Week Six: Reading from Diverse Positions

This week we are reading a series of linked short stories that all together form a novel entitled The Dewbreaker, by the Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat. If you haven't time to read the entire novel you should at least try to finish about half of it. There are a number of convenient stopping places and you should read as much of it as you can, We will be discussing the novel in class with the intention of using the text to help us discuss the diverse position of texts and readers. There is no required film this week. 

As an alternative text to read for this week you might consider The Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, a pulitzer prize winning novel by the Dominican-American novelist Junot Diaz.

If you are interested in reading short stories that are written from a different position than is typical in American fiction try these stories which you can read by following the link to their title:

Hitting Budapest  by NoViolet Bulawayo
Whites by Julie Otsuka
Gold Boy, Emerald Girl by YiYun Li

One of the very important exports of Haitian culture has been its popular music. You can go to the Haitian Music Icons page which curates a short set of youtube music videos highlighting classic performances from Haitian popular music tradition. Many of these performances are developments of Compas (in Kreole, "Konpas") a variation of the merengue that is to Haiti what the Tango is to Argentina. Among my favorites on the music icons page are performances by Nemours Jean Baptiste, one of the "creators" of 20th century Compas; the orchestre Tropicana de Haiti; the Tabou Combo; John Gesner Henry (Coupe Cloue); Sweet Mickey, Michel Martelly who just stepped down as president of the country; and T-Vice. The last two are substantially influenced by their involvement with the Haitian community in Florida.

Writing Assignment: We are carrying over the writing assignment from last week and I have asked you to write your blog post for last week's stories using one of typical questions that are asked by readers who come from feminist critical positions. These questions might include the following:

Are there any female characters in the work that you identify with?
How are relationships between men and women (or characters assuming male/female roles) portrayed in the story? 
What are the power relationships between men and women in the text?
How are male and female roles defined?
What constitutes masculiniity and femininity in the world of the story?
Do characters take on traits from opposite genders in the story? How so? Does this change others reactions to them?
What does the work reveal about the ooperations (economically, politically, socially, or psychologically) of patriarchy?
What does the work express or imply about the possiblities of sisterhood as a mode of resisting patriarchy?
What does the work say about the history of women in literature or the arts or about women's creativity?

Use any one of these questions and apply it to one of the stories we read for last week to write this week's response.  

In Class: We will undertake to examine the following questions in relation to this week's reading:

(From the syllabus of Junot Diaz for his course in world-building for the Writing program at M.I.T.)
What are the primary features of this world--spatial, cultural, biological, fantastic, cosmological? 
What is the world’s ethos (the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize the world)? 
What are the precise strategies that are used by its creator to convey the world to us and us to the world? 
How are our characters connected to the world? 
And how are we the viewer or reader or player connected to the world?”

In Re: to our recent discussion of Wonder Woman: You can follow the adventures of a muslim female superhero here, beginning with this episode of the web comic Quahera.

Week Five: Reading from a Critical Position

Pussy Riot by Igor Mukhin

Established positions are like towers from which one can overlook the mediascape. As a case study, we will read several short stories and see a couple of film clips and discuss them from the point of view of a specific critical position.

Reading Assignment: Before class, read at least four of the short stories selected for this week. Several are listed and linked below. These links will also appear on the course resource page.

"Lust" (1984) by Susan Minot 

"Even the Queen" by Connie Willis

"Planet of the Amazon Women" by David Moles

"The Yellow Wallpaper" (1892)  by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

"Story of an Hour" (1894) by Kate Chopin

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" (1953) by Flannery O'Connor

"Where Are You Going; Where Have You Been" (1966) by Joyce Carol Oates 

"Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid


Writing Assignment for last week's reading: Please write about a female hero, a heroine,  that you have designed. What are her most important qualities and characteristics? How does she manifest her power? What about her would you like women to emulate?  How would you represent the positive aspects of her character? 

Link to Feminist Frequency videos and backgrounds on Tropes vs. Women in popular culture and video games. Excellent critical work by Anita Sarkeesian.

"More than anything, I feel that this meta-discourse, talking about the talk, is part of how it feels to be a 'woman in music' (or a 'woman in anything.' for that matter--politics, business, comedy, power). There is the music itself, and then there is the ongoing dialogue about how it feels. The two seem to be intertwined and also inescapable. To this day, because I know no other way of being or feeling, I don't know what it's like to be a woman in a bank--I have nothing else to compare it to. But I will say that I doubt in the history of rock journalism and writing any man has been asked, "Why are you in an all-male band?"
--Carrie Brownstein from Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl

An important source in third wave feminism and its impact on the contemporary feminist practice of groups like Pussy Riot is the Riot Grrrl communities of the 1990s and their successors. Many of the significant firgures in these communities are still active. One aspect of the work of these activist artists is they way they move across various media, seemingly fearlessly but at least with considerable tenaciousness and not infrequently with considerable effect. Here are some links:

Don't Need You The Herstory of Riot Grrl
Excerpt from Grrl (2013) documentary
Bikini Kill "Suck My Left One" and "Rebel Girl" (1992)
Bikini Kill Washington DC 1992

Molly Crabapple with "Shell Gane" her Tryptych

Pussy Hat Project Link

Week 7: Alternity

Benedict Cumberbatch in a 2015 production of Hamlet by the National Theater 

This week we will watch a play in class and then discuss it. We will be watching Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. In order to understand the apporach of this play it is necessary to have seen an earlier play, Shakespeare's Hamlet. The reading assignment for this week is to read or watch Hamlet. Here are some links to some easily accessed versions of the play:

Mel Gibson's Hamlet features historical costume and sets. A very brooding Hamlet more focused on the emotion and action of the play than on the language. Sort of Hamlet as Road Warrior. Directed by the great set designer in a somewhat operatic fashion, Franco Zeffirelli. Not a very accurate text of the play, trimmed for speedier production and streamlined.

Dr. Who/Star Trek Hamlet. A very interesting production featuring David Tennant and Patrick Stewart in a fairly clear production featuring the orginal language of the play. This is a good version to watch for this week's class. Here in parts on You Tube. Act 1, Scene 1; Act 1, Scene 2 part 1; Act 1, Scene 2 part 2; Act 1, Scene 3; Act 1, Scene 4, part 1; Act 1, Scene 4, part 2; Act 2, Scene 1; Act 2, Scene 2, part 1a (this is Rosencratz and Guildenstern scene); Act 2, Scene 2, part 1 (famous soliloquy); Act 1, Scene 2, part 2; Act 2, Scene 2, part 3; Act 2, Scene 2, part 4; Act 3, Scene 1; Act 3, Scene 2, part 1; Act 3, Scene 2, part 2; Act 3, Scene 3; Act 3, Scene 4, part 1; Act 3, Scene 4, part 2; Act 3, Scene 5 and 6; Act 4, Scene 1, part 1; Act 4, Scene 1, part 2; Act 4, Scene 2 and 3; Act 5, Scene 1, part 1; Act 5, Scene 1 part 2; Act 5, Scene 2 part 1; Act 5, Scene 2, part 2.  

Kenneth Branagh Hamlet, one of the most complete versions on film. Long, but it is pretty much all there and well-produced and spoken.  Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4.

Play Video of Hamlet in a WWI era production. Like seeing the play performed live. Basic production with some interpretative spin. 

A Vintage Production in Armenian. Just interesting to see Hamlet in another language. If you watch a little of this and you know the play you can catch ideas about characterization and theme even if you can't understand what they are saying. Similarly interesting is this version from Indian Cinema, not in English.

Netflix is currently offering Hamlet 2000 a corporate media empire setting of Hamlet starring Ethan Hawke and featuring, Kyle MacLachlan, Julia Stiles and Bill Murray.

Week 13: Celebrity: Performance as Self

Andre the Giant publicity shot

Donald Trump

This week I am asking you to read a short graphic biography of the wrestler/entertainer Andre the Giant by Box Brown. It is interesting to see how Brown tells the story in words and pictures. It is not told in a particularly bravura style that one sees in many graphic novels that aspire to certain greatness of effect. It is a more vernacular and rough cast; more wrestling in style and tone. It is at times coarse, not ulike the book's subject,  a personality who is in the most literal senese, larger than life.
I hope to discuss other celebrity phenomena like Kim Kardashian who has mastered private life as a mode of performance in a fluid and mobile mediascape. We will read an essay in class on politics as entertainment and discuss it. We will consider the representation of Donald Trump as a political meme. What elements of performance, entertainment and celebrity are evident in the current climate of political discourse? What are the objects of this discourse, what are the subjects?  What are the effects?