02 Thursday Feb 24

Joey LoMonaco's Notes for Thursday, February 24th

Class on Thursday, February 24th began with a brief, five-question reading quiz on "She". Dr. Mathur informed the class of the English department's "assessment" program, which requires students to submit their written works so the department can assure certain benchmarks (clear theses, proper citation) are achieved.

A discussion prompt was given regarding the traits of Job and Mehmed.

Job: Comic Set Clumsy Loyal Religious Verbal

The character traits were discusses using the lenses of marxism and feminism. Dr. Mathur prompted students to create a hierarchy of characters.

'What was determined

Hierarchy: Holly+Leo Job Monamed

We were given a discussion question about Marxism in “She” Hergemony between the three classes in the novel was discussed.

The second part of the question asked, "Is there a difference between repressive and interpellative forces?"

The class concluded with a group presentation of the marxist lens using the source material of "The Matrix"

Wiki notes 2/24/11 Nadia Choudhry To start off class, we had a quiz on Marxism and our homework reading from the novel She. Paper 2 was introduced next and the draft is due on March 15th. We did an in-class writing that focused on Job and Mohammed’s role in the text and their social positions. As a class, we collectively discussed that Job seems very set in his ways, clumsy, comic, loyal, religious. He is very set in his ways of how society should be and relationships. And he is superior in class to Leo and Holly. As for Mohammed’s character, in many times he is referred to as “Arab and other times by his name. He is known for his religion. His character is separated from the others by race and also just as Job is set in his own ways. He’s always afraid. Holly and Leo are at the top of the class list, then Job and then Mohammed last by virtue of his race. Next we did another discussion question: How might Marxist theory apply to the three different social organizations in the narrative: English (Holly, Leo, and Job); Amahagger (Billali and Ustane); and Kor (She and her servants). As a class we discussed that She maintains her hegemony through fear and is very repressive. She needs fear to support her authority. Amahagger is a complicated matriarchal society where the women are superior to men when they are young but on the other hand, each household is ruled by a “father”. English is more interpellation, they are subscribing to the power and authority of She without really knowing they are. After the discussion, a group of students showed a presentation on the Marxist Literary Theory. The group used the Matrix as the source to show this theory. They introduced the theory briefly. They explained that capitalist societies are split into two groups: proletariat (working class) and the Bourgeois (factor owners, upper class). The main goal of capitalism it to buy in order to sell a higher profit and the aim of Marxism is to create a classless society. Marxism literary criticism believes that a writer’s social class and background have a major influence on what is written by the author. A few terms they went over were commodity, which is the external object that satisfies need and superstructure which is determined by the economic base (material means), it is a cultural world of ideas and art. Engelsian Marxist criticism, stresses necessary freedom of art from direct determinism. This criticism believes in need for close formal analysis of literature and that the language of literature has its own characteristics. The group explained the Matrix movies briefly and explained how Marxism is prevalent in the movies. In the movie two separate classes are evident; the bourgeois (machines) and the proterliat (humans).Marx’s inevitable class revolution occurs when the machines become too powerful and the Zion resistance forms. Interpellation is when one capitalist ideology prevails over the other and when we feel we are freely choosing is imposed among us. In the matrix, human minds believe they are living a free life but in reality the ideology, the machines, rules over mankind with complete autocratic rule. The group also briefly discussed class within Zion. Each member of Zion has a specific job. They are all subservient to Morpheus, the ship’s leader. Last we watched a clip where the character, Morpheus, is explaining what the Matrix is.