Claire Romaine's blog

                For thousands of years, people have been coexisting with animals for the mutual material benefit of both.  Whether we are talking about the herding of sheep and cows for meat or the cultivation of micers and rat-chasers, humans insisted for years on the usefulness of other creatures.  Yet, somewhere along the course of history, people began to keep animals for companionship, forsaking utility, and they thus created what modern society calls pets.  In Zadie Smith’s NW, Leah owns the solitary pet in the entire novel, a dog named Olive, but her relationship with her dog is not simply about utility versus companionship.  Rather as Barbara Smuts says in her essay about inter-species relationships, the bond between Leah and Olive is about transcending “the narrow set of assumptions about what [animals] are capable of, and what sort of relationship it is possible to have with them” (Barbara Smuts 115)

My first lens was names as a key to identity, but after talking with Anne, I realized that there is a lot of issues with this.  It doesn't really make much logical sense and its hard to apply it to the topic I chose.  This weekend, I'm starting afresh with a new topic and lens.  After reading an essay about human and animal relationships, I decided to use this as my lene to talk about Leah, Olive and grief, as well as the importance of the inter-species relationship.

                When does friendship begin? When can you say that you’ve made an acquaintance?  It might be after a dinner conversation, or even a long walk back to the dorm from classes, but what really marks the start of any kind of relationship is names.  Knowing another person’s name is what differentiates them from a person seen across the hallway or a face you recognize in a crowd, as if knowledge of names equates to familiarity and knowledge of another’s identity.  In NW by Zadie Smith, names are critical to understanding the identities and personalities of the characters.  In particular, the dichotomy between Keisha and Natalie as two different aspects of the same individual causes an incredibly complex identity crisis that drives much her story in the novel.

In class we began discussing Keisha/Natalie's near-suicide, and particularly her comments about breaks and "a complete and total rupture" (385).  It got me thinking about Natalie's actual mental breakdown and when it actually occurred (because I don't think it was on top of that bridge), and all of the smaller things leading up to that like her constant name-changing and interest in sex with multiple partners.  It is even more interesting to compare this to the breakdown that Leah has which leads to her sitting out in a hammock seemingly because her dog died. 

Besides this, if this turns out to be too broad of a topic, I also wanted to focus solely on the difference between Keish and Natalie because it is really not as simple as Natalie being the public face and Keisha the true self.  Each of these names come out in very different scenarios and I want to understand the purpose behind the switch.

Philadelphia is a massive city, and one of our tasks this semester is to familiarize ourselves with the unique metropolis that is Philly.  More than that really, we are supposed to become intimately and individually involved in some aspect of the city during each and every sojourn.  The largest hindrance to personal exploration, as I have experienced it, is not unfamiliarity, boredom, or even complete disinterest, because these themselves can reveal something about our experiences in the city.  Rather the size of the group is the greatest obstacle.  The larger a group is, the more self-contained it becomes, directing its focus inwards and glossing over the scenes of the city around us as mere tourists rather than explorers.  Obviously this happened when we first journeyed into Philly with the entire group of twenty-eight people, and it was admittedly necessary for the safety and peace of mind of people unfamiliar with the area.  However, this concept applies readily to the classroom as well: Twenty-eight people having a discussion rarely results in any meaningful conclusions if only because no individual has the time to go into detail about their ideas and experiences.  Furthermore, discussions between the two sections often seem pointless since we take part in very different lectures and discussions in our separate classes.  Even though both Anne and Mark try to coordinate their discussions, they have different expectations of their students and different aspects of any given topic that they focus on.  This has relatively lit

Maybe the best place to start when talking about play is not in the context of a scholarly article, but rather to discover what differentiates play from the work that people do every day of their lives.  To start with the obvious, work is obligatory whereas play is a voluntary activity.  Work seems to be strenuous either physically or mentally, while play, although oftentimes the same, must also include some form of entertainment or else no one have incentive to participate. For all intents and purposes, our differentiation between work and play agrees with Flanagan’s explanation with one key addition:  “In play, the aim is play itself not success or interaction in ordinary life” (Mary Flanagan 5).

Okay, bear with me here, my path is a little convoluted.

1) Saw the article 'Too Bean or not Too Bean' which talked about the saturation of certain types of shops (like coffee shops) on the Main Line

2)  I was reminded of our journey to and on South Street which included a myriad of identical seeming types of shops.

3)  which led me to try and find a bookshop that we visited the last time we were in Philly because it was really interesting  http://mostlybooksphilly.com/

4)  I was wondering if there were any other secret bookstores like that around the city http://www.phillymag.com/articles/top-five-indie-bookstores-in-philly/

5)  and i found this place: Joseph Fox Bookshop

Andre Cadere was a Polish-born artist that made his mark on the French art world in the mid-70s.  He was famous for creating and carrying around long striped rods.  Rather than putting his works in shows, he bore them around and became part of the work himself.  Walking around, thouseands of people probably saw his artwork, far more than the work of other artists stuck within the normal means of presentation.  He stirred up some trouble when he took his rod into the shows of other artists, but he retained his positive fame for his interactive, performance-like art pieces.

It’s obvious that kids on a playground are playing.  They are running around, bumping each other, screaming, carousing, and often having the time of their young lives.  But what makes all of those different activities they take part in fall under the umbrella term of play?  Is it the physicality, the human companions, or even the entertainment value? If those things are the definition of play, than many adults have not played for years.  So many of the games and activities in a child’s world are nonexistent in an adult’s, yet adults are nonetheless capable of play just as much as kids.

sorry about the image quality, I've been having a hard time loading my pictures.  I'll bring it to class but until then, a description will have to do.  As we were walking through the city, I became really enamoured of all of the different doors, so I ended up splicing them together into one big mosaic.  I particularly enjoyed the doors that seemed out of place (ie the ones that were in the middle of mosaics), and the disguised doors hidden my their surroundings.

(PS sorry this is so late, the website crashed,, and I didn't get the chance to upload before class this morning)