Questions for Art Assignment: Wangechi Mutu

This set of questions is posted under course documents as ENG 295 Art Response--note that completing these questions will set you up for essay draft due Monday!  Whoever does not come with me needs to attach Brooklyn Museum stub to essay :)

Follow this sequence in responding to your chosen piece (take good notes)

1.  Experience:

What are your feelings when you look at the image?  Write your reactions including any personal experiences that you can relate to the image.

   

2.  Literal:
Describe exactly what you see in the image or artifact.  Be as precise as you can, noting colors, materials and textures, gesture, expression, mood (Is it sad, playful, dramatic, lyrical?).  Also notice the way space is used within a painting, around a sculpture. . .


3.  Interpretation:

Draw a conclusion about what is happening in the artifact or picture and why it is happening: what meaning does the imagery (all the elements of the image) convey?  You may have more than one idea here, but try to connect them.


4.  Evaluation:

What world-view is conveyed in the image?  In other words what kind of judgment does the image or artifact make about society or reality?  How does the image connect to ideas we have been discussing in our class, if any?

With each step, as we do in our discussion of literature, remember to give specific evidence from the image to support your claims.  This structure may be used to expand your reflections into an essay. 

AT the exhibit, choose one image or artifact to write about using this guide.  The information you record will become your essay for English 295: Connecting Postcolonial Ideas to Images, due October 31.

Blog on Danticat Here by Sunday Evening for Monday Class! (October 21)

Hi Everyone--Please read the essay in the coursepak "Silences Too Horrific to Disturb": Writing Sexual Histories in Edwidge Danticat's Breath, Eyes, Memory."  It begins on page 113.

The author, Donette Francis, argues that "the subjection to violence shapes these women's subjectivities" and that "cultural institutions" not only "enforce sexual violence" but also "conceal it" (77).  This concealment is perhaps why Danticat writes this novel.

Please write a blog in response to both the article (what piece of information was most interesting, valuable to you from the article in understanding the novel) and to the climax and ending of the novel.  Why do you think Danticat ends the novel in such a painful way?  At the same time there are moments of tremendous beauty in the novel: in other words, Danticat has managed to show us both the trauma suffered by Haitian women and also their strength, their powerful community.  Please find one example of how that powerful sense of connection, community, helps Sophie overcome her trauma and stay connected to her family.

Finally--please think about your research interests!  We will devote some class time to that topic.

Works Cited Entries for Short Stories

Below I am posting the information for your Works Cited entries.  A printable version may be found under course documents.  Second line should be indented five spaces (use hanging feature under paragraph format in Microsoft Word).

Danticat, Edwidge. “Children of the Sea.” Krik? Krak! New York: Soho Press, 1991. Print.

Head, Bessie. “Life.” The Collector of Treasures and other Botswana village tales. New York: Heinemann, 1992. Print.

Lahiri, Jhumpa. “Interpreter of Maladies.” Interpreter of Maladies. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. Print.

Le, Nam. “Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice.” The Boat. New York: Vintage, 2008. Print.

Orwell, George. “Shooting an Elephant.” Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays. London: Secker and Warburg, 1950. Print.

Note: I am giving you the print entry for Orwell, though we read online version.  Feel free to use this information for your works cited.