Hi everyone, my name is Ryan Lavoie and I am a senior majoring in English and minoring in Creative Writing. Last semester, when I looked at the list of classes I could choose from for the upcoming fall, this one immediately caught my attention. At the time, I was actually studying abroad in London and looked forward to this class as almost a continuation of the experience.

After reading the Robinson article, I was most interested in the extreme class separation across the Thames. Modern London still sees a bit of distinction—despite landmarks such as the Shard, the Globe, and the Eye residing on the south-bank—but you will always find the ritzier apartments in the north and the lesser quality ones in the south. In Victorian London, however, the dissimilarity between the North and the South seems night and day. Robinson describes the south as the place where asylums and prisons are built, and with words like “smelly,” “dodgy,” and even “factories making vinegar,” we get the sense that the south-bank was a dirty, almost uninhabitable place to live in by our standards. Meanwhile the north (and East) sported places such as Regents Street, Piccadilly Circus, and the parks. Fortunately, with the building of the bridges that spanned the Thames, the differences between the two banks were able to blur a little—but all in all, the differences are still there.