Devon Coady

Hey readers! It’s hard to believe this year is coming to an end. I still vividly remember writing my first blog post, I probably spent close to three hours trying to make everything perfect. I feel like that really describes my entire first year at UBC; freaking out over everything that isn’t ‘perfect’. Howver, I’ve come a long way. My ASTU class always felt like a safe haven to me, the 25(?) of us would come together and discuss our compelling readings. We focussed a lot on trauma and memory…read more

Hey readers! This week in ASTU we have been reading and discussing Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist. It is an ambiguous novel that follows a young Pakistani mans journey through a post-Princeton life in the wake of 9/11 in New York. However, the story is told by the protagonist Changez, in a meeting that he is having with a mysterious figure from America. Changez tells his life story that is complete with success, romance, turmoil and difficult decisions. Although the reflective narrative and awkward present moment scenes leaves the reader uncomfortable…read more

Hey readers! These past few weeks in ASTU we have been looking into different poems that address the issue of trauma, particularly around the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The majority of the poems were quite moving and thought provoking, however one poem definitely stood out to me. Juliana Spahr’s poem titled Poem Written from November 30, 2002 to March 27, 2003 represented both anger and love, displaying the current situations of our world. Some state that Spahr writes with a tone of anger, however, I believe she is in a state…read more

Hey friends, I was four years old when the terrorist attacks of 9/11 occurred. Being so young I don’t remember what I was wearing or who I was with or what song was playing in the background when I heard the news, frankly, I don’t remember it at all. However, I do remember the sudden shift of world emotion and the birth of American fear culture. The first few weeks of this new term, my ASTU class has been reading the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran…read more

Hey Readers! A lot of growing and ugly realization has been done since my last blog post. In my ASTU 100 class we have started a novel called Obasan by Joy Kogawa. Obasan captures the horrific events that the Japanese in Canada faced during World War II. Kogawa creates a family of characters that are ripped apart due to the displacement that is forced upon them by the Canadian Government. During this time, the Canadian Government viewed all of the Japanese living along the West Coast as a threat to…read more

Hello everyone! The concept of authority is one that has been circling my ASTU class since the first day. What is authority? Who has the right to authority? Where does this authority come from? We have been relating the notion of authority to the expressing of culture and history through stories, memoirs and narratives. Marjane Satrapi of the graphic narrative Persepolis, establishes in an interview that her authority to write about growing up during the Iran/Iraq war is justified due to her first-hand experience of these events. However, authority on recollecting…read more

Hey readers! ‘Home’ can have many meanings and it can be attached to a multitude of things. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about my home and what home is for others. This is because the most common question you’re asked in the first month of university is “Where are you from?”. I have had the luxury of creating connections and building relationships with people from all over the world. No matter how different our lives have been, we all seem to have one very common theory; our home…read more

Hey readers! As I settle into my first few weeks at the beautiful University of British Columbia, I can feel myself beginning to lose my high school learning mentality. For all the first years reading this, I hope you can relate. Up until this point, my learning career consisted of teachers who knew exactly who I was and where I came from. They understood my weaknesses and aided me in developing my strengths. However, once I arrived to my first lecture at UBC I realized that I was in very…read more

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