V&A, Raindance, Freud Museum

This week's BLC lecture was a vast improvement over the past couple. The lecturer-- Dominic something or other-- had a wry wit and did a masterful job of explaining to the students why Victorian England is still worthy of study today (i.e. it was the crucible of modernity and has lots to tell us about the fate of Empires as well). I especially liked his point about how the Victorian period is the story of the aristocratic British establishment's obsessive fear of revolution and its very gradual, every so orderly granting of political power to the middle class. He thoroughly demolished the kind of nostalgia for "Victorian values" and Victorian social relations that characterizes the work of neo-cons like Himmelfarb and Roger Scruton.

The follow up to that lecture was a trip on Wednesday to the immense and very worthwhile Victorian and Albert museum. Jackie came with me and our entire group received a brief guided tour led by the same guy who led the tour of the Tate. Established with the proceeds from the Great Exhibition as a showcase for design and allied arts, the V& A building itself was stunning: a sprawling, labrynthine brick and marble neo-Gothic complex with a large central court yard, a long airy orangery, a dining room decorated by William Morris (with his trademark handmade wallpaper and stained glass windows) and a couple of massive hall large enough to contain full size replicas of Trajan's Column and other achitecturally important monuments. There was room after room of sculpture, jewlery, silver and glassware, clothes and furniture. Like the National Gallery, it was really too much to absorb at one time. I did like seeing all the William Morris wallpaper, furniture and tapestries. And there were a couple of nice Rennie MacIntosh chairs to boot.

After the V&A I ran off to accompany my film students to a screening of the independent UK film "Summer Scars" at the Raindance Film Festival. The movie itself was a mixed bag. It tells the story of a group of 14 year old juvenile delinquents (5 boys and one girl) who skip school and spend the day goofing off in the woods. Ultimately, the meet up with a disturbed drifter named Peter, who starts hanging out with them. Eventually, everything starts to go horribly wrong as Peter becomes more and more erratic and violent. The fellow who played Peter (Kevin Howarth) was brilliant but the acting of the young children was uneven. In any case, after the screening, the director (Julian Richards) and Howarth answered questions from the audience for a good twenty minutes. It was one of wonderful, once in a lifetime experiences for the students and I think they really appreciated it.

Today, Friday, Jackie and I spent an hour and a half or so in the Freud Museum, which is in the house where Freud lived during the last year of his life and which was his daughter-- and fellow psycholanalyst-- Anna Freud's home for 40 years. I'm not exactly a big fan of Freud (although I suppose I am bit more sympathetic to his views than, say, the typical Foucauldian). Yet, I have read an enormous amount of his work over the years and always found his social criticism (Future of an Illusion, Civilization and its Discontents, Moses and Monotheism) intriguing if nothing else.

Seeing the various personal articles, letters, books and art work collected in the museum was oddly moving. On display were an array of Roman, Greek and Egyptian antiquities that used to grace his office as well as his vast book collection, his famous "couch" and the analysts chair. There were several paintings and photographs of Freud and his family, including a sketch done by Salvador Dali. Some of the exhibits showcased Freud's love of travel (and the captions discussed in some detail the psychoanalytical meaning of travel ). Many of the exhibits dealt with Freud's flight from Nazis-controlled Vienna after the Anschluss. My favorite single piece was a copy of Freud's notorious early (i.e. pre-psychoanalysis) article on the therapuetic uses of cocaine entitled "Uber Coca"; sadly, they didn't have copies for sale in the gift shop.

After leaving the museum, Jackie went to meet with someone from a public interest lawfirm about doing some volunteer work while she's here. The meeting went well but it is not yet clear exactly what she'd be doing or for how many hours a week. I'll keep everyone posted.