Why I Got a BA, not a BSc

On my comments page this Tuesday, Andrew Reeves commented on a posting of mine. The discussion was about how people can be influenced to do things by all manner of seemingly trivial forces. I myself confessed that "a music video made me shift to arts from sciences." And the story is as follows:

When I was 15, my family got bought the extended cable package offered by Island Cablevision. MuchMusic--Canada's main English-language music video station--was included, and when I turned on the television to MuchMusic for the first time, there was the video for Annie Lennox's 1995 single "No More 'I Love You's." It's an interesting video, with a late 19th century sensibility influenced by Toulouse-Lautrec, among other artists.

Now, the video didn't get me interested in the literature of 19th century Europe, or in graphic art--those tastes came much, much later. What it did do was get me interested how Western culture got to the stage depicted in the video, and to the point where a video like that could be made. It awakened an interest in underlying structures, of thought and of institution, that interested me to this day.

Before that video, I was probably drifting towards science, and even now I maintain a fairly good familiarity with the field (for a layperson). After that video, though, I was drifting towards art, because although the world might ultimately be all physics (or math, but let's not get into that debate) for the time being studying culture--a student of anthropology, as a student of English literature, or as a student of history, say--is the best way to examine these structures. Also, language is fun.

Quiz Time

( How bisexual am I? )

Evening's Thoughts

I missed meeting Erin and Marieve by a few minutes at the Confederation Centre, unfortunately. I had a lemon tea at Café Diem, then I went and distributed a few posters. I dropped one off at the Visitor Information Centre on Water Street, and chatted with one of my former co-workers. (Her child, an infant when I left, is 3 and a half now; and, the poster will be put up there and distributed to the Cavendish and Borden-Carleton VICs.)

I've registered for my graduate courses come fall semester at Queen's: English 814 (Topics in Medieval Literature II: Pre- and Postmodern Subjectivities), English 886 (Topics in American Literature I: "New York, New York"), and English 893 (Literary Theory III: Ads, Fads, and Consumer Culture). There's some courses on literary modernism, but I want to broaden my scope; there's an interesting Beowulf course for winter semester.

Plenty of things are happening, and I don't know how well I'm doing in coping with them. I'm uncertain about a lot of things, but it should get better. I hope.

[BLOG-LIKE POSTING] Thoughts on a revived cultural grouping

The recent coup in the small African country of São Tomé e Principé has received significant attention in the blogosphere--Jonathan Edelstein at Head Heeb and David Adesnik at OxBlog are among the more notable posters. The coup effort (which may now be failing) has attracted significant attention for any number of reasons:

• As a major potential oil-exporting country significantly located in the middle of West Africa's petroleum-exporting region, São Tomé e Principé is significant as a future target of an American energy policy that would seek to diversify beyond the Middle East as a soil of fuel.


• The São Tomé coup is a test of the young African Union's ability to enforce some measure of constitutional government in its member-states.

One interesting aspect of the São Tomé coup and worldwide reaction that hasn't received much attention, however, is the role of other Portuguese-speaking ("Lusophone") countries:

[I]n Coimbra, a hilly university town in central Portugal, eight foreign minsters of Portuguese-speaking countries were discussing the crisis, which surged to the top of the agenda at the annual ministerial meeting of the Community of Portuguese-speaking Nations (CPLP).

The CPLP ministers "vehemently" condemned the putsch and said they were prepared to help mediate in the crisis in the tiny west African archipelago.

East Timor's foreign minister, Nobel peace prize laureate Jose Ramos Horta, in particular offered his mediation.

Sao Tome's foreign minister, Mateus Meira Rita, was already in Portugal for the meeting at the time of the coup.

Portuguese Foreign Minister Antonio Martins da Cruz said Lisbon was working "quietly" in a quest for dialogue "and building bridges" between the military junta and the deposed government through the Portuguese and US ambassadors in Sao Tome.

The CPLP, which has been deeply divided in the past on issues involving its members such as the Angolan civil war, joined in an international chorus of protest against the coup.

Analysts said the crisis was an opportunity for the seven-year-old CPLP, whose member states have a total population of some 220 million, to find a greater role on the world stage.

In 1995 mediators from CPLP member state Angola persuaded army officers who ousted the then Sao Tome government to return to their barracks a week later.

The CPLP comprises Portugal and its former colonies Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and Sao Tome and Principe.

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