chain stores, t-shirt vendors and cafes (The one fruit stand was not even located in the market, but outside one of the entrances).

Of the two markets, Apple seemed to consist more of permanent establishments, however Apple Market’s aim was no different from Jubilee in its desire to attract foreigners, with a welcome sign in several different languages, albeit slightly higher quality.

The surrounding neighborhood also played towards the same theme of tourism, with only the most popular chain retailers lining the streets such as Gap, The Disney Store, Starbucks, H&M, and others. The local theaters were mostly playing shows that had previously or were still on Broadway. Across from the market was the St. Paul’s Church but it was unfortunately closed at the time we were there.

St. Paul's Church

Slightly disillusioned by the cookie-cutter appeal of the Covent Garden area, we decided to walk back to the hotel. It took fifteen minutes of walking until the number of major chain retailers began to decrease and we began to see independent businesses (and pubs!).

The market clearly recognized that this was the type of London that tourists both expected and wanted to see. The shops were easily recognizable, the streets were clean, the vendor made sure that you knew that what you were buying was foreign, and everyone was white.

American Fare