Hey Bloggers,
Its hard to believe that it has been since term one that I have been the class blogger, and it is also equally hard to believe that we are almost finished our first year at University! So much has gone on since then in ASTU, but these past few weeks in particular there has been a lot that has happened. We recently read a short story entitled “Redeployment” by Phil Klay that follows the return home of a American Soldier that has been fighting in Afghanistan and how being overseas has really changed what it is like for him now at home. We also had the opportunity to participate in a very interesting joint lecture held by some of our CAP professors that focused on the Black Lives Matter movement, so in this post I want to focus on the blogs that covered those two topics in particular.
The joint lecture that we had on the movement that is Black Lives Matter- often seen on social media as #BlackLivesMatter- has an interesting overlap with the material that we have been analyzing in ASTU. In particular we have been looking at post 9/11 literature that has also labelled there to be a “good” guy and a “bad” guy. In Ryan’s blog he talks about the work of Judith Butler is relates to the Black Lives Matter movement as she has forced us to consider this distinction between “us” and “them” that has been around for longer that most of us have lived. Butler’s work also centred upon who’s life we see as grievable and who’s lives we don’t, who are we responsible for and who are we not? In Clara’s blog she also decided to focus on the Black Lives Matter lecture and talked about one of the websites that we had to look at. The photo she provided in her blog with all the “dead” bodies that are meant to represent Michael Brown and the way he was killed shocked me too. It really put into perspective for me just how bad the situation was, just how black men are shot by police each year is shocking. Along with that image Clara also brings in the theories of Judith Butler to question who lives matter and who’s don’t? How can the police force and the US government justify their actions towards the black population?
Along with the blogs about our Black Lives Matter lecture there were also a number of blogs about the short story “Redeployment” by Phil Klay, Martin’s blog, Jackson’s blog and Erin’s blog, focus on this topic. I found Jackson’s blog was interesting to read because he made a comparison of Klay’s story to the Hollywood film American Sniper, the movie shares many similarities to Klay’s short story. Connections are made because both characters are military men who have many internal troubles and a lot of emotional baggage following their return home from war. Both characters share the reality that home doesn’t feel like home anymore, they come to a conclusion that they feel more at home and more significant when they are fighting at war. In her blog Erin focuses on the narrative of Sgt.Price in the story and how he invites us to see the return home of a soldier as a harsh and upsetting thing, not a reunion full of smiles and tears of joy. Along with that Erin also looks at Klay’s story through the lens of Judith Butler who questions what life we distinguish as grievable, particularly in this story that concerns the lives of the Iraqi’s. Lastly Alex’s blog is similar to Jackson’s as it centres upon the film interpretation of stories like these. Alex talks about the PTSD that some soldiers experience after they return home from war having seen horrific things, and how something as simple and comfortable as going grocery shopping can be so scary and unfamiliar.
Those are just a few of the topics that the blogs were about last week, other topics discussed include The Reluctant Fundamentalist and various post 9/11 poetry that we analyzed in class. Great job of the blogs!
Until next Time,
Magda 🙂