Contemporary Literature

After today’s class discussion regarding history and memory in Art Spiegelman’s Maus, I was inspired to further my search of academic articles relating to life narratives and how auto/biographies may contribute to the retrieval and revival of memory. Subsequently, as opposed to disregarding the life narrative as too personal or subjective (and thus unreliable), auto/biographies provide an alternative view of history that allows for the reader to better understand subject matter that may have previously been seen as irrepresentable. Although Young writes of “deep memory” as something that may be wholly inarticulable (667) in his essay “The Holocaust as Vicarious Past: Art Spiegelman’s Maus and the Afterimages of History,” the writing and sharing of one’s own traumatic historiography may aid in helping to expose suppressed and displaced memories. With that being said, auto/biographies have the power to connect the writer and reader in a mutually beneficial bond of sorts – revealing history that truly ought to be acknowledged. I strongly recommend the following articles if this subject poses as any interest to you!

In this text, Tony Adams discusses the ethical values of narratives and the effective power that narratives possess. Adams outlines the fundamental notion of the narrative being used as tool to connect the writer to the readers who, as a result, are able to draw a deeper understanding from the personal/historical lesson which they may adhere to. A parallel is thus created between reader and writer; especially since the life narrative additionally poses as a form of therapy to the writer as they relay their traumatic experiences. This source aided in my understanding of how the life narrative is able to personally affect the reader whilst giving the writer a method of emotional release and liberation.

Here, Connell et al. take into consideration the transfer of knowledge of the narrative, and how the narrative may be interpreted by the readers. Special attention is paid to how changes and exaggerations may occur in the content of the auto/biography, and how this affects the readers’ perception(s) on the subject matter. Media suasion is additionally very powerful because of how information may be construed to the public. This article contains valuable information concerning historical accuracy and the exposition of facts, and whether this exposition is truly objective or not.

This particular text focuses on the moral values which are transmitted to the reader through the writers’ work, and how the auto/biography conveys social knowledge. This social knowledge helps to break predetermined ideas through rectification by use of personal discourse and firsthand accounts. Tacit, or implicit, knowledge is further deliberated – as it can be shared, demonstrated, and ultimately absorbed by the reader to be rightfully understood. This text establishes the truth of historical events through eyewitness events, and contains the additional subject of the tacit factor of the narrative.

Citations

Young, James E. ““The Holocaust as Vicarious Past: Art Spiegelman’s Maus and the Afterimages of History.” Critical Inquiry 24.3 (1998): 666-699. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.

Last year I took a Sociology of Sexualities course with one particular unit dedicated to the study of sex work, and since then I have been fascinated by the industry and by the patterns and life experiences of both its workers and customers. Reading Missing Sarah was the affirmation of my passion concerning the rights and well being of sex workers, and I have since been incessantly researching the sex industry within North America as well as sex trafficking on a global scale.

This article, published by The Ubyssey, describes Bill C-36 which intends to make the advertising of sex work illegal, as well as the participation in sex trafficking activities (i.e. customer involvement). Bill C-36 has been considered by the Senate but it still needs to be debated within the House of Commons. Although the potentially incoming law is applicable to both traffickers and sex workers, I think it is absolutely vital that sex workers themselves be considered as politically-relevant individuals in this situation. Where are their opinions? How do they feel they will be affected now and in the future?

Although innumerable women turn to sex work as a survival strategy, new options need to be considered for these predominantly impoverished women. Perhaps it is beneficial to look for alternatives to sex work, but if that means abolishing sex work at current, this puts many women in even more danger as they are expelled from their source of income. Who and where will they turn to?

Here is an article published by the Huffington Post concerning stats about the sex traffic industry within the United States. It speaks much of the American sex economy which is a curiously blunt, yet apt, descriptor of language. One of the recurring patterns within this article includes the notion that an alarming amount of sex workers actually have received a high school education, yet are still drawn to sex work in order to make a living. Even in the 21^st century, we’re inhabiting contemporary, so-called “progressive” societies that are basically forcing marginalized women into sex work as a method of survival. This is a matter to be absolutely concerned about and in a definite need of modification. But how to go about doing this?

Finally, this third article speaks about one woman’s experience within the sex industry, as she is a college student struggling to pay her student loan debts. It is a compelling read and I even feel the young woman’s troubles in relation to my own university experience (economically speaking). Sex workers must continue to be seen as people, citizens, mothers, and daughters who are just looking to make a living. Honestly, what’s so unethical or wrong about that? Missing Sarah contributes to the humanization of the women trapped in this oppressive industry and I hope that this humanization and personalization becomes a standard. That is to say, sex work shouldn’t be encouraged, but the underlying socio-economic and political issues within the sex industry need to be recognized, understood, and altered for the betterment of women and society overall.

Citations

Bondarenko, Veronika. “UBC Law Professor Welcomes Bill C-36, The Proposed Change To Canada’s Prostitution Laws.” The Ubyssey.  21 Sept. 2014. Web. 10 Oct. 2014. <http://ubyssey.ca/news/ubc-law-professor-welcomes-bill-to-change-prostitution-laws485/>.

Buchanan, Rose Troup. “The Truth About Student Sex Workers: It’s Far From Belle Du Jour.” The Independent. 29 Sept. 2014. Web. 10 Oct. 2014. <http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/the-truth-about-student-sex-workers-its-far-from-belle-du-jour-9757719.html>.

Kolodny, Carina. “9 Things You Didn’t Know About American Prostitution.” The Huffington Post. 14 March 2014. Web. 10 Oct. 2014. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/12/sex-trade-study_n_4951891.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063>.

During my time spent reading Fred Wah’s Diamond Grill, I was continuously captivated by Wah’s entirely unique style of “sound prose.” Sound prose (or sound poetry) is the merging of “literary and musical composition, in which the phonetic aspects of human speech are foregrounded instead of more conventional semantic and syntactic values” (Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, s.v. “Sound Poetry”). That is to say, the formatting of many of Wah’s entries in Diamond Grill is rather obscure; and in order to understand the semantics of these entries the phonetics and alliterative placement of the words must be thoroughly acknowledged and felt. As an example:

“… [P]ooled under the fifty-five-foot deep Quoi Ek Cutting railroaded and bouldered basket case against the Yellow Oath if I had any biased mind to invent lies, or to utter falsehood, the high Heaven, the true God, will punish me, sink me in the river and drown me in the deep sea, forfeit my future generations and cast my soul into hell for ever and ever…” (Wah 130-131).

The overall effect of Wah’s sound prose is such an exquisite intellectual treat and feat, as I feel that it appeals to the readers’ inherent senses as much as their academic, logical mind. In the aforementioned example, the reader may easily be able to detect anger within the passage due to the sporadic rhythm and harsh sounds of the words. The meaning and semantics of the phrase may seem abstract yet the importance behind these words lie within their structure and organic, free-flowing arrangement. The reason why I appreciate sound prose and poetry so deeply is because they require feeling and not just reason to be fully understood.

Further, in one of last week’s Contemporary Literature lectures we discussed the idea of how Wah intended for these particularly phonetic-oriented entries to imitate the sound/art of scatting in jazz music. I recently discovered that Fred Wah majored in both English Literature and Music here at UBC, which would be instrumental (haha…!) to his brilliance in showcasing his historiography by way of a musical and literary collaboration. In this following link, Wah recites from his collection of poems, Is A Door. Listen closely to the sound and conceptual shapes of his words:

(If Fred Wah’s voice doesn’t put you into a trance of relaxation, I don’t know what will.)

One other prominent Canadian writer who employs sound poetry is Earle Birney, whose poem “Vancouver Lights” (1941) greatly displays abstract shapes of verses and the (succinct) rhythm of words:

            On this mountain’s brutish forehead with terror of space


            I stir      of the changeless night and the stark ranges

           of nothing      pulsing down from beyond and between

           the fragile planets      We are a spark beleaguered

           by darkness      this twinkle we make in a corner of emptiness

           how shall we utter our fear that the black Experimentress

           will never in the range of her microscope find it

(Canadian Poetry Online, s.v. “Earle Birney: Poems”)

The artistic projections involved in creating a poetic or prosaic sound piece is genuinely intriguing. I feel the writing becomes more engaging, for it appears as an imaginative puzzle in need of being solved in an organic, musically- and visually-sensical manner that appeals to the readers’ sentiments. How did the formatting of this Earle Birney poem shape your perception of his semantic intentions? Does the concept of sound prose/poetry help or hinder your contextual understanding of the literary content? Is the sound or shape of words and verses even relevant to most readers?

Conclusively, just as Wah focuses on cultural and racial hybridity in Diamond Grill, he ultimately translates these notions into the structure of his bio-textual prose through musical and literary hybridization – Two passions combined into one text in order to recount a lifelong (and ongoing) political and personal experience.

Citations 

“Earle Birney: Poems.” Canadian Poetry Online. University of Toronto Libraries. n.d. Web. 25 Sept 2014. <http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/birney/poem1.htm>

“Sound Poetry.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 4 Sept 2014. Web. 25 Sept 2014. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_poetry>

Wah, Fred. Diamond Grill. Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2006. Print.

In class today we discussed the concept of Facebook maintaining a particular bourgeois, Western cultural standard through the discretion of its algorithms. As technological beings, we allow Facebook to filter through our online history, presence, and given information, establishing a norm for what we are permitted to post and what is displayed to us in our newsfeed. This seems to inevitably involve capitalist-oriented subject matter that appeals and caters to our consumer society and general identities. With this in mind, I have come to view Facebook as a form of post-modern colonialism by way of widespread and inescapable technological conveniency and invasiveness; thus substantiating (predominantly) American cultural norms.

In his TED Talk “Filter Bubbles,” Eli Pariser speaks of his ideological thoughts concerning the origins of the Internet; believing that the World Wide Web would help to promote democracy through the spread of differing worldviews along an easily accessible flow of information. However, Facebook and Google have evolved to accommodate individuals’ sole interests; moving us toward an online existence where the Internet shows us what we desire to see, but not what we should be seeing in order to promote the differentiation and expansion of our broader knowledge. Personalized filters look at our search history, with the algorithms curating accordingly, ultimately throwing off our “balanced information diet” (an expression that I think is brilliant and will most definitely continue to use).

Pariser asserts that a functioning democracy cannot work without an ethical flow of information that challenges the dominant and oppressive voice(s) in society. The Internet has created a puddle of cyclical information in place of an ocean of new and progressive knowledge. Instead of furthering rigid Western cultural norms, Facebook should act as a form of exigence that promulgates a civic responsibility to open-mindedness and global cultural competency through the subject matter that they exhibit to their users.