Summary of Classes 9/28 to 10/4 (H block)

Much of this summary is identical as the other block which Melanie summarized. However, I’ll still give a small summary just for the H blockers as well as some notes I took down from the discussions that we had in class.

9/28: Students were asked to bring in their selected book for the book project. In the beginning of class, Ms Finn briefly told us about the dictatorship in Myanmar. One class member then went on (a small tangent) to discuss the word “dictator” and what it meant to him compared to what it meant to his parents. The term “American exceptionalism” then came up, which is used to describe the idea of Americans seeing themselves as different than everyone else. After the small discussion, we dispersed and reviewed several New York Times primary source articles, which were all about the Armenian Genocide. Something that was interesting to me was that the articles all seemed to be written as if it were in a very distant land that didn’t really pertain or connect with the American readers. Also, often the articles were a small column on the page, and were never accompanied with photographs. Lastly, we divided back into groups and each person shared what they had learned from the articles about “denial” from the websites we viewed a couple of classes previously.

10/2: Similarly to the other block, the first half of class was spent discusses the decision to remove the video clip from the blog. Many opinions were shared, and a common trend between everyone’s comments was that we were often torn between the “freedom of speech” concept as well as preserving the validity and respect of the class blog for outside viewers. The general consensus was that the decision to remove the video clip from the class blog was valid, however, what was more important was the discussions and comments from the students. The concepts of “intention” and whether our class and the class blog is always looking at all perspectives or not, or do we always have a biased slant on everything. Connections were made to whether postings of HATE.com clips, or a humor clip about 9/11 would be allowed to be on the blog or not. The largest gray zone in this discussion was finding the line between humor and “making fun” of such events as the Holocaust or 9/11, and in what circumstances is it appropriate? The last half of class was spent reading the “Never Again” reading, outside in the sunshine!

10/4: Today, we had a speaker named Naira, who was a descendant of a survivor of the Armenian Genocide. Her grandfather had barely escaped, since he had dressed up as a worker, and escaped in a stowaway cart. Her grandmother’s story was a bit different since she was a Protestant Iranian, and so when the soldiers came knocking at her door, she was sparred since she wasn’t a Catholic Christian. Naira grew up in an Armenian school in San Francisco, and described her experiences of singing songs about rebelling against the Young Turks. She also showed us a portion of a documentary film that she made using the interview transcripts of her grandfather when he was interviewed many years ago. Afterwards, she gave us a brief summary of the Armenian Genocide and background of the Armenians as a people, from 6th c. B.C. to April 24th, 1915, the national memorial day of the genocide, since it was the day when the Turks rounded up the most intelligent and influential leaders and artists, and killed them one by one all in one day. Since some of this information was review for us, the more interesting aspect of her presentation was her own personal additions from her grandfather’s story, to how the genocide has effected her and her entire family and culture. It was great to be able to have a more personal account to be able to see the effects of genocide in a more tangible light.

We are now continuing to read our selected books and prepare for the reading log due next Wednesday, Oct. 10th.

Good luck everyone and have a fabulous weekend!