Hey there!

Welcome to my final blog entry for this year in ASTU 100! This week we finished reading Zeitoun by Dave Eggers, an iconic novel depicting the true story of one family affected by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans from 2005 to 2008. The story was compelling however as we talked about in our ASTU 100 class, the family seemed a bit too picture perfect. As anyone who has read Eggers “autobiography” on the Zeitoun family and then looked up the name Zeitoun on Google can tell you, something doesn’t quite add up.

In my opinion, it was a good read; it gave good insight on Muslim Americans, the complications of politics that natural disasters may bring, and the story of racism that isn’t always told. Abdulrahman Zeitoun is depicted as a hardworking, faithful, open-minded, family-oriented man. I don’t doubt any of this, nor do I question Egger’s intentions on writing him as such. However, there is disturbing evidence that proves his home life isn’t perfect at all. In 2013, he was charged and arrested for beating his wife, attempting to kill her, and in 2014 he was charged for breaking the restraining order against his wife and kids.

So who is the man of Egger’s novel? A hero who stayed behind in the wreckage of the city he loved to feed his neighbours dogs, risking his life to make sure everyone else made it out okay, and trying to fix the homes of his clients? Or does this new profile of Zeitoun take away from the fact that he experienced completely unjust racism and human rights violations?

Thinking about this in class today, made me wonder how we define our heroes, and what we let them get away with. I don’t think the fact that Zeitoun’s real life character having deep flaws takes away from him being a hardworking man. I think his imprisonment had lasting and terrible affects on him and his family, and not everyone is completely good or completely evil. Painting Zeitoun as either black or white would be a misjudgement, as I think Egger’s did. I think it’s a good thing that this is the last novel we’ll be studying together in ASTU 100 because it brings up this point that we’ve been learning all year: that we should always remember to think deeply and critically of literature, political figures, government policies, movies, and whatever we come across.

Hey there all of you, once again welcome to my blog!

I hope everyone had a lovely reading break and is finding the transition back to classes much easier than I am. Since we haven’t covered much new material since the last blog post, I wasn’t too sure what I’d write about this week. So I’ve decided to give you all some background to my ASTU essay proposal that we’ve been working on. I’m actually pretty excited about this essay because I got to choose my own novel, outside of the syllabus. I chose one of my favourite books by one of my favourite authors: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. There were a few reasons I thought of this novel in particular, one of them being that we were recently looking into Poems from Guantanamo Bay. It was briefly talked about how poetry for Middle Eastern cultures is more of an everyday thing. When we talked about this, it brought to mind a quote from A Thousand Splendid Suns where one of the main character’s father jokes that there was a time when you couldn’t stretch a leg in their city without poking a poet in the ass.

There were other similarities within the novel itself that reminded me of novels we’ve read over the past year. Like Marji’s parents from Satrapi’s Persepolis, who didn’t want to leave their country even though their lives were in danger and their beliefs had to be censored, because they loved their homeland that much. This sentiment was also in Hosseini’s novel, where Laila’s (one of the main characters) mother refused to leave their country of Afghanistan even though rockets were striking houses and killing people around them everyday. It put her whole family’s lives in danger but she would not change her mind. When I first read Hosseini’s novel (yes, I’ve read this book several times) I was struck by the fact that someone could love their home so much, almost more than their family. But years later, after reading Persepolis, I think I could understand better where that love for your home comes from.

Anyways, the purpose of this blog was to give everyone who hasn’t read this book a little info on how great it is. If you haven’t already guessed, it is set in Afghanistan. Hosseini narrates the lives of two women, which I think is amazing, given the time period for women in Afghanistan. The first, Mariam born in a rural village outside of Herat in 1959 and the second, Laila in the city of Kabul in 1978. They both have very different personalties, live very different lives, but somehow their trauma leads them into the same household. It’s over a very intense time period in Afghanistan’s history, when the country goes from Democratic rule to fighting the Soviets, to the Taliban taking control, to America declaring war on the country. It is an especially difficult time period for women in Afghanistan, Laila is born during a peaceful time where women are encouraged to learn and work but in her young adult years is when the Taliban take over with a very different mindset.

Besides all the politics of it, what makes the book one of my favourites is how poetically it is written. I found the first chapter online for anyone who is interested. I don’t want to give too much away, but it’s definitely worth the read and I hope all of you get the chance to look into it or any of the other novels that Khaled Hosseini has written, like The Kite Runner or And the Mountains Echoed.

Citations:

Falkoff, Marc. Poems from Guantánamo the Detainees Speak. Iowa City: U of Iowa, 2007. Print.

Hosseini, Khaled. A Thousand Splendid Suns. New York: Riverhead, 2007. Print.

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. New York, NY: Pantheon, 2003. Print.

hey there fellow bloggers of ASTU 100,

the past two weeks we’ve really been focusing on trauma and poetry, two themes that seem to go hand in hand. Specifically though, trauma caused by acts of terror. Something about studying poetry on the subject, however, has made me question who is responsible for terror? From the works of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay, it would seem the US military are the bad guys, but from the point of view of many Americans, it is only in retaliation to greater evils. The collection of poems from the detainees of Guantanamo Bay is quite controversial in this way. Many even think that the poems should never have been released. But if poetry in itself is an act of self expression, then are some people not allowed to that right?

I found the poems from Guantanamo Bay tied in nicely with Juliana Spahr’s collection of poetry “This Connection of Everyone with Lungs.” To me, her poems were trying to relay the themes of connection and disconnection. The first poem of her book titled, Poem Written After September 11/2001, especially emphasized this. I found that basically, her poems were a more artistic way of putting Judith Butler’s theory from her novel “Frames of War.” 

In many of her poems and especially in the last one of the book, she repeats a theme of everyday life but compares it to warfare. For example, Spahr writes:

“In bed, when I stroke the down on yours cheeks, I stroke also the carrier battle group ships, the guided missile cruisers, and the guided missile destroyers.”

I think what she’s trying to say with this repeated theme is that with everything that is revealed in your life, there is a life connected to yours that is concealed, or ignored. But we are inevitably connected to these lives and aspects of life. As Spahr repeats in her poems, “How lovely and how doomed this connection of everyone with lungs.”

Citations

Spahr, Juliana. This Connection of Everyone with Lungs Poems. Berkeley: U of California, 2005. Print.

hello all,

welcome back to my blog this semester! This week, my ASTU 100 class has been discussing a chapter out of Judith Butler’s book, Frames of War: When is a Life Grievable? Specifically, a chapter that we read because of it’s relevance to our discussion of Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. 

The chapter, “Survivability, Vulnerability, and Affect” really put Foer’s novel in a different lens. The discussion that Butler raises about the justification of violence as either mourned or “celebrated” really got me thinking. Now, I’m not going to use my little bit of blog space to summarize her work, (it’s only 30 short, totally non-repetitive and easy to digest pages you can read yourself) but there are some points I’d like to focus on.

To start, Butler makes us rethink everything we thought we knew about what makes our human bodies our own. According to Butler, “the body is a social phenomenon: it is exposed to others, vulnerable by definition” (33). She goes on to say that what really makes up our bodies is not just our hands and feet but their relation to other people. Or in the words of one of my classmates this afternoon: I’m not just female because I have all the female parts but because of how others view and treat me as female. Or something along those lines. Basically what I got from this is if we are made up of our interactions with others, maybe we should consider more deeply the kind of responsibility we all have as vulnerable, social beings.

This relates to Foer’s novel especially, in my opinion, because the book is really about the relations victims of trauma have with one another. Of course, the experiences they’ve had impact them greatly, but the main point is how they affect each other afterwards. The thing about this chapter in Butler’s book is that it isn’t just relatable to Foer, it ties in directly with the concept of being a global citizen, and even just how we see ourselves.

The last point I’d like to touch up on is the idea of violence and when is it ever okay. I never really thought of deaths as two categories before this. But it is an interesting point to think of it as “we mourn for some lives, but respond with coldness to the loss of others” (Butler 36). For example, with the attacks on 9/11, the majority of the Western world mourned those lost in the twin towers but responded coldly to those who lost their lives in the Iran and Iraq wars. Maybe it’s a bit naive to think that we can all get along if we think of ourselves as vulnerable in a way that makes us want to take care of each other and not bomb people who bomb us, but I think Butler just wants us to think of all of this in a different frame. Maybe see from a humanistic perspective before acting. Or at least look at these events from a humanistic perspective before deciding who is “us” (100% right) and who is “them” (100% wrong). In a way, I think all of the novels we’ve been reading so far in ASTU 100 is trying to do this too.

Citations 

Foer, Jonathan Safran. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Boston, Mass.: Mariner, 2005. Print.

Butler, Judith. “Survivability, Vulnerability, and Affect.” Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? London: Verso, 2009. Print.

Hey there class bloggers,

Another week’s gone by and we’re that much closer to the end of the semester and winter break! This week for ASTU 100 we got to see the UBC archives of Joy Kogawa, author of Obasan. In my last blog I gave a brief summary and a few opinions I have on the book. After finishing the novel and discussing it with my classmates, seeing Joy Kogawa’s first drafts of the book was pretty interesting. Along with drafts of the novel were newspaper clippings she used for research, letters to government officials for access to information, and my favourite part, her personal poetry and letters.

Seeing the archives shone a light on the novel that I really appreciate. Where Obasan is such an emotionally written piece of literature, and seeing all of the documents for research (there were literally boxes and boxes full of files) really showed the devotion that Kogawa invested into this book. It shows that it’s not only a historic fiction novel, but something that Kogawa felt was personal enough to put in so much effort to correctly display the trials and troubles of Japanese Canadians and her own family.

My favourite part about seeing her archives were the more personal bits and pieces among all the technical papers. It was like reading her diary and hearing her thought processes while she put together her novel. As an aspiring writer, I love getting into the minds of other authors and seeing what they see and how they put that into words. I really enjoyed her poetry and it made me appreciate the prose in Obasan even more. You can tell by reading the poems in the archives that she had to make careful selections on what to include in the book.

Seeing Joy Kogawa’s life in a more intimate light also made the characters, especially Naomi, much more real to me. You can really see, especially in a draft of the novel where Kogawa draws Naomi’s family tree and labels herself as Naomi, that these characters aren’t just made up but based on her real experiences. It inspired me to look up a digital archive, an interview she did with CBC sharing her internment experience.

I’ll leave it to this, thanks for reading my blog and I hope everyone’s ready for the end of the term! 🙂

Hey there fellow bloggers, this week’s topic that I’d like to focus on is the novel “Obasan” by Joy Kogawa that we are reading in ASTU 100. It’s been difficult to write about, simply because the novel sparked so many different thoughts and emotions in me. Emotions from sympathy to anger, nostalgia to injustice is surfaced when reading Kogawa’s novel but I’d like to focus on the injustice I felt when reading about our Canadian history.

The book in itself is a fiction piece about a woman, Naomi, who is going through her memories of the Japanese Internment during World War II. Even as a Canadian born citizen, her, along with her family are forced to endure troubling circumstances of racism and relocation, and the loss of their homes. The book is a course of unravelling of Naomi’s memories that have been tangled and suppressed that she unearths after her Uncle’s death. The book, although fiction, is a testament to the struggles of many Japanese Canadians who have experienced the trauma after Japan bombed Pearl Harbour. It is full of rich imagery and metaphors that provide a deep meaning to Kogawa’s own memories. For example, the turning back of time starts when she finds her Obasan (aunt) in the attic looking for something she has forgotten. (Kogawa 23) There are also strong themes of longing for change and going back to familiarity, Kogawa uses the term “someday” to touch on that. It is both hopeful and used to express a kind of resignation for the way things currently are. 

Personally, this novel has been hard to digest. I identify as a Canadian. I identify with my mother’s Japanese heritage as well, although with some distance I have to admit, even though I would be considered “Nissei” or second generation living in Canada. Still it’s a very personal topic. Reading the novel on the bus on my way to class, the 135 to Burrard Station takes me past Hastings Park where Kogawa is describing a time where Canadian citizens were kept trapped against their will in unsanitary and inhumane conditions.

Above is an image I found from the camp at Hastings Park, a building once used to hold animals, was used to dorm the Japanese-Canadians who were kicked out of their homes. I am very fond of my aunt, who is very soft spoken and humble, basically the image of a passive, peaceful Japanese woman. Where Kogawa describes Grandma Nakane huddled and refusing to talk to anyone, (102) I picture my Aunt Satomi, and I wonder how anyone could treat someone like her, like that. What amazes me most, and is perhaps hardest to digest about this novel, is the fact that this incident in history is rarely brought up. I understand Emily Kato’s character who is so adamant about being heard, because events like this in Canadian history are kept quiet so well. Maybe it’s because as Canadians, it’s a part of our history that we are ashamed of, but Kogawa’s novel does the difficult task of bringing up a past that has been “silenced” as she describes in the prologue. I think it is important to talk about, not because of personal resentments, but to consistently evaluate our society and make sure that subtle racisms don’t develop into internment camps or anything of the sort again. Like it was brought up in the novel, “He knows the war was just an excuse for the racism that was already there.” (Kogawa 35) 

I could write a great bit more on the subject, but I’m going to conclude this blog post with a link to a song written about internment camps that I find very relevant to the theme of “someday” that is included in Obasan. The song is called Kenji by Fort Minor.

Fort Minor- Kenji. Perf. Fort Minor. Youtube, 2005. Film.

Kogawa, Joy. Obasan: With an Introduction by Kerri Sakamoto. Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2006. Print.

Scalza, Remy. “Rare Ansel Adams Photos of Internment Camps Now In Vancouver.” Inside Vancouver. Tourism Vancouver, 28 Apr. 2014. Web. 6 Nov. 2014. <http://www.insidevancouver.ca/2014/04/28/rare-ansel-adams-photos-of-wartime-internment-camps-now-in-vancouver/>.

I found the story of Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi quite captivating. The politics that shaped the author’s childhood really made me think about what I thought I knew about history and global conflict. It may arguably be a limited view of Iran’s history since it was written from one person’s perspective, but it still made me think about the limited perspective I have. Of course, this also brought up the views of educational scholar, Farhat Shahzad, on interpretive communities that our class discussed in ASTU 100. My interpretive community, in other words, my family, the community I grew up in, and my religious background, has influenced the way that I perceived Persepolis. For example, when I first read Satrapi’s story, I was taken aback by the way she discussed communism in her country with respect and admiration. One of Marjane’s hero’s is her uncle, who would be seen as a communist by the leaders at the time in Iran. This threw me off a little bit because I always had the idea that the communist ideology was wrong and evil. I suppose this comes from my mother’s beliefs against the communist parties, and I never really thought to question it, or even consider that countries like Cuba function just fine under a communist party. I always just connected communism to extremists like North Korea’s Kim Jeong Il, Cambodia’s Pol Pot or China’s Mao Zedong. After reading Persepolis, I realized how unfair this was, and how little I knew about each countries political history and how a policy could work in one country and not another. I realized that this was the same as connecting religion with religious fundamentalists, it was like thinking that the Islamic revolution in Iran was a reflection of Muslims everywhere. Satrapi’s Persepolis made me more conscious about my political views and which interactive communities formed them.

How much of what I know is influenced by my parents, high school teachers, and my community, and how much of what I think are my own opinions? When it comes to everything from politics to religion to what books I read, where do my opinions come from and how are they formed? According to Farhat Shahzad, we learn and remember from our interpretive communities, but I guess up until now I thought I had more sway in my own likes and dislikes. Reading the scholar’s essay however, I came to realize that maybe I don’t give enough credit where credit is due. One example that made a lot of sense to me was in a recent Politics 100 lecture by Dr. Erikson. Listening to the views of Karl Marx’s influence given by Dr. Erikson is very different to what I learned from my parents. In retrospect I didn’t think I had views about Marx, but learning more about him from Politics class made me realize that I had a preconceived attitude against him. In a more every day sense, I think of social media, commercial advertisements and popular culture. I used to argue that Facebook and what trends my friends are buying into don’t have that much of an influence on me, but there seems to be some pretty hard evidence saying otherwise. Shahzad found in his study interviewing a wide demographic of high school students, that communities with more of an emotional attachment play a higher role in the processes of remembering a learning. Thinking about it this way, how much time do we casually spend of Facebook? At least for me, I would classify this as an emotional attachment. I think that this point could be used in arguing that social media is a very powerful tool in how student’s today remember and learn.

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