The class discussions over the past few days have been exceedingly interesting to me. I find myself thinking over the same things over and over again (hooray for recursion!) and somewhat making headway (a score for the linear progress camp!) towards a somewhat meaningful conclusion. Continue reading “Recursion within Progress”
The Power of Sound
After reading through the syllabus and looking at the epigraphs provided. Toni Morrison’s epigraph “We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives” really stood out for me. Right away by reading this I thought about sounds and more specifically our voices. When I think of someone using their voice in a way that measures our lives, I think of people using their voices to make an impact on the world and using it in order to help other people. When I read this epigraph, I see it as there is more to life than just living. You will be known when you die and the way you want to be known is a powerful idea. Morrison is saying that our legacy lives on when we do something greater without lives by use your voice and make an impact. Continue reading “The Power of Sound”
Occupation of Space
At the outset of ENGL 337, Beth informed the class that the texts and sources that we would encounter throughout the semester would often seem out of harmony, if not contradictory. She explained that the course material was selected intentionally to avoid the hazards of a single-story. The TED Talk by Chimamanda Adichie explains this issue in depth, pointing to her own experiences growing up in Nigeria and then attending school in the United States. She found that her American roommate viewed the continent of Africa as a monolith of poverty and violence, for this was the only narrative to which the roommate had been exposed. In order to be informed on the complexities of a subject such as African-American Literature, we as readers must be exposed to diverse narratives on the subject.