November 15, 2014 - 09:36
In this paper, I wanted to talk about both teju cole and Elizabeth kolbert. In borh his article and her book they present us with topics that are and should be very serious to people today. They give you facts and information about what's going on around us, but what i find interesting is that they both have different standpoints. Teju cole is all about not being the white savior. He wants us to learn more as opposed to just acting off of emotion, while Elizabeth kolbert said towards the end of one of her chapters That we need to change the world; so she is more into the immediate response that teju despises. So, what I would do in my paper is juxtapose how the two would handle the situation and then draw my own conclusions on what I think should be done when it comes to worldly issues.
Comments
promising conversation?
Submitted by Anne Dalke on November 17, 2014 - 14:47 Permalink
Hgraves--
This is more of a “promise” than a first draft; you’ve barely begun to imagine this paper, and there’s lots of work left to do (starting w/ collecting the quotes you’ll need). Elizabeth Kolbert said in her talk that she chose NOT to tell us what to do @ the end of her book (as opposed to much of the environmental literature, which ends on an upswing); she wanted to leave it to us to decide what to do with the material she’d gathered. How different is that, really, from Teju Cole, who (as you say) “wants us to learn more as opposed to just acting off of emotion”?
I’m wondering also if looking @ what Van Jones is doing in “greening the ghetto” might give you some traction—how viable would Teju Cole or Elizabeth Kolbert find his work? What kind of response is he giving to the claims that the two of them are making? Maybe there’s a three-way conversation possible here? Anyhow, you should spend lots more time on constructing that, before trying to “draw your own conclusions on what you think should be done when it comes to worldly issues”—that seems way premature @ this point…