What’s up ASTU 100 I know everyone is busy with Halloween plans since it is the bestt holiday of the year but I just wanted to say I really enjoyed reading everyone’s posts. After reading all of your guys blogs and getting some great decorative inspiration for my own I noticed most people talked about Persepolis or the Chute article we’ve been analyzing in class lately but the way everyone connect these two sources to other things is where stuff really got interesting! It was great hearing the connections people drew from the reading to our other classes and to their personal lives.

I want to start by talking about some of the blogs that drew on the last couple class discussions we had because they seemed to really get people thinking. Pieja referenced Isabelle in her blog and left some interesting commentary on the issue of whether a child can or cannot comprehend certain levels of brutality. She weighs in on this debate by explaining that in her childhood when she witnessed animals being killed in front of her, “I remember thinking that whole thing was very disgusting, and how sad it must have been for the animal to die. But at the same time, it seemed very ordinary, how animals must die to feed the human population. Looking back now, if I were to draw what I saw as a 6/7 year old, my visual representation would not be more than a scraggly shape of a chicken with X-crossed eyes and a spew of spiky blood coming from its neck.” This was a common sentiment in class and was used by a lot of other bloggers to explain Satrapi’s pared down art style. Raphael talked a bit about our group work on the Chute article as well as Satrapi’s drawing style, “The childlike simplicity with which we are given the perspective lends itself to greater inferred meaning. As we mentioned in class just today, the simplification of events and style add a greater impact than that of a realistic style. There is an “insufficiency of any representation to ‘fully’ represent trauma” (103). There seems to be somewhat of a consensus in regards to the function of Satrapi’s use of simplification in her drawing.

Another common connection people made this week was between Satrapi’s artistic style and other books. Sam Tuck brought up a book that Dr. Luger also talked to us about, Art Speigelman’s Maus series. He makes some great connections between the two graphic narratives and brings it back to the conversation we had in class about testimony. Sam drew a direct connection between the Satrapi and the author of the Maus Series, “It is as if he is in the place of the reader if he were reading Satrapi’s Persepolis. Satrapi’s testimony and style of narrative gives rise to the reader’s imagination of her trauma and her experience. This is like how only through Vladek’s stories can he grasp the unimaginably brutal trauma that Vladek experienced. Because of this, he must draw only his imagination of the brutality that Auschwitz prisoners experienced.” He too touches on the drawing style while drawing a connection to a similar style of book that also deals with trauma and brutality. Kihan also draws a connection to a book she read outside of class and compares the drawing style in Persepolis to the writing style of the Canadian author Anne Michaels. Kihan explains how the book Fugitive Pieces also deals with the explanation of trauma by using poetic language and syntax. Just like our discussion in class not everyone agrees with this technique and Kihan explains that critique, “Michaels has been criticized for this by those who find it problematic to fictionalize and make poetry out of what was/is a painful reality for so many, especially because Michaels uses her artistic craft and highly stylized diction to make this dark history sound, well, beautiful” but asserts that, “Thus, I would agree with Chute that Satrapi avoids glorifying the trauma in Persepolis not despite but in fact because of her abstraction of it…”. I found this comparison extremely intriguing since she compares the writing style of one author to the drawing style of another. For me I had never thought of this issue until it was brought up in class discussions but now I realize after reading Kihan’s blog that author’s are doing what Satrapi did all the time just without pictures and thus less obviously.

Finally, we had a few people mention things completely separate from Persepolis which was great for varieties sake. Iman talked about the original question posed to us CAP’s students at the beginning of the year about the meaning of a global citizenship. It seems that question kept her thinking because in her blog post she uses a connection in her own life to offer some understanding, “Through my interpretation there is not a set definition for what a global citizen is. Nonetheless, I believe a global citizen allows an individual to learn from people from all over the world, to study issues, and to connect and interact with other individuals. By advocating, at the local and global level most people feel a connection to others around the world who are facing similar challenges.” Iman described an awesome sounding organization that works to give voices to children in developing nations and how that experience helped shape her understanding of a global citizen.

Overall, it seemed like the discussions we’ve been having in class have gotten people thinking and now that there is somewhat of a general consensus about the big question of Satrapi’s intention with her drawing style I think it’s time our class considered some new questions. Personally, I would love to hear some input on the feminist perspective Chute uses to critique Persepolis since it wasn’t something I understood too well until Dr. Luger explained it to me. I hope everyone has a lovely week and don’t forget to pick up the book Dr. Luger ordered for us at the bookstore!