Author: Grace Song

This is already my final blog post, and it’s weird to see how fast this semester has gone. I first want to thank Professor McCoy and all of you who are reading this for inspiring me by expressing your thoughts, connections, and interpretations of all the literature we have read and the topics we have discussed this semester. As a biology major, there isn’t very much opportunity or need for me to stray from taking heavily-science based classes or other curriculums that are required to help prepare me for MCATs. Although I did take this class initially due to its incorporation of the topic of medicine, I feel that I found value in learning about literature and how to interpret and talk about such works through this class.

Along with this class, I also took Humn I this semester, so I was definitely reading a lot more creative literature than I’m used to. I’m writing a final essay for that class at the moment, and it has given me a chance to talk about how Humn I could be relevant to our lives. My thesis involves the fact that the class gives us the opportunity to speak about our existence and human morals that are reflected through the classical literature we have covered, and I feel that this class has done the same. I feel that both classes involve the idea of being aware about anything besides yourself, even if it’s a little bit. Continue reading “Reflection”

I found out after I wrote this that this blog post is actually not meant for our class, but I still think the content can be related back to what our class discusses. The topic of the blog post was the fact that people who tend to read more are able to be more empathetic and sympathetic than those who don’t due to their ability to put themselves in the shoes of the characters in the stories that they read. I thought this was especially interesting in the context of us reading Zone One. Continue reading “Are We Really The Victims?”

            So, I’m a part of the professional medical fraternity Phi Delta Epsilon on campus. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend the last chapter meeting, but a friend of mine mentioned that there was a topic discussed that might be of interest. There were two girls who presented their experiences on a medical mission that they went on with a program called Blanca’s House. Continue reading “Being Cautious”

Because the class itself has not touched upon the medical topic in a while, I was interested to read the article. I personally am not very familiar with the “Do Not Resuscitate” order, so I had to do a little bit of research before commenting on this subject. Continue reading “Do We Resist The Order”

[I should have posted this a lot earlier when we were reading Zone One but I kept pushing it off until now. I thought this might help others with their finals papers so I’m uploading it now.]

As someone who is not very interested in the zombie genre, I didn’t exactly look forward to this book; not to say that I didn’t want to read it but I didn’t feel any particular excitement to pick it up. Continue reading “Excused Profanity”

WARNING: I DISCUSS TOPICS ABOUT SEX TRAFFICKING/PROSTITUTION SO PLEASE DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THIS TOPIC.

When I was reading Medical Apartheid, an unfortunate truth was revealed to me in Chapter 11. Although I was aware that many African American children were taken advantage of in a multitude of medical experimentations, it didn’t make it any easier to accept the fact that infants were involved as well. Many were subjected to spinal taps that would affect the development of their adult bodies for the rest of their lives. I love children so reading this chapter was tough for me to know that those kids didn’t even have a chance to live a normal life simply due to the fact that they were born at the wrong place and time. Continue reading “Is There A Bigger Question To Be Asked?”

Since the beginning of the semester, we have touched upon the topic of consent on various occasions, and it has been consistently brought up during our discussions of Butler’s Clay’s Ark. While separated into small groups, I have come across the debate about the relationship between the infected individuals and consent. Continue reading “Consent or Compulsion”

Whilst discussing how we can connect Zulus and Medical Apartheid last week, I came across two quotes from the books that eerily seemed to connect. Continue reading “Unfortunately Ironic”

How Zulus relates to our class topic of racism was on my mind while we have been covering the book. Prior to our conversation of how the book reflects the consequences of prejudices that is associated with Alice’s weight and its parallelism to racism, I had wondered what race Alice was. Although this may not be relevant to the story overall, I had assumed that Alice was black due to the context of the class. However, it didn’t occur to me until not too long ago that there is an overweight white woman on the cover who is most likely Alice. This actually reminded me of a debate I had whilst reading Home. There is a scene in which Frank arrives in Georgia and is jumped by a number of people. An individual he calls a “Samaritan” approaches Frank, helps him up, gives him money, and then sends him along his way. I do remember that there was a conversation in class where we discussed the possible race of this Samaritan, and many agreed that he is most likely African American like Frank due to his use of the word “brother” when talking to Frank. This assumption of the race of both the Samaritan and Alice reminded me of a riddle I would like to propose to you all.

“A father and son are in a horrible car crash that kills the dad. The son is rushed to the hospital; just as he’s about to go under the knife, the surgeon says, “I can’t operate – that boy is my son!” Explain.

Were you confused at this? Did you think how could the son be the surgeon’s son if the dad is dead? It might be because you assumed that the doctor is a male; the surgeon is actually the boy’s mother. This is a riddle that a psychology professor from Boston University has utilized in order to reveal how ingrained gender bias is in the minds of groups of children and university students. This made me wonder about how I assumed Alice’s race to be African American due to her unfortunate circumstances. It also made me realize how in my mind, I associated overweight women with the African American women that was portrayed to me through high school. I still remember the pictures shown during history class of African American women slaves who were always shown to be on the bigger side with the title as a cook. It was just interesting to me that even with a book that does not address the idea of racism directly (even with a black character present), I still find myself exhibiting such stereotypes onto the characters in the book. Have you?

Grace

As we were discussing examples within Home that relate to the topics in the course title, Sabrina B. and Adaeze brought up an interesting point to consider whilst reading Home. They pointed out that we should think about the overall message of the book and how it relates to the title of Home.

Continue reading “A Reminder”