Great Works Fall 2013

As Rena was talking in the previous class of the fact that everyone is a slave to someone, it reminded of this website, and I thought I would share it with you.

http://slaveryfootprint.org/

Good luck to everyone for your final project.

All best,

Youssef Hani

You will be looking at 2-3 of your classmates’ work. Hopefully, each will provide you with (from the original assignment):

• 45-55% of the project [in draft form] for feedback from the professor and some classmates
• In addition to the draft of about half of the project, you should attach a brief list or outline of what you have left to do, along with the cover letter (following the directions on the assignment sheet)

In response to the draft, list/outline and cover letter, please WRITE A LETTER to each of your classmates. Bring the letter to class on Monday, Nov. 25. BRING 2 COPIES of the letter (one for the author and one for the professor). Your letter should be 1-2 pages double spaced and consider the following points:

1. Revisit the assignment sheet and the requirements for the project. Be sure to look at the revised assignment sheet posted on the blog (remember the changes to the Timeline project). Is the project about 50% drafted? It’s just a draft; you’ll still edit what you’ve done and add more. But there should be some significant volume of work drafted.
2. For the Timeline and Blog (and our one video) projects, comment on the DESIGN elements. Is it visually appealing? Exciting? Enticing? Thought provoking? How can the author develop the design aspect to complement the reading experience and the overall point (theme and ARGUMENT) of the project in worthwhile ways?
3. For bloggers, I’d like to see at least 4-5 distinct pages, in order to add depth, texture, and interest to the blog. Does the blog have sufficient number of pages? Are the pages developed (they don’t have to have TONS of materials, but do they feel complete, relevant?) or do they seem dashed off — mere after thoughts? What suggestions can you offer?
4. Post some comments on the blogs in your review group, just to start some conversation. Blogs need comments! Ask your friends and family to visit your blog and post comments.
5. Have bloggers been maintaining the blog in a way that sets them up to have 12-18 meaty posts spread out over 6 weeks by Dec. 6? Very short posts, posts with just an image or link for instance, are great, but aren’t really one of the “meaty” posts unless the link or image is developed.
6. For Timeliners, are there a sufficient number of story boards? Are about or at least 40% of them on literature from our class? Is there a clear connection between the discreet entries? Or are they too, well, discreet? How to better connect them and build them toward a narrative that makes a central argument? Offer suggestions for the themes, threads, and arguments you see emerging that Timeliners can develop in the coming weeks. Timeliners will likely need an introduction and conclusion to tie it all together.
7. Are the Timelines tying the non-literary events or artifacts in interesting ways to the literature? Do you have suggestions for additional events/artifacts to use and/or ways to deepen the connections?
8. Do the time frames that Timeliners have determined make sense? Are they defended or explained, either directly or indirectly? That is, does it make sense that the Timeline begins and ends where it does?
9. Same for bloggers and the video artist, there should be a narrative developing. Is there? Is it coherent and are the posts (and scenes in the video) connected in meaningful and interesting ways? Is there an intro? (Be sure to write a conclusion, when the time comes!) IS the blog/video developing, or just circling around the same issues? Can you suggest ways to develop it? Is the video conveying a point and purpose? Is there some discernible and compelling argument emerging from the combination of the visual and spoken elements of the video? Does the video need some sort of framing device (and intro and conclusion)? Suggestions for it?
10. Not to forget the translators in the class: has the writer begun working on the translation and accompanying essay? Is the writer working through important decisions such as: choosing a text and/or specific passage from the text and justifying why that text? Why that passage? Why certain choices in translating certain words/phrases in certain ways? Is the translator trying to emphasize a certain theme, tone or argument through her or his choices (for instance)? Does it look like the author is on track to answer these points from the assignment: “In your explanatory essay, cite specific examples from your and other translation(s) as you 1) defend your translation choices and 2) make a compelling argument about the primary task(s) and responsibilities of a literary translator. You may do research to support your argument.” Translators need to do some digging: read translator’s prefaces or other materials in which translators discuss the text and their choices. This will help you think about your own choices as a translator and give you models for how to defend those choices. You might start by looking at the large chunk of the translator’s preface of The Shocken Bible that you can read on that book’s Amazon page (click on the “Look Inside option and start reading on page ix). See how the translator lays out the principle(s) guiding his translation (starting on the bottom of ix)? What principles are guiding YOUR translation? How can you help the people in your group think about the principles guiding their own translations? Also look at the American Literary Translators Association web page.  But these resources are just a start. Do some leg work. Try to help each other out with suggestions and comments on the passages translated so far and on how the writer is justifying and contextualizing his or her choices.

The story takes place in the city of Shanghai during WWII when Japan occupied China.  The setting was in an isolated and secluded space. The city was “sealed off” because of air raids during the times. However, the sentiments of two major characters were “unsealed”. Actually, In the first place, I did not see the story as a phenomenal one because they (two strangers) could meet any time and anywhere. However, the environment and the background of the story gave meaning to this “normal encountering”. Everything seemed to be uncertain because of the war. And I think it was the uncertainty that allowed people to do something extraordinary, like taking a greater riskto do something that they normally would not do.

The story opened with the sentence, “ The tramcar drive drove his tram. “  And then described the tracks and how the tramcar stretched on an endless route.  I think the author tries to create a general mood of predicted regularity, and suggests the similarity between the endless and aimless track routewith ordinary lives that both characters have. Also, vast “emptiness” was displayed especially when the author described what passengers did, such as reading paper, receipts, business cards, or just reading signs on the street.  They author concluded that “they simply had to fill this terrifying emptiness—otherwise, their brains might start to work. “. Then after that, I feel that the author was interjecting comments about thinking by saying “ thinking is a painful business. “ Is that real? The city was sealed off, and people felt empty. They were forced to think about their lives. As a result, an ordinary accountant, Zongzhen, realized the meaninglessness of his routine: go to work in the morning and go home in the evening. As to Cuiyuan, it seemed like that she did not get respect from her colleagues and family members. If the city was not sealed off, I think probably Zongzhen and Cuiyuan’s reflectionwould not have occurred, and she would not have graded A for the student’s poor writing. Further, this romantic story would not have happened between these two ordinary people.  As a result,  “ everything that had happened while the city was sealed was a non-occurrence.”

Due to conflicts, I am not able to hold my regular office hours from 11-12 on Thursday Nov 14 and Monday Nov 18.

I will be available during these alternate times:

Thursday Nov 14: 4-5 pm

Monday Nov 18: 2-2:30 pm

Tuesday Nov 19: By appointment

Wednesday Nov 20: 11-12 (regularly scheduled office hour)

Jorge Luis Borges was an Argentinian writer whose works often played with the limits of time and space, of fantasy and reality, thus creating alternate and parallel universes in which all outcomes transpire. This method of writing — where lines we assumed were definite are blurred and are, in fact, indefinite — is attributed to the magical realism movement cultivated by Latin American writers. This movement inspired the sci-fi genre of literature.

I’ve read another work by Borges in another English class, A Fauna of Mirror, an excerpt from his book “The Book of Imaginary Beings.” Within this excerpt, Borges details the struggle between what is real and what is fantasy, a literary characteristic associated with modern literature as we discussed in class. JL Borges’ entry, A Fauna of Mirrors, explores the concept of an alternate world that exists behind all mirrors, inhabited by a wide amount of unknown and strange creatures. “In those days the world of mirrors and the world of men were not, as they are now, cut off from each other. Both kingdoms, the specular and the human, lived in harmony; you could come and go through mirrors.”

In “The Garden of Forking Paths,” Borges plays with the line between real and fantasy as he explores the possibility of a novel with infinite endings, a novel that accounts for all moments in time, past-present-future, as well as accounting for all possible outcomes. In other words, whenever the characters come to a point at which more than one outcome is possible, both outcomes occur. This causes the narrative to branch out into multiple alternate universes.

In the beginning, I already question the narrator’s testimony as to whether it is ‘reality’ because firstly, it’s missing the first two pages and secondly, personal narrative is often tainted by perspective, making it in its own way a subjective, alternate reality. The story itself is its own labyrinth of time and history as it takes what is ‘real,’ WWII, and adds the mystical element of the Garden of Forking Paths. It is also an even larger labyrinth as the plot takes many strange, unexpected turns, leaving the reader following behind aimlessly, albeit dizzy and confused.

As the story progresses, we see that the narrator is faced with many different labyrinths. The first labyrinth he faces is resenting spying for the oppressive Germans but also wanting to impress them by showing them “the yellow man can save their army.” Another labyrinth is the literal one Yu Tsun encounters as he is traveling to Stephen Albert’s house as he must continue bearing left. When Yu Tsun finally gets to Albert’s house, Albert tells him about the book of Yu Tsun’s ancestor, a book which seemed to be a confusion of time but was actually a riddle where time was the answer. During this conversation, Albert himself expands on the idea of alternate realities as he explains in one reality, he could be dead and in another, he could be Yu Tsun’s enemy.

The idea of many different realities existing in time is EXTREMELY unnerving to me because it means that at this moment, I could be doing something completely different, somewhere else in the world, even looking different, and yet these several ‘me’s’ have no knowledge of the other ‘me’s’. Instead, they go about their day living in what they think is the one and only actual reality when really, they are all actual realities. It’s so creepy! It questions everything we’ve come to know and accept as truth; that time is definite and chronological, and that once we make a decision, the option of another outcome ceases to exist.

I found a quote from Borges that perfectly sums up the way he views time – it’s something we have some authority over, and yet it is something completely beyond our control. The fact that time could encompass both those things — or rather that we could relate to time in two such opposing ways simultaneously — is so ‘Borgean’ in its essence:  “Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.”

This poem is one of Neruda’s earlier works on love, before he began to explore other genres such as poverty and politics.

The poem begins with the declarative statement “Tonight I can write the saddest lines”, which is repeated throughout the poem. Neruda doesn’t tell us why he feels this way for a few more lines, with three simple, but powerful words “I loved her”.  A theme of distance begins to evolve, with Neruda  contemplating the natural world and how it reminds him of his love, for example he used to hold her “under the endless sky”.

I was drawn to the contradictions in some of his thoughts, which I feel really emphasize the turmoil and complicity he was experiencing (going from “I loved her” to “sometime I love her”). You really get the sense that he was in a state of inner tension and both him and his lover went through a roller-coaster of emotions.

The lines “To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her” stood out to me because they are so simple yet so powerful. Every word is a monosyllable, nothing fancy or flowery; yet the sense of loss and loneliness is so clear. This is reiterated by the “immense night” which became “still more immense without her” – again he refers back to the night which he did in the beginning and the distance it creates.  This deep sense of loss causes the speaker to write down his thoughts  (“the verse falls to the soul like dew to pasture”). Here we learn what the speaker does to deal with his loss and writing is his only response.  This may prove as evidence as to why he keeps repeating the line “Tonight I can write the saddest lines”. I get the sense that the speaker is writing down his thoughts as a kind of therapy to deal with his loss and finally accept it.

Towards the end of the poem, the speaker points out the sameness of the nature yet how he and his lover have changed. He tells himself that he no longer loves her and then says that maybe he does love her. To me, this means the speaker is in the early stages of dealing with heartbreak, he hasn’t fully accepted it is over – almost as if the wounds are still too fresh.

“Love is so short, forgetting is so long”  is quite a chilling line and especially coming from Neruda at the young age of 20, it shows his maturity and insight as a young poet. In such simplistic language he evokes a deep sense of heartbreak and you can’t help but feel sorry for the speaker.

Themes that I found in the poem include memory and reminiscence, love and passion, heartbreak and loneliness. Neruda uses personification (“the night wind revolves in the sky and sings”, “my voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing”), repeated symbols (night…sky), and the repetition of words/phrases.

I think that the overall purpose or essence of the poem is the painful exercise of forgetting a love and the range of emotions/thoughts/stages one goes through during the process until one can finally accept that it is over. But as Neruda said “forgetting is so long”.

This title literally sums up a large portion of what this text is all about. The central point that Woolf is emphasizing is that the women of the time flat out needed a room of their own, a privilege that men had without a doubt. A place where they could gather their thoughts and not be so distracted by everything else happening in the world. They never had the opportunity to let their mind wonder to write or create art. Figuratively Woolf also uses the room as a symbol for many larger issues. These included privacy, leisure time, and financial independence, each of which is an essential component of the countless inequalities between men and women during that time.

Something that really intrigued me was on page 353 when she talks about how “women do not write books about men.” Meanwhile men of all different classes and of different intelligences have all got to say their two cents and publish a book on their opinion of women. I never thought of this or even realized it and it had me stumped. Reading this I couldn’t help but feel that the reasoning of this was that men wanted to observe women as if they were some kind of lab rat and they were the scientist who needed to uncover some unknown truth or phenomena about them. As if what men had to say about women was so much more accurate and important than what women had to say about themselves.

When Woolf goes to create and  talk about a woman named Judith Shakespeare, the imaginary twin sister of William Shakespeare, it stirred so much emotional in me. It got me upset.. not upset in that I pitied Judith, but upset in the way that its so sad to think that no matter how talented she could have been or how hard she could have tried for an equal chance that it just never would have happened. She could have had the same talent of her brother  and it would have gone completely unknown. It makes me wonder how much more great literature and works of art we could have had today if those women were given a fair chance to express those talents.

Those of you doing the blog option should have your blogs up and running by now in order to meet the requirement of having sustained the blog for 6 weeks by Dec. 6.

Send me your blog address ASAP. I will link to all individual student blogs from this class blog. I want to start following your blogs and referencing them in class, and you should want to try to get followers addicted to your site.