Brave New World Lesson 6 With chapter 4 the story slowly moves on: more action and less description. Two parts: 1) the scene in the lift between Lenina and Bernard about going to the Savage Reservation; 2) Bernard meets Helmholtz Watson.

Brave New World Lesson 6 Bernard is in love with Lenina: or does he only want to have sex with her? Is love possible in such a world? Or to put it in different terms, is falling in love something natural or something social and cultural, somehow typical of the modern western world?

Brave New World Lesson 6 Two views of London from the sky: why from the sky? Detachment and privilege. BNW: city and technology. There’s no smoke, no noise, no chaos, lots of green. An environmental friendly city.

Brave New World Lesson 6 A fordian society in which people are still necessary. Are they still necessary to-day?

RESTRUCTURING OF CAPITALISM IN THE 1980s Brave New World Lesson 6 The network society Manuel Castell IT REVOLUTION RESTRUCTURING OF CAPITALISM IN THE 1980s THE SIXTIES EVOLUTION: FEMINISM AND ECOLOGISM

The main features and processes of the Network Society: Brave New World Lesson 6 The main features and processes of the Network Society: An informational economy A global economy The network enterprise The flexi-workers The culture of real virtuality

TODAY FLEXIBILITY AND FREEDOM. THE DOUBLE FACE OF FREEDOM Brave New World Lesson 6 H. IMAGINES A WORLD BASED ON THE ASSEMBLY LINE MODEL. THERE DISCIPLINE AND MONOTONY. TODAY FLEXIBILITY AND FREEDOM. THE DOUBLE FACE OF FREEDOM

CAN THOUGHT BE SEPARATED FROM CRITICISM? Brave New World Lesson 6 WITH ALFA CHARACTERS WE HAVE PERSONALITY: DISTINCTIVE FEATURES AND IDEAS. CAN THOUGHT BE SEPARATED FROM CRITICISM?

Brave New World Lesson 6 Helmholtz and Bernard: B. doesn’t really understand H. but somehow feels they are fighting the same battle. They look like adolescents. They are individuals: but what does it mean? Isn’t Lenina an individual?

NOT EVERYTHING WORKS IN BNW Brave New World Lesson 6 SPONTANEOUS CONSENSUS, EGEMONY, BUT STILL THERE’S A FEAR OF A REPRESSIVE STATE APPARATUS. NOT EVERYTHING WORKS IN BNW

Brave New World Lesson 7 Chapter 5 divided in 2 parts : Disco and religious ceremony as though 2 equal means of entertainment

Brave New World Lesson 7 TRAVEL LITERATURE: DESCRIPTION VERSUS PLOT. DESCRIPTION MOVES IN SPACE AS MUCH AS PLOT MOVES IN TIME

Brave New World Lesson 7 The golf course shuts at eight o’clock - Monorail trains leave every two and a half minutes - The disco closes - Bernard is late - Lenina remembers her contraceptive;

Brave New World Lesson 7 Are we all disciplined? Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: the importance of discipline in our life.

3 Different stages: Torture Punishment Prison Brave New World Lesson 7 3 Different stages: Torture Punishment Prison

Brave New World Lesson 7 Foucault argues that the prison is one part of a vast network, including schools, military institutions, hospitals, and factories, which build a panoptic (including everything visible in one view only) society for its members

Brave New World Lesson 7 DEATH OR BETTER AFTER DEATH. BUT NOT IN THE SENSE OF THE NEXT WORLD. WHAT HAPPENS TO OUR CORPES?

Brave New World Lesson 7 Three points: - Once again view from above: the Crematorium. - Once again ecological: nothing is wasted – though one can argue that nothing is wasted anyway. - Death has lost any kind of sacrality: it’s simply the last event of life, of one’s individual life.

Brave New World Lesson 7 In BNW we’re born different but once dead we’re all equal: difference applies only to actual life. Lenina’s comment (63)

Brave New World Lesson 7 Lenina remembers waking up and being conditioned: another sign that not everything works 100%. Henry’s comments: are they plausible? Can he be so consciously aware of the social structure he was conditioned to live in? Wouldn’t such a consciousness be a possible source of disorder?

Brave New World Lesson 7 The disco (more like jazz): sex and drugs and rock & roll? Ian Dury and the Blockheads The triumph of an edulcorated reality

Brave New World Lesson 7 Second part: from disco to religion. A parody of Christianity that only a writer from a protestant country like Britain could produce.

Brave New World Lesson 7 A reenactment of the Last Supper: 12 people like the 12 Apostles and a President like a priest/Jesus

Brave New World Lesson 7 Karl Marx: religion is the opium of the people. Well, here is literally true in that the ceremony consists in distributing soma and reaching a collective ecstasy that ends up in an orgy.

CONVENTIONAL/ UNCONVENTIONAL LENINA AND BERNARD Brave New World Lesson 8 CONVENTIONAL/ UNCONVENTIONAL LENINA AND BERNARD

Brave New World Lesson 8 a gramme in time saves nine one cubic centimetre cures ten gloomy sentiments a gramme is always better than a damn

Brave New World Lesson 8 Bernard here is the executioner and the victim at the same time. Somehow Lenina appears to be only a product of his own mind. She repeats what he wrote: in a sense he is annoyed with himself.

Brave New World Lesson 8 What would Bernard like? An indipendent Lenina or a Lenina in tune with his present self?

Brave New World Lesson 8 A very traditional relationship. At first we might sympathize with Bernard and judge Lenina superficial: if we stick to the text, that’s probably what H. wanted us to understand. Seen from our own point of view, though, in many ways this is a sexist position: man is the one with brain, woman is an inferior being, not much more than a sexual object.

Brave New World Lesson 8 THE MALE POSITION: EGO – ORIGINALITY: THE ANXIETY OF DIFFERENCE, OF UNIQUENESS

Brave New World Lesson 8 2 QUESTIONS: 1) CAN LENINA BE HERSELF? 2) WHAT THIS “MYSELF” CONSISTS OF?

Brave New World Lesson 8 2 ANSWERS: 1)to be yourself is a privilege not granted to everybody. It requires time and money; 2)it’s not clear what “myself” means.

Brave New World Lesson 8 FIRST GOFFMAN, THEN GENDER CRITICISM: do men and women have the same idea of oneself?

DEFINITION OF SELF MAN SEPARATION COMPETITIVENESS UNIQUENESS WOMAN Brave New World Lesson 8 DEFINITION OF SELF MAN SEPARATION COMPETITIVENESS UNIQUENESS WOMAN SOLIDARITY INCLUSIVENESS

LOVE, DESIRE, PASSION: A MORE ADULT APPROACH TO SEX? Brave New World Lesson 8 LOVE, DESIRE, PASSION: A MORE ADULT APPROACH TO SEX?

GIRARD: DESIRE CONSENSUS INSECURITY Brave New World Lesson 8 GIRARD: DESIRE CONSENSUS INSECURITY

The meeting with the Director: his “confessions” Brave New World Lesson 8 The meeting with the Director: his “confessions”

THE RESERVATION AS A MILD CONCENTRATION CAMP Brave New World Lesson 8 THE RESERVATION AS A MILD CONCENTRATION CAMP