Monthly Archives: January 2016

Hey bloggers!

This week in ASTU, as we continue exploring the theme of trauma, we are reading an excerpt from Judith’s Butler’s book, Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? In particular, we are currently looking at trauma in context of 9/11 and its aftermath. In the excerpt, one of the main ideas that Butler presents is that individuals are vulnerable. Humans are social beings and our existence is relative as well as dependent upon the existence of others. We are able to acknowledge our interdependent relationships we have with others by accepting our own vulnerability. Butler also notes that individuals and societies have different interprative frames or mindsets in which we see things through. These interpretative frames can determine if society or an individual sees onself or itself as vulnerable with or against others as a result of interdependent relationships.

After reading Butler’s excerpt, and seeing her arguments against individualism as well as further discussing interpretative frames that shape our own actions, I thought of how mindsets reflect in different languages. For instance, where English is spoken, there tends to be an individualistic mindset, whereas where Mandarin is spoken, it tends to have a more general mindset. For instance, in Mandarin, there are no inflections of nouns, pronouns, verbs, or adjectives for the word itself. Words such “me,” “my,” “we,” or “I” all use the same character.  Unlike in English, there are also no verb tenses or conjugations. The distinctions between a language like English and a language like Mandarin reflects the differences in the frames of how people think from the two different societies. Language is the most common way in which people communicate. Our thoughts are shaped, whether apparently or subtlely, by distinctions in languages.

It can be difficult to see out of your own interpretative frame and understand others through different frames of thinking. Butler makes the point that we all have frames in which we see things, but in order to understand and accept our vulnerabilities, we must be able to see through different frames. Especially in the globalizing world today, it is essental that we are able to understand that there are different frames through which we can interpret events.

Until next time,

Elizabeth

Hello again! It’s been quite some time since I’ve last blogged, but recently in ASTU, we have been discussing and reading a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer called Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. The novel revolves around and is narrated by a young boy named Oskar Schell. Oskar had lost his father in 9/11 and in the novel, he struggles to deal with his father’s sudden death. At the same time, the novel also tells the story of Oskar’s grandparents whose lives had been turned upside down by the traumatic bombing of Dresden. In the bombing, Oskar’s grandfather had lost his love, Anna. It can been seen throughout the novel that one of the recurring themes is the characters’ struggles to deal with the trauma they have experienced, especially the loss of their loved ones.

Peronsally, I think one of the important messages that they novel conveys to its readers is revealed when Oskar’s grandmother writes in her letter to Oskar that it is essential to let your loved ones know how much you care for them because you never know when will be the last time they will be able to hear that from you (314). It is of no surprise how often death occurs, but many people do not think about how sudden death can be and how it can come when least expected. While reading the novel, it reminded me of the day one of my favourite teachers in high school had passed away. I had heard the news through social media, and at first did not believe it because I had just seen and talked to her earlier that day. We were talking about what I was going to be doing in post-secondary and she had really helped me figure out what I had wanted to do. At the time, I had not thourghouly told her how much she had helped me and thanked her. I was talking to her one second, and a few hours later, she was gone. You can never predict when someone will take their last breath, it can come suddenly and unexpected. In fact, if the death comes too suddenly, the people closest to the person who passed away may never be able to recover from their emotional trauma, much like Oskar when he lost his father in 9/11. When we understand that death can be sudden and take away a loved one in a blink of an eye, we are able to cherish our time with them instead of taking it for granted assuming that there will be a tomorrow. For this reason, we should always let the ones close to us know just how much we care about them.

Often when we hear about tradgedies such as 9/11 or Hiroshima and see the trauma that people have faced and the number of lives lost it can feel distant or surreal. We think that it won’t happen to us. By putting a number on the amount of lives lost in tradegies like 9/11 it makes us think of just numbers and it takes away the significance of each individual. When we look at tragedies from an individual’s perspective like Oskar’s in the novel, we can clearly learn and see how the loss effects someone on an emotional level. We then learn and realize that it can happen to someone we know and we learn how important the death of one person can be. Although we may never forget the amount of lives lost in a tragedy, it is after hearing an indivdual story and how it effected them that stays with us.

Until next time,

Elizabeth

Foer, Jonathan Safran. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin

Company, 2005. Print.