(Im)Possibilities

Out of the three books that complete Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood trilogy, her second installment Adulthood Rites was my favorite for more reasons that I can count on my hands. But the main reason why I loved Adulthood Rites was because of Akin’s character. He was intelligent, brave, and loyal – all very admirable traits I wish more people I knew had.

Continue reading “Adulthood Rites and Female Genital Mutilation”

I have long found an interest in gender, and the recent conversations in class regarding gender in Butler’s fiction has made me consider the subject even further. For me, and what seems like much of the class, I have struggled in gendering characters that don’t actually possess a gender.

Continue reading “The consequence of misgendering”

A while ago, Emma wrote an incredibly insightful blog post entitled, “What Does it Mean to be “Human?” Quite honestly, it’s a question I have been reflecting on for a while now. Unfortunately, I don’t think I have an answer to this. If anything, I have more questions and thoughts to add.

Aside from consent, humanity and what it means to be human seem to be major themes woven into every piece of writing we’ve read. As Emma so wonderfully explains, Clay’s Ark by Octavia Butler tackles the issue of humanity throughout the novel. Emma addresses the more scientific aspect of the novel. Once the human comes in contact with the foreign organism, they start to lose their human qualities, making them more barbaric. Like Emma says, when Blake attempts to figure out what is wrong with Meda, he finds that the disease had “tampered with Meda’s genetic blueprint” and “had left her no longer human.” (Page 498)

Looking at this one way, the disease literally alters the human it comes in contact with. However, I think Butler wants us to tackle the question of what it means to be human on a level deeper than this. Clay’s Ark is extremely complex. Doctor Blake Maslin and his two daughters, sweet Rane and Keira are abducted on the side of the road one day and taken to an isolated farm where they’re expected to live among these people with a dangerous and deadly disease that they claim there is no escape. Blake is unconvinced, and thinks he will either find a cure for the disease or escape with his girls so they don’t become victims of the farm family. Throughout the novel, we see characters experience bouts of hopelessness, doubt, and anger. At the very end of the novel, we witness sweet, innocent Rane “cradling an automatic rifle” and shooting the heads off of people in order for her and her family to get to safety. (page 614) Just a page after we learn from Blake that he unintentionally betrayed everyone by the doing the worst: spreading the disease to the rest of humanity. Right before he dies, he struggles to say, “I did it. Oh, Jesus. I did it.” (Page 618) All in all, it’s an extremely twisted novel. I think Butler wants us to ask, “what does it mean to be human?” But in a deeper sense. Do we have a responsibility or unspoken agreement to take care of each other, or look out for each other, as fellow humans? If we do, are there any exceptions? What happens when we abandon humanity? Just look at Clay’s Ark. We get a sense that the people on the farm have a sense of family. But once Blake and his daughters try to escape, it seems as though violence just breaks loose. Blake seems to have the intention of escaping the farm right from the get-go. He wants nothing to do with them. Was it Blake’s job, as a father and a doctor to get comfortable in his new place and help Meda and Eli and the rest of the family? At the end of the novel, many died at the hands of Rane and others. Even Blake dies. Despite being infected by the disease, the people on the farm were still “human.” They were a part of the same human race as the Maslin family. I don’t know if I explained this well enough, nor do I think there is one straight answer. But there are some interesting questions to reflect on. What does being a human come down to? Do you think the characters in this book maybe lacked a bit of humanity? Do you think if these people took more measures to care for each other and look out for one another, things would have been different?

While working on our final project in class and discussing medical voluntourism my group came up with a potential reason for why people actually attempt to perform tasks they are no qualified to do. When I think of volunteering, I think of going to an animal shelter and playing with animals. I think of something that brings people joy or working for cause they believe in. Medical voluntourism is much different since it is not free. In the society we live in today, people are always on the hunt to get the best deals. A prime example is Black Friday, which is pretty much a holiday dedicated to bargain shoppers. When people pay for something they want to get their money’s worth. This could potentially cause them to perform tasks that they are not qualified to do just to get the experience for the money they paid.

This point caught my attention and I then decided to research how much medical volunteering in other countries actually costs. I found a website which offers medical volunteering placements and the prices. I looked at the Midwifery Internships Abroad program and this experience is not cheap. For a trip to somewhere like Ghana it is about $2,765 (price chart in link) not including flights and visa. This is pretty pricey; especially for a college student or even someone right out of high school. Although, on the website there is a tab called “Why pay to volunteer?” which breaks down everything the price includes. This section provides great explanations to where the money actually goes. About 51% of the cost is for the individual’s trip while the rest is to maintain the agency and run future projects.

As someone who is working to get myself through school, I would not be able to afford this program. This is why I pursued a job at Strong Memorial Hospital. My job provides me with income and patient interaction. Even if I could financially afford this program, I still don’t think I would feel comfortable helping some give birth, since just transporting a pregnant woman to an exam within the hospital without a nurse makes me anxious. I am in no way trained to assist anyone through labor.

All in all I could see how people would want to get the most out of their experience or almost feel pressured to get hands on experience in order to get their money’s worth. However, this is not something that should be allowed or even expected. Hopefully, our final course statement gives students a better understanding of what they should expect from medical voluntourism.

In class we recently discussed Colson Whitehead’s fantastic use of vocabulary in Zone One. Like Whitehead, Percival Everett uses a variety of literary elements to convey his ideas in his novel Zulus. A very prominent element throughout the novel was imagery. Everett uses this element in order to appeal to the reader’s senses and to add depth to the major themes. Continue reading “Cold Imagery and Consent in Zulus”

Yesterday I attended a poetry reading by Christopher Soto. Soto is a poet based in Brooklyn, New York. He is the author of Sad Girl Poems (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2016) and the editor of Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color (Nightboat Books, 2018). Soto read a few original poems and other poems produced by other poets as well. Throughout this experience, all of the poems shared a common theme. There was a shared theme of inclusivity within the poems. Each poem covered serious issues, such as mass imprisonment, sex slavery, and racism. One writing technique I gained from attending this poetry reading is call and response. Soto read a poem aloud and when he raised his hand, the audience replied with the same response. I found this to be effective in accomplishing the message of the poem. The poem was in regards to mass imprisonment. The poem also contained the technique of repetition. Repetition stands out to the reader in that it makes the piece memorable and quotable. Christopher Soto is an incredibly talented writer that touches upon economic, racial, and social issues throughout society.

Some of Soto’s work brought me back to Fortune’s Bones by Marilyn Nelson. Throughout the book the reader is brought through the life of Fortune and his endeavors. After Fortune died, Fortune’s bones were placed in a museum to be put on display. This was done without consent. During some of Soto’s readings, there was an instance of lack of consent when a female writer wrote about being raped and beaten in prison against her will. The other topic discussed in yesterday’s poetry reading that brought me back to Fortune’s Bones is racism. Soto opened up the discussion with self identity. Every person in the room had their own identity, but unlike Fortune, he was merely classified as bones in a museum. Fortune was more than that, he contained an identity just like everyone else. I thoroughly enjoyed yesterday’s discussion and thought it was informative and pushed students to think creatively and productively.

The small group discussion today felt different than Monday’s class, as Dr. McCoy acknowledged. I did not realize the change in pace at first, but our group was more engaged and energetic during the conversation and more willing to participate. I think this change occurred because we finally understood what was expected of us in order to successfully complete the project. Everyone was obviously invested on creating a collective paragraph that expressed and combined our opinions about medical voluntourism. Today our group was clearly embodying some of the learning outcomes that we predicted would arise during this project. Leadership and collaboration was demonstrated as we all worked, “to engage others in developing collaborative solutions; to experiment, take risks, and learn from mistakes; to enable, encourage, and recognize contributions to collaborative efforts by all group members” (Globe Learning Outcome 6). For example, we were communicating and challenging each other to think critically and discuss the problem we are responding to. This was further demonstrated as we challenged each other on many sentences, which caused us to think further about the problem to generate a thoughtful paragraph. Today’s exercise proved that this class is capable of creating a positive and significant collaborative project that addresses the problem of medical voluntourism.

This week’s class was dedicated to our entire class to collaboratively work on the “Final Course Statement.” The collaborative course statement unpacks a specific problem we have discussed during class, in our case Medical Voluntourism, and follows-up with a solution. During our class Monday, we went over how that project is relevant to Geneseo’s Mission, Vision and Values and the Globe. We identified how medical voluntourism can be seen as a problem. That is if the volunteer were to lack adequate training/qualifications, then they can cause more harm than good to the underprivileged communities that they work with (Zakaria, 2014). Continue reading “A Surprising Transition From Monday’s Class to Today’s”

Ah, medical volunteerism. You know, sometimes I really do feel bad about the amount of blog posts you might end up reading about medical volunteerism on this website, but honestly, there is just much to say on the topic, and everyone has contributed such meaningful and thought provoking sentiments to the blog… So, is it really a bad thing?

In this one in particular, I’d like to briefly comment on Avery’s very eloquent blog post entitled “Studying Abroad: What’s your Real Purpose?” I think Avery was incredibly attentive in her writing and brought up some interesting points about the medical volunteerism industry being tainted by American’s selfish motivations.

Continue reading “America, We’re not Selfish… Are We?”