First Week. First HCJ. We're back baby!

Woooooooo!!! Spring Break!!! I mean, erm, HCJ!!!! Well we're back at university and of course, it's not all fun and games. The lectures return and this year HCJ is going hard. If we thought we'd seen it all with Romanticism, Empiricism and the rest, we haven't seen anything yet.

If we're going with definitions, I'm going to need some help from my old friend Collin(s online dictionary). Modernism is defined as an early and mid twentieth century movement in art, literature and music that rejected traditional styles and techniques. Well that's all very well and good but what does it mean to us in our HCJ course and in a wider context of journalism?

The lecture had a fairly loose structure to it, taking in many of the topics we will cover in more detail later on in the course. Firstly we looked to William Randolph Hearst, one of the most influential men in the history of Journalism. To give him a brief (and I mean very brief) history, he was an extremely successful businessman, owning a newspaper chain with nearly 30 titles in major American cities at its peak, expanding later to magazines. His life story was the inspiration for the Orson Welles film, Citizen Kane which we watched after the lecture and which I will talk slightly more about after the main thrust, (possibly a poor choice of word) of my blog.

The 19th century was the paradigm of change. The paradigm of modern movement where everything relates, no idea is right and there is no real self. A lot of angst and Schopenhauer concluding that emotional, physical, and sexual desires can never be fulfilled, (more on him later in the course, nothing like a bit of suspense). We also looked at Wagner, and heard Wagner a whole lot of a Wagner. With good reason though as we discovered his place as the overarching figure of high modernity. Head of the course Chris Horrie called Wagner's The Ring Cycle the central artefact of western culture.

The final most important character we looked at in brief was Friedrich Nietzsche whose most famous work is arguably God is Dead. I'll admit that at the moment I don't really know much about Nietzsche but I hope through the reading we have been set and the lectures I'll get to know more. I think I'll definitely need to read the Nietzsche chapters from Anthony Kenny's book and also go back to our reading from last year and Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy.

Lastly, I really rather enjoyed Citizen Kane. It has clearly aged but as an 'almost' documentary of William Randolph Hearst it's a invaluable source of information for us in his study. Also, Orson Welles is amazing.

This blog was slightly disjointed, as is the nature of a first lecture back. Hopefully they'll improve again and the Alexa rankings will soar or something.

Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.