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ENGLISH LANGUAGE

LANGUAGE IMPROVEMENT TOOLKIT WEEK 05

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 Passage: Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ Symphony completed in 1804, changed the musical world and is perhaps his defining
work. At a stroke orchestral music moves into another dimension, with a breadth of conception and emotional freight
and range beyond anything previously dreamed of, the exact concision and classical symmetry of Mozart is left
behind. It was originally dedicated to Napoleon – a dedication Beethoven removed in a rage on hearing he had made
himself Emperor. What Beethoven did here was to understand the possibilities of the sonata form, and thematic
development, and then revel in his freedom. The ‘Eroica’ Symphony influence extended far into the future, its impact
immeasurable upon composers ranging from Schubert to Berlioz to Wagner and later Mahler. In this symphony,
Beethoven sought a new path for himself; in the end, he found one that shaped music for a century.

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 is one of Beethoven’s greatest compositions and one of the greatest symphonies ever
composed. Symphony No. 9 is also known as the ‘Choral’ Symphony as its final movement features four vocal soloists
and a chorus who sing a setting of Schiller’s poem An Die Freude (Ode To Joy). In the ‘Choral’ Symphony, Beethoven
took the structure of a Classical symphony to its limits in expression of his lofty philosophical theme: the unity of
mankind and our place in the universe. While it appears to follow a conventional four-movement symphonic model,
its massive choral fourth movement was not at all conventional. Beethoven’s ‘Choral’ Symphony became a source of
inspiration to composers who followed, and a keystone of the 19th-century Romantic movement.

Beethoven wrote 32 piano sonatas, the last three being a trilogy that belong together. The first of the three, No.30 in
E, is one of the loveliest things he wrote, and is rather shorter than some of its predecessors, with a crystalline surface
hiding great mysteries and intricacies of form and harmony. The short first two movements, the former emerges out
of what sounds like gently tinkling raindrops, are just a prelude to the last – a chorale-like theme (and variations) that
covers all of the ground between Bach and Chopin before spinning itself into a delirium of ecstasy that subsides back
into the theme with a blessed sense of homecoming. It is 20 minutes of the most sustained musical rapture you could
imagine and one of the best Beethoven works.

Written double-quick in the middle of an immensely creative period the Violin Concerto in D, Beethoven’s most
consistently lyrical work, allowed him to express pure musical serenity while his more intense side was coming out in
compositions like the Coriolan Overture. It is really a 40-minute outpouring of untroubled melody, its very typical
moments of harmonic and dynamic surprise in the orchestra hardly affecting the surface. Though it was a failure at
its premiere (it was not performed again until Joseph Joachim rediscovered it in 1844), now it is one of Beethoven’s
most popular pieces, certainly the most popular of all violin concertos, and one of the best Beethoven works.

Passage: Feminism is a contemporary social and political movement, motivated by individual and collective
experiences of women, which is based on the claim that a society is based on patriarchal principles, according to
which men are privileged over women, which results in discrimination against women in public and private life.
Although feminism is often considered a unique ideology, this theory actually makes a large number of routes created
under the influence of various factors that may be related to the historical and cultural specificity, the legal status of
women in certain countries or simply different feminist approaches to solving the problems that female population
faces. Although there are a number of specified routes, the main differences between them are reduced to the extent
to which relations within the patriarchal society are considered to be the cause of all forms of discrimination against
women. Radical feminism is a feminist theory course that starts from the idea of conflict between the sexes as a
fundamental conflict, and oppression against women as a direct implication of patriarchy. This theory rests on the
assumption that all social activity is the result of certain restrictions and coercion, and although every social system
contains specific forms of interactive constraints, they do not have to cause repression. Under patriarchy, however,
interaction and communication are limited in a way that creates and maintains rigidity which is seen as oppression,
while patriarchy takes a central place where, and why, a fundamental power struggle between the sexes takes place.
Considering that a starting point of radical feminism is the view that inequality between the sexes is the foundation of
all other inequalities and oppression, it is possible to define it as part of the (discourse) theory of conflict.

Analytically, the main difference between radical feminism and other directions of this theory lies in the extent to which
the social system based on the power struggle between the sexes - ie patriarchy, the rule of men in which women are
subordinate category - is considered to be the root of all further oppression, inequality and injustice. The view that the
patriarchal society is generally unjust system in which women are categories of people exposed to various types of
discrimination and exploitation, is a universal feature of feminist thought and the starting point for all routes within
feminism, which, however, differ in the further formulation of this paragraph, its implications and

desirable methods for the solution of problems of the female population. Radical feminist theory is based on the fact
that gender inequality is the foundation of all other inequalities and oppression.
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 Passage: Stoicism was one of the new philosophical movements of the Hellenistic period. The name derives from
the porch (stoa poikilê) in the Agora at Athens decorated with mural paintings, where the members of the school
congregated, and their lectures were held. Unlike ‘epicurean,’ the sense of the English adjective ‘stoical’ is not utterly
misleading with regard to its philosophical origins. The Stoics did, in fact, hold that emotions like fear or envy (or
impassioned sexual attachments, or passionate love of anything whatsoever) either were, or arose from, false
judgements and that the sage – a person who had attained moral and intellectual perfection – would not undergo
them. The later Stoics of Roman Imperial times, Seneca and Epictetus, emphasise the doctrines (already central to
the early Stoics’ teachings) that the sage is utterly immune to misfortune and that virtue is sufficient for happiness.
Our phrase ‘stoic calm’ perhaps encapsulates the general drift of these claims. It does not, however, hint at the even
more radical ethical views

which the Stoics defended, e.g. that only the sage is free while all others are slaves, or that all those who are morally
vicious are equally so. (For other examples, see Cicero’s brief essay ‘Paradoxa Stoicorum’.) Though it seems clear
that some Stoics took a kind of perverse joy in advocating views which seem so at odds with common sense, they
did not do so simply to shock. Stoic ethics achieves a certain plausibility within the context of their physical theory and
psychology, and within the framework of Greek ethical theory as that was handed down to them from Plato and
Aristotle. It seems that they were well aware of the mutually interdependent nature of their philosophical views, likening
philosophy itself to a living animal in which logic is bones and sinews; ethics and physics, the flesh and the soul
respectively (another version reverses this assignment, making ethics the soul). Their views in logic and physics are
no less distinctive and interesting than those in ethics itself.

In 155 BCE Athens sent a delegation of three philosophers (Stoic, Academic skeptic, and Peripatetic) on an embassy
to Rome. Their teachings caused a sensation among the educated. This dazzling display of dialectical skill, together
with the deep seated suspicion of philosophical culture, generated a conservative backlash against all Greek
philosophers led by Cato the Elder (234–149 BCE). By 86 BCE, however, Rome was ready to receive Greek
philosophy with open arms.

Passage: The process of building a habit can be divided into four simple steps: cue, craving, response, and reward.
Breaking it down into these fundamental parts can help us understand what a habit is, how it works, and how to
improve it.This four-step pattern is the backbone of every habit, and your brain runs through these steps in the same
order each time.

First, there is the cue. The cue triggers your brain to initiate a behavior. It is a bit of information that predicts a reward.
Today, we spend most of our time learning cues that predict secondary rewards like money and fame, power and
status, praise and approval, love and friendship, or a sense of personal satisfaction. Your mind is continuously
analyzing your internal and external environment for hints of where rewards are located. Because the cue is the first
indication that we’re close to a reward, it naturally leads to a craving.

Cravings are the second step of the habit loop, and they are the motivational force behind every habit. Without some
level of motivation or desire—without craving a change—we have no reason to act. What you crave is not the habit
itself but the change in state it delivers. You do not crave smoking a cigarette, you crave the feeling of relief it provides.
You are not motivated by brushing your teeth but rather by the feeling of a clean mouth. You do not want to turn on
the television, you want to be entertained. Every craving is linked to a desire to change your internal state. This is an
important point that we will discuss in detail later.

Cravings differ from person to person. In theory, any piece of information could trigger a craving, but in practice,
people are not motivated by the same cues. Cues are meaningless until they are interpreted. The thoughts, feelings,
and emotions of the observer are what transform a cue into a craving.

The third step is the response. The response is the actual habit you perform, which can take the form of a thought or
an action. Whether a response occurs depends on how motivated you are and how much friction is associated with
the behavior. If a particular action requires more physical or mental effort than you are willing to expend, then you
won’t do it. Your response also depends on your ability. It sounds simple, but a habit can occur only if you are capable
of doing it. If you want to dunk a basketball but can’t jump high enough to reach the hoop, well, you’re out of luck.

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 Finally, the response delivers a reward. Rewards are the end goal of every habit. The cue is about noticing the reward.
The craving is about wanting the reward. The response is about obtaining the reward. We chase rewards because
they serve two purposes: (1) they satisfy us and (2) they teach us.

Passage: The foundations of power and the sources of political obligation are without much doubt the two main
building blocks of any theoretical inquiry in politics. Hence it is not surprising that contractarian theorists paid
considerable attention to the mechanisms underlying the formation of states—although they did so mainly for
normative reasons. From an empirical or positive point of view, the effort to build theories of state formation happened
much later in time. When they appeared, they divided into neoclassical models, which stressed the construction of a
coercive structure as part of a voluntary agreement between individuals specialized in coercion and individuals in
need of protection, and Marxian models, which portrayed the state as an invention of an elite intent on the exploitation
of the masses. Today, mostly as a result of neo institutionalist contributions from authors such as North and Olson,
the formation of states is seen as a historical turning point in which those agents who specialize in the exercise of
violence acquire the right incentives to shift from plundering a population of producers to protecting them from other
plunderers. In other words, the founders of states were mostly bandits who, under the proper material and military
circumstances, had the incentive to pacify and control a given territory and population in a systematic and orderly
manner.

Still, the theoretical and empirical underdevelopment of the current theories of state formation calls for further scholarly
research. Let us just mention two potential avenues of analysis. In the first place, neo institutionalists have reduced
the foundation of states to a single cause: the transformation of bandits into lords. Yet that conclusion does not seem
convincing on both historical and formal grounds. States may form (from a strictly logical point of view) and indeed
were formed whenever some producers decided to join forces (that is, whenever they decided to accept a common,
binding authority) to respond in some coordinated fashion to (internal or external) plunderers. In fact, in the absence
of this second formative path, it seems impossible to explain why noncoercive types have been successful at
constructing and maintaining states—a democratic transition, for example, should be seen as an instance of state
formation since the problem of political obligation reappears, now in a new light (i.e. with different subjects and
sovereigns), as political authority is transferred from one or a few to many. In the second place, theories of state
formation have offered some plausible conjectures on the impact of states on economic growth (indeed most of them
were mainly built to explain the latter). But they still have little to say about the distributive and social consequences
of the emergence of political authority.

Passage: Anime has been a global popular culture phenomenon for quite some time already: it has been labeled as
new form of soft power, a term coined by Joseph Nye who focuses on cultural politics and a new kind of interaction
between cultures emerging from globalization and the shift from military power to cultural power. Other scholars, such
as Anne Allison, adopted his concept in their own research on cultural imperialism and cultural power: “At work here
is a new kind of global imagination, or new at least in the way it differs from an older model of Americanization. Joseph
Nye has defined latter in terms of what he calls soft power, the “ability to get what you want through attraction rather
than coercion or payments.”” (Allison 2006, 17) At this point, the sudden shift from Western science fiction and
envisioned images of futuristic worlds towards its Japanese “double” might seem a bit unusual, but if we observe
anime as this new global cultural phenomenon and soft power that everybody is talking about, then it doesn’t seem
so extraordinary.
If we are talking about popular culture, anime has a significant place in it and becomes as relevant for its contribution
to the science fiction genre as any other non-Japanese and non-animated popular culture product. The extent and
intensity of anime’s contribution to global sci-fi film does not come by surprise, as the genre is one prevailing in anime,
along with fantasy and cyberpunk. Popular culture is now obviously recognized as something powerful, usually taken
into consideration in terms of cultural politics and economy of popular culture. It has become a dialectical space
producing opportunities for “cultural imperialism” and, according to scholars; the two struggling powers on the global
cultural scene today are Americanization and Japanization.
Though I will leave the discussion on cultural politics for another paper, I would like to highlight the word power here,
but not in its political sense. The power I refer to is the power of popular culture to produce images, raise questions,
and respond to the challenges of the contemporary world: to discuss and to explore. Anime’s history goes back to
Japanese-style paintings, yamato-e in general, and emakimono or picture-scrolls in particular. It is further traced to
chinzō or portrait painting, ukiyo-e,

kabuki, bunraku, nō, kyōgen, picture-card storytelling and especially interesting utshushi-e or magic lanterns, with its
most contemporary predecessor: manga or Japanese comics. Why I find magic lantern shows especially interesting
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 is because they were based on certain technologies imported from the West and were probably one of the first
Japanese popular culture forms to bring two dimensional inanimate objects into life, starting its internationalization
and adoption of Western techniques. It also evokes some irony, as story-telling started being dependant on
technology.
This irony rises from anime being dependant on technology and offering critical narratives on technology at the same
time.

Passage: Spicy, rich, flavourful and diverse are terms that are frequently used to describe Indian food. All these
words are apt in describing Indian cuisine, for it is diverse in variety and taste, and is made up from a wide array of
regional cuisines throughout various parts of India.

Due to the differences in climate and soil conditions, the local cuisines in various regions may vary greatly from each
other, as each region uses spices, herbs and ingredients that are grown locally. Culture, tradition and religion also
play significant roles in influencing the cuisines and diets of the Indians. Venture to the north, and you will find that
roast meat dishes, cooked in the tandoor oven to be a common item consumed in daily meals. North Indians also
consume rice dishes, such as the biryani, and flatbreads, like the chapati and poori. The flatbreads are usually eaten
with thick, mild curries. The cool and dry climate in the north provides a good environment for growing wheat and
raising cattle. As such, dairy products are also a popular ingredient often used to flavour and thicken curry dishes.
The North Indians like to dry roast their spices before grinding them, which results in the preparation of curries that
have a toasty, roasted flavour.

Now, make your way down south, and you will discover that the dishes have a tangy and spicy flavour profile. Instead
of consuming curries with flatbreads, locals residing in the southern regions of India often have it with rice.

Differences can be discerned in the consistency of the curries prepared in North and South India. The curries prepared
in the South are soupier relative to the thicker, richer curries found in the North. This can be attributed to differences
in the ingredients used. Coconut is a dominant ingredient, and coconut oil and coconut milk, rather than dairy products,
are often used in the preparation of food dishes in the South. In addition, unlike the North Indians, the locals in the
South do not roast their spices. Instead, they ground their spices into wet masalas, before using them to cook spicy
curry dishes.

Passage: The origin of chess remains a matter of controversy. There is no credible evidence that chess existed in a
form approaching the modern game before the 6th century CE. Game pieces found in Russia, China, India, Central
Asia, Pakistan, and elsewhere that have been determined to be older than that are now regarded as coming from
earlier distantly related board games, often involving dice and sometimes using playing boards of 100 or more
squares. One of those earlier games was a war game called chaturanga, a Sanskrit name for a battle formation
mentioned in the Indian epic Mahabharata. Chaturanga was flourishing in northwestern India by the 7th century and
is regarded as the earliest precursor of modern chess because it had two key features found in all later chess
variants—different pieces had different powers, and victory was based on one piece, the king of modern chess.

How chaturanga evolved is unclear. Some historians say chaturanga, perhaps played with dice on a 64-square board,
gradually transformed into shatranj (or chatrang), a two-player game popular in northern India, Pakistan, Afghanistan,
and southern parts of Central Asia after 600 CE. Shatranj resembled chaturanga but added a new piece, a firzān
(counselor), which had nothing to do with any troop formation. A game of shatranj could be won either by eliminating
all an opponent’s pieces (baring the king) or by ensuring the capture of the king. The initial positions of the pawns
and knights have not changed, but there were considerable regional and temporal variations for the other pieces. The
game spread to the east, north, and west, taking on sharply different characteristics. In the East, carried by Buddhist
pilgrims, Silk Road traders, and others, it was transformed into a game with inscribed disks that were often placed on
the intersection of the lines of the board rather than within the squares. The modern rules and appearance of pieces
evolved slowly, with widespread regional variation. By 1300, for example, the pawn had acquired the ability to move
two squares on its first turn, rather than only one at a time as it did in shatranj. But this rule did not win general
acceptance throughout Europe for more than 300 years.

Chess made its greatest progress after two crucial rule changes that became popular after 1475. Until then the
counselor was limited to moving one square diagonally at a time. And, because a pawn that reached the eighth rank
could become only a counselor, pawn promotion was a relatively minor factor in the course of a game. But under the
new rules the counselor underwent a sex change and gained vastly increased mobility to become the most powerful
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 piece on the board—the modern queen. This and the increased value of pawn promotion added a dynamic new
element to chess. Also, the chaturanga piece called the elephant, which had been limited to a two-square diagonal
jump in shatranj, became the bishop, more than doubling its range.

Until these changes occurred, checkmate was relatively rare, and more often a game was decided by baring the king.

Passage: An attractive, tidily organized collection of famed French philosopher Michel Foucault’s writing about film
as well as scholarly reflections on that writing, translator/editor Clare O’Farrell’s Foucault at the Movies is a necessity
for film scholars and philosophers alike. Filled with writing about Foucault and by Foucault himself, Foucault at the
Movies is an effectively translated and admirably assembled work of film scholarship and philosophical history.
Though the book would be a suitable text for a university course on philosophy, film or both, it is also readable enough
to serve as entertainment as well.

Though the analysis of his actual work is very interesting and particularly important in terms of putting Foucault’s film
writing in context, the real draw here is Foucault’s work, which includes film reviews, interviews with an assortment of
international luminaries including feminist icon Hélène Cixous and director Werner Schroeter, general and specific
film commentary and philosophical ponderings regarding film and technology. The interviews, in particular, offer a
more engaging and relaxed Foucault than one might find in his more famous work or even his literary criticism.
Though Foucault actually wrote very little on film itself, O’Farrell has done an excellent job of not only gathering a
variety of conversations, lectures, articles and other materials. Her decision to arrange these in chronological order
(by original publication date) also gives a flow to the work. One can sense Foucault’s shifting focus as the work
progresses, and it is especially entertaining hear these shifts in his own words.

And they are his own words, because though O’Farrell is quite capably translated many of the pieces from their
original French, she has resisted adding additional flourish to these translations. As a result, the reading can
occasionally be confusing or clunky, particularly the transcribed interviews as it is English related in French speaking
patterns. However, the authenticity that style brings to the text far is necessary and adds vitality and charm to the
overall work.

The final pages of the book are filled with unique bonuses. The first of these is a program, assembled by Zabunyan
and Maniglier in 2011, of films that inspired or were inspired by Foucault. Then comes the notes. O’Farrell gives pages
and pages of notes on not only her translations but also regarding the context of many of the interviews. It is a
fascinating look into her process and also into the amount of work that went into making Foucault at the Movies such
a thorough yet seamless work.

Though these final pages hint at the amount of work Clare O’Farrell did in putting together Foucault at the Movies,
she humbly stays out of much of the book’s content, including a brief Translator’s Preface before
ceding the stage to Zabunyan, Maniglier and, of course, Michel Foucault. Foucault often commented on how much
he enjoyed speaking about and writing on literature, and that enthusiasm obviously crossed to other mediums as well.
Foucault’s thoughts on film are fascinating yet also offer a more genial look at the famed philosopher.

Passage: A recurring theme in the tragedies of ancient Greek theatre was humanity’s helplessness before the
decrees of fate. Characters such as Laius in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex would attempt to defy powers greater than
themselves, only to meet precisely the end that had been foretold at the play’s beginning. An interrelated tragedy from
the canon is that of Cassandra, whose warnings of the future are fated to be dismissed, then later vindicated. It is
from here that the Cassandra metaphor of modern parlance is derived.

The analogy is not exact, but for fate as the power greater than humanity in the worldview of the classical Greeks, let
us substitute, in the modern world, the perpetual development of social, economic and political relations through
history, which have no divinely pre-ordained outcome, but which nevertheless provide the inescapable wider context
for our actions.

Both today and in the myths of antiquity, it is those in positions of power who would presume to defy these greater
forces, while the modern day Cassandras are the ones who contradict power, point out its hubris and speak truths
that it would rather ignore.

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 The triumphalist atmosphere in Western capitals following the demise of the USSR produced assessments of
America’s status as the world’s only superpower that ranged from the hubristic to the outright irrational.

As Bush the First announced a “New World Order” based on Washington’s military and economic
supremacy, Francis Fukuyama famously declared the “end of history” itself – meaning that Western liberalism (in the
benign sense in which he viewed it, as a force for democracy and prosperity rather than imperialism and exploitation),
had emerged victorious from history’s struggles, becoming a settled and uncontested ideal to which all would now
aspire.

Fukuyama united with other neo-conservatives under the banner of the “Project for the New American Century”, later
using the events of September 11, 2001 to promote the aggressive foreign and military policies of Bush the Second.

In 2004, a senior presidential aide told a writer for the New York Times magazine, “We’re an empire now, and when
we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality… we’ll act again,
creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors… and
you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

In the end, the neo-conservatives’ “New American Century” lasted around seven years, from the al-Qaeda attacks on
Washington and New York that fired the starting gun on the “War on Terror” to the departure from the White House
of a much diminished George W Bush, with the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan having demonstrated “the limits,
rather than the extent, of US military power”, in the words of British newspaper columnist Seumas Milne.

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