been inductin'

Hi all,

Just a quick update before I get to my main post... things are going very well as I am settling into Brighton and I am just about caught up on my photos/blogs, etc, etc. Hopefully within the next 24 hours my photoblog will be fully up to date. And I have plans this week to post a few photo albums of shots I've taken around Brighton. Although I have lots of reading to do, my main course work doesn't really kick off until next week so I am going to spend this week exploring and job hunting, and hopefully taking lots of photos.

Saturday was the induction day for all of the students of the Sussex Institute (sort of a conglomerate institute of various interdisciplinary programs) and I attended because my course falls under that category. It day comprised of a bunch of introductions, some information about the institute and what resources it has, a short lecture, and then we broke off into groups to go on to go over our various programs and courses.

The lecture was put on by one of the faculty members in the department whose area of interest is in the social organization of knowledge. It was a really interesting talk called "knowledge and practice" and it talked about the different ways in which we aquire knowledge, and the changes in philosophies of learning that have taken place throughout the past few centuries, along with the ones that take place throughout our lives.

He talked about how in certain fields and areas of our lives it is necessary to gain knowledge to be able to make a living (a plumber needs to learn the essentials to pratice plumbinhg) and spoke of the way that knowledge is organized and the power structures associated with that organization (ie. the medical establishment as a power). Then he spoke about how certain body of knowledge are understood through lanuage and words which exclude other people from accessing their own understanding (ie. the medical establishment again).

Interestingly enough, he spoke with a lot of really academic language himself, going on about modernism vs. post-modernism, quoting Foucault, and spouting off a number of personal references and credentials... which I found to be an interesting (though I suspect unintentional) illustration of his point regarding that colloquial language.

Anyway it was an interesting talk none the less, and it concluded on something relating to how the pursuit of absolute knowledge is never ending, and how as postgraduates we now make knowledge through research rather than consume knowledge that has already existed.

In a funny way, it was a talk I wished I had heard on my first day of univeristy at Queen's, because it actually explained a lot about academia and how it is different from what I had experienced before. But better late than never I guess.

In the afternoon I met with the head of my program and met with the other students who will be studying with me. It was nice to have someone actually explain everything and go through the outlines, though it was a bit daunting to look over the hefty readings lists I was given. The people in my course seem very nice and there is a good mix of younger and mature students which I think will add a lot of the discussion as we are all pursuing life history for different reasons and projects. It looks like there will be about 14 people in my class, so its nice to know that between the three professors who oversee the courses there wont be a stretch on one on one time and resources.

all in all I'm feeling pretty good about the courses, now its just a matter of buying a few books, collecting all the right articles and getting ready for my first real day-school (our classes run in day long schools) but its not for another week and a half, so I have lots of prep time.

this friday I have a meeting to discuss my public history placement, and it seems like there are some really good options including working with a community publishing company in brighton, the national sound archive in London, or various museums... I think it might be nice though to do something outside a museum so I can get a taste of what other options I have.

I think that's all for now. Oh yes and a quick updated on my Argos post as many people seemed to enjoy it ... I have been finding that my mattress is a bit wiry and uncomfortable after the first week of sleeping on it and so when I looked it up today and found a "Canadian Goose and down" mattress pad for only 20 pounds and only one left in stock at my Argos I broke down and bought it. I figured it was fate, and that it would be a good way to support those Canadian geese all the way from England!

- C