Wikipedia Trail: Woolf to the Islamic Golden Age

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Woolf

After reading A Room of One's Own this week, I really wanted to go on a Wikipedia Trail relating to Virginia Woolf's lesbianism. I've already read a lot about it, but I like reading about historical lesbians. It makes me feel less alone and less strange, because it shows that we've been around forever, and in so many ways the culture we share is the same. Sadly, there wasn't much mention of Woolf's sexuality for some reason, so I ended up looking into her mental illness, which led me to the next page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_disorder

I was interested in this page because bipolar disorder is so frequently misunderstood by people, I wondered what was on the Wikipedia page. It was very expansive, with many different sections, but each section was usually only about a paragraph. I think it's unfortunate that there are people in the world who would think they fully understand this disorder from a Wikipedia page, but it seems like they must be out there considering how many people misuse the term and even call other people "bipolar" casually, showing their ignorance to what it actually means to be bipolar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism

I love old medicine, and how amazingly wrong it can be. It makes me wonder if in 2,000 years people will look back on our understanding of medicine as we look back on humorism, so incorrect it's laughable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age

I found this article interesting because I vaguely remembered learning about it from AP World History in high school. We learned about all of the advancements made during this golden age, and I remember discussing with my friends how strange it was how so much of our math and science comes from non-white cultures, yet there are still people who truly believe that the white race is superior and if it weren't for them, all other cultures would be rolling around in the mud banging rocks together. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 14 Analysis: Close Reading of Letter to A Prisoner

In this poem, Senghor writes to one of his comrades named Ngom in a German prisoner of war camp. He tells him about what he's seen in wartime Paris after being released from the camp himself. "I write you from the solitude of my precious - and closely guarded -/ Residence of my black skin." (Senghor, 682) This line expresses how he feels as an African man away from his culture. He admits that he is isolated, but rather than use that word he uses a similar one: solitude. Though they both mean being alone, they have very different connotations. Solitude implies that it was a conscious decision, giving him agency in his distance from the people around him. He feels that as a black man he cannot relate to those around him, so he closely guards himself and his identity. "Fortunate are my friends/ Who know nothing of the icy walls and the brightly lit/ Apartments that sterilize every seed on the ancestors' masks/ And even the memories of love." (Senghor, 682...
Read more

Reading Analysis: Literary Analysis of The Dead

A major theme in "The Dead" is, unsurprisingly, death. The inevitability of it, the way it affects the living, and the way it connects us as human beings are all touched upon in the story. One way the theme of death is conveyed in the story is symbolically, in the snow that is present throughout the story. We see it introduced from almost the very beginning of the story, mentioned as Gabriel enters the scene. He is taking off his coat as he enters the house, and it is covered in snow and ice. This is symbolic of how we can try to shield ourselves from death as Gabriel shields himself from the snow with his coat, but it will still impact us regardless, just as Gabriel is still covered in snow. In the following conversation about the snow with Lily, he comments that there is probably going to be snowfall that night. This is foreshadowing about the looming existential crisis Gabriel is going to have involving death. At the end of the story, when Gabriel begins to think about ...
Read more