Monthly Archives: November 2015

Hello Class!

The visit to the Rare Books and Special Collections library was the topic of discussion for this week’s blogs. The class blogs were supposed to be about sharing the experience of our class field trip to the Rare Books and Special collection library at Irvin K Barber Library where we analyzed Joy Kogwa’s fond. Even though it was a field trip and we went there as a class, it was interesting to see how everyone learnt something different and had their own ‘individual’ experience despite of the whole experience being shared ‘collectively’ by the class.

Deigo’s usage of the term ‘forgetting as humiliated silence was attention-grabbing. He also made a bold statement about the ignorance of the ‘traumatic’ Japanese- Canadian’s history by the Canadian schools in reference to that term. Deigo’s opinions shared a common ground with Rachael, as she also feels the importance of educating students about the history of Japanese Canadians in order to preserve this important historical struggle. I could relate a lot to Mariana’s blog as the ‘shady’ history of Canada was shocking for international students like us. We were only aware about the existence of ‘multiculturalism’ of Canada but little did we know about its traumatic history. While all these blogs focused on the ignorance of the history of Japanese Canadians, other blogs focused more on the experience of analysing the Joy Kogwa’s fond and their ‘individual’ views about her fond.

Kaveel in his blog, referred his experience of being able to analyse ‘primary’ sources for the first time as ‘eye-opening’. He also shared pictures of various artifacts which was stimulating especially the brainstorming sheet titled ‘’SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS FROM A NOVEL IN PROGRESS” which was compared to a scholarly article by Kaveel comprising of arguments, knowledge deficit and contribution to the larger argument.  Carolina expresses her disappointment at  Joy Kogwa’s fond, providing more information about the author’s work and not the author. I also appreciate how she got inspired by the field trip and decided to personalize her blog that represents the ‘real’ her and shared a picture of her bulletin board (I personally loved it, check it out!).

Overall everyone did a great job on their blogs and I really found all of them really thought-provoking. The blog posts this week were good end for this semester.

Good luck on the short essay and the finals!

See you all next semester!

-Priya

Hello readers!

In the last few week of my ASTU class we read another interesting graphic novel “Safe Area Gorazde” by Joe Sacco, which is about Bosnian War. Joe Sacco through his moving and gut-wrenching book describes his experience during the four months he spent in Bosnia. He offers up a history of the war through interviews with survivors, many living in bombed out shells that used to be homes and office buildings. He also describes the daily life of people under the circumstances of the war and shows us how war brings out the best and worst of human nature.
After reading Joe Sacco’s “Safe Area Gorazde” and Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis”, I found out the various similarities and differences in both of these ‘graphic narratives’. One similarity that I discovered in both of these books was the way they portrayed the women characters in their graphic novel. Both Sacco and Satrapi intentionally or unintentionally made the women characters stood out from the usual ‘stereotype’ of the ‘Bosnian Muslim women’ and ‘Iranian women’ respectively. The women characters in these graphic narratives even after certain restriction are portrayed as independent women with their individual opinions and desires. Sacco shows the Bosnian Muslim women who smoked cigarettes, wore jeans, went to parties and listened to modern music. They were also shown with flirtatious personalities, boyfriends and did not wish to get married at an early age. All these characteristics of the women is far from the characteristics of a ‘stereotypical’ Bosnian woman. Quite similar to Sacco, Satrapi also shows most of these characteristics in her female characters. The protagonist Marji was represented as a curious and patriotic child whose upbringing allowed her to become a sensible, intelligent and strong-minded individual even in the most restricted environment. Another important character in ‘Persepolis’ was Marji’s mother who was portrayed as opinionated woman who believed in equal rights. She was portrayed as a fearless lady who was not afraid to stand up for the right things. She actively protested with others who were not happy with the elimination of women’s rights and violent attacks on innocent people. Marji’s mother set a great example for Marji in becoming a resolute and strong-willed individual.
Joe Sacco’s “Safe Area Gorazde” and Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis” had  differences in writing style and their portrayal of other themes like violence. One was written from an adult’s perspective whereas the other was written from a child’s perspective, Marjane was an ‘insider’ who experienced the Iranian war and was part of the ‘people’ whose life were directly influenced by the war whereas Sacco was an ‘outsider’ who was not directly influenced by the war, he shared the ‘insider’s’ views and experience despite of being an ‘outsider’. Even after all these differences, they both share a common ground as they broke the stereotype of the women from Bosnia and Iran. They changed the views of the readers that these women are not mysterious, veiled, victim of male oppression but instead strong-minded, independent, fearless, opinionated and unyielding with their own desires, wants and perspectives.