Blogs

My first paper focused on Shar and the number 37 in Leah's life in terms of randomness. My initial idea was of 37 as a lens, but that kind of formed into randomness being the lens. In my rewrite I want my lens to be Randomness and how people prefer patterns over randomness and try to find patterns in randomness. My examples might be the number 37, Shar, the beginning of Leah and Keisha’s friendship, the general plot/lack of structure in the book, and a possible explanation of why some people in class did not like or were agitated by the book. 

When I looked over my essay again after class and even when I origially wote it, I felt that I was only really touching on the surface of the existentialist view of Natalie/Keisha's identity crisis. When I rewrite my essay this weekend, I plan to focus on deepening the ideas I have already presented in the essay and looking closer at her situation to develop the paper more. In parts of the essay I need to shift the focus of my writing back to the main points I was trying to make, this will not only keep my paper on track but also give me the pooprtunity to dig deeper into the true nature of her situation. Overall, I plan to develop my ideas more and organize them in a way that will make them more impactful. 

For this essay, Pia and I are thinking about using the lens of sexuality to analyze Felix and Natalie's characters, and how their sexual intimacy with others helps them find themselves. We had started going into this, but didn't go as deep as we could have. There is much more comparison to do with how alike their sexual experiences make them in how they identify themselves.

Natalie's section will focus more on her listings and why she chose to post them, while Felix's will look at how he is attached to Annie and what this does to his relationship with Grace.

Between the discussion we had in class and after re-reading my paper, I have decided that I would like to narrow in and shift my focus onto how Keisha/Natalie’s upbringing and socioeconomic background influenced her identity crisis, rather than just an accumulation of all the possible causes of her crisis. I plan on tightening my very long introduction and body paragraphs that relate to my new narrower lens. I then plan on finding more textual evidence as well as additional research to write new paragraphs that reflect my interest in Keisha/Natalie and her transformation, and how that relates to her socioeconomic status. 

I feel as if Natalie and I didn't get deep enough into what could potentially be a very meaningful paper. We may have only gone skin deep and were too involved in the length of the paper rather than the quality of the paper. Though we did bring up a good point like Frank demanding Natalie to identify herself (and her failure to do so), the lens of identity is too large to fully analyze. While we are trying to talk about Natalie and Felix, I don't feel as if we compared them enough. Instead, we may have talked too much about the identity issues and made the paper into a summary rather than an a strong analysis.

As a result, Natalie and I will next time focus more on the sexual intimacy aspect of the identity issues. This way, we can focus on one small part of the identity issue rather than such a large lens. For example, the reasons why Natalie chooses to post listings and how she thinks the sexual intimacy will help her find herself. In addition, we could also discuss Felix and his intimate attachment to Annie and how this is hindering his chances with Grace.

This past Sunday's paper, my lens focused on the acceptance of interracial marriage in Brittain. I took the issue of race and focused on how it's factor plays a role in relationship stability and function. I felt good about the paper and like I completed the task of using a lens, but I definitely could have deepen my argument by using the example of leah and michel's relationship and how it plays into importance with the novel. 

For this upcoming paper, I'm not quite sure what my new lens might focus on. I have two ideas, one focusing on the social economic status of the characters and how it affects their romantic relationships as well as how race does. This option would be a lens focusing on the marxism lens. I could also choose to write based on my second idea, which would be on the lens of free will and analyzing the characters social status and their economic status and tie it in with the idea of stagnation. 

The lens I used in my last paper was agency, as defined by Sabina Alkirke. For the coming paper, I will continue to use agency as a lens. However, I will use Sherry B. Ortner's definition of it from "Thick Resistance: Death and the Cultural Construction of Agency in Himalayan Mountaineering." Ortner's definition will allow me to view agency as a more fluid form of power; people have agency when they already have some sort of power, and they use agency to expand on the power they already have.

For this essay-rewrite, Anne basically did all the heavy-lifting in our writing conference. My lens, "How we must be more cautious about blaming," is clear but needs to be used better. 

The outline: 

Subject- On the Notion of Blame and our Neurology: How Accountable are we for Our Actions?

Thesis: That the human brain is so complex, so much of a mystery to both us and scientists, that we don't know what to make of the chaos and disorder and mystery that goes on inside our own brains, much less other peoples. That is why we go to fiction. To get some sort of order out of the worldly chaos. 

Part one: My rant about NW and my expectations for it. 

Part two: How Zadie Smith might be trying to recreate all the internal chaos and mystery inside of us. Why doesn't she give us what we seek from fiction? 

Part three: Add on/end with the Radiolab piece about blame and the poor man Kevin and his Kluver-Büsey syndrome. 

My last paper was very all over the board. I definitely don’t think I zoomed in enough with what I was saying, and my ideas were pretty scattered as well. This week, I’d like to totally change my lens and rewrite the paper entirely, using the Marxist lens, and focus on the living spaces of the characters and how that represents their socioeconomic status and defines them throughout the book. There’s a lot to work with there, from Felix and his father’s experiences in the community houses, to Natalie/Keisha’s big move, and even Michele telling Leah he doesn’t want their children to grow up in the flat they live in, with the sign out front, because it will define their lives. Plus, in general, the book does focus a lot on the neighborhood (as if the title wasn’t a tip off), so by comparing the living arrangements and way society judges the people living their per Marxist theory, I think I might have a much better paper.

Last weeks paper I focused on Leah and Michel's biracial relationship.  This week I would like to broaden my lens and incorporate other characters that share biracial and bicultural friendships and relationships such as Frank and Leah, Frank and Natalie, and Leah and Natalie.  I mainly wrote about how Leah and Michel's race pushes them apart but I think it would be interesting to add in other negative and positive factors in their relationship.