I enjoyed the presentations on Thursday just as much as I enjoyed the ones that were given on Tuesday. As with Tuesday there were texts that I had seen or read, and some that I have not. Erin presented The Pursuit of Happyness which I have seen many times. I found it interesting though because as much as I love that movie and even though I think it teaches a powerful message I did not even think about putting it on my canon until Erin presented. It is funny how even though I have agreed with what many people have said about their texts, and even though I have been exposed to them I personally did not think to put them on mine until their presentations. That is one challenge I have had with this project is just thinking about all the different texts that I have been exposed to in order to make my canon. Hearing what other people have chosen to put on their canons has helped me come up with some other ideas of what to put on mine. Like I said in my blog post about Tuesday I believe the similarities and differences in our canons as a class show the similarities and differences in the ways we were raised concerning what we were exposed to before we got to Miami. It was very interesting to me that Vivian knew so much about O.Henry, as many people are age in America have never heard of him. I was exposed to O.Henry in junior high and high school, but I know some of my friends might not have been. It is nice to see what American texts are valued in other places, such as China in Vivian’s case.
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So far I have really enjoyed listening to the Inquiry 3 presentations. They have introduced me to a number of new texts and I am very interested in some of them. Alex Kendall talked about a documentary that I thought sounded like it would be good. I will definitely be looking that up to watch. The book Bridget talked about also sounded like something I would be interested in because I have read an interactive book like that before and really enjoyed it. I think it is a great way for authors to express themselves. I already knew about a good bit of them, especially Austin's because I also have Remember the Titans on my canon list. That showed me that we both value that text for similar reasons. I think that seeing the same thing on someone else's canon shows that it can be valued by more than one person, which is what a canon should do in the first place. I think one thing that accounts for the differences in our values is how and where we were raised, or the context in which we grew up. My context has a lot to do with what I value and why so many things were on my canon because I was exposed to them as a child. I am looking forward to hearing more presentations on Thursday and finding out what everyone values for themselves.I chose to read “The Literary Canon—Which Books Should Be Required Reading?” and “Is the Literary Canon Still Racist and Sexist?” These two articles contradict each other in some ways, but there were some things they agreed on. The first article focused on the idea that the canon—whether referring to the American Literary Canon or the Western Literary Canon—may contain a lot of dead white men, but those works are just as important as the new age authors that are not men and/or not white. I think this is a very good point to discuss as this subject has been debated for a long time now. I believe that while it is extremely important to update the canon and include women and races other than white, it is also important to at least be familiar with the classic works by “dead white men.” Those classic works that have been on the canon lists for a long time are there for a reason and students should be familiar with them. On the other hand though, if everyone starts to ignore the classic European/Greek literary works there will no longer be a need to be familiar with them. Even just in my lifetime I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually needed to know what some of these classics were about and more often than not it was just to be able to contribute to a conversation. In my opinion today’s world is already moving away from the Western Literary Canon and studying works that are more relevant to today. The second article I read was arguing that the literary canon is still dominated by male authors, and the need to change this. Since the Western Literary Canon and even the American Literary Canon encompass a long, long span of time I think it is hard to include women and other races from the beginning. Seeing as when some of these very old works were written most people who were not male and white were not educated or were not in a position to be published. As a result we only have works by white men. I think that the works that came when it became acceptable for women and people who were not white to write and be published should be examined and considered to be added to the canons. In my high school experience I was exposed to many different types of writing. The English teachers that I had did not focus very much on works from the Literary Canon except for Shakespeare. For this reason I was exposed to many different writers who were not always men or white. I did enjoy this class and I did feel ready for college English even though I may not know as much about Greek and Roman works of literature that are considered classics. I do not think that today it is absolutely necessary to have read a great deal from the Western Literary Canon or the American Literary Canon in order to succeed in life.
My working thesis statement is that Argo was made to inflate the egos of the American people, something that is already done on a regular basis. I can't decide if I want to keep this or change it to something about the political controversy surrounding the film. In this paper I plan to discuss how other countries such as Canada were outraged at the lack of credit they receive. There were many countries that were mad, not only Canada, but countries such as New Zealand and Britain. One aspect of my research that isn't in my paper is the face that Iran banned the film from being played or sold anywhere which I think is important because it shows how much they did not want anyone to see it. The questions I have for my readers are what do you think I can do to my thesis statement to make my paper better, and what other information do you think I need to add to make my argument stronger?Weisman, Aly. "Outlawed 'Argo' DVDs Are Selling by the Thousands in Iran." GlobalPost. N.p., 1 Feb. 2013. Web. 09 Mar. 2014.
Rosen, Christopher. "'Argo' New Zealand Reference Upsets Local Residents." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 21 Mar. 2013. Web. 09 Mar. 2014.
Houpt, Simon. "Ken Taylor Sets the Record Straight about Argo's Take on the 'Canadian Caper'" The Globe and Mail. N.p., 25 Feb. 2013. Web. 09 Mar. 2014.
"Iran's State TV Slams Argo as 'CIA Advertisement'" PanARMENIAN.Net. N.p., 26 Feb. 2013. Web. 09 Mar. 2014.
Cole, Juan. "“Argo” as Orientalism and Why It Upsets Iranians." Informed Comment. N.p., 26 Feb. 2013. Web. 09 Mar. 2014.
Gomeshi, Jian. "Jian Ghomeshi: Argo Is Crowd-pleasing, Entertaining--and Unfair to Iranians."The Globe and Mail. N.p., 02 Nov. 2012. Web. 09 Mar. 2014.
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