Archive for May/2012

By Rolf Strom-Olsen, Professor at IE School of Arts & Humanities

Paul Fussell, possibly typing up feedback on one of my essays

Paul Fussell, who died this week at 88, is being remembered for his ground-breaking work, The Great War and Modern Memory, his funny, if sometimes rather mean-spirited, takes on American culture, his powerful voice debunking the romanticism of war, and the animus of his ex-wife, found in her louche autobiography.

But missing from the many obituaries that have been published, is any account of how good he was as a teacher.

He was very good. For me, Paul Fussell will always be the inspiring and rather frightening professor who taught me as a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania. It is true that with his acute anglophilic affectations always on high display (right down to the tweed jacket with faux elbow patches) it would have been easy to scoff, but it is a testament to his skill and passion that I can still vividly remember specific lectures from his class; and this despite finding rather dry much of what we read and studied (English literature of in the later 18th Century). It is not easy to bring to life a long and tedious poem like Johnson’s Rasselas. But if anyone was up to the challenge, it was Fussell. I won’t go so far as to say he actually succeeded – it is a very dreary poem after all – but it is true that whenever I think of Johnson, I can still hear Fussell’s lectures, droll and insightful.

But more than this, when I walked into my own classroom, I carried with me (consciously or unconsciously) much of what I observed in Fussell’s class. Some of this is the knowledge I gained in his course. Fussell’s lectures on Edward Gibbon, for example, were exceptional and when I talk to my students about Gibbon, it is automatic that I make reference to his insights.

But it goes beyond this, for Professor Fussell cared a great deal about undergraduate teaching and this showed through in how closely he reviewed our written work. Each assignment came back with copious and usually highly critical marginalia along with a carefully typed out sheet of comments for us (using an old typewriter, no less). And he was a fiendish grader. To get an A on an assignment in Fussell’s class was a real achievement indeed. I cannot pretend to live up to his high standard of teaching; but from that experience I absorbed the lasting and fundamental value of a grade well-earned.

I skipped quite a few classes that semester of my freshman year (…what cat’s averse to fish?), but Fussell’s class I attended religiously (well, almost).  So farewell to you, Professor Fussell.  But through me – and  doubtless through many other students you taught over your long career – know that the knowledge and wisdom you imparted in your classes live on. To quote from one those infernal poets you made us read:

Sublime—invention ever young,
Of vast conception, tow’ring tongue,
To God th’eternal theme;
Notes from yon exaltations caught,
Unrival’d royalty of thought,
O’er meaner strains supreme.

As  published in Creative thinking. The blog

IE School of Arts and Humanities en colaboración con la Asociación de Antiguos Alumnos del IE tiene el honor de invitarle a la conferencia titulada “El reto de la cultura colaborativa; instituciones culturales y redes sociales” el miércoles 30 de Mayo a las 19.30 h, impartida por Dña. Susana Zaragoza.

Dña. Susana Zaragoza es productora e investigadora en el ámbito de la cultura digital y el arte colaborativo. Licenciada en Periodismo, obtuvo un MA en  Nuevos Medios por la Universidad de Ámsterdam. Desde 2005 trabaja como consultora independiente en el ámbito de la industria y la cooperación cultural.

Los museos, centros de arte y otras instituciones culturales públicas y privadas han incorporado de forma rápida y en muchos casos, poco planificada, el uso de las redes sociales como herramientas de difusión, comunicación y expansión de su actividad cultural. Sin embargo, las redes sociales no son más que el espejo virtual de una transformación de los formatos culturales, del auge de la participación y del nuevo rol de las audiencias tradicionales. ¿Son conscientes las instituciones de los nuevos modelos colaborativos que promueven con el uso de las redes? ¿Están preparadas para integrar las potencialidades, dilemas y conflictos que se originan de su uso? Esta presentación ilustrará con ejemplos, las diversas formas en que las instituciones se adaptan, se resisten o se transforman al integrar las herramientas tecnológicas en sus programaciones.

La conferencia se impartirá en el aula E-108 de IE Business School, situada en c/ María de Molina, 4.

Se ruega confirmar asistencia a ArtsHumanities@ie.edu

Even though the favourite took the top prize, this year’s festival held some surprises – among them the Jury Prize for Ken Loach.

The 65th Cannes film festival drew to a close with the director Michael Haneke being awarded the Palme d’Or for Amour.

His victory was greeted with acclaim but an understandable lack of surprise: Amour had been hotly tipped ever since it unspooled on the fifth day of the festival.

The jury, presided over by former Palme d’Or winner Nanni Moretti, gave the chief award to Haneke, saying the jury was not unanimous on any of the awards, but that many of the contending films were “more in love with their style than their characters”; this, presumably, was where Haneke differed.

Amour, which stars French veterans Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva as well as Isabelle Huppert, describes the relationship between an elderly married couple when one of them is incapacitated by a stroke.

The Palme d’Or is Haneke’s second; his last was only three years ago for The White Ribbon. In this he joins a select company, including Emir Kusturica and the Dardenne brothers.

The Austrian director accepted the award in his characteristically low-key way, saying: “It’s a harsh thing to have to contend with. It’s something I had to contend with in my own family, and that’s why I started to make this film.”

Haneke also mentioned his own wife: “This film is an illustration of the promise we made to each other, if either one of us finds ourselves in the situation that is described in the film.”

The Grand Jury prize, Cannes’ second most prestigious award, was given to Matteo Garrone, the Italian director whose film Reality explored the effect of reality TV. Garrone’s award was genuinely unexpected, perhaps reflecting the common cultural ground between him and the jury president.

British cinema scored a pleasant surprise as the bronze-medal Jury Prize went to Ken Loach‘s The Angels’ Share, a whisky heist comedy set in Scotland. Loach, who is held in high esteem on the European festival circuit, took the opportunity to affirm his opposition to Europe-wide austerity economic policies when accepting his award; he elaborated on the issue afterwards in the winners’ press conference.

Continue reading in The Guardian

To celebrate the Diamond Jubilee, the artist has created a ‘strong and sexy and strident’ portrait of Elizabeth II for FT Weekend Magazine.

Tracey Emin has met the Queen both in her home town of Margate and at Buckingham Palace. Emin is a strong royalist, and when we asked her if she would create a royal portrait for the FT Weekend Magazine to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee, she readily agreed. This drawing is the result. Emin has entitled it ‘HRH Royal Britania’. She wanted the image to be ‘strong and sexy and strident’, she says. ‘This is what Britannia represents to me’

I have met the Queen twice. She wasn’t at all how I expected. She was extremely petite with a massive smile. Informed. With a good sense of humour. I had imagined her to be a lot more austere, but I was completely wrong. It is her smile that comes to mind when I think of her.

The confusing factor of doing this drawing was that I could have drawn the Queen from how I remembered her. But I decided to represent her as a motif or a symbol, and I think that is how the public acknowledge her. We have a queen – we don’t have a king, we don’t have a dictator – and I think that’s really important. The figurehead of our country is a woman.

The Queen represents something unique in the times we are living in. I support the monarchy, and I think the younger royals are really going to change things. But I don’t think the Queen should retire: she should do exactly what she wants to do.

I’m pleased that people are starting to realise the Queen actually works very hard for this country. I didn’t understand this when I was younger but now I do – with full admiration.

Continue reading in The Financial Times