Hello all,

Happy Reading Break!

Last week our ASTU class finished reading Juliana Spahr’s This Connection of Everyone With Lungs, and, unsurprisingly, it was the central focus of many students’ blog entries. Themes included separation and connection, us vs. them, security and vulnerability, and other dichotomies.

Mariana focuses on people’s sense of security, as well as vulnerability in Sphar’s This Connection of Everyone With Lungs. Mariana contends: “People are vulnerable no matter where they are. The illusion of security that exists in our beds is so faint and fragile that it can barely protect us”. Mariana throughout her blog post focuses on the sense of privacy and security on the individual level, compared to the sense of vulnerability on the global scale. I agree with Mariana’s claim that with growing globalization and media, it is getting more and more difficult to be secure in our beds, and remain private and unaffected by outside influences in our lives.

Jacqueline takes a different approach, linking Judith Butler’s position about the body to the work of Juliana Spahr. In her blog post, Jacqueline highlights this sense of separation and lack of connection between people due to the physical separation between their bodies. “When I applied Butler to [Spahr’s] work I realized that she actually accomplishes a way to explore grief in a constructive manner that doesn’t dichotomize the “us and the them”.” I thought this was a unique perspective, and a connection that I did not make immediately on my own. I did not think to associate Butler’s theories to Spahr in this way. I find that Jacqueline swayed me to support this view.

Tzur, in his blog, highlights Spahr’s geographic distance from the mainland U.S.; yet despite this, claims that Spahr “is still connected to everyone”. Tzur argues, “in spite of nationalities, borders, and everything else we are all humans–interconnected, interdependent, interlocked–on this planet”. Sam offers a different take. He contends that a certain “Geographical Imagination” is required when going through life. That is, “idea of understanding what you are connected with through your given geographical and political situation”. Sam is not saying that people are not connected; he is simply saying that it is important to understand how our geographic positioning and socialized upbringing play an important role in how we interact with and connect to other people.

Personally, I am not quite sure where I stand in regards to this matter. I tend to waffle back and forth between thinking that we are all connected as human beings, and then thinking that our upbringings, cultures, national ties, religions, and other factors result in our distinction from others. For now, I will tentatively choose to adopt Sam’s idea of “Geographical Imagination” and see where it goes.

Nico did a wonderful job of thoroughly analyzing Spahr’s work. He drew many connections ranging from our previous reading from last semester, Safe Area Goražde, to historic and real world examples (Jim Crow laws and the Black Lives Matter movement) to our other CAP classes, Geography 122 and Sociology 100. It was interesting to see how his mind works, drawing all sorts of connections and applying them to our readings.

Spahr was not exclusively the topic of everyone’s blog posts this week, however. Kaveel chose to analyze post-9/11 poetry in general, and discussed his fascination with how different audiences could apply different meaning or significance to the same poem. (He highlights W.H. Auden’s poem “September 1, 1939” in the context of the September 11, 2001.) Diego, similarly, analyzed the poems “The Names” by Billy Collins and “Photograph from September 11” by Wislawa Szymborkska in his blog entry. Kihan wrote a very interesting blog post about “counter-monuments”, linking it to 9/11 memorialization. Rachel linked our readings about violence and trauma to a film called The Flowers of War, analyzing the film’s similarities and differences to what we’ve been discussing in class.

There are many other interesting blog posts, and I wish I could give them all the proper recognition they deserve, but just know that I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the posts this week. Keep them coming, bloggers!

-Kendall Manifould

Hello Readers,

I want to first congratulate everyone on their excellent blog posts this week; I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of them! You all raised some interesting points and brought very thought-provoking questions to the table.

A common theme for this week’s blog post was Farhad Shahzad’s “The Role of Interpretive Communities in Remembering and Learning”, as well as the subject of scholarly academic writing. Jennifer Lai, Kristen Lew, and Sania Shoaib highlight these topics. Kaveel Singh and Sam Tuck zoom in on Shahzad’s theory of “interpretive communities”.

Another popular subject this week was our discussions in class, specifically regarding different technologies of memory. Mariana Drok described the importance of storytelling as a technology of memory, especially its significance to First Nations’ history. Ina de Weerdt went on to talk about how blogging is another technology of memory that has greatly impacted her, and how she feels that she belongs to a blogging interpretive community.

Another source of speculation was regarding the issue of “bias”. Jacqueline DeSantis speculated whether “bias” was any different from “perspective”; she views that one has an inherently negative connotation while the other is viewed in a more positive light. She claims, “The difference between bias and perspective is not as cut and dry as it seems. If we replace the word bias with perspective then it seems like people are less critical of an outside influence.” Meanwhile, Mariana Dork argues that bias is the only way for events to be accurately recorded in history. She says, “Information is a powerful tool of manipulation in the 21^st century. When it is being distorted the only way to learn the truth is by listening to people, who have experienced a particular event themselves.” Taylor Khatkar proposes an interesting view on this topic while referencing Nigerian novelist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk “The Danger of a Single Story”.

I personally find this subject very interesting to debate. I feel on the one hand, bias should not cloud one’s judgment and prevent one from considering other possibilities or perspectives, but on the other hand, how can you experience ANYTHING in your life without having a bias? It’s just not possible. In that regard, bias shouldn’t be viewed as a bad thing.

Some of my classmates mused over the question that has been presented to us from day one: “What is a global citizen?” Raphael Gamo asserts, “…global citizenship is the privilege to learn and interact with people from all over the world, to discover issues and solutions, and to just in general communicate on a scale larger than your immediate locale.” He also went on to talk about his experiences living in Jakarta, Indonesia and attending an international school there. “Due to this high concentration of different cultures and nationalities, I feel drawn towards international communities, and in turn, the idea of global citizens. I can’t really imagine any other way when it comes to the communities. I’m a part of, the mix of people just seems to feel right and comfortable.” This particular statement resonated with me because I, too, lived overseas and attended an international school in Singapore. Diversity was a largely influential factor in my decision to attend UBC. Ken Sakamoto also shares a similar view on this topic.

Nicolo Jimenez wrote about the Syrian Refugee Crisis, and our responsibilities as global citizens to aid them in their struggles: “I do not think it is appropriate at all for one country to be spearheading the Syrian Refugee Crisis or for countries who are more stable financially and politically to stand back and remain lukewarm! I take it my responsibility to advocate for more countries to rally as a whole and tackle this phenomenon in unity because we are stronger together.” The Syrian Refugee Crisis is a very critical issue in the world at this time, and as students in an ever-increasing globalized world, it is our responsibility to be aware of the crisis, and be educated in the nation’s responses and policies regarding the refugees.

As an endnote, the majority of students discussed how grateful they are to be in the Global Citizens CAP stream. They are able to pull connections between lectures and academic perspectives to form a more interconnectedness view of the world around us. This was a main theme in Carolina Judkowicz’s blog, as well as many others.

Keep it up, bloggers!

-Kendall Manifould