12/13/2009
A. Bunce Island was the largest British slave castle on the Rice Coast of West Africa. One important fact about the island was the fact that the African farmers that were taken to America, made early America very profitable off of rice. United States Independence was negotiated, in part, between Bunce Island’s British owner, Richard Oswald, and his American business agent in South Carolina, Henry Laurens.
B. The New York-born painter, illustrator and graphic artist Edward Hopper is one of the most recognizable and famous artists. He is considered by most critics to be the most important American Realist of the 20th century. He is perhaps better understood as a painter of ordinary people trying to make the best of life - a condition that necessarily involves a degree of solitude and serenity. Whatever his precise outlook, he remained steadfast in his realist approach, even when the new post-war American Abstraction movement made him appear old fashioned and out of touch. We saw his famous “Nighthawks” at the Chicago Art Museum.
C. Telemann was one of the artists played at the Chicago Symphony.
D.The Kumbha Mela is the largest religious gathering in the world. According to astrologers, the 'Kumbh Fair' takes place when the planet Jupiter enters Aquarius and the Sun enters Aries. The pilgrimage occurs four times every twelve years, once at each of the four locations. Each twelve-year cycle includes the Maha (great) Kumbha Mela at Prayag, attended by millions of people, making it the largest pilgrimage gathering around the world.
E. The Great Rift Valley as originally described extends from Lebanon in the north to Mozambique in the south, and constitutes one of two distinct physiographic provinces of the East African mountains physiographic division. It stretches approximately 6,000 kilometers.
F. A savanna is a flat grassland in tropical or subtropical regions.
G. The Porte de L'Afrique was the port from France to Africa.
H. Three ingenious innovations of the people of MesoAmerica were: grinding corn to make flour, a wood ladder, and the combination of religion, government, and military.
2. At the Art Museum, there are many different forms of art and wide variety of time changes. It was cool that there were different reasons for some of the art, like in the Buddhist exhibit, sculptures were made of wood and in the China exhibit, and everything was found in tombs and made of ceramic. At the Islamic Center, there was not much art except the stone figure that represented which way Muslims were to prey towards. In the Islam religion, men prey directly to God so they do not need a messenger or cross to prey to. At the Spertus Museum, there are many different types of art and represent different beliefs. The top floor is always changing but when our class went, it was called “What does it mean to you”. At the Dusable Museum, I learned that art is a huge reflection of the artist’s society’s fundamental beliefs. Our tour guide told us to read the artist’s name and the art was made. By doing this we can form any reasons why the art might be a sad form or a violent picture.
4. At the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Reza Aslan presented a lot of information that surprised me. He talked about President Obama and how he has a long view of what is going on in Iran and the fact that change can happen. Reza thinks that Obama has too high standards for the Palestinian and Israel conflict and it is going to cause a total freeze in the movement towards peace. Reza informed us on the dividing line between east and west. The east consists of nationalists or islamists and the west consists of transnationalists or jihadists. Islamism is a political philosophy or religious nationalism which is on the rise. Al Qaeda wants control over the whole planet and obviously that is impossible to negotiate with so that is why it is so hard to solve the problem. It seems like Muslims come up with everything first: a constitution, the Koran, a toothbrush etc. Reza compares democracy to a delicious bowl of soup which includes ingredients and if you take one ingredient out the soup fails but if you replace that ingredient with a different ingredient, well maybe then it could work. In Egypt, the ballot said the only candidate and then two boxes that said yes and no.
Posted at 10:58 PM by Sydney Hase