This week in ASTU we have been reading “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” which addresses many key political issues surrounding the life of Changez who is a muslim who is living in the US. Although there are many small changes in the book the events of 9/11 change how other characters (with big roles and small ones) interact with Changez and how he conducts himself within his own moral confines.

Before 9/11 in Hamid’s novel Changez is treated with a lot of respect and in some ways can it can be argued that he is being put above his US counterparts because he is a foreigner. This can be seen with his time at Underwood Sampson before the 9/11 attacks as he becomes the youngest member of the company to receive a major promotion and the head of the company values him more than the other employees that were hired at the same time as Changez. In the book this is credited to Changez’s drive to chase the American dream and in doing such I think that we seem to forget the fact that Changez is not a US citizen and that there is a possibility that he is being favoured in the company because he brings in experience and knowledge from other parts of the globe. This is important to the work of Underwood Sampson and thus he is valued higher than his less skilled and American colleagues, however after 9/11 this changes.

The start of the changes as to how Changez is treated within the company can be seen at the airport when travelling back to the US when Chagez is stopped for a “routine search” and he is left behind by the very people who used to value him so much. Changez also attributes to his eventual demise at Underwood Sampson as he grows out his beard out of protest to seeing how all of a sudden Muslims are being treated in comparison to a pre 9/11 world. Changez in between the time that he still lives in America and the time that he leaves after 9/11 experiences racism and racial bigotry. For example, at one point he has the tires on his car slashed and people constantly telling him to leave, he also sees how other muslims are being treated reminding him of his roots and ultimately what he turns to in this time of self divide for him.

In conclusion Changez the events of 9/11 completely change how Changez conducts himself in American society. Once a confident hopeful prospect becomes someone who turns to tradition in defiance of America as a result of the shift as to how he and others like him are being treated in the New York society.

Over the past two weeks in ASTU we have been examining poetry that surrounds trauma. We read poetry from a number of different authors. For example we read a poem written by an inmate at Guantanamo Bay and some other poems that are based on the 9/11 attacks and one that was written about the Dresden bombings but has been used to portray the emotions of people in New York at the time after the attacks. These poems convey a deeper meaning in how the author deals with the trauma that they are facing and the event that caused these emotions to surface. The reader (who often times in the case after the 9/11 attacks) will identify strongly with how the author has portrayed trauma and through poetry will create a connection to the reader. Poetry however is not the only medium that does this, music has also had massive contributions in this area. Music arguably reaches more people as the medium as a whole has so many different forms and such a large audience and dealing with trauma and the struggle that this brings with it can be brought across to a massive audience that spans the globe. Both poetry and Music are important mediums when it comes to portraying trauma to an audience whether it be large or small however how this message is brought across is different.

The Spahr’s poetry that we have read over the past two weeks is different to any other form of poetry that I have read or written. The portrayal of trauma throughout in contrast to the comfort and safety that we (people who do not experience trauma on a daily basis) feel with the constant mention of the “bed” is something that moved me as it made me come to the realization that no matter how bad things get around the world there is always a personal refuge that one can find. This does not only count for people in the “Global North” but for people everywhere, even in a war zone there is going to be a time and a place where as an individual one can find peace in a moment. The readings of Spahr and how she portrays trauma through her poetry have helped me come to this realization as it has made me think about situations where people are experiencing traumatic events of any kind all over the world and how we all have a place where we feel as if we can escape it all.

Music is another form of portraying and dealing with trauma that is in the case of lyrical based music often times very similar to poetry. The lyrics of a song such as “I don’t like mondays” by the Boomtown Rats are based on the Cleveland elementary school shooting that happened on January 29th 1979. The shooter (Brenda Spencer) when asked why she did this responded with “I don’t like Mondays”. The trauma of this event lives on through the song and its lyrics, this form of portraying the trauma that is experienced in the event of a school shooting I personally find is a reminder to everyone that events such as this happen more frequently than we think and are often times not logically explained, however we may never forget what happened and it is through music that this specific case lives on. However school shootings are not the only trauma that exists in the music world. In fact the range of trauma that is being sung about and expressed through music is so vast that it would take too long to list. For example, many songs are written about breakups and heartache and the trauma that is experienced with going through this process. Sinead o’Connor’s famous song “Nothing Compares to You” is one example of such a song, the lyrics of these songs are relatable because many people in their lifetime go through one or more such traumatic events and can find refuge in music giving them the feeling that they are not alone in what they are going through.

In conclusion, after reading Spahr’s poetry I feel as if I have come to a better understanding of how trauma is portrayed in poetry and the deeper meaning of the message that it conveys. Also when looking at music and its wide range in dealing and portraying trauma connects with the audience on a more direct level. I believe that this is the case because (at least for me) it is a more personal experience when listening to music live or on a device.

Today in ASTU we discussed how trauma is interpreted and perceived as a result of reading Sall’s essay “Regarding the Pain of Self and Other: Trauma Transfer and Narrative Framing in Jonathan Safran Foer’s: Extremely loud and Incredibly close”, and the first chapter of Butler’s book “Frames of war: when is life grievable?”.  In this blog post I will be examining how people in Canada and Europe perceive trauma differently and how it is discussed in each culture. I will not be discussing how trauma is viewed in the US because I have never lived there and do not have the required knowledge to discuss this.

Canada being the bastion of having a very open minded and accepting culture that it is looks at trauma in a very particular way. In Canada we look at trauma from across the world and say things such as, “oh that’s an awful thing that happened there” and unless an event in history has occurred that is in a way very relatable the trauma will be compared. As Canada its self has not experienced much trauma throughout its history in comparison with European nations this is natural. The fact that in Canada (from my experience) we look at trauma this way is important because we as a society here need to attempt to understand events on their own and not start looking at other events and compare numbers and who suffered more. The fact that here we can agree that everyone suffered who has experienced trauma on any scale is a testament to how young and innocent Canada is. This is not a bad thing however because it lets us view trauma across the globe with a wide perspective and see events for what they are and not for “how bad they could have been”, or “oh well others suffered more”. This is a great virtue of Canada and I hope it will not be lost as time goes on and traumatic events continue to happen.

Now we come to Europe. Europe has a long history from even before the Roman empire and their enslaving of conquered people, to the second world war, and on through the cold war up to this very day. In Europe today we see that when a traumatic event happens such as the holocaust people begin to compare it to other events that are similar, (such as the estimated 10 million lives lost during the Russian civil war, or the estimated 25 million killed during the reign of Stalin). This then brings forth the inevitable question: Who suffered more? In all cases there will be one example that supersedes all other events either in lives lost or in the inhumanity and disgust that people have for what happened. In my opinion this is devaluing the value of human life. I believe this because when looking at trauma many Europeans look at numbers and how important that ethnicity was at the time. An example of this is the estimated 25 million Russians that lost their lives at the hands of the Germans in World War II, many in Europe will look at this and respond with something similar to this: “that is shocking but the Germans also were the cause of 6-7 deaths as a result of the Holocaust”. Here we see immediately that people begin to start comparing numbers and the fact that people were imprisoned and killed simply because of their beliefs and not as a part of war (which seems to have become an expectation that numbers are very high in this respect in Europe). Trauma has also become a source of dislike towards other nations and cultures. For example, the Belgians will in the near future never fully forgive the Germans for the raping and destruction that was bestowed upon them during the First World War. Europe, because of the long list of traumatic events ever since and before the documentation of them is unable to go back to viewing trauma objectively instead of through a clouded lens of other events that are worse.

In conclusion we see that trauma is experienced and perceived differently when looking at Canada and Europe because of how long each has actually existed as an entity influenced by European values.

As always comments are appreciated

In ASTU 100 we have recently been reading the book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. The book tells the story of a young boy called Oskar Schell and his story after his father was killed in the 9/11 attacks on the world trade centre. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close provides a fictional telling of one family and how they attempt to deal with the tragedy that has befallen them. In the book Oskar at one point expresses that he is not a racist but gets scared and tries to avoid muslims and people wearing a turban because of the 9/11 attacks. Today we will be discussing how after 9/11 we have seen a rampant rise in Islamophobia not only in the United States but across the world.

After 9/11 the world was shocked by what had happened and then president Bush gave his speech outlining “You are with us or with the Terrorists”. This is key because arguably if these attacks had not taken place on American soil or in a country that belongs to the “Global North” then the world would have most likely not taken it as seriously and the Islamaphobia that we have today worldwide would not exist on the scale that it does. The fear of islam skyrocketed after the attacks as the news stations of the world were quick to blame “muslims”, thus throwing the worlds second largest religion under the bus. Despite calling the attackers “muslim extremists” the only world that the public hears is “muslim”. The fear of islam however did not peak in the months after 9/11 it grew and continues to grow with US and world conflicts with radicals from the religion. For example, the “ground zero mosque” which is projected to finish 2017 will neither be located on ground zero or in fact be a mosque but rather would have been community centre, the attacks in Benghazi on september 11 2012 resulting in the deaths of 4 US citizens including ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. The fact that both of these events have happened in the last 5 years and have been reported on to such an extent that media outlets such as Fox News. This discussion has made into shows such as the “Daily Show with John Stewart” a political satire show where in one instance he takes on the Fox News corporation in their discussion on the events of Benghazi. The “ground zero mosque” also made an appearance on the HBO show “Newsroom” where the show provides a view of attempting to reduce the fear of islam. The fact that late night shows and and a TV drama are some of the most well known forums for showing a different side to fear in the world surrounding Islam shows us that despite the fact that the news organizations should be reporting the news they are in fact the leading contributor in the spread of Islamophobia.

The spread of Islamophobia is also aided by the constant reoccurrence of terrorist attacks from muslims in the “global north”. This has been recently been streamlined by the terror group ISIS and the attacks in Paris killing over 100 people. Another example of this is the molesting of German women (mostly in Cologne) by refugees and asylum seekers on new years eve. This event sparked more anti immigrant riots in Cologne and across the country to show the discontent of the people and the fear that they have because these people are predominantly of muslim faith and the way that the faith has been portrayed in the news ever since 9/11. Another example of how paranoid people have become is the banning of all muslims from some gun stores in the US. Leading republican candidate Donald Trump is also adding more fuel to the fire as he expressed that he wants to put mosques under surveillance and even possibly close some because of the fear of islam in the United States if he is elected. The fact that Donald Trump is the candidate with the most publicity from either party is concerning because he is reinforcing the idea of Islamophobia and all of the negative connotations of the religion. It seems that no one is even talking about the fact that the muslim radicals make up a very small portion of the religion and most muslims are in fact peaceful people seeking only to practice their religion. This however does not make for good publicity and thus only the negatives are looked at and portrayed from the religion. On the other hand we have radicals from all major religions in the world. The KKK in america were a white Christian organization and in Sri lanka and in Myanmar there are buddhist radicals who in Myanmar have even killed muslims (in a riot in 2012 40 in one day). This however seems to go largely unnoticed as it is not happening in what we perceive as a “western” nation thus making it less important.

In conclusion we can see that although we are now in 2016 the fear of Islam is more present than it has ever been because of recent events such as Cologne and Paris. I however believe that this dehumanization of the worlds second largest religion is unjustified as only a small portion of the religion belongs to radical groups such as Al-Qaeda or ISIS and as a result of news organizations the world over only showing the bad side of the religion people have a very negative view towards all muslims. I hope that over time we can get past this, however if events such as paris continue to happen and people overreact such as in the US with gun store owners making their store a “Muslim free zone” there is not much hope for this to happen in the near future.

as always comments are appreciated.

bibliography:

Jon Stewart Slams “Shockingly Terrible” Fox News Over Ferguson, Benghazi Coverage

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35231046

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gun-stores-muslim-free-zones_55ce4e52e4b07addcb430539

http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/donald-trump-just-announced-his-plan-for-mosques-in-america/

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22356306

Last week in ASTU 100 we went on a trip to the UBC archives, specifically looking at the Kogawa fonds related to her book Obasan. We have been reading Obasan for ASTU the last couple of weeks and have been discussing the book in class. In her book Joy Kogawa provides an insightful view of what it was like in Canada during the Second World War as a Japanese Canadian; and what life was like in the internment camps. During our time at the archives examining all kinds of documents that people sent to her relating to her book. These documents ranged from letters sent to her by young children still in elementary school to letters from the prime minister himself. Today we will be discussing how these documents change how we as readers of the book view the books place in Canadian history.

Obasan on its own provides a previously relatively undiscussed part of Canadian history to the forefront and the documents in the Kogawa fonds not only support this claim but they also strengthen it. As a symbol of the power that and influence has on Canada is the fact that the leader of the NDP party read a passage from it when the Canadian government officially  apologized to all the Japanese Canadians in the camps. This shows us that that the book on its own has tremendous gravitas. So how could this book become any more important? However all the letters and documents in the Kogawa fonds do just that. All the letters from the children who read her book are above all inspiring as the people who read them are so innocent and not yet plagued by the problems of the world. The letter from the Prime Minister is a recognition to how the country values Kogawa as a writer making her work ever more important.

All the documents in the Kogawa fonds not only restate that Kogawa is an influential writer to Canadian history but also someone who affects people from all walks of life in Canada no matter the ethnicity or rank in the nation. Everyone can relate to what is written in her books and in our case specifically Obasan.

Some questions for this topic:

Do all books benefit from having a fond to support their value?

How important is it to keep all of these documents for other peoples work and what is the extent of their meaning?

Over the past two weeks in ASTU we have been reading Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Goražde, which looks at events that transpired in the region in and around the area looking at the struggle of the people of the area during the time of the war in eastern Bosnia. Sacco does so in the form of a graphic novel, very similar to Satrapi who describes how she saw the revolution in Iran in the form of a graphic novel. However both authors differ extremely on how they draw their images in their respective books. Sacco goes though great lengths to show immense amounts of detail in each frame whereas Satrapi has a much more simpler style and rarely goes into much depth in her frames and leaves the visualization of the events to an extent in the minds of the reader. Today we will be looking at each of these styles and their values and restrictions.

Sacco in his book Safe Area Goražde goes to great lengths to show the detail of not only violence and trauma, but also happier moments such as parties and every day life in the area for people. this becomes apperant from the very beginning of the graphic novel as on the title page each of the people has a face and emotions.

This amount of detail can be seen throughout the novel. This is good because it gives the reader a very vivid experience into what Sacco was witnessing himself and makes the visualization of the area and the conditions that people were living in very easy for the reader. However much of the book is Sacco’s visualization of some one else’s story, meaning that he was not really there and as a result his vivid drawings are misplaced as he can only infer from the telling of another about what happened. This results in Sacco showing the reader his visualization of the story that someone else has told him meaning that his representation is not 100% accurate, this is however what his drawings can persuade the reader to believe.

Satrapi on the other hand does things much differently. Satrapi takes the approach of simple drawings in her graphic novel Persepolis. She argues that this is the case because she was a child during the Iranian revolution and saw the events through the eyes of a child. This gives the stencil work in her book a certain innocence that one associates with a child, this is especially apparent when she describes how a man was tortured and cut into pieces:

Despite the visual  representation being accurate to the events as all the events are things that Satrapi had experienced in her time living in Iran. However the lack of more graphic and accurate visualization of people and events gives the reader too much to interoperate as Satrapi lived through these events she could give a more accurate account of the events by adding more detail to her stencils.

To conclude, Sacco does an excellent job in providing a vivid account in his stencil work although it is at certain times in the book misplaced as he did not actually experience all the events and stories that he portrays. Satrapi on the other hand whilst trying to keep her stencil work in the mind of what she thought of the events at the time that they transpired could be more vivid and leave less to the interpretation of the reader as she actually lived in Iran during the time that they transpired.

What questions can we derive from this:

To what extent is it acceptable for the author to show as much or as little detail as they do and when should this change?

How does the different styles of drawing shape the experience for the reader?

As always comments are appreciated.

Bibliography:

http://ghareebkhana.blogspot.ca/2015/01/the-bosnian-tragedy-and-graphic-novels.html

http://english251hya.blogspot.ca/

Hello again fellow ASTU classmates, this week I will be talking about how revolution as described in the book Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi compares and differs to other political revolutions that have happened in the past. I will be examining how the revolution is described and its affect on the people of Iran, in comparison to the Ukrainian revolution that started in 2013 compared to the Islamic revolution in Iran from 1978 to 1979.

Satrapi at the start of the revolution shows that she is open to change and that she is willing and wanting for the government to change as she openly goes to protests to voice her opinion on the government. The first example of Satrapi going to demonstrate is on page 38 where she and Mehri deceive Satrapi’s parents and protest on black friday. This is significant because as the author tells us she decided to join the protests because she finally understood the reasons for the revolution and its meaning for all of Iran that 2500 years of oppression on the people finally had the chance to end. There was also a a majour political motive in that the Shah had become far too powerful and too close the the Americans politically. This gave the people the idea that their head of state was being controlled by the Americans. As described in the book (on pages 50 and 51) is the degree of fear that the Iranian secret police instilled in the people as it imprisoned more than 3000 political prisoners that were eventually liberated, but they had already become infamous for their ruthlessness and for the fact that they would torture and execute political prisoners. The revolution brought new leadership with the Islamic republic that took the country back to its roots of being a Muslim nation and in some cases bing almost as bad if not worse than the previous regime. It prevented the country from moving forwards politically and socially as only the Islamic religion was taught in schools and all bilingual schools were forced to close. The revolution brought about change but as described throughout the book Persepolis possibly the wrong change.

The Ukrainian Revolution is not very different from the Iranian revolution as its motives were similar but its effects are far different. I chose to compare these two revolutions because I  personally know someone who lived in the Ukraine during the revolution and how he experienced revolution is different to how Satrapi did. When I would talk to my friend he would tell me how exiting it was for him to be living in the Ukraine during this time of change. This is something that was quite shocking to me as I personally would be quite afraid as to what the eventual severity of the the protests would be; and for what would happen after the revolution would be successful or a failure. This is partially where Satrapi and my friend differ as Satrapi throughout the revolution portion of the book describes her mixed emotions of the events and how she is at some points fearful of what happening. For example on page 51 where her friend describes how he was tortured she is visibly shocked and in a way afraid that such a thing may happen to her as she opposes the regime. My friend however never seemed to be fearful but always exited about what was happening and about what was going to happen. He was also much older than Satrapi was during the Revolution and he also had access to sources such as Facebook where he would openly voice his opinions on what was happening and on the corruption of the current government that was in power at the moment. Politically the revolution in the Ukraine ended better than the one in Iran in my opinion as a leader was installed that the people wanted and who represents them democratically and who is opposing Russia with the crisis that is currently going on in the Eastern part of the nation.

To summarise we have two examples of two different people experiencing revolution differently. This is in part due to the fact that no revolution is the same and that one had access to social media and the internet and the other did not. Now what questions can we extract from this:

How has the act of revolution changed with access to social media and the Internet?

Have the sole purposes of revolutions changed over time or is the core motive still the same?

As always your questions and comments are aprreciated in the discussion section

Bibliography:

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

Chung, Jonathan. “Comparing Revolutions.” Prezi.com. N.p., 08 Apr. 2014. Web. 02 Oct. 2015.

Hello dear reader, This week and last week in ASTU we have been discussing the role of interpretative communities in remembering and learning from the academic paper written by Farhat Shazad. In this paper Shazad focuses on interpretative communities are shaping the memories and learning processes of students; she also describes to the reader how this is different to how remembering and learning have previously been interoperated by sociologists such as Wertsch who believe that “speaking, thinking, remembering, and learning involve a process of mediation between two main forces.” This is particularly interesting as Shazad raises multiple points about how memories are formed in communities such as families and groups of friends.

As Shazad explains in her paper students do not only learn in the class room but they bring in their own values and ideas from home and from other communities that they come in contact with. For example, Shazad takes examples of answers that the people she interviewed in her study and how interactions with their family have shaped their memory and how they perceive certain situations. I find this fascinating that this seemingly obvious idea has not been realised earlier by sociologists in the study of how students obtain knowledge. Another example of this is the fact that it seems in her paper that she introduces the idea to her audience that a group of friends can shape the opinion of an individual in the group. This could come from a discussion amongst friends about anything from sports, politics to what kind of drinks are better than others; literally any discussion that happens between friends forms opinions with the individuals within the group. It is important that this has been brought to Shazad’s audience as gives them incite into how interpretative communities such as family and friends because it has been a part of how opinions have been formed for even longer than the media and school classrooms have existed; making the fact that this is portrayed and conceived by the reader as a somewhat “modern” way of thinking is somewhat concerning as to how previous sociologists believed that people formed opinions and learnt about nye everything.

Now we must also remember that the classroom is instrumental in forming how we think and conceive certain information. I went to an International School meaning that all day from 9-4 I was surrounded by hundreds of people from more than 70 different ethnic backgrounds. This was brought to the forefront by my school as we often discussed how certain ideologies would be looked at differently by other societies that were present in the class-room. This was a great opportunity in the class-room to learn about how other people thought about current events and events that transpired in the past. For example, we had a jewish kid in my history class and when discussing the holocaust he said something that I found very interesting as he stated that, “It was something that happened in the past and of course its tragic but it is something that I don’t feel is as big of a deal nowadays as it is being made out to be.” I thought that this was very interesting to hear this from a jewish person as I almost lost family in the holocaust as my Grandfather fell under the half jewish rule and his brother was actually on a train to Auschwitz from which he was lucky enough to escape from. So to hear from a jewish person that it was not as big of a deal as people make it out to be was something that I had not personally thought about, and had it not been for the class-room I would not have this opinion that shapes how I now think of this tragic event that transpired in Nazi Germany. The classroom is important in teaching students new perspectives and the ideologies of the teacher that one has for each class of course also affects how one thinks of the subject and the subject matter that is being taught. Shazad recognises this in her paper but she also says that the previous academics that have covered this subject have neglected the interpretative communities and that we learn as a result of both the school system and other sources such as our families and the media.

Now what questions can we derive from what Shazad has written in her paper? Here are a few that I have thought of, feel free to answer or post your own in the comments.

Is there an even split for the difference in learning from the school system and interpretative communities, or is it different for each person?

Could Shazad be wrong as not all kids talk to their parents and friends about typical “world views” or other things that are taught in school?

Thanks for reading

Shazad’s paper: http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/903202568/fulltextPDF?accountid=14656

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