Author Archives: wcturgeon

Friday June 29th

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Today we got our classroom back and we met as scheduled in the morning.  Two of our cohort did not show up which worried us but they were OK in the end.  Hmm…

Jericho- the council houses

Our chapter was inspired by the Inspector Morse mysteries.  I have watched all of them and loved every one, including the two new spin-off series, one featuring Sergeant Lewis on his own and the other a young Morse set in the 1950s Oxford.  Our presenters rightly pointed out that there is not much about the TV series in the book but rather a tour of north Oxford, including four of the 5 women’s colleges, Keble College, and the Museum of Natural History. Since we had visited that yesterday the images of place were clear in our collective heads.

We did have a lively discussion on a number of topics:

  • the appearance of women’s’ colleges and why education for women was so controversial; while the colleges were founded in the last quarter of the nineteen century, no students could earn a degree until 1920!
  • the meaning of free speech and the parameters for discourse across differences
  • the immigrant experience and how the US has always been suspicious of those coming into our country from other places, including the experience of many of our own ancestors
  • language as a tool for inclusion or exclusion

We had hoped to visit the Museum of the City of Oxford but were disappointed to find that it is closed until 2020.

Walking along the Oxford canal is an adventure, albeit a warm one in today’s hot and sunny Oxford.

 

Thursday- June 28th

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Badger looks back

Today we worked on firming up some of our upcoming tours and the students worked on their presentations.  As Oxford is still experiencing open house, we did not have our usual session today.  This afternoon, however we visited the Natural History Museum and the Pitt-Rivers Museum on Park Road.

These two museums are connected; the Natural Science museum has dinosaur skeletons as well as many preserved animals which trace the story of life on the planet.  When one walks into the Pitt-Rivers, a dark and cool space, one encounters huge glass cases overwhelming the space.  each one has artifacts from humans from around the world.  They are grouped by type or function:  musical instruments, baskets, shrunken heads (what one does to one’s enemies, representations of animals and humans.

In both spaces we look at our own history, our ‘relatives’ and fellow earth-dwellers, and we come to grips with the vast variety of human experience and how differently we see the world around us and organize our brief lives here.

 

Wednesday-June 27th

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We travel to London

Since the colleges in Oxford are hosting their Open House for today and tomorrow, we do not have our official classroom.  We decided to designate today as “London Exploration Day.”  We all caught the X90 bus into London c. 9:20 AM.  Well, almost all.  One of our troop failed to wake up in time but to give him credit, he navigated his own way into London town and found his fellow students.

My co-leader went off on his own adventure as did I.  I decided to explore Belgravia, the rarified atmosphere of the rich.  Growing up off Sutton Place, NYC, this was not unfamiliar territory to me, even if I viewed the typical array of super-high end establishments.  My need for Fendi and Ferragamo is pretty minimal, by that I mean non-existent.  But I enjoyed walking the streets with the hints of privilege behind the Palladian windows.

a fairy tale referent

Today we wanted the students to go off and experience getting lost or at least turned around in a new place.  Finding one’s bearings, getting disoriented/re-oriented is part of situating one’s self in the world  New places bring stress, a loss of direction, but also opportunity and adventure.  Tomorrow or the next day we will find out what they discovered.  I suspect they were rather inventive in their negotiations.