Favourite Song?

Hi All - Please post a comment below with the name of your favourite English-language pop song (preferably recent). I'll tell you why next week.
J

Reading

Hi -

These are the short stories available online (click the name to see the story), together with the person who has chosen them:

George Orwell, Shooting An Elephant. Alexandra Charalambous

Edgar Allen Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher. Nicos Kozakos.

Ernest Hemingway, A Clean Well-Lighted Place. Vasia Savva.

Franz Kafka, A Hunger Artist. Froso Genethliou.

Roald Dahl, Beware of the Dog. Evanthia Aristodemou.

Katherine Mansfield, Miss Brill. Dora Diomedous.

Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden of Forking Paths. Tamara Yeshurun.

Shirley Jackson, The Lottery. Fotinie Kavazi.

DH Lawrence, Tickets, Please. Melina Iordanou.

Kate Chopin, "The Story of an Hour." Elena Stylianou.

The following stories are not online - I will photocopy them and leave them in my departmental pigeonhole tomorrow afternoon.

Doris Lessing, "To Room Nineteen." Marilyn Hadjistylli.

Amy Tan, "The Joy Luck Club." Alexia Papakyriacou.

E. Annie Proulx, "Brokeback Mountain." Elena Nicolaidou.

Nadine Gordimer, "Homage." Xenia Sergiou.

Hanif Kureishi, "My Son The Fanatic." Farahnaz Saleki.

FILMS
Please note that these are all well-known short stories, and some of them have been made into films (e.g. The Joy Luck Club, A Hunger Artist, My Son The Fanatic, The Fall of the House of Usher, A Clean Well-Lighted Place, Brokeback Mountain, The Lottery: also the Dahl and the DH Lawrence stories have been filmed for TV). If you can obtain these films they may well feed into your analysis, BUT you must be aware that films often make very big changes, including the ending, so make sure you know the story well before watching the film!

If your name does not appear above, please email me urgently.
More at the weekend.
J

RESPONSE ESSAY ON "THE CRISPS AT THE CROSSROADS"

Who did never eat at least one packet of crisps? Obviously noone, because the way they are cooked seems to be tasty. Reyner Banham on "The Crisps at the Crossroads", analysed the sensibility that usefulness of crisps have in our lifes, but mostly in older centuries.
As I mentioned above, crisps were started to be created in 19th and 20th century. Industries were trying to investigate those tasty flavors as the meal in our everyday life. Of course, this investigation was under some appropriate rules, which governed according to crisps's production. Industrial people used a released way to encourage people to eat those unhealthy potatoes.
Although, crisps begun to be inside of our our drawer in the kitchen since they are created. This propably is the worst thing because those potatoes are cooked so delicious, but instead of their good taste they are formed into oil. Especially young children who finishes from scholl in the afternoon or watching tv and have their oily potatoes in front of them because they don't have anything to do. Also another example is when adults watching a football match or going to night clubs have the chance to eat them.
Flavors-crisps have the ability to taste nice, but also to smell nice. Some names of crisps are barbecue-bacon with sauce, cheese-onion, sault, Doritos and many other names. The big fact here is taht there is a huge number of crisps's names all over the world. In Cyprus there are industries who are cooking crisps such as LAYS.
Another point to add, is that each packet of crisps have colories, the weight and date. There is a small possibility those colories the wrote to be true but we don't have to trust them because the aim for industries is to sell their product. Moreover, we have to be aware of the day crisps were published and the day we will buy it. Maybe in each packet to write the date which is appropriate to eat it, but they are closed in this oily packet for so many days, so who knows what we are eating.
Finally, all consumers must be so careful of what they are eating, because those flavors are delecious, but with lot of oil and preservations inside them, which means bad health. These products are tend to be serious problem for the overweight people and this is dangerous for them. Don't waste your time at home but go to the supermarket and buy some fruits and fish, but if you want to buy the oily potatoes then think about it 3,4,5 times before.

Response essay for "The Crisp at the Crossroads"

As Reyner Banham refers in his essay “The Crisp at the Crossroads”, crisps are among the triumphs of progressive technology. When George Crum in 1853 invented them for a customer of his that kept sending his crisps back because they were soft and not crunchy enough; he never imagined that crisps would become an everyday habit of people around the world.
Later on when airtight bags were invented, crisps started being mass produced by factories and were sent for consuming around the world. They started off by Crum in 1853 being thin slices of potatoes that were fried and served with salt as their topping and are now two centuries later served with – only God knows how many flavors and toppings exist.
Nowadays the crisp companies of each country produce their own special flavors that have to do with the countries region and popularity of a certain flavor or ingredient. For example in Cyprus and Greece oregano is a very popular ingredient that is being used a lot and so crisps were made in Cyprus and Greece with oregano flavor and in Italy with pizza flavor. Flavors keep on expanding dramatically and there doesn’t seem to be a stop in this whole process because it is profitable.
The last few years advertising means helped a lot to their promoting and got crisps into our houses literary. The fact that they have an attractive packaging, there are so many flavors, come in “light” packages and are probably the cheapest snack in the market that can be served for any occasion helped to their promotion.
The sense that a small synthetic appetizer, side dish or snack can really be bad for our health never crosses our minds until we give it a good thinking. Even if it does cross our minds crisps can also be found in “light” packages with less fat, energy, proteins and so on. But for a potato to become a crisp means that it goes through a non-natural process which is frying in oil. Each packet of crisps contains at least one to one and a half table spoons cooking oil which is bad for our health if we consume it in large quantities every day and most of the times more than once per day.
Crisps can become a bad habit for ones health and especially in the times that we live now. Many people spend most of their time sitting on a couch basically doing nothing special, just watching TV and eating junk food because they can’t be bothered to get up and make a decent meal to eat. Crisps have made things even worse for “couch potatoes” health. They can be found in either small convenient packages or big family packs and are easy to carry around with you and that the reason why people eat them as a part of their daily fast food meals.
Crisps are “synthetic” potatoes, which can be a bad habit for ones health if they are consumed on a daily basis; but on the other hand they are a convenient snack, side dish or appetizer that can be served for many occasions. Next time we are all faced with a packet of crisps in a supermarket we should think twice before buying them.

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Best
James

(Incidentally, Tamara's post is now the second highest Google result for the Rose Macauley essay!)

CYPRUS MAIL & Event Response-essay

It was a crisp evening on the fourth day of November, when the official car of the Swedish ambassador strolled down the cosy street facing the new building of the EUC [European University Cyprus] campus. As I hustled up the numerous steps to make my way up to Auditorium A, I saw people from the island’s literary community (both familiar and unfamiliar faces that is), greet one another. This to me, symbolized the inauguration of ‘Cadences,’ the finest poetic event to take place this year.
The auditorium was jam-packed, since it seems that intellectuals and university students alike, took an avid interest in either presenting or listening to, the inspirational poems and assorted prose comprising the multilingual (i.e. Greek, Turkish and English-written) Cadences journal. Mr. Karayiannis (head of the EUC’s Literature department), was donned in his immaculate black suit and flashy gold tie ; and welcomed all the lovers of the genre, with his subtle charm and distinctly caustic humour. He then invited Mr. B. to the podium, who updated the eager audience about the sponsoring (EUR 400 million) but also the cultural importance of literary translation, which is at the forefront of the EU’s efforts to overcome linguistic and ethnic discord among the member states, under the motto “ unity and diversity. ”

The aesthetic event, was an excuse for socialization between academics from different educational and literary backgrounds, despite the fact that the tasty, traditional snippets were to be served at the end of the poetry readings. The evening kicked off with two poems, recited by the erudite and soft-spoken Swedish ambassador. Ingemar Lindahl admitted that Cyprus is indeed a fascinating place and emphasized the special relations that (‘un-split’ by political conflict) Cyprus and Sweden have shared since pre-industrial times, due to our combined achievements in the field of archeology. Other foreign poets (from Europe and the States), were immediately invited to instill the public with the unique spirit of poetry and appreciation of the arts. Philosophical interpretations on various aspects of life were reflected in their poems, as in those presented by Greek-Cypriot poets in the English language.
I suddenly felt a tingling sensation of pride run down my spine, as I concentrated on the alluring words, woven into many a writer’s interesting literary or poetic style. I deemed myself as being privileged, to live in a society where intellectually-orientated events such as this one, comprised a significant part of our small nation’s earnest aspiration to promote ethical values through a critique of the society that we live in (i.e. as perceived from the prosaic passages and poems that the speakers acquainted us with). The poet David Porter, provided his literary audience with a means of coming to terms with issues of contemporary worth, for in stance in the form of globalisation (the American perspective on tourism in cosmopolitan New York was compared with the quiet and secluded atmosphere of Nicosia. In due turn, such outlooks could undeniably help us search for deeper meaning in our day to day lives.

Nearly every single performing poet, read their masterpieces in English ; including the Turkish-Cypriots. I became aware of the mutual sense of nostalgia felt by Greek and Turkish-Cypriots, as they recounted milestones from Cyprus’ recent past and provided colorful, multicultural imagery as regards the island’s present character, in poetic verse and prosaic discourse. One ought to keep in that a poetry movement or interest group of this calibre, regardless of whether Cyprus doesn’t really have a tradition of poetic rhetoric, is in actual fact the main driving force behind Greek and Turkish Cypriot literary and simultaneously social creativity, since in essence it explores the mores and attitudes of the locals and confronts these precise real life aspects in an unbiased way. I noticed that one of the poems presented by Mrs Aydin Mehmet Ali, brought to the surface the sensitive issue of ‘missing’ people, whilst another of her writings discussed the demographic changes to Nicosia, which seemed to highlight the contrast between conventional / traditional and contemporary culture.

These learned scholars have made it their mission to enlighten us about social and possibly even political issues that affect the common man, woman and child within the greater realms of Cypriot society, and this led to a newborn sense of optimism springing from within me. My intense feelings of hope were provoked by the fact that I was convinced that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could merge their voices and face the issues that in modern times are often a source of common hatred as a solid and strong entity. That is to say, that literature as a whole, has the power to break barriers and make people view the world that they cohabit, in a more rational and open-minded manner. I am under the impression that these bi-communal literary representatives have encouraged people, either old or young to celebrate the richness of their shared heritage, by evoking feelings of national or moral harmony amongst their audience and by granting students and seniors with priceless insight about times which will never be able to come back or be changed. The new generation of youngsters in Cyprus will therefore be able to interact with one another, by showing a greater degree of integrity. They will be able to learn from the good and bad experiences of those who lived at a momentous period of Cyprus’ socio-political history, and promote these crucial lessons to people in a similar situation. In this light, I tend to think that we should not be hindered from expressing our perceptions of the society which has raised, irrelevant of whether other social or ethnic groups agree with us or not us. Trying to show understanding towards one another by promoting and accepting our so-called differences is one of the challenges which young Cypriots must aim to fulfil. It will then be much easier for us to mould our dual identity based on respect of both community’s common and uncommon beliefs and principles, such as those of religious faith, educational priorities, cultural norms and customs / rituals etc, all of which influence the social trends of our ethnically mixed nation.
I would like to note that this year’s poetry performance coincided with the centenary of Yiannis Ritsos’ birth. The acclaimed Armenian-Cypriot poet, Mrs Nora Nadjarian, explained how she had been motivated by the poetic construction of Ritsos’ literary work to write her own poem (“Moon,”), which she narrated in a truly expressive and poignant voice. Mrs. Evidiki Perikleous Papadopoulou stunned the event’s spectators with her original and bilingual poem “A Variation of Moonlight Serenade,” which she delivered in Greek with a parallel translation into English. It was finally the turn of the Cypriot students from private Greek and English schools, to prove their innate poetic talent to us. Each and every poem recited by these young, award-winning poets, were uniquely mesmerizing and equally impressive ; both in terms of its content and the empathetic way in which it was articulated. Overall I must say, that Cadences was an event not to be missed, especially since it marks a sensational transition and is a chief contributor, to Cyprus’ cultural scene.

P.S. Sorry for being a tad late to post this blog. I'm afraid that my laptop was experiencing some problems today.

Mr. Mackay ;

I want to know if we have the possibility to improve our grades by correcting previous essays according to the comments.

thanks

The short story & your marks

Dear All - Somebody has obviously made a mistake about their turn in the short story, which has held it up a bit. Anyone who feels like continuing the story before Wednesday should go for it, whatever their place in the queue. We will then work out in Wednesday's class which people still need to contribute, and complete the story over the next few weeks. (I'm enjoying it so far!)

Also, please accept my apologies for not getting you your marks earlier - I forgot to copy them onto my USB memory stick to take home this weekend. I'm working through them now so you should have your marks by email by the end of this morning.

James

Response essay - The sterner sex

Response to "The Sterner Sex" by Rebecca West

Throughout history, women are struggling to earn equal rights with men. Societies themselves are build up in an unfair way towards women, something that makes the situation for them even difficult to change. The general mentality of men, is that women should not have the same privileges as them, and even some women of older generations seem to have the same belief. This is probably due to the fact that from the moment these women were born, they were taught to be subordinate to men, so that notion seems to be correct for them, and they consider it unacceptable to think otherwise. Nowadays, women in most societies are considered by law to be equal to men. But that’s not the case. Unequal treatment of women in Cyprus is a proof for that.

According to statistics that had been published in newspapers, there are less women employed in either public or private positions than men. The same statistics show that women are underpaid in relation with their male coworkers. Even in executive positions where women have the same qualifications and efficiency at work with their male coworkers, they are still underpaid. This difference in the salaries can’t be attributed to anything else than the gender of the employees.

Regarding politics, there are less female than male politicians. When governments are formed after elections and each president is about to assign ministers to each ministry, there are more male than female politicians being assigned as ministers. Even in the parliament women are underrepresented. How are women expected to get the majority of votes in the parliament regarding the formation of a new drastic law that favours them, if they are outnumbered?

Women that decide to stay at home and raise their children should be supported much more financially by the governments. Raising children is a difficult and time consuming thing to do. Each of these women has the role of the mother twenty four hours a day, and things are more difficult for working, single mothers. Governments should increase the financial support to these women in order to help them, but also as a way to praise them for their contribution to the society.

I believe that the Church of Cyprus is unfair to women, regarding the fact that women are not allowed to become priests and moreover to be candidates for the position of the archbishop. They can only show their devotion to God as nuns for example but that’s it. Without being fully aware of the regulations of the Church, I believe that the specific rule was written by males possessing high positions in the Church, because they wanted women out of their way. I will not go deeper into matters of the Church because my knowledge on the subject is poor but I have the belief that several aspects of it show that it’s biased against women. For example, women are not allowed to enter the sanctuary. My opinion is that this regulation was also set by males possessing high positions in the Church and not because our religion says so. If the Church that affects the beliefs and way of thinking of many people is biased against women, it’s inevitable for these people to think the same way.

The image that society created for women is the one of a kind, delicate, weak person who needs to be protected by someone. Society’s notion is that at first, women are protected by their family, but after that they must get married so that they have a husband to look after them. In the past, when women were mistreated by their husbands or were unhappy, they didn’t ask for divorce because they were afraid of what other people would think about them, what would happen to the children, and of what would happen to them regarding financial issues. Nowadays, mistreated and unhappy wives tend to ask for divorce more easily than they did in the past, but still some of them choose to stay married. That change of tendency of women towards divorce happens because of some amendments in law. These amendments happened because of women’s attempts to earn them. They happened not a long time ago, and arrange various issues like the custody of the children, and the right of women to claim for property in divorce. The change of society’s and even the Church’s attitude towards divorce also functions positively to the decision of these women to ask for divorce.

Women should be treated more fairly, and additional measures should be taken in their advantage regarding all aspects of their lives. Women are dynamic because they earned most, if not all of their rights with struggles. Life was harsher for women in the past but they did not abash. They found the strength to oppose to the existing situations, and they still do. So, who should be considered as the “Sterner sex”? Men that had all the privileges in their possession from the beginning, or women who fought to earn every single one of them?