Saturday 28 February 2015

MCC's Theatre No.59 Presents 'The Pillowman'

MCC’s Theatre No.59 
presents 
The Pillowman by Martin McDonough
Write-up:
Here’s a story about a simple writer and his short stories. 
But what if they were not stories anymore? 
What if what’s put to paper is put to practice as well?
What if the surreal is real?
Martin McDonough’s The Pillowman captures the sinister 
in the traditional act of story-telling.
Theatre No.59 from Madras Christian College, brings to stage
blood, coffins, apples, pigs – a perfect recipe of Black Comedy. 
You may giggle but you’ll cringe.
Day and Date: Saturday, 7 March 2015
Time: 2:30 pm
Venue: Music Academy Mini Hall
Tickets: Rs.200/-
For tickets, call: 96002 23456

Friday 27 February 2015

Keeping the BeeGees Mania Alive..!

Come & be a part of Bee Geez!

As boys and girls, we all would have grown up with the beegees, and i'm sure almost all aspects of our lives would've had the colour and influence of the beegees almost 
every other day. Well, can we ever forget "It's only words.." or their famous 
albums like 'Monday's Rain', or 'Horizontal' or 'Ideas'... indeed... 
butterflies flutter all over when you're glued to them...
Yes, the band is sure to take you on a trip down 
memory lane, through all the greatest hits 
and more..! Come & Immerse yourself in 
the eternally classic & soulistic songs 
at Phoenix Market City. 
[and yes, i'll be there, too]
Date: Saturday, 28 February 2015
Time: 7 pm onwards
Venue: The Courtyard @ Phoenix MarketCity, 
142, Velachery Main Road, Velachery, Chennai – 42.

Thursday 26 February 2015

Moon City Poetry Award for budding poets…:

The Moon City Poetry Award is for an original, full-length collection of poetry composed in English by a single or collaborative author. Individual poems in the collection may be published in periodicals, online, or in a chapbook, but not yet collected and published in full-length manuscript form.

Open to all writers not associated with Moon City Press or its judges, past or present.

Manuscript should include a table of contents and acknowledgements page. Submissions need not be left anonymous. Manuscripts should be at least 48 pages long.

First Prize: $1000, publication by Moon City Press, (including international distribution through the University of Chicago Press, via the University of Arkansas Press), and a standard royalty contract. Ten additional finalists will be named and considered for publication.

Deadline: 01 May 2015. For more details on the guidelines, click HERE

Essay Writing Competition

The Royal Commonwealth Society is inviting young people to share their hopes and concerns for the future, thereby generating an important youth perspective and Commonwealth wide dialogue as the international community gathers to set development goals for the next 15 years.

The competition is open to young writers aged 18 and younger, who are living in, or a national of, a Commonwealth country or territory. All entries must be in English and are to be submitted online.

For more details on the competition, visit their guidelines page HERE

Tuesday 24 February 2015

Ibsen in Town..!!!

It indeed is quite heartening to see hordes of spectators making a beeline for one of the well-renowned theatre spaces in the city at Chetpet, well ahead of the scheduled time of 7 pm, for a German rendition of the popular playwright Henrik Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People”. Well, the early birds [this blogger included :-)] were catching up with their long-lost literary pals, cappuchino in hand, at the Coffee-Day joint in Campus, and around the shades of the huge banyan tree - that gives the venue its fascinating aura.

Thomas Ostermeier, the director of the play, and one of the most influential theatre directors worldwide, said that, when he first discovered Ibsen’s drama “Enemy of the People”, he didn’t really like it. But the subject made him direct it despite of that. So, together with his dramaturg Florian Borchmeyer he seems to have reworked the play to suit a contemporary audience with a contemporary context. “We also made the main character about 20 years younger – so it’s about the young generation of Berlin. A generation that seems to be politically engaged. They’re mostly vegetarian, they ride bikes instead of driving cars, and they all support various causes. But when it comes to political action or demanding change – it is getting obvious that this is not a strong generation”, he avers.

This is one of Ibsen’s prominent realistic plays, in which an individual’s hopes and dreams for his society are ostracised by the very society which he is trying to help.

Everything about the play was phenomenal. Be it the intricately made up stage design, or the aesthetic appeal of the costume design, or the foot-tapping music (which the characters played literally on stage, to perfection and to aplomb from the audience), or the role of the dramaturg in bringing out an awesome dramaturgy of the text, or the wall paintings which were so realistic, adding to the enhanced visual appeal, or the light designs, or the acting of the main characters Christoph Gawenda as Dr. Stockmann, Eva as Mrs.Stockmann, or the gentlemanly Hovstad, or Morten Kill, or Billing - the impact was immense..!

Saturday 21 February 2015

"Education and Discipline" - Critical Summary

Introduction

The essay “Education and Discipline” by the Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell, was first published in his collection of essays titled, In Praise of Idleness, in 1935. Educational theories generally focus on how learning occurs, and they seek to understand, analyse, and prescribe educational practices. 

According to Bertrand Russell, the real purpose of education is civilisation, which includes both individual and social aspects. On the individual front, it consists of intellectual and moral qualities, and, on the moral front, it consists of the virtues of impartiality, kindliness, and self-control. Moreover, civilisation also demands respect for the law, and the intelligent adaptation of means to the ends. If this is the purpose of education, then psychologists should consider how to realise them, and analyse the degree of freedom that is essential to make it more effective.

Three Main Schools of Thought on Freedom

As far as the question of freedom in education is concerned, there are three main schools of thought. The first school of thought says that children should be completely free, however bad they may be. 

The second school of thought says that children should be completely subject to authority.

The third school of thought says that children should be free, but in spite of freedom, they should be always good. According to Russell, complete liberty to the child, ignores the importance of knowledge to the child, and also the positive purpose of education.

At the same time, he also believes that, authoritative education turns the students into timid tyrants, incapable of either claiming or tolerating originality in word or deed. Too much authoritarianism can also lead to over-submissive and timid children or it can also make them rebels. Thus there is danger in both the extremes of liberty and authority.

The Need of the Hour in Education

Hence, what is wanted is neither submissiveness nor rebellion, but good nature and general friendliness both to people and to new ideas. By developing children with “good nature” Russell stresses on the importance of raising students who can be well-adapted and self-content in their later life. This requires a balance between cultivating the child’s individuality and preparing him/her to be a social being.

Educationists all over the world rarely recognise this conflict. While the famous educationist John Dewey overemphasised socialisation, Montessori, overemphasised on individualisation. The more individualised you are, the less socialised you become, and vice versa. But, according to Russell, ideally, individuality and sociality can and should peacefully coexist in the same individual.

Individual and Social function of the Child

Educational theorists should strive to give an education that teaches children to be independent but also carry the wisdom to know how to do this as a social being. Hence, it is important to recognise that being a well-functioning adult requires individual authenticity and an ability to function in society.

Conclusion

To achieve this fine balance, as far as children’s education is concerned, we require teachers who develop spontaneous pleasure in the presence of children, without any ulterior purpose. Unfortunately, it is utterly impossible for over-worked teachers to preserve an instinctive liking for children. 

Hence, education should be undertaken for at most two hours a day by teachers, whose remaining hours should be spent away from children. Spontaneous love for children, produces the right impulse to treat naughty children, and the child feels easy to respond, if they feel that you like them. Hence, Russell concludes by saying that, no rule, however wise, can be a substitute for affection and tact, while dealing with children.

* Special thanks to Kevin Currie Knight, for his five thoughtful inputs on Russell.

Friday 20 February 2015

Free NLP Session for College Students..!

Join the experts in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) for a free session exclusively for school and college students (till 28 February 2015).

Wanna stop bad habits? Stop addictions? Get over your phobias? Achieve your goals? Peak your performance? Get over depression? Forget unpleasant memories? Sleep well every night? Get over interview fears?

What addiction would you like to change now? Sweets? Chocolates? Watching TV, or Playing games for too long, Obsessive SMS/Whatsapp/FB checking, etc?

Choose some simple and powerful changes that will make a Big Difference in your Life…

What is NLP? NLP is something like an 'users manual' to use your brain! It has been variously described as the technology of the mind, the science of achievement and the study of success, by identifying the ingredients of

Thursday 19 February 2015

Ibsen's Play in Chennai

Goethe-Institut Chennai /Max Mueller Bhavan
in association with Prakriti Foundation & Vivanta by Taj Connemara
presents
GERMAN THEATRE from SCHAUBÜHNE, BERLIN
An Enemy of the People 
by Henrik Ibsen
Version by: Florian Borchmeyer
Direction: Thomas Ostermeier 24 February 2015 | 7.00 p.m.
Venue: Sir Mutha Venkatasubba Rao Concert Hall, 
13/1 Shenstone Park, Harrington Road, Chennai 600 031

With Schaubühne Berlin the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan brings one of the most reclaimed and innovative places for contemporary German theatre to Chennai.

About the Production: Dr. Stockmann discovers that the source of drinking and spa water is riddled with pathogenic micro-organisms caused by industrial effluence. Stockmann wants to publish the findings in the newspaper and demands that the city council re-route the water pipes. Influential citizens and local journalists promise their support. However, his

Wednesday 18 February 2015

Saturday Matinee @ American Library

American Library’s Saturday Film Matinee
The Littlest Rebel
The Littlest Rebel is a film about Virgie Cary, a young girl whose father goes to the War, while her mother falls ill. But when Virgie comes to know that her father, along with a few others, is to be executed, she takes off to meet President Lincoln and requests him to intervene. Duration: 73 minutes.
Date: Saturday, 21 February 2015, 11 am.
Venue: American Library, 220 Anna Salai, Near Gemini Circle
Phone: 044-28574000
Please carry valid photo ID Cards to the Venue.

Sunday 15 February 2015

Mime Theatre Fest @ Alwarpet

Mime Theatre Fest
Narada Gana Sabha, 314, TTK Road, Alwarpet, Chennai
On Wednesday, 18 February 2015 (to Sunday, 22 February 2015)
A five-day festival, Mime Fest seeks to bring together mummers from across borders on a single stage. The first and second days will host school students performing a variety of mime art. On the third day, colleges will present their show. The fourth day corporates don the mantle, and on the last day, theatre groups from across the city will conclude the festival with a bang.! 

Friday 13 February 2015

"Mirror" – Sylvia Plath - Critical Summary

Introduction:

The Mirror was written by Sylvia Plath in 1961, but wasn’t published until 1971, eight years after her death by suicide. The poem is written from the perspective of a mirror and details what it sees and how it relates to the woman and other objects within its view. It symbolises the troubled self of the woman, especially the woman artist who has to reject the given masks imposed on her by the patriarchal society and see herself as an artist and an individual.  The mirror imagery in Plath’s poetry therefore, signifies the consciousness of the woman-speaker who verbalises the creative process of a woman artist in the domain of male-dominated literature. The woman artist has to resist the critical and judgemental male gaze to arrive at her own autonomous self-expression.

Mirror and Women’s Passivity:

Freedman believes that, “Plath uses mirror as a symbol of female passivity, subjection, and Plath’s own conflicted self-identity caused by social pressures to reconcile the competing obligations of artistic and domestic life”. The mirror represents the unfeeling male view of a woman and what is socially expected of her: possessing an idealised beauty and ever-lasting youth. As the persona ages over the years, the mirror cruelly reflects the changes in her appearance. Age becomes the persona’s defect and shortcoming and thus her source of anxiety and dismay. The mirror projects what is thought of as the woman as she grows older. It claims to reflect the truth, and by implication, the representation of the patriarchal perception of a woman’s existence, her worth only as a beautiful object,  and her worthlessness when she is no longer young and beautiful. Against the male’s definition of womanhood, which idealises beauty and youth, the persona looks inside to discover her true self, what she was as a person, and what she has become, maturing by age. The woman’s autonomous identity and perception of the self are, therefore in conflict with the stereotype of the dominant male society. The tension increases as the persona is perplexed by this identity crisis. If she chooses her inner self and her own independent definition of identity, when looking in the mirror, she no longer sees the beautiful girl, but the terrible fish.

Thursday 12 February 2015

Seminar @ Hindu College: A Report

A One-day National Level Seminar on 'Methods and Materials for Teaching English Language and Literature' was organised by DRBCCC Hindu College, Chennai on 12 February 2015. The Seminar was well-received by the delegates and participants alike. Dr. K. M. Prabhu spoke on Teaching of Language and Literature. Dr. Shreesh Chaudhary, IIT Madras, spoke on "English for All: Methods and Materials". Dr. P. Kannan spoke on Academic Writing.

Excerpts from his speech: 

English is the only subject, at least in India, which is a part of nearly all academic courses. Since the passage of the Right to Education Act, a large number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds have joined schools and colleges, and they all wish to study English as well as any other subject. According to UNESCO, India with nearly 315 million students has the largest number of students in its schools and colleges. This figure does not include students in institutions unrecognised by the government. But the number of teachers continues to be under 10 million nationwide. That makes for a very adverse teacher to student ratio, especially so for the teaching of a non-native language like English which often requires individual attention.

Tuesday 10 February 2015

Richard Wilbur's "The Writer": Critical Summary

Introduction:

PC: seedpodcraft.com
“The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe in”, said Gustave Flaubert. Richard Wilbur, the second Poet Laureate of the United States of America, in the poem “The Writer” reflects on this art of writing, through his daughter’s act of writing.  The poem ruminates on a father watching over his daughter’s tryst with the writing process, even as she is seen typing out a story on her typewriter. The poem thereby, addresses the process of writing, as seen from the perspective of the father, and the emotions, memories and nostalgia that it triggers in him even as he sees his daughter typing out a story in her bedroom upstairs. Although parent-child relationships form a part of the poem’s fabric, the central theme of the poem, is, however, the difficulties and the responsibilities of being a writer.

Sunday 8 February 2015

Book Fest @ Ashok Nagar

Book Festival 2015 
Organised by
National Book House Trust & 
New Century Book House

Time: 9.30 am to 8.30 pm (on all days) 
till 31 March 2015
at
Tamil Nadu Housing Board Complex, 
First Avenue, Ashok Nagar, Chennai
Contact: 9840221753


Saturday 7 February 2015

Run for a Cause..!

Run to Save Baby Turtles
Five-kilometre Run: Line-up Time: 5.45 am
Three-kilometre Run: Line-up Time: 6.10 am
One-kilometre Run: Line-up Time: 6.25 am
5.15 – 5.45 am: ZUMBA Warm-up
Online Registration is closed. 
Spot Registration at Queen Mary’s College, Marina Beach, 
from 10.30 am to 3.30 pm
Regn. Fee: Rs.250/- 
[Registration fetches you free gift vouchers worth Rs.4350/- from reputed brands]
Contact: 9940142349 / 9840575555

Friday 6 February 2015

MIDS – The Institute Seminar Series - February 2015

Topic: Meaning of Freedom in a Multicultural World
Speaker: Prof.Sehdev Kumar 
[Professor Emeritus of Bioethics & Environ. Studies, University of Waterloo, Canada]
Chairperson: Prof. K. Srinivasan, 
ICSSR National Fellow, MIDS
Date & Time: 9 February 2015, 3.30 pm
Venue: Adiseshiah Auditorium, MIDS

Surprise Visitor to MCC..:

The Botany Department, MCC, had a surprise visitor today at around 9 am. Our thanks to Dr.Narasimhan, Professor, Dept. of Botany, for giving us an opportunity to have a peek at the surprise  visitor - the Asian Hawk Moth.

Thursday 5 February 2015

State Level Intercollegiate Seminar for PG Students

STATE LEVEL INTERCOLLEGIATE SEMINAR FOR PG STUDENTS
on
The Relevance of Myth in Modern Literature
Day & Date: Wednesday, 25 February 2015
Theme of the Seminar: The Seminar will be a platform for PG Students to explore the relationship between Myth & Literature and how myth has been used in works of literature all over the world in the Modern era from T. S. Eliot to Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Last date for Submission of Abstracts: 18 February 2015
Last date for Submission of Full Papers: 23 February 2015

Wednesday 4 February 2015

Structure of Charles Lamb's Essays: A Critical Study

There is always a never-ending charm and an aura that accompanies the ‘light and cleverly written’ personal essay. The uniqueness of the personal essay lies in its intimacy – the capacity of the writer to connect – intimately with his/her audience, on matters relating to memoir, philosophical speculations, familial anecdotes, portraits, visualisations, etc. The charm of the personal essay lies not only in its style, language and technique (tone and voice), but also in its capacity to provoke thought and arouse the emotions.

Ideas of political, personal and artistic liberty in the aftermath of the French Revolution, provided artists and intellectuals the much needed artistic liberties to break free from the bonds of tradition that had hitherto ‘shackled/fettered’ the 18th century imagination. In short, in a personal essay, the personality of the writer takes centre stage – one’s likes and dislikes, character, temperament, feelings, attitude, desires, hopes, beliefs, fantasies etc are foregrounded through the essay. As the famous critic Carl Van Doren, in his “Note on the Essay”, puts it: “An essay is a communication.. the person who communicates anything in any way must be a person. His truth must have a tone, his speech must have a rhythm which are his and solely his. His knowledge or opinions must have lain long enough inside him to have taken root there; and when they come away they must bring some of the soil clinging to them”.

The essence of the personal essay consists in its conversational tone, and its truthfulness to the subject discussed, (albeit with degrees of exaggeration!), bordering on the self, and providing too much distraction on the way.

Apart from poetry, which is considered the crowning glory of the Age, the Romantic age was also rich in literary criticism and prose. Literary prose of the period gave a lot of importance to aesthetic autonomy of a work of art, egalitarian ideals, imaginative thinking, overtly emotional language, and uniqueness of the individual, etc. Humour, Descriptive style, reflective style, quotes and anecdotes are other features of the personal essay.

Hunt, Hazlitt, Coleridge and Lamb were not only contemporaries but also good friends who collaborated with and influenced each other.

Thomas McFarland regards Romanticism as a “great mountain range” and its various writers as different peaks in that range. “Lamb, Hazlitt, and De Quincey are true “mountains” of Romanticism, rather than “foothills” (i.e., lesser, marginal writers), that are “aligned so that their perspective takes in the snow–capped peak of Coleridge!”

Among these prose giants, Charles Lamb is rightfully called the prince of essayists and the master of the personal essay, because of his capacity to develop a highly personalised narrative style through his ‘literary alter ego’ “Elia”.

William Zeiger in the monumental Encyclopaedia of the Essay gives a very descriptive rendering of the life and works of Lamb:

Charles Lamb worked as a clerk for a mercantile firm from the age of 17 until he retired at 50. A writer by avocation, he published poetry, a novel, two plays, critical essays, stories for children (with his sister Mary), and familiar essays.

Tuesday 3 February 2015

Theme for English B – Critical Analysis

Theme for English B – Critical Analysis
Introduction:

Langston Hughes was a Harlem Renaissance poet and one of the most prominent voices in American poetry of the 20th century. Through the poem “Theme for English B” Hughes communicates his intense paroxysm of pain and angst experienced by the black immigrants in the process of being ‘Americanised’ into the mainstream culture. By doing so, he not only challenges the concept of race and racism in America, but also the fluidity of the American identity, which is a malady, representative of the American experience in toto. He has been eulogised as a cultural icon, ‘a man lionized and venerated as the black poet laureate of the twentieth century’.

Synopsis of the Poem:

The poem discusses the predicament of the speaker, a young adult of 19 years, and the ‘only colored student’ in his English class. The teacher asks the class to “Go home and write a page that will come out of you – then it will be true’. As the only colored student in his class, he is in a double bind: he is not sure whether to write like an English student, by assuming a false persona, or to be true to his cultural heritage and ethnic affiliations, while writing the assignment. Truth for him, is a subject matter of consternation and contention, and by the end of the assignment, he has figured out for himself what is true in life!

Ethnicity and Identity:

Ethnicity refers to the identification of a particular group ‘based on a perceived cultural distinctiveness’ that makes the group into a people. This distinctiveness is believed to be