Karolina Lagercrantz ASTU GC BLOG

Dearest Readers!

The day has come. As we enter the last week of classes, our first year is irreversibly coming to an end. How strange it feels. As I reflect back on the year that has passed a wave of relieved uneasiness wash over me. As a First Year International UBC student, the past months have both academically and in general offered me entirely new experiences. When I first arrived at UBC in August, I had everything planned out in my head. I had done my research and I (thought) knew exactly which experiences UBC had to offer that I wanted to seek out. In the end, I did some of the ones I had planned for, yet, so many others. Unexpected ones. These experiences have pushed, stretched, pulled and bent me simultaneously in countless directions. I am tired. Quite frankly I am exhausted and relieved that I soon will be going home. Yet, I am not done.

In the past week of my ASTU course, we have examined the US intervention in Iraq through the lens of American military literature. In particular, we focused on the author and former US Marine Phil Klay’s work “Redeployed”. “Redeployed” is a collection of short stories and we focused on one of them with the same title as the whole collection. In “Redeployment”, Klay tells the story of an American soldier who is returning home after having served the US military overseas. This story depicts the complex sensation of isolation, despair, and regret that can accompany a soldier when returning home. As we have discussed in class, Klay skilfully portrays the soldier’s sensation of detachment and restlessness. For example, Klay illustrates the scene of the “homecoming” as deeply stressful and absurd for the protagonist by emphasizing the soldier’s awkward reunion with his wife. There is no doubt that Klay writes, as he also has emphasized in an essay for the New York Times, in the genre of American war literature and soldier’s experiences of contemporary war. Yet, I would argue that this story does touch upon the universal theme of how difficult it can be to speak about experiences that have been so detached from the life of the people.

Reading this story, I found myself surprised as I recognized some aspects of feeling uneasy about returning home. Professor Luger mentioned in class about soldiers being “redeployed” both refers to go away for service and to go back home and going home often only is a stage of transition. Soldiers experience the homecoming repeatedly, knowing that they soon will be leaving again. Similarly, I have had my own homecomings. Having studied abroad for the past four years, going home has now become a temporary place of transition. Just as Klay depicts the soldier struggling with disconnect between what he thinks that he should feel and what he is actually feeling, I too have experienced a similar sensation when coming home. The construction of “home” having to be connected to a certain set of sensations, such as happiness or comfort, can, in reality, be highly problematic. I know, that when I return home this summer I will not immediately be experiencing these feelings. Most likely I will experience quite the opposite feelings in fact. And that is okay. What I have learned during these four years is that by speaking about how my life away from home has impacted and changed me, I am able to mend the crack between the person I was when I left and the person I am coming back. Thus, just as Klay urges us to break down the preconceived ideas of war being “unimaginable” and “unspeakable” and allow for soldiers to speak up, I want to urge all international students to do the same when returning home.

All the best 🙂

Dearest readers,

This past week I have continuously been thinking about how close we are to the end of this academic year. With anxious excitement, I find myself astonished by how fast this year has gone by. Yet, there is a long path of assignments and work still ahead of us before the end! For this blog post I have decided to explore a slightly different theme related to my ASTU course and well as academics in general. Indeed, being First Year University students undoubtedly require us to gather and accumulate knowledge at a rather rapid speed, and often doing so without necessarily asking why we consider this knowledge as valuable to us.

In our ASTU course, we have carefully explored the importance of and how knowledge is acquired from academic essays and other literary works. Yet, after having read the Ali Behdad essay “Critical Historicism” and his arguments regarding the term “neo-orientalism”, which refers to the Islamophobic literature of the current decade that is reliant on a binary judgment and a Western assumption of moral and cultural superiority over the Oriental other, I realized something. I realized that I struggled to value this particular academic essay. Completely deviant from my position as an objective student and still the sensation hit me. Why is it that I value some of the works more than others? After having spent some time reflecting over this, I came to the conclusion that maybe I did not feel that the examples Behdad used to illustrate his argument were valuable because I did not find them applicable to my own concept of knowledge regarding ethnocentrism and orientalism.

But to what extent can you measure the value of knowledge? Before considering this question, I was convinced that all knowledge had to be applied as a way of confirming its value. However, the deeper I dug into this knowledge question, the less certain I became. Ironically, I believe that as students, when knowledge is the most available to us, we tend to approach its assumed value pragmatically. We have a test on the Neoliberalism, thus knowledge about Reagan and Thatcher is valuable because it can be applied during the exam. Simple. Yet, we overlook the complexity of such a knowledge issue. Indeed, should knowledge be classified after valued at all?

Does this imply that there is no such thing as valuable knowledge or that all knowledge should simply be valued equally? In my opinion, knowledge can be valued in different ways, due to the internal and external application by the individual acquiring the knowledge. One can argue, that application provides some sort of value to knowledge, yet knowledge in itself is not only valuable for this application. When exploring this rather philosophical path of what knowledge means to me, I thought it to be interesting to link it to the themes of Islamic culture and religion we have heavily explored in our ASTU class, and which I believe Behdad’s essay touches on, through a conversation I had with a Muslim friend from Pakistan a couple week ago.

Indeed, whether knowledge is valuable in itself or if it depends on its application in terms of religion is a highly debated subject at the moment. In Islam the main source of knowledge is derived from the Koran, which according to Muslims is a direct recitation of God’s words. The Koran is used as a book of guidance on how to live according to the will of God. Thus, as a practicing Muslim my friend wears the hijab and pray five times a day, as it is said to do so in the Koran. Given that there is no direct evidence that these practices are coming from God, or if God exists, this religious knowledge is perceived through the faith of its followers. This way of acquiring knowledge is important to take into account when analysing its expected religious value, as knowledge through faith is simultaneously shared and personal knowledge. This implies two things. First, one cannot perceive knowledge through faith and not believe that the Koran is God’s words and not internally applying its message in the world perception. Second, as this is also shared knowledge part of a religious group, this cannot be without applying the gained knowledge practically, such as praying and wearing the hijab. This may therefore, suggest that it is in the application of religious knowledge that its value can be found.

But is application always essential of religious knowledge and its value? Certainly, my initial assumption regarding this subject is influenced by my own previous interpretations of religion as a whole. Coming from an atheist family, I have been infiltrated with the idea the those practicing any set of religious principals or practices all value the practical application of the knowledge more than the knowledge itself. Throughout my childhood, authority figures have encouraged me to use my reasoning when addressing religious knowledge, such as viewing the Genesis as a metaphor for something applicable to our “modern paradigm” rather than literal knowledge. By using reasoning instead of faith it is harder for me to see a logical argument for different perspectives of “religious values” that are independent from a direct application. The same Muslim friend described this logical dilemma to me. For instance, in Islam when referring to religious value one must consider a difference between “value” and “application”. She took the example of how homosexuality is portrayed in the Koran. In several Muslim countries, such as Pakistan, homosexuality is forbidden by law based on knowledge from the story of Sodom found in suras 7. My friend, however, does not interpret the story the same way and does therefore not apply this religious knowledge to her own surroundings. Yet, this does not make the story, knowledge, less valuable for her as a Muslim.

Linking this anecdote to academic knowledge, it taught me something important. Knowledge in itself has to be understood and examined from a multitude of perspectives, as it is it is evident that “application” and “value” are both subjective components of knowledge that, although seen to justify the pursuit of knowledge, still are simple creations of our own minds. Maybe I should re-read the Behdad essay with a more open mind!

On that philosophical end note,

Have a good weekend 🙂

 

Dearest readers, these past weeks we have in our Astu class been addressing a theme that is central to our Cap Stream. That is, what it really means to be a “Global Citizen” through the frames of literature. Before arriving at UBC, I had signed up for the CAP stream “Global Citizen” to a large extent because I had an idea of what a “Global Citizen” meant to me and I wanted to dive in deeper into the concept. This is precisely what these past weeks have allowed me to do, yet, not in the way that I had expected. Indeed, instead of focusing of Global Citizenship directly, we have investigated the topic in a rather indirect manner in terms of literature. Throughout the course of the year, we have studied several stories written by authors from all corners of the world, each providing their unique perspective on what it means to human in our world. Yet, it was not until we analysed Judith Butler’s “Frames of War” that I more fully understood the importance of these stories, which changed my perspective of Global Citizenship.

Previously I regarded the concept of “Global Citizenship (GC)” to refer to the establishment of a sensation of united belonging, acceptance and accountability between individuals on an international scale. Yet, having confronted other international perspectives, I also strongly believed that the GC should be up to each individual to explore and interpret. According to me the main focus of GC had to be put on the word “sharing”, because with reference to the act of sharing experiences on an international as well as a local scale I believed that we could create a common ground. Rather naively, I thought that by initiating any forms of exchanges, with the main focus being to enable the creation of a common ground of values, such as respect, cultural diversity and justice, we could together forging friendships between individuals and nations. For me, GC could easily be established through teaching and learning about different ideas, perspectives and cultural mind-sets.

However, after having read Butler my conception of how GC actually is, or possibly is not, created drastically changed. In ”Frames of War”, Butler puts forward the argument that the ways in which we perceive war are “framed” through specific venues, such as the media, that prevent us from acknowledging and emphasize with the people who are to be killed from the enemy side. Indeed, according to Butler this “dehumanization” of individuals who we reject identifying with is what keeps us from coming together on a global scale. At first, I struggled to internalize Butler’s concept that all of us subconsciously reject some individuals as not “really” being people to us. I remember feeling a little offended, thinking to myself: “Oh no, not me, how could I possibly that ignorant?” Having had a rather substantial amount of international experiences I desperately wanted to think of myself as sensitive and capable of viewing all individuals as actual people.

Being European, I was an active member of the European Youth Parliament (EYP), which included participating in international discussion forums and establishing local clubs. Through that I participated in several intercultural exchanges, such as two programs mainly based on the importance of cultural exchange and included courses in the history, politics and economy of the country visited, where I travelled to countries such as Ukraine and Turkey. Additionally to these, I was a part of a Swedish one-year ambassador program in France, which was funded in cooperation with the EU, where I continued participating in the French version of EYP and perfected my French and made close friends, attending a French boarding school. I later finished my high school at an international school, the United World College in Costa Rica, where GC values continued to be a part of my daily life, as more than 70 nationalities were represented at the school. Yet, despite all of this Butler’s words really hit home. Because in reality, I know that I am just as guilty as anyone else of subconsciously dehumanize individuals that I do not have a personal connection to.

Thus, by taking Butler’s theory and applying it to the concept of “Global Citizenship” it offers us a unique understanding of why it seems to be so difficult to achieve. As this dichotomous relationship between people belonging to “us” or “them”, which is a manner thinking often derived from war, creates a mental wall making it impossible to establish a sense of shared global identity or citizenship. Therefore, in order to strive to become a Global Citizen we have to be fully aware of this subconscious behaviour. If are not aware, it does not matter how much international experience we obtain, we will still be victims of this way of sorting people. Thus, as I have said before, awareness is the key!

Have a good weekend!

Dearest readers,

This past week I have continuously been  thinking about what to investigate in this blog post. Our ASTU course has recently been exploring with the 2007 novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist written by Mohsin Hamid. This novel was written as a response to the “culture of fear” developed in the years after the 9/11 terror attacks and deals with the experience and life of a Pakistani Princeton graduate, Changez. Through the story of Changez, Hamid permits his readers to question their understanding of how we collectively create an understanding of events and aspects surrounding it. As a part of the class discussions in relation to the novel during the past weeks Professor Luger has guided us through a range of material. Introducing the novel, Luger explored the historical aspects of the event including the physical implication it had in terms of warfare and national fear and suspicion. She further presented the comments and understandings of 9/11 by several political and literary scholars, carefully illustrating how Hamid skilfully embodies the nature of US after 9/11. Indeed, one essential argument Luger put forward and continued to explore during all of our discussions that really stuck with me was that of challenging assumptions.

The idea of assuming that there is a certain nature of how we view the world around us is something so seemingly close to us that it almost goes past us unnoticed. Reading Hamid’s work I often found myself surprised, and slightly offended I must admit, by constantly having my preconceived assumptions about the information of the character Changez directly thrown back at me. This theme of repeatedly pushing for awareness and the importance of being aware of how coloured our perspective is reminded me of one of my biggest scholarly role models.

I believe that true understanding derives from awareness. Because, only when aware and attentive towards the reality of a situation or oneself, I believe, one can catalyse a change. This idea, however, is not simply my own, but was to a large extent influenced by Hans Rosling. The first time I encountered Rosling, a Swedish professor of global health, he did not stand out to me. A fairly old, university professor was miles away from my 14-year-old image of a leader. Yet, there was something about the way he spoke that captivated me. Since that day I have spent a considerable amount of time in front of his software Gapminder fascinated how different global patterns and the media’s images were. Gapminder is a non-profit project that aims to promote an increased understanding of statistical data and other information about economic, social and environmental global trends. Doing so Rosling intends to encourage the public to understand and work towards a more sustainable global development, such as the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

What fascinates me about Rosling and the Gapminder Foundation is how he, in contrast with general tendencies, uses knowledge and facts to promote awareness and to fight ignorance. I strongly identify with his belief that by making information more available for people to access, one has the potential to influence these individuals’ thoughts and actions. I also share Rosling’s momentum against ethnocentrism and xenophobia. For instance, his current work focuses on reducing the distorted knowledge-gap about the Third world, which seems to have spread like a wildfire in Western countries.

I find it fascinating how similar Hamid’s usage of ambiguity and suspense as literary techniques manages to catalyse the same thought process within me as Rosling’s work does, yet from an opposite direction in the form of fiction. Because awareness does not merely depend on knowledge, but understanding or emotional understanding, thus Rosling and Hamid have collectively opened my eyes for this on several levels. Borrowing the words of Professor Luger, I wish to end this post by thinking that maybe there is a reluctant fundamentalist in all of u and this only because we often fundamentally believe that we aren’t.

Seen you next week!

 

Dearest readers!

Coming back to UBC after the holidays, and especially to my ASTU class, I have started to grasp to what extent the beginning of this university journey has affected me. Although, the scope of this impact includes experiences beyond the academics, the scholarly material I have been presented with is the core of my internal transformation. It has come to my realization during the holidays that I have not only altered the way I perceive and construct knowledge about external factors, but also my perception of internal knowledge about myself. Throughout the previous term in our ASTU class, we have addressed several works focusing on the exploration of personal experiences and public depictions of historically told memories and stories. All of the literary works together with the scholarly essays have invited me to think about my memories in a different light. Yet, it was not until reading our first work for this term Safe Area Gorazde by Joe Sacco that I was able to put these newly acquired lenses to address national memory of trauma on a more individual level.

First, being ethnically half Bosnian Serb, although I usually refer to myself as half Croatian as most of my relatives now live there, my perspective as a reader of this work was radically different from the previous works that we had studied. During the year of my birth, the native nation of my mother ceased to exist. The horrors and genocide committed by my people after Tito’s death are the stories of my childhood. Just 20 years ago, a horrendous genocide was committed by individuals whom some my grandmother can name. Undeniably, I have been aware of this since as long as I can remember and unfortunately I am repeatedly reminded of the persisting hatred between the ethnic groups every time I visit Bosnia. Prior to reading Sacco’s work, I had used a strategy of trying to understand and explain the historical factors from a rather scientific point of view. This meant me spending a significant amount of time and energy watching and reading about Marshall Tito who ruled Yugoslavia before the war broke out.

There is no doubt that Marshall Tito was praised as a strong, successful and charismatic leader by many of his own people and on the international scale. Yet, Tito’s political and economic policies were in many cases not build on a stable foundation causing Yugoslavia to become ethnically divided. Aleksa Djilas, a former Yugoslavian journalist, in his article “Tito’s Last Secret: How Did He Keep the Yugoslavs Together?” describes the Bosnian Genocide as consequence of Tito’s failure to create national cohesion. Djilas states that to remain in control of the economy, Tito slowed down the natural development of a market economy, including the development of goods and workers being exchanged between the different regions (Foreign Affairs). Despite this attempt to limit the influence from the west by restricting the economy and reinforcing Leninist principles, Yugoslavia still became rather westernized, which according to Djilas diluted the communist party and made it unable to remain in control when Tito died (Foreign Affairs).

Another essential aspect to notice is also the icon Tito himself became for the Yugoslavian people. According to the documentary “Tito the Rebel Communist” by the History Channel, there is a strong correlation between Tito as an individual and the coherence of Yugoslavia. Rising to power essentially by leading a communist guerrilla group fighting against the Nazi-Germany during the Second World War (Pavlowitch, The History Channel), Tito became an icon and war hero representing the collaboration of all Yugoslav ethnicities. Indeed, the official concept of Yugoslav unity solely depended on Tito and his socialist ideology and socialist values were taught to students and young schoolchildren substituting culture and religion, thus creating both support for Tito’s actions and a sense of a common ground under him that then fell apart when he passed away. Knowing these historical facts about the conflict, I had managed to shield myself from the emotional footprint of the genocide and the subconscious ethnic guilt I somehow felt.

It was therefor rather surreal the way the emotional applications of Sacco’s graphic narrative hit me. It was on the 7^th of January and I was on my way to some family friends to celebrate Serbian Christmas (Orthodox Christians) after I just started reading Sacco, when I realized how emotionally hard it was for me to read. It is strange, because Sacco of Sacco’s position as an author writing about histories of his interviewees, I found myself in a situation where I was a reader of an external observer and at the same time feeling a personal connection. Interestingly, because of Sacco’s external position he was able to describe a realistic portrayal of emotions that my relatives could not describe to me because it was too painful form them to do so. Thus, although sometimes difficult, it really opened up another aspect of the war that I had been able to access, which is what I believe really is a remarkable power of literature dealing with trauma.

Have a nice weekend !

Dear Reader,

 

Last week our ASTU class was a little unusual, because we went on a class outing. Can you guess where we went? To a library of course! Not any library, however, but the Rare Book and Special Collections in Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. When Professor Luger announced this location for our outing, I was undeniably intrigued. Rare Books and Special Collections. Does it not sound like a name taken straight from J.K Rowling’s Happy Potter novels? Can it really be that exciting? Actually, it gets even better. Not only the name is taken out of a magical novel, but the whole sensation of the library itself, both in terms of the location and the material within it. My appreciation of the relevance and power of libraries was definitely altered after I entered this mysterious and hidden library in the basement of Irving.

 

Meeting us at the door, in the beginning of this journey into what the library has to offer, was a librarian greeting us with a warm smile. Escorted to a lecture room at the back of the library, we were given a short introduction about the resources provided by the library and given a couple of exercises to complete during our visit. Apparently, this small library has gathered a remarkable number of collections of unique archival materials, rare books and collections of various artefacts. Indeed, what is rather impressive about this library in particular is that many of the collected items and primary sources can only be found there and not anywhere else. This unique material varies from objects such as a bible from the 1400 to a collection of several copies of Alice in Wonderland. This means that it serves an important function for unique research opportunities for scholars, by giving them access to sources of information with the power to give a unique insight to their research.

 

For the purpose of our visit, we were given archives belonging to Joy Kogawa from the time when she was writing the novel Obasan that we read and studied in class. When analysing different pieces from the archive the class was divided into pairs, each pair given a specific piece to examine. The piece my classmate and I were given was three extracts from some of the earlier drafts of the novel. Particularly captivating was one document that presented alternative titles Kogawa had in mind for the novel. Some of these titles were “If I Must Remember” and “The Colours of Rain”, which I personally feel resonate a lot better with the story told in Obasan. Knowing these alternative titles it is impossible not to imagine the “what if”. I found it strange to think how different it would have been if one of these titles had been chosen instead of Obasan. To formulate the emotional response this knowledge catalysed in me I would use the metaphor of hearing about the partners your mother had before she met your dad. There is strange paradigm shift that occurs when your perception of something that you took for granted is shown that it easily could have been something very different.

 

So why did Kogawa choose “Obasan” instead of the other? From a more scholarly speaking perspective, to have the ability to ask this question is fascinating for several reasons. First, it tells us about the thought process behind the creation of the novel, which indirectly may suggest Kogawa’s intention. For instance, the title “If I Must Remember” goes well along with the theme of reluctant remembrance portrayed in through the story. Given this archival material one could argue that Kogawa tells the story about the Japanese Internment not because she wishes to, but because she felt the need to share it. On the other hand, one could also argue for the opposite. The archival material with alternative titles could equally suggest that it is impossible to determine an author’s real intention, because of these constant changes between the different drafts of a novel. Thus, having access to this information opens up another level of analysis that goes way beyond what the novel can provide alone.

 

It is truly fascinating what a simple piece of information can change how you look at something. I will for certain come back and explore the library another time.

 

Have a nice week!

 

 

 

Dear Reader,

As a university student at UBC I have often heard my classmates say recently that they feel like they are drowning in a never-ending workload that just keeps piling up leading up to the end of the term. So many of us, myself included, seem to reach a point when we ask ourselves: Why am I doing this? For today’s blog post I will address this question about the purpose of academia and why pursuing a university degree is essential beyond the individual. Since my last blog post, our ASTU course have continued to pursue our readings in Giltrow’s guide to “Academic Writing” and diving into new ideas and conceptions of what academic writing really incorporates. One aspect that really stood out to me when was the concept of about common and uncommon knowledge explored in chapter 10.

In this chapter Giltrow distinguishes between the terms common and uncommon knowledge as two terms used to explain the difference between colloquial everyday language and academia. That is to say, what makes academic writing different from the way we normally use language and why does this difference exist? When speaking of scholarly writing the public often tends to dismiss it, as Giltrow puts it, being “overly complex”. Before reading this specific chapter I also had a tendency to sometimes question the purpose of complex language associated with scholarly writing. For me, it seemed exclusive and a form strategically excluding individuals who lacked the academic background to access the information scholarly articles presented. However, Giltrow rejects these popular assumptions by illustrating how a complexity of language is interconnected with a complexity of ideas and understanding. This complexity and deeper analysis of something is what Giltrow refers to as uncommon knowledge, which is necessary for academic research.

When discussing this during our ASTU class, one of my classmates used the metaphor of walking up the stairs to his house as another way of thinking about this concept. He was saying that common knowledge would be that you know that you are walking up some stairs, whereas when applying uncommon knowledge you would start looking at less evident aspects such as how many stairs there are or when the stair were built. What fascinates me is this idea of uncommon knowledge putting aspects into question. What do we actually know, and if we do, how do we know it? Unfortunately, I do still believe that there is an issue of scholarly language being exclusive to an academic audience, as it may enlarge the gap between people’s understanding of knowledge.

Interestingly, this issue of uncommon versus common knowledge seems to me as utterly relevant in the light of current events. After what I consider a deeply disturbing U.S presidential election, I started to apply Giltrow’s thinking about the importance of uncommon knowledge when trying to address why someone like Trump could gain peoples support. As many journalists have already identified, such as Maggie Haberman in her article in the New York Times, there appears that the American public addresses knowledge about issues they perceive differently than the academic community does. I believe that the failure to question Trump’s usage of broad generalizations and negative stereotyping of minority groups lies in the fact that is was to a large extent “common knowledge” among rural Americans. The British comedian Jonathan Pie in a video interestingly portrayed this idea where he explains how the American educated liberals are to blame for the outcome of the election. Pie says that the incapacity of the left to provide this rational dismantling of Trump’s claims, or as Giltrow would put it; turning it into uncommon knowledge, is essentially why Trump won. Indeed, one essential feature of uncommon knowledge is this idea of active questioning, which can only be done when open for a comparison of diverging perspectives. Sadly, I believe that the American political sphere failed to both allow different opinions to form a common ground and to actively question the nature of American society holistically.

To conclude, Giltrow’s theoretical exploration of the importance of scholarly writing, or rather the academic fashion of constructing knowledge, is utterly insightful when looking at current knowledge gaps. Indeed, it brings a broader understanding of the issues our society will face when uncommon knowledge is neglected.

On that note, keep that studying going! 🙂

Picture taken from: http://www.christianpost.com/buzzvine/look-at-that-face-10-great-donald-trump-photos-145379/

Dearest reader!

For this week’s blog post I will discuss something that was touched upon the other day in my ASTU class when discussing one of the literary works we have read as a class. As part of our Global Citizens CAP stream, my Art Studies course puts an emphasis on the exploration of personal experiences and public depictions of historically told memories and stories. It is not surprising that our second literary work, Michael Ondaatje’s Running in the Family especially touches on these core stones through a poetic and sensational perspective.

 In our class discussions, we analyzed how Ondaatje tells the story of his own return as he writes about his own process of remembering both the journey and his past. Integrating non-chronological perspectives and time-lapses, in order to catalyze the reader to recognize that memory just by being remembered, is a construction of imagination. Indeed, the memoir puts a large emphasis on the poetic and romantic narration, heavily relying on sensational imagery, often leaving the reader questioning where reality and imagination meet. Running in the Family, thus, invites the reader to view their own and other’s memories in a different light. Doing so, I would argue, Ondaatje manages to expand this message of his memoir to go far beyond his own work. Before having explored memory through this new lens, I subconsciously made a distinction between memory as a “truth” and stories as “Imagination”. However, reading Running in the Family catalyzed a paradigm shift, allowing me to merge the two together. Ondaatje’s delicate depiction of a journey returning to something familiar, yet as a stranger and outsider, made me reflect over my own family’s historical background. Reminding me of my grandmother, who grew up in the communist nation of Yugoslavia, Ondaatje´s way of referring back to the history of Ceylon and the sensation this history creates undeniably goes way beyond his own personal memoir.

Originally from Sri Lanka, but long immigrated to Toronto, Ondaatje´s Running in the Family deeply explores themes of identity and memory through Ondaatje´s personal experience returning to a home that may not longer be his. What struck me as I read this convoluted memoir is the fashion in which Ondaatje addresses memory, and in particular, when remembered together, how it comports the strange quality of establishing a collective identity. This sort of enchanted aspect of a memory connected to an identity, which Ondaatje depicts, can be utterly difficult. This conflicted sensation of personal identity and memory can especially be noticed by the integration of short, shattered parts of family history. The memoir goes way back in the history of the family, telling stories about Ondaatje’s great-grandfather to continue with a description of his grandparents and later his parents. Additionally, it holds several stories from Ondaatje’s own childhood. This is similar to how my grandmother would tell me about her memories of her childhood in Yugoslavia. Just like Ondaatje, my grandmother left her native country when she moved to Sweden, and after the Balkan Wars in 1990’s her country Yugoslavia, ceased to exist. Refusing to identify as anything other than Yugoslav, she became a victim of extreme nationalism and was left without a nation. The romanticized life of living under Tito’s rule became the stories of my childhood. Fragmented memories, that I remember taking with the deepest gravity, I now view as a manifestation of how she feels when she remembers, rather than literary descriptions.

Indeed, this romanticized aspect of memory has been explored and celebrated by several other poets. Maya Angelou has a famous quote that I believe captures the core of what Ondaatje attempts to convey; “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Because what matters are not the empirical facts like what has been said, but the sensation that comes along with them. That is to say that when Ondaatje’s changing of the “truth” of his stories with the purpose of accentuating the sensation brings them closer to the true nature of memory, which also links back to how sensation shapes us as individuals. Indeed, another way Ondaatje’s background is similarly emphasized through when addressing identity. One example of the romanticized idea of identity and the past can be addressed through the poem “The Cinnamon Peelers Wife” (77), which we also discussed in class. On a surface level, this poem describes the prohibited relationship between a Cinnamon Peeler and his lover. On a more profound level this poem explores the individual desire to belong to and identify with something. Using both olfactory and tactile imagery the smell of the Cinnamon Peeler is conveyed as a metaphor for an individual’s identity. For instance, the speaker of the poem describes how he has tried to hide this smell, identity by burying it in “saffron”, but never manages to escape the smell (96). This example links back to how my grandmother, although no longer lives in Yugoslavia, still has that strong identity of being Yugoslav.

To conclude, Running in the Family has made a deep impact on my personal perspective when I look back at my own memories and identity.

See you next time!