Jacqueline DeSantis's ASTU Blog

Recently in my ASTU class we’ve read Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist  and a critical article by Peter Morey that breaks down the book’s the form and function. Of all the articles we’ve read this year I’d have to say Morey’s and Butler’s chapter are a tie for me (not surprisingly they deal with similar ideas). When I first read Hamid’s book my initial complaint was that I hated the dramatic monologue set up, it reminded me too much of the first scene in Aladdin where a mysterious Arabian man draws in…read more

Today in my CAP program our entire stream was presented with a group lecture from our three professors plus a TA on the black lives matter movement. The discussion that followed our small group discussions was great but talking about such a racially charged movement got me thinking coincidentally about the paper I’m writing for geography. I’m writing a social, cultural, and political analysis centered around Hurricane Katrina focuses heavily on racial inequality exacerbated by the storm. Todays discussion got me wondering about questions we’ve raised on a theoretical level…read more

Recently in my ASTU class we’ve been focusing on language poetry from Juliana Spahr’s thisconnectionofeveryonewithlungs which reacts to the events of 9/11 in a pretty unconventional way. After reading her two poems I think there is a strong argument to be made that her work serves as a great example of non exceptionalist reactionary work that forces her audience to think in a way that Judith Butler would approve. Essentially, I feel like her poetry reacts to the trauma of September eleven in a way that combats an exceptionalist narrative…read more

After returning from a great winter break my ASTU class read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by John Safran Foer, which deals with both the personal loss of a parent after the 9/11 attacks and other sources of trauma felt by those the main character Oskar encounters. After Osakar, a creative and curious nine year old, loses his father in the terrorist attacks of 9/11 he sets out to find a lock that matches a key he finds in his father’s closet. Of course this quest has a far more…read more

My ASTU class recently had the privilege of visiting our library archives to see the early work Joy Kogawa did on her novel Obasan. Our class was able to look into her early drafts which showed the development of the storyline and characters that occurred before the final product. What interested me most about exploring the development of the novel was that it contradicted the thought process I usually approach books with. I tend to see any book I read as the only version of the story since it’s the…read more

Over the past few weeks in my Political Science class we’ve been learning about the concept of cultural hegemony while in my ASTU class we’ve been reading a graphic report on the war in former Yugoslavia. While reading Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Goražde our ASTU class has discussed some of the different times in the book where the influence of western and specifically American culture can be noted in the everyday lives of those living in the isolated war zone. Our class has also come to agree in discussions that…read more

After reading the first assigned book of the year in my ASTU class, Persepolis by Marjane Santrapi, I was left wondering what the author’s objective was in writing out her childhood into a memoir. In class Dr. Luger explained that Santrapi had stated that she set out to counter the negative western narrative of Iran and to share her own perspective on the revolution and war in Iran. Although that answered my question, it also raised some new ones like why did the author choose a narrative of her childhood to counter the…read more

Jacqueline DeSantis In the first few lectures of my university english course, ASTU, we’ve begun discussing the way communities and individuals remember and how sometimes people fabricate memories to serve their own agenda. We also discussed briefly the concept of bias versus perspective, what those words actually mean, and the connotations we associate with them. During the past lectures a connection has appeared between the idea that memories are influenced by a number of outside factors and the idea that bias and perspective change the way people view or value a text….read more