Final Exam Assignment: The Global Curriculum (due by Friday, May 5th!)

In case you lose it, here's the final assignment for class! Thanks for all your hard work and dedication this semester; it was a true privilege to teach this class and it was easily my favorite EQ2 class of the 4 times I've taught it over the years. Thanks for a wonderful experience, and I wish you luck on your finals! I'll let you know your final grade on the assignment and in the class as soon as I have all the grades together (and I'm still waiting on Dr. Benton to let me know about your Engagement grade). Let me know if you have any questions, and enjoy the break which is only a few weeks away! 

Honors EQ2 

Final Exam Assignment: The Global Curriculum  

 

Knowing what cannot be known— 

    what a lofty aim! 

Not knowing what needs to be known— 

    what a terrible result! (Tao te Ching, Verse 71)  

For your final exam assignment, I want you to reflect on the nature of the books and ideas in this course, which is supposed to reflect some of the “Enduring Questions” of our society. However, as compared to 1923, we live in a much more ‘global’ world, where the relationships between the US and, say, Iran, are harder to ignore, even if you never plan to travel there. There’s so much more to know, to be aware of, and to think about, which means it’s increasingly harder—and possibly, dangerous--to be ignorant about the world outside your door.  

With that in mind, I want you to write a short response to the following question: what is one of the most important ideas which you discovered in 2 or more books from class that might be extremely relevant to the 21st century? In other words, since these books all take a perspective outside the US and much of the Western world, what is one important idea that helped you understand another culture, another society, another religion, or another way of life? Why might it be important for 21st century college students to come to a deeper understanding of this idea in literature, especially? And how do the books in question help you—and help others—see this idea from different perspectives and contexts?  

Be sure to QUOTE from at least TWO books in the class so we can see what you mean and why it’s significant. This doesn’t need to be a formal response, but it should be honest, and should be specific. Try to write to someone who is NOT in this class, so you can explain and introduce a little more than you would to me or a classmate.  

This is due NO LATER THAN FRIDAY, MAY 5th BY 5pm! No late papers accepted since I have to start grading immediately to get grades in on time. But don’t take this more than it is: it’s just an honest reflection based on the ideas that most remain in your mind after the dust of the semester has settled. 

For Wednesday: Finish Persepolis! Last Questions for the Semester!!

This is it. The last questions you'll ever have to respond to in EQ2. So try to enjoy them and maybe answer all four of them just for fun! (kidding, just answer TWO as usual...)

Q1: Why does Marjane betray her youthful ideals in early on in these chapters and earn her grandmother's scorn? What may have caused her to change in this way and act so against her values and character? (and why is she so initially pleased with herself?)

Q2: Related to the above, how does she rediscover her revolutionary spirit and youthful rebellion? Why are the stakes even higher now for disobedience than they were when she was a child? 

Q3: Surprisingly, in a traditional society focused on a very narrow definition of women's roles, her mother is strongly against her marriage to Reza. Why does her mother object so strongly, and why also does her grandmother approve her later desire for a divorce? How does this show us a different side of Persian culture?

Q4: What is the final straw that sends her packing to leave for Europe once more? After her experiences in Vienna, what would make her think that leaving her family behind would be the lesser of two evils? (consider, too, that this time she never returns home...as of 2023, she has never returned to live in Iran, and makes her home in Paris). 

For Monday: Persepolis, 223-284

Whoops!--this didn't post as I thought on Friday, so I'm posting it a little late. I apologize for the inconvenience!

Read from the chapter "The Croissant" through "The Exam"

Answer two of the following:

Q1: Throughout her time in Austria, people either betray her or accuse her of being a thief or a liar. Do you think this is Satrapi's way of revealing the racism that is at the core of European (and perhaps, Western) society? Or is she indicting herself as a homesick, insecure drug-user who couldn't fit in? Would this have happened anywhere--or just here?

Q2: When she first arrived in Austria, she had trouble adjusting to the attitudes and values of her peers? Why does the same thing happen when she returns home to 'her people'? How have people (or how has she) changed? 

Q3: Related to the above, how does she begin to fit into Iranian society again? Why might this involve a compromise of her identity as sharp as the one she made in Austria to fit in among her 'punk' friends?

Q4: Discuss a passage where the images are crucial to telling Satrapi's story even more than the words. In other words, what scene almost needs to be a comic to really sell the idea (or the emotion) of the story? Explain how you read the picture in tandem with the words/story. 

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? 

For Wednesday: Persepolis, pages 72-153

NOTE: Read from "The Trip" through "The Dowry," which is the end of Persepolis I (Part II begins right after that, since they were originally two different books).

Answer two of the following:

Q1: How does Marjane and her family maintain their normal way of life (and beliefs) under the new regime? Why do they think many of these activities and practices are worth risking their lives for (esp, music)?

Q2: What is the significance of the "key" during the war, and why doesn't Marjane or any of her friends receive one? How does this reveal the despite the change of regime, some things remain exactly the same?

Q3: Despite the extreme circumstances and the completely different culture, why is being a teenager pretty much the same in 1980's Iran as in modern day America? What things did you personally recognize in Marjane's teenage rebellion, and why do you think a girl who faces death for disobedience would still want to be "punk"?

Q4: Why do Marjane's parents send her away to Vienna instead of having the entire family emigrate their together? And why did she have to go now, rather than earlier or much later? What did her parents fear another year or two might bring? 

For Monday: Satrapi, Persepolis, pp.3-71

In case you have a different version, read from Chapter "The Veil" through "The Sheep." 

Answer two of the following:

Q1: In her Introduction to the book, Satrapi writes that “I believe that an entire nation should not be judged by the wrongdoings of a few extremists.  I also don’t want those Iranians who lost their lives in prisons defending freedom…or who were forced to leave their families and flee their homeland to be forgotten.”  How does a comic book/graphic novel help her do this—that is, memorialize those who are forgotten in place of the more visible extremists? 

 

Q2: Why do you think Satrapi tells her story from the perspective of a child?  Since a child knows very little about politics, religion, or war, this would seem a very limited perspective to discuss history and extremist governments.  What does it allow her to do, say, or reveal that an adult narrator might not? 

Q3: How does Satrapi try to communicate the more ‘non-Western’ elements of Iran through the novel?  In general, why might this novel—though written in French and published in Paris—be a work similar to The Mystic Masseur?

Q4: In the comic, Satrapi remarks that "it was funny to see how much Marx and God looked like each other" (13). Why was Marjane brought up to revere writers/thinkers such as Marx, when we're often taught to despise them in the West? Why might she see Marx as, like God, merciful and omnipotent? 

For Monday: Naipaul, The Mystic Masseur, Chapters 9-11

 

Answer TWO of the following…

NOTE: Try to finish the book for Monday or get as close as you can. Even if you don't quite finish, you should easily be able to answer two of the questions below.

Answer any two as usual: 

Q1: How does Naipaul satirize democratic elections in a ‘brand new’ postcolonial nation like Trinidad?  How does the system not work—and how is the very idea of democracy often misunderstood by Ganesh and others? 

Q2: Once the American soldiers arrive in Trinidad, America begins to have a much more profound influence on Trinidadian life than Britain.  Where do we see the “American” influence in its day-to-day life?  How does Ganesh himself try to institute “American” popular culture? 

Q3: Once Ganesh enters politics he emulates the reforms and ideals of Gandhi, who liberated India from British control.  But is his mimicking sincere or somewhat hypocritical?  Gandhi followed the teachings of the Gita as his polestar: does Ganesh? In general, what kind of political leader does he make?

Q4: How do you understand the end of the book, when the Narrator, now a grown man, encounters Ganesh in London?  Why does he change his name to “G.Ramsay Muir”?  How does he respond to the Narrator’s advances?