SECTION B: Life of Galileo: External examples

[scottg15]

Hello All,

I thought that there is probably a lot of students going the 'Life of Galileo', and personally, i am struggling to find external examples that i can draw from, so i thought if we all get together and share our examples then we will build up a bank that everyone can befit from.

I have only thought of a few;
- Obviously, Bertolt Brecht himself and his conflicts against his political viewpoints etc.
- Russian Revolution, because it not only shows a time of change, but it is similar to the time when the play was written. Therefore you can draw strong links.

Sorry, feeble examples but I'm needing help more than anyone. So glad for everyone's input.

[teacher28]

The debate about creationism, intelligent design and evolution.

[literally lauren]

This might help for some general bits and pieces

Otherwise, for LoG specific ones:

• Consider looking into other scientific or technological innovations and discovery over the years, and how they've been received; eg. Charles Darwin, Alan Turing, Nikola Tesla, etc.
• Examples of people who've regretted the inventions/innovations they were responsible for, eg. Robert J Oppenheimer and The Manhattan Project, Thomas Midgely and... his whole life etc.
• The real-life Galileo and his attitudes towards the Church amongst other things
• Brecht's life and times; the fact that he was persecuted for his Communist affiliations by HUAC shortly before the play was written; see: video which includes an interesting part about one minute in where they read an American translation of one Brecht's writing and he says that it has a different meaning in the original German, which might lead you to an interesting discussion about translation or interpretation
• The whole Red Scare in America following WWII and how institutions (or people, like Joseph McCarthy) can corrupt the mindsets of the populace and create panic/conflict out of nowhere
• Attitudes to science and faith in the modern era (-though be careful not to get too judgmental about either stance, as you don't want to come off as aggressively evangelical or aggressively antitheistic to the assessors)

Hope that helps!