Hey bloggers!

It’s been a while since I wrote my last blog. During these weeks we read Redeployment written by Klay. It’s an interesting and eyes-opening article, although we were just required to read one chapter of this book, because instead of depicting the view of redeployment and reuniting with families, Klay puts himself into veteran’s shoes and sees the world from the side of those who witness the wounded, the dead and those who, although account for less than 1% of population of US, shoulders the mission as protecting national interest and security.

I call the angle of veterans as “site behind glories” because what we see is crowd cheering, bouncing castle, the U.S. flag and compliment as well as sign of reanimation. Nevertheless, what we ignored and will always overlook is the fact that what we thought veterans would feel is not actually what they really feel. I remembered there is a scene in the text where protagonist is riding back home with Cheryl, his wife. “I’m so happy you are home””I love you so much””I’m proud of you”…With those words sound reasonable and familiar with us, he barely respond to this compliment. Instead, replies as he “I love your too”. Why he is not replying? Was it because he does not feel proud as any other Americans feel? as what nationalism suppose him to feel? May he thinking at that time “I’d rather not receiving this special treatment, I’d rather not killing people and stay orange now, or at the rest of my life and remain as a normal people and embedded in white and stay innocent”?

This remind me of Persepolis, which was my topic in my previous blog. There is this child,losing his father who is evacuated due to remonstrating new governance and is considered as a threat to authorities. When little Marji express her sorry to this peer and panegyrise as “Your father die as a hero, and your should be proud of him”. What this child reply is “I’d rather he not die and live as normal people”. This image left me shocks as the words left to Marji because,for us, those impression placed on veterans is constructed by mass media- television, printed news, facebook…etc, all of which fail to let us experience the trauma, thus when we are put in shoes of those who experience trauma, we find gap and disjointed attitude towards war, injured, what belongs to glorious and what is not, what accounted as glorious and what is not.

Hi bloggers!

Recently we’ve been read three articles: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer; “Regarding the pain of Self and Other: Trauma Transfer and Narrative Framing in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” by Ilka Saal; “Survivability, Vulnerability, Affect (Frames of war: when is life grievable?)” by Butler Judith. What Butler provide us is a theory through which Saal use to analyse Foer’s novel.

It takes me a long time to read Butler’s articles because it appears to be theoretical and hard to understand without specific instances. What Butler states is that our life are precarious due to the interdependence we share. However, this interdependence is also illustrated by the distinction between “we” and “them”, in which the gap is the difference of value, culture, norms as well as identity embed among us, consciously or unconsciously. On the one hand, “we” only exist on the condition of the existence of “them”, on the other hand, individuals rely on others in their particular groups in which they share their similar identity. The inter-dependency existing within and outside our groups indicates the frangibility of the relationship as well as our precariousness.

However, in this blog I’d like to focus on “we” and “them”. How should we understand this distinction? What framework would a global citizen apply to interpret the concept of different value of life?

“We mourn for some lives but respond with coldness to the loss of others.” (Butler.36). The reason we hold such a difference moral reflection is the different level of moral relation. That is, we only mourn for a perceivable loss, which originates from social structure we live in, which is decided by our society and community. Nevertheless, dose it indicates that we lose our initiative on choosing interpretative framework?

In my perspective, the answer is no. Let’s take a look at the definition of global citizen by Kosmos Journal :”A global citizen is someone who identifies with being part of an emerging world community and whose actions contribute to building this community’s values and practices.” This definition is based on the assumption that there is an emerging community which share the ascent set of values. But it doesn’t mean that to be a global citizen, we are required to abandon what we used to believe, our original value and political beliefs. Since World War II, efforts have been undertaken to develop global policies and institutional structures that can support these enduring values. These efforts have been made by international organizations, sovereign states, transnational corporations, international professional associations and others. In the world in which globalization is prosperous and blooming, we face more opportunity to step over the boundaries and eliminate “we” and “them”.

Hi bloggers!

It’s been a while since we shared our last blogs! In the first and second of week in this term we finished reading the book Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. In this blog I will first post my POV on “What is the significance of Setting the background in 9/11 attack rather than a car accident”

The book is written by Janathan Safran Foer in which a young boy, Oskar, lose his father because of terrorists’ attack on World trade centre. While the book focus on the process of searching for the locker of the key left by his father, Thomas Jr, it is also talk about the trauma experienced by grandma, grandpa as well as others such as those who share Black as their last name. During reading I feel that the trauma is more than an individual issue as “How a young boy memorize and search connection with his father” rather than dig 9/11 from the angel of politics or national defence. This is what differentiate the books from the mass media. But a question arised as “Will it be difference if his father didn’t die in a historical event but a ordinary accident?”.

On average in 2012, 92 people were killed on the roadways of the U.S. each day, in 30,800 fatal crashes during the year. Although the trauma left by those trauma can not be measured, but obviously the 2996 lives pale when compared to the number of those get killed in car accidents. The first thing 9/11 left to us is a community in which victims, both the dying people and mourning ones, supported each others and fight together in going through mental illness and sharing the same grievance and affliction. Poeple doing their condolence in their own way. However, their ceremonies of memozing their beloved are somewhat link together, thus feeling less painful. Such as the relationship between Mr. Black and Ruth, both of whom suffered from the pain of losing lovers and chose not to leave a place conveying their memories. It is rumoured that Patriotism is promoted in America. That is to say, Americans draw the distiction bewteen “we” and “them” and enforce their identities and this is what makes the trauma more powerful and curring process meaningful.

Another significance is the conjuction between what is right or wrong. Dying from a car accident is a matter of fate, nevertheless, dying from a terrorist attack is a matter of crime and guilty. The 9/11 attacks did have significant impact. They highlighted the global significance of non-state actors and radical Islam. They alerted the country to the vulnerability of our way of life.

Thank you for reading!

Hey everyone!

This past week our class visited Rare Books, Special Collections, and University Archives in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and see those documents and archives about Obasan. This is a fiction written by Joy Kogawa that basically depicts the life of a Japanese-Canadian child in a period when Japanese-Canadian are suffered from racialism due to WW2, with their personal experience. Due to personal reason, I missed this precious field trip. However, my classmates leaves some great blogs recording and analyzing the document they interested in and I highly recommend them!

In this blog, I want to draw my attention on”fiction”, a dispensable genre in literature. More specifically, I am interested in how “fiction” created and the fact that reality are always interweaving with and distorted by fiction.

At first time, without any background knowledge of Obasan, I was astonished when hearing from Dr. Luger that this story of this child actually doesn’t exist. The first thing came to my mind is “How can Joy create these memories without personal experience? And how to, without any record or foundation, write these letters from aunt Emily?”. Then in the next few days I realized that there are actual letters and documents recorded as archives which serves as the basement of this fiction. Not only these hard documents but also Joy’s experience as a Canadian-born Japanese shape the individuals and environment in this fiction.

This makes me think of other fictions- Are they base on real-life experience or nothing? In my perspective, the answer is yes as every fiction requires a historical background. The record such as documents, letter, memory by people experience it, architecture and so forth trigger more inspiration while the experiences give more sources, enabling authors to write , create the characters vividly. For instance, David Copperfield appears to be very authentic and reasonable for the sake of the fact that it was created base on Charles Dickens individual childhood. He was rudely introduced to the world of the working poor, where child labour was rampant and few if any adults spared a kind word for many abandoned or orphaned children. Many of his future characters like Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and Philip Pirrip would be based on his own experiences. The appalling working conditions, long hours and poor pay typical of the time were harsh, but the worst part of the experience was that when his father was released his mother insisted he continue to work there.

But will the exaggeration, the artistic and unrealistic parameters in fiction change public view on some events or some historical time, just as Sturken suggest?

Hey, every one! Recently our ASTU class are focusing on persepolis which is wirtten by Satrapi and of which the main idea can by seen on my second blog. Then we continue to read and discuss Hillary Chute’s study titled The texture of retracing in Marjane Satrapi’s percepolis, in which the author analyze the books in a feminist’s angle, extending the procedure of unfolding memory by Satrapy as well as the unique style of presenting trauma.

During the group discussion in class, some of my group members talk about the abstract way of this graphic narrative, a good example of which is the cutting body seen on the first frame in page 52 . By drawing this image from a child’s perspective,  as Chute puts it, Satrapi show us that certain modes of representation depict historical trauma more effectively. To better show the normalcy of violence and trauma, Strapi further uses black-and-white style, which impose a radical contrast between the simplicy and the complicated meaning the author wanna convey. This tecnique make me think of traditional Chinese paiting.

Although we see the Chinese traditional painting, which was conducted with brush pen and black ink, as a complete different genre to comic books, I find some similarities between them. Let’s first take a look at the little Marji floating in space after going through an overthrew of her belief and the loss of she beloved Anoosh. The single frame takes over the whole page with Marji’s tiny body in the center, around by the deep, thick blackness that can not be seen, which impose endless imagination on the reader on how crocky little Marji is without exact word to elaborating it. The best way to expose the artistic conception, as a chinese tradition, is the predomination of the appropiate blank and pureness. As we can see from the typical traditional Chinese painting from the Song dynasty, there’s only a single fisherman on piragua located on the central frame rounded by river. Yuan Ma, who conducted this painting intentionally hide the shore and other stuff that constrain our sight to create a visual strike. The Technique that blank was left on purpose was called negative spacing leaving, which generally grew into a typical character in this genre, and which is mostly used for the sake of aloofness flowing among the paint. The contrast between the simple treak, blank and the spirit is pretty much likely to that we see in persepolis.

  This makes me think that-Will it be much more similarities among different genres?

Hello, everyone!

This week our class have some discussion about persepolis, which is a novel conducted by Marane Satrapi depicting her childhood in Tehran Iran. This is a girl loves punk rock and several western music, especially Michel Jackson, wearing unorthodox jackets, and not afraid of rebut teachers’ lies about the abuse of government’s power. Although this seems common among peers in western countries, what make this girl special is the backdrop of Islamic revolution and the rapidly changing political situation. The subtitle “the story of a childhood”, as itself, is not merely a documentary material about the history of Iran, but more than a biography in which the author delineate what her childhood is like, how the policy deeply influence she, her relatives, even the community.

As we can see from the article, Satrapi, in the political aspect, went through several changes. In the very first of her childhood Satrapi believe in god, considering god to create the king and dreaming of being a prophet. When the time the revolution was taken she, after being enlightened by books about Fidel Castro, Vietnamese killed by Americans and the revolutionaries of Iran, encountered and embraced communism; faith changed. What surprise me most is the attention paid on policy by Satrapi in such a young age while me, in comparison, possessed blank knowledge about policy at that age, which keeps me digging the reason.

This remind me of “The Role of Interpretative Communities in Remembering and Learning” conducted by Shazad( the author in my first blog). In my perspective, the families, modern and avant-grade(as we can see the depiction from the picture), are active in participate in allies and protection. Thus the news her parents selected, TV program they turn on, or dinner chat all together, became a certain way of the interpretation and selection of information. There were several interpretative communities faced in her childhood, parents, uncle Annosh, neighbour, teachers etc.. And the process of which one to believe, which one to cast-off are sometimes hard and confusing. I came up with a question in my first blog which is “Would the government exert deeper influence than teacher(who is individual) regarding of information interpretation?”. I am trying to find my answer in a shutter in which SHAH(the king of Iran) on the screen of television and make a speech “I understand your revolt. Together we will try to march toward democracy”, however, the information is received but not accepted by satrapi’s parents who, according to the shutter, ridicule the speech and the fake veil behind. Under the circumstances that government control the method and technology of the flowing of information(like squelch the rebel violently), Satrapi and her family developed their own way of mediate and select the information. The communication of modern are even beyond the family, we can also see it among the rebel and activists, which, literally speaking, is standing in the opposite side of the government.

Maybe in a certain time axis, the role of interpretation government play will decent due to people’s distrust.

Hi, everyone! Welcome to my blog! First I’d like to introduce myself to you. I’m Grace Long  from China. I’m in my first year in UBC, planning to major mathematics and recently enrolled in CAP hoping to get access to interdisciplinary knowledge.

In the last class we read and go through some analysis about the framework of “The role of interpretative communities in remembering and learning” by Farhat Shahzad. In the article Shahzad, instead of emphasizing the function human agents and technologies of memory play on human history, expounds her theory to us which is “certain communities also play their role as interpreters when a human agent gives meaning to historical facts and their normative contextualization”. After clarify her statement by listing some evidences, she further points out that teachers, also as a part of interpretative community, play an indispensable role in the selection of textual resources and mediate them, thus, a great attention should be paid on how teachers interpretative knowledge in a multicultural classroom.

Truly, teachers as interpreters and selectors of information are able to construct a interpretative community, are citizens whose political-orientation and world-view are shaped by their parents, communities, or more, nations. What if the information showed on our smart phones’ screen, newspaper, television have already been selected and interpreted in a certain regular module due to some political or religionary issues? It reminds me of my politics textbook in which typology of the state were mentioned. In an illiberal democratic state, like Russia and Malaysia, “the state controls the means of communication-television, radio, newspapers-and may even attempt to control internet and access.” as Robert Garner puts it. The political elite, for placing more disadvantages on opposite leaders or parties, for less vote and power transferred and the alleviation of pressure in the election campaign, are inclined to control the media to cripple the power of others’. These goals are usually achieved by setting up certain administration (for instance, State administration of Press, Publication,Radio, Film and Television of The People’s Republic of China) through setting constrains on political contents be published.

Let’s go back to cold war in 1941-1997, which is a time when contact between western bloc (the United states, its NATO allies and others) and Eastern bloc (the Soviet Union  and its allies in the Warsaw Pact) are absolutely blocked expect the report about regional war. The alternation in international political standpoint impose clog on cultural communication which, in that time, is deeply tinged by politics. In this case, nations, as a larger and more influential interpretative communities, refuses to embrace the value of different regimes. thus it’s hard to imagine a teacher, no matter how they take care of the way or interpretation used to prevent students from feeling segregated from mainstream, embraces all the values in such a special period. The picture 1 is the stamp on which a slogan was printed “fight communism” published by America.

pic1—fight communism

pic2-Pravda newspaper

Picture 2 is a shot of Pravda newspapers’ front pages and it’s easy to see(although i have no idea what the words mean) that what the media in Soviet Union report was all about Russia and political leaders while with nothing about countries in western bloc. The fluid information in both separated union, in some degree, are incomplete, or more, biased, which makes teachers hard to do a great job in selecting and mediating resources.

I was wondering if it’s true that teachers’ role in playing an interpretative community pales when compared to a grant political environment? To create a diverse interpretation community that embrace people possessing different value and historical background, maybe government should shoulder more responsibility than teachers.

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