Final Exam Paper: Introducing the World (due by Friday, May 5th)

Hum 2323

Final Exam Paper: Introducing the World

Knowing what cannot be known—

    what a lofty aim!

Not knowing what needs to be known—

    what a terrible result! (Tao te Ching, Verse 71)

For your Final Exam assignment, I want you to write an ‘introduction’ to the class for the next students who plan to sign up for the course. Remember what swam through your head when you enrolled in this course last fall: what did “global literature” mean to you? Was it a class you sort-of looked forward to, or did you dread it? Or both at once? Now that you’ve completed the course, I want you to reflect upon what you’ve learned this semester about Global Literature: what were the main themes and ideas of the course; what books and characters were you introduced to; what will you most take away from our Global Literature survey? (in other words, what might you actually remember in 5 weeks?)

REMEMBER, you’re writing this to someone who knows nothing about the books in class, so don’t assume you’re writing to me. Introduce some of the key ideas and books to students who have yet to experience them, and might be very skeptical that any of this is information worth learning. You DO NOT have to talk about every book or every idea we encountered, but try to AT LEAST QUOTE FROM TWO BOOKS to illustrate some key concepts or ideas you took away from the course.  Don’t worry about evaluating the course or saying whether or not it was bad or good; instead, just focus on the material and help a potential student understand what they’re going to encounter intellectually, and what might help them keep an open mind when confronted with such diverse and wide-ranging material.

Since this is a Final Exam, you need to write more than one paragraph. There’s no page limit, but try to really be useful to a fellow student by exploring, even briefly, the material in question. The more vague your response, the less you’re going to show them about the realities of taking Global Literature (and the less credit I can give you). This is worth 15 pts (out of 100) so it should help your grade rather than hurt it, as long as you can show me something of what you learned his semester.

The paper is due NO LATER THAN FRIDAY, MAY 5^th by 5pm! No late papers will be accepted since I have to start grading immediately!

For Wednesday: Persepolis, pp. 155-245 (the Vienna chapters)

Read from the chapter entitled "The Soup" through the last chapter in Vienna, "The Veil." It looks like a lot, but these chapters go quickly and are very interesting--there are some very funny and racy scenes ahead, so beware! :) 

Answer two of the following:

Q1: In Iran, Marjane tried to be ‘punk’ and threw herself into American culture and music. How does she try to redefine herself in Austria, and why? Becoming punk almost got her killed in Iran…is this identity just as dangerous to her health?

Q2: What does Marjane find most strange or upsetting about Austrian society? Why is life in the 'free world' less emancipating than she expected? And related to this, how does she use her perspective as an Iranian to critique the Western world?

Q3: What is the difference between revolutionaries in Iran and Austria? Why are the so-called Communists and anarchists in Europe not quite what she expected?

Q4: How might these chapters shine a light on the difficulty of the immigrant experience? Many people here assume they are leeches trying to steal opportunities from American citizens? But how does it look from the other side? 

For Monday: Satrapi, Persepolis, pp.88-153

Read from the chapter "The F-14's" to "The Dowry." This is the end of Part 1 of the book; Part 2 begins her new life in Austria.

Answer two of the following:

Q1: What is the significance of the "key" during the war, and why doesn't Marjane or any of her friends receive one? How does this reveal the despite the change of regime, some things remain exactly the same?

Q2: Despite the extreme circumstances and the completely different culture, why is being a teenager pretty much the same in 1980's Iran as in modern day America? What things did you personally recognize in Marjane's teenage rebellion, and why do you think a girl who faces death for disobedience would still want to be "punk"?

Q3: Why do Marjane's parents send her away to Vienna instead of having the entire family emigrate their together? And why did she have to go now, rather than earlier or much later? What did her parents fear another year or two might bring? 

Q4: Discuss a brief scene in these chapters where the pictures are vitally important: in other words, a scene where a novel couldn't quite do justice to the story. Why is it important to see, and not just hear, about this event? 

For Wednesday: Satrapi, Persepolis, Pages 3-79

In case you have a different version, read from Chapter "The Veil" through "The Trip." 

Answer two of the following:

Q1: In her Introduction to the book, Satrapi writes that “I believe that an entire nation should not be judged by the wrongdoings of a few extremists.  I also don’t want those Iranians who lost their lives in prisons defending freedom…or who were forced to leave their families and flee their homeland to be forgotten.”  How does a comic book/graphic novel help her do this—that is, memorialize those who are forgotten in place of the more visible extremists? 

Q2: Why do you think Satrapi tells her story from the perspective of a child?  Since a child knows very little about politics, religion, or war, this would seem a very limited perspective to discuss history and extremist governments.  What does it allow her to do, say, or reveal that an adult narrator might not? 

Q3: How does Satrapi try to communicate the more ‘non-Western’ elements of Iran through the novel?  In general, why might this novel—though written in French and published in Paris—be a work similar to The Mystic Masseur?

Q4: In the comic, Satrapi remarks that "it was funny to see how much Marx and God looked like each other" (13). Why was Marjane brought up to revere writers/thinkers such as Marx, when we're often taught to despise them in the West? Why might she see Marx as, like God, merciful and omnipotent? 

Scissortail Creative Writing Festival Extra Credit

Starting on Thursday, ECU hosts the Scissortail Creative Writing festival, which features dozens of writers from all around the country who come to Ada to read their works. Each session is about an hour long, and will feature anywhere from 2 to 4 writers, each one reading for about 15-20 minutes. There are also 3 special sessions on Thursday and Friday night, as well as Saturday afternoon: these are our ‘featured’ writers, who get an entire hour to read from some of their latest works. You can find the entire schedule at: ecuscissortail.blogspot.com

If you answer these questions (and do a good, honest job) I will reset your absences to the limit (of 4), and/or give you credit for a few missed responses (in case you've missed too many of them). In other words, this assignment could help fill some deficiencies in the class. But if you don't have either problem, I'll simply give you some extra credit points on your final grade, which could help knock you over if you have a border-line grade. 

PROMPT: I want you to attend AT LEAST ONE session at the festival and write about it following the template below. We won't have class on Friday, so that will hopefully give you a little freedom to attend one of the Friday sessions. Or you can attend more than one and decide which one you want to review--or combine them all into one big session in your questions. 

Answer ALL FOUR QUESTIONS for the session you attend, and give some thought/detail to your answers. You won’t get full credit if you give a one-sentence response or it sounds like you didn’t actually attend the session. Just give your honest response and explain why you felt/answered this way.

Q1: Which of the authors interested you the most and why? Was it a specific poem or story? The way they read and presented their work? Did it remind you of something else?

Q2: Did you feel the writers in this session worked well together? Were they all very similar, or were they all very different? Why do you think they were chosen to read together? How did one reader help you appreciate another one? Did they build up to a climax? Or was the first one the best?

Q3: What makes hearing a writer read their works a different experience than simply reading them yourself? Which writer was particularly effective at doing this? Do you think hearing it helped you appreciate or understand a work that you might not have otherwise? Or would it have been easier simply to read it? What is the biggest advantage (or maybe, the biggest disadvantage) to hearing a work read aloud?

Q4: In general, how did the audience react to these authors/works? Did certain works get more response than others--and if so, why do you think so? Did people laugh? Were they completely silent? Did they applaud? Make appreciative noises? Did people seem to 'get' these writers, or did some leave them scratching their heads? How could you tell? 

The questions are due NEXT MONDAY, April 10th by 5pm. 

For Monday: Naipaul, The Mystic Masseur, Chapters 9-11

NOTE: Try to finish the book or get as close as you can for Monday's class. We'll have a Book Exam over the novel on Wednesday, so at least finish for then (and bring your book to class). 

Answer two of the following:

Q1: How does Naipaul satirize democratic elections in a ‘brand new’ postcolonial nation like Trinidad?  How does the system not work—and how is the very idea of democracy often misunderstood by Ganesh and others? 

Q2: Once the American soldiers arrive in Trinidad, America begins to have a much more profound influence on Trinidadian life than Britain.  Where do we see the “American” influence in its day-to-day life?  How does Ganesh himself try to institute “American” popular culture? 

Q3: Once Ganesh enters politics he emulates the reforms and ideals of Gandhi, who liberated India from British control.  But is his mimicking sincere or somewhat hypocritical?  Gandhi followed the teachings of the Gita as his polestar: does Ganesh? In general, what kind of political leader does he make?

Q4: How do you understand the end of the book, when the Narrator, now a grown man, encounters Ganesh in London?  Why does he change his name to “G.Ramsay Muir”?  How does he respond to the Narrator’s advances? 

Paper #2 Assignment: Colonial English, due Friday, April 14th!

Paper #2: Colonial English

INTRO: V.S. Naipaul notes that for Ganesh, “It was a strain for him to talk correctly, and the woman noted, with obvious satisfaction, that he was moving his lips silently before every sentence, as though he were mumbling a prayer” (114). He only becomes aware of his ‘colonial’ English when he has to play the role of a proper guru, one that sounds learned, as if he had read thousands upon thousands of books. However, even though he has heard this English before, and probably learned it in school, it isn’t natural to him. The language that he grew up speaking was different, both in sound and in syntax, and merely adopting another English isn’t quite as easy as it seems—as this passage proves.

PROMPT: I want you to write a paper about your own personal ‘English.’ This isn’t something most of us think a lot about, at least not until it’s brought to our attention by someone who speaks differently—or thinks we do! Discuss how you became aware of your own unique dialect of English, and what it means for you to speak this way. Do you take pride in it? Are you ever embarrassed by it? Whom do you identify with because of it? What groups or people welcome you simply because of your language, and which ones might not? What words and phrases are unique to your culture/area, and might not be used or understood by others? You might also think how you picked it up, and especially if you moved around as a child, which ones you were exposed to, and which ones you kept.

REQUIREMENTS: While writing your own personal history with ‘English,’ I want you to find someone out in the world who you identify with because of their language. It should be someone we might know or could see in the media, etc., so that we could hear them, too. Explain why you recognize their English and how it makes you feel you share the same culture. What do they do that you recognize and you do yourself? And do you want to emulate them even more—speak like them, pronounce words this way, etc? Or is it something you want to get away from, and they merely remind you of your secret linguistic ‘shame’?

ALSO: You must quote some passage from The Mystic Masseur to support your ideas and discussion about language and culture. Be sure to explain where the passage comes from, what’s going on, and what the passage means. Just throwing in a quote without context that doesn’t make sense probably won’t be very convincing.

NO PAGE LIMIT—that’s up to you. Be creative and think about how language reflects who you are, how others see you, who you were taught to be, and maybe, who you strive to be.

DUE FRIDAY, APRIL 14^th BY 5pm