“We all knew that Dr. Flood was a control freak, we just didn’t know how bad it was. On the 4th of November, NUTS was extremely honored to hold a pub lecture hosted by the one and only Dr. John Flood, who spoke on the dystopian novel 1984. For those who were listening, Dr. Flood spoke about the ways in which Orwell constructs notions of power and freedom, looking at methods of control and comparing coercive control and discipline. As he explains, in 1984, Orwell tries to get rid of the necessity of coercive control, and replaces it with discipline, as discipline is the fear of an idea whereas coercive control is the fear of dir violence. Dr. Flood explains that Orwell shows us that discipline is all fine and good, but at the end of the day, fear overrules everything. For those who weren’t listening (like this author) I hope you took away something from this summary I just wrote. To those pointing out any faults, take it up with the guy whose summary I stole. This mostly academic talk, with all-too-frequent jabs at Dr. Hans Jansen, captivated an audience of 25 people, more than he sees in his lectures, which might have been influenced with the fact that Shakespeare grades were soon to be released. I guess we’ll never know. At the end of the day, however, we were very honored to be able to hear Dr. Flood speak on something he’s so passionate about – Dr. Hans Jansen. Hopefully we get a useful lecture one day.”

Viha Sehgal’s article for NEST.