Week Five Outing: Fleet Street and St. Brides Church

This week's outing was to Fleet Street, ending at St. Brides Church. I had gone to both with another class, but hadn't fully understood their significance, so I was looking forward to going back and learning more about the history and relevance of both places.

Fleet Street used to be the home of many London newspapers, and although the buildings are no longer used in the same way, they are still there and are still as architecturally impressive. After having discussed so much about the influence of newspapers in the public sphere, seeing where they used to be housed was very interesting. Seeing that they no longer are located there also spoke volumes about how the world of newspapers has changed and evolved over time. No longer are huge buildings as necessary, as staffs are smaller and more is done online than in person.

Fleet Street had many other interesting places to see as well- the Royal Courts of Justice where much of the Leveson Inquiry is taking place, a Twinings tea shop located in the original home of Toms Coffee House (a famous coffeehouse bought in the 1700s to become the Twinings shop- extremely relevant to all of our discussions about London's coffeehouses as places of debate and discussion and where newspapers were birthed), and a Lutyens restaurant in the building where Reuters (a global news giant similar to the Associated Press) used to be located.

There is so much more to Fleet Street than I had realized before, and seeing it in the perspective of the changes that have occurred in the public sphere was so interesting and exciting.

We ended at St. Brides Church- a church that has been evolving for many centuries, with many changes coming to it architecturally as a result of time and damages from war. From the outside, it isn't as dramatic and impressive as it's neighbor St. Paul's Cathedral, but it has so much historical significance in terms of journalism throughout the centuries. It is known as "the journalist's church" and has memorials and plaques for numerous journalists throughout the body of the church. Many have died in reporting for wars, and it was humbling to see their names presented in the church. It's easy to lose sight of the risks that journalists take when reporting overseas or during wartime, and seeing their names presented was a simple and moving way to remind visitors of the weight and significance that comes with the stories we take for granted.

The downstairs of the church was a museum and a crypt that was uncovered during the war when bombs fell and exposed it. It was a creepy area, but very cool to see the headstones and uncovered stones from centuries ago. The museum area went in chronological order and had artifacts from all the centuries accompanied by maps that showed the floor plan of the church as it was in its original state up to the present.

It was incredible to me to realize that this building has been standing in some form or another since the days of the Romans. Nothing in America has that sort of significance and history attached to it, and I absolutely love visiting places that come with so much more of a story. I am one of hundreds of thousands of people to stand in that church, and it is so awesome to consider all the other people that walked the same steps I did and paid homage to the journalists recognized there as well as worshipped in the same church.

The connection of St. Brides to Fleet Street was explained thoroughly in the museum as well, as the printing press was housed in the church in the 1500s.

I found it extremely interesting to see another church that is so strongly associated with a particular group of people in society- this being the journalists church, and St. Paul's Church in Covent Garden being the actors church, etc. In America, churches are always associated with a religious denomination, and never with a people group based on career or trade, and I have found it to be an interesting difference.

It made me consider the church as a whole, and wonder if the focus is as much on God as the center of worship of the attendees of the church, or if the focus is more on the journalists and their memorials. The purpose of our outing was focused on the journalists, and not on worship, and I wonder if that is true of most people who step through the doors into St. Brides Church. Regardless of one's intention when visiting the church, it was a beautiful place of history and relevance to the public sphere as a home to journalism and the press, and it was a wonderful outing to a place I had yet to fully discover on my own.

Week Four Outing: Poetry Library

Our outing this week was to the Poetry Library at Southampton Centre.

While at the library, I browsed through a variety of poetry magazines and books with the purpose of thinking of the role of poetry in the public sphere.

Overall, I feel that poetry plays a relatively minimal role in the public sphere. Because poetry generally is more abstract and not concrete and straightforward in the message it presents, I don't feel that poetry is a powerful force in stimulating public debate and discussion. I do feel that poetry is something more removed from every day life, which does make it more intimidating to most people.

The Poetry Library itself was set up like other libraries would, but I still was more hesitant to open up magazines and books than I would be in a regular library. When I did open up a magazine, I felt more that I was opening up a personal diary of a stranger than a piece of material that was available to me to read and absorb. The words written on those pages seemed more to be the private, inner thoughts of the authors than they seemed to be public written works.

Some poetry did discuss topics that are relevant to the public sphere as a whole, such as "F*** It All" found in Essence- Issue 5 Culture (part 1) that focused on a lesbian couple's interactions in a public tube station, and "Fat Girls" by Lyn Lifshin which discussed society's views of female beauty. Again, though, these poems seemed to be more of personal interpretation of the issues than stimulation of public debate and discussion.

Some poetry magazines seemed very applicable to the concept of a public sphere, such as Coverland which was about "progressive culture since 1954" and focused on global issues about Australia and Brazil, such as race and financial issues),  The Coffee House with its title hearkening back to the coffeehouse days of London that thrived on public discussion, exiled ink that was written "because of media representation of certain countries and of Muslims' beliefs and civilisation" and included work by writers from demonised countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Yemen.

While poetry does, at times, include messages relevant to public debate and discussion, because of the more personal and abstract style of writing that poetry embodies, it is much more removed from the public sphere and more found in private places of personal reflection.

Week Three Outing: Museum of London Docklands

Our outing this week was to the London, Sugar, and Slavery gallery at the Museum of London Docklands in the East End of London.

In class, we had discussed Nancy Fraser’s article “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,” a critique of the original Habermas article we discussed as the foundation of the class. 

Fraser wrote thoroughly about the idea of counter-publics- smaller groups within the general population that create their own sort of public sphere circles within the whole, broad public sphere (such as womens groups, faith groups, etc).

On the way to the museum, I had a handout to read to set the stage for the outing (source: Toolkit, London, Sugar, and Slavery Website, http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Docklands/Whats-on/Galleries/LSS/), and it included these quotes about the museum, discussing a Consultative Group of direct descendants of enslaved Africans who were included in the process of creating the exhibit.

“We learned that communities were not homogenous static groups with stereotyped ideas, feelings, and interpretations of history. There is a diversity of perspectives within so-called ethnic groups.”

“Then one of them took the plunge and began to explain the problem. It was the narrative voice. The voice was that of the museum curator, not the voice of the community it addressed. Despite all our care in dealing with a whole raft of difficult issues, we had overlooked something so fundamental, we were stunned.”

My mission for the outing was to observe and note elements throughout the exhibit that reflected the involvement of counter-publics in creating the exhibit.

There were less extremely obvious examples of counter-public involvement throughout the exhibit, and much more so subtle examples that one might not necessarily notice if not made aware of the change in writing style beforehand.

I noticed and was struck by the inclusion of artifacts of African culture and art at the beginning of the exhibit. I found this particularly powerful, as it put me in the mindset of remembering that these people who became enslaved at the hands of Europeans and also Americans were first people who had a beautiful and exquisite culture of their own. They were not savages or barbarians like some history has made them out to be, and I thought the inclusion of these masks and handmade artifacts was an excellent and simple show of that, as well as something that the counter-publics knew more directly and personally than a museum curator would have.

There were many quotes from those affected and from their descendants throughout the exhibit, and they were a simple and powerful way of making the voices heard and rounding out the display to include the historical facts as well as the personal connections and experiences.

One section that I found particularly interesting and novel discussed the terminology that was used throughout the gallery. It explained terms typically used to describe those involved in slavery and how they were viewed as offensive by different people groups, and then explained the more politically correct as well as humane terms used in their place. An example of this is the derogatory term “slave” and the term used instead, “enslaved African” that didn’t strip those included of their humanity. This was something I had never seriously considered, but sincerely appreciated learning, and most definitely something that would have come from a counter-public that is more aware of the feelings of their culture and what would offend them.

During a brief light and sound show presentation in the gallery, quotes and text were read by a distinctly white European voice, which one would come to expect, as they were the slave owners of the time, but then an African voice was included in contrast, to share the opposite perspective. Lines that I remember from the show were along the lines of “You will not have a voice/Our voices were not heard. You shall not make your own music/You didn’t hear our music. Etc) This was both moving and powerful, as you really were able to experience the contrast of the two groups and feel the emotion on both sides equally.

One display case included ceramic bowls and plates from the abolition time period that depicted an enslaved African in chains, kneeling down, as the main image in the center. It was explained that this image portrayed the enslaved Africans as a very passive people. Members of today’s local community were involved in recreating the designs to speak more boldly about the issue and to counteract the passive view that was so commonly associated with the enslaved Africans.  This was extremely significant and empowering, I’m sure, to the community involved, as it finally gave them a voice in a loud and clear way through the use of both art and practical household items.

Overall, the effects of all the involvement of the counter-public groups are powerful and moving and made the experience much more well-rounded and enlightening for me as a visitor. I was very intrigued by the differences in this museum in contrast to what I’ve been taught my whole life in schools, and I was struck by the differences and the lack of knowledge I had on what the perspective was of the enslaved Africans and their descendants. I had been taught a very “white” perspective on the whole issue of slavery, and I was extremely grateful for the museum’s efforts to present a very thorough understanding of the issue from all sides equally and powerfully. More museums should be made aware of the efforts of the Museum of London Docklands to be inclusive of the perspectives and opinions of counter-publics when the exhibits feature their groups and their culture, and more museums should seek their input in establishing their exhibits to enhance and add validity to their information in every way.

Week Two Outing: Covent Garden and Charles Dickens Coffee House

This week's outing was to Covent Garden, a place I had been several times before, but I quickly realized we were seeing much more of it than I had even realized existed.

Covent Garden is overall a predominantly semi-public space, as there are mainly stores and restaurants and even the Actors Church that are open for certain hours of the day, but closed at night. Certain behavior is not explicitly stated, but generally understood, as it is a dignified area where behavior such as violence or lack of clothing or disruption of the general peace and public wouldn't be tolerated by passersby or by those in authority of the establishments.

Trafalgar Square, for example, is a much more public space with much less requirements on behavior. I could go to Trafalgar Square in minimal clothing and nobody would say anything to me about it. When we were there last week, there were men without shirts on and women who were in very little clothing, and nobody said a word about it. If those men had tried to go into a shop at Covent Garden, I'm confident they would have been turned away and asked to leave so as to maintain the proper reputation of the stores. Trafalgar Square doesn't close at certain hours of the night, and a variety of activities can take place there, as there is a less clearly defined purpose of what the space is for, unlike at Covent Garden where the space is clearly primarily for shopping and dining and socializing.

The Actors Church functions as a semi-public space in that it was totally open to the public during the day, and we were able to freely roam about, view the memorials to various actors, sit in the pews, talk, take pictures, etc. My professor even mentioned the last time she visited, a homeless man was sleeping on a pew. The space is open to the public to be enjoyed and appreciated as the memorial that it is to famous and not-so-famous members of the theatre community. The church is closed in the evenings and is only open for a few hours on the weekends, presumably to keep out more of the homeless community and to maintain the cleanliness and purpose of the church as a reverent place of homage and worship.

The second part of our outing was to the Charles Dickens Coffee House. We had discussed the coffee house culture at great lengths during our class time, and I was really intrigued by it. London had thousands of coffee houses back in the day, and they were meeting places for conversation and discussion and people to come together and debate matters of importance and public good. Newspapers were born in these places, too, and were another means of discussion and sharing information. France had salons that met in the homes of people involved, where similar debates and conversations were held. When asked what America had that was similar to these coffee houses and salons, I really couldn't think of an answer.

Yes, America has coffee houses. But when you go to them, you mostly find individuals on their laptops or iPhones, grabbing a quick cup of coffee. You rarely find groups of intellectuals discussing important matters and debating politics and social issues and such. Where do we go to do this? Or has America become so consumed by our individual technologies that we all are lost in our own worlds of the devices in front of us that we are losing the art of conversation and debate?

The Charles Dickens Coffee House is small and quaint, and my professor has established a personal relationship with the Egyptian man who works there. He knew her as soon as we walked in, and was delighted to see us and to meet me and to hear where I was from. It was such a warm welcome, unlike any I would  get at a Starbucks back home. It was so much less about the coffee I was ordering, and more about the relationship between he and I and my professor and Rusty. I loved and appreciated it.

He brought us our drinks downstairs where we were the only people in the musty smelling room downstairs full of tables and chairs. He even brought us a plate of a chocolate dessert, completely on him. When would a Starbucks employee treat you to a dessert because you were a valued customer and familiar friend?

At Starbucks when I go to just catch up with my friends and actually discuss movies we've seen and books we've read, which in essence mimics what the London coffee houses used to be home to, we have always been asked to leave after a good chunk of time goes by. The mentality is get in, buy coffee, get out. We could have stayed for hours at the Charles Dickens Coffee House, talking about everything under the sun. We probably would have been checked up on, perhaps offered more food or drink, and treated as welcome guests, not just consumers that need to leave so other consumers can consume.

At JMU, I love spending time at a place called TDU (Taylor Down Under), where there's a Java City coffee place, pool tables, lots of couches, and tons of tables and chairs scattered around a stage where open mic nights take place, people can play piano if they wish, or put coins in the jukebox to play music, too. There are always people meeting for lunch dates or coffee dates, and there are always tons of conversations going on. It's the closest thing I've experience to the coffee house culture, and I love being there. I spend hours talking with friends about the things I've been reading or studying in my Bible studies, or just catching up on life, or discussing current events and things going on in the world around us, and I always leave feeling invigorated and excited about life.

I think that's the whole point of the coffee house culture- bringing people together, bringing private individuals together to form a public body, creating public opinion and fueling social change and working together for the public good. London's original coffee houses are all gone, but the culture of them still remains in the local coffee shops all around the city and beyond. I love that about being here in London, and I'll continue to seek it out back in the states as well.