get to know the world

According to Niccolo Machiavelli , "it is much safer to be feared than loved because...love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails" (Machiavelli 166), In his book, The Prince , Machiavelli demonstrated his point of view about how to gather and maintain power by a political figure. In his book, he discussed the different types of states, armies, conduct of a prince, behavior of the prince and the current political situation in Italy. In the prince, Machiavelli also mentioned Medici Family in his book. One of the reason Machiavelli wrote the book was to impress Lorenzo De Medici. Machiavelli was intended to use this book as his cover letter to help Medici family to reconquer Florence. I really enjoy reading this book.  Niccolo Machavelli, May 1469-June 1527, Italian Renaissance writer, author of The Prince       ...

On 9/23/2020 3:30pm, there was a virtual event hosted by  Clarice Smith Distinguished Lectures in American Art series. I was lucky to find the recorded lecture on youtube, and listened the lecture taught by a noted critic Aruna D'Souza. The lecture was  about modern and contemporary art, intersectional feminisms, and how museums shape our views of each other and our world. In the lecture, D'Souza talked about the concepts that interrelated to empathy translation and visibility, to understand political transformation. First, she talked about a book named  sea of poppies , written by  amitav ghosh in 2008, as an example of proving her point that empathy is a base for understanding. Secondly, she mentioned an interview of  kameelah janan rasheed , D'Souza said: Resheed was cautioned about what is lost as historically white museum and other institutions try to make visible what they have been guilty of making invisible for so much of their histories. (D'Souza 20:40-...

On 09/17/2020 1pm to 2pm, I attended a virtual event hosted by Speakout institute with guest speaker Dr. Michael Benitez Jr. The title of the event is called: Latinidad at the Crossroads of Race, Culture, and COVID-19. In today's virtual event, Dr. Benitez talked about the existing issues in latino culture, the meaning of being hispanic, history of latinidad , racism in our current American culture, Afro-latinidad in America, whiteness practice in our American culture.                                   Dr. Michael Benitez Jr. lecture slides, 09/17/2020 I like how he introduce the hispanic culture and value to me.  First he pointed out a few issues in latino culture. Latino was suffering from their own white supremacy. Also, being honest to each other is not necessary means being nice to other. Another issue is hispanic identity issue. Some people got offended by being identified as Latinas. Me...

Hello everyone, in this week's blog I am going to talk about Renaissance. In my textbook Culture and Values A Survey of the Humanities chapter 12 , the main ideas was to discuss the history of Renaissance Art from early 14th century to the city of Florence in the 15th century. It focused on Medici family and their patronage artists. Per my textbook, Michangelo's talent and some of the influences he absorbed in Florence under the Medici (Cunningham 285). In the video, the main idea was to discuss the Arts in the Republic of Florence from Dante to Michangelo. Per the narrator, civilized human life depends on not only on modanatty, but on healthy simulation of the past. (Art of the western world, 24:04-24:09)                                                        Michangelo, Pieta, 1498-1499, marble  In Botticelli's La Primavera c. 1478, I have l...

Hello readers, hope you had a fantastic week! We all heard about the word: Renaissance. Renaissance means rebirth in French (Part 1:1.6). But some of you might ask: what was the Renaissance a rebirth of? Today we are going to dig into this question and discuss how Ancient Greece influenced on Renaissance. Like Donatello, Dante, and Botticelli, I was intrigued by Ancient Greece’s mythology stories. Ancient Greek believed polytheism . Inside the Parthenon , 12 gods and goddess habitat in it. This is different than the Christianity which believed that there is only one God. I like Greek myth because Greek gods and goddesses are natural. Per Madeline Miller:  You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see (Miller 14). They have emotions and struggles. They make mistakes and regrets; They have love stories and unethical affairs; they have ruthless fights. In Greek myth,Gods are not perfect....