My favourite lecture is exploring the similarities between the Victorian era and our own. There are in fact so many similarities given the amount of new technology that the Victorians had to deal with. But the questions that arise from this topic are huge: Is the world becoming a better place (as the Victorians predicted)?…
Category: x Blogging
Shakespeare’s Poetry and Sonnets….
Despite the fire alarm and the emergency exodus we had a profitable day exploring Shakespeare’s dramatic theories as argued and exemplified in his amazing Prologue to Henry V in which he calls to the heavens for a “Muse of Fire”! Listen to the audio of this adventure below: This was followed by a tutorial on…
Nineteenth Century Literature- the Context of the Visual Arts: Enlightenment… Romanticism… Victorianism….
Art Gallery Quiz Questionnaire2019 HI All, we had an amazing experience this Wednesday, exploring the art of the Enlightenment, followed by the art of Romanticism (both in Europe and Australia) and then the art of the Victorian Era. These paintings depict many of the social and historical contexts and obsessions of the late 18th and 19th…
The Shakespeare Room and Shakespeare Resources in the Mitchell Library + Renaissance Art for Shakespeare Plus Students at ACU in 2019
Shakespearean Art in the NSW Gallery 2019 Thank you ALL for your outstanding attendance today- just about 100% – that is a record!!! The State Library with its wonderful Shakespeare statue outside (in one-time Shakespeare Place”) was a delight to be involved with- despite the life-endangering freeway that one has to cross to get there!!!!.…
Australian Art for Clemente Australian Literature Students
Hi All, we have had a wonderful experience this Monday exploring the ways in which Australian art, like Australian literature, tell the story about the Australian experience, OUR experience. We explored paintings from the earliest days of colonisation through to modern times. These paintings included works by Indigenous Aboriginal, Swiss, German, Italian and even some…
Wordsworth, The Romantics and Withering Frights!
I enjoyed very much this morning talking to you about one of my alltime favourite poems “Resolution and Independence” in which William Wordsworth celebrates the way his experience of life was profoundly challenged by meeting with a really old Leech Gatherer. This man had the “Resolution and Independence” which Wordsworth himself felt lacking in his…
Ben Jonson’s Shakespeare and More About Midsummer!
We had a wonderfully dramatic day today with hours spent on Ben Jonson’s extraordinary poem in praise of his rival William Shakespeare, followed by much hilarity watching Egeus challenging Theseus to help him tame his recalcitrant daughter into marrying the man she DOES NOT LURVE!! We then finished with a beautiful poetic rendering of the…
Australian Literature: Late Colonial- Early Federation: Gilmore, Lawson, O’Dowd etc….
So this is the period when Australian Literature and Art began to celebrate its independence from the tyranny of England: notice the fireworks over Sydney Town Hall on Federation day!!! But This was really not good enough for die-hard republicans like Henry Lawson and Mary Gilmore who saw the continuing injustices in Australia society- which…
Some Gems from the first crop of blogs
Here is a beautiful description of a / Coleridgean apprecation of nature in the Australian context: https://anthonydigges.home.blog/ – Thank you Anthony! Here is a companion piece to Anthony’s: https://julieisajunkie.home.blog/ Thank you Julie for sharing your passion for the stillness of the Australian bush! Here is a wonderful account of a Wordsworthian moment in Nepal:…
Nineteenth Century Romantics Week 3!
Today we explored William Wordsworth’s Preface to the Lyrical Ballads. This is an amazingly revolutionary document in the context of its time, daring to acknowledge the worth of ordinary human being and daring to say that the language of the uneducated contains more essential truth than the language of most academics. Powerful stuff! And his friend Coleridge…
Shakespeare 2019 Week 3: The Play within a Play- All the World’s A Stage
Today we homed into this aspect of Shakespeare’s subversive and controversial writing. Shakespeare loves to dramatize the way in which we all spend so much of our energy play acting, both to ourselves and to others. Where is the real “me” we may all well ask- and Shakespeare seems to be challenging us with this…
Clemente Mount Druitt Week 3- From Charles Harpur to D.H. Lawrence
Slides used in Week 3: Clemente Week 3 Slides We began by celebrating the work of all those students who have managed to get their first blogs up. Well done you digital technical wizz-kids!!!! It is wonderful to begin to hear how you are taking so much from the content and are willing to share…
Pandaemonium Part 2: The Romantics Contd.
“mind-forged manacles” We had some fabulous classes this morning exploring William Blake as both a mystic and a social activist in the poems “Auguries of Innocence” and “London” Click on the poems for a direct link. You can hear a wonderful class discussion on both these poems right here: And here are some of the…
Shakespeare 2019- Week 2
See Judi Dench in the full video right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSDQjEJTPzg Hi All, well we made it finally into A Midsummer Night’s Dream through the gateway of The Sonnets and Shakespeare’s many-sided sexuality! And we also learned about his deep and passionate belief in the power of art, of literature, of poetry to transcend the ravaging effects…
Budjwa Bay Again
Back to my old haunt the wonderful Bay just West of Cowan. This an amazing spot to experience total silence- and yet so close to the city. Spiders were all the way down the track and ducking and weaving was the only way of ensuring that their food supply mechanism was not destroyed!
Clemente Mount Druit- Week 2
We had a wonderful morning in which we explored the magic of Judith Wright’s poetry, especially in her poem “A Wattle Tree”. So many good responses to this poem from the class showed that Judith Wright really does have a way of making us see the landscape in a totally new, transformed, way. And the rhyme…
Introduction to Nineteenth Century Literature
Off to a great start with Nineteenth Century Literature! So good to sense your interest and enthusiasm in the Romantic poets. We are going to enjoy this ride through this amazing century together! Here are the recordings for this week’s lectures and tutorials and also a few blog topics to get you started: Possible…
Shakespeare Week 1 2019
Hello All: a great start! Thank you all for your keen participation in our introduction to the world of Shakespeare and to the theme of love as it played out in two of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, Christopher Marlow and Sir Walter Raleigh. Here are the recordings for our class this week: enjoy. And here a few…
Clemente OZ Lit 2019 Mount Druitt
Hello All, it was really good to start to get to know all of you yesterday: Vivian, Honeylene, Malia, Laura, Jeff, Suzanne, Heather, Jenny, Claire, Rita, Joseph, Julie, Geoffrey…. Peter…. I hope I have not left anyone out! We got off to a good start with our discussions on some poems by Indigenous poets who…
Wonderful New York Blogs from the Class of 2019: The Literature and Drama of New York.
The Best of the Bunch – those who earned a High Distinction in this assessment item are the top in the list: Emily Eicke Abbey Zito Mathilda Meader Carina Field Lauren Tribe Melody Carroll Jessica Smith Helen Citroni AND The rest were not far behind: NAOMI ZAKI: Kristen Nicola Adam Jones Darcy Lucid K’DOR: …
Culmination of New York Trip!
Click on this link to read this article on Indigenous Literature in Harlem: https://mailchi.mp/7317af3a7fc7/clemente-crosses-decades-and-distance?e=290dd1908b
Day 9: Wrap up of the course/ discussion on Book of Mormon/ Harlem/ Central Park/Group Meal out/ Carnegie Hall: Sounds of the American Century
Wow! What an amazing day! And we are still standing- because of inclement weather we had to squeeze a number of items into this, our last day in New York: First here is our wrap up discussion and our reflections o the Book Of Mormon -Go James! Then we had a number of tour stops…
Last run through Central Park with Canada geese
Tutorial Day 8: True West, Whitman, Crane and Brooklyn….
Hello all, please find the recording here for our lively discussion on True West and our reflections on the way our walk around Brooklyn and over Brooklyn Bridge enhanced our understanding of these two amazing poets- so different and yet so switched on to the underlying meaning in their experiences of place. Click on each…
Class given to African American Clemente Students In the Centre of Harlem
What a gift this was to be to share my insights on and understanding of Australian Indigenous literature with this passionate, switched-on group of Harlem Clemente students. They were so keen to hear and know about their less well -off brothers and sisters down-under. I shared with them the way that our university supports Indigenous…
Wonderful James Baldwin Exhibition in Down-Town Manhattan
Don’t miss this one if you are staying on in NY. At 533 West 19th is this commemoration of America’s greatest contemporary African American writer. Photographs, art works, videos, stories and letters give a rare, more private insight into how this man transformed his life and helped profoundly to shift fixed attitudes toward African Americans.
Moma -NY 2019
A goodly handful of us had a wonderful treat today: not only did we see and discuss some of the more controversial Post WW2 American artists, but we had hour long wanderings among the most well known 20th Century modernists: Such a happy team 🤣👍🎶 Inside we started with iconic Rothko and Picasso: It is…
Central Park Cameo: dogs and runners and snow…..
Early morning snaps on my run…. Altitudinal squirrels in the high branches bracing themselves against the cold wind…
Day 7- Brooklyn & Brooklyn Bridge: Walt Whitman and Hart Crane
Hi All, here is the wonderful discussion we had this morning – about “Pies” then about Walt Whitman’s “epiphanic” (thank you Naomi!) depiction of New York in “Mannahatta”, followed by Hart Crane’s ecstatic description of Brooklyn Bridge. We also briefly compared Joseph Stella’s 1939 painting The Brooklyn Bridge (at The Whitney) with Hart Crane. So enjoy…
Day 7: Brooklyn & Brooklyn Bridge- Walt Whitman and Hart Crane
Tutorial Day 6: Waitress, The MET and Harlem’s Gospel Service
James began our session today with a lively discussion on Waitress with a particular interest in whether you saw this Broadway stage version to be a reduction of the force found in the film. In the discussion there was a real sense that many of you thought that the play version was sentimentalizing a brutal and…
Day 5 Gospel Service in Harlem
Today Sunday we had the extraordinary good fortune to be part (again- last time in 2017) of the Gospel Service at the Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem: Personally I found this service incredibly powerful and moving, but I can also understand why some people might find it confronting and challenging. To this end I have…
New York Day 4: Day Off! Central Park & The Whitney (including Andy Warhol)!!
Day 4 – Day Off- with an early morning run round Central Park followed by a visit to The Whitney Gallery on the Hudson River with a special retrospective exhibition of Andy Warhol. Central Park in the early morning creates a great sense of the deeper context of New York. Here you become aware of…
The MET in New York
This post includes the morning tutorial on To Kill a MockingBird and on the insights gained from the literary tours. Go to the end of the blog for these…. We had a great tour through the Modern and Contemporary Gallery today looking at early 20th Century Regional Art – in the form of Thomas Hart…
Introduction to the Literature of New York with Nick Birns from NYA – Washington Square and Greenwich Village
A day to be remembered! Nick so generously took us through his life-long experience of New York and his passionate lover of the literature that it has produced, and his deep sense of the social and ethical insights that reading and understanding this literature can give. Thank you Nick! With Nick’s permission here is the…
Made it to New York for the start of our amazing tour through the literary and dramatic haunts of this awesome city! Join us for our adventure
Take- off Stop-over in LA (LAX) The highs and the lows of digital creativity in the LAX Terminal. Here is American digital artistry on show: And here is art as handmaiden of consumerism- in your face!!!! Arrival in New York…. a blissful 2 degree C (after the nearly 40 in all three cities from…
New York 2019 Tutorial 2
Hi All, thank you for your wonderful contributions to today’s classes. We felt that you learnt a lot and -if you read the texts and ready and listen to the study guides you should not have a problem with our quizzes. The drama quiz will remain on January 9th (NSW & VIC 11-12; QLD 10-11.…
First Tutorial for New York 2019 cohort: The Literature and Drama of New York
Thank you all for your attendance and keen participation today. We have two recordings of our presentation and discussion. The first is the recording from the Sydney cohort, the second from the Melbourne and Brisbane cohort combined. Attached also please find the slides from today’s tutorial. Enjoy revisiting this content as needed for your quiz…
African American Writing: Harlem, New York: James Baldwin
Please find here the first audio talk on James Baldwin’s Go Tell It On The Mountain. Also find underneath, notes and links to the content mentioned in the talk: Page of Links and Clips on James Baldwin (1924-1987) https://www.biography.com/people/james-baldwin-9196635- Please watch the short 3 minute clip on James Baldwin’s life at the start of this article. It…
Grace IV: Contemplative Experience, Poetry of Grace @ Aquinas, Poetry of Grace IV Contemplative Experience, x Blogging
The Poetry of Grace Contemplative Experience IV: Part 4
In today’s last session we turned first to exploring the ways in which William Blake explores the conditions that create GRACE. In his Songs of Innocence and Experience he has two songs that are about Nurses. In Nurse’s Song in Songs of Innocence he presents the Nurse in a state in which “her heart is at…
Getting Ready for New York: Literature and Drama!
It was great for James and I to meet you all today and to shake out some of your questions and concerns. This is the place where you are going to be able to find all the audio recordings both before and during our New York adventure. I will of course be putting this link…
The Poetry of Grace IV: Contemplative Experience Part 3
In this week’s session we looked first at Les Murray’s “The Buladelah-Taree Holiday Song Cycle“. If you click on the title you can read the whole poem right here! We explored the ways in which Les’ poem builds on the ” ‘WONGURI‐’MANDƷIKAI SONG CYCLE OF THE MOON‐BONE“ which we explored in last week’s session. You can…
The Poetry of Grace IV: Contemplative Experience Part 2
This week we first turned our attention to Judith Beveridge’s wonderful poem “Flying Foxes, Wingham Brush”. In this poem she reveals her capacity to enter into the lives of these amazing creatures, giving them her full attention, drawing us in to the experience of their wondrous beings! Enjoy this audio lecture which moves at the…
The Visionary Imagination: William Blake, Patrick White, Brett Whiteley, Allen Ginsberg- Celebrating Class of 2018 ePortfolio/Blogs
BLAKEAN STORIES This was perhaps the most creative component of all the blogs: those many stories about strangers or family members who provided a trigger for seeing the world in a totally new way. Here is Jamie’s wonderful story about his sister from Vietnam in which he “describes a totally ordinary person in such…
Celebration of 20th Century Blogs: Century of “Innerness” in Literature and the Arts.
In this unit we explored writers and artists beginning with English Gerard Manley Hopkins right through to Trinidadian M. Nourbese Philip. The focus has been on the way writers and artists in the 20th Century have been trying to use their medium to break through the mirroring surface of things to the depths below, where…
The Poetry of Grace IV: Contemplative Experience Part 1
This is the fourth seminar series in a group titled The Poetry of Grace held at the Aquinas Academy in Sydney. Previous seminars have explored the poetry of Austrian Rainer Maria Rilke and Australian Francis Webb (these can be accessed from this WordPress site- just click on the Poetry of Grace link above). This 2018 seminar…
Australian Literature Blogs 2018
There have been some wonderful blogs by students studying Australian Literature at ACU this semester. We began the unit with Kim Scott’s That Deadman Dance and then travelled through a number of Indigenous authors before beginning the “White” literary staircase from early colonial times right up to contemporary times with Francis Webb, Lisa Bellear and then…
William Blake’s “Grain of Sand” Alive and Well in 2018
Performances based around the work of William Blake and his legacy in Australia have taken place today in Strathfield (ACU)! What an amazing collection of young voices celebrating the continuing creative power of William Blake and his impact on such diverse talents as Patrick White, Brett Whiteley and Allen Ginsberg. Here are our pre-performance tutorials…
Introduction to the Literature and Art of New York: Tour January 2019
Hello All fellow travellers: Listen to the short lecture here as you look at the three slides that are immediately below this link. The slides are also placed within this space (if that is easier for you to use!) Click here for images to accompany this short talk: Intro:Overview Here also is a beautiful very short…
Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot
This play was performed today by our wonderful second year students who were exploring the ways in which Beckett was pushing the boundaries of English language along a continuum that had begun with Joseph Conrad, The poets of the First World War, Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, T.S. Eliot, Charlie Chaplin and George Orwell. Beckett comes…
Michael Griffith: Home Page- Literature and Life Autumn 2022 
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