Message to World Lit Class from Your Professor--Monday September 30!

  Hi Everyone--Update Wednesday evening--I am off the jury!

Instructions for Thursday class:  Please blog about your essay topic if you have not already done so.

Please review Interpreter of Maladies--we didn't have time to discuss it and it is a wonderful story!

We will devote time to your essay topics, refining, developing strong claims (theses) and support.

If time I will screen a short film relevant to Breath, Eyes, Memory which I hope you are reading!!!

See you tomorrow :)
Dr Van

Blog on Essay #1: Short Story Ideas and Possible Thesis

For your first essay you will do a close reading of one story or a comparison of two zeroing in on a theme or symbol related to postcolonialism.  Write a blog by Sunday midnight on one of the stories we have read so far.  Consider this blog a rough essay draft.  Make a claim or argument about the story using the guidelines and suggestions below and anything else you have found in the story itself or the course pack on postcolonialism.  Quote at least twice from the story and if you use two stories, once at least from each!

Here are the short stories we have discussed so far:

"Shooting an Elephant," George Orwell
"Children of the Sea," Edwidge Danticat
"Life," Bessie Head
"Interpreter of Maladies," Jumpha Lahiri
"Love and Honor and Pity and Compassion," Nam Le

And here are BIG themes that might lead you to a close reading of one story or a comparison of two:

• how does displacement, relocation, return shape, define the identity of the postcolonial subject?
• what role does writing play in creating a meaningful space for the postcolonial subject?
• how does hybridity also create fragmentation, guilt, anxiety, loss, regret?
• what happens when "worlds collide" in a postcolonial space?
• how are families broken by generational postcolonial conflict?
• how does a story expose, illuminate eurocentrism, ideology, hegemony

Alternately, you may choose to do a more literary type of analysis.  Consider, for example, a central symbol in one of the stories and connect that symbol to postcolonialism:

• the elephant in "Shooting an Elephant"
• letters and journals and writing in "Children of the Sea," "Love and Honor..."
• Life and Lesego in "Life" as symbols
• the monkeys in "Interpreter of Maladies"

Note: all essays for English 295 must follow correct MLA format which we will review in class.  The citations for each story (except Orwell which is online) are listed with the story in the course pack.  If it is missing I will give it to you.  When you quote from the story, you must follow the quotation with the authors name and the page number of the original story.

Please review "Anatomy of an Essay" in course documents for more details about general coherence, focus, thesis and support and how to write an interesting conclusion.

Blog #2: Your Cultural Bricolage

Blog #2: Your own cultural bricolage: Do an inventory and narrative of your own cultural affiliations and identities.   What do you stress, value about your culture(s)?  How hybrid or globalized are you?  Where, when, under what circumstances do you feel conflicted, defensive, confused about your cultural identity/ies? Post by Sunday September 22, midnight.  Below are three postings of cultural bricolage from a previous class to inspire you!  Have fun :)  And READ each other's blogs!...respond to what is meaningful to you.

Various cultural influences shape my tattoos. I have the words "nature" and "god" tattooed across my wrists in Sanskrit, a space where Jesus was allegedly pierced as he was crucified. On my upper arms I have an abstract version of the African continent (abstract because it's supposed to mimic the henna tattoos Indian brides have on their palms) with the Hindu symbol for the sound of creation, on one arm. While the other has a short prayer to the Hindu god Shiva surrounded by the lotus flower. This collage of symbols is evident of what has influenced me as a human the most (Dominick).

When I'm walking around my neighborhood, the first thing that people often recognize, is my hair. And most people classify my to the group or culture of being a Rastafarian, "Rasta", which in my case, that's not a culture or a group that I can say I identify with. Like most, I don't really like to identify myself as being in a "culture", because there are its limitations, and you are often just boxed into what comes with being in a culture. And, I am totally the opposite of being boxed in. As an African-American young woman there are so many cultural identities, that I can be identified with, but I believe that it is the choices and options available to you, that deciphers what kind of cultures that you best coexist with. For me, I find that an "earthy-like" element is something that best fits with me. My look, I attempt to be very different, and I stray away from the norm of what Fashion is said to be like, I like my own originality. Even the music that I listen to, I have no limits to what I listen too, I love the words, in the poetic sense. (Victoria)

Due to problems at home my adolescent years became a period of disavowal of my Dominican upbringing. My parents and brother simply couldn't relate to me or my tastes, so I was playfully (on my parents' and other older Hispanics' behalf) labeled a 'gringo' and not-so-playfully teased and tortured by my first-born brother. So, I decided to take off with my newfound cultural interests and retaliate against this non-acceptance. To my peers in school, I'd pretend that I didn't speak Spanish. When they'd think I was white, I would wholeheartedly encourage it, matter of fact I took pleasure in their ignorance. I thought, better White than like you. I felt like I was toying with them, which was the seed for a 'healthy' superiority complex that sprouted later on. Ever since, I've been engaged in the process of trying to reconnect with my culture. It was an epiphany seeing a group of musicians that made the most of their hybridity, with full-blown acceptance, in turn helping me to realize that my generation is unique and lucky to be bilingual and multi-cultural. If i want my kids to experience and harness that beauty, i have to sustain it in myself, cultivate it, and make sure i can share it with my future family. My retaliation was part rebellion, half defense mechanism, and all learning.  (Rollin)

"The Dreaming"

In case anyone's interested, there is a 1982 song by Kate Bush called "The Dreaming" which talks about the relationship between the Aborigines and the white Australians.  The "dreaming" refers to ancient Aboriginal cosmological beliefs, and it means different things to different tribes.  It's complicated, but interesting.  You can read all about it on wikipedia.  The song references cases of white settlers (accidentally?) running over natives with their vehicles due to the natives blending in with their surroundings.  It also references the introduction of alcohol to the natives, which had devastating effects on their communities, much like the introduction of alcohol to Native Americans.  "Devils in a bottle."

The droning sound in the background of the song is from the didgeridoo, a traditional Aboriginal instrument.  Women are traditionally forbidden from playing it.

Here's the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJcAi9igY-o

Here are the lyrics:

http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/54732/

And if you're feeling adventurous, here's the music video to the song.  It looks like it cost exactly $23.50 to make:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2Wa0LdCsvM

Missing pages for "Children of the Sea"

Children of the Sea pages 11-12

On Rabbit-Proof Fence - Ira M.

The ironies in Rabbit-Proof Fence (film) carved themselves into my memory. The title “Chief Protector of the Aboriginese” given to A.O. Neville (as depicted in the film) could not have been more ironic. His actions showed the exact opposite of what his title meant to me: forced assimilation, indoctrination, and the erasure of all things Aboriginese (language, tradition, culture, etc.). He declared, along with his intention to do so, that the Aboriginese can be “bred out” from the hybrids by forcing them to mate with whites through as many generations necessary. He also claimed that “the native must be helped despite himself” - this reveals a flawed rationale whose purpose is to mask and justify British hegemony. First of all, the act of “helping” is a voluntary action on part of the doer – to be accepted or rejected by the receiver. To “help” someone while robbing them of choice is contradictory. To say that “the native must be helped despite himself” is to say that the native is ignorant, inferior, and unable to make sound decisions as if he is a child. The previous idea shows a “binary opposition” where the colonizer labels the indigenous people as “irrational” and “childlike” and therefore (by opposition) calls himself “superior” and “patriarchal” to borrow conviction for his atrocities. 

While I acknowledge that some supporters of the British effort of that time might have had genuinely good intentions, and that it is easy for us to sit and hurl criticisms at their entirety because we do not live in the same time and place, what was depicted in the film is sheer tyranny by the British colonizers. The colonizers saw a world that differed greatly from theirs and labelled it "savage" to justify changing that world into the spitting image of theirs and fulfill their need for homogeneity (and perhaps justify the current state of their own "superior" society). The colonizers brought with them their concepts of time, space, and "progress."  The idea of "progress" and "salvation" were associated with the British way of life: the emphasis on structure and work ethic. This eurocentric belief, in contrast with the Aboriginal way of life, "provided ideological justification for exclusionary practices..." (Smith 54). These exclusionary practices separated the "black" and "savage natives" from the "fair," "proper," and "rational."

The scene in the film where Mr. Neville tries to garner sympathy from the British settlers also upset me. By highlighting the difference in skin color between the Aborigines(including hybrids) and the British, and their purported differences in temperament he persuades the settlers that their cause is "just," all the while sweeping the inhumanities that the Aborigines had to suffer (inhumanities that the Aborigines never knew existed) under the rug. This reminds me of how a dominant force "rewrites history," divorcing itself from blame and criticism. This is the same peculiar maneuver that Ania Loomba exposes in "Situating Colonial and Postcolonial Studies" where she shows how the Oxford English Dictionary removes any possibility of "conquest and domination" from the word "colonialism" (1). Though I recognize a dictionary's need to stray away from controversial discourse, I can't help but scoff at how inaccurate the description is for historical application. The mask of innocence and "goodness" that such a definition gives for colonization casts a thick veil of ignorance that the world must see through.

Rabbit Proof Fence

Rabbit Proof Fence - A Film that depicts the lives of the Aborigine People and there struggle survive in a time where ideologies were imposed by British Govern law within Australia. My Personal reaction to the film is somewhat mixed with anger, frustration, distress, and a little bit of empathy. The British who settled from Europe were brought up on this mentality that you can just come into a new piece of land and claim that anything and everything you see is yours, which is sort of funny since the early stages of the film the Australian farmer states to Molly that the "Fence" separates themselves from the "Rabbits" which is sort of counter productive since the whole point of colonizing according to Loomba's  Situating Colonial and Postcolonial Studies "Colonialism can be defined as the conquest and control of other people's land and good" (25). Clearly this ideology is sort of bleak from the British mentality if they just want to reform those with a mixture of another race and leave the others people in case the Aborigine out to dry like a raisin in the sun. Watching this film I was beginning to think that all Western European ideologies on colonialism are somewhat derivative and redundant in a sense that throughout history it just hasn't work out in there favor nor the other conquers of other countries as clearly stated by Loomba, "...various European powers into Asia, Africa or the Americans...has been a recurrent of human history...Roman Empire...the Mongols...The Aztec Empire...Inca Empire...various kingdoms in India...and the Ottoman Empire" (25-26). So while I was saddened to see three young kids along other basically being programmed what to think, what to feel, how to talk, look and/or act in society I am not really surprise at all since history have this chronic tendency of repeating its self at nauseam and it makes me wonder have we ever really evolved at all as a human species as far as our raw emotions manifesting into something that eventually snowballs into something unimaginable?

Throughout the film you see examples of the  ideals being played out, for instance right before the Molly and her siblings were taken away you get a glimpse into the tactics that are were going to be imposed onto those Aborigine people when the white man who is  referred to as  "the devil" in Rabbit-scared Fences clearly states, "the Aborigine will be bread out of the native", this is further illustrated throughout the film with examples of the kids being stripped of there native tongue of language at become adept to speaking English, impose new faith onto them like religion and have them go harsh labor like when the Aborigine kids were sewing clothes and cleaning floors. It was appalling to watch that happen on film. Linda Smith uncovers the foundation of these ideals of the British colonizers in her article Decolonizing Methologies, "In Africa, the Americas and the pacific, western observers were struck by the contrast...by the indigenous peoples. Representation of 'native life'...and of the native people being lazy, indolent, with low attention spans" (31) and this type of attitude to the British was considered to be an "association between race...darker skin peoples being considered more 'naturally' indolent" (32). Although I believe this film horrific and tragic for its truth on the surface in relation to the treatment of the aborigine natives, it cuts much deeper into the psyche of people as whole on how we are driven by in my opinion a primal instinct like any animal to want to claim territory except in the case of people these primal instincts has manifested to our emotions such as fear, hysteria, insecurity. This all factors in to the mindset of colonialism and imperialism to a large extent and continues somewhat to this day.

  Rabbit - Proof Fence was an emotionally intense film. The horrific reality the Aborigine people had to endure was not an option they had; the law was the law and it had to be obeyed. Although the natives were oppressed, discriminated, and humiliated, by the British, there families were brutally separated as well. It was disturbing to see the three young native girls viciously taken away by the police without any mercy; their pride and ideology was more crucial than a desperate crying mother. It angered me when the youngsters were forced to diminish their own language; all for the sake of speaking English, “the proper language”. They simply had to eliminate everything that made them Aborigine.

 Eurocentrism was portrayed in the film when the British tried inculcating their culture, beliefs, and religion upon the children they captured. Not only did they have to apply everything they were taught, but their skin color was a critical issue. “White” was the ideal skin color and as a European that was essential. Although the Chief Protector was racist, he still accepted those who had fare skin because that meant that they were capable of generating a white family. After all the lighter skin and European status was one of the many ultimate goals. As a colony run by the British government, no one who had the liberty to be who they were, especially non-white people. According the article Situating Colonial and Post colonial Studies by Loomba and Smith, “…colonialism can be defined as the conquest and control of other people’s land and goods (25)”. Certainly the Aborigine’s had no control of their territory or even their people. Everything was under the empowerment of the British Government. A great example Loomba and Smith provide is Shakespeare’s drama, Othello. The great commotion on culture, loss of identity, and oppression can be noted when he mentions “Shakespeare’s drama is about a black man trying to live in a white society, assimilating yet maintain his identity/his loneliness is an integral feature of the play- he is isolated from other black people, from his history and culture (31)”. The young Aborigine girls are obligated to live a life they aren't accustomed to; they’re given a new identity, a new culture, religion, and language. As children it is easier for them to absorb everything they are taught and shown. We can see Molly’s 8 year old sister Daisy beginning to like the new environment she now lives in.  She doesn't want to leave the things the British people had offered her and soon she’ll forget she was an Aborigine. 

Blog on Rabbit Proof Fence due Sunday Evening Midnight for Monday Class

Hello World Lit Students Fall 2013!

This is your first blog for our class.  The purpose of the blogs is to start building good essay development, but the blog is less formal and allows you to express your personal feelings about our films and texts.  All blogs may be used in formal essays written for this course so the blog is a great place to start your rough draft and explore your good ideas. Scroll down to the bottom of this post and there is a space for you to enter your blog.  Feel free to write it on Word and copy and paste it in.  Be sure to click on labels to the right and put your name so I can find your blogs easily :).

1.  I want you to articulate your personal reaction to the film--tell me what moved you, what made you angry, what made you want to find out more about what happened to the Aborigine people during this time and about the ideology of the colonizers, the British law that governed at the time.

2.  Please review the materials in our course pack: the definition of terms we discussed on day one (ideology, grand narratives, hybridity etc) and the two articles by Loomba and Smith.  Find two ideas about the colonial/postcolonial condition and connect them to the film.  Quote directly from the articles in your blog (twice!) and explain how the "theory"(analysis) is connected to what the film depicts.

3.  Since this is a literature course, feel free to think about how the characters, the setting, the story itself, depict the colonial situation, what specific characters represent, how the values of the colonizer clash with those of the Aborigine people...

3.  Here is an example:

In Rabbit-Proof Fence, the "fence" is real and it is a symbol: it is a symbol of British power and at the same time, the limited vision, the desire to create boundaries and rules that are imposed on the indigenous population.  There were no "fences" before the British came. Fences "embody" British ideology, a desire for roads and boundaries that are used to control not only animals but also people--in this case people who are not considered fully human.  Linda Tuhiwai Smith in Decolonizing Methodologies explains that Europeans and indigenous Australians have very different ideas about physical space.  The British need "to establish boundaries and to mark the limits of colonial power" (53).  She explains that "the establishment of military, missionary or trading stations, the building of roads, ports and bridges. . . all involved processes of marking, defining and controlling space" (52).  What is most powerful in the film is the way the deeply intelligent, connected to the land, Aborigines, find a way to escape the boundaries of the British Protectorate.

Some MLA rules that you need to know:
Titles of books are in italics.
Titles of articles are in "quotes"
Put the page number of the article in parentheses after the quote and before the period--see above.

Welcome to World Literature Written in English

Welcome class of Fall 2013.  Here you will find course documents and blog assignments.  We will also share research information and ideas for presentations related to our readings.

You will need to create a gmail account and send me that email address.  Then I can invite you to the blog: http://worldlit295.blogspot.com
 

Major Themes and Questions:

This course will explore some of the major themes of World Literature Written in English. We will discuss a set of questions about the nature of identity in a post-war,  post-colonial and post-modern context.

·      How is identity shaped by the legacy of colonial histories?

·      How do issues of displacement, loss of community, of     homeland affect the formation of identity?

·      How do generational struggles and oppositions play a role in defining the ‘self’?

·      How are women’s identities shaped by a given culture’s patriarchal codes? How are these codes a form of “colonialism”?

·      How do new generations deal with ambivalence and guilt about cultural identity?

·       How do individuals shape paths of resistance and emancipation; how do they speak back within their communities and to the larger communities in which they find themselves?

·      What does the “voice” of the post-colonial subject teach us—about others, about ourselves? 

·      How can we read and discuss post-colonial literature in ways that recognize the dangers of “cultural tourism”; in ways that acknowledge our own internalized colonial values?

Stay tuned for your first blog assignment.