4 Replies to “1984’s Vision of the Future (Greg Flynn)”
Greg,
I liked how you chose a book as your topic, which is something that I hadn’t thought of doing. You gave the listener a very thorough understanding of the mentality of the 1940’s, such as the fear of totalitarian governments. I thought the example of re-writing history to match the current narrative was very interesting and thought provoking. It was like presentism and propaganda taken to the extreme. Your pace of going through the slides was good and you did a great job of connecting everything back to 1984, although I wished that context of some of the images was a little further explained, like the North Korean painting. Additionally, as someone who has never read 1984, it would have been helpful to have a brief summary of the plot and themes of the book at the beginning of the slidecast rather than dispersing that information throughout. One last thing is that I think you need to put your sources at the end of your slidecast. Overall, this was very good and applying a similar approach to the next assignment would work well.
I second the notion that 1984 (as an image) is a surprise, but a welcome one. Orwell really did do an incredible job in capturing the realities of WW2 and translating them to the dystopian novel, and I think you explain and compare both very effectively. Giving insight into foreign propaganda, “un-people,” and general fears of the idea of perpetual war definitely provides justification for the existence of The Ministry of Truth, totalitarian government, and prejudice. While there was not truly a central image for me to lock onto, I have read the novel and seen the movie so the title 1984 itself serves as an image for me; I therefore can only say that it is an effective image in a general sense, as there may be confusion from someone who hasn’t hear the story (at first). You summarized everything concisely and made great comparisons between the historical context behind the novel, so I think this is a very effective slidecast.
There were a lot of really good things in this slidecast, I simply have a couple of little nitpicky things. Firstly is purely technical- your audio is somewhat inconsistent in its volume, and begins with it not being in stereo. That being said, I do appreciate how you spoke slowly and clearly and it didn’t feel rushed like some other slidecasts have. I also really like that you chose to do it on 1984, which is one of my absolute favorite books. However, while I do know the plot of the book, I wish that you had spent a slide or two going over the specific plot points of the book. That being said, I do like how you picked out individual parts of the book, and connected them to what was going on in the world at the time. I feel like that was a very smart way to handle doing the project on a book, rather than an image. On the whole, I really liked this slidecast, I just feel like there were a couple of little nitpicky issues with it.
I really like the introduction- it engages the audience and poses a good question. For some reason, for that slide the audio only sounded on one side of my headphones, but this doesn’t happen in any of the other slides. I really enjoyed the analysis you made of the historical context. This includes all the images that you showed to explain the relevant parts of the Cold War (Iron curtain, nuclear war, etc.) I also like the way you did comparison you made of the book with what was happening. The perpetual war, explained through the three examples was an interesting analysis, because it showed the you could truly link the world Orwell was living in with the book.
The analysis of the end was very interesting as well. The way he portrayed 1984 and the way you portrayed the book was altogether informative. I don’t know if you would be able to find a way to link it to today’s reality and talk about the future of 1984 as well, including the influence that the book had society, not just what the book said about society. Good job!
Greg,
I liked how you chose a book as your topic, which is something that I hadn’t thought of doing. You gave the listener a very thorough understanding of the mentality of the 1940’s, such as the fear of totalitarian governments. I thought the example of re-writing history to match the current narrative was very interesting and thought provoking. It was like presentism and propaganda taken to the extreme. Your pace of going through the slides was good and you did a great job of connecting everything back to 1984, although I wished that context of some of the images was a little further explained, like the North Korean painting. Additionally, as someone who has never read 1984, it would have been helpful to have a brief summary of the plot and themes of the book at the beginning of the slidecast rather than dispersing that information throughout. One last thing is that I think you need to put your sources at the end of your slidecast. Overall, this was very good and applying a similar approach to the next assignment would work well.
I second the notion that 1984 (as an image) is a surprise, but a welcome one. Orwell really did do an incredible job in capturing the realities of WW2 and translating them to the dystopian novel, and I think you explain and compare both very effectively. Giving insight into foreign propaganda, “un-people,” and general fears of the idea of perpetual war definitely provides justification for the existence of The Ministry of Truth, totalitarian government, and prejudice. While there was not truly a central image for me to lock onto, I have read the novel and seen the movie so the title 1984 itself serves as an image for me; I therefore can only say that it is an effective image in a general sense, as there may be confusion from someone who hasn’t hear the story (at first). You summarized everything concisely and made great comparisons between the historical context behind the novel, so I think this is a very effective slidecast.
There were a lot of really good things in this slidecast, I simply have a couple of little nitpicky things. Firstly is purely technical- your audio is somewhat inconsistent in its volume, and begins with it not being in stereo. That being said, I do appreciate how you spoke slowly and clearly and it didn’t feel rushed like some other slidecasts have. I also really like that you chose to do it on 1984, which is one of my absolute favorite books. However, while I do know the plot of the book, I wish that you had spent a slide or two going over the specific plot points of the book. That being said, I do like how you picked out individual parts of the book, and connected them to what was going on in the world at the time. I feel like that was a very smart way to handle doing the project on a book, rather than an image. On the whole, I really liked this slidecast, I just feel like there were a couple of little nitpicky issues with it.
I really like the introduction- it engages the audience and poses a good question. For some reason, for that slide the audio only sounded on one side of my headphones, but this doesn’t happen in any of the other slides. I really enjoyed the analysis you made of the historical context. This includes all the images that you showed to explain the relevant parts of the Cold War (Iron curtain, nuclear war, etc.) I also like the way you did comparison you made of the book with what was happening. The perpetual war, explained through the three examples was an interesting analysis, because it showed the you could truly link the world Orwell was living in with the book.
The analysis of the end was very interesting as well. The way he portrayed 1984 and the way you portrayed the book was altogether informative. I don’t know if you would be able to find a way to link it to today’s reality and talk about the future of 1984 as well, including the influence that the book had society, not just what the book said about society. Good job!