A Bewitching Assignment

From “Witches and Wizards” Seminar for Freshmen to “American Literature” with Professor Armbruster

When you grow up in New England you have to learn about the Salem Witch Trials. I lived in Wethersfield, Connecticut, where there is a history of witch trials and I was fascinated to learn more about this period of history. When I had to choose a freshman seminar I was drawn to Professor Armbruster’s “Literary Witches and Wizards” course. The course turned out to be perfect because it blended classical literature and history such as reading books like Macbeth and The Crucible and reading current events essays and news articles such as those found in the New York Times and the Huffington Post. In class we would talk about the past, but we would also discuss how the term “witch” is used today, particularly since the election of 2016.

I’m a Witch! What about you?
Are you- A witch- as well?
Then we should join forces!
Don’t confess! We would be shamed- understand!

Very dull- to be- Normal!
Very common- like a Thread-
To stitch a record- the sharp needle-
With all our faults!

A poem inspired by Emily Dickinson’s “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” by Chianna Calafiore

Women are knocked down for trying to have the confidence to rise above social norms and expectations. We might think the Salem Witch Trials are over, but the witch hunts will never end. It was also very exciting to get the chance to visit Salem, MA, with some of my fellow classmates. It was a real eye-opener to visit a beautiful place but know that in the same place women suffered for being accused of witchcraft. Nobody will ever truly understand a time in history unless they explore the place where it all happened, which is what we got to do with Professor Armbruster.

Because I enjoyed the classroom environment created by Professor Armbruster, I enrolled in her American Literature survey course the next semester, English 217 (Spring 2018). Early in the semester, we received an assignment to write a poem on any subject we wanted but in the style of Emily Dickinson, the poet we were studying alongside Anne Bradstreet. Dickinson’s poems are unique because she wrote with dashes and used metaphors that hold numerous meanings. I chose her poem “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” because in this poem, Dickinson is telling someone not to publicize themselves in order for the word not to spread.

This poem made me think about how today women are scared of being called and publicized as a witch. But, in another way, contrary to Dickinson, some women like to be referred to as a witch because this makes them feel empowered and different from the rest. That’s what the last stanza of my poem reflects on. What I meant by the words “to stitch a record” is that documents are there forever, so if people see you as a witch in your day, then people in the future will think the same way. I wanted mine to be a poem where the reader would have to sit back, think, and take in the words within each line. I really loved this assignment, and I especially liked the way Professor Armbruster enabled me to connect content from my Seminar for Freshman to content in my American Literature course.

Chianna Calafiore, class of 2021

 

Who thinks they’re immortal here?

On a rainy November afternoon, Maria Zervos asked a group of students what it meant to be immortal.

“Who thinks they’re immortal here?” Many students responded, stating that immortality is never dying or going away. So, is it really just that?

Zervos, a visual artist, poet, and translator from Athens, Greece, is known for her vivid artistry and her investigation of themes including poetry, artwork, politics, nature and social criticism. She uniquely embodies the ancient world, as well as the modern artist.

maria-zervos

Maria Zervos, visual artist, poet, translator

The discussion, which was hosted by English professor George Kalogeris and his “Tragedy and Literature” freshman seminar focused on the idea of being present in our everyday moments. Zervos started off by talking about a lyric poem by the ancient Greek poet Telesilla, which she translated from Greek to English. In the poem, the Mother of the gods, who gave birth to everything, becomes a woman in exile when Zeus attacks her, demonstrating the conflict between the different genders.

“Today, we talk about equality and the difference of the sexes, like it’s something that is quite contemporary, but this poet [Telesilla] did the exact same thing in 494 BC.”

Zervos asked the audience to participate in an experiment in which she had four volunteers stand at the front of the classroom and read lines from the poem. Each student had to read one line of the poem, and each had to start reading his or her line before the previous person finished. Repeated three times. 

“So, what just happened now?” asked Zervos, as stumbling words and laughter died down.

“We all became immortals. How? Because we’re present. We’re here and we forgot time. That is performance. That is theatre. That is philosophy, and that is literature. To forget there is some time there, and some time before. We’re here now.”

Zervos then went on to introduce a video she produced titled, My Half of the Sky, My Half of the Earth. In the visual piece, a silent group of Olympians emerge from the woods before journeying to Mount Olympus in stillness and movement. They are dressed in bright, distinct colors in the middle of an earthly raw landscape. A narrative of the hymn poem by Telesilla also accompanies the video as the gods transcend Mount Olympus.

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“My Half of the Sky, My Half of the Earth” by Maria Zervos

“I had this idea based on the poem by Telesilla to activate myself in terms of being an artist and performer, and sometimes an actress,” Zervos said. “I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to have to go on top of Mount Olympus’ because I thought one element of being untouchable, immortal is to cross borders.”

Moreover, Zervos explained her experience climbing to the top of the mountain, and how she was able to activate a sense of immortality, even though she felt she initially failed. 

“When you’re actually at the top of [Mount Olympus], you don’t see the top. Climbing it was a striking moment for me, because you don’t see the mountain as you’re going up, and I kind of felt like I failed, even though I knew I was up there.”

“I don’t know how many of you are familiar with contemporary art,” she continued, “but much of the contemporary art today activates technology, and very fast, like advertisement.”

“Instead, I believe movement is activated by stillness. The most difficult thing is the first step. Then, you go on, but the first step is crucial.”

Zervos painted a picture by using her choreographers, dancers, performers, and actors, who at one point asked her what she wanted them to really do. She answered by telling them she trusted and believed in the future of dance and performance, and how it is embedded in stillness.

“As an artist, I feel like there is sometimes almost too much information,” she went on. “We don’t really know what’s happening, so there’s a moment where you just have to wait a minute and see what’s there.”

Professor Kalogeris also explained how the video was a parallel to the class’s study of ancient sculpture. “We looked at ancient sculpture, and particularly at the first step, and how the sculptures are often taking that first step, which is perpetual movement,” said Kalogeris. “The statues themselves are still, but they’re stepping forward, so they’re in perpetual motion if they can get that first step.”

That is, to be immortal takes courage, and it is not an easy task to be present. Zervos continued the discussion by showcasing two of her additional video projects titled Nomadology (The Route) and Peripatetics [ATHENS], and another poem titled Artemis. In Nomadology (The Route), Zervos documents a trip she once took to Chile, where she stayed with a tribe of Native Americans in a remote place, inspiring her to explore the themes of remoteness, and the nomad— the one who doesn’t have a home and is always on the move. 

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“My Half of the Sky, My Half of the Earth” by Maria Zervos

“For me, this was an amazing experience, because I documented the images of a ceremony they were having from afar,” she explained. “I stayed in a car, and that position was incredibly interesting because I had a glass window separating me from reality, which was performed in front of my eyes, without knowing what it meant. I was there, but not there.”

Thus, the images Zervos captured were comparable to individual lines of poems. With a ritualistic element and approach, Zervos successfully activates a different iconography, blurring the lines between documentary and witnessed reality. In Zervos’ most recent work-in-progress, Peripatetics [ATHENS], the camera is focused on a performance that is taking place in a city square of Athens. The area is filled with locals, immigrants, and tourists alike, emphasizing the act of walking. 

“In my Peripatetics [ATHENS], it is not through walking that will get us to philosophical arguments, but the very act of walking and being present itself,” stated Zervos. “There are no filters. I’m there present without adding my lines. The images are coming from a contemporary politicized ideology that we’re looking for, so it becomes a new philosophy.”

“Peripatetic” means traveling from place to place, especially working or based in various places for relatively short periods. It is Aristotelian and refers to his teaching methods. “This activation is not fragmented, but can happen because of different fragments of reality,” said Zervos.

She concluded the discussion by reciting her poem Artemis and echoing a sentiment that is present in all of us.


I am the child of Artemis.
The plethora
of goods in the market is haunting.

My mouth is full of Greek.
My fingers touch my tongue.
I’ve got no problem climbing mountains.

The clouds are lonelier than my lips
while the naked palms of dreamers
touch the snowflakes
slowly falling to become the ink
of my fingerprints.

“When you find what you want to tell, you find another step in you: the art. The project becomes you. To create something that is yours, that you are so embedded in, that is so synchronized by your own heartbeat, is immortality.”

“So, who thinks they’re immortal here?” 

Perhaps all of us, you could say.  

Connie Ruby Lai, Student Reporter, Class of 2017

“Brave New Worlds” Tour of the Museum of Fine Arts

After watching the film Midnight in Paris (2011), which highlights art museums and monuments in and around Paris, including the Musée Rodin and Monet’s garden at Giverny, students in Professor Leslie Eckel’s Honors Seminar for Freshmen “Brave New Worlds” toured the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston on October 4, 2016.

Together, the class explored the Art of Europe galleries, concentrating on the works of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters Monet, Renoir, Gauguin, Degas, and van Gogh. In Midnight in Paris, director Woody Allen brings many of these famous figures to life as the characters travel through time to meet their literary and cultural idols in Parisian scenes from the 1920s era of the Lost Generation and then – surprisingly – the 1890s of the Belle Époque.

brave-new-worlds_van-gogh_10_4_2016This seminar examines stories of travel, exile, and cosmopolitanism against the backdrop of the city of Boston and encourages students to consider studying abroad during their college experiences at Suffolk.

Student Adrianne Cormier reflects, “Our trip to the MFA has been a new kind of travel experience for me because I was able to see how people perceived the world at different points throughout history. You are able to ‘travel’ to specific places through art, much like literature.”

An imaginative adventure indeed!

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submitted by Professor Leslie Eckel, October 2016

 

A Visit to the 18th-century Printshop

“Problems and Solutions in American History ” class visited the Printing Office of Edes & Gill near the Old North Church. For one of class assignments students read early 19th-century newspapers.

probems-and-solutions_bob-allison_trip-to-18th-cent-printing-press_10_4_2016At Edes & Gill students met a historian and master printer Gary Gregory, who demonstrated how an 18th-century press worked and how the papers were produced. Students’ blog entries tell the story: https://sites.suffolk.edu/sf1133/

 

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“Enlightened Insanity” Walk with professor Allison

On September 22, 2016 Professor Robert Allison led Honors Seminar “Enlightened Insanity” taught by Professor Barbara Abrams on a Boston walk-about. We discussed the impact of the French Enlightenment on the leaders of the American Revolution, and the influence of U.S. Colonial thinkers of 18th Century on the French in a time of great turmoil change for both countries.

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We visited the Granary Burial Ground and the graves of Peter Faneuil and Paul Revere. Then we saw the Birth Place of Benjamin Franklin and moved on to the Latin Grammar School on School Street where we discussed the friendship of Voltaire and Franklin.

 

enlightened-insanity_bob-allison_tremont-st-students-horisontal_9_22_2016Next on to the best part of the visit… the monument to St. Sauveur and King’s Chapel, where we heard the story of the best friend of Louis XVI who was killed in a mob riot in Boston Harbor. We had a wonderful time!

Thank you, Professor Allison!

submitted by Professor Barbara Abrams, 9/2016

Boston – Out and About

We reside in the heart of Boston — one of the most vibrant cities in America. Through the Seminar for Freshmen Program, students are immersed in Boston’s rich historic and cultural life.

moder-theatre-suffolkThe Boston Theatre Scene seminar, taught by prof. Richard Chambers, is different every semester. Why? Because it takes the current Boston theatre season as its syllabus. Students not only study and discuss the scripts of the plays currently performed. They get to see these plays, take backstage tours and meet producers, directors, actors, designers, playwrights and critics.

Film Adaptation course, taught by prof. Monika Raesch, tours the past film locations in Boston.

Prof. Leslie Eckel’s Brave New Worlds class explores what it means to be a perceptive traveler and a citizen of the world. The class motto, supplied by Marcel Proust, can equally apply to world travel and to college life: “the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

Professor Gerald Richman takes his class Beacon Hill: Fact, Fiction, and Fantasy, to the Boston Black Heritage Trail, the African Meeting House, the Otis House, the Moakley Archive and Institute, the Vilna Shul, the State House, and other important landmarks of this historic neighborhood.

 

SF Mission and Goals

The Seminar for Freshmen program provides incoming first-year students with signature courses taught by expert faculty members. Each course is limited to 19 students in order to encourage a high level of student-to-student and student-to-faculty interaction.

Seminar instructors also serve as academic mentors to their students. Through mentoring activities and class instruction, faculty familiarize students with Suffolk University and the network of resources available to promote intellectual and personal success.

The mission of the Seminar for Freshmen program is to introduce first-year students to the intellectual rigors of college-level work; to assist students as they transition from high school to the university; and to prepare students for continued academic success. Students are given the opportunity to expand their interests, establish interdisciplinary connections, and work on their academic and practical skills in a variety of contexts, both in and outside of the classroom.

Seminars are reading- and writing-intensive and designed to foster critical thinking skills. They reflect a liberal arts approach to education featuring a multitude of cultural and intellectual activities — trips to theaters, museums, and historical sites; guest speakers; service learning and volunteering; collaborative projects; and many other enrichment activities.