FRANS DE WAAL: The Age of Empathy

Frans de Waal examine the empathy from an evolutionary point of view, concerning that human society is very competitive, selfish, and greedy. The author support his thesis that give importance to the emotional and mental processes like empathy that are not unique for humans, because it has been observed among a wide variety of animal species, and also take in account the cooperative behaviour, which is essential to the mammal animal societies to have existence.

In terms of evolution and society, we, as human beings, have been evolving during our whole existence, and with us, the society have lived lots of changes. In our society, there have been a big globalisation because of the wide advances in transportation and communication infrastructures, inlcuding the rise of the Internet, and those are generating further interdependence of economic and cultural activities.

Nowadays, we are like hyperconnected, and the migration movement of people and the enviromental challenges are also affecting to us. This processes have also affected to our society in terms of business and work organization, economics and sociocultural resources, and also in our natural environment. If we think about evolution and changes in terms of science, we realise of the improvement of science and technologies in our society and those have a big influence in our lives nowadays, for instance, today we can't live without a Smartphone or Internet. 

In my opinion, in terms of empathy and evolution, empathy had changed, nowadays we, as human beings, are characterized by the empathy that we have, but now this is changing and is becoming different, we are fighting to be the bests in whatever and we are forgetting to be empathic, we are losing empathy only to be above the others. 

ON THE GENEALOGY OF MORALITY: Virgina Woolf

The feminist author, Virginia Woolf, explores the history of women in literature through and unconventional and highly provocative investigation of the social and material conditions required for the writing of literature.

The gender inequalities at the time of the author were enormous, and it was too difficult to have success as a women writer.  It’s very interesting how Virginia Woolf reflects on that if women wanted to work as a writer, she must be able to count on a number of conditions: access to writing and education, autonomy possession (access to a physical space to provide privacy) and the possession of own economic resources. But now, the womens situation have changed.

So this main ideas of Virginia Woolf are the ones that I choose to represent visually through this video.

I've choosen to put in the video this song called "Ella" by Bebe, an Spanish singer-songwriter and actress. I think that this song is linked to Virginia Woolf 's ideas because the song is about the freedom of women and also is an statemen against gender violence.

ON THE GENEALOGY OF MORALITY: Feminism and subjectivity

"AN IMAGE IS WORTH MORE THAN A THOUSAND WORDS"

This series of portraits called "Like every day" by Shadi Ghadirian, had impacted me a lot, how the face of the women is replaced for a household object. I could see throuhg this pictures the different conceptions that exsist in the world about the women's roles.

As Ghadirian do, uses an ordinary kitchen utensil and through her simple recontextualisation, she develops a fictional character of hilarious proportions. So, what I have done is to add some utensils such as the Smartphone, the money or the fast food because I think that is what is identifying us as a modern society, because we're dominated by all of these things.

Finally, I decide to put my face, to demonstrate the value of womens nowadays.

POWER: Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

I'm questioning the purpose of human life...

Waiting for Godot, written by Samuel Beckett, was written in the 1953. This book is focused in the idea of the suffering of being, because both protagonists, Estragon and Vladimir, are waiting for something to attenuate their boredom, and for this reason I think that Godot can be interpreted as one of the many things that people wait for in life. 

In my opinion, this novel is irrational, and it doesn't take into account the chronological plot, the logical language, the themes, etc. I think that there could be different interpretations of the novel, such as the religious one, that makes us think that Godot is the representation of God, and the tree can represent the tree of death or the tree of life. Also, there is a political interpretation, because there are some people that think that the relation between Pozzo and Lucky is that of a capitalist to his labour, it's like a Marxist interpretation, and also I found that there are som that have understood it as an allegory for Franco-German relations. 

THE UNCONCIOUS: Un chien Andalou by Luis Buñuel

At the end of the video, I attached the different interpretations of my classmates with the artwork that they proposed that was related with the film.

This film is a result of the surrealist movement, and we can notice when we see that doesn’t have logical order and logical connection in terms of chronology and location of the acts. In the film we can find aggressive and confusing images, that makes me think that it seems to be like in a dream. 

The most important thing that I see was the desire and sexual and I think that in the surrealism was a claim to emancipate human desire, and I see this in the film and also in the artwork of Dalí, “The Masturbator”. 

So, when we were watching the film at class, the picture that comes to my mind was “The masturbator”, an artwork by Dalí. He used to show in his artworks an unconsciousness world, his worries or his fears. He showed this by symbols, such as ants, butterflies, decomposition of things, etc. In conclusion, I think that this artwork (“The masturbator”) is very related with this short film of Buñuel, specially in terms of sexuality and desire. 

THE UNCONCIOUS: Alice's adventures in Wonderland

A masterpiece of nonsense literature, which is enjoyed as ficton by children and contrary, is intriguing for adults as a symbolic and allegoric novel. There had been lots of interpretations of Alice's advendutres in Wonderland, from different points of view. Such as one that thinks that to analize and to understand Alice's adventures in Wonderland, the novel has to be interpreted as a satire. The history is plenty of satirical elements, such as the myriad poems that appear, and many of the characters are interested in verse. And so on.

In my opinion, the most important themes treated in the novel are the mature into adulthood, which means that during the journey in Wonderland, Alice encounters with numerous new situations in which she has to adapt to success, and in the beginning of the novel, she can't mantain her composure and she is always crying, but in the end, she is self-possessed and able to hold her own, so she has mature. Futhermore, the size change is another concept that appears, and it's related to the radical changes in size that the body have during the adolescence, and also, this big changes os size, in my opinion, are bringing to Alice a change in perspective, so she sees the world from very different points of view, so she can learn that not everybody has the same point of view of the things. Another constant topic that appears in the novel is the games, which are a constant part of life in Wonderland, every new social encounter of Aliceis as a game. This games have rules, which Alice have to learn. This topic of learning the rules to survive in Wonderland, for me it's like a metaphor of the adaptations to new social situtations that every child makes as he or she grows and gets older.

Finally, reading this book it comes to my mind...Who is crazy? We're crazy or in Wonderland are crazy?...

Remember this quote: 

"The Mad Hatter: - Have I gone mad?
Alice: -I'm afraid so. You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are."

MODERN VS. POSTMODERNISM: Death in Venice

This short novel called Death in Venice was written by Thomas Mann, and was published in 1912. The story is about the protagonist Gustav von Aschenbach who is a well-known writer. The writer has the urge to travel, because he thinks that he might find artistic inspiration from a life change. So, he decided to go to Venice, and it appears in signals the beginning of his decline.

When Aschenbach arrives at his hotel, he notices an extremely beautiful fourteen year old boy called Tadzio, who is with his mother and sisters. Firstly, the interest of Aschenbach was purely aesthetic, but soon falls deeply and obsessively in love with the boy, although not having direct contact. Our protagonist, Gustav von Aschenbach, spends days watching Tadzio playing on the beach, or following his family around the Venice's streets. When the cholera infects the city, and although Aschenbach knew the facts about the lethal epidemia, he cannot leave Venice because he is in love with Tadzio. But finally, he dies of cholera, devasted and being a slave to his passions and stipped of dignity.

The main topics that I could found in this novel are related with the decadence, the death, the Platonic ideal, the exoticism and sexuality. When I talk about decadencde, I mean that in the novel, the issue of decadence appears through the protagonist Aschenbach, with his feelings for theboy Tadzio, because he is decadent in how excessively ferent his feelings are, and how his obsession leads to his downfall. Moreover, when I speak about the topic of death, I think that is the main leitmotif of the novel, and it's represented through different representations, such as the death's head (a human skull), that appears in many situations. Furthermore, one of the most important topics that I want to explain is the Platonic ideal, that relies on the beliefs of Aschenbach that the boy exemplifies perfect beauty, which is relate to the Greek ideal of beauty. This Platonic ideal indicates that sexual love can exist as a precursor to a higher spiritual love that lacks physicality, but the protagonist never speaks to Tadzio. Finally, the major theme of sexuality, that leads us to interpret that Aschenbach's affection for Tadzio as a case of homosexual attraction. But also, we can find different situations that are not homosexual, because the protagonist thinks about the beautiful presence in Tadzio, in a innocent, admiring and non-sexual way.