READ THIS: PRESENTATIONS

PRESENTATIONS: please take these seriously: they are an important part of your participation in the class. Your job when you present is to lead the discussion on the reading for that day. You may bring in some research, but most of all, you should be very well-prepared with insights, interpretations, and questions about the reading at hand. You may want to begin by summarizing the progress of the plot represented by the excerpt assigned on that day. Then you should have passages picked out for the class to discuss. You may want to be ready, also, with the posts for the day (you can copy and paste them and print them out). The purpose of the presentation is to give more responsibility to the classmembers and de-center the discussion a little bit (although I will still chime in). Here are your assignments, mostly random. 1. Wed. 3/30 Small Things, 84-147, Eidia. 2. 4/4 Small Things, 148-225, Hannah. 3. 4/6 Small Things, ending, Anna. 4. 4/11 Ondaatje, Dan. 5. 4/13 Mukherjee, Michael. 6. 4/18 Poppies, 3-87, Karol. 7. 4/20 Poppies, 88-156, Jason. 8. 4/25 Poppies, 157-226, Joe. 9. 4/27, Poppies, 227-342, Will. 10. 5/2 Poppies, 343-446, Rachel. 11. 5/4 Poppies, finish, Jane.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Karol - Rushdie -03/05


This passage begins and ends with “…it’s only a matter of time” and time plays as an enumerative conceit throughout grounding the readership in dates and figures as addendum to Salim’s inner life. There is a hyperrealism apparent here to the point where it ‘chews on bones.’  The images of Amina picking at her corny gangrenous feet accretes into a scene less magical then Salim’s inner life. 

The space of an inner life that is interrupted by telecommunications and projecting phantasm onto reality, and thus, creating a fablesque space. It is significant that Amina Sinai receives a message by telegraph that affects her action in material reality based on Morse code radio transmission that requires a faith network in order to operate (meaning both sender and receiver have to trust the other party is real) .   

The anti-sublime image of Amin Sinai “right ankle on left knee” using a nail file is interrupted by an “envelope in a silver dish,” and stylistically the theme of interruption is evident  in the form. Because of the exhcange between form and content interruption can view as a thing in itself. 

When hyperreal space is interrupted it is hallmarked by dates and details in an enumerative concentration on details of “armies and their dates.” Rushdie’s use of the word “verucas” is interesting because It implies a viral basis to Amina’s affliction and paired with the arrival of the telegram it suggests a parallel. Its arrival also marks the entrance into fablesques space as Salim begins:  “…once upon a time. No, that won’t do…”(337-338)

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