Before acquiring a dog
Hope in the Dark – Rebecca Solnit:
Capitalism is an ongoing disaster – like a child constantly making messes and a parent cleaning them up (xvii)
Activists often speak as though the solutions we need have not yet been launched or invented, as though we are starting from scratch, when often the real goal is to amplify the power and reach of existing alternatives; What we dream of is already present in the world; The great anecdote is memory, remembering what has changed – like code name verity; The ideas that things are invisible or unseeable-arab spring; She talks about a big public event that was covered by the media and what leads in the headlines and what does not; Having relationships for community?
Or in connection to capitalism; What do people do because it is the right thing or for love? (xvii); People will do things on the limb because they want to protect what they love
False Hope and Easy Despair:
“informed discontent which belongs to hope, because they both arise out of the No to deprivation”; Hope without critical thought is useless; Critical thought without thought is also useless; Everyone feels despair and some time–
Pointless hope and they act anyways; Coupled with nostalgia that never existed; Hopefulness is risky because it is a form of trust in the unknown and possible (23);Connection back to structures: hope puts you in the position of risk, hope means that you can be disappointed; Despair is the easy way out, you do not have to expand energy; The change of the protagonist is key; The idea of joy: joy is a fine initial act of sustaining activism; Joy does not betray but sustain activism (23)
Guest Speaker: Dr. Ariel Kroon:
Canadian post-apocalyptic fiction, Found family, Family, These dominant tropes come from TV, How humans behave and are organized, Oppressive past into the future, Some people are very keen into the apocalypse, Hope that is not based on anything but more to wishful thinking, Without sacrifice there is no joy, grind through the bad things and you get to enjoy the reward in the end; ‘Cruel’ optimism: American dream is something that people are optimistic about , Since people are so attached to this optimism they are running themselves ragged, not achievable for many, people work themselves to the bone and stress disorders, Fantasy of how life is going to be, which is detrimental to the present, chasing this dream will make you miserable; ‘Stupid’ optimism: Idea that achieving this fantasy will somehow lead you to achieving normalcy, middle class life, will make you happy. No other way to be happy unless you conform to what society expects of you, Happiness is achievable without cruel and stupid optimism, Peace is achievable without war and violence, Do not run yourself ragged to conforming to societal expectations, Looking for hope and happiness somewhere else is possible, kids/marriage, etc
“The ones who walk away” – Ursula K. Le Guin:
Capitalism: Number and not person- the child, child labour, child abuse , Problem of sacrifice and joy – alluding to this, Cruel and stupid optimism – alluding to this, In the story they are having trouble writing down what it means to be happy, Covetous and critical of this , They come back to this again and again , Giving an anthropological report, The idea of the child in the closet; Why is it HopePunk?:,The people are walking away at the end from a society that is functional and we do not know why,They are taking a huge risk, and looking for something bigger despite not knowing what is to come,They have no idea what it is, Everyone makes this decision alone, People leaving 1 by 1, some of them are children, Individuals making these decisions on their own, They sacrifice all of the happy days because there is a larger thing to go after, something they do not know, At the end:, Anthropologist narrator:It is so hard to describe the city of happiness, and an even bigger problem, because the place the people leave it for is also unknown
Brown Girl in the Ring- nalo hopkinson:
Abrogation:
Critical postcolonial technique in which the author takes the language they know, and the language has a culture significance, and uses it without explanation in the text, Saying something in their own language and the reader must figure it out on their own by picking up on things or even other ways, Creates an “inside” or “outside” in the text; important in post-colonial writing, because it is outside of western literature, Cautious political revertal;
Code-switching:
Page 18“Man-like, man-tall, on long wobbly legs as if they bitch on backward…”, Page 19Tony switches to a more community speech to show off to Ti-Jeanne, Showing that he can code-switch, Characters code-switching to put themselves in a particular position;
Obeah,
Became kinds of the ways to refer to the old ways that are derogatory, “This is how we govern ourselves”, People come to her for healing;
Gender and generation,
The protagonist is very young- common aspect of HopePunk, Someone that needs to be invested in the future ,Teen protagonist – Ti-Jeanne, Teen mother, Someone with a lot of responsibility, mentor/mentee, “Lost” generation, Tu-jeanne refers to her baby as – bolom baby, in Caribbean culture there is a 9 week naming ceremony and a child needs to be living for 9 weeks until you name the child (do they do this because of mortality rates ?);
Feminist:
Ti-Jeanne can see a lot without sight (Power), She sees the future; the deaths of the junkies on the streets, she turns to look at them and that is what she sees, When she gets this foresight- at the start she has no control of it, if the baby inherits these abilities, it won’t be able to control it, The “old ways” are powerful and if you do not know how to control it it can be very dangerous, Superhero – bildungsroman, Novel of formation , Novel about a picture of someone moving from childhood to adulthood, With inheritance comes power -> (Inheritance), Power in need of inheritance and training, Men throw them away, but the women keep coming back, Is Rudy evil because he is a man, or is it because he is evil?;
Afro-futurist:
In its casual incorporation of magical and supernatural phenomena and its flouting of the norms of realism and national explication, mundane as well as speculative fiction by black women writers can be said to exemplify the counterculture of modernity” (Dubey 35), Looking into the future with the powers of the past, To get hope for the future, you use your history in order to create a future , Spiritual tradition to create a future; Improve on the available human models; (Spillers 4), the idea of the uncanny (supernatural and also seem familiar at the same time). Things give us shivers and creeps because it is weird and familiar at the same time (Spillers 4), Science fiction puts something familiar but also not at the same time , The melding of the familiar and the strange is not only the essence of the marvellous, but the very ground of the uncanny, which returns us to what we know in a way that we had not experienced (Spillers 4);
Orientalism – Edward Said:
Style of thought based upon ontological and epistemological distinction made between “the Orient” and (most of the time) “the Occident”, The Orient- almost the rest of the world (all of asian, african ,etc), Taking the other culture and not giving it a chance because it is way too different from your own, The more that you invest in the ideas Hopkinson is speaking about, the more you are going to get out of the book:
Spirit fathers and origins:
Trinidad and tobago’s history of the Carnival tradition which commemorates the freeing of their people from slavery and is rooted in the masking traditions of West African yet influenced by the new Caribbean movement, Carnival includes shouting, dancing, singing, chanting, drumming and masquerading, Dames lorraine (tradition) wear flamboyant dresses and exaggerated breasts; portrayed by male slaves to mimic plantation owners’ wives: the true reversal spirit of Bakhtinian Carnival, Jab Molassie or the Jab-Jab (jab is patois for Devil and Molasses for Molasses): he carries a pitchfork and threatens to harm spectators unless they pay him. He also has chains to restrain him which are a symbol of African slavery and is covered in molasses which represents the estate gangs that dealt with cane fires as a site of rebellion, The orisha spirit deities of nigeria, mami-> osain Ti Jeanne-> Prince of Cemetary (Hopkinson 98), Eshu / Legbara / prince of cemetery / Jab-Jab (Hopkinson 225), Papa osain = healer (hopkinson 224), Mikhail Bakhitin – reversal + carnival, The spirit of the carnival- people dressed as their opposite If you were a landowner, you dressed like a surf and vice versa, During carnival, this is allowed but not when it was not carnival, This was so everyone has the chance to see how it is like on the other side:
Soucouyant – caribbean folklore website,
Idea that she is some iteration of “crazy betty”, Known as the lagaroo is a woman of the day, but in the night she can shed her skin and transform into a fireball, in this form she can fly and feed off of the blood of other animals, human and non-human
Sharon DeGraw- on Hopkinson’s Brown Girl in the Ring:
The critique of a young womens sex life, The sexual life of a teenage women, Critique of black women who are sexually active, Speculative fiction as a cautionary tale: economic meltdown, in toronto and notes the economic meltdown of detroit as the model for the alternative toronto, Hyperlocality of the ‘burn’ (section in toronto), Local family problem , In the face of the government: who has money and power, Set against a young woman and her human relationships, Explores critiques of urban decay, Novel reflects and critiques urban policies, particularly those leading to neglect and deterioration of inner-city areas, Urban flight;Unemployment;Corrupt government; Gang and drug problems; Impact of economic disparity, marginalization of communities and resilience of cultural identity in the face of systemic neglect, Green spaces provide a sense of community, Just like prosperity of local businesses, The role of religion afro-caribbean spirituality is powerful for women, DeGraw notes that the technology in this book , The use of animal hearts for humans, the premier wants a human heart, She underscore the consequences of urban policies that prioritise suburban development over the well-being of inner city residents;
Themes
Urban decay and socioeconomic disparity, Abandonment of toronto’s urban care, Neglects the needs of marginalized populations in favour of urban development, Cultural heritage and ancestral knowledge, Power, corruption and resistance, Women’s agency and empowerment, Urban policy and social justice;pg194- the economic meltdown of detroit, Convention – ‘apocalypse and renaissance’, HopePunk- suggests a huge shift and change, Opposite action to apocalypse,Abandoned spaces and houses, Robocop statue in detroit;pg196- ron williams, The aestheticization of peoples poverty is not good; HopePunk:Not depending on other people but taking the initiative to do it yourself, The corruption is in the family, It fuels her courage and rage , He is her terrible grandfather
Simon Sort of Says – Erin Bow:
Pedagogy: aims; Audience: aims; Reception:
Themes,
Trauma:/“brain stuff”, Easily triggers by sounds and environments (like simon, he is triggered) (large and small ways) – , His coping is breathing (4 seconds in, 4 seconds out) (inhale for 6, hold for 5, breath out for 7) (goes to therapy), Hercules, the soon to be service dog he is supposed to be training helps him out, 5 things he can see, 4 things he can hear- helping to ground himself in the moment he is in, Controls your life unconsciously and controls your day to day life, “My chest is tight” “im sweating” “hands going numb”- Bow keeps the bodily experience tactile ;
PTSD (mayo clinic website):
Flashbacks, fear, anxiety, uncontrollable thoughts, Months, years, affects their ability to function daily, Intrusive memories, avoidance, in physical and emotional reactions , “Trauma reaction to the tornado siren-, Staying away from people or places that remind you of a traumatic event, Numbness- not feeling, Triggered by loud noises – ,like the peacock, School bell, Tornado alarm , Kevin’s cage (describes it as a dog kennel), Time:
He marks the anniversary of the shooting, 2 years have gone by, Message to space: has to be aligned with the star , Needs to look like it is from an intelligent source, Describing the shooting (134), 4 minutes for entire life(s) to change, “One world and the next”, PTSD- fixating on numbers and dates, thinking of them as especially significant;
Storytelling:
Sarcastic-uses humour to tell his story and traumatic experiences, Straight to the point storytelling–
Tensions between what he says and what he does not say, Unreliable narrator?(to his friends)- takes until 124 until we get reference to the school shooting- until that, it’s just “the thing”, “the incident”, Exaggerates his stories;
Privacy/media:
Living in Gin and Barrett- quiet zone (place in georgia with no wifi), Parents also wanted to move here to get away from media outlets who want to interview them;
Community:
They serve the community in important ways, Chaos – recurring theme;
Agate:
is autistic- very direct, what Simon lacks -ex. Does not like having her foods touch, Simon admires her because he claims that she knows “brain stuff”, A lot of hope, emotion- HopePunk, One of the first things that Simon sees about her is her smile and sees her dimples that look like a “moon smile”Works away at her numbness, He observes her joyfulness over and over again, So much depends on his relationship with agate She is insistent, hopeful, frequently joyful, Where he is afraid of everything, she appears to be afraid of nothing, Between simon and agate- trust, freedom, silliness;
Portrayal of Autism in the Text:
In TV and Books: stereotypes, No social cues, One track: have to do this goal or they’re going to have a mental breakdown , Intense people, Goal oriented, Hard to form platonic and romantic relationships, Not fully developed characters, Agates priorities are different than simon, Page 282- Agate jumps from the treehouse with Simon
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