‘The North’

For the original post, go to: https://greatideastour.wordpress.com/glasgow-edinburgh-and-durham/

Spending any time in the US South reveals it to be an (in)coherent and imagined space. On occasion geographically and socially nebulous, it nevertheless shares (forgive how trite the observation is) a unifying history—the plantation system, Civil War, Reconstruction, Civil Rights Movement—and set of cultural signifiers—accents, music, sport. This, of course, is to simplify the region, to flatten its multi-dimensional contours onto a 2-d page—which I generally deign to do as a once- (and always-) Alabamian.

However, such a simplification is useful inasmuch as it teases out a trans-Atlantic connection: that is, with the English North. Its similar history—compare, e.g., the Harrying of the North to Sherman’s March to the Sea—and collective identity—a Durham Uni. tote familiarly reads, “A boy [can] leave the North, but the North [can] never leav[e] him”—makes it germane ground for exploration. And explore yr. correspondent did; below, I outline my findings in a (slightly) less analytic fashion than my first dispatch.

I believe the North is a ‘great idea’ because it is, like the South, (1) a historically-contingent development and (2) a mentally- and communally-defined place. To this end, there is no better city with which to start than Edinburgh, whose present layout, and (inter)national reputation, was, and is, molded by the political and territorial contests that delimited the North. The vein supplying Edinburgh with much of its architectural and historic richness is the Royal Mile; littered with statues of estimable thinkers, incl. Hume and Smith, it begins at the castle and ends at the Holyroodhouse Palace.

And both of these structures—here I must repeat myself—are products of the North, though well before its existence in the popular vernacular. The former was a critical site for the 14th c. battle(s) for Scottish Independence, and its eventual re-capture erased Edward III’s claim, under the Newcastle Treaty of 1334, to Edinburgh; the latter, the brief childhood residence of James VI and I, the ‘unifier’ of the English and Scottish kingdoms.

Yet, regrettably, it’s difficult to experience the gravity of Edinburgh—and to become aware of the socio-historical factors underpinning it—today. The throngs of tourists and souvenir shops, as well as the constant, albeit pleasant, hum of bagpipes, interrupt the sustained thought the city merits, transforming it into a strange consumerist spectacle. There are wonderful moments of calm—offered in St Margaret’s Chapel atop the castle, The Meadows, and the Scottish National Gallery—but these seem few and far between, nearly encroached upon by the ambient noise and clutter aforementioned.

By contrast, Glasgow, younger than its easterly counterpart, and therefore less conducive to tourists’ fancy, was a quieter destination. It should be noted that English monarchs less-oft asserted Glasgow as part of the North; still, its story is a quintessentially Northern one. From its medieval, parochial origins—a church founded by St Mundo—it expanded, via its 15th c. university, participation in triangular trade, and, predominantly, industrialization, into ‘the second city of the British empire.’

Such a status is loaded, rife with the abuses innate to imperial conquest; it is from whence Glasgow derives much of its heritage, too: global cuisine, the People’s Palace, Kelvingrove Art Gallery, GoMA, &c. Thus our Glaswegian stay was punctuated by delicious meals—the finest Indian I’ve ever eaten, Korean barbecue for lunch, and the obligatory Scottish fare (haggis, namely). Glasgow’s constituents, moreover, were some of the warmest and most amicable yr. correspondent has met.

The West End has proven, to this point, the G.I.T.’s unexpected gem: to reach the Kelvingrove Gallery therein, I had the pleasure of traversing the borough’s lively, green park, whose winding paths also lead to elegant memorials, bowling grounds, and the university. And the museum itself curated a terrific exhibition on the ‘Glasgow Boys,’ a painterly cohort born of the city’s 19th c. globalization and economic expansion. The group’s oeuvre cleverly re-considered impressionist and post-impressionist cannon(s)—for which a separate, and very solid, collection was organized, too. But, to focus so deeply on Kelvingrove is to neglect to highlight the aforesaid People’s Palace (and its meaningful documentation of Glasgow’s social history), GoMA, which punches above its weight in the modern art sphere, and the pulsating punk scene.

As this blog strays further from its (well-intended) brevity, let us now turn our attention to Durham—perhaps the key to the formation and maintenance of the North (as both idea and territory), and future home of yr. correspondent. Here, do allow me to remark more personally, since my initial visit was a surprisingly emotive one.

Before sentimental reflection, however, I should state that Durham Uni. was developed with the hope that the North would have a school with similar investment (and prestige) as Oxford and Cambridge. And it is truly an institution inextricable—from its re-appropriation of William the Conqueror’s castle for student accommodation, to the 11th c. Anglo-Norman cathedral used for pilgrimage, services, and research—from the foundations of Northern-ness.

Anyway: my time in Durham coincided with ‘open days,’ so the tiny city (and I) were overwhelmed by thousands of ‘freshers’ eager to open the next chapter of their life. I admit, despite our differences (primarily, age and scholastic), I experienced a sort of fellow-feeling with them: after all, I am likewise starting anew, with strangers in a strange land. In other words, I was terrified when the inherent risk of a fresh beginning was made tangible. Fortunately, I soon remembered this mix—of indeterminacy, excitement, and opportunity—from my early weeks in Alabama. (Another instance of the US South and English North aligning!)

Ultimately, I achieved a bit of solace after hearing the cathedral’s bells ringing—a constant feature of the city for nearly a millennia. It reminded me of the sheer romance of studying history where it is immediate and authentic: it is exactly why I chose Durham; and it is exactly why I am so enthralled by the prospect of this tour.

Bree’s ‘Fun Corner’:

Glasgow: Extremely friendly residents, easy to navigate, good mix of historical significance and modern fixtures. Dog viewing: 7/10, very cobblestoned, but good views to be had in almost any green space. (Best places: Green Gates Cafe, Jay’s Grill Bar, Mharsanta, Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, The People’s Palace)

Edinburgh: The ability to walk through the city like those who lived in it during its prime adds to the beauty of the architecture. Dog viewing: 6/10, best only in the Meadows. (Best spots: The Meadows, Mum’s Great Comfort Food)

Newcastle: Still very industrial, but has a fun nightlife that brings individuals from further outside the city together. Easy to navigate, fun atmosphere, and overall a fun city to be in. Dog viewing: 5/10. (Best spots: Pink Lane Coffee, Mr. Mulligans)

Durham: Gorgeous city layout that, because of the peninsula and castle/cathedral, has not been changed much since its beginning. Still very intimate and small, but — like Newcastle — brings the residents together for the weekly market that hosts artisans, farmers, crafts, etc. Dog viewing: 9/10, best during the market hours. (Best spots: A walk around the peninsula, Durham Cathedral, Cafédral Durham)

Cosmopolitanism and (De-)construction

For the Original Post please go to: https://greatideastour.wordpress.com/london-and-paris/

With friends arriving from ‘divers and sundry’ places, meals with origins across the globe, and an artistic and cultural scene almost as far-reaching, London presented myriad opportunities for yr. correspondent and his associate to realize the ideal of cosmopolitanism (at least in the looser, more popular sense). Here, before I move to the philosophical meat and potatoes, I’ll outline our time in the city; I encourage the reader to assess our efforts as cosmopolites—and to offer marks over text, email, &c.

Day (1): Industrial action shut down the Underground, which afforded Bree and I more time to explore the Kensington Gardens. Foreshadowing our eventual Parisian stay, we broke fast at the terrific Cafe Montparnasse, gorging ourselves on fine pastries, sandwiches, and salads. Later, perched adjacent to the garden’s Italian fountains, I reunited with a friend from high school, who was completing a European tour of his own; I felt fortunate to hear about the context he gathered whilst abroad, how he intends to apply it to his new job in NYC, and where, despite our divergent paths, we might next reconnect. In the sun-speckled early evening, yr. correspondent bought and kicked around a football, then ate some delicious aglio e olio.

Day (2): Our first priority was a visit to the Tate Modern, with a contemporary art collection second to few. Located therein, surprisingly enough, is a room devoted to my favorite American painter, Agnes Martin; to me, her work, in its tight geometry, mixture of simplicity and complication, and purity, is innocence. For dinner, Bree and I divided and conquered, meeting two Londoners (of sorts): she, her roommate on a month-long study abroad; myself, another old friend, a UA and Cambridge graduate who has spent the last year settled near St Paul’s.

Day (3): We started at the Museum of Natural History; Bree, a geologist at heart, esp. enjoyed interactive exhibits on planetary features and rock formations—the kid in me, however, was partial to dinosaur displays. Minds enriched and bellies empty, we turned to a Greek restaurant, and souvlaki rained down like manna from heaven. At night, yr. correspondent made a pilgrimage to Lord’s, the home of cricket, where Essex triumphed over Middlesex via tight bowling and three particularly sharp catches.

The variety of cuisines, experiences, and people detailed above is characteristic of London—or, better, it is historically-embedded. Indeed, upon the 11 c. arrival and conquest of the Normans, the city expanded from the largest Anglo-Saxon port to England’s administrative and cultural capital, positioning it as a gate to the world. Thus, Londoners today are (self-)labeled as such—instead of ‘English’ or ‘British’—both within and outside of the U.K., a veritable verbal relic of its cosmopolitan status.

And to this end, as we approached our subsequent destination, a question lingered in my mind: if Londoners aren’t ‘English,’ are Parisians not French?

Au contraire, they most certainly are!—acc. to the natives with which we shared our final meal, a(nother) Korean BBQ feast. Well, why might such a discrepancy exist?

One could attribute the phenomenon to the ‘traditionally French’ architectural, social, and artistic features maintained in the city: its medieval churches, like Saint-Severin and -Germain-des-Prés, and, later, the Arc de Triomphe, Tour Eiffel, &c. These former, ecclesiastical structures, which (yr. correspondent learned in the Musée de Cluny) situated Paris as Europe’s cultural and intellectual cradle in the Middle Ages; in London, by contrast, they were lost in successive, devastating fires.

Moreover, such churches, and the complex religio-political matrix they represented, proved foil to the Enlightenment, (perhaps) Paris’ initial experiment with deconstruction. (N.B. I mean deconstruction in its less technical, more vernacular sense: i.e., the critical interrogation of the concepts and values that govern discourse and life—re: Enlightenment, the supremacy of the monarch, the consequent indivisibility of church and state, personhood through a parochial religion.)

Even so, these new modes of thought became as ensconced as the conservative attitudes they overcame; and, in the midst (and wake) of France’s more global posture, achieved via a pernicious empire and otherwise, they too were examined. E.g., the impressionism of Renoir and Monet, which I witnessed with awe at the Musée d’Orsay, and which was, in the latter case, influenced heavily by Japanese gardens and prints, outpaced the romantic Delacroix and calculating Ingres. Similarly, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, champions of existentialism buried at the Montparnasse Cemetery, built upon eastern thought; so too did Derrida, father of deconstructionism proper.

I hear you saying, “Jackson, you’ve only just described Hegel—thesis, antithesis, and synthesis across historical time.” To this, I would contend that, after a material and/or social change shapes Paris, its range of future possibilities fundamentally shift (thereby differing it from its preceding character). It’s a place that’s always being (de-)constructed; there’s a two-story McDonald’s on the Champs-Élysées.

And—if you’ll bear with me, returning to my original query—it now feels rather silly to ask whether Parisians are French; for, what might such terms even signify? How can we justifiably articulate that someone ‘belongs’ to a place? Because they are born of its unique socioeconomic inputs? These, past and present, have existed in complex, interlocking webs that allay near description.

Deconstruction, then, insists that we, through repeat valuation and inquiry, resist the affiliations that challenge the type of (nationless) multiculturalism London embraces—and understand and appreciate the evolving ideas and practices that make Paris a welcome tesserae in our planetary mosaic. This is cosmopolitanism in its truest form.

G.I.T. Gallery: London and Paris

Bree’s ‘Fun Corner’:

London: Seems almost English, but not really. Incredibly metropolitan, bustling, and a melting pot of more countries and regions than you can name. Combines to make a beautiful mixture of stories every place you go. Dog viewing: 10/10, especially in Kensington Gardens. (Best spots: OPA Souvlaki, Tate Modern, Cafe Montparnasse, Kensington Gardens)

Paris: Very nerve wracking to step into after nearly a month on the Isles, but when accompanied by friends it is much more palatable. Most Parisians, contrasting their reputation, are incredibly nice and welcoming — especially the one who gave us a free croissant, but not so much the couple that jump-scared me. Overall a lovely city that would be worthwhile to visit again to see everything we missed. Dog viewing: 6/10, not very many, but the one I saw chewing a little bone on the metro made up for it. (Best spots: La Parisienne Odessa, Centre Pompidou, Musée d’Orsay, Pho Odessa, walking anywhere always provides entertainment!)

“I get on with them well enough, but these people were my mortal enemies twenty years ago.”

Thus spoke Tom (whose name I’ve changed for his privacy), yr. correspondent’s guide for a Troubles-themed tour of Belfast. Tom, ever-affable, is a former-Catholic and forever-republican; he offered the sentiment above when I asked about a unified Ireland, which, he ceded, is (marginally) more likely after Sinn Fein’s historic triumph in the Northern Irish Assembly.

But one anecdote does not an appropriate dispatch make, nor does it effectively communicate the experiences and realities characteristic of Belfast today—nor does it answer why I chose to start my G.I.T. in Ireland. To unpack the latter two concerns, and to achieve the former aim, let us turn our attention to Dublin.

Dublin’s history, as yr. correspondent and his associate learned at its castle, begins with the Vikings, who, upon arriving in approx. the 9th c., made it an administrative center on the River Liffey and who became, albeit more hygienic, as Celtic as the Celts. Therefore the true shake-up on the island was the arrival of the Anglo-Normans in the 12th c.; led by ‘Strongbow’ Richard de Clare (interned in Christ Church), they deposed the King of Leinster whilst balancing a separate war in France. Nevertheless, the imperial designs for Dublin only reached a fever pitch in the Tudor period, with the castle acting as the crown’s ‘nerve center’—supporting religious conformity, land confiscation, and, eventually, the plantation of Ulster (foreshadowing!).

All this to say: Dublin is peppered with sights, scenes, and sounds that demonstrate the success and failure of a colonial project. We visited on our first day the Garden of Remembrance, a touching monument to those who died pursuing ‘the vision’ of an Irish state: “Bondage became freedom,” its back wall read, “and this we left to you as inheritance. … O generations of freedom remember us, the generations of the vision.” Further, the Dublin Spire, an imposing, metallic, 120 m. tall pin, served as our North Star, pointing us towards city center; it stands where a pillar honoring Horatio Nelson, the esteemed English admiral, once stood—that is, before its destruction by Irish Republicans on political grounds. In contrast, Dublin’s most famous cathedrals (St Patrick’s and Christ Church) are Anglican, depicting the uneasy, but symbolically gainful, process of religious conformity.

But, since their hard-earned independence—for which many rebels were gaoled at Kilmainham and/or extra-judicially killed—the Irish and, by extension, Dublin have excelled in cultural regeneration, and have ensconced themselves in Europe. A trip to the National Gallery proved as much: it boasts a strong collection of Irish artists, like J.B. Yeats’, whose later, expressionistic work feels almost concrete, and William Orpen, whose playful self-portraits have for years delighted yr. correspondent. Equally intriguing was the gallery’s temporary Giacometti exhibit. We received our tickets per chance (a French couple mis-scheduled and handed them to us whilst hurrying to re-book); esp. enjoyable was this rare glimpse into the studio practice of existentialists Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir’s favorite sculptor. (Do view compositions from these artists, and others, below.) However, we saw no pieces of English origin save a typically sensitive and inspiring effort from J.M.W. Turner.

And this painterly discrepancy is illustrative. Dublin and its constituents don’t necessarily dislike the English—when, on our final day, for want of other warm-wear options, I donned my Oxford jumper, not a single snide remark was launched my way. Yet they are dealing with a mix of hegemonic hyper-presence and disappearance: what happens when the dominant power leaves?—what does one do with the keys to their own fate? Most everywhere in our postcolonial world begs such questions.

One place where they are not: Belfast. For the British haven’t left yet. In other words, if, presently, Ireland is de-colonizing, their northern neighbor is instead grappling with the economic, political, social, and religious factors underpinning colonization. But you wouldn’t be privy to that immediately: realizing it is akin to excavation.

For instance, the Ulster Museum, to be commended for its natural history resources, art collection, and botanical gardens, was sparse in its Troubles-related content, much to the chagrin of a museum employee who grew up in a Belfast suburb and with whom we chatted for a half hr. Or, another ex.: there are shops for the two largest Scottish soccer clubs, Rangers and Celtic, in the city. Why?—well, the latter was founded by Irish immigrants; the former refused to sign Catholic players well into the 20th c. Thus these teams are, surprisingly, interlocutors in a conflict a sea away: i.e., loyalists are Rangers fans, republicans back Celtic. This, of course, was not immediately clear to yr. correspondent: it took digging.

The point belabored, it’s wise to return to our excavator extraordinaire, Tom; he, during our tour, unearthed much of now-quiet Belfast’s ‘seedy underbelly’ (his words), as well as its less-than-settled past. While laymen understand the Troubles to be sectarian—Catholic v. Protested—Tom insisted it was rather economic and political: the English hanging on to a critical industrial outpost, not to mention the legitimacy of their isles-empire (which [callback] properly started with the Ulster plantations!). Altering the perception of the clash (the terms of discourse) was the purpose of Bobby Sands’ famous hunger strike, noted Tom—so too of the republican murals, which link Ireland’s struggle to worldwide social justice causes, incl. the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.

And it seems, to close, that the nationalists are ascendant (see, again, Sinn Fein), if not outright victorious, shifting the issue in N.I. from cohabitation to reunification. Such a prospect, Tom thinks—and as Irish/Dublin’s history indicates—, will prove challenging. Shankill Road, a loyalist neighborhood, remains marked by murals of William of Orange, Stephen McKeag and other UDA members, and, as Tom put it, the ‘Mona Lisa of terrorism’ (in which the barrels of Ulster militants eerily follow passers-by). All of these are signals of the strong cultural and emotive push from unionists to hold on to what might be soon lost. This is reciprocated (economically, at least) by the British government: a new trade protocol for N.I., released this week, will ‘harden’ the Irish border and exasperate existent division.

Potential solutions to this end are difficult to suggest with such limited experience, and such rapidly evolving circumstances. Nonetheless, familiarity with this region and its complications are essential as I work to embody the spirit of the Marshall scholarship and Doc Ramsey: an awareness of our shared humanity, a keen eye for the factors (systemic and individual) undermining it, and a desire to foster it in myself and others.

G.I.T. Gallery: Ireland and N.I.

‘Fun Corner’: What to do!

In Dublin: sun-bathe at St Patrick’s Park, visit the National Gallery (all of it), eat at Boxty.

In Belfast: take a Black Cab tour, grab a sausage and mash at White’s Tavern, walk around St George’s Market.

Bree’s dog rating:

Dublin: ‘8/10 … too bustling to get a full view unless you’re in a park.’

Belfast: ‘6/10 … a few around but all on exercise walks.’