For Friday: Tao te Ching, Verses 22-47

Read the range of 22-47 for Friday's class, but remember, you don't have to read one poem after another like chapters in a novel. You can do that, or you can skip around, reading the first lines and waiting for one to capture you. Sometimes what I like to do is read the even poems, then go back later and read the odds. Just try to read a few poems very closely, even if you skip around a bit.

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: As I mentioned in class, some versions break Verses 1-37 into "The Book of Tao," and Verses 36-81 into "The Book of Te." Do you see any obvious difference in poems 38-47 that would suggest that something has changed? Or do they seem to be variations of the same themes we've already encountered?

Q2: In Western culture, we have a famous adage that goes, "you can't love others until you love yourself." Do you think the Tao te Ching would agree with this? If so, why? What verse seems to explain why this is a more important step than simply loving and serving others?

Q3: In Verse 41, the poet seems to be talking about education itself--perhaps even our modern notion of college. How might this describe an experience you yourself have observed in a classroom? Why might some people take a great effort to know certain material while others simply mock it? Why does the poem suggest that this is a very "Tao" experience?  

Q4: It seems that one of the main purposes of the Tao te Ching is to lead the reader to a larger understanding of the world and their place within it. But so much of the advice says to ignore wisdom, avoid the sages, and speak as little as possible. So where does one find "the Way" if you can't walk it or speak of it? How DO you become enlightened with such a philosophy? Where do you find it? What do you study? Where do you go? 

For Wednesday: Tao te Ching, Poems 1-21

LINK TO THE POEMS: https://www.organism.earth/library/document/tao-te-ching

For Wednedsay, read poems 1-21 in the Tao te Ching, and try to read at least some of them more than once. Then answer TWO of the questions below, but also use them as a general outline to think about the poems and consider what ideas they might be trying to convey to us (and what makes such strange poems simply fun to read!).

(Answer TWO): 

Q1: Jonathan Starr, the translator, leaves a few words untranslated, such as "Tao" and "Wu," among others. Why do you think he does this? Do the poems help us understand what these terms might mean? Or is there a reason he wants them to remain mysterious?

Q2: As we discussed on Friday, a poem often attempts to use new metaphors (rather than the ones we use every day) to help us see the world from a new perspective. Discuss a metaphor in one of the poems that did exactly that: helped you appreciate something in a new way, or made you think about something normal abnormally. 

Q3: Many of the poems, notably Verse 14, repeat ideas such as"Eyes look but cannot see it/Ears listen but cannot hear it/Hands grasp but cannot touch it/Beyond the senses lies the great Unity--/invisible, inaudible, intangible" (16). If "it" cannot be seen or touched or heard, then how can we find it? Or know it? Where are we supposed to find truth or enlightenment if we can't use our senses to grasp it? Do other poems shed more light on this dilemma?

Q4: Which poem did you find the hardest to understand? Why do you think this is? Discuss a line or an idea in the poem that seems to create a wall to your understanding. 

Welcome to the Course!

Welcome to our EQ2 course for the Spring 2023 semester! Remember, you won't need to check Blackboard at all for this course: all the assignments and materials will appear here and/or in class. This is really designed as a virtual bulletin board for the class, and you don't have to leave comments or interact with the site in any way. If you need to ask a question outside of class, always e-mail me instead at jgrasso@ecok.edu. 

Be sure to get the five books for class as soon as possible, since we'll start our reading next week. The five books, in order of reading, are:

* Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching (the edition I ordered at the bookstore is very readable, though you can use any translation if you have another)

* The Bhagavad Gita (again, I recommend the Penguin edition by Mascaro)

* Akutagawa, Rashomon and Other Stories (only the Penguin edition will have the exact stories we're reading for class)

* Naipaul, The Mystic Masseur (only one version) 

* Satrapi, The Complete Persepolis (it's a comic book, so there's only one version)

Right now, we're meeting in Horace Mann 347, since our schedule said "Room TBD." But we might have to move if that room is already taken (I don't think it is). 

Look forward to exploring this exciting, strange, enigmatic, exhilarating literature with you!  

For Friday: Finish Binti: The Night Masquerade

 Remember to finish the book for Friday's class, since we'll have our final Reading Exam (no questions otherwise). This will be our last 'business' class of the semester, though we will have class on Monday just to wrap things up. 

Start thinking about your Final Project assignment, even though you still have until Finals week to complete it. Let me know if you have any questions or you simply get stuck! 

See you tomorrow! 

For Wednesday: Last Questions--Binti, The Night Masquerade: Chapters 4-9

These are our LAST questions for the class! We'll just have a Reading Exam on Friday, so be sure to finish the book by then. Hopefully, these last readings will give you more ideas to help you approach the Final Project, which we'll talk a bit more about on Friday. Let me know if you have any questions...

Answer TWO of the following

Q1: To bring about a truce between the Khoush and the Meduse, Binti invokes "deep culture," something she claims "Never in a thousand years would I have believed it would move through me." What is deep culture in the story, and what might it represent outside of the story (esp. in terms of earlier works from the class--the Tao te Ching and the Prophet, for example)?

Q2: Why do the Himba elders decide to abandon Binti and sacrifice her to the two warring races? Don't they want peace, especially given the famous saying "When elephants fight, the grass suffers"? How does this confirm many of Binti's suspicions about the tribe (and the elders, especially)?

Q3: After Binti's death, Mywinyi remarks that "She's a master harmonizer, but what harmony did she bring? I couldn't understand her. She seemed broken." How might Binti have been broken prior to her death? Though she seemed to have finally found her identity, what conflict might have continued to unbalance her? 

Q4: When Binti is resurrected by New Fish, she learns that she has become part of New Fish's biology; or, as the ship explains, "You are probably more microbes than human now." Does this suggest that 'Binti' is truly dead, and the new Binti is finally something else--something no longer tied to Himba or Meduse? Or can she be Binti in any body, even one that is scarcely a human being? (in the same way, if you could put someone's memories into a computer, would the computer be that person...or just a program?) 

For Monday: Binti: The Night Masquerade (Book 3), Chapters 1-3

NOTE: This is our last week of reading, so just hang in there and finish the book and you'll be done! Remember the paper assignment is posted below, and if you get stumped on what to write about, the reading/questions should help you! I'm designing them with the Final Project in mind. 

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: How does the dream-vision of Kande (the Himba girl who first encountered the aliens) inform Binti's own situation in the present? Why is she almost another incarnation of Kande, in yet another cycle of "outsiders" forced inside? 

Q2: There's a great passage early on in the book when Binti is told about the Icarus grasshoppers who jump into the flames, fly with burning wings until they fall off, recover, and then do it again. When she asks why they would do such a thing, Mwinyi responds, "It's how they were programmed by science, I guess," to which she responds, "But I'm sure they rationalize it somehow." How might this metaphor relate to certain habits of the Himba or even the Meduse? Or our own society?

Q3: Why does everyone on both sides of the conflict--Khoush and Himba--insist on seeing Binta as the partner, or mate, of Okwu? Do they have that kind of relationship? Or is that simply the only way to explain/rationalize what they do have?

Q4: When Binti is before the council of elders towards the end of the chapter, she explains that she never intended to run away from home, but instead, "I wanted to add to it all...I need it all, you, school, space." Why can't the Himba accept that leaving home is an addition rather than a subtraction? And why, too, did they assume she would never come home? 

Final Project Assignment: A Cultural Cyborg

Final Project: A Cultural Cyborg

INTRO: In Binti, Binti has her native hair replaced with the okuoko, which are prehensile tentacles which allow her to not only speak with (and for) the Meduse, but change how others see her and how she sees herself. Soon after, she realizes that she is also Enyi Zinariya, a race with alien technology in their blood. She now has to confront difficult questions of identity, rather than accepting herself as a single, static being: I was Himba, a master harmonizer. Then I was also Meduse, anger vibrating in my okuoko. Now I was also Enyi Zinairya, of the Desert People gifted with alien technology. I was worlds. But some only see the drawbacks of the complexity, as her brother says, “You’re polluted…What man will marry you? What kind of children will you have now?” 

PROMPT: For your final project, I want to consider how parts of you have been replaced and augmented (either consciously or unconsciously) as you’ve gradually become the person you are today. What are the ‘okuoko’ which have been added to your intellectual, spiritual, emotional, or even physical identity? In what way have you become a very different person from the one you were ten years ago? Where did this ‘technology’ come from? Was it entirely by choice? Did you choose to change your identity in subtle ways that eventually led to a more drastic transformation? Or is this something that your culture/education naturally replaced so that you could function more efficiently in society? Do you feel that these are all improvements? Would you ever want to have a reverse-operation? 

EXAMPLES: getting a tattoo is a small but important way to transform your body and change its meaning (literally, by writing on the skin). Even a certain hair style or type of clothing can become an extension of your identity that changes how you see yourself (or how others do). But you could also say that devoting your life to a certain sport or activity can be an augmentation to your initial self that results in a change of life and ideas. Even books and fields of study can become okuoko!  

REQUIREMENTS: This is a ‘project,’ so it can take various forms: (a) a traditional paper that charts the ways that you augmented (or were augmented); (b) a more creative approach—a story, a poem; (c) a presentation either via Powerpoint, Prezi, etc., or something more creative; (d) a work of art such as a drawing, painting, etc.

The only CATCH is that your project must somehow incorporate Binti as part of your conversation: you should relate your experience with hers, and use passages in the text to help explain your experience, even if it seems radically different. Look at the metaphors—the way Okorafor translates a universal experience into a particular story about a specific woman.

DUE: Not later than the last day of Final Exam Week—Friday, May 6^th by 5pm