October 2016 – Karolina Lagercrantz ASTU GC BLOG

Dear Reader,

For today’s blog post I will address another area of our ASTU course that rests outside of the previously discussed subjects based on the content of literary texts. Indeed, another essential component of the Global Citizens CAP stream, which is also covered by my Art Studies course is the skill of scholarly writing with the purpose of educating and develop us as university scholars.

The fashion in which our class has addressed scholarly writing is mainly through analyzing and studying the material presented in “Academic Writing” written by Janet Giltrow followed up by our class discussions. When I first began reading Giltrow’s guide to academic writing I was slightly confused as I found Giltrow’s rather colloquial language and casual tone to be missing the focus for academic literature. I had expected a rigid “black and white” description of what I, as a student, is required to do in order to improve and develop my academic writing. Instead, I was met with vivid descriptions and rather intangible guidelines for how to understand and gain a perspective on what scholarly writing. Following Giltrow diving into scholarly writing, as a reader, you are given a sensation of engaging in a conversation and thought process rather than complete ideas. As we have discussed in class, when looking at Giltrow’s reasoning behind her choice of language, you as a reader can perceive a more holistic and accurate representation of what academic writing often entitles. Just as Giltrow indirectly displays through her writing style, it is the act and ability to engage in a written conversation together with other scholars.

Since I began to comprehend Giltrow’s idea, I have come to gain a new understanding of both how to read scholarly texts and how to enable my own scholarly voice to interplay with them. Interestingly, I found that painting up a more abstract and metaphorical understanding of scholarly writing such as Giltrow does, and citation in particular, enables me to feel more comfortable with my own impression of scholarly writing. For instance, Giltrow compares the skill of effective citation to the director of an orchestra. My Professor Luger later developed this idea further during our class discussion. Doing so, my perception of “citation” changed and underwent a rather drastic paradigm shift. Previously, I had a tendency to refer to “citation”- as the act of borrowing external players from another team (scholar), for the purpose of continuing with the metaphorical comparisons, helping me win a “game” of argument rather than citations fully being under my control. After our discussion, however, I began to see my role shifting from being one of the players to being the coach of the team made of my own ideas and the ideas from other scholars. Thus, the concept that citation, when done properly, instead is a process of your own academic creation was ground-breaking to me.

Furthermore, to enhance this discussion we also went back to many of our articles written by experienced scholarly writers field, such as Matthew Bolton whom I have mentioned in previous blog posts. Analysing Bolton’s essay regarding Ondaatje’s Running in the Family from the perspective of scholarly writing techniques rather than the literary content Bolton presents, it is clear to what extent Bolton is in control of his essay. That is to say that Bolton uses the voices of other scholars in order to amplify his own argument. An example of this can be noticed in the paragraph Accusations and a posteriori ethics, where Bolton brings in contrasting opinions of several other scholars such as Mukherjee and Mundwiler with the purpose of “creating a spot on the map” as Professor Luger would put it, for his own opinion being heard (Bolton, 222). Doing so, we were able to link this technique back to Giltrow’s idea of the different functions of citations; such in this case identify oneself as a member of a group collectively and to take a new turn in the scholarly conversation (Giltrow, 41). I found the ability to apply Giltrow ideas to actual scholarly writing to be fascinating and utterly important. It pinpoints authenticity of the theoretical understanding of literary scholars writing process and is as I regard it, a major catalyst for me to implement this in my own writing.

To conclude, these past classes have brought new perspectives and knowledge that I will do my best to incorporate into my own academic carrier in order to sharpen my scholarly voice.

Have a good weekend!

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!

Month: October 2016

Scholarly Writing- Blog Post #3

Blog Post 2