Andrew’s World Literature Blog

       The two research excursions I looked at were Gema’s essay on the Festival of Dionysus and Monique’s essay on Ancient Greek Burial Customs. Gema contextualized the essay by mentioning that Ancient Greek practices were all about self-examination and coming to your own conclusions. I found this interesting because we often hear about how ancient civilizations tended to let others think for themselves, especially considering how many governments were a single ruler with essentially all power allocated to them. She further expands on this point by mentioning how this period in question was politically characterized by citizens starting to move towards democracy over tyrannical rulers. These ideas while mentioning that Greek dramas were deeply embedded in politics contextualizes the widespread nature of Antigone and Greek plays in general. According to the essay, they even brought the children of the dead soldiers onto the stage as an example of the consequences of ...

       The visit to archives and special collections was very fascinating for me. My favorite thing about the visit was seeing the varying formats of the collections and the aged quality of much of the work that really took me back to its era. For example, there were texts that were shaped like accordions, a giant bible with illustrations, tiny books, and more. I learned some information about manuscripts and the long process that scribes have to undergo. It was also interesting seeing some books written from right to left rather than the left to right that we are used to. The librarian also covered the way that parchment was made to be used for writing, and though I can’t quite remember the steps involved, she mentioned that it was rather inefficient, hence parchment no longer being in use for writing. I’m more interested in book preservation, and the way that texts were replicated before print was invented. It was most definitely a massively more painstaking proces...

       I think it is entirely possible that my topic in question can change once I read the third and fourth shared texts, but as of now, I think I’d like to research Antigone alongside four different texts regarding myths and beliefs of differing faiths and groups. I would cover what these stories mean to people within their social context. I’d like to include questions like “are they just stories to these people, or real beliefs?” Again, this is all quick brainstorming, and I am entirely open to a different topic, especially considering that my first research excursion was about the Greek myth of Icarus and Daedalus. As for my format, I am not entirely confident in using Neatline. I have already expressed some distaste with the intuitiveness of the website, I think I could work around that. One of my main concerns is that it doesn’t seem like that much information goes into the actual Neatline project itself, and I wonder if you are meant to fit a paragraph per p...

       I think we often think ancient plays are perfectly preserved, 100% accurate prints of the original product. It is easy to forget that there was no database or even text at the time, as manuscripts were the only form of written text. An entire play would need to be rewritten by hand for another copy, a highly laborious process that leaves room for human error. One thing the lecture covers are the papyrus scraps found in Oxyrhynchus , 500 years after it was first performed. The gap between those two forms of the play was baffling to me, as Antigone may very well have not been found in a slightly different circumstance. I was also surprised to learn that nobody knows who actually reproduced the play. It is truly fascinating that transmission history is its own subject, noting the crossover between book and print history with text history. Among the problems of manuscript texts are how easy it is for it to change or to lose words. For example, the lecture mention...

       Between Antigone and Home Fire, the thing I was most interested in comparing is Antigone’s Polyneices and Home Fire’s Parvaiz. Both of these characters are considered enemies of the state, killed and refused burial in their home country. They also have sisters that fight for his right to be buried in his homeland. It is clear that they serve the same purpose in their respective stories, but with one major difference. Antigone begins after Polyneices is dead, and we never see anything regarding his perspective or thoughts on the matter. Conversely, Home Fire goes a large portion of the book without getting Parvaiz’s perspective— but once we do, it is in full force. He takes up a major portion of the book, and we get to see his motivations, beliefs, family relations, character growth, etc. I much prefer the Antigone moment coming later in the story, as it gives us time to understand and empathize with Parvaiz before his death and denial, and we may even f...

       Until watching the lecture, I had never really viewed Antigone in its social context as a play. It just seemed like a book set in Ancient Greece to me. One of the first interesting things regarding this topic was how the play was set in Thebes, but performed in Athens. The lecture teaches that Thebes was actually an enemy of Athens, and its setting in the story was intentional, as to place the warnings that the play lays out on Thebes instead of the people of Athens so they don’t think it might happen to them. The lecture also introduces the Festival of Dionysus in the Sanctuary of Dionysus, noting its massive funding and wide reach all over Attica. This point was made to explain the incredibly communal nature of Antigone as a play, to get the people of Athens to think about what they’re doing without directly accusing them. That piece of knowledge allowed me to see Antigone with a new lens, and it was interesting to analyze the messages of the book now know...

     Using Neatline was a bit of a mixed experience for me. I actually quite like the idea of it, how you can use points on a map to give information while also giving readers a sense of where and when. As Michelle mentioned during that class, it is quite situational. Not all assignments are very rooted in geography, or even have more than one location, or at least have largely differing locations to where Neatline would seem useful. In that case, the information can be conveyed far better in different formats. Another problem I had with it was with the website itself. It is dated in terms of design, to the point where for some reason, you are able to edit anybody else’s project, and even worse, you cannot find your own projects automatically. You have to manually search through the list and hope you can find it by sorting by date. That part is quite unintuitive, and there’s also the fact that you can’t search for locations on the map. But once you are making points, it w...

       Regarding islamophobia in Home Fire, I believe the novel brings to light just how deep-seated that form of bigotry is. It is present in many forms throughout the book. There is racism regarding airport security, personal interactions, the media, and the general public. Something that makes the racism multi-layered is Karamat Lone. To keep his political status, he needs to keep his “Muslim-ness” at bay. He has to go out of his way to assert that he does not practice the Muslim religion, and takes every chance he gets to discredit Muslims that may align with controversy in any way, shape, or form. He essentially needs to sacrifice his personal identity to be respected enough to hold a place of power as a Muslim. If Karamat were to even have a neutral stance on Muslims, that would likely not be enough for him to not be suspected of terrorist connections. To reinforce this point, Isma does something similar in going to counter terrorist security when learning of ...

  To be honest, I am not very knowledgeable about how to utilize scholarly sources in the library. Of course I understand that there are many books to access, many of which are scholarly, but beyond that and specific librarians for subjects, I am lost when it comes to what the library can further provide. The criteria for scholarly sources may confuse me as well, so it would be nice to review it during class or something like that. In terms of doing research for this class in general, I am excited to do real research for an English paper, as beforehand it was usually reputable articles and book passages for books we were already using, but university level papers are a tall tale that I am excited to tackle. I understand that it will be difficult, but it will improve my writing skills and ability to research in the long run.

  Something that has caught my attention for the research excursion is the allusion to the story of Icarus on page 9 of Home Fire . I have never really studied or had a class on Greek mythology, but the stories that I have heard here and there have always caught my interest. I’ve heard the general term of “flying too close to the sun” commonly alluded to, and while I know the general story beats, delving deeper into the entire myth and its meanings could prove to be very interesting. I would also like to connect it to the story, as the concept of overstepping your boundaries regarding a goal and suffering for it is definitely applicable to multiple characters in Home Fire. There are also some references to certain attacks and bombings, for example, the canal bombing on page 67. I am not even sure if these events truly took place (though I assume they do), but that uncertainty makes the research that much more interesting. Those two (though the second may be more general) top my li...