Am I making sense?

I began thinking about my presentation by asking myself what is political about Vineland. While the novel’s subject is obviously centred on American political issues, suppression of the counter culture in the 1960s right up to fascist-like social control in the 1980s, I asked myself what could be relevant for readers if we were not interested in specific historical events. Moreover, while the book’s protagonist appeared to be Zoyd from the first chapter, it is rather apparent that women dominated much of the narrative in the novel. Hence, I became interested to explore how a feminist reading of the text would be done and building on the quotation above, I decided to try to lead a discussion on how our class would interpret the novel from a feminist perspective.

Orwell (1946) posits that there are four reasons for writing – sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse and political purpose. The latter two motivations come across strongly in Vineland. For historical impulse, Orwell states that writers possess a “desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them for the use of posterity” (5). Readers see one of Pynchon’s purposes in writing Vineland to be “rais[ing] some important "lost" questions, questions that have neither been asked nor answered by [American] politicians, or [American] cultural leaders: What happened during the sixties, and to the sixties? How did [America] get from the sixties to the nineties? What did we learn? What did we lose?” (Introduction – Thomas Pynchon and Us). Pynchon’s strong satirical criticism of the mass media’s influence (the Tube) stems from his desire to recoup America’s history and account for the ways things have been. In Vineland, “the perceptual is often bound in the political. The ubiquity and familiarity of TV is the source of its power to condition. In the most superficial way, television offers modes of behaviour upon which subjects can build their identity” (Boundary crossings: Vineland’s formal and ontological “flow”). Inevitably, by foregrounding this issue, it gives rise to a political purpose, “using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense [-] [desire] to push the world in certain direction, to alter other people’s idea of the kind of society that they should strive after” (Orwell 5) after an understanding of how things might have come into being. Hence, I wanted to explore the impact of the novel in changing or altering our ideas about feminism.

While I sought to answer the question of who the feminist reader is supposed to identify with in the novel thereby establishing Pynchon’s archetypal feminists or ideals of feminism, unfortunately, I think my presentation became one of a personal response to the novel’s portrayal of the female characters. The critical weakness of my presentation probably resulted from a lack of consideration for the novel’s larger literary form of a (post?)modernist text due to my own lack of understanding of what postmodernism is (or might be).

Zhiwen’s presentation on the novel’s postmodernist features and the subsequent class discussion was therefore a very helpful one in helping me to reframe my interpretation of the feminist issues in the text. Without getting into a debate over the term “postmodernism” and whether Vineland should be defined as a postmodernist text, my learning points from our discussion are based on the novel’s resistance to closure and the lack of a centre or unity. By the end of the novel, we are still unable to draw conclusions about the main female protagonists in the novel, namely, Frenesi Gates and Prairie. Our ideas of the female characters are constantly undermined by Pynchon’s ambiguous portrayal of them. We are unable to reconcile Frenesi’s involvement in the subversive counter-culture movement, 24fps, with her eventual betrayal of the movement due to her sexual desire for Brock Vond. Similarly, we are also ambivalent about Prairie’s desire for Brock Vond to “come back … [and] take [her] anyplace [he] want[s]” (384).

If, however, we were to recognise the novel’s resistance to closure and appreciate that Pynchon’s characters “exemplify, as well as … mock what it exemplifies, the complicated identify-formation/fabrication process in a thoroughly capricious postmodern climate” (Ravichandran 18), then we begin to be cognisant that we need to read Pynchon’s characters differently and are not meant to identify with them per se. If we agree with Ravichandran that in the postmodern age, the “old “either-or” breaks down and the new “both/and-also multiplicity and difference opens up new possibilities” (14), then the critical question for us to ask is not which female character could a feminist reader identify with in the novel, but rather the political implications of Pynchon’s characterisation of Frenesi and Prairie in opening up the space for a discussion of feminist issues and concerns such as whether we should deny or acknowledge women’s inexplicable attraction to power and authority (be it socially-conditioned or inherent in women’s psyche) as Frenesi and Prairie epitomises in their relationship with Vond.

In conclusion, I would like to respond to the question on whether political literature fails in it being too topical. From a reader’s point of view, I posit that the difficulty with political literature is with the context of its creation. By context, I do not mean the time and space in which the text is constructed which could possibly translate into the text’s subject matter and risk becoming too topical. Rather, I think any reading of political literature requires a situation of the text in the contemporary literary movement so that an appreciation of the aesthetics would compliment an appreciation of the political motivation. This is where I begin to recognise the value of Orwell pluralising the motives of writing and understand that all the motives is brought to bear on a piece of literary work.

God's Grace

Academic Year	Semester	Module Code	Module Title	Grade
2008/2009	2	EN5245	GOTHIC PROPERTIES	A-

... that, and the fact that Prof is genuinely a good teacher and more importantly, a very kind one.

5 down .. another 5 to go.

sigh .. the rate of my MA completion is comparable to my son's speed of walking. :P

Just to prove that I am studying and not lazing at home ...

This is the concept map I drew for my module. It is still work in progress (i.e. I have not finished drawing all the relationships between the different concepts) but I am tired liao. :P

Finally ...

I am done with making my final set of notes.

Tried going through classmates' presentations yesterday but did not really find it useful.

I am just going to read through the notes I have made to see if there are any points that I did not really understand while ploughing through the set readings to do some clarification.

I need to attempt 2 questions for today's paper. One is a compulsory application question whereas the other I have a choice of explaining and critiquing the theoretical frameworks or approaches we have studied in class.

I can only work under pressure and most of the time, I only make sense of class materials at the point of the exam when I die die have to squeeze something to write.

The panic feeling is beginning to set in a little now.

I wonder what I should have for lunch that will not put me to sleep for the afternoon paper.

Oh well. Another 5.5 hours and I will be done with it.

Wish me luck. :)

The time is 5.47pm ...

and I still have THREE more sets of readings to go ...

My brain is getting lethargic, my concentration is dipping, and my mind is wandering.

I am already wishing that my examination is over so that I can meet up with doppy and friends for a good leisurely dinner.

Weekend, I still have work to clear too as I have a meeting with my new HoD on Monday and need to submit schemes of work (which I have not even started).

Promised my folks that I would drop by this weekend too and we also have a wedding to attend on Saturday evening.

Sigh. Why don't I feel a sense of urgency? Am I too complacent? Perhaps I am not even aware of what it is that I do not know which is why I am not panicking yet.

Sigh. Back to my notes.

My notes APPEARED to have been read ...

(as in they were highlighted and all) but why is it that I do not recall reading them?!

Sigh. ONE more day to exam ... 5 more sets of readings to go.

I am so bored!

Though I am reading and reading and making notes, somehow my mind is not engaged intellectually.

I have been reading about discourse strategies the whole of last night and today and I am getting bored. Still have SIX more sets of readings to plough through.

Oh well. I shall look forward to

1. my mum's home-cooked dinner (I specifically asked for hei-luarh (as in prawn omelette) and dumplings dry. My mum makes these two dishes very well. I look forward to eating them later.

2. "McCleod's Daughters" on Hallmark Channel (Ch. 17). Hmm .. since this is a re-run of the previous season, I hope that it is an episode I have missed.

3. CSI Miami on AXN (Ch. 19). Not a big fan of Horatio but no fish dried shrimps also good lah.

4. My brunch date with AD & Sotong tomorrow. Hehe .. they're also running an important errand for me and I am excited about it.

Last but not least, if I am really lucky, doppy might get nights out. Though I will probably be holed up in the room reading my notes, at least I get to hug him and talk to him for a while. I am sure he will be happy about the respite and will waste no time to log on to the internet to play his silly game.

*stretch*

Perhaps I should take another shower to clear my mind and wake myself up.

*stretch*

Another Lazy Day

Slept in this morning as I only got to bed at 1am this morning and woke up at 5 (for no reason). Cleared my work emails and did some stuff that required my attention.

Yet to hit my books and feel a little lethargic. Panic is beginning to set in but somehow urgency is still not there.

Looking forward to dinner as I have bullied my mum into coming over to cook for me.

Shall go read my notes now and check out the TV schedule. Will time my lunch to coincide with that so that I can kill two birds with one stone.

2 more days to examinations and I am not even half-way through my readings.

Sigh ....

The Price of Procrastination

Though I have been trying to keep up with my assigned readings, I must confess that I have not been very diligent in reviewing the readings after class and doing my revision.

This is my first open-book examination. All who have taken open-book examinations have told me that this is the worst kind of examination. When it is an open-book exam, more often than not, the examiner will not ask questions in which you can use the materials directly from the books.

However, as my memory is really not what it used to be (I have difficulty completing my sentences and thoughts nowadays), I am actually taking comfort in being able to bring my materials in.

I am now rushing against time to finish making my notes (you know, those things that I should have done during term time!) and re-reading my assigned readings to get fresh perspectives or deeper understanding in order to prepare for the examination.

I have 11 sets of readings to plough through and thus far, I have only completed 2 sets. I have two more days to finish the remaining 9 sets and Friday morning to do a final consolidation. Sigh.

Somehow, I can't help but feel that I should have been better prepared for this exam as afterall, I do have almost 4 weeks to prepare for the examination after the submission of my assignment. However, going back to school and doing SEM, thinking through department stuff, writing SOWs (which I barely started!!!) and catching up on admin work simply sapped my energy and took my concentration and focus away.

Excuses, excuses, I hear you say and probably they are.

I just can't wait for Friday to be over yet I wish it would not come so soon so that I can prepare more.

Anyone cares to join the mmf for dinner and drinks on Friday night to celebrate the end of my examination and doppy's reservist stint? :)

Trying to get the rusty part-time student engine started

I am F-I-V-E days away from my examination.

In all honesty, this module has not really been taxing. I have been able to keep up with class discussions, garnered a B+ for a group presentation and a A- for our assignment so far and have secured 50% of the marks.

Perhaps complacency leads to inertia. I have not done my readings at all for the examination and looking at the past year papers, it will not be an easy one.

This is my first Applied Linguistic module and also my first open-book examination. My MA classmates were very shocked that I have never taken an open-book examination before. They told me that I can virtually take anything I want into the classroom even if it's my own notes. I cannot quite decide if that is a good thing or bad one.

Oh well. Time to get this rusty brain working. I am still missing one reading. :O

Wish me luck, k?

Not Say I Want To Complain

For my group presentation for my MA module this semester, I was teamed up with the other misfits in my class as everyone else already know everyone else from their previous modules or their linguistic classes. My two groupmates are both full-time students. One of them is a Japanese and the other an Indian.

Though the Japanese student's spoken English is not fluent, at the very least, she is a married woman and understands the concept of work. The Indian student, who is pursuing her post-graduate degree immediately after her first one, is another story altogether.

The first time that she rubbed me the wrong way was when she suggested that we meet in the afternoon for our presentation. In my mind, I was going, which part of I am a part-time student, full-time working adult do you not understand? And the very next day after we had met for class, she emailed to ask if I had done the readings cos there were some parts she did not understand! Biang eh! I am a PART-TIME student! I usually do my readings one night before class starts and then hopefully go to class and don't look too stupid. She actually emailed me to ask if we should do extra readings for our group presentation! *peng*

Now you would think that such a siao-on person would do superbly well for her preparation and I, the part-time student can shake leg, right?! At least, that was what doppy said to me. Leech on her and ask her to do all the things lah! Who is to know, she came for our first meeting to discuss the group presentation with no ideas at all except having done tons of other readings which she could not find the relevance for our presentation! *faint* In the end, I was the one who helped her to analyse her article and shaped the direction of her presentation for her and she was merely furiously copying down what I said and then transferring them onto powerpoint slides! It's not like I minded helping her but I thought that as a full-time student, surely she has more time to prepare her work and think through her presentation than I do, right?! And guess what?! Her presentation portion generated more discussion from our classmates that my portion did! And truth be told, I was the one who thought of her presentation for her!

This was not the most maddening part. Prior to the presentation, we were all supposed to do our respective portions. She volunteered to compile the slides (since she's a full time student mah) so that they would have the same look and feel. Our presentation was on Wednesday at 1800hr and we agreed to meet at 1630hr to go through the slides one final time. We had previously met on Monday to finalise things and we were supposed to email her the slides on Tuesday for compilation. I faithfully did my part, emailed my portion to her and IMAGINE MY HORROR when I arrived at the library on Wednesday to realise that she had not done anything to standardise the slides. Despite our discussions and conclusions on Monday, she claimed that she still did not know what the sequence should be. Biang eh! She needed like don't-know-how-many assurances from me before she was comfortable with our presentation. In the end, I realised that she was not proficient with ppt and I ended up doing the slides an hour before our presentation.

And do you know what was the best part? Her laptop was such an old model that none of our USB devices could be read! GOSH! Our presentation could not be saved on the thumb-drive at all! My nerves were really frayed by that time and thank goodness I had the cow-sense to save my own copy on a thumbdrive before hand. Luckily for us, the lazy bum here is used to using emails to transfer files and I struck upon that idea when we were in class waiting for our turn to present.

To cut a long story short, I thought her presentation went the best with my Jap mate's one second and mine was probably the worst. And today when I went to the library to get the rest of my readings, I bumped into her and I offered her mine to photocopy since she hadn't got hers yet too. And you know what? Instead of feeding my already photocopied pages into the feeder to speed up the photocopying, she insisted on printing them page by page manually so that she could check the sequence! Biang eh! Isn't she the full time student and shdn't she be the one who should have gotten all the readings ready? In the end I could not be bothered to wait for her and just loaned her my notes and told her to return them to me in class the next time we meet.

Sigh. Don't know if it's my hormones acting up but I really thought that her actions were no excuse for a full-time student leh. Me is a part-timer but I ended up doing most of her stuff for her rather than the other way round.

Oh well. I shall be less helpful next time and leave her to her own devices lah.

Breathe and think happy thoughts! :)

It's Done.

At 11am this morning, I officially completed my one and only examination for this semester.

I can't say that I have enjoyed this module as much as I did for my previous two modules. The modernity class was interesting as I was introduced to a number of theorists and their beliefs. Amongst them, I still remember Frantz Fanon and his essay on culture. I also had to read an Indonesian author's work, Footsteps, which I enjoyed immensely. From my Film, Spectatorship & Subjectivity class, I remember psychoanalytical frameworks proposed by various theorists such as Laura Mulvey's gaze and masochism and sadomachoism, Althusser's theory of Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) and the concept of 'abject' applied to the success of "Psycho". For this class on Asian International Cinema, well, it is not like the films we watched were not interesting or anything like that, but rather, the lecturer did not seem to be able to scaffold our learning well. Consequently, in the examination today, I was merely regurgitating her thoughts and views in my essays without any real insights on my part.

Oh well. It's over. Now it is back to my markings I go.

Hello Kitty has already completed 7 modules; I am merely clearing my 3rd. Sigh. There is still along way to go.

Not only am I not the smartest tree in the forest, I am also a most useless one too!

After having muddled through tons of readings (half of which were of no relevance or use to me), dozed off in front of the telly watching the long-drawn, boring The Departed, wailed about the 4000 words limit I have to hit, I finally finished my research paper for my module on Asian International Cinema!

I have it easier this semester as I am only taking one module. On hindsight, I have absolutely no idea how I managed to cope with 2 modules last semester. Perhaps last semester's modules were less demanding and the lecturers scaffolded my learning better. I was genuinely worried about this essay as I could not really see where I was going and worse still, there wasn't any theoretical framework for me to fall back on.

Oh well. I am done writing my essay. Now, I have to do the tedious task of editing (and possibly rewriting of some parts) and referencing my quotes. To be completely honest, this is my first complete draft and though I do make an effort to re-read my writing as I was developing my essay, there was only that much I could focus on and keep coherent or cohesive in my puny little brain.

Thank goodness I always have sweet and MORE importantly, intelligent doppy to fall back on to edit my essays. I sometimes feel real ashamed of myself as I am the Arts grad between the two of us but I need to rely on the engineer to edit my writing for me. Honestly though, doppy's command of the written language is much better than mine and he always have a way of expressing himself so clearly and succinctly without falling into my poor habit of rambling and over-explaining. Sometimes it can be quite demoralising to have him tear my whole essay apart, but in the process, he never fails to impress me with his intelligence and language skills.

I drank three cups of coffee today and 2 cups of tea in preparation for the need to burn the mid-night oil. Right now, my head just feel woozy from the caffeine overdose and my eyes are bulging from the socket from the time spent staring at my LCD screen and watching snippets and scenes from the 2 dvds. I am pretty sure that no one is interested in reading a 4,560word essay on the implications of Hollywood remakes on the transnationality of Asian films (you talk simi-simi) via a comparative study of The Departed and Infernal Affairs, so I won't bother posting my essay here and take up precious bandwidth.

Tis to the bed I go now and a welcome night of restful sleep which I have not been enjoying for the last couple of nights due to the 4000 word limit hanging over my head.

Good night, all.

On Research Essay & Children's Birthday Parties

The last post was almost a week ago and this means that it is high time for a new one.

Well, first off, I have a 4000 words essay due on Wednesday of which I have only written the first paragraph (you would know if you had been following my twitter). I have watched the two films faithfully (Infernal Affairs & The Departed) and did as much relevant reading as I could find. Part of me tells me that I really should be labouring over my essay instead of blogging but my brain is really not working right now and inspiration is simply not striking. I rationalised with myself that I shall take a break tonight (afterall I did spend the entire afternoon doing my readings and trying to clarify my ideas) and go to bed by 10.30pm so that I can wake up tomorrow to get the door for Edna and to continue on my essay. Hopefully, tomorrow will my brain juices flowing more.

On another note, I have attended two children's birthday parties these few weeks and the experiences have set me thinking a little about the kind of parent I would make.

The first party I attended was obviously Princess PJ Jr's 1st birthday and the second one was one of doppy's friend's son's first birthday too. Both children were showered with lots of love and gifts. Doppy's friend even went to the extent of having a cartoon theme party. Initially, when we received the invite, we thought that the theme was for the children attending the party. It was only upon arrival at the party that we realised that the adults were also very sporting in dressing up as various cartoon characters. There was even an Addams Family and Sotong, being her usual charming self, mistook The Hulk for Shrek! Her classic "At first, I thought he had jaundice. But I thought, How strange?! I have never seen anyone with such a bad case of jaundice before that he turned green" earned guffaws from us but also sufficiently alienated her husband from her. He feared that The Hulk would come after him for such a rude remark.

But I digressed.

On our way back from the party just now, I asked doppy if he thought that I would make a bad parent. My concern arose from the fact that I don't think I would ever quite go to such lengths for my children. My idea of a birthday celebration for my kids (if I were ever to be blessed with some) would be to invite our family members and close friends (with their kids in tow if any) for a meal at home and to sing a birthday song. Since doppy is still psychologically hurt from his mum's attempt to celebrate his birthday with log cakes and angel cakes, I will buy my children a decent birthday cake lah. Birthday presents would probably go the way of books or ONE educational toy and if I have the energy and time, I might just pump up a couple of balloons to decorate the home. There is no way that my children's parties would match up with the ones I have attended this year and I wondered if I were being unnecessarily harsh with my own kids. Unfortunately, this has always been the way my family celebrated my birthdays for me and till this day, my idea of a birthday celebration is still one that is shared with family members and close friends over a good meal.

Of course, my friends have told me that I would probably behave differently when I have my own children. Doppy is of the view that I would probably over-indulge our children too (he is judging me based on how I always give my sister the best things that I can. But that's different. She is my only sister and I want her to have all the things I have ever wanted but didn't. For my children, I am of the view that my most precious and valuable gift to them would be their education!).

Oh well. I guess only time will tell.

Two days away from submitting my research proposal ....

and I am still blooodddy clueless as to what I want to do!

The trouble is, this course (Asian International Cinema) is not anchored by any theoretical framework and thus far, all we have been doing is watching movies and analysing the movies.

For the first week, we watched "Bride and Prejudice" and talked about how the stereotyping of Indians in the movie destablises the audience's ideas of India and defined another image of India for the international audience.

I missed week 2's session on Korean cinema and nationalism.

Week 3 was spent on comparing "Ringu" with "The Ring" and concluding that though the Hollywood's version was lousier than the original "Ringu", nonetheless, Hollywood's remake of it, has once again (re)established its dominance of the film industry with "The Ring" being more well-known than "Ringu".

Week 4 & 5 was spent on comparing yet another remake though this time round, it was not an acknowledged one. We watched "The Missing Gun" (China) and "PTU" (HK) which had nothing in common except that both film's plot revolved around that of a missing gun. The conclusion for those sessions were ... I can't really remember the conclusions.

Then my tutor decided to check in with us on how we feel about the class thus far and freaked out when many of us expressed our unease as we could not really see what's anchoring the course. Unlike my previous module on "Film, Subjectivity & Spectatorship" which was premised on the psychoanalytic framework, this module did not have any theoretical framework to anchor it.

I am in two minds about my project. I thought of examining either "Infernal Affairs" (what makes it such a cult classic? why did hollywood decide to remake it with "The Departed"? how is it that such a crappy remake won the best film award at the oscars for scorsese when he has done so many other better films?) or "Singapore Dreaming" (what makes it a singaporean film beyond the obvious setting and subject matter? what aspects of it could make it international/transnational? if we were to compare it with Eric Khoo's 12th storeys, what wd be the basis for such a comparison and more importantly, what would the comparison serve to do?).

All these ideas are floating around in my head but I am still stumped! Somehow, I just couldn't craft my research topic and I have absolutely no idea how to answer the questions my lecturer posed!!

This research proposal is due on Wednesday and though it is not graded, I think it's better that I give ample thoughts to it.

Looks like I would have to hibernate in the NUS library tomorrow night. Sigh ...

P.S. If she wrote that the proposal should not be more than 800 words, what would constitute a reasonable minimum length? 400??

P.S.S. It really doesn't help that doppy is working hard at his macro/micro economics right beside me while I am just sitting here being clueless. Sigh.

Yet another Film Class

Hello Kitty and one of my classmates were sweet enough to email me the syllabus for another film class that was to be held on Wednesday night. That gave me a choice between taking Topics in Cultural Studies (which has no exams but the readings seem pretty heavy!) and Asian International Cinema (which has a closed book exam but the primary texts are films and not novels!).

The choice was a no brainer especially when Monday's class is quite demanding. We are her first graduate class and methinks she has not realised that for some of the part-time students, what she's asking from us (a two-page write-up each week on our readings on top of a research essay, class presentation and an exam!!!) is quite demanding and daunting. But I don't have a choice as I am constrained by my schedule.

Last night's class however was a great surprise. I first wondered if I had signed up for the wrong class as the students who were attending the class did not look like graduate students. They had dyed hair, wore street clothes, spoke in a somewhat easily excitable and artsy way and the dga was their youthful looks. I thought that it might have been a 4000 class being offered in the evening instead of it being a 5000 class. It turned out that it was indeed a 5000 module but those students I saw, were Theatre Studies Honours Year students.

The next surprise was our lecturer. She was extremely young and I might just even place her as as my age or even younger than me! Her inexperience came through very quickly when she started to do the typical young, insecure teacher thing: use powerpoint slides with a lot of information which was essentially circling around the same points. The module also did not seem to be grounded by any theoretical framework which made the course seemed a little less rigorous that it should be.

Yet taking into consideration my workload this year, I thought I should try to go a little easy. As it is, I am not coping with work demands and my studies have taken a slight beating. When I last checked IVLE yesterday, someone from the Monday's class has already posted his one-page, single-spaced, insightful thoughts about Freud and Beyond the Pleasure Principle! Me? I am still trying to figure out how exactly do I get hold of the readings!!!! I could not understand her course outline (imagine that!) and it doesn't help that Hello Kitty has not made up her mind whether she would take that class or not and so I couldn't leech on her! Argggh!

Oh well. Anyways ... the following are the films I have to watch for my Wed class. They are more palatable?? mainstream?? than my previous modules and you are all most welcome to join me in watching movies at my place should there be a show you wanna catch. :) I trust that doppy would also get the dvds of titles that we do not already own!

**************************************

Seminar 2
Adaptations and Appropriations:
Bride and Prejudice (Gurindar Chadha, 2004)

Seminar 3
National cinema:
Joint Security Area (Park Chan-wook, 2000)

Seminar 4
Conventions and Remakes: The National and the International
Ringu / The Ring (Hideo Nakata, 1998)
The Ring(Gore Verbinski, 2002)

Seminar 5
Inter-Asian remakes:
Xun Qiang / The Missing Gun (Chuan Lu, 2002)
PTU (Johnny To, 2003)

Seminar 6
Translating Brotherhood (Hong Kong):
Die Xue Shuang Xiong / The Killer (John Woo, 1989) or
Ying Xiong Ben Se/A Better Tomorrow (John Woo, 1986)

Seminar 7
Translating Brotherhood (Hollywood):
Face/Off (John Woo, 1997)

Seminar 8
Research project presentation

Seminar 9
The National and the Transnational:
Ying Xiong / Hero (Zhang Yi Mou, 2002)

Seminar 10
Asia in/as imagination:
Shen Hua / The Myth (Stanley Tong, 2005) [hopefully replacing it with Crouching Tigers, Hidden Dragons]

Seminar 11
One Asia?:
Memoirs of a Geisha (Rob Marshall, 2005)

A total disgrace!

In class tonight, my lecturer started rattling off about how the course was based on Adorno's famous line that "writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric". Our lecturer then asked us to introduce ourselves and say what we were doing in this class.

Apart from Hello Kitty and me, virtually everyone else in the class apparently knew who Adorno was and what she was talking about. My classmates self-intro range from "I am a PhD student and my research interest is in [don't what simi simi]" to "Oh, I am quite active in the local arts scene myself and I am interested in exploring how representation mediates history and defines our identity. Particularly in the case of Singapore, I want to find out how certain staging techniques have affected the representation of our culture and shaped our identity".

When it came to my turn, this was what I said, "I must confess that the primary reason I took this class is because it falls on one of the two evenings that I am available to take".

I can almost hear my classmates' go, "Gesh! What in the world is she doing in graduate school?"

Sigh.

And you know what?

I really have absolutely no idea what my lecturer was talking about.

Methinks this is going to be a way more difficult semester than the last! :O