Katie Bowman

Hello, I am Katie Bowman. This may be my first blogging experience, but I refuse to be intimidated. By way of introduction, I graduated from high school in Toronto after frequent moving within the US. I care a lot about literature and music and food. As long as these are part of my every day experience I’m sure I can be happy (especially the food part). 

I entered the English major by way of BYU’s acting program, thus an exposure to Shakespeare and iconic renaissance style. In the survey courses for the English major, the time periods that interested me the most were the ones revolving around great cultural change. The renaissance, and other periods like it, had energy. I love the imagination that was triggered by discovering new worlds through travel and discovering their own world through science. It must have been a surreal experience and seeing them make sense of it through literature excites me.

The energy of the renaissance and the energy of our rapidly changing culture are interesting to compare. As we were discussing social media in class I started to think about how our renaissance is built on the foundation of THE renaissance. Both are about the increase in communication and knowledge. The printing press made literary consumption available to everyone. The Internet is making literary production available to everyone. Making the bible available to every class changed the way they saw the world, now anyone with an iphone publishing their views on religion or politics or pop culture can contribute to the way we see the world. We have appreciated the ability to listen, but now we can speak.