Introduction

Hey Everyone! 

My name is Ashvi Ivan, I am a 3rd-year psychology student. This is my first time blogging and I have to say it feels like an interesting experience. Initially, I was looking for a literature class for my literature requirement but the format of this class has definitely piqued my interest. I think the format in some ways encourages students to be more adventurous with approaching text and text analysis as it does not penalize students for their approach. Due to this, I expect that I will be able to approach texts with an open mind in this course and be more welcoming to the idea of reading and analyzing texts. I have not heard of the texts that we will be engaging within this class and so this allows me to have a bias-free, new lens to the texts and an opening to a completely new set of texts. As said in the lecture I  am very curious as to whether this will allow me to find a connecting pattern within these texts as opposed to other texts I have read earlier on. I hope to find a new interest through the texts provided and learn new methods of text analysis. Due to the formatting of the course being open to a multitude of approaches,  I hope that I will encounter new approaches and perspectives on text analysis. 

Coming into this course I do not have much background in Romance studies but, upon viewing the lecture I am very intrigued by what was said about the lack of geographical belonging that romance studies have. It was interesting to hear about how this makes it welcome to all while distancing itself from everyone. The concept of it being a betrayer was a very interesting thing to learn.

It was also very interesting to hear about the effects of translation and the everchanging meaning of texts that occur with each translation. In a lot of ways even without translation, we are influenced by our own cultures when interpreting texts. The translation of texts further amplifies this effect and sometimes solidifies the changes to the point of irreversibility. On the flip side, however, it also increases a text’s relatability and thus makes it more meaningful and approachable to a much larger population. This allows texts to be not lost in time and place and as mentioned in the lecture a “traveler”.