Recently in our ASTU class we have been reading a book called This Connection of Everyone with Lungs by Juliana Spahr. This book consists of two poems written after 9/11 leading up to the United States invading Iraq. A main theme of our class has been global citizenship and what it means to be a global citizen. I think this book does a good job at illustrating the interconnectedness of people, while also highlighting the space between us.

In her first poem, titled September 11/2001, Spahr uses a repetitive form that is similar to the rhythm of breathing to try to hypnotize the reader.  I think Spahr does this to illustrate the feeling people felt after 9/11. This idea that people were stunned, in shock or in a hypnotized state where nobody really knew what to do or what was about to happen. She focuses on the connection between everyone with lungs, yet she focuses specifically on how this connection is both lovely and also doomed. She focuses on each individual’s connection to the world and our connection to others around us. She does this by starting at a basic biological level of connectedness, “cells, the movement of cells and the division of cells” (3) then zooming out to a broader global view of connectedness “the space of the cities and the space of the regions and the space of the nations and the space of the continents and islands.” (9) I think this shows that even though we try to distance ourselves from other people, through boarders and private property, we are still connected on a basic level which we cannot separate from, like air and the particles in the air.

The rest of the book is a collection of poems which are dated from November 30, 2002, to March 27, 2003. These poems focus more on everyday news and how it is getting harder to separate ourselves from the world around us. We try so hard to privatize ourselves, our homes and even our bedrooms, yet with new technologies at our fingertips, it is so easy to invite the world in to our own space. This begs the question of responsibility, and who is responsible for what? If we see something bad happening on the news that we don’t agree with, what are we going to do about it? I think society has fallen into this trap where violence has become normalized and its become easier to turn it off rather than do something about it.

These poems highlight the growing space between people, and how even though people may try hard to separate from each other, we are still connected on a biological level. This book also helps to show what society values and thinks is important. Is celebrity news more important than all the innocent civilians being killed overseas? What does this say about the theme of global citizenship? If we view our lives above others, how does  that impact their lives? I think these are a few important questions that Spahr doesn’t answer but leaves for her readers to think about.

In our ASTU class we have started working on our final papers. My paper will be focussing on Safe Area Gorazde by Joe Sacco and how this graphic narrative shows the different ways of coping with violent events and traumas. There are numerous examples throughout the book which illustrates the impact war has on a community, however, for the purpose of this blog i’ll focus on one chapter called “Silly Girls.”

War and violence can have negative impacts on peoples lives especially emotional and physical ones. Sacco uses different techniques in order to display how the characters are able to cope with the effects of war. One chapter in particular shows how, when surrounded by violence and death, people have different ways of dealing with trauma. Sacco uses the chapter “Silly Girls” to show how the characters use laughter, partying, and other activities as a way to distract themselves from the war and violence happening around them. The chapter begins on page 50 with three girls smiling largely at what appears to be a small party. Sacco and Edin are visiting a woman named Nudjejma at her house and there are numerous other people there who are having fun, laughing and eating cake “made from bananas!” (50) He draws the girls’ smiles so big that their teeth are completely showing. In the next frame on page 51, there is six people, including Sacco and Edin, sitting around a table with their heads tilted back from laughing and again huge smiles on everyone’s faces. Later on page 56 Sacco tells the girls he will be leaving Gorazde for a bit and the girls light up with excitement and begin hugging each other and smiling even bigger than before. They asked him to please bring them back a pair of Levi’s jeans when he returns from his trip.

Nadjejma appears to handle the stress and trauma of war by hosting a party to celebrate the little victories, such as having bananas in Gorazde for the first time after the war. The two ‘silly girls’ cope with the everyday violence that they have been accustomed to by wanting normal teenage girl things, such as a pair of the popular brand of jeans. Sacco shows multiple ways people are able to recover from war, even if it is as simple as appreciating the small things in life, it helps to get back to a normal or better way of life.

In our ASTU class we have been reading chapter one of Judith Butler’s “Survivability, Vulnerability, Affect” Frames of War: When is life Grievable? A part that really stuck with me was on page 36 where Butler says “What are the implicit frames of recognizability in play when I ‘recognize’ someone like ‘me’.” I never really thought about how I viewed the world or how I acquired my way of thinking, but I realized that my life experiences haven’t been as multi-cultural as I thought. For example I grew up in a neighbourhood and everyone was basically the same; middle class, white…etc. even though at my school there was a mixture of cultures and races, I noticed that most of my friends are white and have a similar background as me. On top of that I noticed that a lot of people of the same culture tend to group together and even though I have interacted with multiple people of different ethnicities I don’t really have many close friends who are that different to me. I think that Butler illustrates that it is important to really think about how we view society. I also liked the quote “We mourn for some lives but respond with coldness to the loss of others.” This quote relates to todays society in a way that we think of people as better than others or more important. This is especially relevant with President Trump and the immigrant issues America is currently facing. We are currently dealing with an issue of racism towards the Middle East and Muslim people. I realize that not everyone in America is like this, however, if enough people were willing to vote for Trump then there is definitely a significant portion of the population with these racist views, and it’s not okay. I think Butler does a fantastic job at highlighting some important issues and asking questions which really make you think about how we view society.

In my ASTU class, we have just finished reading a book called Safe Area Gorazde by Joe Sacco. Sacco is a journalist who travels to Gorazde, where he is able to interact with the civilians living there and listens to their stories about the Bosnian war. Many of the people living in this area view America as a perfect place and when Sacco arrives in Gorazde most of the community treats him and the other journalists as celebrities because they are American. Sacco shows how good and bad journalists can effect the worlds view of an event.

Near the beginning of the book, Sacco draws numerous reporters, including himself, entering Gorazde. Sacco draws himself differently than the other journalists, I think he does this because he doesn’t see himself like them. The other reporters seem uninterested in what is actually happening to the people in Gorazde, it is as if they don’t want anything to do with it and want to leave as soon as they can get their story.  Sacco, however, stays with the locals and gets to know them on a personal level. I think this portrayal of the media shows how little citizens of America really know about other countries. Not just citizens of America but many people all over the world in developed countries know very little about what problems third world countries are facing. The media that we tend to see is focussed a lot on celebrities and local drama, we vary rarely get a sense of what happens overseas. Sacco is able to show how little effect reporters actually have on the greater population. Many people nowadays don’t give a second look at what is going on as long as it doesn’t affect them.

By showing how little time and energy reporters put into their stories about Gorazde shows how little time and energy most people put into learning about what actually happens in countries other than their own. Sacco draws himself differently to show how he’s different from most people because he will take the time and effort to learn what happened. He takes a different approach to get to know the people to show that we can make a difference in peoples lives and we should stay and try to help them. Unlike the other reporters, Sacco stayed and gave hope to the citizens living in Gorazde that one day their lives will get better. At the beginning of the book when Sacco draws the reporters underachieving at their job, represents the consequences the media has on the people they report on. However, Sacco represents the good that the media can do if they put time and effort into the stories they report about.

  Last week our ASTU class was able to visit the Rare Books library to look deeper into the process that Joy Kogawa went through while writing her book, Obasan. I found this experience very intriguing because when I read a book I don’t really think about all the work that went into producing it, when I was able to look at notes and edits of the rough drafts I realized writing this book was no easy process. Through the research, edits and finding a company to produce her book, Joy Kogawa was able to leave her mark on Canadian history.

While looking through some of the boxes the library had of Joy Kogawa and her notes, I realized that in order to write this book she had to do a lot of research. There was a couple versions of family trees which I found very interesting because they were slightly different. On one tree it had Joy’s mothers name and some other names which were slightly different than referred to in the book. I felt the trees offered some insight to the book, especially regarding Joy’s mother because she is left as a mystery at the end of the book and we, as the audience, are left with questions about who she really was. I also enjoyed reading some of the fan mail Joy received for writing the book and the praise she got for being so brave to do so. One fan letter that stood out me was from Renata, a younger girl who asked Joy for help on her paper she was writing about Obasan. Even though we couldn’t see the letter Joy wrote back we could assume she helped Renata because there was another letter from her thanking Joy for her help.

Research into the family history and fan mail wasn’t the only documents which the library contained, they also had pages and pages of drafts and edits from different people commenting on Joy’s book before it was published. There was some nice comments and then some pretty harsh ones as well. At some points in her drafts, parts were cut out and were marked as boring, annoying and unnecessary, while other editors had more grammatical notes rather than trying to change the story. There was also parts which were left out of the final edit such as when Obasan moves around Canada, it would be interesting to see how much of the edits were left out of the finished book. Another document which was fascinating was a page with the possible titles for the book. The options were entered around the idea of family heritage, seeing and remembering. My question was, if the book was titled differently if it would change the way we read the book?

The library also contained numerous letters from publishers which turned the book down. Many of the responses stated that if they did publish this book they would receive a great deal of bad press, therefore, they didn’t want the book to give them a bad name. Others took a bit harsher of an approach and stated that the book was silly and such a book would never get published because the whole idea and basis of it was irrelevant.

Joy Kogawa took a chance in writing this book and had to over come many setbacks including rejection letters from publishers and mean and aggressive comments on her drafts, however, the benefit to herself, her family and society will be forever remembered, not just through her book, but through the documents and letters which the Fonds were able to obtain and preserve for the future.

In our ASTU class we have started reading a novel called Obasan which is about Naomi Nakane who is a 36 year old middle school teacher. She recently received bad news that her uncle died. The novel is about her journey in discovering her families horrible mistreatment while living in Canada during WWII. Before reading this book I thought I had a good understanding of what happened during WWII mostly because of my high school social studies classes. However what I was taught didn’t really focus on what happened in Canada but more of what Canada did abroad on the battlefield. We only ever scratched the surface of what happened in Canada towards the Japanese Canadians and the internment camps. I have heard about this incident yet it isn’t talked about that often. Today in class we had a discussion about what other people knew about the Japanese camps in Canada. I found it extremely interesting because two girls in my group were from the United States and actually learned more about this event than I did, even though I went to a Canadian high school. Also another member of our group discussion today was from China and learned about the same information that I did, that Japan was seen as the enemy and the bombing of Hiroshima although it was bad and many people died, it was Japans fault because they bombed Pearl Harbour first. It was interesting to see the different perspectives that each country or place has on this event. I think it is really important that people acknowledge this event even though it is bad. It is especially important for Canadians to remember because its part of our history and in my opinion forgetting this event is disrespectful to the people who we discriminated against. The book Obasan helps to show the lingering effects this event has on the families who experienced the Japanese internment camps and by forgetting it happened it is still showing discrimination towards them. This event is just as important in Canadian history as every other event during WWII and should be treated as such.

A main theme in our ASTU class that we have been discussing is memory and history and how they are related. Through reading Persepolis; the story of a childhood, Marjane Satrapi shows how memory is perceived through a child’s eyes, also in reading Micheal Ondaatje’s book; Running in the Family, we saw that memory can differ based on peoples perspectives. Most recently in the introduction to Tangled Memories, Sturken a communications scholar, introduces us to the idea of cultural memory, which will be the focus of my blog today.

Sturken argues that memory and history hold an equal amount of accountability and in fact go together, however some scholars, including Pierre Nora, believe that cultural memories are less accountable. Typically how we classify history is through physical evidence of an event, such as textbooks, media coverage, newspapers. However Sturken claims that history is more than the physical evidence it is about the culture of the time. She introduces the term “Technologies of Memory” (9) to help support her arguement. Technologies is not a term to be taken literally, how Sturken refers to the word is; objects which memory can be shared with others while offering additional meaning. An example which she uses is when people place objects at memorials, like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (5). These objects get collected and put into archives which do not fit into any of the traditional historical categories. She claims these objects which don’t fit into the traditional ways of classifying history is what makes cultural memory so important. The culture in which an event happens effects how history is recorded,  depending on the event people will remember certain parts, this is called “organized forgetting.” (7) Sturken reminds us that history can never be replicated exactly, because people do not remember everything. This is where cultural memory steps in. The ideals and values of a culture change as generations go on, what was once seen as bad in the past is now good and vice versa. This relates to the technologies of memory because depending on what the culture is and what the people remember helps to decide what objects hold a historical significance.

Sturken shows how memory and history aren’t just related but interwind with each other. This intertwined memory and history is relevant in Persepolis as well when the story is told through a child’s perspective because Marjane’s memories of the event are subjective to her own culture which she grew up in. Also in Ondaatje’s book when he is gathering information about his father he gets told many different versions of the same story simply because different people remember an event differently, it is all subjective. All together Sturken, Satrapi and Ondaatje’s books, all help to show how memory and history are not individual ideas they in fact work together.

Hello readers,

In my ASTU course the class has been discussing a book called Persepolis, written by Marjane Satrapi. In this personal narrative, Marjane is describing the Iraq war through her own experiences. One discussion in particular stood out to me when the topic of religion came up. Religion plays an important part in Margi’s life yet throughout the book she continuously struggles to follow it. I believe the reason for this conflict is due to Marj’s strong independent nature verses the values of her religion. As we continue through the narrative we see on numerous occasions where these two main traits conflict with each other, forcing Marji to pick between them.

From the moment Marji was born, she was religious. Not due to her own thoughts and beliefs but of her parents. Since a young age Marji took her religion very seriously and at the age of six she believed she would be a prophet. I found her obsession with wanting to be a prophet very intriguing. As shown in the book Marji has many conversations with God, one in particular where she wants to be God in three ways; Justice, love and wrath. I believe most people have a genuine desire to believe that the world can be good, and would like to make it better. Marji definitely is passionate about her community and living standards and wanting to live somewhere where she doesn’t have to lie about how many times she prays or is forced to look a certain way. The problem in Marji’s case is that since she is so young, she doesn’t quite understand everything that is happening in her community. Which brings up the question of what Marji’s beliefs are between good and evil since she is growing up during a time of war, what is she basing her beliefs off of?

As Marji grows up she begins to realize that her religion isn’t all that it had appeared to be. After the Shah’s reign ended Marji and her family believed life would get better however the religious leaders of the time created a new war and new rules creating even more hardships for Marji. It was not exactly clear at first what effects the religious leaders would have on the community. Marji, like any other person growing up, was begging to find herself and her purpose in life. When in class and her teacher was talking about the religious leaders Marji calls out the
indiscrepancies between what she had been taught before and after the revolt. The teacher acted shocked that Marji could bring up such a horrible topic however it was what she had been taught. With the switch between leaders and all the rules being imposed it was almost impossible for someone like Marji who remembered what happened and wasn’t afraid to speak her mind to ‘forget’ what events actually took place.

I can see why Marji struggles with this inner conflict between her own beliefs and her religion. It is hard to decide wether if to follow one means to disregard the other, or if you can live in harmony with both. Marji hates war, yet her religious leaders depend on war to keep their status. As well they depend on the poor to supply the front lines with disposable bodies who can be easily manipulated to fight in a war of which they created. Marji on the other hand is from a higher social class yet strongly believes everyone should be treated the same. This is similar to the time when Luther wrote his 99 thesis to confront the church when it was selling indulgences. The church tricked the poor people into believing that indulgences would help them get into heaven, however it was all a scam to get money from the people. In actuality they were just worthless pieces of paper and the priests of the church were keeping the money for themselves. In reality I think Marji is going to chose to stick with her beliefs and not follow her religion because she has a strong character and since her religious leaders were corrupt she will no longer be able to trust in them again. This forces Marji to trust in her own beliefs in what she deems is right and in the end I would agree with her.

For Marji to go against the norms of her country in not following the religion because she can chose for herself what is right and wrong takes a lot more courage than to go with the majority. Marji should always follow what she believes to be good and it appears to have resulted in her having to chose between her own beliefs or her religion. I would hope she follow her own morals verses her religion.

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