cineTREKS this week!!!!

Here are some outings to consider as we await the arrival of our 17 compatriot expatriate sdsu students later this week; these outings will appear on the course calendar later this week.

31, May 2007 THURSDAY
Debate: What Should Museums Display
National Portrait Gallery, 7:30pm
Though not really about film, this particular debate is key as it touches on issues of representation and the "other" that are presently at the heart of the intellectual culture of England and, especially, of London. It should be a great event--lively and engaging.
3 cineTREK (cT) units | 5 cT units with a cool blog report

10, June 2007 SUNDAY
screening at 2:30; free tickets available at 2, arrive a tad early to queue/wait in line!
FELLINI
8 1/2
The National Gallery (just off Trafalgar Square)
5 cineTREKs | 7 cT units if you blog it creatively and with zest!
Arguably the best film in the history of cinema--arguably! See for yourself as we treat ourselves to a screening of Fellini's 8 1/2 for free! get there early, cool things like this go fast in London....

more soon!


Dr. Bill Nericcio
Director & Senior Lecturer
Cultural Studies, FIE

Why it Pays to Visit London's Free Cultural Arts Venues

An English Professor's Brush With Fame--so should read the headlines after my afternoon in London. So there I am, minding my own business, looking at a painting of WWI Generals at London's National Portrait Gallery off Trafalgar Square, when who should stroll by me but the one and only Keira Knightley with her beau of late Rupert Friend. It took all the restraint I could muster NOT to bother her for a photograph, but she was having such a good time with boyfriend and other family that I just did what all the other Londoners did, turned around and went on my merry way.

More important at this key London visual treasure trove are TWO exhibits currently on view and FREE--we will soon have a field trip to investigate them, but you are free to examine them on your own. One is called Between Worlds and features around a dozen image profiles of early visitors to England from across the planet; the second, no less profound, is People, Portraits and Abolition, honoring the 200th anniversary of England's eradication of the slave trade. When and if you visit these galleries keep in mind issues of representation and ethnicity; moreover, think about the relationship between what you see in these galleries (Keira Knightley excluded) and present cinematic representations of "exotic" foreigners and "aliens."

Dr. William A. Nericcio
Professor | Anthropology 493
London, England

The Surrealists's Ball at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London

A good time was had by all at the first cineTREK in London for the summer 2007--a stalwart troupe of SDSU students, undergraduates and graduate students, and a couple of interloping culture-vultures from Pace College and Butler University, came along for the evening event that featured actresses dressed as lobsters, victrolas patched through ipod mixing boards, bizarre Punch and Judy shows, William Burroughs-as-William-Tell-Oops, splash violence videos, and, in one room from which our troupe was barred owed to a paucity of tickets--a levitating woman! All done in the spirit of Salvador Dali, Luis Bunuel (I know the "n" is wrong, but I am on a Windows system here in the UK and don't have a clue as to how to execute an enye), Meret Oppenheim, Man Ray, and André Breton. Thousands of Londoners, and our new, intrepid, and posh SDSU expatriate Londoners braved the throngs to live a night of Euro-art inspired madness--if Yahoo, and even GQ blog about these outings, then there must be something curious going on!

On another note... as FIE is closed and I don't have access to my webservers to update the calendar, here are some cool things to do in the coming days--doublecheck to make SURE they do not CLASH with British Life and Culture or ORIENTATION events before you go to one of these....

1. 3 cineTREKS/5 cineTREKS if you blog it as well!
Race and Cultural Studies Lecture
Sara Ahmed
THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF HAPPINESS
closest underground: New Cross TUBE station
tuesday, 5:30 to 6:30

2. 3 cineTREKS/5 cineTREKS if you blog it
screenings of ZIZEK at
ICA cinema


coming up!?

field trips to THE B FILE at ETCETERA Theatre! also, to "SACRED", an installation at the BRITISH LIBRARY.

this coming Tuesday nite, may 29nth, on BBC1: free! watch IMAGINE with Alan Yerntob from 10:35 to 11:25--a documentary on surrealism! relate two elements of the documentary to the SURREALISM BALL and get two cineTREKs!!!

Cultural Anthropology Models for our London Adventure!

Welcome to the CineTREK™ Blog

Hello! This will be the place for you to enter your critical commentaries, memoirs, anecdotes, etc from your CineTREKS as part of the course requirements for SDSU Anthropology 439, Summer 2007, London!