Hello dear readers, and welcome back! I hope you were able to get some R&R and spend time with the ones you love during the winter break. For the past few weeks, our class has been focused on Jonathan Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a novel that portrays the events of 9/11 through the narrative of a nine-year-old child named Oskar. The novel touches on many themes, with one of them being the theme of “trauma” and the different ways individuals deal with it.

As one may expect, the majority of our class decided to write their blog posts on Foer’s novel. Therefore, ‘trauma’ is going to be the dough (foundation) of our pizza, and the responses of my classmates will be our ‘toppings.’

-Add sliced pepperonis-

Kaveel’s blog post talks about how he experienced 9/11 during his childhood because his parents wanted him to become “as aware and informed” as he could be. It was through the media that he learned about the horrors of that event, and it was through the horrors of that event did an irrational fear manifested within him as a child. He speculates that the irrational fear of Arab’s he had was emphasized by the media, and how he ended up “obliviously” associating traditional Arab outfits with terrorism.

-Add a pinch of herbs-

Peijia’s blog post  speaks about the language Foer uses in his novel, and she suggests that using a child narrator allows for acceptable usage of blunt language. And she has a point – Oskar is very blunt (“There was a lot of stuff that made me panicky, like […] Arab people on the subway (even though I’m not racist) …” (36)). She further noticed that the racial language Oskar uses towards Arab people was a reflection of “some of the thoughts thousands of Americans were thinking after the attack – but they couldn’t directly say it.”

-Add mozzarella layering-

Raphael’s blog post touches on “xenophobia, fear, anger” in the “post 9/11 world” in his conclusion. He explains that because of traumatic events involving international players, the language of fear and discrimination will continue to exist. He further suggests that “fear, xenophobia and anxiety are very much intertwined with our human reaction to traumatic events.”

-Cook for 5 minutes…-

Taking into consideration these three toppings for our recipe, they suggest that a mix of fear and anxiety can cause people to act irrationally – mainly by manifesting an irrational fear linked to a traumatic event. A combination like this is what can lead to headaches, stomach aches, xenophobia, and racial speech. This is quite unhealthy for a daily diet, because understanding, compassion, and sympathy become replaced with ignorance, malice, and revenge.

-…then rotate the pizza and bake for another 3-5 minutes-

However, just like how there are many different kinds of pizza, there are also many different ways of dealing with trauma. For example, some further toppings that I’d like to suggest are pineapple and fried bananas.

Thank you for reading, and bon appétit!

    Within the Global Citizens stream in the Coordinated Arts Program, the following ingredients have been added to the academic blender in order to produce the perfect Global Citizen smoothie: Political Science, Sociology, and ASTU (Literature Studies). However, a few students have taken it upon themselves to add specific ingredients (topics) of their choosing to bring forth new flavours (insights) to pre-existing ingredients.

     Priya’s first blog post addresses a very controversial topic that has stood the test of time (probably ever since technological advancements with CRT TV’s): Media monopolization. Although the focus of her post revolves around Shazad’s academic research on learning and  memory, Priya highlights a quote by a student within Shazad’s writing that accentuates the topic of media monopolization – “Dealing with the biases of media, it has become hard to inform my own paradigm”.

    This sour flavour of manipulation relates to Nico’s post about the Syrian Refugee Crisis, as the media plays a substantial role on how much information about the crisis is conveyed to its audience. Nico expresses how important global cooperation is during a time of need, and also stresses how important it is to not fall victim to the ‘Bystander Effect.’ This is in relation to a student’s observation of how the media reports the crisis in a more EU centric, implying that North America has no obligation to aid the migrants.

    Kaveel, Ina, and Taylor have chosen similar ingredients by further examining Shazad`s research, and have chosen to focus on the idea of Shazad`s idea of “Interpretive Communities.” These communities encourage active learning through the participation of two (or more) people, and the technologies used by Interpretive Communities include (but are not limited too) lectures in a school setting (Kaveel), blogs (Ina), social media, and books. It is also worth noting that some sort of bias will always develop within Interpretive Communities, because that is the inevitable flavour of sharing information (Taylor), especially within the media (Priya).

   All of the ingredients that these students have shown are reminders of how important it is to be aware and knowledgeable of the current state of the globe, as there is always two sides of a coin. Being ignorant of the other side only leads to unnecessary bias, and could lead to falling victim to the ‘Bystander Effect.’ Therefore, it is important to have an open mind and acknowledge the different perspectives this fortunate (or unfortunate) world has to offer.