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Samantha Plate

Play In The City

10/27/2013

The Sole Author: Keisha's Identity through Existentialism

            Child birth was not quite what Keisha expected it would be. She had heard the stories of countless others. She seemed to think she might experience some sort of epiphany. Instead, Keisha experiences it almost from a third person perspective, detached and candid about the whole thing while under a haze of drugs. There is a sense that something is missing. And in fact there is, “the brutal awareness of the real that she had so hoped for and desired…failed to arrive” (Smith 323). She had been told it would be “like meeting yourself at the end of a dark alley” however giving birth is very uneventful for Keisha (Smith 323).

Throughout NW Keisha seems to be searching for something. She keeps looking for opportunities and ways in which she can define herself. Keisha even hopes that giving birth will be what she is looking for. She wants a life altering experience, one that is “large or brutal enough to disturb” what she calls “an image system at work in the world”, but “this moment never arrives” (Smith 322). There is one moment where “she almost thought she possibly felt it” (Smith 323). This ‘it’ being some sort of life changing moment in which Keisha ‘finds herself’. Where she can finally define her identity. What she gets instead in that ‘almost moment’ is a reminder that the “entity Natalie Blake” does not exist (Smith 324).

so today i hauled a HUGE and HEAVY pile of books
(Kettle Bottom, Sula, Orange is the New Black--okay Jody brought that one!--
Angela Davis's autobiography, Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird...,
down to a coffee shop in south philly, where jody and i looked through them,
seeking for our next book group book (need to order early next week...pressure's on..)
none of them worked. we walked to the wooden shoe and looked through the shelves;
nothing worked. we are e-mailing folks who might have suggestions about a readable,
contemporary memoir by a woman of color (preferably from Philly), and are also
planning to look @
Lorene Carey's Pride and If Sons, Then Heirs (contemporary Philly writer, but these are novels)
and also James McBride's The Color of Water: A Black man's Tribute to his White Mother
(Brooklyn man, but we both remember this as very powerful).
any leads from any of you or your friends would! be! great!
have a good weekend, all--
a.

When defining home my first thought is my house back on Long Island with my family where I grew up and have lived for the past 20 years.  But home is not solely based on where you grew up, it is much more then that.  Home to me is just not a place, it is also people.  Whenever I am with my family or more friends I feel at home.  When I am on the soccer field I feel at home.  Bryn Mawr also is my home.  I have mutiple homes.  So when thinking about feeling homeless and experiencing that feeling it hard for me to understand.  I have left home and have gone to places on my own and I have felt homesick but that feeling of being homeless I never experenced.  No matter how far I go or where I end up, at least for now, I know my family and my friends will always be there for me.  So I may not have a house and stuck wondering the streets but as long as still have my family and friends to fall back on I don't think I will ever feel completely homeless.  

I. start w/ a silent conversation….
post 5 quotes (one selected by each of us) on large sheets

II. Paired or small group conversations about the quote we’re most drawn to

III.  Each small group comes up with some questions they would like to discuss further

IV. Big group discussion

[do we need a writing time in here somewhere?]

V. Focus in on gender and power?

VI. Share article about code-switching? [or maybe a quote from this could go up
in the silent conversation...? don't know where it best fits...]

VII. Hand out next book and reading assignment (we're giving up on the writing, yes?)

a friend shared with me 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/tabathaleggett/theres-a-youtube-trend-called-pretty-or-ugly

My brother reads IGN avidly and he shared this with me today.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/10/31/kerbal-space-program-heading-to-schools 

To rewrite this paper, I'm going to choose a few economic theorists or articles that I'm studying in my Economic Inequality and Government Policy class, so that I can focus on a debate or certain issue, so that one perspective or the clash between perspectives can be my lens.

I'm also considering focussing on only Natalie's end section dealing with her dispute with Frank and the subsequent scene shopping in Poundland with her children. Perhaps, if I can deepen the analysis by having a comparison with another character, I could bring in Felix's experiences with selling drugs and his following career as a mechanic and his skill in buying used cars. This could possibly bring into question with differences and similarites in economic behaviour between genders: Felix as a man and Natalie as a woman.

Ultimately I'm going to attempt to critique an economic school of thought through the economic behaviours and actions of the characters.

Thanks so much to y’all for posting your notes and reflections about the session I missed on 10/25. I am pulling out Jody’s promise to talk about the blood and violence parts of A Taste of Power next time (?!). Want to pull out, too, Sasha’s reflections on the women’s faith-based orientation to the world (is that translatable to how we think about things? Could “praying” just be stepping back/taking a deep breath/ asking for some sort of clarity?) –and also the striking idea of power as love. And I especially want to pull out what Sarah wrote about “the kind of narrative that circulates in prison programs, which is one that seems to ‘train’ people to shift focus away from criticism of the system,” and her observation that the silence in class last time about critique of the prison “is a perfect example of the strength of its power.” This is of course a reminder that we! WILL! talk among ourselves next Tuesday about the introduction to the Radical Teacher issue on Teaching Inside Carceral Institutions.

Looking forward to this....

Last week, the lens of our(with Ziyan) paper is the relationship between Leah and Keshia/Natalie, and we just generally talked about the relationship but didn't really analyse it. This week I want to keep this lens, and narrow it down to how their relationship is formed and analyze what makes it different over time.

Last week, my essay focus on the friendship between Natalie and Leah. This week, I will sharpen my lens to focus on specific part of the book to analyze the complex friendship. But I have not decided which part to choose. Probably, I will choose to focus on ENVY, combine it with my personal expereience and go on exlore the nature friendship between women.