FOR WEDNESDAY's CLASS: Bring an "object" from childhood to share.Read this info on Seminars by our mentor and colleague, Jim Harnish, who taught us how to teach you! Read LaRay Barna article posted on the left.
Louise Erdrich
Learn more about her and her work by following the link to Voices From the Gap--A site that has biographies and other links about Women Writers of Color--published by the University of Minnesota.This is the front of her Native American book store, Birchbark Books, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
NOTES ON ASSIGNMENTS: Read and Annotate "Composing a Life" by Bateson for MONDAY's Class--we gave out copies in class to mark up. Read and bring questions about the posted assignments for the Cultural Interview and Seminar #1.
A Site for Elements of Fiction--Resources for studying American Literature
"I am referring to the freedom that comes not only from owning your memory and your life story but also from knowing that you make creative choices in how you look at your life."
ReplyDeleteReading this sentence in the introductory paragraph to the Bateson essay, I must admit, brought up in me a small dose of skepticism. The idea of "rewriting" my life story to have it better fit whatever purpose was at hand sounded more than just a little audacious, if not preposterous (her suggesting that I might remember her father as a "great thinker" and a "great anthropologist didn't help either!).
However, as I made my way through the article, I found it not only sensible, but inspiring. Her invitation to "compose" my life brought on both a feeling of liberation and a sense of challenge. It's as if an alarm had gone off in my head.
The idea of composing my own story struck me as not only an opportunity, but a necessity! How else was I to make sense of this existence and the elusive identity of he who lies behind this perspective I hold!? (Like good ol' Rumi says, "Who looks out from these eyes? Who speaks from this mouth?"). I did not see Bateson's message merely as an invitation to reconciling one's life events with one's goals, but as a challenge to self-knowledge and to claim one's power to shape not only one's future, but also one's past, so that one may always be living peacefully in the present.
Bring a favorite Rumi poem, Ebrahim, to class. I would really like to have that verse that has inspired you inspire all of us to "think" about our lives in new ways. Carol
ReplyDeleteI did, but let me see if I can't find the Barks translation. With any luck, I'll have it with me on Wednesday!
ReplyDelete~Ebrahim