01 Thursday April 14

Sean Colligan's Notes for Tuesday, April 12, 2011
We began the class by going over the details of the final exam. The format, possible terms we would need to recall, subjects of certain questions, and all other important aspects were discussed. The test will be a closed-book, take-home exam that will be distributed on Thursday, April 21st. After this, the class switched to a discussion of the graphic novel we just began reading, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. A presentation was shown illustrating the historical background of the title and the nation of Iran, wherein the story is primarily based. This began with ancient origin of the Persian Empire and the city known as Persepolis (“City of the Persians”). Later in history, this empire saw frequent colonization by Arab cultures. It was this that helped form the Middle East as we know it today. After a military coup, Reza Shah Pahlavi came into power in Iran in 1925. He was overthrown in the Islamic Revolution in 1979, which saw the ayatollah as the country’s new leader. This, as well as the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, was one of the first major incidents in Persepolis. The recent trend of graphic novels in literature was then discussed, as well of the life of Marjane Satrapi. After growing up Iran, she spent much of her time in Europe and ultimately moved to France, where she wrote and published Persepolis. One of her ultimate goals with this work was to challenge the notions of the east that she saw in many of the European communities she was a part of. After this, the class discussed the importance of the veil early in the novel. Predominantly, we focused on its transition to a playful object to a more serious one later on.

Class Summary Essay: Thursday, 14 April 2011 by Brenna Hill
Today’s class began with an in-class writing about Persepolis that asked if Marji’s imaginative world still reflected her concerns with revolutionary politics in regards towards her school, parents, and environment? We discussed how Marji still maintained her stubbornness that was evident during her youth, and tries to rebel.

Good examples of her rebellious attitude include her listening to Iron Maiden, smoking cigarettes and skipping class. Although these are mature ways to rebel we agreed that Marji was still shifting from childhood to youth and trying to cope. We noticed that as the war escalates so does her rebellious nature, and that her personal and political tend to reflect each other. While transitioning to a teenager Marji no longer believes everything she is told at school, as she gets older she starts to question it, and starts to think for herself. A good example of this is on page 97 where Marji rebels against her teacher.

This example also shows how naive Marji is because she doesn’t realize she’s lucky that she is still someone who can even still go to school, so although she has a sense of social justice (classless society) she is still very imbedded in well off Iranian culture. At the end we concluded that Marji becomes a lot more frivolous, she becomes less serious and less invested in political situations and more interested in pop culture. After we discussed the ways in which Marji has adapted and grown, we began a class discussion that asked whether the references to American pop culture in Persepolis held personal and political significance to Marji, and if they provide a form of resistance to repression or a mode of escape from the current political situation? We examined the references on page 132 where figures such as Michael Jackson, Malcom X, Iron Maiden, Rod Stewart, Pink Floyd, Nike, Kim Wilde, and Star Wars were all noted. We discussed how these references are a reminder of how well off Marji is and how disconnected she is from the real situation of war.

We also talked about how Strapi’s choice of bands and popular figures relates to western readers. We noted that there is a difference between reading something and saying “there just like us” and reading it and saying “were just like them.” We also discussed how the reference to Kansas eludes to the Wizard of Oz. Marji believing that there’s no place like home. We concluded that these references to pop culture symbolize more of an escape from things as Iran becomes more repressive. We ended class with a presentation that examined Deconstruction in the movie Inception. The overall principal of deconstruction, in any work there are several layers that can be looked at. In Inception there are three layers, the first being a fugitive taking part in one last job in order to get back to the family he left behind. The second is reconciliation of inner turmoil, and the third is the most basic level, film is about filmmaking.