As some may be aware, a caravan of migrants from Central America is winding its way north to the United States border as you read this post. It departed from Honduras in mid-October and around 7,500 people are estimated to be a part. This caravan has been highly politicized in anticipation for the midterm elections; after all, demonizing the people in it was one of Trump’s largest campaign tactics, and closing the US/Mexico border was his largest promise. As expected, Trump has not been silent. He tweeted that “criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in” with the caravan, which has since been disputed and Trump has walked back on. However, the statement did the trick to stoke up the old fears and xenophobia that was so publicized, especially around the 2016 election — though we should not forget that it has not gone away. On October 25th, the Washington Post released that upwards of 1,000 United States troops, most of them active duty, will be deployed to the border. While it is legally complicated to get the army involved in domestic situations, they will be in support roles for the border patrol. Most recently, Trump has considered completely shutting down the border. A storm is approaching from Honduras, and we will have to see how exactly United States officials will respond when the caravan arrives.

I am glad that we watched Sin Nombre as a class with this intense reality and political discourse that is happening today. While most if not all of us imagined the conditions of the illegal immigrant’s journey to the United States, now we have an image to the caravan. It is harder to Other humans when you have had a glimpse into their lives, even if that glimpse is fictional; this has been the most enriching part of this class for me thus far, and why I believe many of us chose to take it. When approached with such vitriol and hate of the Other, learning about borders in all their shapes and forms is the first step to consider how to dismantle them.

Something that should not be glossed over here as well is Trump’s plan to delegitimize the transgender community, another effort that strips rights from minority communities. On October 22nd, the Department of Health and Human Services released a memo that proposed “sex” to be defined as “a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth.” This proposal would completely strip the identity of an entire community in an official sense.

I will also use this space to give a quick plug for democracy. Please do participate in this election, whatever political views you align with — and this doesn’t necessarily mean just send the absentee ballot, but to engage in discourse about what the effects of electing members to office will be. Two things to remember, agree or disagree with, and discuss: we as college students have power in our privilege, and must remember to not insulate ourselves in just this community (it’s easy to forget about the world, I do it all the time). And having a democratic voice is a wonderful asset that is often overlooked. How will we use it?

—Aidan

“In Praise of Latin Night at the Queer Club”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-praise-of-latin-night-at-the-queer-club/2016/06/13/e841867e-317b-11e6-95c0-2a6873031302_story.html?utm_term=.ae6edee2636a

Here is the list of words that you collectively recorded as the most important words in Giovanni’s Room: boyish, belonging, room, drunk, sardonic, volatile, lost, dark, body, touch, dirty, trapped, desperate, frightened, forget. Here’s a space for sharing the in-class flash fictions you wrote using these words. If you would like to spin a “happy” flash fiction (given that most of the pieces shared in class were not “happy”), feel free to take on that challenge.

Please post responses here. Focusing on one scene is recommended but not required. And if you are interested in connections between this film and Giovanni’s Room, feel free to share them as well.

Respond to Werner Herzog’s film here.

UPDATE:

As you think about how to respond to Herzog’s film (on its own and/or in relation to Torres’ novella), please remember to not just discuss (evaluate) Treadwell as a figure/character/person, but also to consider HOW Herzog is using the medium of documentary film (the techniques of) in order to represent very specific ideas through his particular aesthetic lens on Treadwell. You must treat Treadwell as a subject of the art object (film) itself, even if/though it is a “real” story; it is still a crafted (version of the) story. It is Herzog’s story. And Herzog’s is one of many lenses that could be put on the question of “our nature,” human nature, through telling the story of Treadwell exactly as he does—how does he? Why does he make certain filmic choices? How does his storytelling as the narrator (the insertion of himself into the story) and the various other techniques employed, visual and otherwise, shape our understanding, our critique, our judgment, our empathy, etc. of and for Treadwell? How does he get us to probe our ideas about wild vs. human nature, about what he calls “the common denominator of the universe…chaos, hostility, murder,” and many other intellectually provocative concepts. [The responses posted so far about the film are very good in weighing in on the ethical and psychological aspects of Treadwell, but I’ll just point you to Rhys’ direct address of Herzog’s filmmaking (and the connection drawn to Torres’ writing), which is what I expect you to be doing with all texts this semester.]

In my “Monuments and Ideas in Western Art” class, my professor asked us to watch a video. It was a video on edges. For five or six minutes, a very knowledgeable man named Thomas P. Campbell, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, talked about why he loves edges. He loves the edges of sculptures, the edges of tapestries, the edges of paintings. He loves the intentionality behind the use or misuse of an edge. This video can be found here: https://www.metmuseum.org/connections/the_edge

My concept of edges and borders was broadened by this video. Director Campbell examined edges of art pieces that had nothing in common. They differed in everything from the styles and mediums to the origins and the time periods. He went from examining a Grecian freeze to waxing eloquent about a Chinese tapestry. However, the one thing in common in all the works of art was the fact that they have edges. To Director Campbell, if the edges of the piece are not examined, then it is only partly understood.

Director Campbell’s claim holds true because the borders within artwork often reflect the intention of the artist and the history of the piece.  As the video displays through the analysis of Degas’ “The Dance Class” borders are often intentional and, if someone has the courage to look at them, they bring a greater understanding of the piece. The history of the piece is often revealed through its edges. In the case of  Duccio di Buoninsegna’s Madonna and Child, the history and reverence for the painting is revealed through the wax stains left upon the original frame from the candles lit in its presence. Because Professor Cassarino called our attention to the artist Mary Kramer and her series of paintings on borders within the earth, I rethought how I viewed the edges of art pieces. I was forced to examine the role that borders play universally, not just within literature. If even the earth, paintings, sculptures, and poems have borders, does everything? If so, is it our job as humans to seek those borders out? I realize these are rather absolutist and generic questions. However, these are definitely questions that have plagued me throughout this course.

In revising my paper and thinking about my poem, and the various functions of mirrors, I was reminded of a museum exhibit that I saw several years ago, at Mass MoCA in North Adams, Ma. It’s one of my favorite museums, and my family goes almost every summer. There have been some unbelievable exhibits, especially in the largest gallery space.  This particular summer, this distinctive space was given over to an artist named Izhar Patkin, whose work consisted mainly of large, mural-sized veils. Though at the time I did not feel a strong connection to the art itself, the curatorial text on the wall at the beginning of the exhibit resonated with me strongly. The text mentioned in particular the distinction between three concepts or functions of a veil: representation, manifestation, and abstraction. The veil blurred the line between reality and depiction of reality. This triadic concept, of representation, manifestation, and abstraction, has stuck with me for quite some time, and it came into my thoughts when discussing mirrors. Intrigued, I went to the internet to see if I could find the text I had connected with so strongly from the museum exhibition. Upon opening Izhar Patkin’s website, I was struck by a truly unbelievable coincidence. From 1999 to the present, Izhar Patkin’s work has been a series called Veiled Threats, inspired by the poems of Agha Shahid Ali. Each of the veils that filled the gallery space of Mass MoCA over four years ago had corresponded to a poem by the very poet I’ve been writing about for the past two weeks. Ali’s last poem of his life, “The Veil Suite,” had been written specifically for this collaboration with Patkin.

I do not know what to make of this connection. I suppose in my thought process I was merely reiterating the myriad similarities between Patkin and Ali, well established before my viewing of the veils or reading of the poem. I doubt I was unearthing some shred of my memory from that exhibit that linked Ali to Patkin, or that I was somehow subconsciously tapped into their profound artistic connection. I’m also frustrated that there’s absolutely no way for me to incorporate Patkin’s art into my essay without completely changing my thesis to be more specifically about intertextuality.

On continuing to read Patkin’s website, I found another work of his, that was placed, at Mass MoCA, on the steps of the exhibit down from the wall text to the veils. A life-size sculpture, in bright iridescent colors, of Don Quixote, who holds in one hand both a mirror and a copy of Alonzo Fernández de Avellaneda’s illegitimate sequel to the knight’s first volume. Apparently in Cervantes’ legitimate sequel, much reference is made to this bastardization, and the characters themselves are aware that they have been written about, to the point where Quixote refuses to go to a jousting match and several other narrative events because it was described in Fernández de Avellaneda’s version.

In the new criticism movement of the mid-20^th century, the focus was on the artwork as an isolated, self-contained aesthetic statement. Is an artistic experience free of context as valid as one steeped in it? What does intertextuality add to your experience of art?

P.S. I have not been able to find a Patkin veil corresponding to “I See Chile in My Rearview Mirror.”

In my free time, I have slowly been making my way through George Saunders’s recent novel, Lincoln in the Bardo. This book makes my head spin; however, it is an abstract masterpiece that I would recommend simply to experience the literary art of the work (which itself challenges the bounds of what we consider to be fictional literature). In February of 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, the Lincoln family suffered the loss of their eleven-year-old son. Following his burial, local newspapers detail the repeated return of President Lincoln to his crypt where, in grief, he sought to hold the body of his child. Inspired by this small truth, Saunders crafts the story of his deceased son, William, as he is stuck within the transition from death to rebirth. In this portrayed realm, the bounds between living and dead, historical fact and imagined reality, are distorted, forcing the confrontation of an enduring question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end? (Adapted from back cover)

Not only is this book extremely experimental in form, the text either excerpts from published articles, pieced together to craft a narrative, or shifting between the thoughts of the other characters contained within the bardo, but also original in content. Within a society that generally censures discussions of death, this work faces it head on, tearing down the borders we have created between ourselves and this unknown.

In reading this book, I have been forced to contend with various questions of mortality, more specifically the significance of our tendency to label this topic as taboo (which is even demonstrated through the euphemisms I habitually use in reference to death throughout this post). In speaking with a friend the other day, we came upon the topic of her late brother, whose death was a tragedy felt throughout our entire community. Despite the love felt for him in his passing, her family has continued to live almost in ignorance of his existence, in turn causing them to be isolated in their unspoken grief. The suffering that they continue to endure leaves me heartbroken. Why must we create barriers between us and those we have lost? Isn’t it better to have loved and lived than to have never existed? Our lives are threads being woven into the tapestry of life. When one’s earthly existence has come to a close, we must not unravel the entire work, but rather treasure our shared experiences and observe the overall beauty of our collective art piece.

I know this is a heavy topic; however, these are simply the thoughts that have recently been filling my mind. The most difficult scene from the book was when Lincoln holds the decaying body of his son, crying and speaking to him, asking him to return to life. In response, William climbs back into his corpse, able to feel the arms of his father once again. This blurring of temporal boundaries spoke to me, demonstrating that, despite the loss of ones physical presence, our lives can be touched by the existence of others, which will be carried throughout all of time.  Perhaps this is the ultimate transcendence of borders.

–Jaden