Wednesday, April 12, 2023

For Friday: Satrapi, Persepolis, pp. 155-222



Read the chapters "The Soup" through "Hide and Seek" for Friday's class. NO QUESTIONS, but we'll have an IN-CLASS response, so think about some of these ideas:

* What stereotypes and ideas do Austrians have about Iranians? Are these similar to what we think about them today?

* What does Marjane find most strange or upsetting about Austrian society? Why is life in the 'free world' less emancipating than she expected? 

* Related to the above idea, how does she use her perspective as an Iranian to critique the Western world? Where does it fall short? What makes it less than a utopia, even to someone from a very dystopian society?

* How does her experience in Austria mirror, somewhat, Ganesh's own journey in Trinidad? What makes them both, in a sense, colonials in a metropolitan world? 

* 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?

* 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? 

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