In our previous class, we saw the first twenty minutes of Stephen Frears’ film, Dirty Pretty Things. Despite only having seen a small portion of the film so far, it is already apparent to me as the viewer that Okwe, the film’s protagonist, epitomizes a person who is in the state of exception. Recall from last semester that the state of exception occurs when a sovereign power removes certain people of political agency as a means to ensure the welfare of a greater population. In Okwe’s case, he is an illegal immigrant from Africa to the United Kingdom, therefore meaning that he does not have any form of valid government issued identification. Consequently, once on British soil, Okwe is only able to hold menial jobs through keeping his identity discreet despite his medical expertise as a doctor in his native country. In essence, Okwe lives in constantly fear of being subject to legal action because the British government sanctions illegal immigrants to protect its citizens.

To complement our current study of What We All Long For, I have posted a link to the episode titled, “California Killing Fields”, from a documentary TV series that formerly aired on the History Channel named Gangland. As the name suggests, the various episodes of Gangland explore the criminal activities of prominent gangs in the United States such the Aryan Brotherhood or MS-13. This particular episode is about a predominantly Cambodian-American gang called the Tiny Rascal Gangsters (often abbreviated as TRGs) that originated in California during the 1980s. The reason that I decided to post this video was because I find that there are actually many parallels between the experiences of gang life by past TRGs members with the situation that the various characters in What We All Long For are experiencing.

The founding members of the TRGs were Cambodian youths whose families were refugees who had escaped from the attrocities of Pol Pot’s regime during the early 1980s and took up residence in the United States. “California Killing Fields” primarily presents the experiences of Vanna In, who was a former member of the gang. In mentions in the video that when his family moved from Cambodia to the United States, he initially experienced difficulty interacting in mainstream American society. Very often, this entailed falling victim to bullying by classmates of other ethnic groups. In’s initial motivation to join the TRGs was also fueled by the indifferences he had toward his family, which he claims to have involved parental abusive. In essence, similar to how Tuyen, Carla, Oku, and Jackie see themselves as being “misfits” in both their families and in society, In decided to join the TRGs in order in search of a feeling of belonging. However, it did not take long before he realized that he made a fatal mistake when he landed himself in prison for the crimes he had committed. It is also worthwhile noting that the TRGs have adopted a hip-hop style culture that emulates that of existing Black-American gangs, suggesting how the Cambodian-American youths feel a certain degree of shame over their ethnic identity in the same way that Tuyen or Carla do over their ancestral backgrounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN17Wesr6rU

Throughout the course and even the CAP stream so far, we have been extensively exploring the notion of identity and belonging and how it plays out in different instances of conflict. In fact, the crisis currently taking place in Crimea amply demonstrates this concept, where over the past week, news reports worldwide have triggered widespread pandemonium about the potential of a major military conflict. Crimea, an autonomous region in southeastern Ukraine, has recently been the epicenter of escalating tensions between various parties, which is in part due to the issue of ethnic and national identity in the region. The latest news coverage from CBC has reported that the Crimean parliament plans to launch a referendum on March 16^th regarding the possible accession of Crimea to Russia.

The current situation in Crimea is a highly complex product of both the region’s history and recent events. When the Soviet Union was established in 1921, Crimea was initially an autonomous state in the Russian Republic, but became part of the Ukrainian Republic in 1954. As of currently, Crimea’s population consists predominantly of ethnic Russians. Given this reason, Ukraine’s previous president, Viktor Yanukovich, had tremendous support of the Crimean people because he strengthened Ukraine’s political relationship with Russia through establishing an economic deal with Russia for $15 billion in economic support and for lower gas import prices. However, Yanukovich’s ousting from parliament last month over the use of lethal force against protestors has led to a more ethnically nationalist political party to resume power. Weeks earlier, the Ukrainian parliament under Oleksandr Turchnyov’s presidency proposed a bill to make Ukrainian the sole official language. This consequently angered the primarily Russian-speaking population of Crimea, because most citizens of Crimea viewed this as a backlash against their ethnicity. Additionally, the rationale behind Russian president Vladimir Putin’s decision to deploy Russia’s military into Crimea was to protect the ethnic Russian population in the region against Ukrainian government authorities, whom he deems as being “fascist”. In short, the issue of ethnic and national identity in is an important dimension that explains the current conflict in Crimea.

In reality, it is difficult to determine who is really at fault in this crisis. On one hand, the policies of the current Ukrainian government have been insensitive towards ethnic Russians in the nation, in particular Crimea. However, Russia’s decision to carry out a military intervention in this case is also an excessive move in that the mere nature of Ukraine’s current government policies does not provide sufficient grounds for such action. Furthermore, a referendum on whether Crimea should separate from Ukraine join into Russia will definitely carry serious repercussions for Ukrainian government. Given that Crimea’s largest demographic group is ethnic Russian, favor among the Crimean population for joining Russia would very likely be high. If Crimea were to separate from Ukraine, changes to Ukraine’s constitution will result, which would be very disastrous for the Ukraine’s government, just as if Quebec were to gain independence from Canada. (Recall from last semester that Quebec’s independence was right on the edge of the Canadian government’s teeth following the referendum in 1989)

Here’s a link to the CBC news article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/tensions-ease-after-crimean-military-post-standoff-says-local-pm-1.2563430

I am currently in the process of preparing for the close reading assignment, which is one that I do look forward to. While I am still yet to solidify my thoughts for the paper, in the mean time, I will say that one scene from Three Day Road that particularly interests me is the climactic point of the novel where Xavier takes Elijah’s life on the front lines and gets wounded in action by enemy fire shortly after. Perhaps this might be the scene that I will use for my close reading, but I’ll have to see whether it resonates with any readings from the Indigenous Foundations website.

During our previous class, we did an informal close reading on the novel’s prologue, where Elijah and Xavier are hunting during their childhood. We made note about how Elijah asks Xavier the question, “We are great hunters and best friends, yes?” and how this question signifies the uncertainty that Xavier feels towards their relationship to Elijah. Amazingly, when I reread the climactic scene of the novel, Elijah again asks Xavier this question shortly before his demise. However, Xavier’s response in these scenes differs quite dramatically. While Xavier simply answers, “Yes” in the prologue, during the battle scene, he does not reply until Elijah physically tries to choke him, which forces him to retaliate aggressively. Afterwards, Xavier replies that Elijah has “gone mad”. This simple, yet radical difference between Xavier’s responses is one indicator that he does grow more indifferent toward Elijah throughout the novel.

Another way in which the climactic scene of Three Day Road resembles the hunting scene novel’s prologue is that Xavier silences the mortally wounded Elijah the same say he clubbed the screaming marten in the opening. As Boyden describes, “the rifle in my (Xavier’s) hands sinks down and I feel through the stock the collapse of his (Elijah’s) windpipe under the rifle’s pressure”. This happens just right after Elijah “tries to whisper words to me (Xavier) but I know that I cannot allow Elijah to speak them”. Based on this, I get the feeling that novel’s prologue does serve a more significant role than I had originally thought in that for Boyden uses it to foreshadow the events that take place at the novel’s climax.

As an extension to our study on the novel, I searched up some information on Francis “Peggy” Pegahmagabow and found out that he was an Aboriginal marksman from the First World War who was a three-time recipient of the prestigious Military Medal. After having learnt about his, I truly came to a realization of the lack of recognition for the accomplishments Aboriginal Canadians during the First World War. Despite this remarkable accomplishment, I am utterly surprised that Pegahmagabow was somehow a name that I had never previously recognized. By comparison, Billy Bishop, a Canadian aviator who downed 72 enemy aircraft during the same conflict, which was the highest among all Allied Forces, is a name that is already on our lips. Based on this finding, I have come to the realization that the stereotypical image of a Canadian soldier has historically been and still remains today as a white person despite the various accomplishments by Canadian soldiers of other ethnicity.

Here’s a link that explains Pegahmagabow’s accomplishments: http://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/tresors/treasure/280eng.shtml

Joseph Boyden’s Three Day Road was a novel that I found to be thoroughly fascinating. In fact, given that I am a military enthusiast, even prior to reading the novel, I was already stoked when I heard that the novel is about the experience of Xavier and Elijah, who are two Aboriginal Canadian snipers during the First World War. However, what I found to be more intriguing than the series of adrenaline-pumping action that takes place in the novel is Boyden’s use of narrative as a means to bring into light a piece of Canadian history that has remained largely forgotten.

My first impression of Three Day Road is that the novel as a whole really serves to reinforce one of the central arguments that Willie Van Peer makes in his article that we all studied last semester titled, “Literature, Imagination, and Human Rights”. In the article, Van Peer mentions about how literature has the ability to portray characters in a way that would chance the public perception of certain social groups. In Three Day Road, we see that the novel’s portrayals of Elijah and Xavier serve to invalidate the general consensus in Canada at the time of the First World War that Aboriginal soldiers were unable to engage in combat at the level of competence as a white soldier. In the novel, Elijah and Xavier are the most proficient shooters in the predominantly White-Canadian infantry force. Through this, it is evident that Boyden’s novel intends to promote awareness about the role that Aboriginal Canadians played in the war, which has long been marginalized in history.

Xavier, the protagonist of the novel, undergoes a very dynamic change throughout the novel. On numerous occasions, Xavier appears on the most part passive compared to Elijah. While still a student at residential school, he is for the most part submissive towards the unjust treatment by the school’s nun unlike Elijah, who goes as far as stealing her rifle in defiance. While on the front lines during the war, Xavier appears to be more or less dependent on Elijah for support and direction, in part due to his lack of proficiency in the English language as well as the cruelty of his commanding officer, Lt. Breech. However, nearing the end of the novel, Xavier begins to become more indifferent towards Elijah for he realizes and no sooner resents his bloodthirsty attitude. As a result, during his last battle, Xavier makes an incredibly bold move that takes Elijah’s life at the moment he realizes that he will lose his life if he chooses to follow Elijah’s directions. Having been responsible for the death of a fellow combatant, Xavier in the end experiences a profound feeling of guilt.

I don’t know if my interpretations are necessarily correct, for it is based solely on my personal understanding of the novel. Given that the publication of Three Day Road was as recent as 2005, I really was not able to find much scholarly commentary on the novel. That being said, if you have any disagreement with any comments that I made, feel free to tell me for I will be more than happy to hear them.

Last week, we discussed in class about how Shirley Neuman suggests in her article that various female characters in The Handmaid’s Tale such as Offred, her mother, and Moira serve as representations of three different attitudes that women in 1980s America had towards feminism. During our discussion, thoughts came to my mind about an article that I studied last year titled, “Thinking As a Hobby”, which serves as a great continuum to Neuman’s analysis. The author of this article is William Golding, who also wrote the famous novel, Lord of the Flies. Here, Golding classifies people according to three different categories of thinking. Interestingly enough, Offred, her mother, and Moira each epitomize one of the three distinctive categories that Golding describes.

The first category of thinking that Golding establishes in his article is third-grade thinking, which entails conformist attitudes towards social norms and values that contain elements of “unconscious prejudice, ignorance, and hypocrisy”. As such, Golding describes how third-grade thinkers typically do not appreciate contradictions in their beliefs. This is generally an accurate representation of Offred’s character, for Offred is passive and lacks the courage to stand up against the oppressive state of Gilead. Although she has the inner desire to resist, she makes no actual independent decision to take part in any form of rebellion. Moreover, Offred shows contempt towards her mother’s fervent efforts in the feminist movement.

While third-grade thinkers tend to follow social norms regardless of their flaws, the next level of thinkers, the grade-two thinker, actively seeks to find contradictions to social values, albeit in a manner that “destroys without the power to create”. Moira is a character who embodies these characteristics for unlike Offred, she willingly rebels against the oppressive State of Gilead through her open challenges against the state’s policy on homosexuality as well as her two attempted escapes from Red Center. However, Moira lacks the charisma to initiate any form of change for the overall betterment of Gilead’s society. In the end, she succumbs to the fate of having to work a Jezebel for the Commanders, which reflects Golding’s claim that grade-two thinkers ultimately “fall into another fault and lag behind”.

Finally, there is the first-grade thinker, who exhibits a sense of adventure on the basis of promoting a moral cause. In contrast to second-grade thinking, which demonstrates courage but results in destruction, a first-grade thinker strives to achieve moral consequences. Offred’s mother would exemplify a grade-one thinker for she spearheaded the struggle for women’s rights, which she claims involved participants confronting armored tanks. However, unlike Moira, the actions of Offred’s mother radically elevate the status of women in the next generation of her society. As Golding notes in the final paragraph of his article, an illustration of grade-one thinking involves the statue of the Thinker inside the shadow of an incoming leopard while Venus’ statue is off to the side as an object admiration.

In conclusion, The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel that reinforces the arguments that Golding presents in “Thinking As a Hobby”, which I strongly recommend all of you to check out. Here is the link to the article:

http://faculty.weber.edu/dkrantz/en2500/Thinking%20as%20a%20Hobby%20-%20Golding.htm

When I was preparing for my AP Literature exam last year, my teacher mentioned that Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, is one of many works that AP students have written their essays on in the exam. If you are not familiar with what I’m talking about, there is one component of the exam that requires students to select a literary work with enough academic credibility to answer a question on a common theme in literature. Having studied the novel, I can now see for myself how this novel’s themes would make an effective essay for an AP Literature exam.

Given the state of Gilead’s oppressive laws on women and in particular the Handmaids, I initially expected that Offred, the novel’s protagonist, would be an active resistor against the state. Much surprisingly, Offred is rather passive despite her experience of heartbreaking tragedies (e.g. separation from her family) and the fact that her mother was a fervent feminist. However, after having read Shirley Neuman’s commentary on The Handmaid’s Tale, I happened to have realized that Atwood intended to use Offred’s characterization to represent the attitudes of younger women in the 1980s. As Neuman explains, these women generally took their freedoms for granted and were not overly appreciative of their mothers’ efforts in the rigorous struggle for women’s rights. From this respect, I would make the argument that the novel intends to satirize the growing complacence of the younger women at the time of the novel’s publication. As a continuum to this, I looked at a poem that I studied back in high school titled, “It’s Dangerous to Read Newspapers”, which was also written by Atwood. This poem does well to reinforce the novel’s notion that passiveness in the worse case scenario ultimately contributes to conflicts taking place in the real world. As Atwood writes, “I (poem’s narrator) am the cause” of the different examples of turmoil that Atwood mentions in the poem.

Having mentioned about the poem, here is a link to the text: http://watsonpoetry.wordpress.com/how-to-analyze-a-poem/

Another interesting aspect of the novel is its various similar themes to George Orwell’s renowned novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. One example of this would be the idea of censorship. In The Handmaid’s Tale, the state of Gilead purposely forbids women from reading as a preventative measure against potential uprisings. Similarly, the Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four also practices censorship through the modification of factual information. On this note, I also made the observation that the various societal titles in Gilead are comparable to the names of the different ministries in Nineteen Eighty-Four given that are all incredibly ironic. This appears to be characteristic of totalitarian states. A real-world example would be North Korea, where the country’s official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Strangely, North Korea is arguably the most totalitarian state on the planet.

In retrospect, I honestly have to admit that I regret not having read The Handmaid’s Tale back in high school. Despite that I had actually forgotten the question that was on my AP Literature exam, I can be sure that the themes in this novel nevertheless would have definitely proven suitable for practically any question that might have appeared on the exam.

I would like to begin this blog by mentioning that it is unbelievable that we have already reached the end of our first term as university students! In essence, we have now successfully accomplished the first step of our university careers.

Without further due, for this particular posting, I would like to place an emphasis on the literature review that I wrote. Back several weeks ago, we all read Martha Nussbaum’s article, Democratic Citizenship and the Narrative Imagination. Overall, the gist of this article concerns how literature functions as a medium that utilizes imagination to stimulate moral conscience. Nussbaum states that everybody has his or her own religion, gender, race, class, and national origin, which makes it difficult for people to have a complete knowledge of other people’s thoughts and perspectives (144). Furthermore, given that the ability to relate to others is a fundamental aspect of citizenship, literary works serve this purpose by solidifying an understanding of other people (145). According to Nussbaum, the ultimate effect as she states from Ralph Ellison is that literature could be analogous to a raft of hope, perception and entertainment that might helps to keep society afloat while progressing towards democracy (147).

While I overall do agree that Nussbaum does present reasonable and valid arguments, we realistically cannot deny that literature often creates unintended consequences in a negative manner. Another scholarship article that I analyzed for my literature review was The Relationship of Literature and Society by Milton C. Albrecht. One of Albrecht’s counter-arguments to Nussbaum is that particular literary works “tend to disrupt or corrupt society” (433). An extreme case that Albrecht mentions is taken from an argument that Albert Guerard made about how Werther by Goethe contributed to a wave of suicides (434). For this reason, censorship of certain literary material deemed as being “socially disruptive” is a practice common in different societies (433). As an extension to this argument, I have linked a video below that highlights notable examples of books that are banned in certain societies and explains the reasons for their prohibition. In fact, what I do find surprising is that some books are actually studied extensively in Canadian high schools, such as George Orwell’s Animal Farm or John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. This video actually reinforces Albrecht’s argument that some forms of literature do have a detrimental impact. Of course, in the end, I will agree that whether a literary work is necessarily harmful in nature is really the discretion of a state.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEldl8eL_kc

Based on the opposing views of Nussbaum and Albrecht, I reach a conclusion that the impact of literature on a society is a two-sided issue, which we can compare to many other matters in life. On the one hand I agree that literature realistically does contribute to the development of an individual’s moral conscience as well as the promotion of a just society. Nevertheless, I am also convinced that whether intentional or not, literature can also generate the opposite effect. Even if the effect is not immediate, at the very least, societies will often speculate about potential detrimental impacts.

As some final remarks, I would like to wish everybody good luck on the finals as well as a happy holiday. I look forward to another intriguing semester of ASTU.

District 9 is a South African science fiction film that was released back in 2009. The film is set in the South African capital, Johannesburg, where the arrival of aliens invokes widespread hysteria among the city’s inhabitants. As a means to segregate the aliens from the human population, the city of Johannesburg adopts a system of an internment camp. However, they go as far as conducting live dissections of the aliens to extract their DNA and test their weapons. The film follows the progress of the MNU’s mission to relocate the aliens, which becomes disastrous as the commander himself gets infected by alien technology. Like all other films, District 9 undoubtedly serves an entertainment purpose to its audience. Nevertheless, the film presents many relevant themes that are analogous to various social issues embedded in world history concerning the marginalization of different social groups. In fact, the film serves as a representation of the long history of institutionalized racial discrimination that occurred in South Africa during the apartheid.

The film plays an effective role in illustrating the reasons and basis for the occurrence of ostracizing individuals within a given society. In the film, the aliens are representative of the wide range of social groups in world history that have encountered institutionalized discrimination, such as immigrants and indigenous peoples in most western nations. They are portrayed by their grotesque appearances and behavior purposely to reinforce the level of despise that the human characters in the film have towards the aliens. This can compare with the race riots that took place in Detroit during 1943 as a result of the massive migrations of black Americans from the rural south into the city. This incident essentially happened because of the indifferences between white and black populations of the city. At the same time, the film also shows a scene where human activists stage a protest in support of the aliens prior to the MNU carrying out their mission. Likewise, some white Americans, such as the Quakers, helped to emancipate slaves during the American slave trade.

On a more severe level, the film also depicts how the human populations inflict atrocities on the aliens. For example, various acts by MNU officials in opening fire on unarmed aliens that seem uncooperative blatantly demonstrate an excessive use of force, which we can relate to the comment that Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his letter from Birmingham jail about how he witnessed white law enforcement officers “curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill his black brothers and sisters with impunity”. The illegal experiments conducted on the aliens, such as the vivisections, are even more outrageous, almost like the massive killings that Spanish colonialists carried out on indigenous Americans during the formative stage of Latin America.

In conclusion, the many events that take place in District 9 have a distinctive connection to numerous real-world events involving the alienation of particular populations. Below is a link below to one of the film trailers of District 9. The gist of the trailer actually expresses the film’s themes very clearly, but according to my observations, the trailer does appear to create an evident bias, since it focuses on the discontent that the human characters feel towards the aliens. Unlike the film where the protagonists and antagonists are actually ambiguous, the trailer seems to incline the film’s viewers towards antagonizing the aliens. However, feel free to let me know what you think.

Having finished reading Joy Kogawa’s novel, Obasan, for the second time, I now have a decently comprehensive understanding of the various themes that the novel presents. Although this historical fiction novel does provide rich insight into the horrific experiences of Japanese Canadians interned during WWII, in the end, it probably raises more questions than answers. Most of these questions surround the ideas of Canadian identity and the dangers that result from fear.

Throughout the novel, it is evident that during WWII, the status of Japanese Canadians was “the enemy and not the enemy” of the Canadian government. This concept especially comes into light in the part of the novel when the Canadian anthem is played prior to a school day in Granton, which make Naomi and Steven feel uncertain about their identity. In fact, until present day, there still remains no definite answer to the concept of Canadian identity. However, to formulate an answer, there are considerations that we can make. Drawing from lesson material that Professor Kopas covered in our political science class, Obasan is a novel where the ideas of ethnic and civic nationalism collide. The various Japanese Canadian characters in the novel, especially Aunt Emily, embody the characteristics of civic nationalism, given their sense of pride for the living conditions and freedoms they enjoyed in Canada prior to internment. On the other hand, the Canadian government’s stance on nationalism consisted of ethnic considerations, which fits the definition of ethnic nationalism. As a result, the Canadian government deemed citizens of Japanese descent as non-citizens. From this respect, it would be fair for me to say that this was one similarity that the Canadian government back then shared with their principle enemy, the Nazi Germans, whom were radical ethnic nationalists.

The internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War also raises another critical theme in the novel, which is the fact that paranoia by the state authority often result in the committing of unjust and often irrational acts, even if unintended. When the War Measures Act was proposed following the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor, the Canadian government was without a doubt fearful about the potential of further conquest by the Japanese Empire. Even if there might not have been any malicious intent at first, this nevertheless gave rise to one of the greatest injustices in Canadian history. In fact, throughout world history, various events have also clearly demonstrated this very concept. For example, when Joseph Stalin governed the Soviet Union, he purged and even executed millions of Russians whom he suspected were enemies of the state. Perhaps a more recent example is the controversial Patriot Act that the Bush Administration legislated following the 9/11 Attacks. As a result of the Patriot Act, many American citizens have lost their freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.

To conclude, the novel Obasan is indeed a novel that is highly relevant for students to study, especially for Canadian students. The novel itself not only centers on a largely forgotten piece of history, but also brings up the concepts of Canadian identity and the dangers of a paranoid state authority. What is especially important about such abstracts is that they do in fact pertain to us whether we realize it or not.

Prior to entering UBC, I had heard from a student tell me that thirteen weeks in one semester does go by very quickly. Now that it is already near the end of the fifth week, I admit that I cannot agree with him more. I predict that my schedule for the upcoming week will indeed be very busy for me since midterm exams are taking place. However, since the time I wrote my last blog posting, I did pick up practical skills that are well calibrated to studying in preparation. Another area of interest this week was the text, Democratic Citizenship and the Narrative Imagination, by Martha Nussbaum.

The first aspect that I would like to comment on is chapters three and four from Janet Giltrow’s book, Academic Writing. When I read the first chapter in the book a few weeks ago, my first impression was that the content was mundane and simply a reiteration of what I already know. However, chapters three and four, which centered on summary and citation skills, did in a way change my perspective. After having read these chapters, I now agree that the book provides explanation for tangible skills that I can for sure implement when reading texts for both ASTU and other courses alike. Such techniques that Giltrow describes in the book include gist-noting and levels of generality, both of which are skills that I wish I could have learnt during secondary school so that I could have scored higher on my Provincial or AP Exam. Nevertheless, given that my geography midterm is next week, it would indeed be helpful for me to make use of Giltrow’s techniques when I study.

This week I also read Nussbaum’s text, which I believe sheds light on relevant reasons about why educators across various nations place such a significant emphasis on the study of fictional works. Realistically, literature is not just simply a medium for enhancing the linguistic ability of students. Moreover, throughout history, fictional works have contributed substantially to social and political change through invoking imagination. As an example that Professor Latimer brought up during the joint lecture on Tuesday, Joy Kogawa’s novel, Obasan, has raised so much public awareness about the internment of Japanese Canadians during WWII that even Canadian prime ministers have made reference to the novel when making public apologies about the issue. Now having read Nussbaum’s text, I can now make sense of the reason why the general public has such a high regard for literature and why there is the existence of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Indeed, the impact that literature can create on a society can be equally as significant as a scientific discovery or a peace conference.

To conclude, the material that I studied this week did bring me to new realizations about academic skills and did enrich my knowledge about the potential effect that literature can create on a society. While I still agree that learning academic skills may not seem very amusing in nature, we can never forget that such skills can in fact emerge to become very practical, especially in a time like the now where I have exams nearing. Furthermore, when I read fictional works from now on, I will always keep in mind the ideas that Nussbaum presented in her text.