Hello all,

In out ASTU class this week we began with a discussion of Saal’s article on Johnathan Safran Foer’s novel “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”. From here we moved on to discuss Judith Butler’s novel “Frames of War: When is Life Grievable?” which is the main theoretical lens which Saal uses in her unpacking of Foer’s text. Not surprisingly, the blogs this week were in discussion of the questions raised by both Saal and Butler, and their applications in our community and our world.

In all the blogs this week, there was one strong motif of “us” vs “them” which really stood out. This idea of “us” vs “them” stems from Butler’s argument against our socially developed, western, mono-narrative understanding of the grievability of some lives over others. To quickly explain; Butler argues that due to our physical bodies vulnerability to destruction we are socially conditioned into fearing others that we do not see ourselves in (due to culture, values, media, etc.). These people’s lives, however similar to us in their own vulnerability, we see as “ungrieveable” due to our specific frames of “us” and “them” developed by our social nature. We see their lives as “that [which] cannot be mourned because it has never lived, that is, it has never counted as a life at all” (38). Throughout the blogs this thinking is taken apart in many different social circumstances to evaluate the problem and complications associated with this type of thinking, and how we may come to be more cosmopolitan in how we understand our place in the world.

If that made no sense to you, check out Nicola’s blog, her explanation of Saal and Butler is great, and she goes on to expand this idea of the “other” to language. She argues that how we speak about, and convey this “other” (or “them”) is reminiscent of our specific frame of thinking and therefore solidifies our separation of their humanity from ours. To help break out of this dichotomy of us and them, we must think about how and what we are saying, and what message this reinforces. Similarly, Kaveel in his blog talks about the connection of Butler’s argument of different “Frames” to Shazad’s article on interpretive communities. He says that these communities, being created through social interaction also act as ways in which Butler’s “frames” are shaped. These in turn shape our understanding of “them” and affect the ways that we act.

While the two blogs above discuss the frames (and the creation of these frames) used to shape Butler’s idea of “us” and “them”, I’d like to move to two blogs which present examples of this type of thinking in our community and internationally. Kihan, in her blog applies Butler’s lens to that of the c̓əsnaʔəm Musqueam burial ground incident in 2012. She argues that perhaps, there is a “mainstream Canadian view of Indigenous lives as “ungreivable””, which was present in the mistreatment of Musqueam burial ground, and still is in Canadian society. She also provides another example of this distinction of “them” in her community: The 26^th Annual February 14^th Women’s Memorial March for the missing and murdered women of the downtown eastside. Kihan argues that events such as this, and the 100 day vigil following the c̓əsnaʔəm Musqueam burial ground incident in 2012 are examples of social events that work to break down the barriers set up by our frames of grievability inside our community, city and our country.

While the classes’ blogs were mostly focused on the negative aspect of creating a “them”, Tzurs blog takes the discussion of Butler’s frame type thinking in a unique direction. While Kihan’s blog focused on two examples of “them”, and one example of the “us” type thinking (South Memorial Cemetery) in commentary with the “them”, Tzurs blog focuses on the negative results of including some people, or nation-states in this “us” type thinking. He argues that America’s foreign policy of mutual alliance with Saudi Arabia (which he says means including them in the “us” category) is negative in this thinking of “us” and “them”, as the Saudi’s long history of continuing human rights abuses do not fit with Americas values, and therefore it is dangerous to include them as part of who we frame as “us”. He justifies Americas decision to include them because “the primary factor for classifying someone as “us” or “them” is whether or not they consolidate power for our side.” A number of questions pop into my head following this example, which I think is a controversial, but also a creative flipping of situations that Butler might find intriguing.

To make these questions of “whose life is grievable?” even more confusing and complex, I’d like to apply this thinking to something we discussed in Human Geography in order to think about the message of these blogs as a whole. In my discussion for Human Geography, we talked about social inequality of sweatshops in terms of global wealth distribution and how we should live inside this western, relatively rich frame with that issue in mind. Should we buy products produced in sweatshops, even if it seems everything is produced by them now? I think this issue can easily be viewed from Butler’s idea of “us” and “them” discussed I the blogs. Ignoring arguments that sweatshops improve people in certain situations lives, I would like to be able to give an ultimatum of saying no, and include them in a cosmopolitan understanding of people around the world. However, as Ina says in her blog, in our daily lives that idea of “us” and “them” is present everywhere, from our relationships with family and social circles, to those distinctions we make in an international context. So realistically, I think those people working in sweatshops we ignorantly and even unconsciously distinguish as in the “them” category, by buying things in massive quantities produced by their pain, for our material gain. With this in mind, how do we change our frame of mind if it is unconscious, and built into the very system we live in and are socialized to? How do we break out of this distinction of “us” and “them”? This is what Butler writes a whole book on, and so many of the blog this week were about, so I don’t have a definitive answer quite yet. However, like Nicola and Kaveel suggest, through the way we think, speak and interact with others this distinction is created. Therefore, we must break out of our ignorant and unconscious actions within this frame, and take on a conscious state of mind in which we analyze the way we act all the time to determine our actions effect on how we view others. This in its essence is the cosmopolite existence which Butler strives for, but which is intricately hidden within our daily social lives by the cloudy frames that have been placed in our minds and that we view the world through. To conclude, I’d like to leave you all with a quote from Booker T. Washington:

Hello fellow classmates,

Throughout the last few weeks we’ve been focusing on the novel “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer, delving into both its literary features as well as its applicable scholarly themes. Of note we’ve been talking a lot about fear, trauma, and all sorts of concepts that stem from all kinds of awful events.

As everyone in class should be familiar with, we’ve explored the work of Ilka Saal who wrote about “trauma transfer”, and just last week we discussed the first chapter of theorist Judith Butler’s book “Frames of War”. Having a fair deal of reading as we got started, we recently spent a lot of our time going through essential ideas within the texts: the “us vs them” mentality, the frames in which we understand stimuli, who is responsible for who/what, as well as the value of a life (or even a death).

One of our central topics is started off by Kaveel, who likens the interpretive frames of Butler to the interpretive communities of Shahzad. However, unlike the positives which Shahzad emphasises in her education-based article, Butler explains that the frames can be negative instead. Carolina briefly addresses this idea, explaining how the news exploited people to go out and purchase goods to curb their fears. Kaveel mentions that these frames can be manipulated in ways that affect the knowledge of the population using the example of exceptionalism in America. He says, “We certainly are blinded and disregard the lives lost by the perceived ‘enemies’ however if one of ‘our me’ dies it’s an event which is heavily grieved.”

This idea that frames of interpretation can begin to cause greater divide leads directly into the heavily discussed topic of “us and them”. As Kendall points out, the idea behind this divide is linked to the idea of a sort of social responsibility. “Am I responsible for all others, or only to some, and on what basis would I draw that line?” (Butler, 35). She explains how the concept is troubling even if it seems entirely natural to create a separation in order to facilitate identity and roles within societies. Kendall expressed a fascination with the idea of the mutual vulnerability of all humans, that by understanding how our existence is facilitated by the existence of other separated yet relatable humans, we may be able to shrink the necessary gap.

Continuing with our discussion of us and them, the aspect of value was explored by many of us in the class. Sania questions why certain groups of people are given greater attention and value within the media, going further to question why classifications like social class and race are still primary measures of worth within the world. She uses the example of the Paris attack vs many other incidents which received minimal news coverage. Nico uses a similar example, where the Charlie Hebdo shooting seemed to heavily overshadow the massacre which occurred in Baga, Nigeria around the same time.

Taylor relates this theme to Foer’s novel, recapping how Oskar felt so strongly for the death of his father in 9/11, yet gave a non-empathetic class presentation about the bombings of Japan of World War II. All of these examples can be summed up in one of Butler’s conclusions as explained by Kihan. “The extent to which we recognise ourselves in other people … leads us to mourn for them.” Since the frames presented to us by the media, our communities and other voices of authority lead us to create and further the divide between the conceived “us” and “them”, people become unable to see outside of the given frames and realise that there are many other similarities that aren’t explicit from their current perspective. This leads to a vast difference in which people are deemed valuable in both life and death, and those who are ‘never counted as a life at all.” (Butler 38).

All in all, the difficulty and subject matter of Butler’s writing has been highly pivotal in our process of critically analysing the concepts of Foer’s novel, as well as real life examples that we’ve seen in the blogs of last week. Just like Professor Luger said in class, it may have been difficult to get started, but going through it has proved very insightful.

Have a good week.

Hey ASTU 100,

For the past couple of weeks, our class has focused on memory and trauma through the works of literary scholar Ilka Saal and more recently, literary theorist Judith Butler. These two articles were thought-provoking because they challenged ideas such as trauma transfer and vulnerability. Judith Butler’s article sparked my interest as she interrogates the extent of our social responsibility – focused primarily on the context of war. Where exactly do we draw the line between “us” and “them” when we consider who we want to grieve for? Why do we grieve for who we grieve for more than others? It was interesting to see the different connections being made in most of my classmates’ blogs as they too, were inspired by this question.

Butler claims that “by a cultural reflex, we mourn for some lives but respond with coldness to the loss of others” (36). a href=”http://blogs.ubc.ca/taylorkhatkar/2016/01/28/the-value-of-death-by-taylor-khatkar/”>Taylor reflects on this through Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, in which Oskar is seen to value his father more than people he doesn’t know. This is shaped by their relationship as father-son and Taylor explains that if he was not such a strong influence in his life, Oskar might have been more apathetic towards his father. Kendall extends this conversation and sees this Us vs. Them distinction as a “natural human response”. She considers the possibility that as social creatures, we will be “capable of understanding one another, despite differences in culture, religion, beliefs, and norms”. This perfectly segues into Mariana’s blog as she affirms that it is “a challenge restricted to the individual, to leave their comfort zone and see the interconnection with other people”. It is in these reflections that we see that value is shaped by both personal frames and social interactions with those we surround ourselves with.

Two of our classmates were interested in this cultural reflex. As Sania questions, “how and why are these factors still given place in society?” (on giving social status labels) She observes that media has been a significant tool in illustrating who deserves grief and who doesn’t, backing up points with the ISIS Crisis. Likewise, Kihan exemplifies this through the Musqueam land controversy. By not identifying ourselves with the Aboriginals, we do not feel the need to mourn for them.

In looking into these various connections, many of us have grasped Butler’s contention and started inquiries she wanted to be considered. Her work was difficult to approach, however I personally feel we’ve all reached the level of critical thinking that tries to help us understand why we value specific lives more than others.

Hope you have a good week!

Kristen Ylo

Hello Readers!

This week we reflected upon two scholarly articles: Ilka Saals, Regarding the Pain of Self and Other: Trauma Transfer and Narrative Framing in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and Judith Butler’s Survivability, Vulnerability, Affect.” Frames of War: When is a Life Grievable? London: Verso. Butler’s article was mainly discussed in this week’s class blogs as it regards the impact of interpretation and perspective through the concept of how we remember trauma through the way we value life.

Let’s start off with Priya who questions why the lives of some people are given more importance than others. She told her bloggers that it made her wonder that if we still have the ‘us’ and ‘them’ perspective then why claim to be ‘globalized’. When the term global citizen really exists then why don’t we consider everyone as one of ‘us’ and why don’t we eliminate the ‘them’ perspective. Likewise, Sania’s questions how a global citizen can relate to what Butler is trying to say, where the global voice will always value some people over others. Nicola ponders the idea that everyone is vulnerable and able to use trauma transfer, which was prominent in Saal’s essay. She uses the example of the Syrian refugees coming to Canada as a key indication to show the world that the ‘us’ and ‘them’ concept is diminishing. With this hopeful perspective there is a great recognition of mutual vulnerability between people. Through a different interpretation, Kihan was the only blogger who talked about the c̓esnaʔәm Tour. She connected the tour to the ‘us’ and ‘them’ where she illustrates that the burial ground is a celebrated multicultural Canadian society and a mainstream public’s apathy towards Indigenous ancestors which alludes to a greater issue of a mainstream Canadian view of Indigenous lives as “ungreivable”.

Moreover, Ina says who we identity ourselves with and how we differentiate ourselves based on personal values, beliefs, culture, gender or looks. She inquiries on whom and how one decided one person’s value over another’s and how we deiced whom we go to war with. She made a very interesting point by illustrating that there always seems to be sides and the ‘us’ and ‘them’ almost seems unavoidable in some situations. Kendall indicates, “You’re either with me, or a threat to me.” This frame of mind has been the natural self-preservation instinct that has kept humans alive for thousands of years. This made Kendall believe that humans are capable of understanding one another, despite differences in culture, religion, beliefs, and norms (basically the way we value life).

On the other hand, Kaveel explains how he is still unable to voice his thoughts because he is still puzzled why the US does what it does on the world stage. The issue of ‘frames’ as a negative force is one that was largely emphasized in Butlers work. Kaveel reveals that Butler really goes deep into the issues of morality of war and discusses the frame we often perceive of, the US wanting to spread their ‘ideals’ and doing well for the world by American Exceptionalism. Which takes me to Nico who also expands upon American exceptionalism. He believes that there seems to be a large inconsistency between the justifications a country in the West would receive in comparison to a country in the Global South. He shows us how perspectives from a larger context connect to an ethnocentric lens to view humanity.

Taylor denotes how Butler focuses on the vulnerability of the body, as well as the impact of interpretation and perspective regarding the lens through which we see and remember trauma. With some deaths that affect us more deeply than others she says we value different peoples’ deaths at varying degrees. In another manner, Dione’s blog conveys the reason why it is not beneficial to understand one event through another is because numerical comparison is hard to avoid. Finally, Diego’s uses the word “pseudo-comic book” to explain how both the imagery and text are present throughout the novel. Even though this book does not look like a regular graphic novel the imagery still had a lot of meaning with the intense imagery.

Overall, the blogs written this week were very insightful even with the difficulty of Butler’s essay. The blogs posed a lot of questions, which went further with the themes of absence and misconnection that we talked about last week in class and I cannot wait to read more!

Anyways, thanks for reading my long blog!

-Imaan

Hello! 🙂

Welcome back and Happy New Year! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas holiday and had time to catch up with your family and friends!

In our ASTU class, we have started off the year with Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. This emotionally moving novel which is centered around a 9 year old boy named Oskar who is traumatized by the passing of his father during 9/11. Oskar seeks to find answers as to how his father passed and searches for the lock to the key which he found in his deceased father’s closet, and through his search he comes across others who have experienced trauma from loss of their loved ones. As a class, we have discussed the book through themes of absence and misconnection.

Some bloggers found reading and following along with Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close somewhat difficult due to its “sporadic” layout. Kendall mentioned how Oskar’s dispersed viewpoints were similar to the thought process of a 9 year old. She also expressed how refreshing but annoying it was that Oskar’s would jump from one subject matter then become side tracked for a while before coming back to his first subject. Similarly to Kendall, Taylor also called the layout of the novel “sporadic,” and explains how this is significant in representing the traumatized characters. She argues that the “random order of the visuals and jumping around from one character’s thoughts and actions to another” demonstrates how when one is traumatized, things don’t make sense. I would like to add on to Taylor’s thought and mention that I think that when one is traumatized, so many thoughts and questions run through their head and sometimes it is hard to organize their thoughts or really know what they want to say or do. Sometimes some are so traumatized that their mind goes blank as they cannot accept or understand what has happened and therefore become speechless. This happened to Oskar’s grandpa, Thomas Jr.

As naïve as this sounds, I grew up without much news television and therefore I wasn’t fully aware of what exactly happened during 9/11 until this year. It was interesting but especially heavy to have learned about it through a personal story rather than reading it from a news article full of statistics and facts without an emotional tone. This brings me to Imaan’s post where she shares how her cousin was taking a subway to get off at the World Trade Centre the moment everyone started to evacuate. As her cousin was traumatized, she could not take the subway for a while. Which takes me to Kaveel’s blog where he talks about his experience of growing up learning about 9/11. Its interesting how much of an influential role media plays, as Kaveel claims in his blog post, that “it fascinates [him] [how] media was able to alter [his] thinking in such a way” as to be the cause of his xenophobia of Arabian people in the past; “even though [he is not] racist.”

On a different note, I was glad that in his blog post Ken brought up his belief that the ones who roared “revenge!” were most likely the ones who were not directly involved in the event. Those who were directly affected and had lost their loved ones were so traumatized that they were speechless and all they wanted was for their loved ones back, while the others only reacted to their shock.

In my opinion, no matter what terrible thing one has done, I would NEVER EVER wish a traumatic/horrible event upon them nor wish them to suffer. Especially knowing how much it hurts; why wish something bad upon someone else? By wishing something bad upon those in “the wrong” is not going to help bring back your loved ones nor turn back time nor undo what was done. Hatred, fighting, revenge, and war is not the answer. It will not get you anywhere but a step back and it will make you just as bad as the attacker. Some might say: Then what are we to do? I wonder so myself.

What are your thoughts?

I would like to close in agreement with Priya, that in order to live in “love, peace, and harmony”, we need to stand together and unite against the wrongdoings. Similarly, Mariana thought that through unity, people can try to understand each other better; much like how Oskar was “able to understand himself and the world around him better” by connecting other peoples stories.

Unity is important for a better chance at peace, love and understanding in order to see the larger picture.

Thank you for reading! Take care!

-Ina de Weerdt

Hello ASTU 100!

Long time no see! I hope you all had a great Christmas break filled with much needed quality time around family and friends, plenty of sleep, moments to reflect on our first term of university, and set new goals for the upcoming year.

However, as we took a pause from the hustle and bustle here at UBC, news from all over the world did not cease to appear on our media news feeds. Events such as the ongoing refugee crisis, terror attacks across the globe, Middle East relations, elections, and foreign policy decisions have stayed atop the sphere of popular media. With the notions of fear, trauma, security, xenophobia, and Islamophobia at its peak, I could not think of a better way to start off our second term in ASTU by reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel entitled Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

Through the ideas of 9/11 and American Exceptionalism brought to light in Foer’s novel, many bloggers challenged the exclusive narratives of trauma in 9/11, as well as the popular rhetoric which followed “the worst day ever”.

Questioning the uniqueness of the attacks on 9/11, Mariana is met with skepticism as she writes, “are the attacks of 9/11 actually exceptional? Terrorist attacks were happening and continue to happen now. People experience trauma all over the world.” Instead, she argues that, “events like these are not supposed to set borders between people…they can unite people and make them understand each other more.” What makes trauma a widely debated topic is in part due to its universality; everyone has been affected either directly or indirectly in some way, shape or form by a particular event. This segways us into Imaan’s blog. Here, she writes about her cousin Salima who was en route to the World Trade Center subway stop when the attacks occurred. “With the numerous painful memories that were caused from this day, everyone has their own story to tell…She told me it [was] the most chaotic and stressful situation she had ever been in. Moreover, the novel does an upright evaluation on the true emotions that are conveyed [on] 9/11.” Having my mom fly to New York on a very frequent basis, I have experienced and been told first-hand the direct changes in airport security, but also on the streets of Manhattan with new terror protocol, cameras on every block, and an increased police presence.

As we have discussed extensively in class, the role of ownership and agency of trauma through various contexts is a widely conversed topic. This brings me to Priya’s post, as she brings her another unique story of trauma to the table. “[This novel] took me back to the national trauma that I encountered as a citizen of India during the 26/11 Mumbai attacks…something that I witnessed not only on the television screen but from [a] few of my acquaintances who actually lost their loved ones in the attacks.”

Reverting back to 9/11 Exceptionalism, in my opinion the mere reason we have coined the attacks on the World Trade Centre that occurred on September 11, 2001 as “9/11” hints us towards a unique event in time, but also a new post-9/11 era, if you will. You never here the attacks n Mumbai referred to as “26/11” or the recent Paris attacks as XY and Z. How are events in the novel such as the fire bombings in Dresden, Hiroshima, and the Holocaust set apart from “the worst day ever”? These questions I will hope to delve further in on a another blog post. This post-9/11 era we live in comes with rash emotions, stereotypes, phobias, and irrational fear that are still embodied to this day.

In Foer’s use of Oskar as a metaphor for America post-9/11, Tzur furthers this claim in saying, “For Oskar the attack marks the worst day ever, his entire life is turned upside down and after the attacks Oskar exhibits some very odd feelings…[he] is scared of Muslims and people in turbens, suddenly elevators become places of fear.” Kaveel too expresses similar feelings during his youth where he admits, “I also recall experiencing anxiety when I saw a traditional Arab costume because being the young oblivious child I was, I associated it with terrorism.” A similar dialogue is expressed as Sania writes about a Yik Yak post she read regarding Islamophobia, in which the author wrote, “Canada was founded by Europeans and it should primarily belong to Europeans. Backwards desert religions have no place here.” This type of dialogue has seen a great resurgence as of late in both the private and public sectors. Even Republicans and Democrats are struggling to draw a finite line between freedom, security, racist, and extremist views.

As Oskar famously put it, “There was a lot of stuff that made me panicky, like…Arab people on the subway (even though I’m not racist)” (36).

The need for contextualization is pursued in Jacqueline’s blog where she expresses that, “on the other hand, stories of tragedy like terrorist attacks carry inherently political implications that must be contextualized in order to make broader policy decisions…when American’s were most fragile they were fed lies about how Arabs hate freedom and all things American like hot dogs and Fords.” Whether Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close promotes 9/11 Exceptionalism, I too, am torn between personal trauma and 9/11, moreover, perhaps they are not mutual exclusive? Further, Jacqueline concludes, “9/11 exceptionalism is dangerous in that it creates a culture that ignores the causes of attacks and creates a culture that is incapable of mourning without hatred and ignorance. When people are able to empathize with loss while gaining insight into the larger context in which the tragedy exists then they’re better equipped to exist in a post 9/11 or post trauma world.”

Just as I was about to submit this post to the class blog, a recent incident regarding speculations of the 3 Middle Eastern looking men who were conducting “suspicious activity” inside Pacific Centre Mall on the 14^th of January. Personally, I feel as if this is a direct ripple effect of living in a post-9/11 world, especially as tensions begin to rise by the day. It seems as if more people nowadays carry their own “terrorist checklist” stored in their brain. When it comes to race, skin colour, sex, and religion, we are so quick to pull out our “checklist”, slab stereotypes and racist generalizations that divide us, rather than come together in reconciliation. Although I can completely understand police rationale behind VPD precautions, would we even be having this conversation if those 3 men were Caucasian? Perhaps, we will never know…

My dearest apologies for the duration of this blog, but this post and topic truly spoke to me on a personal level. Once again, I had such a blast reading all of your blogs and do regret not being able to mention many of them. However, do keep an eye out in the “comment sections”  where I will further continue this dialogue!

Kind regards,

Nico Jimenez

Here are a couple links to news articles regarding the incident at Pacific Centre Mall:  http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2016/01/vancouver-police-search-middle-eastern-men-pacific-centre-mall/ and http://bc.ctvnews.ca/suspicious-men-at-vancouver-mall-completely-innocent-vpd-1.2738807

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!

Hi everyone and welcome back to ASTU! In the same vein as our class discussions, which continue to explore the broad theme of memory and trauma that we studied last term, many of the blogs I read from this week focused on Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

I decided to focus on the blogs that gave emphasis to Foer’s use of a child narrator, which, as many of you expanded upon, is the case in two of the other novels we read, Persepolis and Obasan. Specifically, these blogs analyze the impact of child narrators on how trauma is portrayed and remembered in Foer’s novel, which is developed by the bloggers’ focuses on the themes of fear, chaos, and 9/11 exceptionalism.

Both Raphael and Peija focus on the impact of Oskar’s narration on the development of a fear culture that surrounds 9/11, specifically racial fear and discrimination. Raphael develops the idea that “[i]n the use of children as the primary narrative source, the ways in which the traumatic issues are explored may be seen as different”, which helps to describe Peija’s interest in Oskar’s expression of the “blunt and weird thoughts that…[Foer] wouldn’t otherwise to able to in an adult character.” Fear is one topic that is described so bluntly. Peija gives the example of the racial fear and discrimination towards Arabs after 9/11: she noes that “[t]he things Oskar said about Arabs were probably some of the thoughts thousands of Americans were thinking after the attack – but they couldn’t directly say it”, and “in that sense, Oskar could have been an outlet to express the thoughts and opinions  Americans might have had at that time”. This helps to clarify and develop Raphael’s personal thoughts on the effect and progress of this fear and discrimination: the “saddening” fact that fear and discrimination have created the “radically fearful state” that we now live in.

Raphael also develops upon on the use of a child narrator in its ability to explain the incomprehensibility of trauma. He writes that reading from Oskar’s point of view is effective because we “get a sense of how large of a challenge coping can be…and how the scale of it is something that Oskar can’t quite get around or fully understand”. This unpredictability and chaos that Raphael describes is analyzed by Taylor’s post on the details of the novel’s structure. In her post, she analyzes Foer’s strategies in emphasizing the chaotic affects of trauma, explaining that he creates a confusing, pieced-together structure in order to provide an indirect, yet continual emphasis on the theme of chaos. In this way, chaos defines the foundation of the book—its structure—rendering Foer’s tactic very effective.

Developing on the larger significance of these themes, Mariana and Jacqueline examine the novel’s commentary on the “9/11 exceptionalism” that grew out of the fear and chaos that characterizes the aftermath of 9/11. Jacqueline’s post is focused around her argument that Foer’s novel “humanizes a tragic event that has since been sensationalized” in the media. Going broader in the discussion of Foer’s use of a child narrator, Jacqueline contemplates the individuality that personal narrative in general embodies, which contributes to the exceptionalism argument. However, she stresses the ambiguity of this scenario, for personal narrative has conflicting effects: in Foer’s novel, the use of a personal narrative supports 9/11 exceptionalism, but also has humanizing effects. As Jacqueline argues, “[i]f the humanization of an event allows the reader to gain insight to the humanity in other equally horrific events then theres nothing exceptionalist about it.” Mariana develops this side of the argument, taking it in the direction of unity. She argues that “[p]eople can feel unspeakable trauma and it connects them with others…[e]vents like these are not supposed to set borders between people…by making connections with other people’s stories…[Oskar] was able to understand himself and the world around him better.”

This week’s blogs went into detail on the prevalence of the themes of fear and chaos in Foer’s novel, while also expanding upon their larger implications in the creation of the concept of 9/11 exceptionalism, a topic that is now widely debated. As Jacqueline discusses, Foer may present both sides of the argument: that 9/11 and those affected by it (arguably, a majority of the citizens of the world) is part of a larger community, but is also unique in itself. What is your opinion?

Until next time!

Kristen Lew

Hello readers!

I just wanted to start off with a hello, a super-late happy new year’s, and a welcome back to ASTU. Anyways, let’s get this show on the road…

Almost everyone this week touched on the book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer. A couple popular blog themes included unique POV/perspectives, absence, Obasan, and personalizing vs. contextualizing within the context of 9/11 exceptionalism.

In case you’ve been slacking off and haven’t actually read the book or have magically forgotten what the book is about: it’s an intertwined telling of multiple lives in the Schell family (grandma, grandpa/Thomas Sr. /the renter, and Oskar). Throughout the novel we are shown the repercussions of not only 9/11, but the effects of other tragedies. (A bit of the Hiroshima bombings and the Dresden bombings)

A topic I will be focusing on is how individuals and societies react to and deal with immense trauma. Raphael compares Oskar’s reaction to Naomi’s (Obasan) reaction. He writes how Naomi, Obasan, and Aunt Emily all react and cope differently to similar experiences of Japanese internment. Aunt Emily decided to cope through finding justice for wrongdoings, whilst Naomi and Obasan suffered in silence.

So how do we cope? Nicola and Sam have the same answer: art. They both wrote about art as a way to break down the unspeakableness that attaches itself to trauma. Sam focused on the memorial aspect of art, saying that the memorials “portray trauma and spur healing, as well as also connecting to… [the] theme of memory.” Nicola takes a slightly different approach, with several excellent examples: “… The grandfather sculpts grandmother, he is trying to mold her into Anna,” creating a mixture of escapism, and a form of coping mechanism. She also brings up the significance of Oskars’ “Things That Happened to Me” scrapbook, and the grandmother writing out her life story, producing nothing but blank pages.

Nicola also suggests two interpretations of the role that art plays in the novel a) “a comment on the point and usefulness of art” or b) the implication of “a greater unfixability to certain traumas, and that escapism has only so much function.”

Before I finished the book, I wholeheartedly thought that art could help heal 100% of the time. But the more I think about it, the more that percentage shrinks. I do still think that art can heal, but I also am becoming more aware that it can create an “us” vs “them” mentality.

Take post-9/11 music. Most of it was normal, but some got really patriotic, obsessive even. Take this song and music video, for example… “We’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the American way.” And “Man, we lit up your world like the 4^th of July.” This sort of art cannot possibly promote healthy healing of a nation.

Look at this poem “Somebody Blew up America” as another piece of “art”:

“Who found Bin Laden, maybe they Satan
Who pay the CIA,
Who knew the bomb was gonna blow
Who know why the terrorists
Learned to fly in Florida, San Diego”

And

“Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed
Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers
To stay home that day”

Perhaps these are just bad examples, the worst of the worst. Maybe certain types of art heal better than others? Does art even heal at all? Or is it just another thing that creates an “us” and a “them”? And if it does encourage a “them” and an “us”, is it justified to continue making this art?

Please don’t pin me down as an art hater; I’m anything but. I just don’t know what to say anymore. The more I try to think about the book and 9/11, the less I seem to know.

– Carolina